3 down, 2 to go!

End of Three

Three years ago today, April 27th, Laurie and I bought the farm.  I told her (and at the time I thought she believed me) that in 5 years we would have it completed.  

 When we first went through the Lewis Road farm, it was clear that we would have to deal with the heating system.  It was a hot water system heated with oil.  The chimney was cut off at the roof when the roof was redone, so we would also have to go with a high efficiency furnace.  The pipes were coated with asbestos, which was dealt with early on, but we held off on the rest of the project because of the cost, and we wanted to complete a few things so it looked a bit more like a home.

In 2019 I got quotes for both a new hot water boiler and repair of radiators and pipes, and for a complete forced air system, including air conditioning.  The totals came in at $20,000 for the boiler, and $27,000 for the forced air.

After a few months of talking, research online, and more talking, we decided on the forced air.  With us being gone much of the winter, and knowing that if the power went out there could be an issue with burst pipes and a flooded house, the forced air seemed to make sense.  The difficulty with air conditioning with hot water heat also played into our decision.

The first part was easy.  Measure all the rooms and windows, estimate the insulation, and send it off to have a company named Ductworks figure out the size of furnace and air conditioner, figure out where all the ducts go, and give me an itemized list of what I need.  I also went to Hvacdirect.com to pick out my furnace and air.

Super!

We are ready!

Maybe not......

I admit, that while the excitement of learning something new, and the tons of money we were going to save (it would cost us about 1/3 of the quoted price), was offset by the huge amount of work that I knew was ahead.  We put it on the back burner and completed other tasks.

The Pandemic (written by Laurie)

In March, 2020, the Pandemic hit. Greg lost his job and I went virtual. Struggling to find something to do, Greg decided to tackle the heating system.  He continued to go up to the farm most weeks with Teddy (our dog), through the rest of the school year into summer and all of winter and worked on it. He connected the furnaces in January 2021.  Amazingly, according to me, just like that, it was done.  I could not and still can not believe it. He had never done anything like this before and now, we had heat. I knew there was a reason why I married this man. He can do anything. 

Now, we can truly move on and do other things - next up... the kitchen.