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!