A Radiator Party

Question: How do you get 3700 pounds of cast iron out of your house in under 2 hours?

Answer: Invite eight of your friends and have a radiator party!

Every room in our house has had a radiator sitting in it for almost 100 years now. With the boiler removed last summer and the new geothermal HVAC system installed this September, we've had some massive chunks of cast iron sitting around our house doing nothing but reminding us that we need to get them outta here.

Honestly, I've been a bit intimidated by the thought of removing the radiators. I mean, it's one thing to strap a 200 pound refrigerator to an appliance dolly and move it to a different spot. I've actually done that by myself before. But these radiators -- they were in a whole different league.

My first reality check came when I realized that the radiator in the living room would have to be moved so the HVAC crew could cut holes in the floor for the new forced-air registers. I had a four-wheel dolly already, but went ahead and bought another one since the radiator was so long. I was thinking perhaps I could lift one end onto one of the dollies, then lift the other end onto the other dolly. Yeah, right. When I realized that I couldn't even scoot one end of the radiator, I knew I was up against a real challenge. Fortunately, through the heroic efforts of my wife's car jack and several short sections of lumber, I was able to eventually get the behemoth hoisted onto the dollies so I could roll it around a little (after cutting away some carpet, of course). The whole time I was working on getting the radiator jacked up onto the dollies, I could hear that phrase from TV playing over and over again inside my head: "Please, ladies and gentlemen....do not try this at home".

Somewhere along the way, the inspiration came to me that I should host a "men's breakfast" as a way of getting the job done. Most guys will show up to an event if there is the promise of food, so I figured it was worth a try! Besides, my wife has something built into her DNA that expresses appreciation through cooking (which she does very well), so the food-for-labor bribe seemed a good fit. It took me a few weeks to come up with a list of gullible good friends that I thought might be interested in helping, but I eventually got all of them called, emailed, or Facebooked. I even called one of my neighbors a couple of doors down and asked if he would mind being a stand-by extra set of hands in case we found ourselves just a little short of brawn.

With one buddy calling in sick at the last moment, we ended up with nine guys. And boy, did we ever need all nine of us. We started with the monster radiator in the living room -- the largest one in the house. I'm estimating that it weighed somewhere around the 900 pound range. Ugh! I had bought some furniture-moving straps and fabricated some makeshift handles out of u-bolts and large dowel rods. With four guys on each side of the radiator and straps slung underneath we gave it our first heave-ho to see what we were getting ourselves into. "One, two, three, LIFT!" It was at that moment that we experienced a concurrent revelation: This Sucker Is Stinking Heavy.

We took a few baby steps forward, probably about 5 feet, then sat it down to rest. One more time: "One, two, three, LIFT!". Another few feet forward, then down it went again on the floor so we could gather our strength again. This went on a couple more times, and we finally found ourselves outside the front door, looking down the porch steps. A few ideas were exchanged about the best approach, but in the end, we just grunted, groaned, and let gravity help us get Big Bertha down to the sidewalk. Just twenty more feet to go until we would have it at the back of the trailer. At this point, someone offered the brilliant-and-back-saving idea, "Can we just drag it from here?" And so we did. I would continue with the details of how we lifted the crazy thing up onto the trailer, but honestly, it's a bit of a blur in my memory. All I remember was a lot of grunting, intermingled with copious amounts of groaning. But we got it onto the trailer. Exhausted and already sweating, I thought to myself, "Oh good, only FIVE more to go!"

Thankfully, the rest of the radiators weighed a mere 400 to 600 pounds. Umm, piece of cake.

Now that we had the biggest radiator out of the way, we sort of split up into teams, with four or five guys to a radiator. At some point while I was upstairs with some guys, one of my buddies asked my wife if we had any other dollies. She took him down to the basement and showed him our appliance dolly. This stroke of genius became the thing that probably saved us some herniated disks, if not actual lives and other miscellanous appendages.

The last two radiators were the ones from upstairs. This particular portion of the Radiator Party was an adventure, let me tell you. To understandably describe the way that we actually accomplished getting them down the stairs would take way too many words. Perhaps we could have snapped a picture of the procedure, but I don't think there was room on the staircase for the camera. I myself have only a vague recollection of arms, legs, cast iron, straps, and a few distorted faces. At that point, I think most of us had abandoned the fear of straining or breaking some bodily part. This was because we had each become distracted by the all-too-real possibility of somehow getting crossways with one of those straps and thereby ending up with The World's Largest Wedgie.

Having started shortly after 8:30, we loaded the last radiator onto the trailer at 10:10. OH MY GOSH, THE SCRAP YARD CLOSES IN TWENTY MINUTES!! A couple of us jumped into our vehicles and raced off to the scrap yard while the rest of the crew sat down to a well-deserved breakfast. In honor of my wife's feverish cooking, I just have to mention that the menu included: Southern-style breakfast casserole, bacon, country potatoes, blueberry muffins, pumpkin bread, chopped fresh fruit, milk, juice, and coffee. Oh, and Ibuprofen. I'm not kidding.

This was the last one to be loaded onto the
trailer (in the background) before we
headed off to the scrap yard.

Meanwhile, at the scrap yard, we pulled the trailer onto the scales and then down into the scrap area. A huge claw plucked the radiators from the trailer like they were marshmallows, then flung them onto a pile of junk cars, pipe, and engine blocks. When we pulled back onto the scales to get the tare weight, we understood while we were all so bushed. Between the six radiators we had removed, the total weight was 3700 pounds. WOWSERS! With the higher price of scrap iron these days, we brought home $351. Nice!

Only one day later, my shoulders are really sore. I can't imagine how much they are going to hurt tomorrow --- seems like the second day is always the worst. Oh well, it was a fun party, and it made me realize what a fantastic bunch of friends I have. Maybe we'll have another party when I rent the jackhammer to take out the old driveway. Sound like fun, guys? Guys? Helloooo? Anyone there? Hello? [sound of crickets chirping...]


Postscript: It is interesting what you'll find under a radiator that hasn't been moved in a century, give or take a few years. The space under the radiator in our bedroom yielded quite a treasure trove:

• pacifier
• chapstick
• crochet hook
• 5 pencils
• 1 pen
• 1 Q-Tip (extra long variety)
• toothpick
• 9 crayons (somewhat melted as you might guess)
• a plastic number "4"

Sadly, the 1915 gold coins I was hoping for were nowhere to be found......

The 1915 Central Vacuum

Central vacuum systems in residences. You'd think they were invented probably sometime in the 50's or 60's right? Think again, dear reader.

When we moved to our house last Fall, I discovered some sort of contraption in the basement, hidden in a dark corner. It looked like some sort of generator or something. It evoked mental images of Thomas A. Edison. What was it? I found my flashlight and brushed a little dust off of the thing. The picture here is what I saw. "Arco Wand Vacuum Cleaner".

What the heck? A central vacuum system in a 1915 house? "No, surely it can't be original to the house," I thought.

I looked a little closer at the gizmo. On the motor, there was a data plate. What?!? The patent listed on the motor (made by the Wagner Electric Manufacturing Co., St. Louis, U.S.A.) had several dates, starting back as far as Sept. 11, '88. We're talking EIGHTEEN eighty-eight!

I looked around a little more and found a separate data plate for the vacuum itself. Check out that patent date: March 9, 1907. So this vacuum was as old as the house itself. I was amazed.

I was not about to even try to fire the thing up. It had several VERY scary electrical wires connected to it that looked quite original. NoThankYouVeryMuch, I did not need to see this thing in action. We'd just bought the house and I had no intention of blowing it up or burning it down. Or electrocuting myself.

As I studied the system, it finally dawned on me what those odd disks were on the baseboard of the main and second story hallways. They were the connection points where a vacuum hose could be attached. The hose attachment was nowhere to be found (tossed into the garbage many years ago, I would imagine), although there is a tiny little "closet" in the dining room that must have been built especially to store the hose. An old wire rack was hanging in the closet, which is probably what the hose would have been coiled around when it was put away.

Some History
I got online to see what I could find out about the Arco Wand, plus I looked around the house and figured out a few things:

• The American Radiator Company (“ARCO”) manufactured the radiators and Arco Wand central vacuum system that were installed in this home when it was built in 1915. American Radiator also manufactured Ideal boilers, which likely was the brand of the boiler that was originally installed in the house. By the time we purchased the house in 2009, the original coal-fired boiler had long since been replace by a H.B. Smith natural gas boiler (probably some time in the early 1980’s). If boilers are "your thing", be sure to read the previous post entitled Bye-bye, Boiler.
• The American Radiator Company eventually merged with Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company in 1929 to become what is now known as American Standard -- the company that makes sinks, toilets, bath tubs, and all sorts of plumbing fixtures.
• Although there is actually still an Arco Wand company in existence today, it is mainly a commercial high-capacity vacuum company. It was likely sold off sometime after the American Standard company was formed.

So what do you do with a 95 year old vacuum?
In order to get things out of the way in the basement so we could have the central HVAC installed, I disconnected the vacuum and moved it to the garage. Perhaps I should say I fought the thing all the way to the garage. I'm guessing it weighs about 300 lbs. With the help of my petite-but-mighty wife, we wriggled it up onto a four-wheel furniture dolly and rolled it out to the garage. There it sat for a number of weeks while we tried to figure out what to do with the thing. If we couldn't come up with another home for it, we knew we'd have to take it to the scrap yard. It was just too big to keep around as a conversation piece.

Knowing that I am a Lover Of All Things Old, my wife started doing some online searches and making some phone calls to see if we could find a museum that would take it. After all, we're talking about a piece of history here. There weren't that many houses in 1915 that had a central vacuum (or perhaps even indoor plumbing, for that matter), and even fewer that still have such a thing in original condition. After a few dead-end contacts, she finally got ahold of a guy at the Vacuum Cleaner Museum in St. James, Missouri, which is a little over two hours from where we live. The phone conversation went something like this:

She: I have a central vacuum machine that I'd like to donate to your museum.
He: What can you tell me about it?
She: Well I don't really know much about it, but my husband does.
He: Do you know what brand it is? Do you know if it is a such-and-such brand or maybe an Arco Wand?
She: Yes! That's it -- it is an Arco Wand.
He: (quite excited) You have an Arco Wand?!? Oh my goodness! I've been looking for one of those for fifteen years!
She: That's great. We'd like to donate it, but we would need you to send someone to pick it up. It's very heavy.
He: Hmm, we don't get up to that way very often.
She: Well, if you really want it, you need to come pick it up within the next three weeks. Otherwise, we're going to have to take it to the scrap yard. It is out in our garage, and we need to get it out of the way.
He: (a little panicked) Wait! No! Don't scrap it! We'll come get it! You can't take it to the scrap yard -- you've got the Mona Lisa! No, please don't scrap it! We'll figure out some way to get a truck over to pick it up!

So a couple of weeks ago, they sent a truck to pick up the vacuum. The driver even called once she made it back to the museum to let me know the vacuum had arrived safely, and to thank us again for donating it. They tell us that they will restore it back to "like new" condition, so once they are finished, my wife and I plan to make a trip to St. James to check it out. It will be fun to see the vacuum looking all new and shiny again.

Geothermal Is Here

Our new geothermal HVAC system is officially installed. Mostly anyway. The radiant floor heat is still in the works, but all of the forced air systems are up and running. What a glorious thing!

The whole thing started with a drilling rig pulling up to destroy our front yard. I had initially hoped that we could have the wells dug in the back yard, but there really wasn't any way of getting a 42,000 pound truck into the back yard without crushing our very old, shallow sewer line. Oh well, we had planned to re-landscape at some point, so why not now?

The area where our house is located -- from a geological standpoint -- is pretty much solid limestone. There are a few feet of clay and loose rock under the top soil, but then it is solid limestone for at least a couple hundred feet down. When I initially talked to the HVAC contractor, I asked what would happen if they hit rock while they were drilling. He told me that the drillers actually like to hit rock because the wells don't cave in on themselves, so it makes it easy to get the tubing down in to the well.

A drilling rig is really nothing more than a giant hammer-drill. A LOUD giant hammer-drill. I happened to be home sick with a cold the second day that they were drilling. Needless to say, I didn't really get to nap too much, but it was interesting to watch the drilling process from the bedroom window.
 

The wells are spaced about 10 feet apart. What you see in the picture below are the first four wells. The light grey sludge that you see isn't concrete. It is actually pulverized limestone dust mixed with water. The drillers would pump water into the the well to keep the bit cool, and the result was a slurry of limestone that would make its way to the surface. Once a well was drilled, the drillers would insert a loop of plastic tubing all the way to the bottom, then use a squeegee to scrape the slurry back into the hole to fill in around the tubing.

 

If you aren't familiar with geothermal systems, they work on a very simple premise: circulate water through the tubing in the wells to pull coolness out of the ground when it is hot outside, and pull warmth out of the ground when it is cold outside. If you want the more scientific explanation of how geothermal works, check out this link: http://www.geocomfort.com/geothermal-technology

Our system is the "vertical loop" type, so it required several wells to be dug. The number of wells required depends on the system size needed. Our HVAC contractor determined that our house needs 8 tons of heating and cooling, so that meant that 1200 feet of underground water loop would be required. The wells they dug in our yard are a little under 200 feet deep, so that meant that we ended up with seven wells.

The layout inside our house doesn't provide much space for running ducts from the basement to the second story, so we opted for a split system. This means that we have a separate system that heats and cools the upstairs level, while a unit in the basement takes care of the main level and basement. The upstairs unit is rated at 3 tons, and the unit for the main level and basement is 5 tons since it has more area to heat and cool.

Enough about the system -- back to the front yard.

A couple of days after the wells had been dug, another crew showed up to further destroy the yard. Uh, I mean, to join all the tubing into one continuous loop. If the yard looked bad after the wells were dug, it looked ten times worse after the loop work was over. In order to join the tubing for all of the wells together, they had to dig a pit that encompassed all of the wells, about four feet deep. So for half a day, we had a pit four feet deep by twenty feet wide by forty feet long in the front yard. Once all the wells were connected to each other, they filled the pit in. Since our soil is very rocky, the resulting pile of dirt in the front yard looks a bit like those pictures of the Mars landscape. I would love to show you a picture of the dirt pile, but I'm having trouble uploading any more pictures to the blog at the moment. For those who are just dying to see the dirt pile, you can send a self-addressed stamped envelope (plus $2.95 for handling). Other large cash donations are accepted as well.

The most exciting thing about having the new geothermal system installed is that it is the first thing we've actually put into the house. Everything else to this point has pretty much been removing or demolishing things in order to prepare for remodeling. So we've hit a milestone -- the remodeling is officially underway!

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program To Bring You A Potty Bulletin...

I had intended for this next post to be about our new geothermal HVAC system. It is long past due, and I know all three of you out there in Reader Land have been anxiously awaiting details about the new system. All in good time, dear reader. We must interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you a Potty Bulletin.

It was a normal Friday. I came home after work and decided to do something about the two cups of coffee I'd drunk at work that afternoon. The most convenient place to "do something" is the small half bath just off the landing that leads downstairs, so I stopped there before heading upstairs to change into some grubbies. After I "did something", I flushed the commode only to see the bowl fill to the top with water. "Strange", I thought. After all, we're talking liquid only here, folks.

Now, my wife and I have been complaining about this commode since we moved into the house. It is WAY underpowered, if you know what I mean. After all, it's one of those water-saver type potties. I won't go into my usual tirade about water-saver toilets, but if you are interested in a particularly hilarious commentary on how they are tested, check out this column from Dave Barry. I clipped this very article from the newspaper several years ago and still keep it handy. I almost have it memorized, much like the Preamble of the Constitution: http://www.jokelibrary.net/xOtherAtoM/bathroom_no_two.html

Now where was I? Ah yes, the fateful flush last Friday afternoon. When the bowl filled with water, I reached for the plunger. (We keep it handy since this wimpy potty often needs a little boost.) Plunge, plunge, plunge. No change in conditions. Plunge, plunge, plunge. Still no significant progress, but now I could hear a faint splashing sound on the basement floor below. Hmm. This was not good. Not good at all.

When I got down to the basement, I could see that the water was coming from a joint in the waste line just below the floor of the bathroom above. This could mean only one thing -- the waste line was plugged all the way from the commode down to where it joined the main waste stack. We're talking 22 feet of 4-inch waste line, filled with all sorts of unpleasantness. Egad.

This waste line had been added back sometime in the 1970's, as best we understand from the family that sold us the house. We're talking REAL 100% American waste line -- the heavy black cast-iron type with lead-packed joints. Ladies and gentlemen, I offer "Exhibit A" for your viewing pleasure.

After breaking a hole in the line (note the bucket cleverly positioned beneath the hole for purposes of catching "the contents"), I drained several buckets of, well, you know. This is not a task for the faint of heart. The intensity of the aroma was impressive, to say the least. I rigged up several fans to keep the air moving through and out of the basement. My wife was delighted by the whole ordeal, as you might have guessed.

There are many more details of the removal process that I am sure you would be pleased to know, but for the sake of time, I'll keep this little story moving along.

After removing all the old cast-iron line, I headed to Home Depot to get all the stuff to install a new line. A couple of hours and a hundred-and-something dollars later, I had everything I needed to get started. Thank heavens for the simplicity of PVC. I can't imagine how long it must have taken to install the old cast-iron line with all its lead-sealed joints. After a few evenings of work, I had a new bright white waste line installed, complete with the prescribed 1/4-inch drop per lineal foot of pipe. We're on our way to clog-free living, people!

It took several attempts to get the potty re-installed, for a variety of reasons. It felt a bit like repeatedly doing a plumbing scene on This Old House. "Potty Install Scene, Take 17....... lights, camera, ACTION!". After a couple more trips to the local Ace Hardware store, I was able to achieve a victorious and leak-free flush.

Although I've yet to put the toilet to "the test", it seems to be flushing much more robustly than before. There is happiness in our home again.

Programmable Thermostats

It's been far too long since I blogged, but man, things have been BUSY! There was so much work to do to get ready for the new HVAC systems, we've been meeting ourselves coming and going. Let's see -- where to start?

There is a lot of information to share about the whole geothermal installation, so I'll save some of that until my next post. After all, it isn't every day you have a drilling rig sitting in the front yard. The bottom line, though, is that WE HAVE AIR CONDITIONING! Granted, it does deflate the drama a bit since the weather is now comfortable enough that the system doesn't even need to come on to keep the house comfortable. But knowing that winter is coming and that we won't have national-debt-sized gas bills is a good feeling.

It's funny how true the saying is that "what goes around comes around". I say that because since the mid-1920's our old house has had a programmable thermostat for the boiler/radiator system. No kidding. Here is a picture of the one we used up until this Spring. This baby is a Minneapolis-Honeywell Model 77 Automatic Thermostat, manufactured somewhere between 1924 and 1928. "Programmable?", you say? Yes indeedy.

The 8-day wind-up clock at the bottom detaches so it can be wound once a week. That is the winding key there on the right side, hanging from an elegantly fashioned paper clip. On the back of the clock are two little arms that can be set to the morning time when you want the temperature to go up, as well as the evening time when you want the temperature to go down. There are also a couple of set screws that allow you to adjust the level to which you want the temperature to rise or fall. As the clock runs, when the designated time comes, the little arms trip a lever that activates the gear which moves the thermostat setting either up or down. Pretty darn clever. 

Even though we won't be using this thermostat any longer to actually set the system, we are going to leave it on the wall in the entry. It is just too cool not to keep. In fact, one of the HVAC installers asked if he could buy it from me. I'm not interested in selling it, but I actually have an extra one that I found in a box when we moved into the house. Maybe I'll sell it and maybe I won't. I'm really BAD about hanging on to neat old stuff. Just ask my wife.

As much as I love the old thermostat, I'm thrilled to have the new ones, too. They are just a little bit more advanced and flexible when it comes to the programming. I say "they" because we have two of them -- one for upstairs and one for the main level and basement. Our last two houses were 2-story construction with only one HVAC system, which generally meant that the upstairs was way too warm in the summer. We learned our lesson, so when we decided to have a modern HVAC system installed we knew we wanted two separate systems with their own thermostats. Staying comfortable on either level should be a whole lot easier now.

I'll have photos and lots to share about the geothermal system and installation process next time. I'm off to bed for now....

Bye-bye, Boiler

Since 1915, our house has been heated in the winter by a boiler in the basement that connects to the radiators throughout the house by a maze of pipes of various sizes. The system has worked amazingly well, but man, it was expensive to run. Last January when it was cold, cold, cold for weeks on end, our gas bill was almost $400. Ouch!

This week, dear reader, we bid adieu to Mr. Boiler and his network of pipes. With sawzall (i.e., a reciprocating saw, for any English majors in the audience) in hand, I cut my way through 800 lbs. of pipe. And I mean 800 lbs. literally. The scrap yard gave me $52 for it, which luckily more than covers the cost of all those sawzall blades I burned through. In fact, part of my 800 lbs. of scrap included more than a few deceased sawzall blades.

I spoke blessings about my Dad this week. He was the one that taught me about cheater pipes. If I hadn't learned about them from him, I'm not sure I would have ever figured it out on my own. If you're new to the nifty invention known as a cheater pipe, it is a section of pipe that slips over the handle of a pipe wrench, thereby effectively lengthening the handle to provide lots more leverage. I would have thought that the only way to get more leverage would be to buy a bigger wrench, if left to my own logic. But good ol' Dad -- he taught me the handy (and cheap!) way to get more torque out of these skinny little arms of mine. Thanks, Dad!

The basement pipes are out of the way now (to make room for the 21st century ducts that are about to be installed), but I still have some pipes in place on the first floor that are hanging from the radiators on the second floor. I'll get to those pipes a little later, probably when we're making a mess on the first floor for other exciting remodeling reasons.

The next step is to get our new geothermal split-system HVAC installed. There will be more to write about as the system is installed. There will soon be a well-digging rig sitting in our front yard making a mess of things, but the end result will be a wonderfully air-conditioned house. We can't wait to walk into a house that isn't 86 degrees inside!

Historic Windows

There's nothing that says "old house" like the beefy, true divided-lite windows of a, well, an old house. I mean, that's part of what makes an old house really cool. The sad thing is that lots of old house owners don't realize that they can keep their old windows AND make them energy efficient. And because they don't realize their old windows can be made energy efficient, they have them ripped out and replaced with vinyl windows. Major sadness.

Last year, even before we had closed on the sale of our house, I began looking online for a place to buy some wood storm windows to replace the aluminum ones on our windows. Much to my delight, I found a hands-on three-day class in nearby Hannibal, Missouri that teaches students how to make their own wood storm windows. Hurray!

The class was offered at the Belvedere School For Historic Preservation, a historic trades school run by Bob Yapp. Bob has decades of historic preservation experience, and he hosted a PBS show in the 90's called "About Your House with Bob Yapp". The class was a lot of fun, very educational, and it whetted my appetite for another one of Bob's classes, his "Window Restoration College".

The restoration class teaches students how to take an existing double-hung window, restore it, re-glaze it, and make it weather-tight. The restored window, when coupled with a wood storm window that has been weather-sealed, is as energy efficient as a modern insulated-glass unit. PLUS, you end up getting to keep your cool old window AND spend less money than if you'd replaced it.

Part of our house renovations will include restoring all of our windows. We even plan on re-using some of our existing windows in the kitchen and bedroom additions we're planning. And to make sure we keep the same old house charm in our additions, we've even been dumpster-diving to find some extra old windows that we'll need for the additions.

The first set of windows we found were from a house being remodeled just around the corner from us. They are an almost perfect match to the existing windows in our house. And the best part is that they were FREE! If you've ever built a house or an addition, you know that windows can be a significant part of the overall budget. Sure, these old windows will need some work to restore them to like-new condition, but hey, they're cool old windows! These are only the sashes, so I'll need to build the jambs for them to make them a complete unit again.

The second set of windows we found are from a house a few blocks away. I drove by last week and noticed some workers replacing all the windows in a really neat English-cottage type house from the 1930's. All of these windows are casement type (which means that they swing open on side hinges rather than by sliding up and down). They also have some great old latches that are the finishing touch -- something you wouldn't find even in a restoration hardware catalog.

I called my friend Bob Yapp today to see if he would offer a class on building window jambs at his Belvedere School. (A jamb is the frame that goes around window sashes to hold them in place and allow them to slide up and down). I think I may have stirred his creative juices. He said it was an interesting idea, and that he'd think on it for a couple of weeks to see how he might advertise the class. I'm hopeful he's taken the bait.

Maybe I'll be heading to Hannibal again sometime in the near future for another window class.....

(For a follow-up to this post, see my later Building Windows write-up.)

Goodbye To The Deck

A couple of months ago (maybe longer?), I started taking apart the deck on the back side of the house. It was old and the support beams were not in the best of shape due to our friends, the carpenter ants. Most of the cedar planks are still in decent shape though, so I plan on re-using them in some capacity during the remodeling. At the very least, I can plane them back down to fresh wood and use them to build storage shelving in the basement. This was quite a deck in its day, let me tell ya. The cedar planks on the deck were 2 x 12s that were anywhere from 17 to 21 feet long, so it wasn't a cheap deck to construct. If I remember the story correctly, the previous owners had the deck built when one of their daughters got married years ago. I think it was the site of the wedding reception. Those days are long gone though, so it was time for the deck to come down. Besides, the deck was located right where our kitchen addition will go, so it would have had to be removed anyway.

"Solid" is an understatement when it comes to describing the construction of this deck. There were 27 steel support posts anchored in concrete. Removing those posts was the project for this weekend. Knowing that it was more work than I could do with pure grunt work and a shovel, I asked my friend, Terry, for some help.

Terry is a great guy. He's got a great assortment of equipment, and he is always looking for an opportunity to help someone with it. Terry had helped me pull out some old fence posts a few years ago with his Kubota tractor, so I thought I'd see if I could recruit his help again. When I asked if he could help me with the deck, he was his typical eager self.

Terry showed up with his tractor -- complete with backhoe attachment -- at about 9:00 on Saturday. He did some masterful backhoe work! For the posts that were right next to the house, I (along with my buddy, Phil) did some digging with a shovel to loosen things up. By 11:30, we were finished. It's amazing what some well-operated hydraulics (and a little sweat) can accomplish.

I now have an impressive pile of steel posts and concrete piled at the edge of the woods south of the house. The next step will be to rent or borrow a cutting torch to cut the steel posts off of the concrete chunks -- after all, they will make a nice addtion to the next load of metal that I haul off to the scrap yard for $$$. The concrete "chunks", on the other hand, won't be quite so easy to dispose of. I suppose I'll wait until the next time I rent a roll-off container from the city, and dispose of them then. Anyone need an unwieldy boat anchor?

Now that the deck is completely gone, we've got a fairly clean slate to start the kitchen addition. We meet with our architect on Tuesday, so we're excited to see the ideas she's drawn up. Hey, we're actually making some progress!

The next demolition project? THE BOILER. (To be continued....)

"The Tree" Comes Home

A few weeks ago I got a call from Mike Anderson, the guy that milled our oak tree into boards (see my 6/10/2010 post entitled The Tree). He called to say that the wood was ready to come out of the kiln, and he asked if I was interested in having him plane and square up the edges of the boards. His price to do the extra work was very reasonable, so I asked him to give me a call when it was ready.

Last Saturday morning, Mike called to say the wood was ready for delivery. His delivery charge would have been $90 (basically an hour and a half of labor), so I told him I would come pick it up myself. I got directions to his place, then headed out that afternoon.

To say that Mike lives in "the boonies" is an understatement. He doesn't live that many miles outside of town, but man, his place is remote. I took my wife's cell phone in case I got lost, and sure enough, I had to make a phone call halfway there to see if I was still on the right track. Somehow I went past the entrance to his driveway (which was a mile-long dirt road through dense woods) and ended up at his neighbor's place. I rang the neighbor's doorbell -- which I can only imagine hadn't had anyone ring it in a decade or two -- and asked if the gentleman would be kind enough to give me directions to Mike's house. Back up the road I went, this time turning into Mike's driveway which was demarcated by a mailbox in the shape of a gigantic fishing lure. How could have I have missed that the first time?

Once I traversed the woods back to Mike's barn, we loaded up the wood. It filled my pickup bed to the very top. My pickup was squatting just a bit under the load.

Mike was kind enough to give me a brief tour of his place. He showed me his solar kiln, which was impressive. It has a steeply sloping roof covered in clear fiberglass panels. On top of the kiln are two small solar panels that power a small circulation fan inside the kiln. Mike has even constructed a really cool rail platform that can be loaded with fresh wood outside the kiln, then easily rolled into the kiln.

When Mike offered to give me a tour of his house, I was quick to accept. First let me give you a little background. Mike's house is a log cabin -- actually more of a grand lodge. He and his wife began building it eight years ago, and they are close to being done. Mike's place is completely "off the grid", i.e. he generates his own electrical power via solar panels and a wind turbine.

The whole reason Mike bought the portable mill that he used to mill our tree into lumber was because he wanted to build his own log house. Every piece of wood in Mike's house was cut and milled right there on his property. The logs in his walls are ten inches square. His floors and cathedral ceiling are oak. (Mike: "We used the good stuff on the floor and used the lesser quality stuff for the ceiling.") He built his own kitchen cabinets from walnut that he felled and milled himself. He built a spiral staircase from walnut. His garage doors are walnut (single-slab doors). The main post in his living room (two stories) is a single red oak tree, stripped of bark, then coated in polyurethane. It is probably 36 inches in diameter.

The fireplace is massive. It is built of stone and rises, floor-to-ceiling, two stories (and twelve feet beyond the roof). Mike built it himself, and it provides all of the heat for their home. Right now, Mike is working on installing "air conditioning". It is a coil through which cool water circulates, and which has a fan that blows across the coil. The chilled (55 degree) water will be pumped from the bottom of Mike's pond, circulate through the unit, then be returned to the far side of the pond.

Needless to say, Mike's place (and his initiative) is really, really impressive. It made me think that our house remodeling project is "small beans" in comparison. Regardless, the oak tree in our front yard has returned home to be used in the remodeling project. It is nicely stacked in the basement for the meantime, filling the downstairs with the scent of freshly milled oak. If you take a deep breath, you can probably smell it, too.

Going "Green" To Save Some Green ($$)

I've never considered myself a "conservationist", but the more I dive into the whole renovation process, I'm realizing what a fun challenge it is. The idea here is to re-use as much as possible. And what I can't re-use, I'm making efforts to recycle. While I am glad that all of this is beneficial to the environment, I have to admit that the biggest motivation for me is saving money.

Re-use
One of the most obvious ways to save money on what will be a substantial project is to re-use as many things as I can throughout the remodeling process. In other words, why go out and buy something if I already own one of those somethings? Sure, if something is worn out beyond usefulness, or if it is plain ol' ugly, I'll get rid of it (although there is a better option than just tossing it in the dumpster -- more on that in a minute). But why throw away an existing window if I can restore and re-use it? Not only will I have a cool old historic window that matches the rest of those in the house, I will also have saved myself several hundred dollars to boot.

For example, there are three large windows in our dining room that will be taken out to open up an entry into the future kitchen addition. There is also a smaller window that will be removed to make a passage from the kitchen into the future butler's pantry (i.e., the current kitchen). If I were to throw away these windows and buy something of comparable quality (which would be tough to find), I would have to spend somewhere in the $3000 - $3600 range. High-quality windows are expensive, let me tell ya.

What we will do instead is re-use these windows. Our architect has already mentioned that she plans on using the three dining room windows in the future master bedroom addition. And the smaller window will replace an awkward circa 1959 window that, for reasons unknown, replaced an original window when the kitchen was remodeled many years ago by the previous owners. Reusing the windows (plus some others that I'll write about in a future blog) will save a LOT of green ($$).

There is another way to re-use items, even if I don't re-use them myself. Habitat For Humanity has something called the Habitat Re-store. It is a store where people can donate virtually any sort of building material or appliance that is in good enough shape to re-use -- doors, shutters, vanities, cabinets, light fixtures, appliances, windows, plumbing fixtures - you name it. Not only does it keep perfectly usable (albeit outdated) items out of the landfill, donors also can deduct the value of the item on their taxes as a charitable donation. These items are a great buy for people who own rental properties, or others who perhaps can't afford brand new items for their own home. And once in a while, you can come across a real treasure at the Habitat Restore. Several years ago, my wife bought a pair of large leaded-glass cabinet doors (probably from the 1920's) for only $12!! We've been storing them for years and now plan to use them when we build in a china hutch as part of our remodel.

In the cases where we can't re-use something, recycling is also a good option.

Recycle
I'll be the first to say that I am by no means a tree-hugger. However, I am discovering that recycling not only makes good use of resources, but it can also be a way to make back some of the money that we are spending on the remodeling. Anything that is metal is worth cash -- aluminum, steel, brass, copper, lead, etc.

You wouldn't think there's much steel in a traditional construction home, but it is amazing how many pounds of steel you can come up with when you start pulling nails. Honestly, we've just started scratching the surface of this remodeling project, but you wouldn't believe the number of nails and deck screws I've pulled/removed. Instead of throwing them away, I just started throwing them into a five-gallon pail. So far, I have filled two buckets, each of which weighed about eighty pounds. Then there were the bolts and brackets that held the deck joists to the posts -- probably another thirty pounds. Old pipes, old chains, old curtain rods, old shower pan, etc. To date, I've hauled 1000 pounds (literally) to the scrap yard.

The really good stuff, though, is copper and brass. Remember when I wrote about having the new electric service panel installed? I told the electrican to just leave the old wire and conduit. Just from the few feet of copper wire that carried power from the weatherhead above the electric meter to the old service panel, I got $24.50 from the scrap yard.

All together, my metal salvaging has earned me $100.25 so far (and we really have just barely started the remodeling). There will be several thousand pounds more steel when we remove the boiler, piping, and radiators.  And then there will be the old copper wire and plumbing that has yet to be replaced. Then there will be a few hundred pounds of aluminum when I get around to replacing the old storm windows with nice wooden ones.

The money I've made so far isn't such a big deal, but my choice is to either recoup a little on what I scrap, or pay the city to haul it off. It doesn't make much sense to me to pay someone to haul away something that has actual cash value.

Anyone have some old metal laying around that you'd like me to haul off for you? Anyone?

The Summer Of 1915

Having only a window unit air conditioner in our house, we are developing an appreciation of what the summer of 1915 might have felt like in this house. I don't know what the actual temperatures were in 1915, but there was another summer not too many years later that must have been similar to the hot weather we're having now. It was 1921.

Since most of our evenings are spent either indoors (sticky) or outside working on removing the old deck (downright sweaty), we are getting a little dose of early 20th-century Americana, particularly the decades of hot summers that were spent in this house. My curiosity got the best of me, so I started looking for weather archives online. The only records I could find for 1915 were accompanied by a request for a hefty $34.95 access fee to the information. NoThankYouVeryMuch.

I did find, however, some old newspapers on the Library of Congress website. One of the newspapers from the 1920's was The Columbia Evening Missourian. The front page of each edition reported the weather for the day. The print dates available varied, but I was able to find an edition that came right from the steamy summer of 1921. July 12th, to be exact. Warren G. Harding was president.

The high on July 12, 1921 was 94 degrees. The forecast for today was 95 degrees, although I'm not sure what the actual high ended up being. Regardless, it was hot.

One of the things that must have made the summers more bearable years ago were the first and second-floor sleeping porches. The first-floor porch had windows added (along with lots of rough cedar paneling) sometime in the 1970's, but the upstairs sleeping porch is still pretty much intact. There are a few casement windows, and each one is flanked by a pair of shutters. Behind each shutter is a screen that can be opened up to ventilate the room.

Quaint as the sleeping porch is, in this heat, I'll take our window-unit-air-conditioned bedroom anytime. Speaking of which, it's about time to get ready for bed. I'd better start up the air conditioner so the bedroom will be bearable once I hit the sack....

Some Follow-ups: Basement, Bugs, and HVAC

Here are a few follow-ups on some topics mentioned in previous blogs.

The Basement
A few weeks ago, I noted that the goal of doing my own jackhammering in the basement was to save money. At the time that I blogged about the hoped-for savings, I hadn't yet received the bill from the city for the rental/dumping charges on the roll-off container. The savings quoted by the company that installed the sump system was $1700 if I were to do my own jackhammering. Offsetting that savings was a cost of around $210 for a week's rental of a jackhammer. I just received the bill from the city for the roll-off service, which came to $270. Then there were also a couple of tools that I bought (a pick axe and a shovel with a straight forward edge, which made it easier to shovel the debris from the concrete floor). I'm including the cost of these tools, even though I will have them for the long term, because I wouldn't have purchased them had it not been for the basement project itself. They came to around $38. So bottom line, the savings ended up to be something like $1700 - $210 - $270 - $38 = $1182.

My wife asked me if I would have done the jackhammering myself if I had to do it all over again. I think the answer would still be "yes". The savings weren't as much as I had originally hoped, but money saved always amounts to more than just the obvious amount that wasn't spent. For example, let's say I'm in the 20% tax bracket. (Note: I have no idea what the actual IRS tax brackets are, or which one I fall into. I just plug the numbers into TurboTax every year and let it handle the rest.) If I were going to spend $1700, that means I would have to have earned more than $1700 in wages to bring home the $1700 to be paid to a contractor. I would have had to earn $2125 in order to have $1700 in take-home pay with which to pay the contractor. ($2125 - 20% income tax = $1700 take-home). Rather than paying that out to someone else though, I still have managed to keep $1182 in after-tax savings that I can now spend on something else that I need to do to the house. And since I like doing things myself, that $1182 will go a lot farther than it otherwise would.

But probably one of the best advantages to the whole thing is that I got to enrich my "life-experience" (and the experience of a few of my friends) by running a jackhammer! This is nuts, I realize, but hey....

The Bugs
We had the exterminator come about a week and a half ago. Our primary inspiration for inviting the exterminator was to get rid of the carpenter ants that, despite the lovely Midwest weather, wanted to come indoors to see us.

With the spraying complete, bugs are dying in droves. The basement seems to be their preferred place to expire. The ones that are the most dramatic about dying are the crickets. These guys do it up big time, which I will describe shortly.

I'm not sure what kind of crickets we have. They are utterly repulsive. They aren't like the black chirping crickets that I remember from growing up in Texas. These crickets are a light-tan-almost-albino variety. They don't even have a charming chirp. Their bodies are somewhat bulbous, and the don't crunch when you step on them -- they pop. Did I mention that they are absolutely repulsive? I'll take a roach over these things anytime. My wife still thinks roaches are worse. Well, at least she did think that. Thursday evening, we were working on getting the house cleaned up for a visit from my sister. My wife was tending to some laundry down in the basement. As she ascended the basement stairs, our conversation went something like this:

She: Augh! Augh! Disgusting!
Me: What?
She: The crickets! Augh! Disgusting!
Me: Are there a lot of them?
She: Not that many, but they are disgusting when they die!
Me: What do they do?

(Here comes the cricket drama I referred to earlier...)

She: Augh! Their legs fall off, and they lie there writhing and oozing liquid! Augh! Disgusting! Absolutely disgusting!

Seriously folks, leaking crickets are not something you want in your basement. I mean, we're glad they're dying, but the whole death process is as dramatic as something from a Shakespeare tragedy.

HVAC Update
We've heard back from one of the HVAC contractors with a bid for a dual (upstairs/downstairs) geothermal system. I'm meeting with one of the other contractors tomorrow to talk over his company's proposal. It seems odd to me that I haven't heard a peep from the other two contractors that are supposed to be bidding the job. Maybe with the hot weather we've been having, they're up to their eyeballs in requests from other people who want their system replaced now.

In the meantime, we're actually muddling through the hot weather pretty well. We have a window A/C in our bedroom which makes for pretty good sleeping, and there are lots of fans scattered throughout the house. Needless to say, shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flops are our standard uniforms here at home when we're not suited up to do demolition of one kind or another.

Well, now that the basement is cleaned up from all the jackhammering and plaster smashing, I think I'll go down and start putting my workshop back in order.....

The Tree

I've been out of town most of this week, so nothing more has been done to the house since I worked on tearing off the old deck last Saturday. But that doesn't mean I don't have a story to share about the house this week!

Back in March, we had some trees removed. There were a couple of hickory trees in the back yard that had suffered quite a bit of damage over the years. There was also a tall, skinny, crooked cedar tree that looked out of place in the middle of the back yard -- it looked a bit like what I call a "Dr. Seuss tree", if you know what I mean. There was also a big old female ginko tree right next to the house (it's just to the left of the house in blog photo, but you really can't distinguish it from the other trees around). The ginko was actually very beautiful, especially in the Fall when the leaves turned to brilliant yellow. Besides being too close to the house, the real problem with the ginko was the fact that it was the female variety. Now before any ladies in the audience accuse me of being a chauvinist, let me explain. The female variety of the ginko tree produces "fruit", that is, thousands of grape-sized berries. The berries aren't edible (as far as I know), but once they fall to the ground, they begin to decompose. You would not believe the stench. The only way I can describe it is to say it is a blend of a couple of other odors: 10% "dead animal" mingled with 90% "fresh dog poo". The smell lingers for weeks as the berries rot. Although my wife and I loved the looks of the tree, we knew it had to go. Our future master bedroom addition will be right next to where the ginko stood, and we couldn't fathom that smell just outside the window for a few months each year.

Despite my lengthy description of the ginko tree, this blog entry is actually about the large red oak tree that is positioned right in front of the house in the main blog photo. That tree was also removed in March, but I had this kind of crazy idea that I think will turn out to be really cool. When the tree was taken down, I told the tree service to leave as much of the trunk as was still in good shape. The trunk went up about 22 feet before there were any branches, so I was hopeful that there would be a lot of good lumber there.

As it turned out, branches that had broken off years ago had left voids in the upper trunk where rainwater collected and rotted the tree, so only about 15-1/2 feet of the trunk was still in good shape. The tree was huge, so the log that resulted was about 39 inches in diameter. It was so big that it had to be lowered with a crane so as not to leave a crater in the yard.

Before I had the tree taken down, I had done some research to see if I could figure out how to get the log milled into usable lumber. After some searching on the internet, I found a guy (Mike) with a mobile lumber mill who lives less than 20 miles away. Woo hoo! When he showed up, the contraption below was what he brought to cut the lumber.

The mill has a couple of big hydraulic arms on one side that picked up the log and rolled it onto the cutting area. I had also arranged with Mike to dry the wood for me in his solar kiln. The kiln can only take stock up to 12 feet long, so I had him divide the trunk into an 8 foot section and a 7-1/2 foot section. He cut it in two with his chainsaw, then the fun began!

At first, he made several passes to cut off the bark, followed by several plain-sawn slabs to get the log down to a roughly 22-inch square "post". Then, as I had requested, he began quarter-sawing the rest of the wood. If you're not familiar with the various types of cuts that can be done when producing lumber, quartersawn oak is the type that yields what is known as "tiger oak", which is common on lots of antique oak furniture.

By the time Mike and his wife (they work as a team) had finished sawing up the tree trunk, there was what I would estimate to be about 300 board feet of plainsawn boards, plus about 500 board feet of quartersawn boards. The great thing is that this will likely be more than enough lumber to build all of the cabinets and bathroom vanities for our remodeling project.

One thing I forgot to mention was that once the tree had been cut down, I counted 96 annual rings in the trunk. That means the tree was a seedling when the house was built in 1915. I think it is only fitting that the tree that stood watch over the front porch for so many years should be incorporated back into the house as we remodel it. There aren't too many people who can say that the wood for their cabinets and trim grew right out in the front yard!

Plaster Dust

Last weekend was a monumental step toward making the house more mechanically suited for modern living. Two long days of work resulted in the removal of the plaster ceiling in the basement, which will make way for new plumbing, wiring, and ducts.

Armed with hammers, respirators, ear plugs, leather gloves, and goggles, my wife and I started smashing out the ceiling. Fortunately, the basement doorways are all juuuuust wide enough for the wheelbarrow, so we were able to shovel the rubble into the wheelbarrow and walk it out of the basement, through the garage, and into the roll-off dumpster. With all of the strips of wood lath that we removed, I mused about opening an antique yard stick company. Seems a shame to throw away all those sticks -- I can just imagine some guy who builds artsy birdhouses to sell at craft fairs wincing at the thought of tossing them out. It chafes against my inner packrat to throw them away, but I'll let logic win out this time. Kindling, anyone?

Along with taking out the plaster ceilings, I also removed a wall that separated what was once the coal room from the boiler room. The wall was constructed of blocks of what many folks around here refer to as "clay tile". I'm not sure that is exactly the correct term for these blocks. In my mind, they are essentially the early twentieth-century equivalent to today's cinder blocks. They are smaller and lighter than cinder blocks and made of a terra cotta type clay. After smashing a few of the top layers of the blocks, I was able to just start rocking the wall back and forth little by little until I was able to push it over. There's nothing like taking down a masonry wall with your bare hands to make you feel just a smidge more manly (if only in your own imagination).

Now that the plaster is gone, all of the wiring and pipes are exposed in the basement. OH  MY  GOODNESS. The wiring is simultaneously fascinating (from a museum/historical perspective) and terrifying. Except for the "upgrades" -- and I use that term loosely -- that occurred in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's, the basement is mostly wired with the original knob-and-tube wiring. It all appears to be in good shape, but I'm certain the breaker is rated for more amperage than the wire should carry. Not to worry, though. I'm very careful about how much load I put on anything connected to that circuit. I'll be replacing it soon.

It's a relief to have all that plaster torn out and the wall taken down. It was a messy job that I had not been looking forward to. When we were finished with the whole thing, I looked something like a coal miner, covered in soot. The shower I took afterward was one of the longest I've had in quite some time. Ahhhhhhh....

Wired For The 21st Century

Today we made big strides toward more modern living. I had an electrician switch out our old 100-amp service panel with a shiny new 200-amp panel. If a breaker box can be beautiful, this one is -- especially compared to the one that was there. Evidently at some point in the past, a fire had occurred in the old panel. Based on its location in the basement (directly under the dishwasher), I would guess that a water leak had dripped its way in to the old panel and caused a fire. There are still some charred-but-useable wires that were blackened when the panel caught fire. I'll be changing out all of the old wiring as we remodel, so the burned wires will be okay for now.

The best part about the new panel is that it will allow us to move ahead with central air-conditioning. The house is still heated by a boiler and radiators, but the only A/C in the house when we bought it was five window units. Because the exterior walls are solid masonry, the house is a bit like a cave. That is, it stays reasonably cool. Lots of big trees around also help fend off direct sunlight. The last few days have been a bit uncomfortable though, because the temperatures have been in the mid-80's. The temerature in the house isn't too auwfully hot, but with no central A/C to remove the moisture from the air, the humidity level inside has been less than comfortable.

When it became obvious earlier this week that the warmer temperatures were going to hang around for awhile, I was inspired to get on the ball and get one of the window units installed in our bedroom. I had removed the units when the weather started cooling off last Fall. The previous owners left them installed year 'round, which explains why their winter gas bills sometimes reached the $500 to $600 range. Ouch!

Now that we're using the window unit at night, my wife refers to our bedroom as "the hotel room". It has that familiar hotel room A/C sound kicking on and off throughout the night. And although the unit is very small and rated as an "Energy Star" appliance, it really uses the juice. I borrowed a gadget from a friend of mine that tells you how much it costs to run a particular electrical device. You just plug the gadget into the outlet, plug the appliance into the gadget, then use the buttons on the gadget to enter the local cost per kilowatt hour (this info is on my electric bill). After running the unit the first night, I was amazed to see that this tiny A/C uses about $2.00 of electricity over an eight hour period. When you think about cooling a small bedroom for only 8 hours a night costing $60 per month, you can begin to see how much more efficient a central A/C system can be. Our last house had a new 15-SEER Carrier brand A/C that only cost about $60 per month to cool the entire house.

Speaking of central air, I have a couple of different contractors coming tomorrow to give bids on installing a system. I am really hoping that with the 30% federal tax credit on geothermal systems, we just might be able to afford that option. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

A Fresh Dumpster and The Attack Of The Carpenter Ants

The city solid waste services came and emptied the dumpster, so we're ready for the next big mess -- tearing out the plaster ceiling in the basement and removing one of the basement walls. I'm not looking forward to the dust, folks. There is nothing as fine and choking as plaster dust. I bought a bona fide 3M filtration mask, though. It's the rubber type with screw-on filters that can be changed out as needed. I highly recommend this kind of mask rather than the cheap white cup-shaped masks that can be bought almost anywhere. The cheapies let lots of dust in because they never really can form a seal on your face like the rubber masks. If you want the good kind, you'll probably have to go to an industrial supply type of store. I bought mine at Grainger Industrial Supply.

I don't have a clever segue into the ant problem. All I can say is we got 'em. Big ol' honkin' black carpenter ants. They were running amok recently when I started tearing off the old rotting deck. I thought they'd decided to pack their bags and head to a nice tropical locale, but I think they were just hanging out under a rock, planning their revenge. So it looks like I'll need to make a call to the exterminator tomorrow. My wife has made it abundantly clear that she does not  like the ants.

Don't they eat those things as a delicacy in some parts of the world?

Where to start? The jackhammer!

With so many things to do on the house, it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes to figure what needs to be done first. We start talking about something that we want to do to the house, and then we realize that before we do that thing, this other thing needs to be done first. Oh, but before we can do that other thing, there are these two other bits of work that need to be done.

My wife and I love the "finish work" -- you know, the nice aesthetic things that make a house a real gem. But before we get to any of that, we've realized that there are a lot of "infrastructure" improvements that need to be made. Although we had two or three options as to our first substantial work effort, getting the basement waterproofed recently became an obvious first step. Our recent Spring rains made it clear that we needed to just bite the bullet and fix the basement.

A little over nine years ago, we owned a house that was built back in the 1940's. It had the same classic leaky basement problems as our current home. We had a company trench out along the inside of the basement and install a sump pump. Let me tell ya, these guys earned their money. The basement in that house was what I call a "bathtub basement" -- that is, the entire basement was completely underground; there was no way to walk out of the basement, except going upstairs to the main level. What that meant was that all of the concrete that was broken out had to be schlepped upstairs, two 5-gallon bucket-loads at a time. As you can imagine, these guys were hulks.

The trench/sump system worked like a charm in our other house, so we called the contractor back to give us a bid on our current basement. The company we used is locally owned, but is a franchise of a national company, Basement Systems. The parent company's website is www.basementsystems.com. I highly recommend you have a local representative come look at your basement if you are having water problems. We looked at several companies before we selected Basement Systems and no one had as good a solution. Don't let a contractor talk you into digging out all around the outside of your house with a backhoe (likely destroying all your landscaping) -- this interior trench system really works.

The bid came back quite a bit higher than we were hoping, so we opted for a lower priced sump pump (the one they initially recommended consisted of a pump, a back-up pump, and a battery back-up pump). Since our basement will always remain a workshop, finishing room, and HVAC room, we didn't need the extra security of the deluxe pump system. Worst case, if the power goes out or the pump fails, the water will overflow into the floor drain that is just a couple of feet from the sump.

One other somewhat crazy idea I had to save money was to ask the contractor if they would lower their bid if I jackhammered the trench in the basement myself. After some figuring, they offered to knock $1700 off of the price of the job if I did the jackhammering and prep work myself. Being a cheapskate (and always looking for an opportunity to use a new power tool!), I decided to rent a jackhammer and give it a try. It was about as cheap to rent the jackhammer for a week as it was for three days, so I just kept the thing for a week, which set me back $210. I also had to rent a roll-off dumpster from the city so I would have a place to dump all that broken concrete. I haven't had the city pick up the dumpster just yet, so I'm not sure what the total charges will be. They charge a fee to pick up the dumpster, plus a per ton charge. We'll just have to see how much money I actually ended up saving when it is all said and done.

The day after the contractor installed the trench system and sump pump, we had a torrential rain. Not a drop of water in the basement! Woo hoo! It rained again a couple of times last week and the basement stayed dry. Our first milestone done!

This coming week will also be a banner week. On Tuesday, an electrician will be upgrading the electrical panel to 200-amp service. Then on Wednesday, we meet with the architect we've chosen to begin discussing plans for our kitchen remodel and our master bedroom addition.

Off to bed with me. Maybe I'll dream about jackhammers.....

Here we go!

This is it -- the first posting. We bought our house back in September (2009), but I didn't really get inspired to do the blog until my wife and I watched "Julie and Julia" last weekend. If you've seen the movie, you'll understand the blog inspiration.

Here's the scoop on our house -- it is a 1915 Craftsman-style Tudor Revival. We bought it from the estate of Clay and Frances Cooper. Mr. Cooper was a University of Missouri football coach for around 40 years, and everyone I talk to has only good things to say about him and Mrs. Cooper. They bought the house in 1957 for the princely sum of $18,000. The Coopers raised eight (count 'em: eight) kids in this house with only ONE (count 'em: ONE) full bath. Somewhere along the way, they added a half-bath in a closet off the landing that leads to the basement. I'm not saying the half-bath is small, but let's just say that you need to know which way you plan to face before you go in.

The house needs absolutely everything: re-wiring, re-plumbing, central heat & air (it still has a boiler and radiators), new kitchen, new bathrooms, MORE bathrooms, and a real garage. There is no damper in the fireplace, nor are there chimney caps on the flues. Until last week, the basement ran rivers when it rained (I'll post later about the jackhammer adventure in the basement). On the brighter side, the house did come with a brand new roof when we bought it. Unfortunately, the roofers weren't so clever with the flashing around the chimney, so I need to do some work there, too.....

With all the issues the house has, though, we absolutely love it. Hope you enjoy following along as we make it into our "forever" house. I will post some pictures soon.