At Home In The Woods

[tommu56]

With all the trouble I would ask for a new fire place and for them to supplement the replacement costs!
tom

 

[tony Cecil]

Hi Obed

Sorry about you having questions about the fireplace.....We have an old freestanding tiny firebox sitting in an old cooking fireplace....It has a fairly snug fitting cinder box and a very tight feeding door...When I close the very small damper down the fire slows way down, and when I open it the fire inside roars away, with just the air that it can draw through the cinder box, which I am sure is not as large as your opening in the picture...My conclusion is that the fire requires very little air to burn, and not much more to really burn....

I have been thinking about getting a new firebox and thinking of the catalytic type...I`v been skeptical as I`m not sure I believe all the hype...The little one we now have is simple as pie, and it will warm thing up after a long burning time, but not quickly....The hotter it burns, the more you have to feed it, and that quickly become a real pain....I think it possibly was intended for a `caboose`at the end of a train.....Do keep us posted, and give your thoughts as well....Tony

 

[Obed]

We have interviewed and gotten bids from 4 contractors for final excavation/grading work. A 5th contractor didn't show up for his appointment. Three days later he called, said he had had an out of town job and wanted to reschedule an appointment. He made no apology for the no-show. My wife told him we would call him if we wanted to meet with him. I'm amazed that some people can stay in business. Obviously, we would only call that guy back if we were backed into a corner.

One of the contractors is the guy who built or road, put in the septic, and dug our basement. We already know him and like him so he has an advantage. I guess we'll probably make a decision on a contractor this week.

It will really be nice when all the grading work has been done. I guess we'll still have a bunch of mud around the house for foreseeable future until we get the grass growing well.

 

[Obed]

Today my wife talked to the fireplace store 90 minutes from here. They agreed to talk to their customer who has a house in construction and see if they will allow us to go look at their Quadrafire 7100 fireplace. I hope that works out.

 

[Obed]

Yesterday the H&A worker came out and balanced the air flow through the registers in our house to try to get even temperatures around the house. This worker has been doing the most recent work in our house and we like him; we just don't care for his boss who is the owner. The worker was instructed by his boss to get the final check from us when he came out to balance our system. The worker was supposed to bring with him 2 floor registers we are missing but forgot them. We had also talked to him earlier about the ceiling return filter grills. I had told the worker that if he would just provide us the parts that we would do the work ourselves. I don't think he had portrayed this info to his boss; I'm not surprised because his boss can be hard to talk to.

So we didn't give the worker the final payment. In addition, we wanted to test out the system balancing ourselves before paying. The worker asked if he could come back today. We told him no, that today would not be a good day for us but he could come back the following day. Well this morning the boss called my wife and asked her if she was at home. I overheard the conversation and told her to hand me the phone. I told the boss that we weren't available today to see him. He became very rude and asked why not, what were we doing? I didn't answer that question; what we were doing was none of his business in my opinion and he was being rather obstinate. He demanded "Where's my money?" I stayed professional and told him that we wanted to check out the system and if everything met our satisfaction that he could be paid tomorrow. He told me or, more accurately, ordered me to call him.

Tomorrow I will call him and have the discussion about the two return filter grills in the ceiling. I'm expecting it to be a battle. But right now, they haven't put covers over the auxilliary returns in the ceiling. Thus there can be no question that the work is not finished, even though putting covers over the ceiling returns is a small thing. Personally, I feel that I am going the extra mile to not make them redo the ceiling returns with grills that will accept filters and am offering to do the work myself if the H&A guy will just provide us the parts.

Unfortunately, sometimes these conflicts are part of the building process, especially if you are a homeowner without the experience and clout of a general contractor. I'm sure the subs who take shortcuts and I call them on it think I'm the problem, not them. I'm sure it goes both ways. I suspect that being a homeowner instead of a GC causes some subs to choose to be harder to deal with because they don't expect to get subsequent work from us. That view is short-sighted but nevertheless it exists. It is a minority of the subs that have shown this poor attitude with us. We had several subs that dealt professionally with us and have worked with us as well as they would have given a GC.

Tomorrow won't be fun but it will be good to get this sub out of our life. We have figured that if our H&A system has trouble in the future, this guy would be very slow at fixing it even if we could even get him to come out at all. We probably would just call someone else.

We were unable to come to an agreement with the HVAC guy. He was unwilling to talk about the fact that our baby's bedroom was noticeably colder than the rest of the house. When he wouldn't have a civil conversation about the coldness in the baby's room, I decided to hold my ground regarding the ceiling filter grills. He was also unwilling to put filter grills in the two ceiling returns.

The baby's room is at the other end of the house and has a single 6" duct running to the register in that room. The other rooms in the house have 8" ducts. It seemed like a no brainer that the smaller duct to the baby's room at the end of the house was affecting the cooler temperature but the HVAC guy tried to claim that the duct size had nothing to do with it issue.

I told the HVAC guy I would pay him his final payment when he rectified the two issues to my satisfaction. This was after he had made threats to take us to court. I sent him an e-mail giving him 7 days to start work. When I heard nothing from him, I sent him a certified letter that contained the e-mail conversations we had had just to have a document trail proving we tried to work things out with him.

After sending the certified letter, we interviewed a couple HVAC companies and hired one of them to increase the duct size going to the baby's bedroom and to install filter grills in the ceiling returns. The new HVAC company did the work last week. My wife fed them homemade vegetable soup and cornbread for lunch. When I paid for the work at their office the next day, the lady who took my check commented about how the workers really enjoyed coming out to our house.

We've not used the fireplace the last few days and been checking the temperatures around the house. The temperatures around the house are now very similar. The baby's room is as warm as the other bedrooms now. Keep in mind that the original HVAC guy claimed that increasing the duct size to the baby's room would not help. We also now can put filters in the return grills in the ceiling. I'm very happy!

We'll see if the HVAC guy gives us a fight. The bill from the new company was close to the final invoice from the original HVAC guy that we haven't paid. The HVAC guy has two options. He can put a lein on our house and he can take us to small claims court. I don't care about the lein if he decides to file it. We pay cash for things so the lein won't affect us. An attorney told us that title companies ignore leins on houses once the leins are a couple years old so selling the house after a couple years wouldn't be a problem either. Also, in our state, once a contractor files a lein, he has 12 months to file suit or he loses the ability to use the legal system to collect the debt.

 

[RadarTech]

Some people just don't learn!

J

 

[eepete]

Obed, I'm glad you got the house balanced out OK.

I had epic, daily battles with HVAC, plumbing and insulation contractors. I spent a few days re-working the flex ducts after they were installed to get rid of the sharp turns. We increased the size of every duct 2" up form the original proposal. Each room is fed by an 8" duct and broken out into two 6" ducts to the registers to reduce noise and drafty spots. Every room has it's own 8" return with a filter. There are only 2 filter sizes used in the house. Should all be common sense, each was a battle.

After we moved in, I re-did the hot water supply so it was right.

During the insulation install (foam), I was climbing up in the rafter to check the depth. What should have been 7" was 5.5". I kept checking, they kept being a little off. We probably ended up with 7.5 to 8" since they had to go back to add a little bit over a lot of what they did.

I did all the electrical, otherwise I'm sure there would have been battles there too.

With time, you'll get all the bugs worked out that you can. In some ways, the construction of a house is never really over. Like many experiences in life there is no way to explain this house building process to anyone, it's just something you have to go through. Your thread here as is good of a manual as any for preparing someone to build a house.

I got a kick out of seeing the cat door in action. Did the night lights in the hall work out as well as you had hoped? Keep on with the fireplace, I know you'll get it :thumbsup:.

Pete

 

[srs]

we interviewed a couple HVAC companies and hired one of them to increase the duct size going to the baby's bedroom and to install filter grills in the ceiling returns.

Obed, I'm assuming the new HVAC guys agreed that the original size of the duct work going to the babies room was too small since the new larger size apparently corrected the issue.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Glad the duct size worked. The original guy should have had a manualJ calculation to back up his design. If the required room flow was over what one 6" duct provides, then he should have increased it. However, the final balancing is the real determination. Glad the 8" worked out for you.
I have one room where I suspect the flex duct got kinked when it was installed. It's in a attic dormer, and I can't get to it to check without tearing out the ceiling. That room is always a little cooler than others, and it's a smaller room than others with one duct.

Hope you get the fireplace thing worked out soon.

 

[dcyrilc]

Glad the duct size worked. The original guy should have had a manualJ calculation to back up his design. If the required room flow was over what one 6" duct provides, then he should have increased it. However, the final balancing is the real determination. Glad the 8" worked out for you.
I have one room where I suspect the flex duct got kinked when it was installed. It's in a attic dormer, and I can't get to it to check without tearing out the ceiling. That room is always a little cooler than others, and it's a smaller room than others with one duct.

Hope you get the fireplace thing worked out soon.

Our house is just the opposite. The master bedroom is the farthest room from the furnace, but if you close the bedroom door it will be 10 degrees hotter than any other room in the house. The one vent in that room blows hard enough that if the bedroom door is open 4-6" it will close the door. Really plays havoc on sleeping at night without making the rest of the house ice cold.

 

[RadarTech]

Our house is just the opposite. The master bedroom is the farthest room from the furnace, but if you close the bedroom door it will be 10 degrees hotter than any other room in the house. The one vent in that room blows hard enough that if the bedroom door is open 4-6" it will close the door. Really plays havoc on sleeping at night without making the rest of the house ice cold.

Hmmmmm...
That its weird!

 

[Coyote machine]

Our house is just the opposite. The master bedroom is the farthest room from the furnace, but if you close the bedroom door it will be 10 degrees hotter than any other room in the house. The one vent in that room blows hard enough that if the bedroom door is open 4-6" it will close the door. Really plays havoc on sleeping at night without making the rest of the house ice cold.

Don't know what exact type of heating system you have but let's assume it is a forced hot air system that delivers hot air by using a blower near the combustion chamber. Are there dampers built into the duct work that would allow you to reduce the amount of air that reaches the far bedroom, thus allowing some of the hot air currently delivered to the far end of the house to be delivered more evenly through the remaining duct runs? (If not you could install one or have someone do it for you).
If so this is what I would explore first and foremost.
Sometimes it's about thermostat placement, especially for houses where an addition is added and changes the layout of the system and the demands on it.
I happen to have an older home which uses hydronic baseboard; and then I went from oil to gas, and put in a high efficiency gas boiler with radiant heat throughout much of the existing house on the first floor and throughout the addition. The far bedroom and my office on the first floor got radiant heat installed, so the entire 1st floor would be one zone. But the back rooms continued to be cold- so after a while I discussed with the installers my thoughts on moving the t-stat closer to the bedrooms to get it away from the apex of various doors from the basement, L.Rm, and new hallway created by the addition, as well as the gas fireplace insert we often run in the evening to further supplement the heat in the living room. They agreed to move it and since then we have had far fewer issues with heat in the bedroom and office.

Sometimes it's just a simple solution like in Obed's case with the small 6" duct where there should have been an 8" instead. My experience is that most contractors do not like to admit or acknowledge their mistakes, and that causes a LOT of headaches for the homeowner(s). Right EEpete?!

 

[Obed]

Put that camper and trailer on EBAY. I have had great luck selling stuff on there. Usually get more than I think its worth. Its the right time of the year to move them items. Tax checks and spring weather get people thinking.

Chris

We just posted the camper for sale on Craigslist. Click the link if you want to see the listing. We are asking a dirt cheap price for it as we just want it off the property and want to sell it quickly.

The trim carpenter has mentioned interest in the camper. However, he is real busy with work right now and may not be available anytime soon to work at a swap the camper for labor deal.

This past weekend we washed the camper. Sitting under the trees made the outside pretty dirty and required some scrubbing. This week we've removed the rest of our contents from the camper. My wife has been cleaning the inside this week.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I use a pellet stove to heat my downstairs, and only use the oil furnace for the upstairs. Heat goes up the stairs, and keeps the upstairs thermostat (in the hall) warm enough that the upstairs heat doesn't run as much, and the upstairs rooms stay cooler. Course I know this and like it cooler when I sleep, so It's ok with me, but I really should move the thermostat.

 

[Obed]

Obed, I'm assuming the new HVAC guys agreed that the original size of the duct work going to the babies room was too small since the new larger size apparently corrected the issue.

Stanley,
I don't know that the new guys gave an opinion regarding the size requirement of the duct. We just told them we wanted an 8" duct instead of the existing 6" duct so that's what they did.
Obed

 

[Obed]

I use a pellet stove to heat my downstairs, and only use the oil furnace for the upstairs. Heat goes up the stairs, and keeps the upstairs thermostat (in the hall) warm enough that the upstairs heat doesn't run as much, and the upstairs rooms stay cooler. Course I know this and like it cooler when I sleep, so It's ok with me, but I really should move the thermostat.

Our thermostat is at the end of the hallway near the LR. The thermostat is near the main HVAC return which seems to help keep the temp at the thermostat similar to the temps in the other rooms. We also have a smaller HVAC return grill at the other end of the hallway near the bedrooms and an HVAC return grill in the master BR ceiling.

I was somewhat surprised at how well the heat from our fireplace circulated around the house. The FP is somewhat centered in the house. There is also a heat zone from the fireplace to the other end of the hallway. Something else we've done that helps is we started running the ceiling fan in the LV in reverse mode. We had noticed the temps near the ceiling in the LV and kitchen were noticeably warm while burning the FP. Running the ceiling fan helped to move that warm air around the room. Running the ceiling fan to blow air upward prevented feeling a "draft" and helped the house feel warmer.

If we can just get the fireplace to burn hot with the glass doors shut, I'll be very happy. I haven't yet heard from the FP store 90 minutes away to see if I can go look at their customer's fireplace.

Obed

 

[scoutcub]

I'm no expert on camper prices, but that seems VERY reasonably priced, and should sell quickly!

 

[Obed]

We sold the camper today! Several people were very interested. Today was kind of a mad house.The price was cheap and the pictures looked good compared to other campers of the same age. I had people calling from out of state wanting to travel to see it. We've gotten our use out of it and didn't want to take forever to sell it so we priced it low. The new owners are going to have to come back to get the camper. I asked them to move it off the property within a week and they agreed. I hope that happens. The buyers are building a house and want to live on their property while they finish the house. Sounds familiar, huh.

Now we just need to sell the storage trailer. We'll be glad to get the two trailers out of our way.

 

[dcyrilc]

The buyers are building a house and want to live on their property while they finish the house. Sounds familiar, huh.

Now who do we know that's done that recently? I just can't seem to put my finger on who it might be.:laughing:

 

[dcyrilc]

Speaking of things...

How's it going with furnishing the house? We had a small fire on the 23rd of last month and have to replace our leather sectional (replacement value insurance). Man, I forgot how much I hate furniture shopping.