Day 6: Jan. 24, 2011

AM

Roll, Pack!

I've come up with a plan to get heat and cold air returns to the second floor.

I found a hole in the dining room floor for a cold air return in exactly the same spot I would have made one. When that's hooked up, the downstairs ductwork is finished.

To get heat upstairs, I intend to go through the living room wall into the attic by way of the half closet in the bathroom. Once in the attic, the heat will enter the three bedrooms through registers in the ceilings.

Cold air will return through a variety of paths. All of the bedroom returns will be in the floors to draw the warm air down from the ceilings.

One bedroom return will go from the basement into the built-in dining room cabinet, then up through a wall. (I'll cut the drawers in half, but leave the drawer fronts as they are. No one will know the space is being used for cold air until they pull out a drawer.)

Another bedroom return will go through a chase in the kitchen. I'll either build out the wall behind the refrigerator about 4 inches, or else have the air go through the wall until it gets near the ceiling, where there will be a small chase.

The third bedroom will be served by a chase in the living room, right behind the front door. My current plan is to put a 12-inch chase inside a 4-foot set of built-in shelves and display area, as shown in the rough drawing. If you think this is too ambitious, I can cut it back to just the 12-inch chase.

Finally, a cold air return will be installed in the upstairs hallway to draw warm air upstairs and into the hall from the bedrooms. To serve it, I'll put a small chase in the dining room closet.

On the way home for lunch, I stopped in the library and looked in old phone directories to try to learn more about who lived in the house and when it was built. By 1923, there was a Glad A. Hendry and his wife Stella living in the house with their four children. Hendry's profession was listed as "salesman."

In both 1957 and 1967, Orval E. White is shown as the resident. No wife or profession was listed for Orval, although by the later date he was shown as "retired."

A cost accountant for Moore Business Forms lived in the house in 1977: Peter C. Garner and his wife Kathleen.

And in 1987, Harvey A. and Bernice Cunningham lived in the house.

PM

I got the pathway for the upstairs cold air return made. I'll also use the paths for any new electrical lines. We'll need several lines to the upstairs. Right now, all of the bedrooms, the bathroom and part of the basement are on one circuit.