Sticker Shock

Ouch.

Ouch ouch ouch.

We got an estimate on our boiler/air conditioner situation yesterday.

I say again, ouch.

Here's what we had hoped to do: replace our 40% efficient steam boiler with a 90%+ efficient hot water system. Not only would this save us money, but it would be safer as well (those steam pipes hit temps over 200 degrees F). We were also going to replace the 25-year-old A/C unit with a heat pump, which would allow us to cool the house all summer and warm the house on those high-30s and 40s days without firing up the boiler (or hot water unit).

So that's what we heard about yesterday. I don't want to give the exact number, but for those of you reading this post in the distant future (and I assume you are, since I don't think anyone reads this blog in the present), I will provide some handy 2008 equivalents.

For the price of installing a hot-water heating system and a heat pump, in the year 2008 a person could do one of the following:

• Catch the matinee of Tropic Thunder at the Warren Theatre 2,714 times (that's the original 2008 version of Tropic Thunder, not the crappy remake from 2043).
• Renew your Flickr Pro Account for 761 years.
• Buy 5,937.5 gallons of gas (roughly enough to drive a Hummer from Wichita to Kansas City).

Obviously, we are looking into other possibilities.

Pics of the Hood

Chandra has some cool photos of College Hill over at her blog, To Explain How I Got Here. Nice work, Chandra.

A Visitor and a Major Decision

We've had a couple of developments with the house lately, which made me realize, "Hey, I used to have a house blog! I wonder whatever happened with that." It was a little like waking up in college and realizing you have a final in a class you'd forgotten you were taking. I haven't updated this blog since April. For five months there hasn't been anything interesting enough to post to this blog. Hopefully that will change, but as always, I will play the triplet card for now.

The Visitor

A woman who grew up in our house stopped by today. Judy, our neighbor from across the street, stopped by this morning to tell us that this woman was in town for her high school reunion and she might want to take a look at the main floor of our house.

Honestly, at first we were a little creeped out by this. I mean, I can imagine driving by the house I grew up in to see what it looks like now, but I would never knock on the door and ask to take a look inside. I would never do that with any of the houses I've lived in, and neither would Maranda.

But then we realized that it wasn't creepy; it was actually pretty cool. This woman's family lived here from 1957 to 1985. Judy lived across the street during that time too, so they were able to talk about the old neighbors and the ones who were still around. College Hill has more of a sense of community than many neighborhoods; certainly more than you find in most suburbs.

It's also about the house. It's cliche, but old houses have character. I really think you feel more of a connection with an old house than with a newer one. At least, we certainly do. We lived in our house on Robin Circle for five years, yet we really didn't feel any sense of loss when we left it. After living in our College Hill house for not even two years, we would already feel tremendous loss if we had to leave. This woman wanted to come inside because it wasn't enough simply to drive by and see the outside of the house. She still felt like this was home. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

We also found out that this woman's family bought our house from the Warrens, who were the original owners. In 1985, her family sold it to the Muths, and then in 2007 we bought it from the Muths. That means we are the fourth owners of this 93-year-old house. Pretty cool. Our house on Robin had had at least four owners, and it was built in 1992!

The Major Decision

After two winters, lots of work to make our house more efficient, and concerns about a 25-year-old air conditioner, we are considering a major HVAC makeover.

Last winter we insulated the basement pipes, installed storm windows, weatherstripped the doors, and lowered the thermostat. All of that had a measurable effect on our gas usage when compared to periods of the same temperature the year before, but it just wasn't enough. We still paid several hundred dollars more per month than we should have during the coldest months.

So we started having companies come out to give us estimates. At this point we've decided that we're willing to part with our beloved steam heat if it means we can have manageable gas bills, so we're even open to replacing the boiler with a furnace.

Fortunately, I've read Dan Holohan's book We Got Steam Heat, and that helped make a couple of decisions easier. The first two guys who came out to give us estimates for a new steam boiler completely ignored the radiators. They went downstairs, took some numbers off The Beast (the original steam boiler that still heats our house), and basically said that was all they needed.

Guess what? It wasn't. Due to many reasons outlined in Holohan's book, these old steam boilers were sometimes extremely oversized. Although some of Holohan's information may be apocryphal, the fact is that the only way to accurately determine the size of boiler a house needs is to measure every single radiator in the house.

Our third guy restored my faith. He immediately acknowledged that the size of the current boiler was irrelevant, and started measuring the radiators. He is also able to work with furnaces, steam boilers, and hot water units. We discussed the pros and cons of each, and he is going to give us estimates for each: for replacing the whole system with a furnace (or furnaces), replacing the steam boiler with a modern steam boiler, and replacing the steam boiler with a hot water unit if that is possible.

Our preference, if it's possible, is to convert the steam system to hot water. There are several advantages with this approach: we would keep that radiant heating that we love so much, for one. And we wouldn't have to worry so much about one of the girls grabbing a pipe and burning her hand. Plus, with hot water you can use cheap, easy-to-use plastic pipe and simple baseboards. So we could pretty easily run heating to the back room and the main floor bathroom, which currently aren't heated. This all depends on whether our pipes and radiators will work with the conversion, though.

We should start getting estimates back this week. I'll keep you posted on what direction we take.

Back to Work

There just haven't been many blogworthy house happenings lately, but hopefully that will change pretty soon. I have a four-day weekend for Memorial Day, which is a perfect time for choosing one of those we'll-get-around-to-it-someday projects. Our tentative plan is to (at long last) put up the kitchen backsplash. That's the same kitchen backsplash I mentioned in my New Year's Resolutions post.

Back in December.

Five months ago.

But on with the future. We're leaning towards the tin ceiling tile look, like the ones on this page. They may not completely match our kitchen's current look, but we plan to replace a lot in our kitchen over the years, so we'll just head in that direction slowly.

In other news, we are seeing a big change in the backyard. For a long time it has been nothing but dirt (more often, mud). A few weeks ago I tried seeding the area. I had no expectation of anything coming of it, but I've always loved the myth of Sisyphus. Surprisingly, this is what I saw seven days later:



That is grass!. Real, live leaves of grass. Walt Whitman would be proud.

More Storm Window Progress

We have storm windows!



I know, not too exciting really. But it is exciting for us. This is just the south side of the house -- the main floor is almost finished now, except one window on the porch. (That remaining window could have been installed already if I didn't have to replace the bottom pane.)

I am especially impressed with the far window in the picture (the one on the right). That was the only storm window on the main level that was missing, so my father made the frame for me. It's a darn good match if you ask me, and it fits better than the originals.

Here is the new storm window when it was half finished.



And here it is beside one of the originals (which was obviously also in progress).

Kitchen Faucet

Wow! I am really slacking on the blogging the last couple of months. There really hasn't been much to blog about with the house, but that's just an excuse. There's always something to blog (complain, gripe, etc.) about when you live in an older house!

We did get lots of storm windows finished and installed. At some point I need to do a comparison of our natural gas consumption from last year to this year, and see how much money it might be saving us (assuming that I can find months with comparable temperatures).

The main thing we've done to the house lately was installing a new faucet in the kitchen. We've resigned ourselves to the old "one piece at a time" kitchen remodeling program, where we replace things as they break. It was the faucet's turn a few weeks ago:



It's hard to tell in the picture, but a nice, steady stream of water is shooting out of the faucet and onto the wall behind the sink.

I've replaced faucets before; in our (newer) house on the west side of town, it took me about half an hour to replace the kitchen faucet. Using that as a gauge, I figured I should set aside an entire day to replace the College Hill House faucet. And I was right.

There were no shut-off valves under the sink, and once I traced the lines back far enough, it ended up being easier to shut off the water for the entire house. Then, of course, all of the fittings under the sink were corroded and nearly impossible to break loose.

But with a minimal of swearing and only a few trips to the hardware store, I succeeded in installing some quarter-turn shut-off valves and our shiny new faucet:



I'll try to get some pictures of the storm windows posted over the weekend.

Senseless Destruction

We've been pretty busy here at College Hill House, but not working on the house. The triplets all had their first ear infections and their first birthday (the former was much less pleasant than the latter, as you might guess). So between comforting crying babies and planning the small-but-exciting first birthday party, I haven't had much time for house blogging.

I don't think I've mentioned this on the blog before, but I have a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500XL out in the garage (and I'm using a very generous definition of "garage" here). Back when we started working on the storm windows, I pulled the Galaxie about halfway out of the garage so that we'd have room behind it to work. Yesterday I tried to back the Galaxie into the garage. It wouldn't run. I'm pretty sure it's just a clogged fuel filter, but in the meantime my dad and I decided to push the Galaxie back into the garage.

This is a heavy car, mind you. And of course the drive slopes down from the garage, so we were pushing it uphill. And one of the tires probably could have used some more air. Basically, it was a rough job. We both had to brace ourselves against my Sportage to get the Galaxie rolling. Once it had moved about a foot or so, things got easier.

And then they got worse.

Here's a picture of the car where it sits now. Can you spot the problem?



It's hard to see there. The garage is dark in the very back. But if you were to walk into the garage, you'd see this when you got to the passenger's door:



My, those windows look awfully close to the back of the car, don't they? Someone must have slipped those behind the car after it was backed in. Surely...



Nope. We were so concerned about whether we would be able to get the behemoth rolling, that we forgot to see if there was anything breakable behind the behemoth. The right-hand exhaust pipe went straight through three panes of glass.

So if someone asks you what it takes to stop a rolling car, you can answer that it takes at least four panes of glass. Probably more.