So, some neighbors just moved out of the house 2 doors down. It’s really incredible how unpleasant one household can make your life. Since they’ve been gone it’s become obvious that most of the sleepless nights spent listening to dogs barking were due largely to them. However, when they left they abandoned one of their cats. The nice one. They also had an evil cat that once bit me in the eye as I leaned down to pet that little monster. Our good fortune multiplies!

Here’s Kino, our new outside cat.

Cute, no?

It’s been warming up in the Bull City and our house is not impervious to the temperature apparently. Early on I had assumed that our spiral stairs to the partially finished attic would be a bane to the efficiency of the environmental controls in the house. Ah, how true. Although I suspected it was not the fault of the new HVAC system I called CWJ, the company that installed our new gas pack 3 months ago. The good news in this story is that the CWJ’s service was great. I called at around 7PM and they were out in about 20 minutes. Very thorough, very polite, and willing to talk about things unrelated to their system that I should do to improve the environment in the house. Try that with American Home Shield.

Which brings me to my next point: Attic ventilation. Why hasn’t anyone in the 64 years since my house was built think ventilation might be important? No idea. Perhaps the finishing of the attic has exacerbated things. Either way, I’ve got some work to do. First we’ll insulate the vestibule at the top of the stairs, then we’ll install some soffit venting to compliment the continuous ridge vent, and we’ll think about prying up the planking in the attic to increase the insulation between the attic and the ceiling below.

I’ve had this fantasy of blowing insulation into the walls of the house, too. However, I don’t want to damage the original asbestos siding and I hate to drill holes all over the plaster interior walls so that might not happen. Asbestos siding is actually super-high quality stuff and never needs to be repainted. Replacement windows are out. Our windows are lovely and new windows don’t let light through in the same way.

Brandi posted some pictures of our kitchen on her site. The photos show the vinyl flooring we had installed by Lowe’s. If I recall correctly the floor cost $335 including the flooring, installation, and new shoe moulding. We like it, but I wanted black and white squares in true 50’s fashion. Maybe next time.

We finally reached the limits of our patience with our home warranty company, American Home Shield. I’ve taken so many vacation days to meet service people that it started looking cost effective to replace our 15 year-old gas pack. I thought someone else might find the details useful so I’ll spell them out here. For reference, we have a 3 bedroom, 1078 square foot, 1943 cottage. We have original single-pane windows, which are breathtakingly lovely but less than ideal for thermal efficiency. Our ducts were replaced sometime in the last few years. We acquired 4 bids. The estimates follow.

Company: CWJ
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/80%
Warranty Parts/Labor: 10/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: 10/20
Other work: ducts as req.
Price: $3720

Company: One Hour Heating & Air
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/80%
Warranty Parts/Labor: 5/5
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: ?
Other Work: new line sets,ducts as req.
Price: $4725

Company:Mechanical Man
Unit Efficiency: 14 SEER/80%
Warranty Parts/Labor: 5/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: 0/Limited Lifetime
Other Work: all new ducts, required landscaping
Price: $6320

Company: Brown Brothers
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/?
Warranty Parts/Labor: 5/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: 10/?
Other Work:
Price: $5676

Company: Home Energy
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/?
Warranty Parts/Labor: ?/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: ?
Other Work: new supply and return ducts, new breaker
Price: $3900

We chose CWJ, but only partially because of the price. Our decision worked out like this: Brown Brothers and Michael Duke (not listed) inspected the existing unit while we were out and we never met them. We eliminated Brown Brothers and Mechanical Man because they were the highest bids, although I liked Mechanical Man. Michael Duke was mid-range, but we eliminated him because he seemed to do it on the side and he submitted a bid without meeting us. We liked Home Energy and probably would have chosen them, but we got their proposal too late.

The choice, in the end, was between CWJ and One Hour. Both were recommended to us and both were mid- to low range pricing. One Hour provided us with two references. Both said positive things about their service and both references turned out to be personal friends of the One Hour salesman. A colleague helped make our decision for us by detailing her experience with One Hour. She said the salesperson (One Hour was the only company with dedicated sales staff) would say anything and her follow-up service was lousy. I also caught the salesperson in what I will politely call a discrepancy. These two incidents confirmed the tell-you-anything, “I’ll sell you a car today!” feeling we were getting from their sales people.

We used CWJ. They were recommended by several people on the Duke Park listserv. They were fast and friendly, but they left our yard a mess of cigarette butts, soda cans, insulation, and chunks of metal. Also, we’re a little dismayed that a week later no one has called to ask how it’s working out. For ~$4,000, I’d expect a nice phone call checking to see if we’re happy. We’ll see how it works out. Clearly, though, this unit works much, much better than our old unit. It remains to be seen if moving from a 15 year-old 10 SEER unit to a new 13 SEER unit will save us money on our energy bills. Most anecdotal evidence I’ve heard relates savings while using the furnace, which we do little of.

I’ve posted some photos of the house. There are some other new photos up, too, including the revamped kitchen. We’re installing new flooring in the kitchen next week and will paint the cabinets soon so we’re almost there. Soon I’ll start scraping, painting, and reglazing outside. Haven’t seen any treefrogs yet this spring, but it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit last night.

We spent last evening on the screen porch. It was blissful. The weather is marvelous right now. I installed the ceiling fan and light yesterday so the porch is near completion. I have a few trim pieces to paint and put up as well as stapling screen to the bottom of the floor joists. I’ve been wondering how people deal with managing mosquitoes that come from under the house. I’m told most people lay down indoor-outdoor carpeting. I like the wood decking so I’ll try the screen for now.

In other house-related news, our air conditioner doesn’t work again. We’ve submitted a work request with American Home Shield. We’ll see if they can redeem themselves from last season. Also, we need to paint our kitchen cabinets before we get new vinyl for the kitchen floor, which we’ll be doing soon. I’ll try to upload pictures soon. On my to-do list is to reglaze all the windows; scrape, prime, and paint all the trim; plant some vegetables and herbs; and, I’m sure, stuff I’ve put out of my mind to keep from freaking out. I wish we had a landlord to call.

I am reminded of the words of e e cummings. I was just sitting on the screen porch reading
The Selfish Gene. The sunset over Northgate Park was lovely. It’s wonderful to be able to work outside a bit in the evenings after work. I’ve said it before, but Spring in North Carolina is sublime.

And now, one of the few things I recall from junior high.

in just-

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

e e cummings

We now officially have a screen porch. I still have a few pieces of trim to put up and will have to buy, prime, and paint a few more sections of treated lattice, and install the ceiling fan, but, from a distance, it looks done. And it’s functional, though I haven’t really inspected for tiny holes yet. I’ll probably screen the underside of the floor joists, too, to keep mosquitoes from coming up from the crawl space. That’s in lieu of laying indoor/outdoor carpet, which I’m not fond of.

We spent a bit the other night enjoying the breeze there. We’ve got some wicker pieces we picked up reasonably from Craigslist that we’ve paired with some clearance cushions. It’s very nice. We just need a bit more foliage and a couple of mai-tai’s.

Not bad for around $400. I may wish I had chosen the longer-lasting aluminum screen instead of the easier-to-install nylon screen, but time will tell how well the nylon holds up to the elements.

I’ll post some pictures when I get back from the NDIIPP dog-and-pony show.

I’ve posted a few photos in a new gallery, Christmas 2006. I expect I’ll be adding more as it’s only the 18th. We bought twenty luminaries yesterday at the Colonial Village Neighborhood Association meeting. They were very pretty but, alas, no pictures.

This was the first neighborhood meeting we’ve attended and it was nice. However, I was a little disappointed with the homogoneity of the attendees. For such a diverse neighborhood it’s surprising. I understand that the board is working on some Spanish language things, though. I’m sure it isn’t easy to figure out how to get people to participate, especially with a tiny budget and no dedicated staff.

I’ll try to get some photos of our Christmas lights up.
Update: I’ve uploaded a picture of the house.

We have heat as of Wednesday. One of the problems turned out to be our thermostat so the technician installed a 7-day programmable thermostat, which is pretty great. The house warms up for us to get up in the morning, cools down for the day, warms up for the evening, and cools back down at night. Great stuff. One funny thing-the thermostat comes with and Energy Star compliant 7-day program preloaded. The funny part is that the temperatures it alternates between are 65 and 70 degrees. We’re going to try 55 and 60, but may try cooler temperatures. Here’s to heat!