My Current Huge Project With Radiant In Floor Heating

LsFarm wrote:No air infiltration equals no cold outside air mixing and cooling the heated inside air.
Fiberglass is a good insulator, but a lousy sealant. in a sealed space, fiberglass works well. In a space with lots of air movement fiberglass just doesn't work well at all, so the combination of a foam sealed space and fiberglass is quite effective.

Greg L

I never knew this. So, in the well ventilated attic, R-30 is not really holding its on?

BTW, the project looks great. What a job! Tons of work. Let's have a party when it's all done.

Get the thing weather-proof! Forget the holiday...keep shingling, insulating....."A day in July is worth 3 weeks in November, 4 weeks in December, 6 weeks in Jan....and so on. My weather beaten body is testament to these facts!!!

Greg, as they say here in the land of 'Historic Homes": They sure don't build 'em like they used to....thank Gawd!!!!!

Nothing an excavator and a bonfire won't solve. Just imagine going into a basement, not a crawl space, and not having to share it with rodents, snakes, a family of skunks, woodchucks and any other animals looking for a warm place to snooze out!

Only 2 gray and 1 red squirrels, mice, frogs when it's wet in the cellar, wolf spiders, crickets, and bats here.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.. nobody has yet [other than myself] questioned my sanity.

I'll try to answer a few questions and fill in a few blanks..
One of the reasons for this project is that as I'm getting older, the desire and ablility to do this much work is decreasing rapidly. So I figured I needed to tackle this project now, so I could enjoy the house in the years to come, instead of wishing I had done the project, and having to live with the compromises the old place forced on me.

I also was concerned with eventually selling the place.. Only another idiot, with super-duper 'rose colored glasses' [ like me] would consider buying this place in it's previous condition. Any house inspector would take one look, start laughing, then start screaming and running away. The old place was such a mess!!
But now, this is an 1850's looking farmhouse, with a real master suite, two-story foyer, high-end kitchen, superior heating and insulation, and low maintenance exterior. So it should appeal to a much larger group of potential buyers.. when the time comes that it goes on the market.. Probably not for 20+ years.

The current costs were another reason for tackling the job, with the economy in Michigan the worst in the country, the building tradesmen are lined up around the block, looking for work, at just about any price. The prices of lumber are about 1/2 of 4 years ago. Interest rates at all time lows.

In 1999, I priced out this job, reusing old appliances, inexpensive floor coverings, baseboard heat. Reusing many doors and windows. The estimates came back at about $160-180K. In 2005 I priced it out again, and the estimates were around $250K..
At this time, I should get done with about $150K spent. This includes High-end appliances, granite countertops, high-end flooring, in floor heat, high end windows and doors. A huge savings.

Just to put this all in perspective, the entire wood package, deck, walls, roof trusses, porch, breezway cost roughly $13,500. that's less than half of the estimate in 2005.

I'm the general contractor, I farmed out the basement, I ran the excavators some, I've driven a lot of nails, worn out a lot of cordless batteries and sweated a lot on this job. I can do it all, I've built a lot of houses. BUT, with plenty of available labor at very reasonable prices.. I've farmed out most of the large jobs. The speed of the project attests to this, so far August 28th to roughly November 24th.. Three months, and it's enclosed, heated, and soon to be wired , partially insulated and drywalled.

Take care everyone, Have a great Thanksgiving with your families.

Greg L

Congrats!! Looking good!

LsFarm wrote: I'm the general contractor, I farmed out the basement, I ran the excavators some, I've driven a lot of nails, worn out a lot of cordless batteries and sweated a lot on this job. I can do it all, I've built a lot of houses. BUT, with plenty of available labor at very reasonable prices.. I've farmed out most of the large jobs. The speed of the project attests to this, so far August 28th to roughly November 24th.. Three months, and it's enclosed, heated, and soon to be wired , partially insulated and drywalled.

Take care everyone, Have a great Thanksgiving with your families.
Greg L

Yeah, he even suckers in unsuspecting visitors to hang 3 sets of large (French, double, etc.) exterior doors!

Compared to your project, Greg, my new deck and spa project was a walk in the park - and IT took 3 months, LOL. Guess I needed to do more of the work myself.....

And yet, Greg still found the time to track down and pick up a EFM 350 boiler and Iron Fireman stoker for me.

Happy Thanksgiving! Keep warm!

Chris

You have done an awesome job and I am very jealous. Keep up the good work.

All I can say is WOW!

It looks Awesome Greg! I remember the way it used to look, judging from the pictures you now have a whole new house, excellent job on the planning and execution. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I had to go to the back of the property, and chase a trespassing hunter off the property, on the way back I stopped and took a photo of the 'compound' from the top of the hayfield ridge.

Way too many buildings to keep up with.. The remote boiler building and coal storage building are the closest buildings, roughly center of the photo.

Double WOW! What an excellent job on a much needed project. You've done well! I can't see anything I'd have done differently so it passes my inspection! Beautiful job, just beautiful.

Thanks Freddy, I really didn't want to increase the size of the place, it's too big for me already. But I couldn't figure out how to have the 2-story foyer, and a decent sized kitchen and living room without using the same size footprint, and going to two full stories.. And of course, I HAD to have a full basement, that was the big problem to start with.. the old house was built pretty much right on the ground.

I toyed with the idea of jacking up the house, and digging a basement under it. But the old section was so poorly built, that it would have been like trying to jack up a slinky or a pizza.. not a task likely to succeed. So it came down, and is going back up.

Supposed to have about an inch of slushy-wet snow tonight.. yuk, I'm not mentally ready for winter yet.

Happy Turkey Day.

Greg L

nice job greg! keep up the good work!

I'm very impressed! The carpenter's daughter in me says, "Wowy zowy!"

Greg:

Very nice job. Are you sure you don't need the Menominee back to heat all that flooring?

We have a kitchen reno coming up and we're building it around a solid fuel aga cooker that we had recon'd and sent over from Britain last summer, when the pound was pounded. It's sitting in the storage waiting for us to put a pad/plinth and chimney in for it's svelte 1300lbs. Here is the gas version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxRp9b1yFGA (They made them 'solid fuel' - anthracite - up until a few years ago - there is an oil version, too, but the coal burner is the original.) On ours (they can be configured different ways), the right side is coal burning and the left third ('warming' top, etc.) is gas range with elec oven for summer use.

We have the same issue with selling the home. We'll be pretty well committed to coal - and an asylum, in most people's minds. Screw it. It's my house.

- Charlie