The Trane Has Arrived

It looks like this is going to be the summer of major projects for our new home. Just a few months ago we replaced all the windows and redesigned the structure of the facade by adding a bow-window, and now we find ourselves working on a major interior project. Today we are having the entire HVAC system replaced and are installing a new Trane furnace and central air conditioning unit. Unlike the windows, this is something that was nowhere on our radar and caught us completely off guard. However, this project does make sense considering we did replace the windows making the house more energy-efficient, this component seems like the logical next piece, but that is not why or how it happened. Over the winter, despite at least one window leaking pretty badly, the furnace did an excellent job at keeping the house comfortable, the same can not be said for the existing central air conditioner so far this summer!

Last month there were a couple of days we needed to run the central air (central air was one of the items on my list that a house must have, as I do not handle heat very well) and it barely made a dent in the temperature of the first floor and did absolutely nothing for the second! Understanding that we had no knowledge of the service history of the unit, that was our first step. We contacted Harriman Heating and had them come out to service and clean the unit. When the technician came out to perform this work he first performed a thorough cleaning and testing and was able to give us some additional information about the unit. As it turned out the unit was from the early 1980’s and still had every single original component, nothing had ever been replaced! This is exceedingly rare and he was a little impressed by that fact, as were we. However, he also gave us some less impressive news. As it turned out this unit was at least ½ ton undersized for the size of our house, and it is almost 2 pounds low on coolant. Now the coolant can be refilled, but because the unit is so old it also uses an older style coolant that is more expensive (almost double the cost) and without filling it he could not verify if there was a leak in the coolant system or not. Additionally, because the unit is undersized he also could not be sure it would make a large enough improvement in the units performance to justify the possibility of the coolant leaking. As such we decided to get a quote to replace the unit, which lead to a discussion about replacing the furnace to get the full benefits of the newer high-efficiency systems. Which in turn brings us to today.

It’s very hot today, and we had no central air at all for a good portion of the day because Harriman Heating was here removing the old furnace and air conditioning unit and installing a new Trane system! I have never seen this type of work performed before, having never owned a home, and I am pretty impressed with the fact that this is only a two-man job. The guys have been professional, and great to talk with. They have answered all the questions I have asked and explained things to me in a way I can understand and I greatly appreciate that because I like to learn and know what’s going on. They have gotten the entire unit installed but only the air conditioning is currently functioning, they will return tomorrow to finish the few items left on the furnace. That being said, the new air conditioner is amazing! They told us the moment it was ready to go and we closed all the windows and turned on the new unit to break it in. Within 15 minutes we could feel a drastic difference between this unit and the old one. The temperature and humidity (the new Trane thermostat shows the humidity!) dropped significantly! Watching the humidity get pulled out and seeing the water flushed to the utility sink in the basement is interesting, this unit pulls out a lot more than I ever remember the old unit doing. It’s nice to see such a quick turn around and know that we made a good decision so quickly. While it was unexpected and not in the budget, we managed to get a really good financing option that will see this being paid off in 5 years with 0% interest, so that also made the decision a little easier to make. Now to go enjoy the new cool temperatures of our house.

A House Full of New Glass

The past few days have been very noisy and active around the house, as we have made our first major investment / improvement to our new home; we have had all the windows replaced. In addition to replacing all of the existing windows we change the front window completely by converting it from a large flat picture window to an oak framed bow-window! This changed the front dynamics of the house completely, it lets in a ton more light, increased our external view from the living room, and most importantly, made Melissa very happy!

We knew this was going to be our first major project from the beginning, as the inspection revealed some of them were original to the house.  However, over the winter when I was working from home one day I discovered one of the windows was leaking pretty badly, so we had to bump this project up to help improve the efficiency of the house before the next winter. Over the winter we had time to think about what we wanted to do and who we wanted to do the work, and we narrowed it down to a few options, in the end we chose Hanson’s. We went with Hanson’s for a couple of reasons:

  1. They took the time to really explain windows to us
  2. They were providing the best warranty
  3. They offered the best financing
  4. They offered the best price

We had a couple of their competitors supply estimates and they were nowhere near as complete as Hanson’s was. The Hanson’s representative came to the house and actually spent almost 3 hours speaking with us and educating us on windows, including a display with a heat lamp and BTU reader and samples of the different windows to display their varying energy efficiency. He also went room to room, window to window, and took precise measurements and asked us what we wanted for each window in terms of efficiency, opening style, sash, and sill options.  Additionally, he actually listened to what we wanted and went over the options we had to get those options, and made recommendations about the possible pros and cons of each. Comparatively speaking, one of their competitors was in our house for less than 10 minutes, guessed at the window sizes, told us we didn’t need to replace the main window (the one we converted to a bow!) because it was one of theirs and only “about 6 years old,” never asked us what we wanted, gave a quote and said “call me when you’re ready,” and left!

Hanson’s provides a lifetime warranty that transfers to the next purchaser should we ever sell the house. This is a full warranty that covers everything! For instance, if a baseball gets accidentally thrown through the bow-window, they come replace it for free no questions asked. This is for every window and screen they install, well the screens we would need to bring to them for repair, but the windows they come to the house and repair. Even the caulking is covered, should we ever notice the caulking is shrinking, cracking, or separating, just call them and schedule a repair appointment! This was an important benefit for us because we have some large price windows that we are replacing (namely the bow, sliding door, and octagon window) and should anything happen to them we don’t want to have to pay these amounts out-of-pocket again.  In the end we replaced a total of 10 windows and 1 sliding door all with triple pane high-efficiency (0.23 U-value) replacement fiberglass filled vinyl windows. We need to stain or paint (we are leaning toward staining) all of the new sills and backings, but that will happen over the next few weeks.

Overall we are extremely happy with our choice and I have been highly impressed with the installation. The installation team consisted of a two-man crew, these are contractors who work exclusively on Hanson’s window installations. They did a great job with everything, and even replaced a pretty deep and long section of the base frame of the sliding door from where water had gotten in and rotted the frame. Something we didn’t know about until the old sliding door was removed! The contractor removed the rotted wood and cut new pieces to fit right on site, because they had everything they might need in their trailer. Including what was needed to re-screen our front door! Why our front door? Because they accidentally ripped the screen when bringing one of the old windows out of the house. To say we are highly satisfied is actually an understatement, we would certainly recommend them to anyone looking for new windows, and will absolutely look into their other services in the future!  

And We’re Out

We are officially finished with apartment living! We turned the keys over to the Roundtree office this morning and said our goodbyes to the place we have called home for the last 8 years. The only thing I think I am going to miss is the availability of a pool in the summer. I didn’t use it very often, but I spent many days down there watching Kylie swim and have fun. Otherwise, I am very much done with this place. The neighbors have been going downhill and the repeated damage to the motorcycle will most certainly not be missed! Though in all fairness the property staff have been great throughout the years, very responsive and always on top of things. We had until the end of the month, but we finished the cleaning and have gotten everything moved to the house, so we were more than happy to turn the keys over early. Goodbye apartment living, hopefully we never go back!

Large Items Moved

We are now one step closer to being fully moved into our new home! Today we had professional movers move the larger items that we could not, or did not want to, move ourselves. This was mainly the furniture items that would not fit into our vehicles; king sized bed and box spring, couches, kitchen table, etc. Everything got placed into the truck surprisingly fast, especially considering there were only two guys. They also unpacked the truck and moved everything into the new house fairly quickly as well. Though moving the king sized mattress upstairs caused some havoc and ripped the underside of the mattress. The company is going to send someone out to repair it in the next couple of days. Thankfully it shouldn’t impact us sleeping on it at all because it is the bottom of the mattress and not the pillow top. In any event we are now capable of staying in the house overnight for the first time and that much closer to turning in the keys to the apartment. We have a few small things to gather from their and some light cleaning to finish and then we are done!

Chim chiminey Chim chiminey

Chim chim cher-ee!

We had the chimney cleaned today in the new house, mainly because we didn’t know when the previous owners last had it cleaned, if ever, and wanted to have it inspected before we used it. I am glad we did because we discovered that we are going to need to replace the bottom damper because it doesn’t close properly. Additionally we will most likely have a top damper installed to help reduce the stack effect. On top of that we need a cover for the ash shoot, as that is missing as well. When we do all that we will also need to have some other repairs done to the chimney such as having some bricks replaced and even having the top cement reformed so it drips away from the opening. Currently this is going to run around $3000, and seeing as we don’t have that now, it will have to get put off until a later date. I just hope the delay doesn’t cause the price to go up too much do to further deterioration. I’m starting to see why being a homeowner can be so stressful!

First New Appliance

The first major purchase we have had to make for the new house arrived today. We purchased this LG refrigerator and even though we verified all of the measurements before hand, it didn’t fit into the space between the counter and the cabinets, at first. The delivery guys brought it in and when we tried to push it into place we found that the space was about 1/16 of an inch to narrow. So we had them hook up the water and power and leave it in the middle of the kitchen, we told them we would figure out how to get it in place, somehow. Melissa was extremely determined to get this refrigerator to fit, she liked this one and wanted it, and in the end she got to keep it. Melissa removed some of the floor molding which allowed the cabinets to shift ever so slightly, but it was enough. Once we had that little bit of play in the cabinet we were able to slide the refrigerator back into place, now it is pushing the cabinet ever so slightly to the left and it is nice and happy in its new home. Melissa is even more happy that she gets to keep the refrigerator she picked out, and I have to agree with her, I really like it too. Now to continue with the cleaning and moving in of the items we can move on our own.

Fully Insulated

We finished up the attic insulation project today, and I learned two extremely valuable pieces of information:

  1. Even in October it gets incredibly warm in an attic crawl space
  2. I never want to go back into my attic ever again, or probably any other one for that matter

By the time we were nearing the end of the project the amount of space in the attic was simply not enough for two grown men to be in there. Or perhaps we just didn’t have the skill and maneuverability for both of us to be in there? Either way, I was thankful when my brother told me to get out that he could finish it up without me. He does have the advantage of being slightly smaller than me though, which aids in his maneuverability in the close quarters the attic provides. In addition to adding insulation while we were up there we also added some more baffles above the front soffit vents (we have no rear soffit vents, just front and about 5 can vents in the roof) in an attempt to help the circulation which will also improve the insulation effectiveness. The only downside is that I have no historic information in relation to a heating bill in order to compare the effectiveness of this project, however, I have to think it will be an improvement. Regardless, at least we now know that attic has sufficient insulation, even if we are unsure about the walls. One project down, I am sure there will be many others though.

Water Woes Ended, Insulation Project Begins

The vampire taps have both been replaced and the line that will be connected for the ice maker on the new refrigerator has been run up to it’s location, so it will be ready and in place for the delivery in a few days. With any luck this will be the last time we need to call out a plumber for a long time.

Moving on to the next pre-move in project… Chris and I started adding insulation in the attic today. I had noticed during the inspection that, while there was some insulation in the attic, the amount of insulation for the R value was not going to be adequate. Considering the house was built in 1967 when energy costs were lower, and we bought it from the original owner, I am not too surprised by the need for more insulation. I wanted to make sure this was one of the first projects we did before moving in because the attic access is inside what will be Kylie’s closet. As such we didn’t want to have to cover everything in her room in plastic and take everything out of her closet in order to move the insulation into the attic crawl space. Based on the estimation of the R value of what was already up there and combining that with what we added, we estimate that the attic should now have an R value of around 42. The suggested value for this area is between 38 and 49, so this should be good moving forward. Unfortunately we were not able to complete this project today though, and will need to finish it up another time.

Water Woes, Part 2

Plumber came out today and replaced the main shutoff valve for the water. The process was pretty quick, though we learned there is a distinct smell when a pipe is being soldered, a mix between general heat and something burning. Regardless, the valve is replaced and we can schedule with the city to have them come out, put the water meter back, and turn the water back on.

Water Woes, Part 1

It’s incredible how quickly the joys of home ownership start to roll in! The city came out to install the water meter and turn the water on, just like they were supposed to, but we still have no water. It turns out that by them removing the old meter they apparently caused a seal to break in the valve. As such, when they put the meter in and turned on the water it just started leaking. Now we have to have a plumber come out tomorrow and replace the main shut off valve.