Not Making Much Progress

Started out the day waiting for Piedmont Natural Gas to get my gas turned on and find out if the furnace works. While I was waiting, I took a few pictures of the house in the early morning, then spackled some and stripped some more wallpaper.

When the gas was turned on, everything was fine until we went inside and tried to get the heater to come on. Not dice. I was about to totally start crying. Chris, the most wonderful gas company employee ever, crawled under the house to check out the furnance, which he said WAS working and that it seemed to be a wiring issue. So, at this point I was VERY relieved that the furnace DID work, but a tad concerned about hiring an HVAC person to work on the wiring.

Back upstairs to the thermostat. Chris tried a few things by connecting the circuits through the screws themselves and we heard the furnace come on. So, the thermostat COULD control the furnace, there was just a wiring issue inside the thermostat. Unfortunately, there were also no directions for the thermostat (they just left the oven directions). The thermostat had 2 places the white wire could connect to, at the time it was in #1. Chris moved it to #2 and the problem was solved! I know have BOTH heat and air in my house! I also called Piedmont Natural Gas to tell them what a great employee they have.

Then off to Home Depot to buy supplies to build the water heater house. After purchasing the supplies and having to rent the Home Depot truck AGAIN to get them home, my workmen went off to install 2 lights in my neighbor's house. This was maybe 12:30- 1 PM.

I waited and stripped some wallpaper, then stripped some paint, then wallpaper, then paint... No workmen. It started to rain and I ran to bring in all the supplies except the concrete blocks, OSB, pressure treated lumber and CPVC pipe. Strippped paint, stripped wallpaper....

At one point during this time, I had a knock at the door I thought might be the workmen. No, it was my friend Bobbie coming to yell at me that I was doing everything wrong and spending too much money and that it was impossible to have a water heater outside. She also claimed it would be getting down to 5 degrees in a few weeks, which is also CRAZY. She reduced me to tears two times and I have to say I was glad to see her go. She has been against the house since the very beginning and still wants me to do it all her way.

I think if I have to replace the water heater and I eventually want to put a dishwasher (which the house has never had before) in where the water heater is now, that is makes sense to go ahead and move the water heater NOW. And, I don't think a dishwasher is really a MAJOR luxury item in the 21st century.



New home of the water heater. It will go in front of the vent on the left.




Finally at 5 PM I called my mom at work to tell her to come to the house as I was still there, but she had already left. Was considering going out for pizza when I saw my workman on the porch of my neighbor's house. Then my mom came and a short time later the workman came again and said they had gotten tied up all day at the neighbors and they would do the water heater tomorrow.

Back to Home Depot to see about getting some pink board to put on the inside of the water heater house for better insulation. I will have to go back AGAIN tomorrow and they will cut it to size for me once I know how big the enclosure will be. I did purchase something that hopefully will work in the cracks around the windows in the front two rooms. Then finally home to the apartment and the first food I'd had since 7:30 AM since I hadn't wanted to leave all day in case my workmen came. Next time I'm definately ordering pizza.