We heard from the heating guys last week that they were primed and ready for the project. The only "but" was that there might be just one other job that they would have to do in tandem with ours. They were all teed up to start earlier this week, which they did.
For them to balance the heat evenly throughout the house (old and new) they have to adjust the ducts that currently provide heat to the existing parts of the house. How do they do that? Well, first you have to expose the main heating ducts. Then they replace all of those ducts, making sure that the size of the ducts allow just the right amount of airflow. More information than you probably need, but it explains the photo in this entry. We had to remove a portion of the ceiling in the basement (one of our only places of refuge from this ongoing renovation saga). That required moving all the furniture in the basement to the middle of the room, rendering the space unusable. We are now relegated to kitchen and half of the living room (the other half is covered in plastic from when we moved the windows about four or five months ago.) The upside: sleeping just steps from the fridge makes it very easy to satisfy those late night cravings.
With less than a quarter of the project complete, the heating guys returned this morning to pick up their materials. There is some concrete that needs to be removed before they can continue to carry the new ducts to the new parts of the house. Let's recap... They have, thus far, reworked the exiting heating lines. You know, the ones that were already providing heat to the existing part of the house. That's it. They say they will call on Monday, which means sometime next week - if we're lucky. In the meantime, we need to cut through a six-inch concrete wall. Many factors at play - in a few months we won't need heat. At least that is something to look forward to.
I'm beginning to plan the one-year anniversary (May) of the start of this project. You are all invited. BYOI (bring your own insulation). Even when we get the heating sorted out, we don't currently have a line on the expanding spray foam insulation that we will need to keep the much coveted heat in the house.
Signing off for now from the table in the kitchen/living room/dining room/den/bedroom.
Let's begin with the hard work of the weekend, and the photo to prove it! After lamenting about having to create an opening in the wall for the new heat ducts, we now have the opening. We started with a concrete saw that weighted about 30 pounds. We blew the breaker several times, leaving us in the dark as the spinning blade came to a rest. That adventure was short-lived.
