Heating Conundrums (part one of many)

You may remember that earlier this month, we had some family and friends, who are much more handy than we are, come out and help us figure out why we can't get heat into a few of the rooms in our house. (Just as a reminder, last March, we had some heating people out to try to solve the problem, but the best they could do was take a guess at what the cause might be and offer to try some things--not a exactly a resolution that would confidence. And with many local contractors wanting to be paid over $100 just to come out and take a look, we jumped at the chance for a free second opinion.)

The day turned out to be full of drama, best told through pictures. Here goes...

We turned the heat on to get an idea of what was flowing where. Our friend, B, stripped back some of our insulation and noticed that within the span of one pipe that led out into the system, the temperature went from scalding hot to lukewarm. Maybe a clog?

 Because the system was bleeding throughly, B found a cap where a previous loop in the heating had (probably) been removed, and unscrewed it as a relatively easy point to drain the water.

Except it wasn't that easy. Old pipes are sticky and require a little extra persuasion. In the form of a blow torch.

 But eventually he freed up that area and we watched as water drained out.

And then more water drained out. And more and more. And we stopped trusting the little metal handle hooked on the pipe to hold up the heavy bucket of water.

With the water more or less drained, B went back to the probable clog and started sawing a section of pipe off. Some water came dripped out as soon as he broke into the pipe.

 And then (again), more and more water came out. A sludgy, black looking water.

With one end of the pipe sawed off, it was time to unscrew the other end. It was so stuck on that this time we had to resort to the blow torch and cheater bar. (And I am using "we" very loosely, as I was just the one getting in everyone's way taking pictures.)

We took off the pipe, expecting to see some sort of clog. But of course not--that would have been too easy. So we never really figured out why the big temperature change within a couple of feet of pipe. Add that to the list of unsolved mysteries in our 60-year-old house.

Let's backtrack briefly so I can explain that one of the main things B wanted to accomplish was to blow air through the system, with the goal of forcing out any gunk that might be stopping the hot water from flowing. He had brought a air compressor and went to Home Depot to buy some valves and tubing to be able to stick the hose into our system (more on the valves later).

So he did just that, pressurizing the compressor and then shooting a burst of air into our heating system. And thats when things got exciting.

Due to the late hour and the fact that we'd already drained so much out of the system, it occurred to nobody that we should probably reinstall a pipe on the sawed-off section of the system. So when that big blast of air sent gunk down, it also sent gunk out. Out as in all over our basement. Out as in all over our stuff, since nobody had thought to throw a tarp down.

This was the view I encountered upon arriving back into the basement. Scary stuff.

Of course inside, it was even worse. Black sludge all over D's (open and full) toolbox, over our utility shelves, rug, bike parts, etc. The only consolation was that I had already moved out our drying rack, full of clean and air-drying clothes, into another room.

So an all-hands-on-deck half hour of intense cleaning later, we had the place looking more or less the way it did before the air burst. B installed a new section of pipe and then sent another blast of air from our other upstairs bedroom

By then it was so late that we decided to call it a night. The problem was not entirely solved yet--but more on that in a future post.

No Longer Newbies

Time to take a quick pause in series from the Honey-do post to mention that three years ago today, we became new homeowners! My how time flies.

Not that we have any more clue about how to do this stuff than we did three years ago. Thank goodness for friends and family! We couldn't do it without you!

Hot and Cold

We made good progress on last week's Honey-do list, though we didn't make it through quite all the way (that window pane is never getting replaced, is it?). Today I'll cover one repair that was pretty quick and easy (says the girl wielding the camera while everyone else was doing the heavy lifting): replacing the hoses on our washing machine.

The washer actually says that the hoses should be switched out every 5 years and the ones in place looked a lot older than that. We were ready with stainless steel hoses that don't need replacing, so now we can proceed with being lazy, a skill we are already very good at.

The hoses are conveniently laced with blue and red to keep them straight, and we made sure to only install one at a time to make sure we didn't mix them up on installation.

 Step one, move washer away from the wall (duh).

Step two, disconnect old hose, keeping a bucket ready since the hoses have water in them:

Step three, magically fast forward 5 minutes and voila! New hoses!

Only kidding--step three was to screw the new hoses back on with a wrench, but I'm sure smart people like you already figured that one out. Step four, not shown, is say a little prayer and do a load of laundry. We kept the washing machine pushed out for the first load, just so we could keep an eye on the connection and make sure we didn't spring a leak. All clear!

This one was so easy that I'm embarrassed it took so long to get around to doing. But it was easier having a few more big strong people around to help.

Honey-do list

It's September which means, if you go all the way back to this post from March, that we need to revisit the notion of getting our heating system fixed. We still have no idea of the ideal solution to make the warmed water in our baseboards get to all the rooms in the house. We still don't know who to hire. But, fortunately, we do have some wonderful friends who know more than we do. Next weekend a car full of family and family friends are headed our way to give a more knowledgeable look at the heat system and hopefully propose a few solutions that we can take back to the heating specialists.

Not one to waste a car ride, my family also asked me to put together a list of all the little things we need to do around the house that are just one notch up from "total amateur" so that they can take a look while they're here. Makes perfect sense! And makes for a decent blog post too. So without further adieu, our list of things that need doing, not all of which will happen next weekend:

(Advance apologies to anyone reading this via an RSS feed--I might update this post if I think of more things...)

• The post lantern at the bottom of our walkway is out and it's not the lightbulb or the circuit breaker.  That's the extent of our electrical knowledge for a fixture that travels 30 feet away from our house underground.

• The handles in our main bathroom sink are backwards (the "on"position turns the water off, the "off" position turns them on) and it drives us--and our guests--crazy.

• Our basement light switch crackles when we turn it on and the lights flicker a little (we're pretty sure we just need to rewire a new switch, but want confirmation before we play around with electricity).

• This is pretty embarrassing but 3 months after we bought this house, a branch came through a window pane. And yeah, we still haven't fixed it. Probably should do it before it gets cold but hey, the tape has already made it through 3 winters and we plan to replace all the windows...eventually. Plus it's usually behind blinds and curtains, so it's only an eyesore on the outside of the house.

• We love our new bathroom but we don't love the drain. There's nowhere to put in an easy-to-empty hair trap and I shed. So poor D has to unscrew all the hardware and use a plumber's snake every week or two to clean it out. There has to be a better solution!

• The hoses connected to our washing machine say they need to be replaced every 5 years and we've already lived here for nearly 3 years, so it's probably time to change them.

• We bought an insulation wrap for our water heater 2 winters ago but my fear of fiberglass* (and us being lazy and forgetful) has meant our water heater remains scandalously naked. 

• Thought we bought it over a year ago, when my parents helped us de-lint the dryer, the new vent for our dryer remained uninstalled.

(You can see the roll of fiberglass insulation for the water heater and, next to it, the new dryer vent, just hanging out here serving absolutely no purpose.)

*Last time we bought fiberglass wrapping for our pipes, I somehow got little fiberglass particles all over me in the store despite trying to be very careful. It itched and burned and I'm a little scared to work with it again.

OK, this post was supposed to be short but became depressingly long as I wandered around looking at things we need to do around here. And it's not like we don't regularly work on home improvement projects. I guess the job of a homeowner is never done....I'm sure we won't get all of this done next weekend, but at least we have plenty to keep us busy. And a list to keep us on track throughout the fall.