Finally, Something Goes Right
As I wrote in the water heater saga, home improvement projects in our house rarely go smoothly. And discovering graffiti on our garage door put me in an even sourer mood yesterday. Fortunately, yesterday's tuckpointing job went better than I could have imagined.

The last time we had tuckpointing done, I was not particularly impressed with the results. Plus, they sent out only one or two guys for a few hours every couple of days, so it took forever. With so many other contractors out there, I wouldn't hire them again. Instead, we hired Arrow Masonry and Exteriors based on a friend's recommendation. She was so adamant about their quality that I didn't even bother to get multiple bids.

Arrow actually gave us a bid last September. Since much of the brick damage was from leaky gutters, however, it made sense to repair/replace those first. Like many home projects, the gutter job languished for several months before I finally hired someone. Even after that was completed, I waited until last month to call Arrow again. It's very easy to procrastinate when the benefit is keeping several thousand dollars in the bank a little longer. Although their original proposal was only valid for 60 days, Arrow said they would still honor the price a year later. I had fully expected to pay an extra 5-10%, so I was thrilled. I mailed in a deposit, and Arrow called on Friday to let me know they would start on Monday. I prepared myself for a week of having workers wandering around the perimeter of our house.

The crew of four arrived at 7 AM. They were finished by 3:30 PM. After our previous tuckpointing experience, I couldn't believe this was a one-day project. On top of that, they replaced about ten more bricks than originally estimated but didn't try to jack up the price. Not only were they efficient, but they did an exceptional job. The work looks great, and the color of the mortar on the face brick matches very well. They left the site clean, and I still can't believe they knocked it out in less than a day. I'd wholeheartedly recommend Arrow Masonry to anyone. Too bad they don't do plastering, flat roof repair, bathroom remodeling, or any of the other things we still need to do. When your house is almost 90 years old, the work never ends.

Labels: house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 3:50 PM 0 comments

 
Trials and Tribulations of the New Water Heater, Part III
As promised, the installation sub-contractor called at 8 AM Friday to confirm our water heater installation. She said she would call back in about an hour to tell me what time they would come out, but we would probably be one of their first stops.

At 9:15, the telephone rang. "We're having trouble getting the truck started." Could anything else possibly go wrong? She said they would keep trying, and she'd get back to me in an hour. An hour later, she said the truck was being towed, but she promised me that we would be first on Saturday morning.

Like the movie Groundhog Day, the installer called at 8 AM this morning. This time the truck was fine. They arrived at 9:45 and swapped out the bad water heater in less than an hour. This time, much to my relief, the pilot lit. The installer pointed to one of the many copper pipes surrounding my water heater and asked if they had charged me extra on the first installation. Apparently, that pipe serves the furthest reaches of our plumbing system ("my" bathroom -- the one upstairs next to my office). An extra plug has to be removed from the water heater to accommodate that pipe, and usually it's an extra charge. I told him they didn't charge extra, maybe because they felt bad about leaving me with a bum water heater. If those guys had said, "Bad news. Your water heater doesn't work, and by the way, you owe us an extra n bucks for hooking up this little pipe," I might have bludgeoned them with their own pipe wrenches.

So now we have hot water flowing out of our tap for the first time in a week. Words cannot express how relieved I am to have this ridiculously over-complicated project finished. What should have been a minor inconvenience turned into a week of frustrating phone calls and cold showers (hmm, not unlike dating). Tonight I'm tempted to crank up the water heater to 160 degrees and steam myself like a hot dog, just because I can.

Labels: house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 10:12 PM 0 comments

 
Trials and Tribulations of the New Water Heater, Part II
Monday night we got an automated call from Sears informing us that a service representative would be here Tuesday "between 8 AM and 5 PM." So much for "Tuesday morning." Sheesh, at least the gas and phone companies can narrow it down to a four-hour window. After my 30-mile bike ride, I couldn't hold out from showering any longer, so I had to take a cold one. I did it "Hokey Pokey" style, thrusting one limb into the chilly water at a time. I'd liken it to banging my head against a wall -- the best part was how good it felt when I stopped.

On Tuesday morning, I awoke at 11 AM. Morning was almost over, and there had been no sign of the technician. At 4:55 PM the phone rang. It was the technician making sure I was home. Well, yeah, I've been here all freaking day. He said he was about 30 minutes away. When he arrived I led him downstairs. "Oh, I've never seen one of these in the field," he said. Lucky us, we're the first customers to get a defective model since it came out a few months ago.

After looking it over for 20 minutes, he said that one of two parts was bad. One of those parts would probably take a week to order, and the other one would take at least two weeks. Needless to say, one or two more weeks without hot water was not an option for us. He recommended that I call the store and ask them to install a new one. This was exactly what the installers told me would happen -- Sears would send out a technician who would confirm the problem and say it couldn't be fixed, and then they would be back at my house installing another water heater.

I called the local Sears store, assuming it would be reasonably easy to get a new water heater now that I had the official word from the technician. Well, maybe it would be easy if I could find the right person. My call got transferred at least five times. The last person listened to my entire story and said, "Sure, we can take care of that, let me put you through to someone..." After waiting on hold for upwards of 15 minutes, I hung up in disgust and redialed. This time I fared better, finding someone who actually dealt with water heaters. There was one problem: by this time it was 6:30 PM, which meant it was too late to contact an installer. He took my information and promised that someone would call me Wednesday shortly after the store opened. That made my chances of getting a replacement before Thursday slim, but I didn't have any choice. It burned me to know that if the technician had arrived in the morning as originally promised, I'd probably have a new water heater on Wednesday.

Instead, I awoke Wednesday to wait for a call from the local Sears store. An hour after the store had opened, I decided they weren't going to call me as promised. Sure enough, when I called them, no one had any record that I had spoken to someone the night before. The clerk was very helpful, though. He promised to call me within half an hour, and he kept his promise. Unfortunately, he only called to tell me he didn't have it sorted out yet. Apparently, replacing a brand new, defective water heater is a radical process that has never been attempted in the 121-year history of Sears. He called back in another hour to let me know he had figured it out. I had to give him my credit card number to purchase another water heater, but I should get a refund within ten days. He was going to fax my information to the installer, who should call me soon, and I should have my new water heater on Thursday.

Guess what? Now it's Thursday. I called the installer, who has no information about our impending installation. Bad sign. She said they don't handle faxes anymore as of Monday and told me to call Sears customer service. After getting put on hold and disconnected once, I got through to a human. He said my water heater should be installed tomorrow because he was putting a rush on it. Gee, it's about freaking time somebody put a rush on it. I was afraid I'd have to go down to their offices and flick my BIC under their butts. I still may have to "turn the place into a car wash," as my dad used to threaten. At least car washes have hot water.

Labels: house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:21 AM 0 comments

 
Trials and Tribulations of the New Water Heater, Part I
Our water heater started leaking around 3 AM Friday while I was doing laundry. Since the heater was date-stamped 1994, I had figured this day would come soon, especially since it wasn't a high-quality heater to begin with. In retrospect, I should have planned ahead for this, but hey, who does?

I spent the next few hours researching water heaters online. Although I thought I wanted a tankless water heater, reading a few cost-benefit analyses talked me out of it. Basically, it would be a great choice for a new home but a poor investment for an old house that would require expensive installation modifications. The break-even point would be around 20 years, and I doubt we'll still be living here by then (heck, I might be dead by then). Then I wondered whether I should buy a 40- or 50-gallon tank. My wife and I could easily get by with a 40, but most sources claim the difference in energy costs is negligible (the main cost is heating the water, not keeping it warm). I decided to stick with 50 like we had, which would simplify installation (I had read horror stories of jacked-up installation costs). I looked at Home Depot, Lowes, and Sears. By the time the sun came up, I had decided to get a brand new model Kenmore so efficient, it was below the "Energy Guide" range (230 therms on a scale from 242 to 272). For comparison, our old water heater rated 278 therms on the Energy Guide, which even 13 years ago was poor.

The Sears Web site was unclear about many things. For instance, nowhere did it say I could call a phone number to purchase a water heater along with installation in one transaction. Consequently, I thought I was responsible for procuring the water heater myself. I purchased it online and picked it up an hour later at the local Sears (this part of the process was very efficient). The box just barely fit in the Focus with the hatchback partly open, but it was only a 1.5-mile drive.Then I called the Sears home services phone number to get it installed. First they told me I had to call a special "water heater hotline." But the hotline person said they only handled installation for water heaters that they sold through that number, so I had to call the store. After speaking to several people at the store, I finally scheduled installation for Saturday morning. Perfect. One day without hot water was no big deal.

By the way, the city of Chicago charges $40 for a permit to replace a water heater. it's one thing to pay for a permit for $10,000 worth of electrical work (as we did in 2000), but $40 for a $299 installation? It's enough to make me wonder whether the city and the water department would conspire to put something in the water to make water heaters fail more often! (Of course, I know that's not true since our old water heater lasted much longer than its warranty.)

The guys came out around 11 AM Saturday and put in the new water heater. But there was trouble. The pilot light wouldn't stay lit, which meant I was screwed. At least the leaking, old heater was still giving me hot water, but now I had nothing. They said they were only installers, so I'd have to call Sears to get it fixed. At this point, I was still fairly calm. With this 88-year-old house, I've come to expect everything to be difficult, complicated, or expensive, even though this project should have been straightforward -- the defective water heater certainly wasn't my house's fault. Shortly after the installers left, someone from their office called with a Sears phone number for me to call.

Thus began my descent into telephonic Hell. I called the first number, navigated a voice menu, and was given the number of the "water heater hotline." Of course, that was wrong, and they gave me another number. That one didn't work out, either, but I got another number to call. Government bureaucracy is more efficient than Sears. The woman at the next number tried to help me. When I gave her my phone number, she had a listing under my wife's sister's ex-boyfriend's name from a dozen years ago. When I gave her my name, she had my work number from nine years ago (when we purchased our washer and dryer). Either way, she had no record of my water heater purchase and therefore could not send anyone to our house without charging me. She gave me another phone number. Keep in mind that by this time I had explained my problem roughly 10 times. I called the new number and explained it once again. This time the woman asked for the model and serial number. This seemed like progress until she transferred me to another woman who asked me to repeat all my information. After 20-30 minutes of being jerked around, I finally had the right person. She said they didn't show any openings until Thursday, and I started to lose it. "I have a brand new water heater and no hot water, and I have to wait until Thursday?" She said she would send a message to "routing" so maybe they could stop by that afternoon. She said I should expect a call within 30 minutes.

After waiting two hours, I called the phone number I found in the instruction manual. The woman told me I was scheduled for Friday. "Friday?!" I exclaimed and repeated my spiel about having a brand new water heater. She called routing and managed to get me bumped up to Tuesday morning. That still meant a few days without hot water, but I felt like I scored at least a tiny victory.

On a linguistic note, I am pleased to report that not once did anyone from Sears call it a "hot water heater" (a grating tautology).

Labels: house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 2:29 PM 0 comments

 
Conservation Elation
We just got our electric bill for the month of November. For the first time I can remember, it was under $40 -- only $36.29 (292 kWh for 31 days). Our daily electricity usage was about two-thirds as much as last November and only half as much as our daily October usage. How did I do it?

• Installed compact flourescent light bulbs in almost all fixtures. The only exceptions were the spherical bulbs in one bathroom and the chandelier bulbs in the dining room. The flourescent chandelier bulbs I have found are too big for that fixture so I did the next best thing: unscrewed half of the six 25-watt bulbs. Thanks to a ComEd instant rebate, I bought ten 60-watt equivalent GE bulbs at Ace Hardware for only 99 cents each!
• Switched from desktop to laptop. My Pentium 4 desktop PC finally died completely, and my Pentium M ThinkPad is much more efficient.
• Turned off porch and foyer lights. My wife turns these on when she leaves for work. I turn them off when she drives away. Porch lights only invite solicitors, and I don't even answer the door (if you want to "drop in" at our house, you should call first). I turn the lights on about 15 minutes before my wife comes home. They're compact flourescent too.
• Minimized hair dryer use. No one cares what my hair looks like most of the time anyway since I work at home. I towel dry and air dry it instead.
• Paid more attention to turning off lights. In grade school there were orange stickers on every light switch that said, "If you don't need 'em, don't feed 'em."
• Turned off moisture control feature on refrigerator. This isn't necessary in winter anyway.

There is much more that I can do, and maybe we can break $30. I still need to aggressively clean the dog hair out of the refrigerator coils. I need to keep nagging my wife to do only full loads in the washer and dryer (the latter is gas-heated but still uses electricity). I also need to remind her to unplug rechargers when they are finished charging (they stay warm, so they are still using electricity). I should put the stereo equipment on a power strip that I can turn off (the receiver has a standby light, so it's always drawing power). I need to remember to put my laptop in standby mode when I won't be using it for a while -- the AC adapter stays cool in standby mode, so I know it isn't using much juice. And finally, I need to buy three compact flourescent globes for the bathroom. Most of these improvements will be minor, but they can add up.

Best of all, this is just "bonus savings" from tips I have come across while focusing on our gas bill. In that area, I am anxious to see the benefits of insulation and radiator reflectors. Of course gas savings will be harder to measure since the outdoor temperature has such an impact on gas usage.

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 8:59 PM 0 comments

 
Natural Gas Blues, Part III: Heat Reflectors, Insulation, Tankless Water Heaters, Shades
Now that I am finished reviewing my copyedited book manuscript, it's time to revisit the topic of energy efficiency. Yesterday I received some super-sharp, premium heat reflectors from Novitherm Canada to install behind the nine radiators that are against external walls. They are more than simply aluminized reflectors; they also have angled sections that look like sealed louvers. These create a thermal barrier of air between the reflector and the wall that keeps even more heat in the house where it belongs. This makes them better than anything I could have crafted myself using cardboard and aluminum foil. They weren't terribly expensive; even with shipping to the USA, they only cost about $170. The only downside is that they will reflect the backsides of the radiators. A few years ago, I stripped many layers of paint from the fronts, but I couldn't always get behind them-- now everyone will see what I missed. Oh well, some aesthetic sacrifices must be made, I suppose. Installation promises to be easy, but we'll see if I can screw it up.

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 7:34 PM 0 comments

 
Natural Gas Blues, Part II: Boiler, Windows & Insulation
A commenter on the previous "Natural Gas Blues" post made some good suggestions. My reply got long, so I decided to make it a new post.

Although I'd love to replace the boiler and windows, I don't think we're ready to invest $20K+ in the house right now. Our boiler is old (1983), so I'm sure we could save gas with a new one. When I asked our HVAC contractor about replacing it last year, however, he told us that it's a good model in good condition. Maybe there's more money to be made keeping the old one going as opposed to selling me a new one? If the boiler fails, I will have to look into coupling it with an indirect-fired domestic water heater as the commenter suggested. For now, I will probably just add an insulating sleeve to the heater we have. I also installed aerators yesterday to decrease our hot water usage.

The previous owner had aluminum double-pane windows installed 10-12 years ago. I don't know what gas or coatings they might have, but at least they aren't ancient (house is 85 years old). To put in the latest and greatest, we would need to replace about 25 windows on the first and second floors, plus another 15 shorter ones in the basement, which is heated. Judging from what we spent to update ten windows that he inexplicably skipped (like I said before, I'd like to smack him), we could spend $15-25K on windows alone. Window treatments with insulating qualities would probably help a lot. We installed honeycomb shades (triple-cell) in two rooms a few years ago, and I'd like to buy more of those.

The only big investment I am looking at right now is insulation. I'm sure we are under-insulated, particularly in the attic. Unfortunately, we have a SpacePak air conditioning unit up there along with a silver tarantula of tubing. That may complicate matters; we'll have to hire professionals. Obviously we should have insulated before we got the SpacePak, but we didn't think of it. You would think our general contractor would have recommended it, but alas that project manager wasn't the brightest. At least I got him to add foam board insulation in the living room and sun room when they replaced the crumbling plaster with drywall.

To be continued...

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 11:22 AM 2 comments

 
Natural Gas Blues, Part I: Tankless Water Heaters And Radiator Reflectors
Our natural gas bills have always been outrageous in this house, sometimes over $300 a month during the winter. And it isn't because I keep the place nice and toasty--daytime is usually 67 degrees F, going down to 63 degrees at night. With prices higher than ever in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this year I am getting serious about reducing our heating costs. Maybe it's time to finally put curtains over all those windows (my excuse: we just moved in... about 6-1/2 years ago), or at least cover them with plastic for the winter. I tried the plastic thing two years ago but only did one window (on the bright side, that window is still covered, though it looks a little worse for wear).

Our gas water heater is 11 years old and I'd like to replace it, maybe with a tankless unit. Considering that our current model uses only five therms less than the most wasteful model on the market in 1994 (an estimated 276 therms annually), I'm sure we'll be better off no matter what we buy. The previous owner made a lot of bad decisions with this house--if he wasn't dead, I'd probably go smack him upside the head at least once a month. Tankless systems are more expensive, but they last longer and use less gas, especially if we get one with an intermittent ignition device (like the spark ignition on our stove) instead of a constant pilot light

Most of our gas is used by the radiator heating system (hot water as opposed to steam). While perusing a government web site about conserving energy, I found this suggestion: "Place heat-resistant radiator reflectors between exterior walls and radiators." That makes a lot of sense, but of all the radiator-heated buildings I've been inside, I have never seen this. Even my in-laws, who are notoriously chea--I mean thrifty--don't do this. Intrigued, I googled "radiator reflector." Tossing out the obvious mismatches (i.e. car radiator stuff), I found some U.S. sites that reprint the government's suggestions verbatim but very few that elaborate on them. I found many more U.K. web sites, so I would guess this is more popular across the big pond.

Some sites tell how to make your own, and it's as easy as you might guess: tape aluminum foil over a piece of cardboard. The way I turn any home improvement project into a disaster, however, I'm afraid that my homemade reflectors would look cheesier than a 1950s science fiction movie. Although a few U.S. sites claim that hardware stores sell them, our local store right here in the heart of radiator-heated Chicago does not. Twelve pages into my Google results, I only found sources in the U.K. except for one in Canada. If I lived in Ontario, I could even get a rebate for installing radiator reflectors. With a stab in the dark, I googled "radiator reflector Illinois" and came up with a supplier in New Jersey. I don't get it. If these things are as great as everyone says they are, they should be selling them on every freaking street corner in Chicago.

P.S. While researching energy, I found Mr. Electricity, aka Michael Bluejay. Not only does this guy offer advice for saving electricity, but he's a safe cycling advocate, too.

Labels: energy, house

- posted by David Johnsen @ 10:24 PM 6 comments