Old House Gets a New Furnace from Perfect Air

The latest adventure at the hacienda here has been the old floor furnace deciding to give up the ghost. I had problems with the furnace 4 years ago and it ended up costing a bundle to repair it. So, when it went on the blink again this year I was open to removing it altogether.  There comes a time in the "repair/replace" discussion when you have to eliminate the repair portion as being throwing money into an open hole in the ground. So, then the discussion became one of "replace it with WHAT?"

New floor furnace? No longer allowed in California. Something about open flames beneath floor surfaces and fires.  Sissies.

New wall furnace? I spent about a week investigating that idea and looking at options. The problem with a wall furnace in this house is the hallway is really tight to begin with, losing 6" along the wall to a furnace makes the passageway really problematic and uncomfortable.

New central forced-air furnace? This turned out to be the answer, not the one I wanted to hear since the cost was about five times more than the bill to just fix the old floor furnace again. However, how many times do I fix the floor furnace before I'm kicking myself for not just bringing the house in the 21st century and making it comfortable? What finally won out at the end of the day was the thought that if I have to spend another 10 years in this house, wouldn't I rather just have a modern heating system to make my home comfortable instead of repairing that old floor furnace who knows how many times? I answer myself "yes" and let the games begin.

I got bids from 3 contractors and eventually chose Perfect Air (based in Long Beach but servicing the surrounding areas of Lakewood, Bellflower, Cerritos, Seal Beach, Artesia, etc...) based on their reviews on Yelp. I like Yelp, I like the whole concept of customers being able to review service providers. It helps the cream rise to the top.

So, Perfect Air came out this week and installed a new furnace into my little 1939 bungalow. We now have 6 glorious ducts pumping warm air into all the rooms instead of one central floor furnace charged with heating the whole 840 square feet. We've had to make some adjustments with the new system, the biggest being that we aren't able to leave the hall door closed when it's heating because the pull from the return vent is so strong it pulls the door shut and the cats can't get between the back of the house and the front - which is a crisis in their little furry worlds. But that's a minor adjustment. Otherwise, we're pretty thrilled.

The inspector from the City was thrilled. I'll quote him below because companies like Perfect Air should rise to the top.

"I've been checking this young man's work for three years now, and I am telling you, you have a winner."   -- Dan Rodger, Mechanical Inspector for the City of Long Beach. 

Pictures!

Location of the old floor furnace

Perfect Air removing my old floor furnace

Perfect Air installing new ducts

My new forced-air furnace! 

Home Energy Assessment

As part of my latest contract, I had a the opportunity to get a Home Energy Assessment done to understand the process and benefits.  The assessment is a 3 to 4 hour process where the contractor goes through your home in detail looking at the way your house functions as a unit.  In the past, homeowners and contractors viewed a structure in individual pieces; windows, insulation, HVAC, etc...  The "whole house" approach is a new concept that focuses on the building envelope and how it relates to energy-efficiency.  

What happens during an assessment is the contractor will test all the elements of the building envelope and the energy systems for the home.  The biggie is the Blower Door Test.  This involves closing all the doors and windows, placing a high efficiency fan in the door and depressurizing the house.  Once the build has been depressurized, air leaks are easy to identify.  Air leaks are critical because they effect heat and air conditioning loss -- also known as money leaking out of your home.  

Hughes EnCon Blower Door Test

Above is my contractor, Hughes EnCon performing the Blower Door Test. Once the house has been depressurized, the contract goes through all the "openings" in the building envelope looking for air leaks.  The big ones you can actually feel, like my unsealed attic opening and vent for the whole house fan.  The window openings were fairly tight, but my doors all had large gaps where air leaks were (unsurprisingly, this house is 70 years old and has shifted a great deal during that time and all the exterior doors are original to the house.) 

Hughes EnCon testing for air leaks with smoke wand

Using a smoke wand, Hughes EnCon shows air leaks around a badly sealed whole house fan. The contractor also uses an infrared camera to show where my insulation was not so good and gaps were left around light fixtures.  Another thing the contractor does is perform combustion safety testing on gas fired appliances such as water heaters, dryers and stoves to make certain that they are properly venting and there are no gas leaks.  

The contractor will examine a year's worth of utility bills and give you a list of possible upgrades/improvements that will help your home become more energy efficient - which saves you money!

 

New Driveway Gate

At last, our new driveway gate is installed! I showed off the design in this post here.  I designed this in Adobe Illustrator and had it built by Creative Iron Works of Signal Hill.  


Creative Iron Works did an outstanding job and worked with me the whole way on gate function, optimizing the design and color selection for the wood.  I couldn't be happier with my choice of vendor, Creative Iron Works was exactly the type of company I'd been looking for to complete this project.  

Old Driveway Gate Going Away

New Driveway Gate Installed

The stain used on the wood was Minwax Red Oak and the wrought iron on the gate was powder coated black. 

Adding to the Irrigation System

The latest project here is another one that's been on the list for a loooonnnnggg time.  The more things I can put on a timer, the happier my weekends are! 


With the mission of automation in mind, I added a new irrigation run to water plants along the far side of the driveway.  This, of course, involved running a line UNDER the driveway.  

Planning the irrigation run

Irrigation is not the worst of improvement projects, but it is one of the messier (not quite as bad as furniture refinishing, but certainly right up there.)  Running irrigation under driveways and walkways is a muddy proposition since it involves water and dirt. 


If you are planning to try this yourself, you'll need a walkway tunneling kit, which is available at any big box improvement store for cheap.  The tunneling kit is really just a nozzle and cap by which you use your garden hose and a piece of irrigation PVC to  blast a tunnel under the concrete with water.  It requires some planning since your PVC pipe has to be long enough to reach completely under the concrete.  


Which also means that your trench in which to run the pipe has to be long enough to accommodate the length of the PVC pipe.  Since I only had about 28 inches to work with in terms of trench space there in the middle, it required 3 separate pieces of PVC that were joined together by couplers.  You can see the segments in the picture below. 

Getting this project done was a waiting game since you have to wait for the water to filter down into your soil after you've spray blasted your run under the concrete.  In heavy clay soil like mine, it can take an hour or more.  This project took about 23' of PVC and various couplers, elbows, a new battery operated timer, and plenty of patience over two days.  


Plus some muscle relaxers for an aching back, afterward :)

New Garage Side Door

Our latest project has been to replace the side door on the garage...at some point you'd think we would run out of parts of this house that are at the end of their lifespan and need replacing, but sadly no.  


The side door to the garage has spent 70 years getting splashed on during the winter since none of the previous owners ever put up a gutter so that rainwater wouldn't end up pouring off the side of the garage roof and right in front of this door.  It hasn't helped that the door is right next to the hose bib and we tend to like to do cleaning tasks in the area that also end up splashing the door.  

This is the old door, badly rotted.

And so, off came the old door and we picked up a new basic exterior slab door at the local big box home improvement store.  We ended up having to do some considerable cutting down since the old opening is several inches smaller than the width of the smallest door they had at the store.  The new door was also pre-primed (yay!) 

After some cutting and sanding, then hole drilling and painting, we have a new door on the side of the garage.  Not only did we add a threshold and door sweep to make sure we are catching any water issues right at the door, we also bought a Plexiglas panel to put on the lower part of the door. 

New door with Plexiglas panel.

This is our last garage project until later this year when we start on the second set of interior cabinets, which can't happen until after I get some electrical work done (currently scheduled to happen when I bring in electricians for the kitchen remodel.)

Re-setting the walkway

This lovely project was one that I've had on the list for two years (easily).  I originally installed the front walkways in 2006 using Pathmate stone molds and this one turned into a mess within year.  All the mortar between the stones cracked and crumbled.  What I eventually realized was that I hadn't done a very good job leveling out my stones during the initial install.  Since the stones hadn't been leveled, they started flexing when walked on, which lead to the mortar cracking. 

The initial install in 2006

It got to be entirely too easy to move re-setting the walkway stones down the list in favor of more pressing items, but since I'm on a "complete all outstanding projects" rampage the time has come.  


I found it easiest to work one row at time, this allowed me keep the original placement and shape without having to go back and guess.  As I pulled up each row, I removed all the old mortar and some of the bed materials under the stones.  Then I added new sand and look a lot of care in setting the stones back in LEVEL and solid. 

Resetting the stones, one row at a time

It took about 4 hours to complete this project, a new bag of mortar mix and a bag of sand.  I have hopes that this time I did a better job..ah, that learning curve! 

Finished reset of walkway stones

Driveway Gate

The time has come to replace the gate for the driveway and add a new gate on the side of the house.  After my house was broken into in 2007 and a second (unrelated) attempt was made last year, it has become apparent that the house is just too "inviting" and looks potentially "easy" to an opportunist.  So, additional fortification was on the menu for this Winter to make the hacienda more secure.  


This is the old gate: warped, ugly, and ready to fall off the hinges.

Old Driveway Gate

The new gate will be glorious - I've designed the ironwork myself and the construction will be done by Creative Iron Works in Signal Hill.  Budget this time around will not allow for the gate to be motorized, although that is in the plan for the future.  Motors will add another $2500 to the project and those are funds really needed for the kitchen remodel later this year.  


Design for the new gate: