Down in the Hole

Today's post is continuing the fun with the furnace. We took a weekend off for a family wedding and all the events around it. So, when we returned, we had a hole cut in the floor, a dozen 5-gallon buckets worth of dirt removed from beneath it, and the furnace slid over to the edge of the hole.

Chimney Cleared

placed for now

Before Boo and I got after moving the furnace, we felt that getting the chimney liner removed and the blockage between the floors removed needed to happen first. Also, by keeping the furnace out of the way, the chimney folks would have the most space available. We hired a father son team (DGC Chimney Service) to do the dirty business we were unable to complete ourselves. This also created an opportunity to have this chimney inspected and repaired, if necessary. They started by removing the aluminum sleeve out the top of the chimney. It is in re-usable shape, so we just need to add about 8 feet to it and re-feed it down the chimney to vent the new furnace location. Once it was out, they cleared the mortar plug that had been placed between the floors and then swept out the remaining soot. After an inspection and read-out, they were done. All-in, they were here for 2 hours.

lowered

During the read-out, they shared that the top 2 courses of the chimney needed to be repaired. These are not structural, so they insisted a homeowner could do it. Otherwise, the chimney is in incredibly good shape. The age of this house pre-dates the building code requiring the terra-cotta tile liner. Prior to that code change, masons would apply a thin layer of mortar by hand inside the chimney as it was being constructed. Once complete, there would be an uninterrupted skin from bottom to top. While cohesive, this was a great liner of a chimney. Unfortunately, this mortar is more sensitive to the acidic emissions which pass through a chimney. When the residue on the mortar skin is met with rainwater, the mortar is slowly eaten away. So, ordinarily a house this old would have some areas of the mortar liner, especially nearest the top, compromised. That is not the case here, so somehow we're lucky. Perhaps the chimney was cleaned annually. Regardless, I need to repair the top 2 courses and re-introduce a liner down through to the crawlspace.

Furnace Lowered

rotated 90*

With DGC's work complete, Boo and I could return to moving the furnace. As I mentioned, it was on the edge of the hole in the floor and I had dug out a bunch of dirt below. To keep things clean, we set out a blue tarp over the dug-out hole. Then, we wrapped the furnace with a pair of load straps, tying the ends so the furnace had 2 long canvas straps around it. Boo and I used those straps as handles, shifting the furnace first over and then through the hole in the floor. The hole was cut exactly right for the size of the furnace, but it di not account for the machine screw heads sticking out from the sides. So, the furnace would hang up on the screwheads on the floor joists. We encouraged the furnace to pass with a booted foot and once the screwheads passed the top edge they dug into the joist just enough to prevent the furnace from falling through. A couple of centimeters after the top edge of the furnace passed the bottom of the floor joist, the furnace rested on the blue tarp.

Once on the ground, Boo ducked through the hole where the furnace used to be and returned the furnace from the crawlspace. Then, as I lifted up on the straps, Boo pulled the bottom edge towards her, tilting the top away. The furnace rotated on it's horizontal axis until it had turned 90*. At this point, I climbed down behind the furnace and Boo and I wrapped it with a moving blanket. Then, as Boo pulled, I pushed the furnace over the plastic vapor barrier over to the base of the chimney (to be fair, Boo pulled more than I pushed). We left the furnace like that, wrapped in a moving blanket, and not quite where it's going, but fairly close.

More Vent Fun

insulation stripped

With the furnace somewhat settled, I took a closer look at the rectangular vent/ducting we had taken down for the furnace removal. It looked awful. The ducts had been wrapped with open-cell pink fiberglass insulation. On surface, that sounds like a great idea, but this crawlspace had been inhabited by rodents. So, the fiberglass was, uh.. let's just say guh-nasty, gross, disgusting. Wearing a respirator (of course), I removed the insulation from the larger run and carefully swept up the droppings and dust into a plastic garbage bag and removed the bags from the crawlspace. The other duct needs to have a similar treatment, but the one which was stripped of insulation now looks brand new. We had feared that they would need to be replaced, but now, we will simply clean the insides with a vacuum and long-handled brush. Of course, with the furnace re-location, the venting will need some re-orientation, but we may be able to escape with only a few small pieces rather than a full vent replacement.

This is where we're at. For Pacific Northwesterners, you are well aware of how our weather has shifted from summer to autumn-ish over the past few weeks. Overnight low temperatures have dropped into single-digit C (below 50*F) and daytime highs are barely breaking 20C (68*F). Not having an operational furnace nor a meaningful alternative heat source may very well become an issue before we get the furnace operational, based solely on the speed at which we have gotten to this point. Fear is the ultimate motivator; we will have heat this winter. It will be interesting to see if we have heat by Halloween, though.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Digging a Hole Where the Furnace Gets In

Kindly forgive the Beatles song stretch. Today is a brief post covering a considerable amount of sweat and effort: getting the furnace moved into the crawlspace.

Can You Dig It?

dig hole

In my last post, we cut a hole in the old kitchen floor just inside the door to the garage. The hole is one floor joist wide, allowing the most narrow dimension of the furnace (~11cm or just over 14inches) to pass through. We decided that the height (depth?) of the other side of the hole would be the largest of the 2 remaining dimensions of the furnace. We could have used the next-smallest. We figured that whichever dimension remained would need to be available between the bottom of the floor joist and the ground. Since the plastic-sheet covered dirt floor was 2 feet (60cm) +/- from the bottom of the joist, we would need to dig. The furnace has one side that's about 28-1/2 inches (72cm) and it stands 33-1/2 (85cm) tall in it's original alignment. Our choice was to dig down 4 inches or so for the size of the hole or dig down almost a foot (25cm plus wiggle room). I suppose the mount of dirt to move is the same, its just a question of depth versus width. Still, it just seemed like digging shallow and wide felt like less dirt.

With the hole cut in the floor, I grabbed a 5 gallon bucket and the post-hole digger. I filled a bucket, hauled it up and outside and spread the dirt around a low spot on our lawn. I did that at least a dozen times. Once the main rectangle was dug, I considered that once the furnace was in the hole, we needed to tip it one way or the other to get it flat so it could slide around. So, the edge of the rectangle that faced towards the furnace final destination was cut down on an angle so we could pull that bottom edge up and away from the hole. I figured that if I had 28 inches from the bottom of the hole to the top of the dirt as measured from the inner edge of that floor joist, it could effectively hinge. By the nature of how this tip, though, that front edge will come up between the joists and not have an issue. It wasn't until after completing the dig, that I pieced that together and determined that I dug out more than I needed to. Ultimately, it is better to have too much room than not enough.

Venting Some Venting

venting set aside

With direct access into the crawlspace, Boo and I looked towards the location where the furnace would ultimately reside. Our view was impeded by supply venting routed all over. There are 2 main runs, heading in opposite directions: one towards the hole we just dug and the other going away. From these main trunk vents, the smaller round vents are attached. Where the 2 main runs come together is a large box (plenum?) where the conditioned air leaves the furnace and enters the system. All of this stuff needed to get shifted out of the way before we could bring the furnace down.

We started with the vent that ran from the box towards the hole. This system is old, and held together mostly by faith and tape. Boo removed the tape at the box, and the vent detached easily. She cut down the cloth webbing that suspended the vent from the floor joists and the whole thing dropped to the floor. She slid it to the side. I followed suit, removing the vent running the other way by the same steps. This left the big box.

the box

The box was simply hung from the floor by a lip that was less than 1/2". I lifted the edge of the lip with a bladed screwdriver, pressing the lip up and inward while sliding the screwdriver along the edge. The lip simply folded under the floor. Once the final side of the box's lip was so treated, the box fell to the floor of the crawlspace. I was (and still am) amazed that a heat system constructed in the late 1940's was held together without any fasteners. I removed the connectors attached to the box that allowed the vents to connect and then lifted the box out through the hole.

Sooty

blocked with soot

The last thing I tried to complete before lowering the furnace was removing all the soot from the clear-out. I foolishly thought that I could dig out the soot that was at the clear out down in the crawlspace. Well, it looked like the clear out had maybe never been cleared out. I was able to remove a full trashbag of soot and was unable to reach any further up into the chimney. Looking down from above (through the original oil? wood? coal? furnace-to-chimney access, I could tell there was at least another foot of solid soot I could not reach. So, Boo and I decided that we would bring in a professional. Many years ago, I had used British Brush to clean and repair chimneys at various houses. Well, they are out of business so we hit Yelp / the Yellow pages and solicited bids. In the end, we have some chimney repair from when the furnace was in the dining room, probably a new liner from the cap to the clear-out and then a safe connection to which we can attach the furnace. My biggest concern about this whole furnace move was to safely manage the exhaust and not accidentally create a CO or CO2 issue inside the house. Having a professional will help.

This is where we are left off. We have the venting removed, the furnace freed, an access hatch built and the hole dug for moving the furnace. We decided to leave everything just like this until after the chimney folks do their thing so they have the greatest mobility. We have some family events coming up, so the work needed to come to a stand-still anyway. We will pick this up after that.

As always, thanks for following along-

Kitchen Trap Door

In my last few posts, I have been walking through the slow process of kitchen and furnace demo. Today, our destruction continues with the creation of a hole in the kitchen floor, which will become a crawlspace access. Let's start with the obvious questions: why, how large and where. Before I begin, for my US readers, Happy first day after Labor Day; so starts the most productive period of the year (until ThanksGiving in late November). If you feel like you're working "so much more than", that's because you are. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah, cutting a hole.

Why

its a hole

Recall, this is a 1948 farmhouse. This house pre-dates most modern design like an inside access to the crawlspace. Instead, there are large openings around the outside of the foundation, which are blocked off with framed wire rectangles (to keep critters out). So, when under-house maintenance is needed, one of the frames is pulled off the house and the worker-person crawls under. When it is nice outside, this is clumsy, but not terrible. Add in rain, snow, cold and/or wind and this quickly becomes much less pleasant. Consider, between readying tools and parts in the rain near the crawlspace access, you will be fairly wet before you slide under the house... into the dry dust and dirt. Being wet, that dust and dirt clings to you. Yeay. Having an ongoing internal access would address this, but honestly, if a furnace could fit through the existing foundation opening, we would not have taken on the scope increase. Whether we were to buy a new electric furnace or reuse our existing furnace, the hole is too small to fit a furnace that is large enough for the home size.

How Large

So, answering the question "why" above, I shift to "where", with an eye on "how big". I took measurements of the in-hand gas furnace, and I swear the designer had standard US housing standards in mind when they considered the size. The most narrow side is just over 14 inches wide. Standard framing width is 16 inches-on-center, so the just over 14 inches wide will just slide between. The floor joists in this house are standard width (I was shocked, honestly), so the furnace can fit between. The next most-narrow side is around 27 inches. This is important for install as well, but this next-shortest side drove us to the size and shape of the hole. In short, the hole needs to be at least 14 inches by 27 for the furnace to slide through.

Where

stripped clean

I touched on where we were thinking about putting the access in my last post. Since we have not fully decided where things would go in the kitchen, cabinets and appliances -wise, we had to make some informed guesses. We recognize that the smart place to put food storage (fridge and pantry) is close to the door where you bring groceries into the house. So, we figured the if we set the trapdoor inside the door to the garage, the limit to how far into the room it can go will be constrained by the space consumed by food storage. Knowing the width of the pantry (sitting in the garage, waiting for install) is 24 inches and a standard-sized US fridge is 33 inches, we can measure off the not-moving-chimney towards the door to the garage, and mark where the closest edge of the fridge will be.

Along the adjacent wall (the wall with the door in/out of the garage), we intend to put cabinets with a sink. Similar to the pantry cabinet, we know the width of that standard-depth cabinet (82 inches). By marking that off on the floor, we could see that there was about a foot and a half between the end of the cabinet and the start of the door frame, leaving ample space for garbage/recycling bins by the door. For this purpose, though, it gave us a large space where the hole could go.

With these parameters, we needed to know where the joists and beams were so we could cut a hole that met the various needs. To get exact locations, someone had to go under the floor.

Mark Your Spots

old access

Boo has a very healthy sensitivity to rodent waste and what the dust that waste creates can do to your lungs. Because of that healthy sensitivity, she has always taken on the role of under-house-slider, wearing a full respirator. For this task, it was no different. She took a flashlight, a measuring tape and a cordless drill with her. Shouting to each other through the floor to arrive at an approximate location, Boo sent the drill through 6 different locations to indicate for us where the joists were. Beyond the drilling the holes, Boo had a clear understanding of what barriers or hurdles exists beyond the joists. It was with that info plus the drilled holes we were able to plan the rectangular cut.

Cut Once.... Or Twice

Based off of the holes, we drew an initial rectangle. I opened up the holes with a larger bit so the jigsaw would fit and then cut the lines. Once we had the initial hole, Boo and I got to thinking, did some more measuring and more talking. It was at this point that we realized that the furnace could fit between the joists. Could we have figured this out earlier? Maybe. Sometimes, you need to see things in real-time before you have a flash of realization. Once we could see where the cabinets and fridge were going, we could see where we could re-shape the hole parallel to the door to the garage. The furnace would fit and we would not have to cut and frame-fix any joists. So, we measured and cut another small section of flooring out, reshaping the hole.

Furnace Prep

While this was going on, I removed all the bits that were attached around the furnace, to get it's dimensions down to the size of the outer frame. This included removing the stove-stack out the top, the gas line from the side and the emergency electric shut off box. With these gone, the furnace is actually the measured dimensions, allowing it to pass between the joists. In my last post, I walked through our logic to try to reuse our in-hand furnace. We are continuing with that thinking, as you have probably surmised from how we approached the size of the hole. While Boo was under the house, she crawled over to the chimney and confirmed there is a soot clean-out. So, with that variable solved, we could commit to reusing the furnace whole hog.

A hole in the floor just inside a regularly used door is very unsafe. As you can see in the first image, we temporarily covered the hole with some waste from the first cut. Once the furnace is through the hole, we will nail-down some plywood until the flooring company can fit us into their schedule. At least the visible floor in the kitchen is getting replaced; we don't know about the rest of it. Regardless, this trapdoor will persist, and while the extra cut will create some subfloor repair by the flooring company, this access will be an incredible upgrade long-term while creating a means of moving the furnace where we want it. That's next.... and a future post.

Thanks, as always, for following along-