Cleaning the Cleaner

Its been a while since I posted anything, we have been a little busy here with bringing the little one home etc.

Today while I had a chance I cleaned the electric cleaner elements from our Honeywell air cleaner. I like the idea of this since it minimally restricts the air flow. This thing was nasty and I dont know how long it has been since it was cleaned.

Here is a pic of the dirty element.

I need to get a large tub to make cleaning a little easier.
Here is a pic of the cleaned element.

 I am kind of interested to see how well this works. We have a small unit that we used to use in the bedroom that did really well. Hopefully the whole house version will work equally as well.

A little history

One evening after we moved in, Stacey was putting things away in the kitchen and came across a treasure trove of goodies for the house. One notable thing that we found was a newspaper clipping where the previous owners saw "The House of the Week" in the local paper. 

Here is a scan that I found online of the same article.

Link to the picture.

The original owners did change the size of a few things and put their own touches in when they had the house built. 

As time goes I will post more about the goodies that we found. 

My Exhaust Was Blocked

When we go the home inspected we were told about a rusting exhaust pipe coming from the hot water heater and furnace. I just thought this was due to the lack of a chimney cap, letting water come down and rust the pipe.

We had Ryan from Ace Chimney Sweeps  come out and take a look at everything. He gave us several options for our chimney cap and said he could take care of our exhaust issue.

First he took care of the exhaust pipe for the furnace and hot water heater. This is what he found when he took the rusted elbow out of the wall.

As you can see there is absolutely no way for any exhaust gasses to leave the house. I am glad we got this taken care of sooner than later.

This is the rusted vent pipe that was leaking water during a heavy rain.

Once that problem is repaired, it was time to take care of the cause of these issues. This was all caused by the lack of a chimney cap. It let stuff from the huge hickory tree drop right into the chimney and plug things up.

Ryan had to special order a 70" long cap since it's unusually large and uncommon. We went with the modular one to save a little money, and its not like people will be able to see it up close. Its stainless so it'l last forever. Never thought caps could be so expensive.
Here it is installed.

They did a great job!

The basement fireplace needs a lot of help if I ever want to burn wood in there again. It needs a new flue, rebuilt firebox and then some. That will have to wait, need to take care of the priorities first.

Have you swept your roof today?

We noticed water spots in one room before we bought this place and being older we are expecting things that will need fixing. I was sitting in the most awesome pieces of furniture that we got at ModernLux and noticed some water spots in the beam that goes across the ceiling. I imagine those spots along with others are due to cheap repainting so the house showed well. This reminded me to get on the roof and cleanup any branches that might have accumulated.

Here is what I was welcomed with.(Sorry I started sweeping and thought it would make for a good picture.)

It took me two hours to sweep my roof. I never thought I would be sweeping my roof. All this debris is from a very large hickory tree that hangs over the house.

Here is a picture of the steeper portion of the rood, there is plenty of stuff there but since its steeper most of it runs off when it rains.

This is what happens when stuff gets stuck. It'l catch more and more debris and hold water against the roof. If its ignored long enough it could cause some problems and I am trying to keep those to a minimum.

I did not take an after picture, I was too tired at that point. This is a pic of all the debris (hickory nut shells, branches, leaves) all at the edge about to get pushed onto our balcony.

I am not sure if there is an easier way to do this. I am thinking that there is a backpack blower in my near future  This is only going to get worse with fall fast approaching.

I know this is'nt a very exciting post but something people need to keep in mind, especially with homes with lower roof pitches (i.e. MCM homes).

Welcome Home

In December of 2010 I finally graduated school and accepted a job in Virginia. This meant that my wife and I had to move everything from the first home we bought in 2000 and start the next chapter in our lives. Initially we were hoping to end up in Colorado where mid century homes are more plentiful then in Yorktown Va.

After a year and a half we decided to start looking for a home to see what was our there and at what price points. We were going to wait another six months before we actually bought a home but we came across a great mid century home.

This blog is going to be about all the little things that we will be doing to the place. Everything from general repairs, modernizing, design and decor.