Oh my! I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I posted an update. Life has been busy, the projects have not progressed the way we had hoped, and life has just gotten in the way.

The last post I had was bringing the new furnace down stairs and removing the beast and the propane furnace that had fed into it. If you haven’t read the other posts, you read that right. The modern heating system that we bought the house with was a downflow furnace up on a stand being fed into an old coal burning furnace that was acting as a huge, super inefficient plenum.

Brad had his work cut out for him! The beast being a gravity furnace a.k.a. octopus furnace had ALL the ducts running back to the furnace and coming out the top like the legs of a octopus. Modern heating systems use trunk lines (think trunk like a tree) with branches (think trees again) coming off to supply to the rooms/areas. This meant that he had to take almost all the ducting down. He left up anything running up the walls, and the cold air returns that are just sheet metal covering joist bays.

Originally we thought (I thought) we could re-use the duct work. After taking it down and seeing inside we opted to put in new, and I wholeheartedly agreed. The ducts are 85+ years old, and for the first few decades were connected to a coal burning furnace. To say they were gross was an understatement. It was not worth our time or energy to clean the inside of all the ducting we would need – plus we had gotten some at a price we couldn’t argue with.

Brad’s brother and sister-in-law have a cabin that they had some major renovations to, and in the process the HVAC contractor took out all their existing duct work (which was less than 20 years old, and only used part time) and replaced it with new-new. We could understand the contractor’s logic. Being paid by the hour it was more cost effective to replace the duct-work than to take the time to piecemeal the good used stuff into the new system. Jeff and Meghan put it with a bunch of other materials that they have acquired in an old barn, and asked if we were interested. We took what we could, figuring, what the heck, we might be able to use it, and we wouldn’t be out anything if we couldn’t. We were able to use quite a bit! We did have to buy some new, but it helped cut down of the cost of the project.

Brad was hoping to have our friend & HVAC guy, Greg, assist him initial start-up procedure and adjustment, but Greg had a family emergency that left him stretched thin to the point of snapping. Thankfully he didn’t snap, and he and his family had a tremendous amount of support from friends, family, and faith family through their emergency and by the Grace of God life is mostly back to normal. The last thing we were going to do in the midst of the emergency was stretch Greg any thinner, so Brad checked and double checked his work. When ready, it would have to go on without a formal inspection.

It was a bit later than desired (and colder than desired) but the furnace went on-line December 18, 2022. Yes, technically it was still Fall on the calendar, but the temperatures outside said it was winter. It was pretty exciting to have heat again!

System ran all Winter and early Spring with no issues. Just to play it safe, (and for Brad’s peace of mind) we did have Greg come and inspect the system when life settled down for him and he had a bit of time. He said Brad did a great job, SURPRISE (not really – I knew that already). He did recommend that we change the registers on the cold air returns in the kitchen and living room, to ones with a larger spacing between the fins, add a cold air return to the West bedroom, if possible add one to the North bedroom upstairs – and have them cleaned.

Changing the registers will be an easy fix. We’ll see what we can do for cleaning the cold air return ducts, and if necessary call in a service. Adding a vent to the West bedroom will be a bit of work, but do-able. Then there is the North bedroom, that one is a different story. We did a lot of looking and thinking about the relationship of walls. Our only 2 real options are bad and worse. That bedroom is going to be ours, and typically we keep the door open. With that room we are going to have to rely on natural air flow going down the steps, putting a cold air return in that room is just not feasible. For anyone concerned about the door being closed on the stairwell & blocking the flow (spoiler alert) we plan to remove the stairwell door completely.

We have nearly reached the end of the heating story. There is one more chapter to tell – with rerouting several heat ducts, adding one to our future walk-in closet, and the cold air return to the West bedroom. As of now, the biggest part is over, and what’s left is minor details in comparison.