How about that... Jack!!!

This morning, Jack, with Residential Heating and Air Conditioning, showed up up our house to begin installing our new HVAC system.  Hooray!!!

It has been cold in the house.  The two little oil-filled radiator heaters and 1 convection space heater have only been able to raise the temperature on the first floor to about 50 degrees.  The basement is even colder... Just ask Jack.  He said it was colder down there than it was outside. 

Here he is, hard at work, doing some sheet metal work for the furnace.

Can hardly wait 'til it's working.  Takes a long time for paint to dry when it's 50 degrees.

Small victories...

Some days working at the house all we can accomplish is a small victory... such as putting up a mailbox.  The old mailbox was rusted, the lid had come off, had multiple coats of paint and was full of snow; not very useful for receiving the mail.

The old mailbox (One of these days I'll remember the before picture should be taken before I toss the item on the trash heap.)

Robyn also found online that a local production company is doing a casting for the Sweat Equity show on the DIY Network.  I sent in an application last night.  Hopefully they'll be interested in our old house and will want to feature our kitchen remodel.  While I was there, I saw there was also a contest for America's Most Desperate Landscaping, so I entered us in that as well.  Check us out there at 109 Years and counting.

 The HVAC contractor starts today so I'm headed to the house to let him in. Talk at y'all later

Turn the heat up...

We received the last of the quotes for the Sunday and spent the rest of the day going over them.  Robyn and I decided to go with Residential Heating  as they offered the best mix of features and price.  I wrote that check for the deposit late this afternoon.  They pull permits tomorrow and get started bright and early Thursday morning.  According to Chris Kallstrom, their representative, it will take about a week and a half for us to have a fully functioning HVAC system in place.

...and then the real fun begins.

Here are some photos from the neighborhood (all within 3 or 4 blocks of the house) that I took today after I signed the contract.  You can see the flooding from the Mississippi River down below; it's supposed to crest in the next day or two.  Downtown St. Paul is in the background.  (For our friends down south, yes there is still snow on the ground.)

View from the bluff over Carver's Cave

View from Indian Mound Park

Homes in Dayton's Bluff

I have to cut grass now...

Having lived in an apartment most of the last 3 years, I haven't had the need to cut grass for a while.  Heck, I didn't even cut it before then because I had teenage boys (Thank you Kyle and Kris.)

Robyn brought home "The Family Handyman" magazine because it had a pergola she wants me to build in the back yard.  I was going through it and found a review for a propane fueled lawnmower.  According to the reviews, it will run for 90 minutes off the 1 lb bottles that you can buy just about anywhere.  Advantages are you don't have to lug a gas can to the service station, deal with stale gas or winterize your mower.

So even though it will be at least another month before I have to cut grass, I went ahead and ordered one from Amazon.  It should be here any day.

You can find it here at Amazon.com

Oops, Goo Gone, Goof Off - End of Weekend 1

Robyn joined me today at the house to start cleaning the over-paint off the molding.  Whoever, did the painting the last time... and the time before that... and the time before that weren't that neat.

Part of the problems getting rid of the overpaint is you don't know what type of paint is on the molding, latex or oil based.  So we started off with three products.

1. Aerosol Goo Gone 
2. Goof Off in a 16 oz can 
3. Klean-X Strip-X Stripper in a gallon can

I figured we start with the mildest and work our way up.  We quickly found out that the aerosol Goo Gone wasn't effective against much more than scotch tape.  And you really had to scrub even to get that off.

Fortunately, Robyn found out, with a lot of scrubbing, letting it soak, and sometimes a brass brush that the Goof Off was effective on most over-paint.  Good thing too because the Strip-X is going to take the varnish off.

Unfortunately, we ran out of the Goof Off.  It wasn't available in a store that was close by so we settle on a gallon of Oops.  Not only wasn't it as effective.  And it cost $6 more a gallon.

While Robyn was scrubbing away, I was finishing up the pipe repair.  There were two splits in the main water line where it had frozen in the basement and there was another joint that had come apart when the a couple of legs of "octopus" gravity heating system had come loose from the floor joists and knocked the joint apart.    Here are the repaired sections:

Before

After

I haven't sweated joints in almost 20 years so I'm a bit out of practice and they're a bit sloppy.

Before

After

I took the opportunity to add a "T" into this line with a temporary PVC plug.  I plan to later add in a valve with 2 1/4" connections for the ice maker and whole house humidifier.  Note that the copper is connected to galvanized.  I'll have to replace the galvanized later.  I'm surprised the joints aren't already corroded.

I also have most of the feeder and return pipes for the old gravity heating system cut up.

 

I still have 4 more places to get pipe out of the wall but they are either behind some walls or currently inaccessible.  I have everything out, except for the expansion tank, that I needed to get out so the HVAC contractor can get started running the ductwork

I forgot to drain the water out of the expansion tank before I left yesterday so I didn't want to use the saws all on the remaining pipes standing in water in the basement... plus it was cold as heck down there.  It was 16 degrees when we left the apartment and all we have is 3 space heaters running on the first floor.  Here's the pipes in the basement we have left to get out.  I'll have to get some help unstrapping the expansion tank.  It's too heavy to hold up with one hand while cutting through the strap with the other.

Note the old dimension, rough cut lumber joists.

I was hoping to get valves and caps put on the gas lines for the hot water heater and dryer but I've been having problems finding a valve to fit the joint.  Finally, it desperation, I took the joint off and took it to Home Depot with me where I found the problem.  Someone had cut the old valve or connection off.

I'm going to replacing this piece of galvanized with black iron gas pipe.  (That's my draft layout for updating the kitchen.)

When you start pulling things out, you start getting a hint about the original touches that were in the home.  (Plus some lost items.)

Pink Rose Floral Pattern in the living room

Floral Pattern in Master Bedroom with shades of pink, peach and blue

Grapevine Pattern in the entranceway

So after a Robyn's hard day's work on the wall shelf, here's an example of how much better it looks now.

There's some spots of apparent oil-based over-paint on which we're going to have to use the Strip-X remover.  I haven't quite finished cleaning the old, original stain that was on the molding behind the radiators.  I'll include some photos when I finish one up; it's taking multiple applications of the Strip-X.

Back to the job that's helping pay for this....

Weekend 1 - Blowing out the pipes

This weekend will be spent cutting out the old pipes which fed the radiators in the house.  All but three were already gone and the pipes need to be removed before the ductwork can be installed for our new HVAC system.

But first, we had to go to the Goodwill store to buy the rug that Robyn saw when she was thrifting earlier today.  The rug is 6 1/2' X 10' and matches the color scheme we are planning for the dining room.  Only $125 and we found it online at a national chain for $250!!!  26 degrees and we had to put the top down on Robyn's convertible to bring it back to the apartment.

So here's what working the Sawsall on:

Oops... got that blade stuck!!!

And this one too!!!