Cold-hearted furnace

As I begin this entry, we are in fact in the middle of our current house crisis. I guess I'm using the blog to focus my nearly debilitating anxieties at the moment.

About an hour ago, I noticed that the thermometer reading on the thermostat was weirdly lower than where we'd set the thermostat, and that although the little icon said the furnace was on, it was clear from the behavior of the radiators (i.e., the lack of steaming and banging) that it was not in fact on.

A trip to the basement confirmed that the furnace was not on, and a shiny red light indicated that the water level was too low. That green box on the left is the shutoff for low water -- there's a tiny red light on the top of it.

The home inspector, those long many months ago, told us something about draining the boiler, but we don't remember what it was. There is a red lever on one of the water pipes that we suspect might be the way to add water to the system.



But we're not entirely sure this is what we should do. And given that this is a steam boiler, which, apparently can cause all kinds of horrifying damage to persons and property (if you read the right sources), I'm worried about a) hurting ourselves and b) doing something that completely fouls up the boiler.

At the moment, we're waiting for the pipes and system to cool down. When they do, we will try the red lever. And see if things work. After that, we call for help.

Outside, it is snowing madly, with temperatures below freezing.

We are heading to the basement right now.

Updates forthcoming.


Update: 1 pm:

We drained the system of its dirty water (gross!) and slowly added new water. We had read that we needed to raise the water level to between 1/2 and 2/3 or between 2/3 and 3/4 (depending on the source). Here you can see the gauge at its (we hope) correct level.

We turned the thing back on...
and nothing happened.
For about two minutes.
Two long minutes of (my) panic.
Then the thing fired, and at this moment, it is heating up all that water.

Hopefully, soon, the steam will start heating up the radiators.

Update: 1:15
It seems that everything is in order. Radiators are heating up and the temperature is rising. And the furnace is still running and the water level looks OK.

We are tentatively declaring victory.

We would like to thank:
The Lost Art of Steam Heating, a ridiculously comprehensive book we bought just last week.

There's precious little good information available on how to do these things, so it was all a bit nerve-wracking. We'll just need to keep a close eye on that water level. Some post-emergency researching has helped us find some good online information in a few places.

If you're wondering how steam heat works, here's a handy and informative page I just found via the BBC. We have what's called a one-pipe steam system, where just a single pipe feeds the radiator with steam and carries away the water.

My ongoing online research has also uncovered this terrific site -- a "Homeowner's Library" that has lots of great information on steam heat.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day. May your heart and your home be warm!

Chim chiminey Chim chiminey Chim chim cher-ee!

The masons are gone and our chimney is done! This is the back, flat roof chimney, all freshly repointed with a chimney cap.












And this is the newly stucco'ed inside of the chimney from the attic. We're pleased and relieved to have it all done so quickly.








And because there's never a dull moment at 83 Durant, I'll go ahead and document the next thing we need to figure out: fascia boards. They are the boards that you see underneath the roof, and are attached to our wooden gutter (yes, we have wooden gutters on one side of the house). This one, as you can see, is pretty rotted. This is because the wooden gutter seems to be pretty ineffective at actually draining the water. We're not sure what to do, or even who to call on this one. I think we'll wait to talk to our slate roof guy, and see what he suggests. For now, we'll enjoy the fact that we have such nice chimneys!

Top-Down: Adventures in the Basement

Today I did a bit of picking up around the mess we call our basement. On the serious plus side, there's no water down there. Well, there is, but only in one spot, and it's quite clear that it's the window near the driveway that leaks. We've been managing this by putting towels there. It's not a huge deal. We'll work on cement/caulk fixes to this, as well as a plastic bubble over the window well, once things warm up.

But, seriously, otherwise, there's no water to be found. This is good.

Half of the basement is very basement-y, with fieldstone foundation and a cement floor. The other half is strange to me -- it's a wooden floor over a crawl space. The house is built on a hill, so only half of it is in the ground; the back half (the flat-roof part) of the house has an above-ground basement, which includes windows and a door to the outside. It's surprisingly bright down there, which is a nice bonus.

It's clear that the previous owners were working on finishing the basement. In fact, they had one bedroom-like room in the cement floor area, and another back under the kitchen (where we now have the pantry shelves). There's a lot of drywall and partition walls already set up. Some are painted, some not. It's in a bizare mid-project kinda stage. It's weird to be down there, realizing we're in the middle of a project that someone else started.

Today's improvements began with some weatherstripping on the door to the outside, which was, as we say, "wicked drafty." I weatherstripped the heck out of it, and now it's far less drafty, which hopefully will help energy efficiency, and also lessen the ever-present, ever-terrifying risk of pipes freezing. Can I tell you how much I fear this happening? I fear it a lot. Those dreams I used to have about the whole house flooding are now replaced with nightmares of the whole house flooding and then freezing, looking something like Superman's fortress of solitude.

I also did a few minor cosmetic things. We have three paintings from Sam Black, also known as "Uncle Sam" to Jake's mom's family (even though he's not actually their uncle, or related to them in any way). Uncle Sam also happens to be the father of Lewis Black, one of our favorite Comedy Central ranters. Just a few degrees of separation. Anyway, we have these three paintings of Uncle Sam's. They were great in our old apartment, which was very mod. But they look seriously out of place in our new Victorian lifestyle. So they were sitting around, making me sad, wondering what to do with incompatible art. Today I put them up on the big orange wall in the basement. I think they look pretty great.



By the way, that orange color was there when we arrived. I doubt we would have chosen it, but it is nice to keep it bright down there.

I also installed a retractable clothesline across the main area of the basement. It's a nifty little mechanism that we got at Target a while ago:


After some general cleaning up, throwing out, and organizing, I think the basement looks better, though it still has a long way to go. I'd like to work on the laundry room, and also get Jake's bike shop organized. But these are probably more likely to happen in the spring or summer. And they're not really pressing issues.

When I'm in the basement, though, I start looking at the walls and the joists and beams and wonder "how the heck does this place stay up?" It's kind of scary, really. But I guess it's still here after a hundred-plus years, and probably isn't going anywhere, right?

Attic Open Questions

I was up in the attic recently (I say that a lot these days) and noticed something weird:

attic ice
Originally uploaded by Jake Bridge.

See those white dots on the ceiling? That's ice. Every nail hole and knot hole has a frosty bit of ice on it, but only on one side of the house, the side without the chimney. Where's this water coming from? Is the whole roof, on one side, leaking a little bit? Is this just ambient moisture in the air freezing around the very cold (it's 12 degrees out) nails on the north side of the house?


That's today's new attic mystery. Here's an oldie but a goodie:

shady vent + ice
Originally uploaded by Jake Bridge.

You can see some ice in this one too, but notice that pvc pipe. That vents two p-traps (such an unfortunate name) from the upstairs bathroom. The pipe to the left goes to the toilet and the pipe straight down vents the shower drain. The pipe ought to continue straight up through the roof and vent sewer gases out of the house, but instead it vents straight into the attic.

The internet tells me that:

Make sure the vent doesn't terminate in the attic. Trapped sewer gases can be dangerous, stink and cause serious structural problems.

That's easy to believe, 'cause this guy looks deadly serious.