"Need to trust my instincts" or "Opportunity for ingenuity."

Yesterday's conversation while in Lowes:

Me: "I'm going to get another box of nails, just in case. I'll bring it back if I don't need it... unless you are sure we won't need them."
Dad: "Let's just check out."
Me: "Ok. If you say so. But you're going to get more if we need them."

Today:

Me: "How's it going out there?" (They worked on hanging the rest of the joists while I did some work.) 

Mom (cracking up): "We're going to need more nails."

Turns out she was laughing so hard because Dad had said "The little b***h was right." I prefer his normal nickname for me which starts the same way, but is more endearing - Bitty.

We didn't end up going to the store though. We used some of the decking screws I already had. Luckily they hadn't used all of the nails on the inner boards because we needed to use them on the outside joists. Some of the nails were too long to go into the outside boards and I don't have a pair of heavy-duty pliers to cut the nail in one fell swoop. Here's what we did:

On the left: Dad took a pair of electrical pliers and made a notch in the nail where he wanted it shortened.

On the right: We took other pliers - one to hold the nail steady and one to bend at the notch - and bent it up and down until it broke.

Rosie (one of my parent's dogs)
is hiding

What we've got so far.

Up next? Inspection... or at least questions for the inspector.

Parents visit and parents help build a deck!

My parents came to visit me for Independence Day through this weekend. Since I had the day off, we worked on the deck to cut the posts for the last beam and to set it 24 feet away from the house. We must have measured it 4 different ways 10 times! We mixed the last bag of concrete for the hole along the fence and filled in holes with sand. I had already nailed in the joists between the band board and the beam closest to the house, but we did a few more yesterday... mainly in order to put up one of the fence panels. When I got home from work today, the rest of the fence panels along the deck were in place! They had also put in more joists (dealing with split and warped boards) before they ran out of joist hangers and it got too hot. The frame is almost complete!
There's still a decent amount of work to do for the railing and steps, but we are making lots of progress now.
Kudos to my dad for some creative engineering (that's where I get it from). And Kudos to my mom for her persistence (and that's where I get that from).

BTW- My awesome neighbors helped me stain those fence panels. Nice, huh?!?

The Derecho had mercy on me... deck building continues

After a crazy storm on Friday I was one of the lucky ones to have power on Saturday morning. I was grateful for the power mainly so deck work could continue... although having AC was nice. Three of my friends came over before it got terribly hot on Saturday. We spent about three hours placing the center beam (which involved a lot of measuring and calculations) and setting three fence posts. We made sure the posts were straight and level with my new favorite tool - a post leveler:

We came up with some clever ways to keep the posts level while the concrete we poured around them set.

I spent some time this evening attaching joist hangers and filling in the holes. Here's the progress and the slowly diminishing fill dirt hill

p.s. I made a falafel bar for lunch on Saturday including jalapeño-cilantro sauce, roasted red pepper hummus, cucumber-dill yogurt, tomatoes and cucumber in balsamic, and pita.

Deck framing begins!

I had a crew of 10 come work on my deck today. There was a lot of measuring, squaring, leveling, and cutting to be done! And hammering! There were some master-hammerers putting together beams today. The beams needed assembling because three of them had to be made of two 2x8s and one had to be made of three 2x8s. There was some muscle-building because the lumber was in the driveway, so my great friends hauled everything to the backyard.
We cheered when things were leveled and spent plenty of time over-analyzing the next steps. And, of course, there was the obligatory trip to the hardware store to pick up extra items (so grateful to my friends who were willing to run that errand for me).
My shady backyard kept us cool enough, but we welcomed the occasional breeze and there was plenty of water (and sangria) to go around. Once we got to this point:

we went inside to have some tacos, ceviche, snickerdoodles, and more sangria. A great day and lots of progress!

Side yard landscaping

Two things that brought me joy this spring are:

1. My city's free mulch
2. My fantastic neighbor who has a similar affinity for free mulch AND has a great boyfriend who lets us use his truck to get said free mulch! 

I decided it was time for a side-yard makeover, so 1 1/2 loads of free mulch later helped this:

turn into this (opposite view):

Lumber delivered

With some help, this

will become a deck!

HVAC Selection, Negotiation, and Installation

Kelli had her HVAC system installed yesterday! Here's post 3 of 3 about her HVAC experiences.

After my first bad experience with a contractor, I knew there was more work to be done. Over the course of a week, I had FOUR companies total come to my house and provide me with free estimates. During this time, I had to turn off my A/C two more times to get the ice to melt and get the fan in the air handler back running again - but it would probably would have been more frequent if the weather was warmer.

I found all the companies on Angie's List but ended up selecting the one which was also suggested by a colleague of mine.  They were willing to meet with me at 4 pm, 5 pm, and 8 am, which was helpful in flexing my work schedule. Out of the four companies, I had a large range of suggestions, ideas, and opinions about small details.  Most of them agreed that my price range ($6000-$8000, though less would be nice) and the qualities I was looking for (long lasting, value, cleanliness, etc) meant I should get a 13 SEER, 14-15 SEER, or 16 SEER.  SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating.  The unit on my house was probably a 10 or 12 SEER, which you can't even buy any more, because that's where the technology was 9 years ago. If I purchased a 15 SEER model or higher, I was eligible for an energy rebate from my energy company ($200).  Of course, that doesn't make up for the $800-$1000 difference in price for the higher SEER! I also heard from the various companies that it doesn't really matter what brand you purchase, but that the most important day in the life of your HVAC system is the day it is installed!  Basically, this means that you can purchase an awesome system (they make up to 24 SEER which costs about Retail Price $30,000 to buy and install) but if it isn't put in right, you don't get the energy efficiency out of it that you could. My dad told me that anything over 16 SEER isn't worth the increase in money in terms of what I would save on my utilities bill.

I heard several conflicting things from these various companies, which I still haven't figured out:

• I could have larger duct work on my return air ducts vs. They are fine as is
• The reason my roommate's room is a little hotter is because a return air duct is sitting on top of the duct going to her room vs. It's just that she gets the most sun on her room
• I need a model with a variable speed fan because I am using one system for a two-story house, vs. There are other models which have different fans which also work vs. I don't need it at all
• I need a media filter or UV light in my new system to help the system stay clean and improve my indoor air quality vs. I don't need that at all
• I should put the $1 filters (see first blog post) in my return air units or remove them altogether if I get a media filter vs. Keep doing what I am doing already, which is use the mid-grade filter and don't put anything else in my system

I heard several things which were consistent:

• The duct work is in good shape and can be re-used. It was well-sealed the first time it was installed
• I have a medium-quality insulation in my attic which is great, and it is deep enough and looks great
• Don't change the thermostat setting a lot on my heat pump (so, a programmable thermostat is only so useful) because its easier/more efficient for a heat pump to maintain the same temperature than try to bump it up or down 2 degrees on a regular basis. Definitely don't want to change it more than 2 degrees at a time, especially in the winter because that causes the emergency heat to kick on
• If I want a media filter or a UV light, the time to put it in is when it gets installed, not later
• Most brands of heat pumps and air handlers are the same and have similar warranties so it doesn't matter much which one you pick. Each company has ones it uses the most and recommends, and may have trained their employees on installing that system the best. 

Out of the four companies, I picked the Project Manager who took measurements and did a load calculation, who explained a few things I could do myself around my house to make the system run better (ie. consider a fan in my kitchen since it gets warm when using the oven, and who gave me a sales pitch while accepting that I needed time to do my research about the products and the price.  The Project Manager even talked to my dad and answered some of his questions, and my dad negotiated him down another $500 from the price he had given me. (Yes, I recognize this is a very GenY/Millennial thing to do and I am okay with it!)  Which means he gave me my unit plus a filter he recommended for about 17% off the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price. Considering he gets the unit wholesale for about 40% of the MSRP and then has to pay staff to install it and still make a profit -- well, it could have been a little lower, but they "included" a new thermostat (worth about $200), they have some great guarantees on the installation (parts and labor for the first 5 years if anything goes wrong) and a few other guarantees which I am essentially paying for now. One of the more frustrating pieces of this entire process was that no company provided me with all the information I (and my dad) wanted about exactly what was going to be installed and what the scope of work would be. We had to send the Project Manager a big document with what we thought we were getting (which my dad put together) so he could confirm or change it -- which he did!

I was able to get my system installed the next day, because they are a bit slow given the cooler weather. Three workers and the Project Manager showed up at 8:30 am. They put down drop cloths, I paid the bill, checked in the with Project Manager, and showed them the attic. By 2 pm the system was up and running and being tested to make sure it was working properly!

Here are some pictures of the process:

Old air handler with
the door removed

New Air Handler

New outdoor heat pump on a new concrete slab
about 8 inches taller than the last one!

Old heat pump, pan, and old air
handler in the driveway for discard

New thermostat (on a wall that will get paint touch-up)

There were 3 small snafus: (1) the air handler wasn't the right size because of the beams in my attic. They had to switch it out, with one person driving a half hour each way to get a new one that would keep my SEER rating and (2) because of the tight space in my attic, I wasn't able to get the Micro Power Guard filter for the system. They are still working out exactly what they will install for me since I wanted this and it can't be done in the space. (3) They were going to give me some new filters for my return air handlers but the Project Manager measured wrong and gave me 16x20 instead of 14x20.  Needless to say, I guess these things don't all work out exactly like you plan for them to! I'm sitting in my cool house, waiting for my final instructions, summary, and next steps to resolve these small things. The only other remaining step is to make sure my rebate gets filed and be here when the County inspector comes to check it and make sure it was done right, which I'm sure will happen in a few business days.