Home Improvement Today?

This is my thoughts when I got my license renewed. Neck Gaiter in the photo, reminder of the rona-pocalypse.

 

Well that answer could be correct for many possible questions.

 

Drill through the mortar joint.

 

I used to fix things behind drywall like a surgeon, working through a tiny little hole. Then I started watching a show Holmes on Homes and he advocates just taking the sheetrock down. You'll save time and money and the fix isn't that hard, sometimes even easier than fixing a hole. I gotta say I agree with him and you. On my last bathroom remodel I took all the sheetrock behind the sink down. Made it super easy to move the electrical and plumbing. It was a small bathroom so it only took two sheets to repair. I'm not a fan of mudding and tapping, but it's not that hard and the tools, inexpensive.

 

Would this not depend on the condition and age of the brick and the mortar. I have seen several old houses, that it can be a toss-up as to which is most likely to fail -if not both!

 

Yes, it would certainly depend on that. It's always preferable to drill into solid material.

 

I had a tech come out to look at my gas furnace because there's a push button circuit breaker thing that I keep having to reset, and it sounds like I'm going to need a new furnace. The part that's tripping out is some sort of thermal safety switch, and the tech said the heat exchanger inside the unit being damaged is the only way it would tripping like it is. Waiting to hear from their sales/installer people on what a new unit is going to cost.

 

When we moved into our house nearly 30 years ago, there was an already old Sears oil furnace. My neighbor showed me how to service it, as he told me that oil furnaces aren't too complicated. I had the furnace for another 25 years before the heat chamber finally cracked. Given the opportunity, we got a propane furnace and a heat pump, which also serves as a central a.c. Propane was and still is cheaper than oil. Both work well but my wife will attest there is no heat that burns as hot as an oil heat. Even as the furnace runs, especially with the heat pump, the heat output simply isn't as toasty.

 

The manufacture date on my furnace is 1988.

 

Quoting you/wife : "Both work well but my wife will attest there is no heat that burns as hot as an oil heat." are you sure ? -- maybe wood heat?? good discussion topic !
I know there is no comparison on convenience.
Please understand I am not trying to start any arguments.
Wood heat definitely is not for everybody, like it was in the pioneer days, when it was the only choice!

 

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/british-thermal-units.php

 

Yep. Wood heat is hot. It's only got a few drawbacks.

Gathering wood.
Splitting wood.
Building fire.
Keeping fire going.
Cleaning up after fire.

Other then those minor issues it's great. lol

 

free

 

Except for the time spent:

Gathering wood.
Splitting wood.
Building fire.
Keeping fire going.
Cleaning up after fire.

I set my FHA unit's thermostat 7 years ago. That took me about 5 minutes. lol

 

I've actually been burning framing scraps only since beginning of October . Lumber that was paid for by somebody else I got paid to clean up

 

I do the same. I mainly use the FHA though. The wood burner is used on weekends.

 

we have hydronic heat in our house , in slab in the basement and dining room and in concrete over framing in some other areas of the house . That keeps our house tempered , woodstove just brings it up a bit in the evenings and goes all day when its really cold out , we also have some exterior insulation on the walls so house doesn't really bleed heat and the interior concrete thermal mass stores a lot of heat

 

Nice. Hydronic is so good. What's your supply for the hydronics? When I retire and build my retirement home it will have geothermal heat pumps supplying hydronics.

 

electric boiler but if I was building a house for myself again I would use an air to water heat pump , which also does domestic hot water preheat . We installed one of those units in a house I built s couple years ago

 

Funny story. I don't know if this was a thing in Canada but in the late 60's the US Govt gave tax credit for installing solar hot water preheat. My house was built in 1968 and had a system that was still in use when I bought it in 2013.

Back in the 60's electric water heaters where 80% efficient at best. The system made sense for it's time. The Bradford White I installed when we moved in is 94% efficient. That's a big difference.

So, the 1/2 hp pump that circs the pre-heat 24/7 was drawing about 4 kw/h a day. With our 2 person usage the new heater was drawing about 3.5 kw/h a day. Guess what got ripped out? I took all the old aluminum panels down and stripped the copper from them. I removed all the copper from the pre-heat system. Then I went and got $200 for recycling it. lol