The Death and Rebirth of My HVAC System

Smack in the middle of an epic heatwave, on or around 6/13/2017, I realized that my air conditioner wasn't working.  I didn't realize it at first.  I keep my house on the warm side - with the A/C set to around 75.  Also, because I have a one zone system and 4 floors + a basement, I'm used to the situation where it is 15 degrees warmer upstairs.

However, when I was playing guitar on Tuesday evening and realized I was literally pouring sweat and Jalapeno was panting on the floor next to me, I checked my thermometer and it was in the high 80s on the 3rd floor and over 90 degrees on the 4th.  That wasn't normal.  The outdoor unit seemed to be working... the fan was spinning.  The unit in the basement was making noise.  But nothing was cooling down the house.

To complicate the situation, the only fan I owned was one used for construction projects (such as blowing plaster or brick dust out the window).  Elora was fine in the basement.  It stays relatively cool down there - mid 70s.  However, poor Jali was another story.  I put him in daycare.

Early the next morning I had to leave for my sister's surgery in Hershey.  I called Air Dynamics HVAC from the waiting room and we arranged a time for them to come out.  (They would have been willing to rearrange things to come that day, but I wasn't home).  On the way back to Philly, I stopped at Kohl's to pick up a few fans to tide us over and ordered two more on Amazon.  (At least I'm prepared if there is a next time... which now that I own 4 oscillating fans, there probably won't be).

In the end, the problem was diagnosed as a leak (of unknown size) in the coil.  It eventually had leaked out all of the refrigerant and so there was nothing to cool with.  They estimated that my unit was 20 years old and it still used R22 refrigerant, which is also very expensive, since it is being phased out.  We ended up topping off the refrigerant (not cheap, although he sold it to me at cost) to allow the system to be used for a short time and moved ahead with planning a new system.  Once Bernie and I settled on a system, the biggest obstacle was figuring out how we'd get the outdoor and indoor units in place.  I have a very narrow and windy staircase leading down to the basement and the alley access to the area in back of my house is also more narrow than the unit of the size I needed for my house.  As part of the work, we also planned for moving a few vents into more central locations to allow for better air flow.  (For example, the only supply vent to the back of the 1st floor was underneath some built in shelves... it wasn't doing much but cooling down my juicer).

Today (7/17) is the day that the crew arrived to do the work.  I assumed that there would be a fair amount of distractions with the project (and was correct), and I also needed to complete some planning for my upcoming 40th birthday party, so it has been a good opportunity to catch up on personal work that can be more easily interrupted than let's say, a conference call.

The album speaks for itself, but here are a few highlights of the work:
- The new outdoor unit is twice as big in every dimension than the old one (see the comparison).

Bernie believes that I was probably undersized to begin with given my space limitations, but he really did not want to have me spend the money on another undersized unit and continue to live with very hot 3rd and 4th floors in the summer and freezing cold 1st and 2nd floors in the winter.   I really appreciate his dedication to this.
- The crew ended up building a wooden frame, similar to the type that I imagine the pharaohs in Egypt were carried around on, and carried the new unit over the top of the fence through an alley about 1/3 of the width of the unit and then into my backyard area through a 10' section of fence they removed temporarily.
- My spiral staircases made poor Elvis, who was assigned to do the duct work on the 3rd floor, dizzy.  They could not believe I was running up and down the stairs all day, but I'm very used to them.  He moved the vent to the middle of the room - coming down from the ceiling with spiral ducts - so that I'd get more air flow.  I think it looks pretty cool!
- They had to remove my door in the basement (temporarily) to get the indoor unit down there, but nobody fell down the stairs or broke the walls, so that's a plus!
- The crew was here for almost 12 straight hours and didn't stop for anymore more than a cigarette break until I ordered pizza and chicken fingers for them at 5:30pm.  By the end of the day, we were all pouring sweat!

Even though we did inadvertently let every insect in Old City into the house with all the in and out that was necessary, I'm super pleased with the team who did this project and with Air Dynamics.  I would recommend them to anyone!

Here is an album of super interesting HVAC pictures :)

Bathroom Facelift

Although I haven't posted for awhile, I've been hard at work on several projects at the house.

One of the big projects that I started Memorial Day weekend and finished at the end of June is a project to update the fixtures, faucets, and mirrors in my bathrooms, repair the 3rd floor bathroom ceiling where there had been a leak, and then freshen up the paint throughout.  (The project idea started by just replacing the sink faucets, but there was significant scope creep).

The previous owners of the house appear to have loved that bright, shiny yellow gold color, because they put it everywhere.

Both bathrooms used large full length mirrors, oriented sideways, for the vanity mirrors.  The mirrors had antiqued gold frames and were 2-3x as wide as the vanities.  Used as full length mirrors they are actually quite beautiful, but they overwhelmed the room as vanity mirrors.

The sink faucets were both of that bright gold color with white porcelain accents and neither drain trap worked properly.

Finally, all of the outlet plugs, towel holders, and toilet paper holders were the same color and the toilet paper holders were embedded into the wall.

In the end the entire project cost me about $1,000, but the changes have really made a huge difference to both bathrooms and brought them more in line with my personal preferences.

2nd Floor Bathroom
Pictures
Either nickel or bronze could have worked with the second floor bathroom.  The shower has nickel accents already.  In the end, I decided to go with bronze for rest of the room, and I think that worked out well...with the possible downside that the accents are dark like the wall paint color, and in hindsight, nickel probably would have brightened things up a bit.  Oh well... I fell in love with the faucet and installed that first and planned everything else around it.

Working in this room was a perfect of example that sometimes it is the projects you expect to be simple that end up eating hours and dollars.  This was the first time I had replaced a drain trap and faucet myself, although I'd seen others do it.  I read the instructions a million times, spent hours making sure I had the right size fittings for my supply lines, and that project actually went incredibly smoothly.

Feeling confident, I started on what should have been a simple project... replacing the switch plates.  When I removed the bright gold switch plate from the GCIF outlet near the sink, I found that the entire outlet was being held in place by very little... mostly the switch plate.  It was installed upside down, attached to a thin metal shim, and it basically fell out of the wall, when I took the face plate off.  Soon after it tripped the circuit breaker and smoke came out of the outlet.  Not a good sign.

I did some research and headed to home depot.  I found a new GCIF outlet (this time that actually matched the AMP of the circuit it was attached to).  [Side note:  That type of outlet is expensive!  I had to make sure to get it right the first time!]  I talked to one of the home depot employees about how to handle the fact that there was nothing to attach it to in the walls and showed pictures of the current set up.  He advised me to get a plastic box for it and not use the metal that was there and explained that if I could reach my hand and a small piece of 2x4 into the hole, I could probably drill it into the dry wall from the outside, and then use that to attach the box.  It was tricky, but it worked!  I was also able to replace the outlet without issue and it tested in the green.  The outlets actually have excellent instructions with them.  This was one of the first times, though, that I felt I intuitively understood how the wiring was supposed to work rather than just listening to instructions.  It finally made sense. I'm not bragging, because it took a long time.  Electrical currents and projects related to them have never made intuitive sense to me, even as far back as middle school shop class... I just memorized the things the teacher said so I could do them... but it didn't click until 25 years later. :)

The final unexpected obstacle with this bathroom came, when I went to replace the flushing handle... again, another "simple" project that I actually started at about 15 minutes to 5pm as my last project before happy hour.  Again, I read the instructions many times, and started in.  Unfortunately, the bolt was rusted in on the original handle.  I'm not sure how long it had been there, but obviously many, many years.  Thankfully, one of my plumbing wrenches helped me out by providing enough of a strong hold that I was able to get enough leverage to budge it.  By the time I was done it was after 6pm and I was covered in sweat, but I had a bronze flushing handle. :-)

The following weekend I just had left the straightforward tasks of painting, installing new door handles (another new task for me, but pretty easy), and installing the new mirror.  I'm really happy with how it all turned out!

3rd Floor Bathroom
Pictures

I made all of the same changes to the 3rd floor bathroom as I did in the 2nd floor bathroom, except without the blown GCIF outlet.  Things went pretty smoothly for my 3rd floor projects with the exception of the ceiling work, which was a bear.  The 3rd floor bathroom ceiling is vaulted and has a skylight.  I needed to buy a new 10' ladder in order to reach the highest parts.  There was damage to the highest piece from a (now fixed) roof leak.  The roof leak also sent a crack running down most seams of the ceiling.  I also wanted to clean up the previous work I had done with my skylight finishing, if possible.

Here is what I learned from this experience:
- I really hate working above my head like that.
- I'm really not that good at patching/sanding.  It could be that I'm still feeling out what the proper products and tools are to use, but I'm not great at getting it all smooth.
- I should have used joint compound and metal tools for my skylight finishing work to begin with... not mud.
- Although joint compound is perfect for skylight finishing, it isn't the same as mud and doesn't sand well, so should not be used for general wall patching, when one runs out of mud.

The ceiling needed a lot of work, and in the end, for all the reasons listed above, the work isn't perfect, but I think it looks pretty good.  I was able to improve the original skylight work, but other areas where I inappropriately used joint compound that wouldn't sand, don't look as good.  On the plus side, the entire ceiling is the same color now and there is no more leak damage!

I was also able to apply a new skill when it came to patching the large holes left by removing the embedded toilet paper holders.  I used the same technique used for mounting the 2nd floor outlet box and drilled pieces of 2x4 into the surrounding wall around the hole (from the inside), creating a frame.  I then attached a piece of dry wall to that frame and patched up from there.

What I'm probably most proud of in this room is that I was able to find a large shower curtain with a pattern that pulled together the paint color, the new brushed nickel accents, and even use of the full length mirror that had been above the vanity.

Sad post script:  About a week after completing this work in the bathroom, I took a bath last night and went to the 2nd floor to get shampoo.  I noticed when I did this that water was leaking from the 3rd floor into my 2nd floor shower at a really good clip.  I'm not sure for how long this has been happening.  I would normally never be in the 2nd floor while using the 3rd floor bath... but there is evidence that it has been happening for a while.  :(  I had a plumber out to look at the 3rd floor back and it is one of the jets that is leaking.  He wasn't about to fix it, as he doesn't work on Jacuzzi tubs.  For now, I put a plastic bag over it to plug the jet with some white duct tape.  It doesn't leak when just used as a shower, and I can't deal with one more big repair right now.

Back to the Pink Tool Belt

As part of my roofing work, the team installed a skylight above my 3rd floor bathtub.  They did all the exterior installation but didn't do any of the interior work.

After a few failed attempts at hiring someone to complete that finishing work for me and watching a handy Bob Villa youtube video a few times, I decided to do it myself.  The work involved skills that I've done before while working on the Fitler Square house.

Basically, I needed to:
- Cut the opening, using the guide screws the roofers had put in place
- Complete the framing
- Cut drywall and attach it to the framing and slide it into the grooves of the skylight (Note: one of the grooves was partially covered in the install, so I had to improvise)
- Install metal corner beat along the bottom edges of the framing
- Install corner bead in the inside corners
- Tape and mud
- Sand
- Sand
- Sand
- Repeat mud and sand
- Prime
- Look for the ceiling paint originally used by the former home owners
- Paint
- Realize that the only color that could have possibly been the ceiling color from the paint that remained almost but not quite matched the rest of the ceiling
- Accept that my family was going to arrive in 12 hours to stay with me for marathon weekend and time was up

As my last bullet implies, I was working against the clock, because I wanted to have the project done before my family came to stay with me for Marathon weekend.  (That was my fault... overly ambitious).

It certainly isn't my best work, but I'm pretty happy with the result.  The silver-grey lining is that, because my home is old there are many places in the wood work and plaster that aren't 100% flush and even... so it kind of blends in for now.

I learned a few lessons from this work:
- When you have a small area that is mostly covered with mud - just cover the whole thing, because no amount of sanding is going to get it even for that small part in the middle that doesn't need mud.
- I either didn't have the right sanding tools or just wasn't strong enough to sand adequately while working upside down, on a ladder.  My arms were exhausted.
- I bought both plastic and metal mud spreaders.  I should have used the metal ones.  I think my application would have been more even.

At some point, the rest of the ceiling will need to be cleaned up, and I'll see about evening things out at that time.

For now, though, I'll enjoy being able to watch it snow from the comfort of a hot bath. :-)

Here are some pictures of the process along with captions:  Skylight Finishing Work

I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys a Happy Thanksgiving!

Focus on the Exterior

An increasing intolerance for seeing the chewed up trim on the exterior of my house and the merlot colored door drove me to hire house painters in August to paint the wood work on the exterior of my house and the door.  In the course of the project, I learned that two of my window sills were thoroughly rotted and needed to be refashioned.

For paint colors, I chose from the Benjamin Moore Williamsburg Collection - Harwood Putty for the trim and Randolph Grey for the door.

I was reasonably happy with the end result - particularly the door.  The people who did the actual painting were friendly and sweet.  However, I did not have a good experience with the owner of the company, and it became clear that the price was nearly 3 times what it should have been, given the scope of work they actually did.

What I requested was that they strip off the layers of old paint first and then reprime and repaint.  The cost they quoted me made sense for that level of work.  What they actually did was just cursory scraping (with no paint stripper applied) and then reprimed and painted.  When I complained, I wasn't given a satisfactory explanation and mostly condescension about how much work it is to strip many layers of paint.  (My response - "I know.  I've done it myself, and the estimate you gave me was commensurate with that level of effort.").

In the end, they gave me a price break on the second window sill repair, and he knew I was not happy overall.  I can't recommend them based on my experience, but I am happy with the improved look of the exterior of my home.

Here are some pictures:  Pictures of Newly Painted House

Shortly after the painting was finished, I was playing with the animals on the 4th floor and noticed a very nasty leak in the corner.  That resulted in a call to the roofers - Bill Henkel Contracting - to come take a look and the information that I would need the entire front of my roof replaced. :-(  This wasn't a huge surprise.  In my home inspection, I learned that the roof had max 3-5 years of life left.  However, I wasn't too thrilled that the demise of the roof happened right after a large expenditure on the painting project.

I will say, though, that my experience working with Bill and his team was amazing.  I've already reached out to them to see what their scope of contracting jobs covers, since I have a few other projects that I'd like to get done next year, and I'd be happy to work with them again.

The primary part of the roof replacement is complete as of yesterday.  Here are some pictures that Bill sent me:  Pictures of Completed Roof Work

They will also be installing a sky light above my 3rd floor bath tub, and that work should be completed next week!

I'm very excited to see these improvements materialize. :)

A Few Small Electrical Projects

Today I worked from home so that I could get two projects complete:

1) Get an estimate for scraping and repainting of the wood trim around my door and windows on the front of the house.
2) Get two electrical projects completed - First, replace the 220 V outlet that had been available for my stove with a 110 V one that would work for my new stove; Second, get the motion sensor flood light out back fixed/replaced.

I didn't even have to meet the person who came to take pictures of my trim for the estimate.  He was going to come at 7am and just take a few pictures, but I never saw him.  I was feeling sick this morning and stayed upstairs longer than usual, so I didn't make it down until about 7:30am.  I'm eager to get the estimate and see when we can get the work scheduled!  The paint on the trim is pretty chewed up, and I think that will make the house look a lot better.

For the electrical work, I hired Generation 3 Electric again. Both projects were small, but they required more prep work than I had allowed time for this morning.

First, when I moved in, nothing on the electricity panel was labeled.  The few breakers I had identified have been by accident when something tripped or by much trial and error.  So, this morning, after I got back down, I had about 40 minutes until I had to log on for work, and I needed to identify both the stove outlet and motion sensor breaker.  In reality it took me about 1 hour and 30 minutes to do that and 28 full trips up and down all the stairs.  The good news is that I have about half of my panel identified now!

The electrician arrived just before noon.  What should have been a much simpler job was complicated once again by the fact that my kitchen isn't accessible from the basement.  He wanted to run a new, smaller wire for the stove outlet, but we could not figure out how to do that since the wire disappeared to somewhere inaccessible and then reappear behind a wood panel behind the stove.  I told him I didn't want the outlet to cost more than my stove did.  He agreed, and we came up with a work around that we were both OK with.

The motion sensor was a disaster waiting to happen.  I think a child must have installed the original one.  The mounting box was both the wrong shape and only approved for indoor use.  The light bulbs - same.  If the original sensor had any protection against the elements that would prevent the sensors from being clogged, it was long gone.  So, he ended up replacing the entire thing and putting outdoor approved flood lights.

He finished about 10 minutes after 2, which made me 10 minutes late for my meeting.

And then karma made me pay for that by bringing my way a serious sales complaint to jump on that has been consuming the rest of my day.

Here are the pictures of what was completed today.

My next project I'm planning is to replace the fence in my little back "yard" area and get some pavers installed to make the floor level.  The timing will depend on how much the trim estimate comes in at.  I was able to track down the person who owns the house next to me and gave him a call today to talk to him about that project, since it will impact his renters while it is going on.

Gas Range Project

After two weeks straight of complete insanity at work with a broken foot thrown in for half time, I'm happy to announce that today we were able to finish operation gas range!  Chuck and Jim from Hearth and Stove (who did my gas fireplaces and lined my wood burning chimney) came to run the gas lines for me and hooked up my stove as well.

When I bought this house, it had an electric stove and a refrigerator - both of which were close to being on their way out.  I really prefer a gas range, but I wasn't sure it was going to be possible.  When my house was built, the house ended on the threshold of the kitchen and bathrooms.  That entire back part was added on later, presumably when running water was added to the house, and is over a slab instead of the basement.

About 3 weeks ago, my refrigerator officially died, so I replaced that.  Then around the same time, my stove started to intermittently not work.  It would take 2 hours to bake a sweet potato at 475 degrees and other such nonsense.  I mapped out a plan for the gas lines that had them coming upstairs in the dining room and running along the baseboard.  It wasn't attractive or ideal, and I didn't prefer it, but it would make my gas range possible.

I called Dan from Hearth and Stove to come check things out and give me an estimate.  He and Jeff came and were able to come up with an even better plan... if they ran the gas lines through the basement and out into my breeze way area, they could then come back into the kitchen from the outside.  This had the added benefit of providing me with a natural gas line T outside where I could hook up a natural gas grill in the future.

Today the work was scheduled.  Chuck and Jim came, worked expertly through the hurdles, and were even able to install the range shut off valve in such a way that I could access it by just pulling out the drawer and shutting it off rather than lose the drawer as was the original plan.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with different cooking techniques with my CSA and garden vegetables.  It should be a fun summer!

I messed up on my grill selection, though.  I bought a propane grill, thinking that it would work with natural gas as well.  Not so, and although some brands of grills have conversion kits, I couldn't find one anywhere for the Cuisinart one I bought (CGG-200).  I can always plan for a natural gas grill when this one wears out and when I clean up that back area more with pavers and other things to make it pretty... probably a few years from now.

Here are a few pictures of the work and the end results.  Now I just need to get a propane tank before Father's Day!

Pictures of Project

Finishing the Front Room

Over the past few weeks, we were able to finish the remaining projects to wrap up the front room.

1) Install the floor box for the outlet that was formerly in the baseboard.  (The one that I first blew out while exposing the brick wall and then rewired into a new outlet temporarily).
2) Install and coax cable.
3) Put trim around the brick wall - all four sides.

At the recommendation of my friend, Dena, I hired Generation 3 to come to the electrical work.  It was a small job, and one that I probably could have done myself, but I wasn't confident in making the hole in the floor.  I also have no experience with coax cable.  In the end, it was a reasonable price to hire someone and make sure it was done right!

I hired Nate Gavin again to do the trim.  He is very laid back, and I always like how we can design the solutions together and he is very good at just going with the flow of the project.  He ended up doing the priming and painting for me as well and repairing the plaster on the side walls and didn't increase his estimate at all.

I really, really love the room.  It has transformed from a room that had potential but wasn't very usable or welcoming to very much the opposite!  I love to read in there, sit down with the animals, and watch the news.

In total, here are the projects that I did this year for that room:

• Exposed the brick wall through removal of horse hair plaster (all chisel and hammer work due to the softness of the brick)
• Had the chimney restored and lined so that the first floor fire place could be wood burning (Hearth & Stove)
• Purchased tile from Tiffany at Earthstone Tileworks and hired Jason from Earthstone Tileworks to complete the fireplace surround, since wood paneling was coming all the way to the fire box
• Hired Nate Gavin to remove the wood panels and refashion them around the tile surround
• Relocated the outlet into a floor box and had a coaxial cable installed so that I could set up my entertaining stand along the brick wall (previously, it was installed above the fireplace with all wiring and outlets in that area) (Generation 3)
• Put trim around the brick wall (Nate Gavin)

I've been giving some thought as to what my big 2016 projects will be, but I'm planning to take the first quarter off from home improvement, replenish the emergency fund, and enjoy the space for awhile.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year!  There is so much to be thankful for!

Here are some pictures of the most recent projects.