Our New Old House

Last week I had a visit from an energy efficiency specialist from our local energy company, MidAmerican. MidAmerican has a program called EnergyAdvantage: Save Some Green. Homeowners who get their electricity and natural gas from MidAmerican can call for an hour long appointment in which a specialist will walk through your home with you, take notes on the current state of your home’s insulation and energy usage, and then make suggestions on how to improve the energy efficiency.

He started by going over a printout of the last year of my energy bills. He gave me an idea of the averages used by other similar houses and let me know where our usage for the past year falls on that scale.

When I told him were looking at the possibility of replacing our furnace and adding central air, he explained to me the factors that go into determining the size of units we need.

1. Square footage to heat and cool
2. Number of windows and doors on exterior walls
3. Existing value of insulation

With that in mind, he figured that our house probably needs a 60,000 BTU furnace.

Now, one important thing about the existing furnace is that the home inspector we had to look at it wrote down the wrong date for when our current furnace was installed. He accidentally wrote down 1983, which is correct for the water heater. But the furnace was installed in 1997! Keep in mind that three contractors came out and looked at our furnace and also didn’t notice what year it was, or did notice and didn’t choose to point out that our furnace is supposed to last 20 years and probably doesn’t need to be replaced. We were thinking of replacing it based on it being nearly 25 years old! With this new information, we’re not necessarily bent on replacing the furnace part. It’s still under consideration.

He went through the house and helped me identify the weakest spots in our insulation. A lot of that was painfully obvious, but it was good to get a few suggestions on how to most cost effectively repair those weaknesses.

One major weakness is the coal chute. He recommended bricking it up with hollow glass bricks. That way we can let in light, but it’ll be a good insulation for the spot.

Another important aspect of our insulation that’s lacking is the attic. Everyone thusfar has described the attic as a “half story” but on account of the insulation properties he noted, the MidAmerican guy said it’s just a converted attic. The things that indicated to him that it’s never been considered “living space” are that the floor and crawlspaces are packed with insulation but there’s no insulation under the roof. He said I can change that and then it’ll be more efficient, but it will require tearing down the plaster and lath ceiling, insulating that space under the roof, and then putting up drywall. I suppose that’s an option, but I think we’ll go ahead and improve the window insulation, put doors on the crawlspaces, and see how well the place stays heated and cooled this year before deciding to add that task to our list. It may be possible to remove some of the insulation from under the floorboards in the meantime, but I don’t think that’s really even necessary.

Finally, he was satisfied with my intentions to fix the windows, but told me it would be wise to insulate the walls. They currently have nothing inside them. He recommended hiring a contractor to blow insulation in from the outside. They’d have to take off the top strip of siding, drill the holes there, blow the insulation in, and then put the siding back. Also, his suggestion for agreeing on price was to say we’ll pay you for the labor, plus we’ll count up the bags of insulation at the end of the job and pay you according to that. That way they have more incentive to use more insulation in our walls so they can get paid more for it, thus doing a better job of insulating the place.

Now that I have specific recommendations for improving the insulation, I can qualify to have MidAmerican energy pay up to 70% of the cost of insulating my house, up to $600. We’ll probably apply that to having the insulation blown into the walls.

So with all that information in mind, we’re going to contact back the people we got quotes from, ask them to adjust the quotes for leaving the current furnace and just adding A/C and ductwork and then see what we’re facing as far as cost. I’m guessing it’ll just be as simple as deducting the cost of the new furnace from the total and probably adjusting the labor cost a bit, but I guess we’ll see.

[tags]insulation, furnace, air conditioning, contractors, energy usage, attic, coal chute[/tags]

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted. Life is getting busy and not leaving me much time to work on the house, but I promise you, work continues! This month we’ve been gathering quotes to replace our furnace and add central a/c. I’ll be writing more about our decision making process as we… um… make a decision. So far, here are the three quotes we’ve received. I welcome and encourage any comments you have regarding these quotes. Like I said, I’ll be writing more about this as the discussion continues, but I am curious to read any reactions these quotes generate from some of you more experienced home fixers.

Quote #1:75,000 BTU 92% Amana Distinction furnace $5824.00
14 SEER A/C $116.48
Humidifier $350
Additional ductwork for attic: $128.48
Additional ductwork for downstairs: $136.48
Labor (?) $268.56

Quote #1 total: $6824.00

Quote #2:

75,000 BTU 92% Rheem furnace and 2 1/2 ton 13 SEER Rheem A/C $4680
Additional ductwork for attic: $500

Quote #2 total: $5180

Quote #3:

Goodman, model GMH95070, 95% furnace and 13 SEER R22 GSC13018 A/C: $3,500
OR
same furnace with 14 SEER SSX14018 that uses R410 instead of R 22: $4,400
Additional ductwork for attic: $1,400

Quote #3 total: $4,900 (Option 1)

[tags]budget, air conditioning, contractors, furnace, HVAC[/tags]

The electricians are probably going to wrap up today. We stopped by the house to drop of a light fixture for the kitchen and we took a look around. Here are pictures!

The house is in various stages of disarray, but no worries!

This is the light fixture that was removed from the basement hallway. Pretty gross huh?

The ceiling fan we picked out for the living room:

The light in the dining room that compliments the ceiling fan in the living room:

New light fixtures in the bathroom. We’re going for a chrome and white look for all the bathroom fixtures. These lights look a little out of place amongst the 70s wallpaper and dingy yellow paint. Just wait until everything is crisp and white! (Additionally, we have had them install a ceiling fan + light, but since that wasn’t fully installed yet I didn’t take a picture.)

The wood burning stove insert is all done, the chimney is re-lined, and the part above the roof has been rebuilt completely. It all looks GREAT and I’ve never been so excited for cold weather to arrive so I can try this out!

Just a quick plug for a really great business here: The company we hired for this, Alpine Chimney Sweep, was simply awesome! If you have any chimney or fireplace or wood burning stove issues at your house and you’re anywhere near Des Moines, I really recommend looking them up. They’re friendly, efficient, clean, and even bumped up our installation day because they had an unexpected opening in their schedule.

Here’s the stove unit ready to install:

While they had the chimney and firebox all cleared out, I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of an area most homeowners never really get a good look at: the inside of the chimney and ash dump.

Here’s the firebox all cleaned out:

The damper had rusted shut and debris from the crumbling chimney had fallen on top of it. It had to be removed anyway, so here’s what’s left of the broken pieces, leaving room for the new liner and stove pipe:

The view up the chimney:

I put my camera in great peril to get this shot looking down into the ash dump:

The front of our new wood burning stove:

A wider view:

I’m really glad they put the original flue damper handle back in its place. It’s not needed anymore, but it’s better than having a big hole in the brick where it should go. I can’t wait to clean up the area around the hearth and maybe paint the brick a different color. I have big plans for this fireplace area of the house! Big plans, I say!

Sadly, by the time we got around to looking at the chimney outside we’d lost too much light for me to take a picture. You’ll get your picture though, never fear!

I am absolutely thrilled at how much progress was made this week. I never imagined everything would go so smoothly and so fast. Here’s hoping for continued good fortune in the rest of our projects to come.

Oh! And another quick shout out to a damned decent guy, Matt, who works with Brandon, at least for the time being. Matt is headed back to Omaha to rejoin his lovely wife there and since he’s moving, he graciously offered us his futon, no charge! That’s great because we can use all the free furniture we can get! Thanks again, Matt!

[tags]bathroom, ceiling fan, chimney, contractors, dining room, electricity, fireplace, light fixtures, living room, photos, wood burning stove[/tags]

We had a very productive, very awesome morning with the two people we asked to give us quotes today.

First the electrician came and he was super professional, friendly, and really knew how to deal with our house. In fact, by the time I got in to work he had already emailed me a fully itemized quote, with everything we talked about on site, AND his total price for everything is exactly what we were hoping to budget for initially, right around $5,000. Of course, we have a little extra money available should unexpected things come up, but he seemed really confident in how smoothly this job would go. We will probably get a third electrical quote, just for good measure, but this guy has all but won the bid already.

The chimney sweeps came next at 9:30. There were two people, the person who owns the business and her assistant of seven years, who is also fully certified. They did their inspection and then we sat in the air conditioned living room to discuss our options. This company offered two solutions: 1.) insert a stainless steel liner through the chimney and get it working as a traditional fireplace, or 2.) install a wood burning stove insert with a lined chimney pipe for increased energy efficiency. There would only be a difference of a couple hundred dollars between the two choices, so after hearing all about the stove insert and how it works and all the options we have with it (it does have the option to look like a regular fireplace if you want that ambiance) we’re leaning toward that. Either way, the work will cost just under $4000, which is GREAT for our budget.

After everybody else left, Brandon and I went outside to measure for building our retaining wall planting beds on the south side of the house. I had forgotten my tape measure, but we found a yard stick inside left by the previous owner, so while Brandon walked the area measuring with the yard stick, I wrote down the measurements on a diagram. I’m going to take that information tonight and start drawing a (mostly) to scale diagram of how these will be laid out so we can plan for how much it’s going to cost.

It was so much fun going through everything with Brandon. He’s really caught the enthusiasm to get started now too.

(Excited squeal and happy dance!!!)

[tags]budget, chimney, contractors, electricity, fireplace, landscaping, retaining wall[/tags]

This week has felt really busy but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell I did besides work. I have been putting in a few hours of overtime this week to make up some of the scratch I overspent last weekend up at the lake.

Last night, however, I did go to the library and do a few searches in their catalog to get a feel for where info on my house and neighborhood might be. My house sits in sort of a black hole between neighborhoods, as far as historical information goes. It’s not technically close enough to Union Park to claim the Union Park neighborhood. It’s too far north to count as Capitol Park. The plat it’s on is part of the “Union Addition” but that’s pretty meaningless to me at this point. The houses in the area are very middle class, built between 1905 and 1945. I found a few books on general Des Moines history, but one book I found right before closing is exactly what I want to read. It’s called Historical Residential Architecture in Des Moines, 1905-1940. SCORE!!! Unfortunately, it’s in the closed stacks of the library so I can’t take it home with me and pore over it repeatedly. I’ll just have to be content to visit it in the library and take notes and copies of relevant information. But the book is so great because it focuses specifically on two house types: bungalows and four-squares. I’ll be sure to share the exciting bits!

Brandon and I have a plan for the first few days of ownership. Here’s how it goes, sing along if you know the words:

Friday, Aug. 17 we close escrow and take ownership. We immediately begin clawing at the walls and floors like frantic badgers, ripping out carpet, pulling down paneling, and generally causing mayhem and destruction.

Saturday, Aug. 18 we borrow someone’s pickup truck and haul away the heap of trash we will build on Friday. (More about waste removal in a minute.)

Sunday, Aug. 19 we do additional cleanup on the place and make bundles to put out on the curb for garbage pick up.

Monday, Aug. 20 my grandma will hire the cleaning ladies to wipe everything down and give it their best on the kitchen and bathroom.

Tuesday, Aug. 21 we’ll start the tiny bit of moving in that we’re going to do: a bed and a dresser. We’re basically going to just live in the front bedroom, since that room needs the least amount of work and we need the rest of the house clear to give space to work on the woodwork and walls and everything.

And so on and so on.

So, about the waste removal thing:

When we bought my grandparents’ house in Clear Lake it was left to us to clean out all of the stuff Grandma and Grandpa didn’t need to take with them to their assisted living apartment. This amounted to 25 years’ worth of accumulated odds and ends saved fastiduously by my depression-era grandparents. We had like, five garage sales and for whatever was left that we couldn’t sell or donate somewhere, we called the local garbage company and they brought us a dumpster to fill up. It was a nice industrial sized thing that they let us keep for about a week. I think it was like $30 for the dumpster delivery and pickup, and $15 to dump it if it was under a certain weight. So like $50 max when all was said and done.

Since I’m new to Des Moines I decided to call around to see what rubbish haulers charge for their services around here. The first place I called quoted me $270. The second place said $390. I began contemplating buying a 30 cent book of matches and just setting fire to the looming pile of garbage.

Then I had an epiphany. Well, I wish it was that dramatic. It was more that I just saw the answer staring me in the face after having looked at it for weeks and weeks. As I pulled my mom’s garbage can up from the curb, I realized I was probably calling the wrong people about getting my garbage hauled away. I needed to be calling the Metro Waste Authority. Or rather, I needed to Google them. Anyway, I found out that they sell $5 stickers that you can attach to bundles of carpet and other oversized items that don’t fit in the regular garbage cans. So that’s certainly an option for us. ALSO, the landfill east of town accepts pick-up truck loads of garbage for like $16-30. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Now, tonight I have plans with two coworkers of mine, my uncle, my uncle’s pick-up truck, and a brand new dolly that my husband is going to buy after work today. My small collection of friends, relatives, and tools are going to move the washer and dryer from my other uncle’s new house to my new old house. I’ll report later on whether my plan actually functioned as it was intended.

Next Tuesday we go another round with the contractors, this time getting a quote from a big name electrician and another chimney inspection for a second opinion.

[tags]carpet, chimney, contractors, dryer, electricity, fireplace, garbage, landfill, neighborhood history, paneling, washing machine[/tags]