Today ended with the heat ducts peaking out of the opening that leads to the crawl space under the family room/library.
Before anyone asks....no we did not do that hack job on the floor joist. That fine piece of work was done by the same people who installed the plastic flexible duct that fell off the registers and then proceeded to rot away. We will attempt to add bracing before we close the opening.We made sure all sections of duct were attached to one another with 3 sheet metal screws and then wrapped with aluminum tape to ensure that none of the precious heated air leaks into the unheated crawl space.
Here is a photo of R taping one of the last seams in the crawl space.
Notice the dirt on R's hand and sleeve. All the dirt in the crawl space is clay and the top layer is like pulverized clay. So unfortunately as he crawls around he is also putting up a dust cloud that he then has to breathe. As he was backing his way out of the crawl space he doubled checked to make sure he didn't leave anything behind because he doesn't want to go back into the crawl space again. Tomorrow we start attaching the old heat ducts to the new heat ducts. A mere 2 1/2 to 3 feet but somehow I think this will take us all day and I predict at least one trip to Home Depot.
After the heat ducts are attached we will close off the opening to keep cold air from entering into the basement. Can you believe that they just left it open? No wonder their heating bills were huge during the winter. After we bought the house we found out their utility bills ran about $800 during the winter. Well of course, not only were heat ducts not attached to the registers, the plastic duct were also ripped or torn, but the renters had something plugged into every outlet in the house. Some outlets had 3 or 4 cords plugged into them. I told R that the wiring must be OK or they would have burned down the house by the time we did our first walk through.
so, since you've moved in and done all this work, how much does your utility bill run?
ReplyDeletewe're on the budget plan, so it's the same every month. gas and electric is about $150/mo.
I won't know for sure until I am done with the credit on my utility bill (credit from broken meter and overly high estimates)and they start making regular reading again.
ReplyDeleteI'm suppose to be reading the meter myself but I forget to read it on the same day each month.
Now that we are retired I should sign up for the meter readings to start again. But then that would mean I would have to shovel the snow all the way around to the back yard so they could get to the meter. It's always something.