Good News Monday

I called the HVAC installers and they told me that the warranty started when they did the initial "start up" on the unit. This means we are squeaking in just under the warranty wire.

They come Wednesday to see what's up!

And...it's back.

Sigh. Now I have to call the HVAC guys-- 2 months, almost to the day, since the unit went out of warranty on labor. Still under on parts, but I'm always a little afraid they'll find some way to pin the blame on the consumer. I worked in retail. I remember how it goes.

Update on the stink

Adam ran the emergency heat for a while early in the day on Monday, and I ran it for 30 minutes or so that same night, and we got one bag of insulation that was tucked in a corner out of the attic (fyi-- it smelled like nothing, though that doesn't really mean anything). Neither of us smelled it at all yesterday, and I think Adam was home pretty much all day.

So far so good.

Stinky coils?

As per usual...I need help.

We started noticing a musty smell in the house, and we think it's coming from the heat registers. It's a musty, mildewy, damp crawlspace kind of smell (but our inside coil and ductwork are in the attic)-- not bad, just stale like hose water.

Anyway, the first thing I did was change the filter-- it was in very, very bad need of changing. We thought that did the trick, but I think it was just warm enough outside for the rest of the day that the heat wasn't really kicking in.

This morning I was doing my yoga stretches for my back and could smell it again-- and trust e, this made it very hard to relax-- "what could that be?" "is it dangerous?" "will it be expensive?" Shut up, brain-- you're supposed to be concentrating on breathing!

So now I've resorted to Google. It appears that there are several possibilities here. One is mildew and mold on the inside coils and drip pan-- something called dirty sock syndrome. I guess heat pumps don't get hot enough to kill the bacteria, and that's all we have. It doesn't generally get so cold that a heat pump can't do the job for the most part, so there's no gas furnace in addition-- just the pump. But, anyway, I'm not sure this really smells like dirty socks-- it's not all that offensive. It did occur to me that we might have left a bag of wet insulation up there from after the storm; I know Adam got it all bagged up, but we need to make sure we didn't leave one up there. Still, that shouldn't necessarily affect the air inside the sealed ducts, and anyway, most ducts are in crawlspaces with much more moisture than any poorly ventilated attic would have; plus, it's been super cold lately.

The other possibility seems to be that it might be summer "build-up" on one of the coils which, again, never gets hot enough to totally burn off. I saw one suggestion to turn on the emergency heat for 20 minutes and crank it up so it gets hotter and burns off whatever's there.

We all know it's never fun to have someone come work on the house. I'd like to try anything I can do myself first. I'll start with the emergency heat plan...but I'm wondering if any of you have had this problem and any suggestions that don't involve calling the HVAC guys...

Help?

Other than pondering our stinky air, we got more unpacking done; Adam went on a tear with that and it's looking so much better. We had friends in town this weekend, so we got some cleaning done and other various maintenance projects worked on. One of these friends is moving back to town, so I took her one of the neighborhood houses that I know is going on the market soon. Every time Adam tried to router the countertop edging, it started to rain, so that's still on the books. I'm afraid it's officially too cold to plant my hosta bulbs-- hopefully it'll warm up enough that I can get them into the ground. And my back is slowly, slowly mending.

In other words, life has been pretty low-key-- Sam's Club restocked the variety pack cases of Leinenkugel, so really, I couldn't ask for much more.

Yuck!

This stuff is gross...



But it's also miraculous.

See, we have a lot of baseboards that look something like this:



Somebody took off the baseboards and didn't really get everything quite straight when they put them back. This created a number of gaps, up to 1 1/4" between the baseboards and the floor. When there was carpet, it wasn't so much of a problem. Now without it, I can see grass outside through some of these cracks. I like to wave and say hi to the outside when I walk by.

Now. A smart person would simply remove the baseboards and lower them to match the floor and square up with the corners. However, a smart PO wouldn't have done this:



(Excuse the sloppy paint-- we're not done with the trim, yet) So...they didn't bother to remove the baseboards to do the drywall, they just went up to the tops of the boards and stopped. Sigh.

Anyway, just one of the things that has to be added to the list of stuff we can't control. I simply don't have the energy or time to REdrywall the whole house. So we used 5 cans of the expandable spongy goo to fill the gaps. When it dries, we'll trim it and install a base shoe-- actually, a door casing that has a profile mimicking that of the primary baseboards.

I've begun reminding myself that we are the POs for all future owners; they'll be shaking their heads about all kinds of things that we've done out of frustration, exhaustion, and as a consequence of everything that's come before us.

At least now we won't be bleeding money through the floors by running the heat pump with one giant crack running around the entire perimeter of the house.

Little Festivus Miracles

It looks like fate has had some pity on us in the end, and there have been a few minor miracles keeping my glass half full these last few weeks.

Aside from all the progress that we've been making, especially considering the fact that we can only work a few days a week on the house, we've had a couple of financial breaks. The electrical rewire ended up costing well under what we'd expected, as in, several thousand dollars less. Then the CH/A guys called to discuss repairing the cracks in the ceilings that they caused. I realized that they just wanted us to pay, so they offered to knock $200 off the bill if we'd let it go. After drywalling the entire kitchen for about that much, I think it's safe to say that we were well overcompensated for that little annoyance.

We also discovered a really great equipment rental tip-- this is probably something you all already know, but I was pleased to discover that renting things on Saturday morning at our local place gets us a one-day special-- they're closed on Sundays, so they don't charge for that day. 2 for 1!!! I have already reserved the edger and square buffer to be picked up Friday afternoon. I requested online that we have the edger from Friday to Monday; but when they called to confirm, they told me it wouldn't be "due back" until Wednesday since they're closed for Christmas and Christmas Eve. I'm not sure whether we'll be charged for those days or not, and he didn't say one way or the other. I have my fingers and toes crossed that they treat the holidays like Sundays. Either way, it needs to get done this weekend, so now we can take our time.

When we're finished with the floors, I'll be sure to post a breakdown of the cost. We had a floor refinisher give us an estimate-- to do the whole house, except laundry and bathroom (so around 1100-1200 ft2), was going to cost ~$3800. Whatever happens, we just hope we come in under the cost of a professional.

Another little bit of pleasure comes courtesy of my mother and PorchSwings.com. My mother is giving us a porch swing for Christmas and this is the one we've picked out:
The porch swing at my mother's house was built in about the 1880s by her grandfather or great grandfather-- I lose track!-- it's a little creaky, but in excellent condition even when you don't take into account the fact that it gets daily use all year long. Sigh. If I can't have that one, this one will have to do!

And finally, my sister and I leave for England on December 31 to scatter our father's ashes. My dad built houses and renovated most of the major historic homes in town at one point or other, and so it's really a shame that he's not been around to help us with this, since he passed away in February. But we'll get to end the holiday season with him in his and my favorite city in the world.

It truly is a Festivus miracle!

Progress!!

After staying out far too late with good friends on Friday, I had a bit of a slow start getting to the house Saturday morning. I think I've mentioned before that we currently live about an hour away, and so we have very little idea of what's happening in the house during the week. And when we're in town, we stay with my mother a few blocks away.

So it was with a big fat smile on my face that I unlocked the door to the house Saturday afternoon to see...wires! lots of em! Apparently, the electrician was able to start work on the house this week and that is the one thing holding us up, really. Lots of outlets are in the floor and so we can't very well do the floors until everything else is done; can't paint until we know where new outlets will be cut into the walls; can't close up the kitchen walls until the electrical inspector signs off on them. It's one big chain reaction, and it starts with the rewire. We're one step closer!

Then I got a little further back into the house and also saw that some changes we'd asked the CH/A installer to make were done...at least the biggest ones. It was very, very exciting.

However, without any electricity, we're a bit limited in our projects. So this weekend, we sprayed down the screened porch and finished scraping, and spent Sunday painting trim. And it's amazing how much better it looks. Who knew a good scrubbing and some white paint would make such a difference! Still no after pics yet-- have to replace some ceiling panels and rotted trim...and still need to rescreen, but you can see what we started with: