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.)