The House Strikes Back

Our Homeownership Saga

Water Heater Discharge Pipe

One of the simplest repairs we had to complete for the city inspection, was the lack of a discharge pipe connected to the pressure relief valve on the water heater.  We went around to a few hardware stores and there were a few different styles and prices.  We only needed the cheapest one for a few dollars.  It consisted of cutting the pipe to the right length and then screwing it into the relief valve.  Pretty simple.  Here is a before and after.

Water Heater Before Pipe

Water Heater After Pipe

The pipe is really only there so if the relief valve opens, the scalding hot water will spray towards the ground instead of everywhere around chest height.

No Comments by  /  August 18, 2010  /  Posted in: Interior Repairs
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Argh the internet is distracting

So as many of you may have noticed, we have been on what we will call a blog hiatus.  We have been working on the plumbing in the basement on and off for the past month trying to get it perfect for the upcoming inspection.  There has also been this problem we will call the internet.  It distracts you from projects for many days at a time and sometimes even longer.  Much has gotten done with the house.  Many new ideas for the blog are starting to surface.  Many new projects for the house will be tackled (once this heat wave dies down).  Now that all of the major repairs our done, it is time to play catch up and let everyone know how it went.  Hopefully we can have most of the major news up within a week, but as you can see our ability to stay focused on one project seems to be limited.

We have also added, as of right this second, a contact us page at the top. Feel free to contact us about anything you want to. Maybe someone could send us some ideas on how to stay better focused. Also if we don’t update the site in awhile also feel free to send us messages nagging us to make an update. It might help us to stay on top of the task at hand, the making of an awesome web site! 🙂 Thanks everyone!

No Comments by  /  August 13, 2010  /  Posted in: updates
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Chimney Cleanout

Our house, being an older house, means it has a small chimney that may have possibly been used with some type of coal burning furnace.  As with all chimneys, this one has a cleanout, which is a small door placed at the bottom.  I am too curious just to leave well enough alone, so I have to open the door and see what is inside.

Chimney cleanout full of ash and dirt

As the picture shows, it is packed full of dirt and ash.  With no idea how much of what was inside the chimney,  I started to dig.  Using a small dust pan I kept digging and shoveling stuff out of the cleanout.  Sadly though, we can not find any pictures of the pile we ended up with.  We can however tell you that the pile was around 2 feet in diameter and all the way up to the bottom of the cleanout door.  We found ash, dirt, leaves, cut up pieces of metal chimney flue pipe (probably from when they installed the metal flue liner, since it’s not their problem that it’s in there) and a screw box from Whitney Screw Corporation which stopped production somewhere in the late 80’s.  We are curious as to how long that empty screw box has been down there.  Now that the pointless cleaning out of the chimney has been done, we should not have to do that again anytime soon (or ever).

No Comments by  /  July 18, 2010  /  Posted in: Uncategorized

Water Heater

It all started when I was in the basement and I decided to get a better look at the water heater, so in the future if anything went wrong I would have a better idea of what to do.  I started by reading through all of the warning and procedures and then took off the cover for the burner.  I looked inside to see no pilot light.  This seemed odd since I thought we had hot water, I figured it must have just gone out.  I follow all of the steps for lighting the pilot light and it went right away and worked.  I figured it must have been some sort of fluke and thought nothing of it.

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1 Comment by  /  July 15, 2010  /  Posted in: Interior Repairs, Repairs

Heavy Lifting 2

A few of you may know that we own an arcade machine. Open Ice hockey, to be specific. We got it for cheap through a local auction about 2 years ago with the intentions of modifying it into a MAME arcade machine. That project has been back-burnered ever since. The hope is that now that we aren’t saving for a house anymore that we can finally put some money into modifying this beast. Anyways, when we first bought it we knew it would be a pain in the ass to move, and it was. When we first brought it to the apartment 2 years ago, we had to force it up a rather steep hill to our patio, then remove the patio doors to fit it into the living room. It was about as much fun getting it back out of the apartment in May. But as bad as it was with the apartment, we were in for a new challenge with the house. We know we have small doorways and were expecting it be tight fit. Here’s how it went…
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1 Comment by  /  July 8, 2010  /  Posted in: House News, Moving
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Kitchen Sink Makeover

A kitchen sink is the central hub of a kitchen. Whether it’s food preparation, washing dishes, filling the tea kettle, washing your hands, or getting a glass of water, it all starts with this commonly underrated fixture. Having a faucet that makes doing common tasks almost effortless is a longtime kitchen dream of mine.
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2 Comments by  /  July 7, 2010  /  Posted in: Decorating, Projects, Upgrades
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Plumbing Endeavor – Part 1

As of June 29, 2010 we have undertaken the biggest challenge so far with homeownership. We went to city hall, to the engineering department, and got our very first building permit. It is a plumbing permit to be exact.

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1 Comment by  /  July 4, 2010  /  Posted in: Uncategorized
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Porch Window Install

Our porch has a combination of fixed windows and panels of screen. There are 2 large windows on each of the short sides and screen on all the rest. When we bought the place, one of the panes of glass was completely missing from a lower window. This wasn’t much of an immediate concern as we hadn’t had much occasion to use the porch thus far. But with the middle of summer approaching, we thought it would be nice to be able to leave the front door open without fear of an adventurous cat leaping out the window.

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No Comments by  /  July 2, 2010  /  Posted in: Exterior Repairs, Interior Repairs, Repairs
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Helping The Stairs – Part 1

Just let me sleep, it is too hot to move.

Apparently, today is too hot out to do any work, says the cat.

We decided something needed to be done with the stairs.  They were still in fairly good condition, but they were quite wobbly at times.  Upon further inspection, the piece of plywood that held the stairs to the house was falling apart in many places and after the heavy rains we just had, most of it was just mush that pealed off of the house.

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1 Comment by  /  June 28, 2010  /  Posted in: Exterior Repairs, Repairs
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Heavy Lifting

We knew when we bought the house that getting a washer and dryer down the basement stairs would be a challenge. Read about our tribulations after the break.

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No Comments by  /  June 26, 2010  /  Posted in: House News, Projects
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