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We emptied out the basement so the furnace guys could do their thing (which is ongoing for maybe another week). And my computer was in "storage". Now that Erica has moved into her apartment (yay for her!), I can use her desk for my computer until the basement is done and cleaned up and put back together (at least where my desk is).
Yay for having my own computer instead of mooching off Ken's.
When we put stuff back into the basement, we will put back ONLY what we will actually use--this is a great opportunity to get rid of stuff. Freecycle & Goodwill, here I come! I plan to have a garage sale later this summer, and Oh Darn, whatever we don't put back into the basement will already be in the garage. w00t
So, the asbestos floor tile and floor have been removed from the family room. The radon pump is hooked up and working. The insulation guys have insulated the crap out of the crawl space under the (currently nonexistent) family room floor. And the insulation inspector has come. The duct work is done in the family room & that inspector has come. Monday the carpenter comes to make us a new family room floor. In the meantime, the duct work is also done in the laundry area, so it's put back together, and MUCH easier to do laundry.
Ken and I have come to a sort of agreement on colors for the carpet. double w00t. The carpet is this really slick product called Flor. It comes in 19.7" (50 cm) squares. We don't need a carpet pad, and we install it ourselves--and later clean it ourselves (basically in the laundry tub & hang on the line to dry). We essentially use a big velcro circle in the corner of 4 squares to hold it all together. If squares get horribly soiled, we can move them under the couch. And I think the company takes it back to recycle at the end of its lifespan. Anyway, we are currently considering a sort of mottled look with either 9 or 6 colors, with or without a solid color border. It sort of depends on how busy it looks.
Progress is being made. And we get to use the incentive money to cover some of the heat pump and insulation cost.
July 4 2009, 03:02:17 UTC 2 years ago
anyway, sounds fab.
so what happened that started all the furnace and such stuff?
July 4 2009, 13:19:31 UTC 2 years ago
We wanted to improve the heating in the family room. I was interested in geothermal (more expensive than what we're doing). That's a ground-to-air heat exchanger. We got a glorified fancy air conditioner that works as an air-to-air heat exchanger (it's really more complicated than that, but I don't understand it). The crawl space under the family room is only 13 inches, so we decided to take the floor up to add more heat ducts to the room. We needed to replace the carpet anyway (it was the first thing we changed when we bought the house in 1980--it was 60's shag olive green/turquiose, ghastly!). Then, the carpenter who would take the floor out asked me to test the floor tile for asbestos (bingo!), and a friend nearby with a serious radon problem and a reliable radon tester, loaned me her tester. The only detectable radon was under the crawl space (it was only sand, by the way). And while we had the floor out, we might as well do it right by insulatin the space.
This is all paid for out of my parents' estate--so I guess that's what started it all--when I paid the last bill and the taxes and could assume that the money was truly mine.
I'm looking forward to having a floor again!!
July 4 2009, 14:18:31 UTC 2 years ago