So I just noticed that we have this, again, and it has been a really long time since our last post. Not only did the water heater not go as planned it did not go where planned. We had etched out room in the downstairs closet and the day of the big instal realized that something wasn't going to work. You'd have to check with the Tom's on this..not really sure why. So I came home one day in the spring to the case of the missing linen closet. My upstairs closet was gone and in its place a large navien water heater. We still haven't located the darn closet! Which is sad.
In February we tor down the wall between the cats old bedroom and our upstairs family room to begin what will be a master suite... however for now I call it the master-not-so-sweet. :-)
We also began ordering all the stuff one needs to remodel a bathroom.. what a fiasco! July 4th we completed the project from hell and have a mostly pretty bathroom with minor corrections that need to be made, but Tom hasn't gotten to it just yet. And now we are knocking out two outside walls.. the back, south side, of our house and off the den, east side, to move and create doors.. This time we hired help!!! Thank goodness because I am maxed out on reno's.. That should keep you updated on the house stuff I think.. Tom can add more if so... Ani out.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Trials and Tribulations part 1
This weekend proved to be very eventful. Tom came over to help get the groundwork laid for our new Navien On-demand Water Heater, so we decided to fix some of the underlying issues of our house to make room for the new unit. The only disclaimer I can provide is... "kids, don't try this at home".
Saturday, Jan 22
Our day started out harmlessly enough. we have a stair well closet where we are hoping to put the new water heater, in an effort to free up some much needed space in our downstairs bathroom. We had to prep the closet by removing the return air duct, which seemed like an easy enough task. It took about 45 minutes to get the duct work removed, and another 45 minutes to cap the hole in the box above the furnace. We immediately gained an additional 70 - 100 cubic feet of closet space to play with.
We turned our attention to the gas line, which required running a new 3/4" line to be used solely for the water heater. We went on a quick trip to pick up supplies (which turned into 4 trips, but more on that later), and decide to commence. Tom killed the gas to the house, and we quickly began drilling a 1 inch hole in the stem wall of our foundation. After about an hour of drilling, 3 batteries, and 2 drills later, we made it through the 8 inches of concrete to the crawl space. My hands are still vibrating from the drilling.
The 1 inch hole was a bit tight, so we decided to bring in 'Big Bertha' to get the job done quickly. We got the black pipe lodged in the hole, threw an old cap on the threaded end, and proceeded to force the black pipe through the hole with a 10 lb sledge (Big Bertha). She made quick work of the task, and we were ready to connect our lines. 2 trips to the hardware store later, we had all the appropriate nipples for connecting the gas back to the meter. We capped the end of the line for the water heater run, and cranked on the gas. After rigorous testing, no leaks! The furnace fired up and we were done for the day. Not a bad days work eh?
Tomorrow would be the fun part. Cutting up some drywall to expose the upstairs soil pipe to isolate a leak. Tom could work on his place, and I could get some plumbing done. Unfortunately, that plan didn't work out too well. Around 8 pm, I noticed the furnace was cycling and wouldn't heat the house up properly. Uh oh... was the 10" return too small? I decided to wait it out.
Sunday, Jan 22
After listening to the furnace cycle all night, I decided to call Tom and have him check it out. By now, I had exposed the soil pipe for our upstairs bath, and was completely overwhelmed by what I saw... Water damage, and lots of it:
Saturday, Jan 22
Our day started out harmlessly enough. we have a stair well closet where we are hoping to put the new water heater, in an effort to free up some much needed space in our downstairs bathroom. We had to prep the closet by removing the return air duct, which seemed like an easy enough task. It took about 45 minutes to get the duct work removed, and another 45 minutes to cap the hole in the box above the furnace. We immediately gained an additional 70 - 100 cubic feet of closet space to play with.
We turned our attention to the gas line, which required running a new 3/4" line to be used solely for the water heater. We went on a quick trip to pick up supplies (which turned into 4 trips, but more on that later), and decide to commence. Tom killed the gas to the house, and we quickly began drilling a 1 inch hole in the stem wall of our foundation. After about an hour of drilling, 3 batteries, and 2 drills later, we made it through the 8 inches of concrete to the crawl space. My hands are still vibrating from the drilling.
The 1 inch hole was a bit tight, so we decided to bring in 'Big Bertha' to get the job done quickly. We got the black pipe lodged in the hole, threw an old cap on the threaded end, and proceeded to force the black pipe through the hole with a 10 lb sledge (Big Bertha). She made quick work of the task, and we were ready to connect our lines. 2 trips to the hardware store later, we had all the appropriate nipples for connecting the gas back to the meter. We capped the end of the line for the water heater run, and cranked on the gas. After rigorous testing, no leaks! The furnace fired up and we were done for the day. Not a bad days work eh?
Tomorrow would be the fun part. Cutting up some drywall to expose the upstairs soil pipe to isolate a leak. Tom could work on his place, and I could get some plumbing done. Unfortunately, that plan didn't work out too well. Around 8 pm, I noticed the furnace was cycling and wouldn't heat the house up properly. Uh oh... was the 10" return too small? I decided to wait it out.
Sunday, Jan 22
After listening to the furnace cycle all night, I decided to call Tom and have him check it out. By now, I had exposed the soil pipe for our upstairs bath, and was completely overwhelmed by what I saw... Water damage, and lots of it:
By the time I had cut into the ceiling, I noticed water dripping out. Not good. The soil pipe is a 3" cast iron pipe that will need to be replaced, but since the upstairs bathroom is out of commission now anyway, this was the least of my worries.
Tom came over around 11:30 and we got to work on the furnace. We ripped out all of the 10" duct and made some cuts to expand the soffit to take a 14" duct. We got into the attic, and ripped out the remaining duct, and quickly made a list of the materials needed (yep, we learned our lesson with the help of our site supervisor - the Wif :-P). We picked up the duct and headed back to the house. Removed some more excess sheet metal and took apart the furnace exhaust, and started running the new duct.
4 hours later, we had everything connected again, and ready to fire up. Tom broke out the IR thermometer, and the CO2 meter, and we cranked on the furnace.... still cycling. Tom isolated the issue to a bad limit switch. Tom ran out to the truck, and lo and behold he had a spare one that would meet our needs. Another hour or so of testing and cleaning, and our work here was done... The furnace works like a champ now, and we can get to the bigger tasks at hand.
Of course, while running our final tests and taping up the ducts, we noticed that what we thought was the "old" return air at the bottom of the soffit, just above the furnace, was actually the supply for our upstairs vents. Standing above the top of the soffit in the attic, we realized that we were heating the attic to a balmy 95 degrees, while the house was struggling to get to 68. I will put up some pics, but the work was courtesy of a local, well-known (the largest), heating and air-conditioning company. We were both pissed. What a shoddy job. They covered their tracks by plugging the hole with drywall, which we removed, and which somehow passed inspection. We decided to save the task of re-routing the vent for a later day, and buttoned everything up. At least the heat was on, but it was a long day.
While we were cranking away on the furnace and ducts, Anita and Dave had managed to strip most of the water damaged wall of drywall. She bleached the hell out of the wall to kill any mold, and we buttoned it up with some heavy duty plastic and staples. The wall will need to be replaced, but we need to get the soil pipe replaced first, so we can have 1 working bathroom. Once the waterheater is in, we can completely remodel the downstairs bath. More pics, and updates will be coming soon.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Posting
It turns out that posting from my phone does not work, hence my first post, however I will try to figure this out..
So today I have been sleeping on the couch with my monkey's and loving every minute. On Monday we awoke to our baby girl not being able to walk. Only after our efforts (our normal vet was unavailable) were we able to get a diagnosis Vestibular Syndrome. I will try to get info posted on this condition as they survive but it is ridiculously scary. Okay enough for now.. Ani out
PS this will take some getting used to, with FB you get 420 characters, so bare with me..
So today I have been sleeping on the couch with my monkey's and loving every minute. On Monday we awoke to our baby girl not being able to walk. Only after our efforts (our normal vet was unavailable) were we able to get a diagnosis Vestibular Syndrome. I will try to get info posted on this condition as they survive but it is ridiculously scary. Okay enough for now.. Ani out
PS this will take some getting used to, with FB you get 420 characters, so bare with me..
Thursday, January 20, 2011
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