Basement Mechanical

Frozen Over

We got heat in the nick of time, since it got really cold in early January in much of the country. In Chicago, the low of -16° on January 6th beat records. The second floor stayed nice and cozy, thanks to our new boiler and radiators as well as the attic insulation. The rest of […]

Basement Mechanical

Heat!

Oh, finally, finally we have real heat! Up to this point we’ve been relying on a collection of electric heaters meant to supplement rather than stand in and even running four of them and consuming 6,000 watts of electricity in the process, it’s been cold. The insulation helped quite a bit, but ultimately we just […]

Random Projects

Unexpected Insulation

It’s a very cold December now, and we still don’t have heat. We’re subsisting on electric radiators, both oil-filled and baseboard. However, it dipped down to 10° over the weekend, and they just weren’t cutting it. When I got up Saturday morning, the thermostat in the living room said it was 53°. Sarah decided that […]

Basement Mechanical

Heating Things Up

One of the major projects in our remodel is replacing the heating system, and I’ve been thinking more about it recently because our house is chilly. I sometimes feel like living in our old house is actually a trip back in time, where I need to wear a house robe and slippers over layers of […]

Basement Mechanical

Boiler Update

The weather has been especially fickle as of late. After my initial test firing of the boiler it promptly got warm again and stayed that way for a couple of weeks. When it got colder again, I went to fire up the boiler. Since it worked fine the first time, I didn’t anticipate any problems. […]

Scroll to top