If you think way back to Baby It’s Cold Outside, you will remember that we bought the house with 2 furnaces in it. A “newer” propane furnace and a big gravity (octopus) furnace I have named “the beast” that acted as a plenum for the propane furnace. Honestly it was a very convoluted set-up. We discovered that not all the burners were working on the propane furnace (the source of the propane smell we detected only outside) and with the help of our HVAC friend Greg managed to make it limp through 3 winters.

We bought a new furnace, then life got in the way, and it sat, then it got to be fall and we knew that there was no way we would get it in before winter (hence the making the old propane furnace limp along).

This past spring we got a proverbial kick in the butt. Brad was out doing some work this past spring. It was a chilly day, so he turned up the thermostat – and nothing. The old propane furnace said “no more”. Instead of calling Greg out and fixing it again, we took it as a sign – it was time to get our butts in gear and get that new furnace installed.

Before we could do anything else, the arms of the octopus furnace had to be disconnected. We had no idea how much dust the duct-work would hold. Separating the propane furnace from the beast revealed a ton of dust. The last thing Brad wanted was all that crap in his lungs.

Brad also didn’t want to get in his car full of dust or have to strip down to his skivvies to change, so Brad suited up in a pair of coveralls and a respirator since it is designed for better filtration and longer wear than just a face-mask.

Wearing a respirator and coveralls he made sure to disassemble the duct-work while the weather was cooler as it gets hot – fast. Once the duct-work was removed, there was the beast to deal with.

The beast has a cast-iron heat exchange. With a flight of stairs to deal with there was only 1 way it was coming out. In pieces. Brad took a sledge hammer and broke the cast-iron into manageable pieces hauling it and the sheet-metal up the steps.

Then there was the old propane furnace. Brandon helped Brad carry that up and out – a much simpler job. While they were at it they hauled the old electric water heater out too. Under the water heater blanket we found that it had scorching from something not good electrical at one point. To prep the area for the new furnace they got everything out of the “cubby”

Brad expand a hole between the utility area and room with the newly cemented floor for a trunk line. We had the mason out to finish some stuff up (more on that later). Brad had him seal up the spot where the direct vent went out through the wall with the future root cellar to the window.

Being an octopus furnace there was a line to every register which created a network of duct-work in the ceiling. Since we were redoing the heating, we decided (Brad advised) to put in a trunk-line and run the ducts from there. This should result in a lot less pipes running in the ceiling.

Brad and Brandon moved the new furnace into place and phase 2 of heat ends in late summer with fall and winter seeming far off (even though we know it will be here before we know it).

To be continued . . .