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Sep 25

Money No Concern? See These HVAC Recommendations for Your Older Home

Mechanicals, My Projects thecraftsman 3 Comments »

My neighborly engineer whipped up something special for me after he read about my 30 year old furnace and how next summer I’m likely going to replace it along with my air conditioning unit that sounds like a small turbo engine tucked alongside our home. It’s the first part of a 2 or 3 part series that’ll cover the ins and outs of retrofitting an older home with a new HVAC system. He’ll be grouping his recommendations into three categories: 1) Money no concern, 2) middle of the road, and 3) penny pincher. I’m sure everyone knows what group they’re in so I don’t need to elaborate any further. Just check out what he has to say.

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Considering a Heating Ventilation Air Condition (HVAC) retrofit of your older home? There are a million solutions but here are my recommendations for my neighbor’s 1926 Dutch Colonial.

First, a little background on my neighbor’s house. Built in 1926, it likely started with an “octopus” gravity style coal or fuel oil fired furnace, similar to this natural gas fired furnace below. octopus furnace Ain’t she a beauty?

Notice the giant supply ducts coming from the top and the even larger return air ducts at the bottom. The ducts are so large because these furnaces don’t use fans to circulate the air. The heated air simply rises and the cooler air falls. These systems were simple, they always worked, and they used a lot of fuel. And, there is no way to add cooling to this type of system. When the home owner got tired of the high heating bills the furnace would be retrofitted with a natural gas fired 80% AFUE unit, and perhaps that is what is still heating the home today [craftsman note: I think the AFUE is much lower, maybe around 65 or 70%].

Another key bit of history: most homes of this era have been added onto and then added onto again. My neighbor’s house is no exception. What was once the attached garage became the family room, and years later, a second floor master bed and bath were added above that family room. You can bet that HVAC considerations were not primary in the design process. And as a result these rooms, even though well insulated as compared to the remainder of the house, do not heat or cool very well [craftsman note: That’s right. The whole house heats and cools very unevenly].

If Money Is No Object:
I’d recommend eliminating the furnace all together. Yep, rip it out of the basement and reclaim that space for a recreation room or an additional play room for your bratty kids. What do you heat your house with you ask? Radiant under floor heating installed in all areas of the first floor that have a basement underneath. And for those areas that radiant heat is not feasible, I would choose a high velocity, mini duct, multi-zone system fed by an air handler to be located in the attic [craftsman note: What the hell did he just say?]. This duct systemwould feed all rooms in the house, even those with the radiant heating system; that way the same ducts can be used for cooling. Each zone would be individually controlled with its own thermostat [craftsman note: This mini duct system sounds pretty cool. Just to clarify, it delivers a high velocity stream of air quietly and seamlessly into whatever room you choose through little outlets or holes in the ceiling.]

The duct system would also distribute ventilation air to each room. To provide the ventilation, the air handler would be fitted with an energy recovery ventilator. The energy recovery ventilator would bring in outside ventilation air and exhaust air at the same time [craftsman note: In other words the energy recovery ventilator brings fresh air in and take stale air out]. This would reduce energy costs, because you would not have to pay to heat the cold winter air as much. This is because the warm air being exhausted would be used to pre-heat the incoming cold air.
The duct system can be installed within the wall cavities of interior walls without the need to cut into the wall. Recall how large the ducts in my neighbor’s house are, this provides for the alternative: install the mini ducts inside the home’s existing ductwork. Why not just use the existing ducts? The existing ducts are not sealed air tight and are not sized by today’s standards, which will make climate control difficult.

Some older homes are not built “tight”, so ventilation is not an issue. However, this also means that they tend to be drafty and inefficient to heat and cool. This being the case, and because money is no object, I would recommend pouring a low expansion foam insulation (check out this spray foam data sheet) into the wall cavities that both insulates and seals out drafts. Spray foam is a superior product when compared to regular fiberglass batting. Spray foam has an insulation value that is approximately double that of fiberglass and it functions as an air and moisture barrier as well (read more about spray foam insulation) With the spray foam in place, the home will mimic today’s “tight” construction, which will be much less drafty and more efficient. But, it will now require mechanical ventilation.

With this recommendation there is one more add-on that is worth considering based on the climate my neighbor lives in. Michigan has cold, dry winters, and to combat the low winter humidity a whole house humidifier coupled with the air handler is a good idea. Another thought: I would skip the whole house air filter/purifier. With the energy recovery ventilator in place, I just don’t think it is necessary unless you suffer from allergies, asthma, or other respiratory issues.

That’s all for my “money is no object” recommendation. Although there are more expensive systems available, this one is tailored to your Dutch Colonial.

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Well, I don’t know about all that jive engineer talk, but man, I’ve got a HVAC consultant working for me pro bono. How sweet it is. Now I just gotta find me a money tree.

Coming soon - part 2 of the HVAC retrofit series, for those “middle of the road” kind of folks.

Sep 09

From Country to Classy: Kitchen Renovation

Home Improvement, My Projects thecraftsman 1 Comment »

I think now is as good a time as any to fill you in our kitchen remodel. Let’s go back to February of 2004 when my wife and I decided to take the plunge and purchase our first house, a 1926 Dutch Colonial with 2300 sq. ft. of living space. Though over half of that space came from a two story addition that included the master suite upstairs and the great room and half-bath downstairs. The sacrifice for having this kind of space? No garage. Seems the single car, detached garage was torn down in the mid-seventies and was replaced by the additional ground floor level. Some years later the upper level master suite was added. Thus we have a home with pieces built by three separate builders - one of them a major imbecile. With the addition, the kitchen now looked over the 400 sq. ft. great room, which is one of the features we truly fell in love with.

As you can see from the before photos, this was a country kitchen complete with light blue Formica countertops, matching light blue vinyl flooring, scum ridden cabinet hardware, and pale blue wallpaper covered with sweet, little birdhouses. Fortunately this place came with beautiful cabinetry, because everything else was a total disaster. As most of you who have moved into old homes in need of renovation and updating know, without a sense of vision it can be difficult to see that diamond in the rough. But every home has its character and the most exhilarating part of home renovation is discovering and building that character so that your home becomes an extension of you. That’s why I continue to work on this house even though at times I want nothing to do with it. Even though I often think how great it would be to live in a new home that doesn’t require constant renovation. Even though it has caused me to drop more f-bombs than I’d care to admit.

I take pride in myself and I take pride in this place I call home. I’ve invested far more than just money into this place - time, sweat, a little blood here and there. These things only scratch the surface. The rest are far too deep to be explained in a single blog entry. In fact, I’m not so sure they can be explained at all. But for those of you who have walked in my shoes, you need no explanation. It’s something we’ll share without ever having spoken a word.

You wouldn’t think home renovation could be this deep, but it can be. And for me it is.

Aug 10

How Much Do You Love Chili Cheese Fries?

Home Improvement, My Projects thecraftsman No Comments »

For some married men, when their wife and kids leave town for a night they relish in the freedom by drinking frosty beverages, watching Ultimate Fighter reruns in surround sound, and eating an over-sized plate of chili cheese fries at 2 in the morning. They sleep in till close to noon and get up just in time to eat a fat bowl of Cookie Crisp, catch the tail end of whatever is showing on ESPN and take a shower so they smell nice and fresh just before the wife and kids return.

Men who live in 80 year old homes like me, however, wind up sanding, scraping, painting, installing or removing - something. Because there is always something to sand, scrape, paint, install or remove. And because a day without the family means there’s a good chance I’ll be able to work in increments of more than 30-60 minutes at a time without being interrupted, an opportunity like this cannot be wasted. So this weekend I will take advantage of my situation and work fanatically on the sunroom. Most of my work will involve scraping and sanding, but I also have some trimwork to take care of as well. I should be able to make some decent progress, though I’ve gotta tell ya, I can’t stand the whole process of stripping paint, sanding and painting or staining. The final product has always been incredibly rewarding but the path to get there has always required a great deal of patience and commitment. Since I have DIY ADD (Do It Yourself Attention Deficit Disorder), this task has been a great challenge for me to overcome. I typically push through and at the end vow to never do it again, but like a restoration or remodeling junkie, I’m always right back at it, addicted to something unexplainable. Maybe it’s the drive to “get it all done,” maybe it’s the beauty of the final result, or maybe it’s the reshaping of a house into a home - the continual chipping away of layer after layer until I find that special something at the house’s core. Its character…its spirit. And there’s no mistaking it once it’s found. It’s almost as if the house is offering a subtle smile and thanking you for setting it free.

Now that kind of freedom is better than chili cheese fries at 2 in the morning, any day. There’s just no comparison.

Jul 31

Successful Home Improvement…Sorta

Home Improvement, My Projects thecraftsman 2 Comments »

This past weekend some things around the house were finally completed. Not directly related to home improvement, but incredibly important nonetheless, I finally finished building my daughter’s wooden swing set - which is good right? Well, sorta. See now I have to cut out a bed for the mulch that will go under the swings, but rather than just cut out the area directly around the swing set, we decided to cut out a much larger area that starts at the left side of the shed and goes to what will eventually be the new fence line. This means excavating a lot of sod and dirt and planting various flowers and shrubs as well. Yay. Obviously, I’m still not finished with this.

I was also able to install the new storm windows in the sun room. This ended up being one of the easiest projects we’ve worked on and the windows all work and look great - that’s good, right? Mmmm, sorta. After replacing the old with the new we realized we need to do some touch up painting around the windows. I know for many of you this is small potatoes, but I can’t stand these piddly kind of projects. Makes me queasy. This is the kind of thing that will sit untouched for months unless I absolutely force myself to do it, which I find about as difficult as forcing myself to throw-up by sticking a finger down my throat.

I also cleaned up some of the newly cut beds around the front of the house by removing a few large piles of old sod. I look a little less ghetto now, though not by much. I still have four large hedge stumps in the front of the house that need to be pulled and now we’ve decided that we need to remove a large, dead elm tree that’s right along what will soon be the rear fenceline. Three quotes so far:

$350 (doesn’t include removal of wood)
$550 (includes removal of wood)
$750 (includes removal of wood)

We still have a couple more guys coming out to give us quotes so we’ll see how things turn out. We may be able to get someone in our family to take the wood for free which will save a couple hundred bucks. I like how that sounds.

So as it often goes with home improvement, one project leads to another, thereby officially creating a cycle that never ends. And naturally, I have the pleasure of being a part of that cycle. Excuse me as I wipe a tear…I’m truly moved.

Jul 17

Here Comes the Sunroom

Home Improvement, My Projects thecraftsman 3 Comments »

With the shed done (for now), it’s time to move on to the next project, which is the sun room. We’ve already replaced the old rotten storm door with a brand new full glass Pella door (approx. $280). One of the sidelights that flanked the storm door was originally glass while the other was plexiglass (extremely classy if you ask me) - they weren’t actual windows - they were literally just a piece of glass or plexi surrounded by some wood trim. I’d spend countless evenings giving them a tap and watching them shake - what can I say, I’m easily entertained. We eventually replaced them with real custom double pane windows as well as the entire window and door surround which was also a rotten mess (second picture from the left). A new oil rubbed doorbell and mail slot were also added. With that portion completely rebuilt by the boys at Darrell Burke Construction - who by the way do fantastic work - it’s now up to me to take care of the rest:

Window ledges scraped to raw wood, sand, prime and paint
All other surfaces (walls, ceiling, floor) need lose paint scraped, light sanding, prime and paint
Install 1/2″ plywood over the lower beadboard to match the front door surround
The two storm windows on either end of the sun room need to be replaced (3rd and 4th picture from the left)
The front door needs to be stripped, sanded and stained dark walnut (1st picture on the left)
New oil rubbed hardware for the door needs to be purchased.
One cracked window need to be replaced
A new ceiling light fixture needs to be purchased and installed

The great thing about doing this room is that there’s no rush. So I plan to take my time and focus on the details, making sure everything is as perfect as it can get. I’ve been wanting to have a livable sun room since we moved in, but so far it’s just been the harbor for all things dirty. From scrap pieces of wood, to saw dust, to paint chips and plenty of friendly spiders - you know, those really fast ones that scare the hell out of you when they unexpectedly fly across the floor after you shift some things around. And is it me or do old homes seem to have more of these vile critters lurking in odd places? Anyway, it’s time to flip this room around and make it a happy place - Bob Ross kind of happy.

Jul 14

Colonial Shed with Craftsman Flair Now Complete

My Projects thecraftsman 2 Comments »

Finally finished…well, just about. The roof is still in disrepair and needs a complete tear-off but I think I’ll save that for this fall or next spring. There were several stacks of new shingles in the shed when we bought the house (along with an electric trimmer and hedger and a bunch of other crap that I’ve had to slowly dispose of) so I may not need to buy any shingles at all. Here’s what brought it to it’s current state:

Removed all rotten trim and replaced with new cedar pieces
Cut and stained all corner trim as well as door casing and door trim.
Primed and painted with exterior grade paint
Installed new door hinges
Installed new door handles
Installed new lock latch

Total cost of materials was about $100.

Totally worth it if you ask me. Though the idiot at Lowe’s didn’t color match the shed paint very well and you can tell it’s off by quite a bit compared to the new color of our house. It doesn’t look that bad but we’ll probably go back and add another coat with a color that more closely matches the house. The after picture makes it look like the shed was painted white but it’s more of a light sage green.

Oh and yesterday the fence guy came out to put together an estimate and he commented on how he was asked to upgrade a shed for another client he had. He really liked what I did to my shed and said, “Hope you don’t mind if steal your idea.” Man, I couldn’t ask for a better compliment than that. Now onto the next project…

Jul 06

Craftsman Shed Nearly Complete

Home Improvement, My Projects thecraftsman No Comments »

Wednesday, after suffering a demoralizing defeat only one day earlier, I sprang back to greatness and rehung the first of two doors, complete with new paint and freshly stained dark walnut trim. My first attempt at doing this ended with me flingin’ tools and cursing the heavens because I installed the bottom hinge first and quickly realized the door wouldn’t fit in the opening - top of the door was hitting the top of the doorway. Nice one jackass. I was then left with a bunch of holes at the bottom of my freshly stained wood that I would have to somehow conceal.

Though it’s still unfinished it’s a noticeable improvement from what it was. Still haven’t had anyone comment on it’s beauty (jerks) but my wife told me several time how great it looks. Naturally, her feedback is what matters most, though it would be nice if an “outsider” threw me some slight praise.

I got caught up in Lowe’s today ordering storm windows, a swing set, and setting up a fence installation estimate which will likely result in the purchase of a new fence which we desperately need. I also replaced a crusty old brass ceiling fan with a new oil rubbed bronze version, in our master bedroom. Didn’t get a chance to work on the shed so I’ve gotta get my act together over the next three days else I’ll be stuck with another unfinished project (#27) on my shoulders and that’s an extra burden that I’m unsure I can bear.

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