I Can Almost Feel The Cool Breeze

I spent my week off after Atlanta kicking butt on the Central AC installation. For the first floor system I'm installing a Goodman which I got a good deal on in January. After running my house through the duct sizing program, I laid out a plan and put together from stock pieces supplied by a dealer in NJ. I caught a free delivery deal with that too, so I've been doing good. With the help of my buddy John, we hung the unit from the ceiling using all-thread and brackets and started to install the duct work. I initially planned on coming out the side for the return, till I found the return was on the bottom - hence why I had to suspend the unit. The supply trunk runs down and catches three supplies takeoffs - one to the kitchen stair riser, and three floor units in the foyer, parlor, and dining room. I used insulated flex to connect the takeoffs to the register boots. The return runs parallel to the supply and catches three of the returns I installed in the walls 2 years ago when I gutted the first floor. The 4th in the kitchen I ended up not having to use since I had enough with just the three.





Two days and the duct and wiring was done and passed the blower test. I sealed most of the seams on the supply header, but still have a few to get too. Wednesday I helped John do a 200 amp service for one of his customers, then Thursday was back to the AC - running the line set and wiring the outside condenser.



At this point I was really getting frustrated with my working facilities - or lack there of! Tools are everywhere, the basement is jammed up, the garage is jammed up, and I will loose the kitchen soon as a work area.... so this week I stopped the other projects and started to build a shop in the basement. So the past few nights has been spent dividing the basement in half. One side will be my radio collection room. The other half will be a nice shop, and one corner will be a storage area for seasonal stuff and camping gear, plus the freezer.





I won't get this 100% now, but will be done enough to get a shop going and get all my tools downstairs, especially my larger wood working tools. These epecially have not been weathering to well in the garage and i have to keep removing surface rust on the bare metal, and coating with oil only works to a point. It won't be no Norm shop, but it will be 100 times better than what I've been dealing with. In the meantime, I had to start downsizing my radio collection a bit - at least of projects I doubt I'll get to, and other vintage items that I don't have room for in the house.





Tomorrow my dad will braze the refrigerant lines for me and then this weekend I hope to get the condensate pump installed and vacuum test the refrigerant lines, then open up the condenser to the system and top off with a little more R22. Then I'll be finally living the cooool life!

Back From the Work Abyss

So the three month outage at work is over (I think) and I just came back from my two weeks of training down in Atlanta.... now I can finally get back to the laudry list of projects that await.

Here are a few pics of the current state of the back yard. I bought a nice cedar arbor that went together pretty quick. I had a design in mind to custom build, but the time just ain't there. Maybe next go around. The garden is planted and doing OK. The weather has been a little too wet this spring I think for my spring crop.





Also started building a field stone wall to level out the slope one the side of the property. Here I will fill in and make a brick patio to sit the AC units on. Speaking of which that is my next big project. I have the AC unit and the duct work. Using a sizing program I put together a duct layout that should be sized just right. I should get a jump on that this week since I have vacation - no more HOT summers! Stay tuned....



And yes, more cedar shakes to do....