Day 10: Jan. 28, 2011

I finally posted photos with the previous blog (Day 9). I haven't yet figured out how to move the photos around, so they make for a pretty clumsy layout.

I started running electrical wires yesterday afternoon and almost got one bedroom completed. All of the work in making paths for heat and cold air should now pay off.

I spent today working on art for a local theater production and am leaving tonight for a weekend job in Muncie. I'll be back in touch on Monday.

Day 9: Jan. 27, 2011

AM

All of the holes for cold air returns are made.

The hole for the bedroom above the living room is most efficiently located right above the cold air return serving the living room. As a result, I've opted for a gravity cold air return instead of creating a chase alongside the front door. My reasoning is that it avoids the question of what shape the chase would take (and how might break up the living roo

m in an unpleasing way). It might lose some efficiency in drawing cold air out of the bedroom, but it will also allow warm air from the living room to filter up to the bedroom. The trade-off should be a wash.

Day 8: Jan. 26, 2011

AM

Made more holes. The going was so slow, I took a break and cleaned up a little bit.

It looks as if I'll have to put a small chase in the dining room, but it will be near the ceiling and on a corner that will only be seen when someone is exiting the kitchen, so it should be almost unnoticeable.

Instead of putting a chase behind the refrigerator, I put it underneath a cabinet, then into the wall cavity, then in a chase on the ceiling.

If I can get all of the pathways created this week, I'll be happy. As I said earlier, the pathways will also help with running electrical lines, so those should go more quickly.

I found a 1948 calendar. Nearby, inside the wall, was a board with a name on it (I can't remember the name right now) and "USA Army." Drawn in a childish hand on the board was a picture of an airplane shooting. I would guess that the veteran's little brother drew it. Anyhoo, I'll save it for the "museum."

PM

I forgot my camera, so will post photos tomorrow.

I've removed wallpaper from a fairly large area in the living room to try to determine how long it would take to do the whole room. The test extrapolates to 12 hours for the walls and another 12 hours for the ceiling. Doable, but time consuming.

I've decided instead to cover the wall and ceilings with 1/4 inch drywall. It should cut the time in half and will produce a better result.

Day 7: Jan. 25, 2011

A slog-it-out day. Made a lot more holes for cold and hot air runs. The old lady (Martha) is currently quite a mess. It's trash day, though, so I'll spend some time getting both bins filled up.

Betsy: give me your input on making those built-in bookshelves by the front door, versus a simple, small chase. I had a friend stop by the house and she remarked that the bookshelves would break up the room. But she also said she liked the idea of having a little entryway area. (So in other words, she was no help at all.) I like the bookshelves, but then I wonder what the north part of the room would be used for. I need some design advice.

I'll take my camera and get some pictures today.

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.

Day 5: Jan. 21, 2011

Weird day.

I left home at 5:30 AM and made it to the south side of Fort Wayne by 6:30. Then I got a call from the Muncie school to which I was headed. School had been delayed, which meant the programs had to be rescheduled. So I turned around and headed back home.

Since I had an unexpectedly free morning, I fulfilled a promise to my neighbor and worked on art for a poster promoting a local community theater production.

After buying $40 worth of ductwork, I made it to the house in the afternoon. I spent a couple of hours looking for routes from the basement to the upstairs bedrooms. In doing so, I traced a couple of electrical circuits. They are a mess. It only makes sense to do some of the electrical work simultaneously with the ductwork, since both will be using the same pathways.

Using the interior wall between the living and dining rooms, I believe I found a path to the center bedroom. I plan to run both a heat and cold-air ducts within the wall.

I started a photo album of the house project at http://lsauer.tripod.com/martha_street_flip.

Day 4: Jan. 20, 2011

AM

I've got another handyman job this morning and school programs all day tomorrow, so won't have much time to spend on the house the rest of this week.

I intend to spend the time I do have in cleanup and looking for that elusive ductwork path to the second floor.

I looked up some history on the house, and something doesn't make sense. The design is almost certainly "Eclectic Craftsman," but the book I have lists that style as being built from 1905 to 1950. Angola was certainly behind the times, so it would take extra time for a new style to make its way here. That would put the earliest date of the house around the 1920's. But the paperwork we have on the house lists it as being built in 1900.

There's also physical evidence for a 1900 birth date being wrong. The woodwork style is too simple for a 101 year old house, and the basic structure is in too good of shape.

Do your papers have any clues to the date of the house?

PM

The house is a mess, but I'm making progress.

I opened the kitchen heat register, which had been hidden behind paneling. It still works. Same with the cold air return in the living room, which was hidden under carpeting. The only HVAC addition I plan on the ground floor is a cold air return along the west wall of the dining room. That will draw heat from the living room/dining room register, and from the kitchen.

I don't plan to put cold air returns in the kitchen or bathroom. An article on duct placement said you don't want kitchen or bathroom smells circulated throughout the house, which sounds like good advice to me.

There was one heat duct in the basement for which I couldn't find a register. I pulled up carpeting and pulled down paneling on the first floor, then did the same upstairs. Finally, while working on the bathroom floor, I looked up and there it was: a register in the bathroom wall. So there's heat in the upstairs after all!

My current plan is to add a cold air return in the upstairs hall. This will draw air up from the lower floor and out of the bedrooms and bath. I will use the chimney-to-nowhere to pump heat into the attic, where I will distribute it to the three bedrooms. (By the way, the chimney ends in that funny chase in the kitchen.) Then I'll put cold air returns in each bedroom or its closet.

I'm also considering putting the new furnace under the stairway in the west basement room. This will get it out of the way, make duct work more direct, and put the furnace next to an outdoor wall through which it can be vented. (If you remember, the current vent reaches halfway across the basement.) I can get everything hooked up and running before shutting off the old furnace and transferring the ducts.

It's snowing outside. If the school at which I'm scheduled to give programs has a delay, the programs will be postponed until Feb. 5, so I may have another day this week to work on the house.