Thursday, May 28, 2009

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!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

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....