More Moving

Today's post follows the last one, sort of. Today I focus on moving stuff basically from one storage location (the attached carriage-house-sized one-car garage) to another (the tool shed or the shop floor). In re-reading it, there is really a lot of history context with some moving stuff mixed in.

 

But First 

most empty since 2022

Before I get into it, I understand that a blog about fixing cars really ought to, you know, talk about fixing cars sometimes. I get it. I really do. I like working on cars, and when I have time, space and a car that needs fixing, that's how I prefer to spend time. Over the past 2 years, I have spent a great deal of time focusing on creating the space for that to happen. In light of that, I think it is worth noting that I understand the economic space many of us are in. Costs for everything seem to climb more every day while our respective salaries and wages are flat. Affordability may be a catch-phrase for politicians, but for the rest of us its a daily life reality.

 

When I look back on the last year of posts talking about getting a shop built, I recognize how tone-deaf much of that must feel to those in real financial difficulty. I totally understand that. Please consider that I started this before the election in November of 2024 and had committed to $22k of steel building before the tariff wars started in 2025 and had the concrete poured, building installed and the doors started before trump attacked Iran this year, sending our fragile economy skidding into the ditch. I had already started down a path which could not be easily changed before things got really bad.

 

Now, Boo and I are in the same financial binds as most of the US: income flat, outflow increasing. Accordingly, I will not be getting any new-to-me cars/projects nor really invest much in fancy new after-market parts to install on any of the ones I have. What does this mean for a blog about fixing cars? Well, it kinda means that I won't be posting as often and when I do it will be more about repairs than about some new thing except for the parts and bits I collected before we bought the farmhouse in 2022. I have boxes of interesting things that I never got to, like a 2-1/2" universal exhaust kit for the bus, a 3rd brake light idea for the bus (from junkyard parts), a trailer wiring package to go with the tow hitch, etc. So, there will be things. And, of course, I still have the locked up engine on Nina ('64/'65 Beetle) to free, a bunch of little things to finish on Oliver ('78 MGB) and a disassembled '79 280zx (Zed) to put together. Most of that work would require very little in terms of parts.

 

Garage

acquisition day 2022

This 1948 farmhouse has what I would call a carriage-house style attached garage. I say that because only the smallest of cars could possibly fit with the door closed. Oliver, the MGB, could fit. Astra and Nina could fit. That's the end of the list. Hapy is too tall and probably too long. The XRunner is definitely too long. I think even Zed is too long. Further complicating the garage is a fixed work bench along the rear wall that protrudes almost a full meter off the wall and the laundry machines near the front, narrowing at least the feel of the width of the space. I think Astra will still fit, but it will need to be mostly empty.

 

Shortly after we bought the house, before we had meaningfully cleaned anything, Boo and I scored a solid wood, full kitchen's worth of era-correct cabinets from the rebuilding center for $420US. The rebuilding center is not a store room; quite the opposite. Everything you buy must leave the store that day or it's theirs again. So, we lasso'd Boo's ex-husband (and his mini van) and some helpers (our local kids) and ran all of the cabinets over to the farmhouse. And slammed them into the garage on top of one another. The fate of that garage had been written the day we bought it: it would be the staging area for building supplies until the house was livable. Those cabinets were the first but far from the last. And then it continued to be the store room for all kinds of things. Until now.

 

farmhouse at winter solstice

With the shop taking all car-related stuff and car-related tools, almost a third of the stuff in the garage was moved. Over the last weekend in May, I moved everything home-repair related out to the now empty and clean tool shed. That represented almost another third of the stuff that used to be in the garage. As I cleared an area of things, I shop-vac'd all the dust bunnies and old cobwebby string-things. What remains in the garage are camping gear, ski gear, holiday decorations and household goods storage. The rafters are still full of lumber. So, I have to clear that to somewhere and then there is a bunch more vacuuming of ick. I have a couple of extra kitchen cabinets which need to move to the shop and I still have the big black rolling cabinet that needs to move too. Once those three big items move, we can park Astra in there. Boo had been gone for the weekend, baby-sitting our little grand-niece (A) while her mama was at a wedding. When she returned and saw the garage space, she immediately started envisioning a project space for herself. I love that, and if we do it right, we can still move things around and park her car in there between projects.

 

Car Stuff

There has been some car stuff, though. Hapy is my "daily driver" again, getting me to and from a show with Brenda on Sunday. Astra, now that her alternator is keeping her all charged and start-able has started complaining about her power steering. It is making a low hum most of the time and actual turning has gotten harder at the extreme edges of the range. I checked fluid (nothing on the stick: that's bad) and topped it off. I expect one of the rubber hoses is failing so I will need to do a deeper diagnosis this weekend. For now, though, the added fluid appeared to quiet the hum a little bit and the steering is better until the last bit. It could resolve as the air works its way out the hoses, but I think there is an active leak so it will only get worse before I find and fix. Work on Saturday! Yeay!

 

Wrap up

Yep, that was an unusual post. There is a considerable amount of economic uncertainty around us. For some, it is the loss of discretionary spending while others are dealing with food or even housing scarcity. We all can feel some foundational insecurity, maybe while filling your tank or grocery cart, paying utility bills or thinking about how to keep your kids safe this summer. I see it in faces. Fewer smiles, more worry-lines. It is a hard time for most of us. So please, let that person pull in front of you, give everyone a little grace. Grace is free. So are hugs and smiles and waves. Everything else seems to be more expensive than it was yesterday and the shorter-term future looks like it will be more of the same.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

NewOld Kitchen progresses

Quick check-in post today on the state of the kitchen. Most of this work is being done by others while I work my 9-5 and then Boo and I clean up or move stuff around on the evenings and weekends. The construction has been moving at an incredible pace after so many months of seemingly slow-go. To be fair, I was only really getting after it on weekends versus a crew working multiple days. So, it's probably not fair to me to compare. On the personal side, my band's EP (find detail here) released on Groundhog's Day (2-Feb) and my sister came to visit for the following week. 

Where Were We

current state

Once the floors were finished, we could get moving forward on the kitchen. Consider, we have been living without a kitchen for about a year. Instead of a kitchen, it has been a version of an efficiency apartment where we have a fridge, but only a crockpot, a single burner hot plate, a microwave and a hot pot for making food. I suspect most folks, at least Americans, would have lived on take-out food. Had this project only lasted a few weeks, we might have gone that route. Into our 12th month like this, however, yeah, we could not afford that. After the plumbing work I described last time was completed, our electrical rough-in was done by our friend Gary.

Electrical Started

For electrical, we simply focused on the "sink wall", making sure we had juice where we needed it for the dishwasher and disposal, as well as some over-counter outlets. Last, he ran a line for task lighting over the sink. Since that initial work, he returned to run the 220V for the wall oven and the 110V for the fridge. He will return to run lines for the stove and some additional outlets.

Drywall and Cabinet Set

rough plumbing done

With the electric on the "sink wall" done, Ray, our general contractor was able to get the drywall repairs completed. This included some of the rough bits around the new rear door, the holes for the old furnace location, the false beam where I removed that wall and everywhere else in the main kitchen space. Once drywalled, mudded and sanded, they primed and then painted. Once dry, the "sink wall" cabinet was cut down to fit the dishwasher, and both were set in place. They continued by installing the pantry cabinet and fridge, and then the cooktop peninsula. The cooktop peninsula, similar to the sink wall cabinet, was cut down to fit our space. Again, most folks design and buy cabinets to fit the space. We bought and are customizing. Considering the cost of new cabinetry, both in terms of dollars and environmental impact, this path is far less expensive on both counts.

So we could get a sense of the workability of the space, Ray cut down some 3/4" plywood for countertops and pin-nailed them into place. The cabinets along the once-furnace-wall have not been cut down and installed yet but already it feels like there is considerable space to work in. We have not had a kitchen in a while, so it is more pronounced for us, but visitors have made similar observations: for what looked like a really small space from outside, it is looking like it will be very functional with lots of counter space. Boo and I have been calling it the TARDIS-effect. Dr. Who fans unite.

Water and Gas

setting pantry depth

For the water rough-in, the plumber did everything he could that did not require a permit. From that point forward, the work is either mine to complete, or I need to get permits and farm it out. Boo and I decided to split the difference: I do the work, but have the gas plumbing inspected by the gas company. Fortunately, the water is quite simple these days: shut off the main, release the pressure (dumping water down the drain) and do the work. In terms of the work, there are shark-bite valves that are no-solder connections. I simply cut off the closed nipple on the end of the pipe and attached the shark-bite around the pipe. It really is that simple. Once the valves were on, we could re-pressurize the system and check for leaks. Seriously, it was that easy; I have no idea why that part of the plumbing needs a permit while the pipes in the walls don't. 

For the gas line, we ran 3/4" pipe from the "T" near the furnace over to the peninsula in the crawlspace, but did not connect it. Instead, where the union will be, we capped it off. At the peninsula, we necked down the 3/4" pipe to 1/2" per standard to pass through the floor. Above the floor, we added a pressure gauge. All of the joints were coated with pipe-dope, of course. We applied air-pressure into the pipe run (from cap near the "T" to the pressure gauge) to 15 psi to verify there were no leaks. As of the publishing of this post, the pressure is still holding at 15 psi. We did all this so we could document it with pictures for the gas company inspector. We do not have the inspection scheduled yet, but after 5 days of holding 15psi, I think we have demonstrated we are good. I expect to finish the gas line next weekend.

what's next

That's as far as we've gotten in the last couple of weeks. It has been a whirlwind of activity, though. Next up will be the construction of a cabinet to hold the wall oven, installing the oven into that and then installing the cabinets along that wall. We have not made any decisions about upper cabinets in the main work area. At this point, however, we are considering leaving the walls without upper cabinets nor open shelving. We have a cabinet we call "the Archie" that we expect to install next to the oven cabinet (on the all in the picture on the right, here). It is possible that it will be the only upper cabinet. Again, we'll see how it evolves.

Thanks, as always, for following along. Hapy broke his speedometer cable a couple of days ago, so I will be posting on that replacement as soon as I've completed that.

NewOld Floored

It has been an unusual start of the year and as such I have not been posting much. Today's post is a quick update of the swirling chaos with NewOldHouse.

On the Level

finished floors

As we started to approach a return to getting the kitchen done, Boo and I realized that if the floors are not level then any cabinet install will be crooked. Then, when we get around to getting the house leveled, the cabinets would not be anymore. So, we had a foundation company come out. They added 2 beams and a bunch of house jacks to get the main house and the 1960's addition leveled. Prior to their work, I had to completely clean the crawlspace as they would not enter a space that had a suggestion of asbestos or rodent. To remedy, I added a 30-foot (10 meter) hose on old PigPen (shopvac). I set the PigPen outside and crawled around under the house for literally 3 hours vacuuming the entire vapor barrier and collecting other debris into a thick plastic garbage bag. The foundation guys were here for 2 days, and now the house is level. A couple of doors which didn't ever close right now close properly and when I sit on an office chair in one of the back bedrooms I no longer unintentionally drift across the floor.

Add Laundry

The prior owners had their laundry machines in the garage. When we moved in, we brought a set of stacked machines and set them next to the large concrete sink just outside the kitchen where the prior owners had theirs. This worked fine, but with where the sink was located relative to the garage door, placing machines near the sink effectively prevented the garage from storing a car. So, we removed the sink and built a small platform (in-process picture below, right) just outside the kitchen-to-garage door. With the machines on the platform, the full width of the garage door is available, so we can one day park a car out there. We hooked the machines back up to the original sink fixtures, routing the waste into a temporary waste-stack. We haven't decided how we are going to finish this space. We will probably frame in walls around the area where the machines are, complete with a ceiling, so they are at least visibly separated from the garage. Around while this was getting built, the garage door was fixed so it opens and closes again.

Kitchen Plumbing

laundry platform framed

We knew the kitchen install was coming, so we went searching for a plumber. The plumbing trade, like so many, are significantly stressed by the current labor environment. I suppose, a couple generations of convincing every high-school student that they need to go to college and not explore trades has not helped, but finding a plumber or electrician who can start the work reasonably soon is virtually impossible. It is reasonable to expect at least 2 months delay. When we contracted our plumber, we indicated that we were 100% flexible and they could send someone over as a schedule-filler even if our project had to be left part-done for weeks. Having this kind of flexibility proved to be a real winner: a plumber arrived the following day, mid-morning, having to leave a job where they weren't ready. 2 days later, our kitchen and attached laundry were rough-plumbed in, and the laundry machines were again operational.

NewOld Floor

Before we moved into this old farmhouse, we had the floors in most of the house redone. The kitchen was still in a semi-demo state, so that area was left alone. Once the demo was completed, and the furnace moved, the floors in the front half of the house could be addressed. Since we now lived here, we needed to further compress our living. So, for about 2 weeks (there was an ice storm in the middle that delayed the flooring work) we used a 10' by 10' space for living, dining and cooking... and the space also held our piano and refrigerator. Needless to say, it was some cramped living, like you couldn't turn around it was so tight. Seriously, you could walk in, but then had to back out.

The flooring guys were pretty magical. They sourced 2-1/4" rolled red-oak flooring matching what was already in place and then feathered it into the existing floor. They repaired in the hole where the furnace used to be, and added a clean crawlspace-access where I had cut the big hole to send the furnace. They spent 2 full days getting the floor installed, filled, stained and clear-coated. The finished floor looks like it was always that way.

Back Door

back door

Before the flooring guys could start, Boo and I needed an escape route. Their work was going to cover the front half of the house and our only egresses would be blocked. We had intended to add a back door eventually, but needing a means of getting in and out of the house moved it to the front of the list. For a hot minute we thought about climbing in and out of a bedroom window. Once the ice storm hit, we were grateful we did not go that route. We added a basic large-windowed (double paned) door that allows a considerable amount of light into a part of the house that had been rather dark. Outside the door, we added 3 steps down to an odd sidewalk that runs along the back of the house. Eventually, we will add a permeable patio back there, but for now, it's where Zed and Oliver are parked (on top of tarps and patio blocks, covered with fairly high-end car covers). The picture on the right, here, shows the after affect; there used to be a built-in bookcase where that door now sits.

All of this activity has been consuming most of our energy. Around these larger items, we had insulation blown into the attic space and I have had to make a few adjustments to the heat distribution as the power of the fan has blown off a connection or 2. I also moved the thermostat so it passes up inside a wall and is attached in it's permanent location opposite the front door. 

Next, the kitchen install work starts with some wall insulation, drywall, and electrical followed by cabinet installs and some appliances. At this rate, we could be making meals in the new space by Easter. 

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Furnace Finished

Today's post covers the final steps of completing the furnace in the NewOldHouse. In my last post, we had cut the hole for the intake and lined it with venting. Our no-longer-an-HVAC-guy electrician was coming over to test the system so I needed to solve a couple of things first. Like the exhaust venting.

Exhausted

operational furnace

When I disassembled the furnace last summer, I saved all of the exhaust venting. I figured I could reuse all of it and but whatever pieces I needed after that. When I did my test fit to confirm the angle (minimum is 1/4" per foot or 1" per 4 feet, I did 1" per 3 feet so better than minimum), I determined that I had more than enough pieces, but did not end-to-end assemble it. These double-walled vents are built to twist-lock and they only assemble one way, indicated by the arrow on the sticker on the side. They are kind of like big-boy Tinkertoys. The sections which can turn are an engineering marvel. They can be twisted into all kinds of off-set shapes or simple angles to get the venting to go where you need it to. My needs were simple, however. From the top of the furnace, I turned it 45* towards the chimney, ran a straight segment and then another 45* angle to head straight into the chimney clear-out hole and the liner contained within. I had retained the collar that threads onto the liner and rests in the brick and I had retained the connector at the end of the vent that abuts the collar, and it tightened down with a set screw. I had expected a couple of hours, and assembly of the chimney was less than an hour.

Using stainless steel pipe-hanger strapping, I suspended the chimney from the floor joists in 3 spots, all closer to the chimney than the furnace. I recalled from my angle testing that I needed the exhaust to enter the chimney near the highest point in the hole. So, I started there, pressing the vent up against the hole, and then worked towards the furnace from there. I used screws instead of nails so the straps could not work their way loose from vibration. Before crawling out claiming victory, I grabbed the cloth webbed strapping that I used to suspend the HVAC and supported the gas line from the floor in a similar fashion. Like the exhaust vent, I do not want the gas line to shake itself loose, potentially creating a leak. I chose to use the fabric webbing instead of the stainless because I thought steel-on-steel could either create a spark or slowly cut into the pipe. Cloth don't cut. Content, I contacted our electrician to test things.

Furnace Active

suspending the vent

Our electrician connected the thermostat to the control wire (which was just run out through the big hole in the floor) to test the system. He knew the state of the gas line, the electrical, etc, so I wanted him to run the test. Besides, I wanted a final review of the work too. The review was quick and positive, so he started a test.... shazam (not boom) we have central heat. While the cold air side of the furnace is just an open plenum reaching into the crawlspace, the test was successful. We ran the system for a bit while he checked for leaks and CO. Everything came back perfect, so we just let the furnace run and bring the temperature of the house up from 58*F to 68*F (14.5C to 20C). The following weekend, I returned to the cold air intake.

Return to the Return

With the furnace operational, I could get back to the intake with a little bit of time flexibility. I had the start of the intake from the floor side and I had the plenum jutting out from the intake side of the furnace. I just needed to connect them. I started with what I thought would be the hardest part: the sides from the plenum to the intake. In retrospect, I probably should have started with the floor of the floor-side to keep it square, but it's done now so who cares. Because the furnace is not 100% square to the house, the sides were not exactly the same length. I cut them the same though, so the south side is a little longer, jutting into the floor-side box by an inch or so. Regardless, the installs for the 2 sides were the same: I set the plenum side into the S-clamp, screwed in 2 sheet metal screws and then attached the other end with another pair of sheet metal screws. I shifted to the top and bottoms next.

Because the floor-side is not aligned with the plenum, the top and bottom were parallelogram shaped, with the ends measuring 20" and the sides at a angle around 45*. Again, because the sides were not exactly the same length, one cardboard template did not suffice. In the interest of conserving materials, the top was completed with multiple smaller sections and then seam-taped. The bottom, however, is one shaped piece added after the floor of the rectangle intake was in place.

Last, I got to the rectangle at the bottom of the intake box I built earlier. For this "floor", I cut another piece of sheeting 23 inches long by 16 inches wide and cut 1/2" notches out of each corner. 3 edges were then bent 90*, leaving the edge facing the furnace flat. I set the floor in from below, sealing the seams with tape, before shifting to the bottom of the intake-to-plenum connector.

 

Filtered

I had intended to get clever with brackets and such to hold the filter in place. I abandoned that simply because I ran out of give-a-shit by now and simply wanted filtered air. Since the south-side ran long into the airbox, that provided material to hold the upper corner of the filter. Using a filter to guide the shaping, I bent the overhang into a tang to hold the filter. The other corners simply stay put, and the 16 x 20 opening is perfectly covered with the filter.

where we started

We have been running the furnace since the filter was added and the air in the house is steadily getting less dusty. After all the work that's been done around here, the dust has been considerable. We have run a small portable filter, but it has not been as effective.

Well, that's the end of this epic effort. For a timeline, the furnace was disassembled in August and moved in September, the chimney repaired and lined in early October. The crawlspace patio was dug out, graveled and patio-blocked in late October; a stand attached and the furnace secured in early November. Air distribution was disassembled, cleaned, reassembled and insulated from mid November to early December. Everything else was crammed into the following 2 weeks. This job was quoted to me for $10kUS. If I paid myself $100US per hour, I still would have paid the HVAC company more for this.

 

This effort took place around a music festival, a family wedding, multiple holidays, kitchen planning, prepping and seeding a lawn, gigs, jams, love and life, and of course, my band (shameless plug: Sunkicks) recording, tracking and mixing an EP (release date 2024-Feb-2). Life is full. I expect there will be more construction posts, but Hapy needs some work done so I expect there will be a post or 2 on that, once I get to it. Thanks for following along-

Planning the Intake

Today, I further document the efforts to put heat into this old farmhouse. First, Hapy New Year. I absolutely recognize that it is past Winter Solstice and we have not had central heat since last spring. We have been getting by with small oil-based space heaters, as opposed to the ones with bright orange electrical coils and blower fans. Except for the sub-freezing cold snaps or windy days, the space heaters have been up to the challenge. On those sub-freezing days and nights, we have closed off sections of the house and hung blankets over doorways, etc. It has been an adventure. A couple of weeks ago, we had that which had once been thin gross cellulose insulation in the attic removed. So, what little heat that grot held in was now escaping to atmosphere. If being cold were not enough of a motivator before, it just went up another notch

In my last post, I could see the finish line. The furnace had been moved, mounted on a stand and angle-confirmed for safe exhaust. The conditioned air side had nee disassembled, cleaned, re-assembled and insulated. The gas line had been reconfigured to feed the furnace, with a "T" fitting so we could tap into it for the stove later. The electrical had been completed to the furnace, with an integrated worker-safety switch. The thermostat control cable had been wired into the furnace. So, what remained? Connecting the thermostat to the control cable, the exhaust vent and a cold air return. I started with the cold air intake, but shifted midway once I concluded that we could get the furnace running for a short time without a cold air return, drawing air mostly from the crawlspace.

Best Laid Plans

completed box

My original plan for the cold air intake was, again, to reuse as much of the HVAC stuff that I had removed from the furnace as I could, and add what was needed. When I looked at the pieces above the plenum, though, I decided they were not up to snuff. Whoever built that intake restricted the airflow considerably. Consider that the plenum is 16x20. The intake grate and filter are also 16x20. In between, they built a 90* turn using a 15x15 box. No wonder the furnace made so much noise when it was running; it was begging for more air. Simple math: 16x20 = 320 square inches. 15x15 = 225 or over 30% smaller. When discussing this with our electrician, he indicated that the restriction was probably not as bad as I thought. I never sought to be an HVAC expert; I just want heat and a quiet running system.

My plan was to install the original intake-side plenum and simply reverse it back on top of itself and then route over to the hole in the floor where the furnace used to sit. In theory, this was a great idea. There's an old Yogi Berra quote about theory and practice (In theory there is no difference between theory and practice - in practice there is). I think it applies here. The intake plenum was nearly as big as the conditioned-side plenum, and once attached it took up more than 50% of the space between the floor joists above and the vapor barrier on the ground. There would be no doubling-back on itself. For a moment I thought about having it turn on it's side, but that would route it where the exhaust vent is. We can't have both things in the exact same space.

I could route the cold air intake around the chimney and under the main beam of the house twice to leverage the existing hole where the furnace was. I started to take measurements and discovered that the space between the bottom of the beam and the top of the concrete curb underneath where the furnace used to be... was a little over 12 inches. I can't run a 16x20 rectangle through the 12" space. I could neck it down, but that would decrease air flow, create noise and potentially shorten the life of the fan since the reduction would be, like 25% (16 to 12). We have already suffered a 30% reduction before, and all of the downsides with it. Now, I could create a pass-thru that's like 12 x 26 so we don't restrict air flow, but when I took a minute and considered how long that intake would be, I figured it was time for a new course.

Before I got too wrapped up in the next step, I installed the intake plenum, sheet-metal screws, tape and all and then suspended it from the floor joists with webbing. With the plenum in a fixed location, I could take some measurements and make some plans.

New Plan, New Hole

simple floor grate

I started by determining where the joists were and marked them on the floor above. Since the joists are 16" on-center apart, the usable gap between the joists is about 15". While obviously that is less than 16, it is greater than 12, so I could put a hole anywhere without touching a joist and the neck-down would be significantly better than running it in a big circle around the chimney in the crawlspace. I also figured that the shorter the intake, the fewer opportunities for leaks. Consider that the area of the house above the furnace is our emerging kitchen. We had been making plans accommodating an intake along one wall, making an allowance for a space without a cabinet for that intake. Now that the intake will no longer reuse that big hole, we can reconsider the cabinet plan there, and have that floor fully repaired by our flooring guy (Thomas).

Both Boo and I have lived in older houses before and we both recall having air intakes in random places in the floor. For whatever reason, they seem to usually appear in hallways, so you get to walk on them a lot. Since there doesn't appear to be much reasoning other than have them centrally located, We are going to make the intake run as short as possible, setting the intake alongside the chimney. This will allow for a simple 90* turn at the end of the plenum straight up to the floor. I will add a little bit of ducting to align between the floor joists, but it will be quite short.

Cutting a hole in a perfectly good floor is hard to bring myself to doing. I ultimately asked our general contractor to do it. I figured he could get the cut straight and along the top of the joists on his first try. In the picture on the right, here, you can see the floor grate I got on Etsy from a guy (Doug) who hand makes these in Minnesota. Big fan of Etsy's handmade stuff.

Return

building the box

With the hole cut, I had a clear target for building the rest of the cold air return. My plan was to have a simple straight down, 90* bend to the plenum. At the point where the venting turns, the air filter sits and it is replaced from above, after removing the air return grate. To help hold the air filter in place, I planned to add a small rib an inch to the plenum side of the 90* bend. Last, I added a flip-down tab above the filter so that after the filter was set in, the tab would rotate down to hold it in place. Back to that Yogi Berra quote, the reality, however, was not simply applied theory. I mean the applied Yogi Berra theory would be there's no difference between what you plan and what you build until you start building. In that spirit, I got after it with a stack of 24" by 36" HVAC sheeting.

I started with a simple box that lined the sides of the joists down to the level where the plenum was. The top of the plenum is about 1 inch below the floor joists, so the box was little more than a 3-sided rectangle. With one sheet, I bent the side furthest from the furnace into a wide U, with the center section 22" across. I pre-drilled holes to connect additional pieces and screwed it into the floor joist level with the top of the joist. Adjacent to the shorter sections of the "U", I added 10-1/2" and 12-1/2" sides (also 24" long). The wider of the 2 sides was bent 90* for the final 2-1/2", and that short stretch runs along the furnace-facing side, reducing the aperture from 22" to 20" to align with the size of the plenum. I left an extra 1/2" of HVAC sheeting so I had something to connect the next pieces to. Along that 4th edge, I ran an 8-1/2" strip of HVAC, covering the floor joist plus an inch. That last half-inch was angle bent rear and upwards to provide something to attach to. Once I got this far, I shifted gears over to the exhaust vent so we could get the furnace tested while our electrician was available.

I am going to stop here since things got moving really quickly around the electrician's visit. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Completing the Furnace Conditioned Air

In my last HVAC/furnace post, I had described the conditioned air plenum, and my efforts to create and then attach one. Today, I get on with the rest of the "conditioned air" venting. As before, I call it that so there's no confusion between the venting that has the output from the furnace and the venting that is the cold-air return side that feeds the furnace.

Rectangular Vent Prep

long arm

Recall that the crawlspace in this house had been infested with rodents. I mean it was bad. We had it emptied of rubbish and insulation by a team who seemed borderline hazmat. The work was disgusting, that team was amazing. They replaced some, but not all, of the circular vents with insulated flexible venting, but left the larger rectangular trunk lines. Perhaps they thought those vents were clear and clean or maybe they just wanted to complete the job (not that I blame them). Those vents were unobstructed, but far from clean. I had intended to clean them in-place with a microfiber cloth on an extendable pole. Once I got to really looking at them, I knew this was simply not going to be sufficient, and chose to ignore the fact that these vents were used last winter. Yuck.

ga-ross

To remedy, I dismantled them, and hauled them piece by piece out of the crawlspace into the backyard. Using the highest pressure setting on my hose-end sprayer, I jetted off the worst of the caked on filth, inside and out. Then, with a scrub brush and dish-soap, I cleaned each piece inside and out. Once rinsed, they were set aside to dry and I took one of my most-needed showers ever. The insides are clean, but I noticed a very slight brown staining. I concluded that it's probably from many years of people smoking tobacco in the house. I considered spray-painting all of the inside surfaces, but decided that the off-gassing of the paint was worse than whatever caused a stain (but was now gone). I did, however, spray paint bits of the outside of the venting which had rust or remnants of the old fabric (asbestos-imbedded?) tape which was removed by the hazmat guys.

Rectangular Vent Install

cleaned

Once cleaned, partially painted and moved back into the crawlspace, I was ready to start installing. I started at the furnace and worked by way out. First were the bits that connect the plenum to the rectangular vents. These are angled and change shape from one end to the other, converting whatever size hole you had in the plenum to the size of the vent. I found that by bending the lip wide open, the piece fit easily, and then just fold the lip back against the inside of the plenum. With high-end foil tape, I sealed the seams from inside the plenum.

I read about and considered using a brush-on goop to seal the seams but decided that painting goop while army-crawling around a filthy crawlspace just did not sound like a great idea. Consider too, the goop seals as well as tape, for the most part, and it's effectiveness is directly tied to user application. So, again, lying prone (or supine) with a brush of goop sounds like errors would abound. Taping is hard enough when you're lying down.

Once the 2 main bits were connected to the plenum, I first did a 90* turn bit on the smaller distribution arm (8 x 12 rather than 8 x 18) and then shifted to completing the larger arm. This took many hours, even though there were only 4 sections. For each section, I would wrestle the rectangle into the connectors on the end of the one prior. I used another section of HVAC to hold the far end up while I fastened the new piece to the old with sheet metal screws. Then, I suspended the far end from the floor with nylon webbing stapled to the floor joists above. Once free-standing, I sealed the seams with that high-end foil tape and then wrapped the vent with (R8) foil-wrapped closed cell HVAC insulation. I expected the venting to take a little while, but did not anticipate that the insulation step would take maybe twice as long as the venting assembly. I took care to seal up the insulation seams, but the time was consumed by, again, lying down and wrestling large rectangular insulation panels, trying to wrap them around a rectangular vent which had circular vents jutting out of it. I don't know if having the insulation sealed up tight matters much in the grand scheme, but I made sure they were relatively well sealed anyway. I spent probably 8 hours in total getting the larger arm assembled and insulated.

original round vent

Before I moved to the smaller arm, I attached the round vents to the larger arm. I had initially intended to remove the original remaining round vents, believing they were not up to snuff. While I was assembling the larger arm, I looked at the 2 remaining larger circular vents (picture on the right shows what condition they were in) and while there is some dust and more brownish stain, there is no rodent evidence. What I did not expect was just how close the rectangular venting is to it's original location. The round outlets on the rectangular vents are a few inches off center and less than a foot away from the original. So, I placed a short stretch of insulated flexi-venting between, taping both the inner hose and the outer insulation wrap at both ends. I did not capture a close-up picture of that, but I found that these sections were so short that it was actually easier to remove the inner sleeve from the insulation, attach it to both ends and then wrap the flexy-hose with the insulation jacket afterwards.

Smaller Arm

When I changed the vents around on the larger arm, I inadvertently removed the vent intended for the bathroom. I will re-integrate that later. The bathroom floor vent has not been connected since we first got the house. Recall above where I described where I made the cut in the plenum, I removed another vent access, which was direct-connected there, to the bedroom. Since it was not part of the air design plan for either arm, adding it to one or the other could upset the pressure for the other destinations. Since the bigger arm distributes to the west side of the house and the smaller arm goes east, I decided to tie it into the east (smaller) arm simply because that's the side of the house the bedroom is on. As it stands, the smaller arm only had 2 destinations (the kitchen and one main living space) so I felt adding a 3rd there would be less intrusive than adding a 5th destination to the larger arm. Also, I considered that the kitchen is an uninsulated space, cordoned off from the rest of the house with plastic. I decided to connect the bedroom to the used-to-be-kitchen vent in the smaller arm. When the kitchen is ready for a vent, I'll cut a hole and tie it in or I will move the bedroom connection back to the plenum.

short arm completed

The smaller arm took less time, and other than threading new stretches of flex-hose from the arm to the vents, it was a reflection of the larger arm work. Each arm-piece-to-arm-piece connection was metal-screwed in multiple spots, foil-taped and suspended with webbing. The entire arm was insulated with the R8 closed cell stuff, each circular connection was double-taped (inner tube and insulation jacket). The only real anomaly was with one rectangular-to-circular connector not aligning between the floor joists because of the furnace move. To remedy, I simply flipped it upside down (see picture on the right) so it is on the bottom instead of the top. I'm sure some HVAC person somewhere doesn't like this, but it fits, and it's sealed. All told, building the large arm took a weekend while attaching the circular vents to it and doing the entire smaller arm took a second weekend.

At this point, it had grown dark on a Sunday afternoon/evening. So, I picked up my tools and supplies and put everything away. With some scrap paper and a pen, I started contemplating the cold-air supply side. I will start that work next, but I think getting the "conditioned air" / distribution part completed was a significant milestone. Sure, I still need the gas hooked up, the exhaust re-assembled and suspended, the cold air return I just mentioned, the trigger wiring done and, last, the electrical (and walk thru by our electrician / HVAC guy). Yes, that is a lot, but I feel like the largest, hardest part is now behind me. I know... "famous last words".

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Starting to Solve for the Furnace Conditioned Air

If it feels like this furnace saga is unending, it definitely feels that way on my end. Every passing day, the weather gets colder, but I will not short-cut this work. It being correct is too important for health and safety. I do want to stress that our electrician, Gary, owned an HVAC company and did hundreds of furnace installs. He consulted on the plan and will be reviewing my work / confirming everything when he connects the electrical at the end. So, we keep going. Honestly, the hardest part is putting on cold clothes in a cold house to get into an even colder (and, frankly, filthy) crawlspace.

Anyway, today, I am focusing on what I refer to as the "conditioned" air. This is the air that is leaving the furnace, presumably warmer, but on those days we are only running the fan, it will just be filtered. For simplicity, and since this was the way I did it, we are working from the furnace exit to the floor vents. Sadly nothing was as easy as it seemed in my head, resulting in this expanding to cover many weekends. This is just the first part of it.

Furnace Mounted

checking pitch

Before I shift to the new topic, I had a couple of final things I needed to do with the furnace: confirm the pitch and attaching it to the stand. To confirm the pitch, I found a straight bit of hard plastic tubing that was over a meter long. At exactly 1 yard (36 inches or 3 feet), I attached a 1 inch thick piece of scrap wood. Recall the minimum pitch for the exhaust from a furnace installed on it's side is 1/4 inch of rise per foot (or 1 inch of rise per 4 feet). I figured that if I made sure my work was at 1 inch per 3 feet I would have exceeded the minimum and have some wiggle room for the furnace or the ground shifting. I set the plastic tube jig on top of the furnace and set the level on top of that. Bubble between the lines? Yes, so somewhere along the way between my level crawlspace patio and the top of my furnace the world tilted. Glad it pitched the right way for me. I had planned to shim the exhaust-exiting end. Do I want to know why it shifted? Yes, but I think because the furnace is offset rearward (you can see the stand in the lower right corner of the picture), the weight of the burner is causing the tilt.

Feeling fortunate, I grabbed a longer run of that plastic tubing to simulate the exhaust from the furnace to the chimney and set the jig on that. We have good angles, though I will need to add a brace near the chimney end to make sure it doesn't relax downward over time because the exhaust needs to enter the chimney near the top of the hole. To make sure the rest of my efforts don't cause the furnace to move, I sent sheet metal screws through the now-bottom of the furnace into the stand so it is fixed-in-place. I re-checked the pitch, and it is still 1 inch for 3 feet even after sending screws through. On to the conditioned air!

Plenum Pablum

building a plenum

The first thing the conditioned air enters is a box called a "plenum". It acts as a singular junction box for all of the conditioned air, but it does more than that. Consider what happens when your furnace kicks on. The fan starts and very quickly air pressure increases at the furnace outlet. To cushion the system from that large pressure increase, there is the big box (plenum). Secondarily, this box allows the air to flow smoothly and evenly into the ducts. If the box is too small, or nonexistent, the air would not enter all of the vents evenly, leaving some spaces with too much airflow and others getting an old microbus heating system experience (virtually nothing). I am over-simplifying it as there are air dynamics about back pressure from the branch lines, etc. that I really don't understand.

The original plenum to this house was just that. The original plenum, as in it was the plenum when the heat source was something other than gas, we believe. I think it may have been coal based on the soot we have found and then oil since there's an old oil-tank shed in the back of the house. Still, airflow is airflow and if the thing that is pushing the air is heated by coal or wood or geo-thermal fanciness, and the venting beyond the plenum is the same, I would expect the plenum should be relatively the same. Of course, 15 years after the house was built they added 2 rooms to the back, so maybe the plenum has been the wrong size since. I suppose, this could be a recently-added bit, but none of the other metal venting looks remotely new.

furnace entry

The plenum was almost a meter tall and about 2 feet square. From my research, this is excessive, but was unable to arrive at a clear answer as to what size it should be, like with a calculator or simple rubric. The most basic advice seemed to be "make it a little bigger than the outlet of your furnace". I am fairly sure that would lead you to a too-small plenum and poor circulation impacts, but I defer to experts. Regardless, I took all of this and decided that I needed the plenum to fit in the space I had, so if it was smaller, well... we'll just deal with it and worst case I'll make another one later. I simply built what would fit in the space without digging again. 

Plenum Fab-lum?

So, what did I do? The original plenum had the air enter from above and then it routed air sideways out 2 rectangular vents and one round one. In order to keep the orientation of the rectangular outlets, I needed the top covered and a new entry added on one of the other "horizontal" sides. In order for the 1-meter-tall plenum to fit into my not-quite2-feet-high crawlspace, I needed to shorten it too. So, I measured and then cut (with the death wheel) 9 inches down from the top in each of the 4 corners. Then, I folded the sides in like a cardboard box. With a hammer and dolly, I squared the newly folded lines. Content with the shape, I drilled and then pop-riveted the new top in place (upper image). Last, I sealed all of the edges with high-end foil tape.

Plenum added

So, I have a box, but no entry for the furnace. Onto the side which had a circle-vent, I applied blue tape and then measured the dimensions of the furnace exit. Half an inch inside this rectangle I marked the actual cut line. That extra 1/2" will be the lip which will press against the exit "flange" on the furnace. I cut the hole with the death wheel, turned the lip with some pliers and cleaned up the fold with the hammer and dolly again. The circle-vent used to feed the bathroom, which does not currently have a vent. If we re-introduce a vent into that bathroom, I can re-integrate it into the system.

I lowered this new plenum into the crawlspace, army-crawled it past the furnace and attached it to the furnace. It barely fits between the ground and the floor joists, but it does and it did not disturb the angle of the furnace. Once it was in place and the edges sealed, I was ready to look back at the main trunk / vent lines (the big rectangular ones).

As often happens when I get to posting about something, this got very long. This feels like a logical transition point so, I am going to stop here, and pick it up next time. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Kitchen Planning

Around the furnace work and getting Hapy operational again, Boo and I have been trying to move forward on having a viable kitchen as well. Today, I will post briefly about that progress.

Cabinets

rough kitchen thought

It probably makes sense to start somewhere near the beginning. Shortly after getting this house, Boo and I hit the rebuilding center looking for all kinds of things. What we were NOT looking for were kitchen cabinets. The old ones were still in there, the kitchen needed serious cleaning and fixing, we didn't have a place to put new ones, etc. Well, there was a full set from an old house that had rounded corners and such that they looked perfect. At $420 for an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets (plus a bathroom vanity and a couple cabinets for a laundry, we think), we pulled the trigger. Through the help of Boo's ex-husband, and his minivan, we managed to fit all of them into the van and the pickup in 2 trips, and loaded them rather unceremoniously into the garage. Fast forward over a year and they were still there though the kitchen is now getting some focus. Still, they have been safe, undamaged and long-since paid for.

We recently engaged with a contractor to help get things moving more swiftly. Had we not done so, I suspect those cabinets would have sat in the garage for another 6 months while I finished the furnace work and then got going on some kitchen rough-in. Instead, I spent a few hours in the garage freeing the cabinets from the things that had been buried on top of them.

Cleanup

cleaning the line

The old kitchen was somewhere between a cold-room, a tool shed, building supply storage and the pass-through to the laundry and backyard. As a result, it was a mess. Oh, and I did tear down a bunch of drywall when the weather was warm so the whole area was cordoned off with a floor-to-ceiling plastic sheet. It was not exactly welcoming for the holidays. When I removed that non-supporting / secondary wall, I had left extra space below the ceiling. I wanted that line clean before I did anything else. So, I measured again the height of the passage I was mimicking (7'4") and sent in a screw to mark the spot. From beneath that screw, I pushed up with a long section of door trim (knowing it was straight). Atop the trim I set the level and then sent 2 screws through the trim into the drywall so I had a fence to cut along. With a handheld drywall saw I cut the line, knowing it was level. After the fact, I realized that having the cut leveled would have been best done after getting the floor perfectly level... which it isn't. We have moved the floor leveling to the front of this active list and that line will probably need to be fixed with a subsequent cleanup cut or some drywall repairs. Oh well. With the wall pushed up, we can better imagine the kitchen space, so it was not a total waste of effort.

With the line cut, my demo was done; the contractor will be handling the floor and anything else that pops up. So, I could clear everything out... the work table, construction material, the construction waste I just created, etc. leaving just an empty room. A couple hours of sweeping, vacuuming and mopping left us a room that was ready for some imagination. Before we could really do much else, though, the hole through which we lowered the furnace needed to be temporarily covered. Boo picked up a 4-foot-square sheet of 15/32" plywood that more than covered the hole. In fact, it helped us consider the swing-room for the door as we started plopping cabinets.

Try Before You Mount

sink thinking

Boo and I had her sister, her niece and their respective partners over to haul kitchen cabinets from the garage into the demo'd kitchen. One by one, we hauled a cabinet up the 2 steps and thru the doorway. Once the first end fit through, we slapped a moving dolly underneath it. When the other end made it through, it was placed onto another dolly. Once on dollies, the cabinets could roll around the floor. A few weeks ago, we bought a half-dozen moving dollies from Harbor Freight (they were on sale) for this purpose.

Most folks do this in a completely opposite way: hire someone, have that someone take measurements, with those measurements they plan a kitchen, cabinets are built to that plan, and then they are installed. We started with buying a rando-set, so in order to figure out how they could fit, we could have measured things, and gone virtual planning. This felt much more visceral. We moved them around and played house by pretend cooking a meal and using the sink to get a sense for how the space really works for us. 

While we did arrive at some ideas, and at least a couple cabinets set in their probable-permanent locations (sink base and pantry), we are left with unknowns. While the rest of us played with the cabinets, Boo's sister's partner Glenn measured and marked up a sheet of graph paper with the dimensions of the overall space. Boo and I will cut up little pieces of paper reflecting the remaining cabinets so we can arrive at the open working kitchen we are seeking. Ultimately, we will probably cut down at least one of the cabinets. Representing that is much easier by cutting a small piece of paper than actually taking saw-to-cabinet. It's obviously, much easier to undo as well. Before you ask, yes, we absolutely could do this with SketchUp or something similar. I started down that path and the amount of work necessary was considerable when compared to pencil, paper and scissors. While the paper plan is 2-dimensional (versus SketchUp or similar), we can arrive at a 3D experience simply by moving the cabinets around in the actual space. Or, at least, that's the current thinking.

Still Cold, Inside and Out

Progress on the furnace continues. I will post an update next time, but I will say that with every weekend spent working on HVAC, the $10K estimate seems more and more reasonable. Our overnight temperatures have been dipping below freezing with increasing frequency. When coupled with little-to-no insulation and an overtaxed electrical system, we have to pick which areas will have any heat, and those which do get some are not having it consistently. If fear is the ultimate motivator, I think wanting to be warm is a fairly close second. We are also realizing just how important it is to have a considerable part of the house electrical work done when Gary is here for the kitchen and hooking up the furnace. 

NewOldHouse is starting to feel like the house version of the old VW bus: there's always something to work on because there's always multiple things that need to be fixed. And, the answer to the question of "will it ever be done" is also the same: Probably not. Thanks as always, for following along-

Setting the Furnace

Continuing the fun with the furnace today. It being October, of course we had another issue with Hapy not starting so I'll touch on that as well. EDIT: oops. Didn't post on Hapy. Next time, I swear!

Plan and Plan Again

today's end-state

Recall our plan to move the furnace into the crawlspace. We had the work bid by a furnace company and they quoted us $12kUS; we recognized that as a "go away" price and chose to do it ourselves. My biggest considerations are around the combustion exhaust, so I spent some time researching this. According to multiple sources, an 80% efficient furnace needs a double-walled exhaust (check) and it must have an upward pitch of no less than .25" per foot. I thought that was fairly flat, so checked other sources. From this data point, I collected others, like how far from the ground is the bottom/top of the exhaust pipe heading into the chimney, where the exhaust exists the furnace, etc. With these numbers in mind, I set to planning where to set the furnace.

planning a hole

Initially, I planned to put it directly beneath where it had previously been. This would have changed the routing of the conditioned air, gas line, cold intake and exhaust the least. Unfortunately, this would have put the furnace right against a main beam running the width of the house, making seasonal maintenance impossible. Additionally, that spot under the furnace had an unexpected rectangular concrete curb that was smaller than the space we needed cleared. So, the furnace is going to be adjacent to that curb'd rectangle, but because the distance to the chimney is around 3 feet, and I would like an angle of assent that is greater than the minimum, the furnace will need to be almost on the ground. So, a plan that wound have suspended the furnace from the floor joists will be replaced with a plan that has the furnace a-fixed to the ground instead.

Dig Another Hole

hole dug

Obviously, I am not going to simply set the furnace on the vapor barrier on the ground. Beyond the fact that there are safety issues, the furnace needs to be up off the ground height-wise to get the exhaust angle I want and to minimize both the conditioned air and gas line routing. Instead, I decided to dig a foundation and set the furnace on a stand. That sounds so simple until you get down to trying to dig a hole when the headroom between the dirt and the bottom of the floor joists is less than 2 feet. Starting with my tools, I had a 5 gallon bucket for removing dirt, a small-bladed shovel with a broken-off handle, a crescent-moon scraper thing and a 4-prong hoe. I cut 3 sides of a rectangle into the vapor barrier with scissors and peeled it away, leaving a 2 foot by 3 foot rectangle of rough dirt. With the tools I mentioned, I removed probably 60 gallons of dirt, leaving a 2 foot by 3 foot hole nearly a foot deep. This took almost 3 hours since the whole thing was done on my belly.

gravelling

After taking a break for a few days, I returned and repaired the vapor barrier with thick black garbage bags. Along the cut edges, I made sure the plastic overlapped more than a handful of inches, and I lined the hole with sufficient slack so the additional layers of material would not cause gaps to form. Once satisfied, I added a 1/2 yard of gravel and moved it flat with a garden rake and then my gloved hands. On top of the gravel, I set 6 1-foot-square patio blocks. For each block, I made sure it was flat, and then flat to the adjacent block. As you can imagine for each block, this required multiple install-remove-install cycles and then additional ones to get the overall 6-block space flat. Between the gravel and the blocks, I probably spent 2 hours getting it level. This crawlspace patio will serve as a foundation for a stand upon which the furnace will rest.

Rack It

crawlspace patio

I initially thought I would simply use a pair of hot water heater stands for the furnace. I figured, they could withstand the weight of a full hot water heater so they could definitely hold a 70# furnace. I priced them but the cost and availability was not good. While searching, I found air conditioner stands designed to hold up to 400#. While local availability was again nil, the price was the same as for one hot water heater stand, and they are height adjustable. The rack I ordered was lost in shipping, so I switched the plan again. This time, I ordered a non-adjustable storage rack capable of holding 1000#. While I won't need anything that strong, this rack is also 2 foot by 3 foot in dimensions so it will fit into the hole, and potentially support the furnace better. When the rack arrived, I took the pieces into the crawlspace to consider my options. The rack is only "adjustable" by cutting legs to the height I need them to be. So.. adjust once, really.

prepping the legs

Accordingly, I wanted to be sure of my height, so I considered the exhaust run from where I expected the furnace to be over to the chimney. By suspending a long exhaust run, I could consider the angle of assent and the final destination for that edge of the furnace. From this, I could measure and math to the needed length for the furnace stand legs. You may notice from the pictures that I needed to move a couple of the blocks around too. Once satisfied, I took the rack back out from the crawlspace and cut the legs. Since the stand is really just unbraced legs, I added angle-irons at the bottom so I could mount the stand to the patio block. I then took the pieces to the crawlspace and re-assembled the stand. I set the stand where I planned, marked the holes on the patio blocks and took the stand apart again. Now, I could drill holes and mount the legs to the blocks. With the legs attached to the patio block, but not torqued down, I could set the stand top on, and then torque the concrete screws. I checked level along the way, pleased that all of this amateur work is level. Last, I bolted the legs to the top, using blue locktite so they would not work themselves loose from furnace vibration.

With the rack assembled, I was ready to move the furnace onto the stand. The gas line and the electrical will both enter the furnace from the bottom, and these will need to be routed so the "front" cover can be removed for seasonal servicing. The electrical entry has some wiggle room, but the gas line does not. I needed to account for these as I considered where on the stand the furnace would be placed. The stand is more than large enough to account for that adjustment and the space beneath it has ample room to run gas and electric.

rack installed

The furnace is heavy and the ceiling in the crawlspace is limited. I had feared that pushing and lifting it would be quite the undertaking for me (Boo had to work). My fears were not warranted, it turned out. To prevent the furnace from getting scratched up, I left in place the moving blanket in which we had moved it around under the house. This also reduced the friction as I moved it around. I set the furnace rear-ward of center on the stand, further from the chimney. This aligned with where I had expected it to go, mostly, leaving me with an exhaust run of around 3 feet along the plane, with a slight diagonal turn in it.. when I install it. The picture at the top of the post shows how it is right now, and no, the end furthest away is not touching the ground; it just kinda looks that way.

Exhausting

Once the furnace was in, I spent some time rough-assembling the exhaust. This consisted of taking the old exhaust down to it's most basic pieces and assembling a path that had the correct angles and took a slightly indirect route so I could route the cold air intake without interference. Once roughed-in, I took it back apart so I could easily get to the other side of the furnace. I have a great deal of "conditioned" air work to do, and having the fuller access will make that work easier.

This has gotten super long, and it has covered a few weeks of work. I was able to get another few hours in, but I'll couple that with whatever I get done next weekend into my next post. The calendar says 7-November, so, clearly, the weather is starting to get cold. We were fairly motivated when the daily high temperatures dropped into Autumn temps. We are getting overnight lows below freezing now, so there is no lack of motivation nor pressure. Still, I want to do it right and have a safe space once it is completed. Since I am doing it mostly by myself, it will only go so fast. At this point, I hope to have an operational furnace by the Winter Solstice.

Thanks, as always, for following along-