Fun with HVAC and a Brief Fireplace Update

Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning, "HVAC," is in!  It's amazing how fast this project can actually progress when Rob doesn't have to do everything himself.  Our HVAC installers were quick to get the system installed after delivery of the duct work and supplies:

 First in were the basement units - luckily the cellar work was long done, reinforced and ready for the install:

 The cold air return was added:

 The duct work and vents installed throughout the house and in the attic:

And, finally, the setting of the outdoor units:

This system is a dual zone electric heat pump with a propane back-up (natural gas is not available, unfortunately).   Not pictured was the install of the brand new propane tank (buried), and the piping of propane to all 8 fireplaces. 

The home had seven fireplaces when we bought it, most not functional, and the eighth had been covered over in cement.  We managed to uncover that eighth one to restore it, and all eight will be functional gas fireplaces once the project is complete.  Although we've always enjoyed a natural wood burning fireplace, the cleanliness and convenience of gas was too alluring to resist.  No more vacuuming up muddy footprints, wood chips and log scraps from hauling wood into the house - one flipped switch and we will be able to have a small or roaring fire in any room of the home.  A future project in the pipeline will involve the fireplace finish work and mantels.

Up this week - final rough electrical work, inspections on all rough mechanicals and, assuming all is well on that front, insulation of the home.  Step by step, we are making steady progress now.

Entrances....or Exits?

Are doors entrances to the house, or exits from the house?  Does it depend if you are a glass half full or glass half empty type of person?  If they are in the front or back or side of the house?  I realize that technically they are both entrances and exits, but I'm curious....how do you view them?  If a fire was raging in the home and I needed to escape, I'm sure I'd view them as exits.  Other than that, though, I view them as entrances - inviting people to come in, visit, stay a while, get comfortable.  Maybe it's because "home" is my favorite place to be - I cannot wait to get to my home whenever I'm working, vacationing, or otherwise out and I really don't want to leave most days.  I am a homebody at heart and a good day is one spent puttering at home.   So having the doors finally installed was a red letter day.  The doors have been on site, tempting us for a while by leaning prettily against the walls.

We've been anxious to see how the doors we selected "work" with the overall look we've been working to achieve.  The doors were all installed in less than a day - here's the side door install:

 The back french doors with transom (note the water view in the second shot):

Upper and lower back french doors are in.

And, my favorite, the front door install:

The colored glass really shows in the indoor shots, but is hard to see on the outdoor shots.  We debated about the colored/red glass, and are so glad we took the chance - we love it.  We also debated about the size of the glass and elected the 3/4 over the 1/2 or full, and I think it was the right call.  Not all of our decisions come out exactly the way we hope or envision, but this one is a winner.  It's my favorite entrance by far.  It practically screams, "welcome" to me - I hope everyone else thinks so, too.

Durable Deck = Duradek!

The plans for Glenlochan that we developed with our architect originally envisioned a much larger second story porch in the back of the home.  However, for a variety of reasons, we more recently elected to extend the size of the second story game room which meant decreasing the size of the second story porch. 

Here's a shot of the actual second story porch on right, downsized a bit from the plans:

Two factors led to this change.  First, we made the change based on our likely use of the space.  Although a much larger second story porch would be a nice bonus, on balance, we felt that we'd enjoy more living space inside the home than outside, and we were fine with a smaller second story porch.  Much of the year, it's not all that comfortable to be outside, but the porch was still plenty big for enjoying time outside.  And, as it turns out, now that the porch is built and we've been able to stand on it, it's actually not all that small.  And, win-win, we're more than pleased with the increased size of the game room:

Second, there was also a construction consideration in this decision  -  the original larger porch on the second story meant that part of the screened porch would be over inside living space on the first floor.  Although we had planned to use state of the art impermeable membranes on the second story porch, we were told over and over by a variety of experts that, eventually (maybe a decade down the road) we'd have water problems in the lower level living space with an outdoor porch above it.  Since the plan is for Glenlochan to be our home for our golden years, it wasn't likely that this would be someone else's problem down the road, but, in fact, would be our problem to deal with in the future.  We realize that we cannot plan for every eventuality, but I'm all in favor of avoiding problems that can be avoided, even when they promise to be far into the future.  Hence the second reason for our decision to sacrifice the size of the second story porch  - to avoid water problems down below in the future.

But, this decision did not negate the need for an impermeable membrane on the second story porch floor, to keep water out of the first story porch.  Enter Duradek (www.duradek.com ).  According to the Duradek website, Duradek is a vinyl roof and walking deck membrane.  To us, it's the new floor on our second story porch, and it's a pretty cool exterior floor.  We selected a lovely gray color - Aspen Ultra Heritage - and it should last for our lifetimes.  Here's a few shots of the Duradek install:

 And, the finished product (with cardboard sitting on top blocking part of the view):

With the Duradeck install complete, the columns on the back porches were able to be installed.  Don't get me going about the price of columns, wow - they can be real budget busters and who knew that square columns are actually MUCH more costly than round ones (which will soon be installed on the front porch):

As you can see, the back porches are really taking shape.  The second story porch will also be getting hand rails installed and both will have full screens added towards the end of the project.  You'll notice I didn't mention the floor materials for the first floor screened porch.  We are still researching that since we have a lot more flexibility in material choice, and Ipe (pronounced EE-pay) is in the lead at the moment.  Ipe is, according to some, the finest quality wood available. Hmm...more to the point, ipe is an exotic hardwood that is naturally resistant to rot and decay, is 8 times harder than California Redwood, and is guaranteed for at least 20 years without preservatives.  You can see the attraction.  It's also particularly resistant to salt water damage (hence it's popularity on waterfront properties) and it looks utterly beautiful.  We'll let you know the final decision...and if you have a suggestion for a better floor for our first floor back porch than Ipe, please let us know!



 

Jacuzzi Dreaming

Now we are getting to the good part - picking out and buying cool items for the house that will be installed in the near future.  Up first, bathtubs!  We are re-purposing one clawfoot tub that was original to the house - more on that soon -  and we needed two new ones - one jetted tub for the master bath and one regular tub for the guest bath.  Several trips to the store and a lot of on-line research later and we selected the jetted tub we wanted - a Jacuzzi corner tub.

Generally, I'm not a fan of retail shopping these days - although I can spend hours at garage sales and thrift stores, I really dread heading to a retail store. Everyone else can have the malls - give me a great website, and I'm happy to avoid the crowds, lines, and general irritation of in-person retail shopping. My new favorite on-line store? www.build.com  It's an on-line superstore for almost anything related to building and home improvement.  Rob found this site while researching and the timing couldn't have been more perfect.  The prices are, in many cases, the lowest available.  I was a bit leery of purchasing a large item like a Jacuzzi with a large pricetag online - so many things could go wrong and if it had to be shipped back, I could only imagine what horrible red tape would be involved.  However, one phone call to the Build.com customer service center and I was completely comfortable placing the order and the price was unbeatable.  The customer service was, hands down, some of the best ever (thanks, Joel) and the person who helps you initially becomes your contact forever - s/he provides his/her direct email address for follow-up questions (and I had some AND he answered... promptly!).  The price was too good to pass up - low to begin with, a sale on top of that, and free shipping - and the customer support was incredible.  I would definitely buy from the site again and I already have some future Glenlochan purchases earmarked.

The Jacuzzi arrived a short 2 weeks after placing the order:

 

Rob quickly had the frame built for the tub:

Now we have to select and purchase the tile so Rob can tile the top of the frame and get the tub set.  At the same time, Rob was working on a few other bathrooms items.  The other new tub for the guest bath also arrived:

And. Rob's been getting the shower beds ready in the two bathrooms that will have separate stand-up showers:

We've also selected the tub and shower hardware and toilets for the bathrooms.  It's pretty unbelievable how much one could spend on a toilet - not a fancy one with bells, whistles, heated seat, nope, just your normal everyday toilet that does nothing more than flush.  Needless to say, we did not go with top of the line toilets, but the ones we selected will still be a huge improvement over the cold hard, and did I say, gross, seat of the porto-o-potty currently servicing the project!

Roughly Plumbed

I've always wondered why the initial laying of the pipes and other necessary plumbing throughout the house is called the "rough plumbing".  Far from rough, it's actually a pretty exacting process that lays out and attaches all of the pipes that will bring clean water to all sinks, tubs, showers, toilets and appliances throughout the house, and connects all of the soil and other pipes that will remove waste and used water from the home to the town sewer lines.  The rough plumbing is now largely done at Glenlochan and even to my untutored eye it looks.....well......okay, I cannot say it looks fantastic.  Although I'm quite sure that it is a superb plumbing install, quite honestly, it looks just like a bunch of pipes in between the studs throughout the house.  But, because the plumbing is the first of the mechanicals to be installed on the project, it is very energizing in concept even if it's not exciting visually. Here's a few shots of our pipes:

 

Soil pipes!

 

 As I said, not very visually exciting, but beautiful to us.  Can you tell we're proud of our pipes?

Vintage Concrete Blocks?

I cannot say that I've spent a lot of time, or any, thinking about concrete blocks and their place in history.  Frankly, if pressed before tonight, I would have said that concrete blocks were a fairly "modern" building material.  I would have been wrong - cement has been used as a building material since ancient times, and the first concrete block was molded in 1882, according to the Pennington Block Company's online history of the concrete block.  Who knew?  And, it turns out that the "wall" separating the yard of Glenlochan from the sidewalk is made of vintage concrete blocks. 

I never really thought much of the wall - not only is it overgrown and in need of a lot of care, but concrete blocks are, well, not really the decorative wall of choice.  However, Rob stumbled across an article in the local newspaper from 2008 that had the following picture of a vintage block maker and a short mention of Glenlochan at the end of the article:

The full article is available in the Southside Sentinel.  Turns out that the blocks in front of Glenlochan were actually made by the above vintage block maker which was owned by H.S. Chowning Sr.  Chowning owned and ran a block business in the area from 1915 to 1930, and our blocks were produce by the business, as were many others located around the town of Urbanna.  Here's a few close up shots of the blocks - you can see that although they are very different from today's concrete block, they certainly bear a strong family resemblance.

  

Modern concrete block next to our vintage ones:

Although concrete blocks are strong and versatile and have many other tremendous qualities, no sources claim that they are aesthetically pleasing.  Because they aren't!  And, they were never meant to be.  Knowing the history of these particular blocks and verifying their vintage authenticity makes them way cool, but that doesn't mean they are going to frame the entrance to the front yard.  It does mean that we'll have to find a place for them somewhere and that I appreciate that they, like the house, have a rich and interesting history that should be appreciated and remembered.