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-