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Electrical Service

Peter needed some pictures of the electrical service coming into the house for National Grid. I think we both would have assumed that they have this kind of information on file, but apparently not. Peter’s going to handle the service upgrade from 100 to 200 amps. The service comes in from pole #12 on the opposite side of the street. The lot is fairly wooded and the lines brush up against more than a few tree branches. I’ll have to take care of that soon, probably an early weekend in March.

As a side note, you can see from these pictures that the paint is in tough shape. That’s another project Stephanie and I have been talking about. I’ll probably start re-siding parts of the house with cedar shingles and ditch the old clapboards. I’ll leave it natural as well – we both like that look a lot better than painted shingles. It should go without saying that I’ll replace all the facia boards with new and we’ll be choosing a nicer color that will go with the cedar. This is a piece-meal project, however, and I won’t be starting that until the spring/summer.

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Going Greener

It’s officially 2 weeks since we’ve moved into our new house. Ever since Stephanie fell in love with it, the first time we visited, I knew it needed a few important upgrades. The biggest was the heating system. It has an oil-fired boiler and hot water baseboard heating and no AC. The land is nice, the two car garage is nice, the town (Easton) is nice, the house layout is nice, etc., etc. The hvac, however, is not ideal. The boiler, too, has some significant rusting on one of the main boiler flanges. So, I started looking into alternatives.

I quickly learned that geothermal was probably the most efficient and least expensive to maintain. The installation, however, is very expensive. I ended up getting three quotes from some well qualified installers, Coneco, Southcoast Greenlight, and Achieve Renewable Energy. I also spoke with Ultra Geothermal, but they’re a bit too far away to take on a project here in Easton.

I ended up selecting Achieve and a closed loop vertical well system. I chose the vertical well because I was hesitant about using a large area to trench out a horizontal system. While that approach would end up replacing our back yard with something nicer, it would also restrict us from doing any sort of addition off the back in case that need ever arises. The closed loop vertical system also offers a 55 year leak-free warranty and is more efficient than a horizontal system. Achieve and Coneco offered vertical well proposals, but I chose Achieve for a couple of reasons. They have more experience overall since they are one of the largest installers in New England and they focus on individual client (home-owners) projects as opposed large project-based installers.

Since these systems work best with force-hot-air systems, we would need a ducting system installed to replace our hot-water baseboard. Another alternative would be to run radiant heat throughout the floor, but that would mean tearing up all of the existing floor. That is a much bigger project that I’m not willing to take on at the moment. Running duct-work, however, is something I’m more capable of. To that end, I did some calling and got a reference for Des Crowley, an HVAC design guy. He’ll draw up the plans and I’ll do the work. That should save me about eight or nine thousand – the two geo-thermal proposals estimated duct-work to run between ten and twelve thousand.

One more thing I’ll need is to have the electrical service updated. We have 100 amp service now, so we’ll need to upgrade that to 200 amp and have a separate sub-panel installed. Good thing my father-in-law is a master electrician! He’ll get the service set up so we can run a dedicated line to the new units and clean up the existing panel a bit.

So, my plan in a nutshell is:

  • Run the duct work
  • Upgrade electrical service
  • Have Achieve install the geothermal
  • Remove the old boiler and oil tank
  • Remove the old baseboard water lines

The nice thing is that the work I have to do is all up-front. I do have my brother to help out and I’m sure I can pull in a few others if I need to. Once I see the plans, I’ll be in a better place to estimate the time it will take. And, as always, there’ll be lots to learn. I’ve never run duct-work before so it’s all OJT for me.

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House Painting

So, I’ve been painting the house for about a year now. I first started last summer with the chimney side and front sides of the house. I was able to scrape, sand, and lay two coats of primer on before the week I set aside ended. This summer, I’ve been able to squeeze in the same on the back and other side of the house. Yesterday, I finally put on a coat of the finish body color. It looks great! So, after many, many, many hours of stress and strain, the payoff is worth it. With the primer on, the finish coat goes on extremely easily. The only thing left to do after this is the porch … which I’ve left as a separate project because it has so many sliding doors. I have one more week off coming up in September, so I’m hoping I can finish up the body of the house and then do the porch.

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167 Union Street

This is the house that Dave and I are building in Holbrook. We’re almost through now and I need to add a few more pictures to this gallery, some that show a lot of the finish work.

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Winter Pictures

Here are some pictures

we’ve been saving from the winter. Lots of good shots of the house and some of the car all snowed in.

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New Opportunity

Dave and I got the word last night that the owner of a lot in Holbrook took our bid for the land! Looks like we’ll be building a new home there in the next few months. Dave’s done this a couple times already, but this is the first time I’ve been in on a deal where we build from the ground up. It also looks like we’re not alone in this…

[ Boston.com: As prices rise, homebuilding surges ]
Through the first nine months of 2004, the state issued permits for more than 15,000 units of new housing, up about 10 percent from the same period a year ago. If the current pace continues, Massachusetts would build more housing this year than it has in any year since 1989.

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Windows

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We’re replacing some windows in our house this week so I’m linking to some articles that will help me out when the time comes ;-)

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New Home!

bachelor party 2 the last temptation download We’ve finally moved in! The new house has a whole new set of good things as well as bad … so Stephanie, Peter, and I are busy tackling them. The list of “fixed” keeps getting longer, but the list of “needs fixin’” also gets longer ;-( It’s a good thing the pool is in good shape – it’s a great stress-reliever when we can actually take advantage of it.

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Pool Links

batman free download Gee, it’s been quite a while since my last update. Never fear, I’m still here ;-)

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There’s been tons of news, but one piece at a time. Stephanie and I are planning a new home purchase at the end of June, and it has an inground pool. So, being the novice pool operator, I decided to do some web searches on pool maintance. So, here are some links that I found that I want to record and keep handy for when the pool isn’t quite so clear.

So, there you have it. Next time, I might have some pictures to post. But, I still have to unzip and post some pictures from Peter’s first birthday party … I keep getting complaints that the zip is too big. At 32 MB, it is.

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