Done with heating
Posted by K Wed, 29 Nov 2006 13:13:00 GMT
So belatedly (I had to go to CA to eat a thousand good burritos and wish they had them here and then the Thanksgiving holiday derailed me), I am here to say that we did get a new boiler installed. We talked to a few people but in the end went with John Fulcher of Trans-Potomac Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc (202-258-6158), who is great. He’s been in the business for over 40 years and is a DC local and knows these old houses very well. I wish I had known about him when we got the heat pump installed, but oh well, hindsight is 20-20.
Anyway, he came out and removed the old unit in about half a day, and then came back a couple of days later and put in the new one. We still hadn’t managed to get the radiators installed but that happened the day after he did his part. And everything went smoothly, just like he said… we just had to fill the system and bleed everything out and we were good to go. There has been some drippiness from some of the connections, as I was warned could happen (it’s normal as the pipes/connections warm up and cool down), but I got a big pair of groove joint pliers (they were fun to lug around in my bag all night since I was out at a show at the Black Cat) and have been taking care of the ones that stayed drippy (mostly the kitchen and bathroom).
It isn’t pretty, really, but pictures are here. And it was very educational in that I learned a lot about the system and how it works, and also learned that the weird switch in the basement ceiling (I had noticed it in all the excitement down there but couldn’t figure out what it was for) controls the whole system. Well, the boiler.
Last weekend was Round 4 with the medicine cabinet, in which I almost got the outside cleaned up enough to paint—I have to work on the top and bottom detail and sand a little more. Oh, and figure out what color to paint it. I also scraped/cleaned/sanded the inside and painted it silver because silver paint is funny. It isn’t perfect but at this point I just wanted to be able to use it.
We also gave up and hung up some art which makes the primer white walls less awful. Note that those Walldogs screws that claim to work in plaster don’t, and will leave you a nice chunky hole to repair later. Just use masking tape and a nice sharp nail.
Next up: figuring out where the hell we are going to cram a Christmas tree, fixing the light in the living room that I somehow broke when I was changing the bulb, and getting the two hall lights hung. It will either be time to finally Get To Know How To Work With Scary Electricity or Find Someone To Come Do It. Also, finally get real blinds for at least the bedroom and maybe the living room, too.
