LOL! I wouldn’t sit in ants either! Cistern? We returned from our winter home, garage door broken needs replacement (2 cars are inside), heating and AC broken needs replacing, garage lights broken needs replacing and can’t reach even with tall ladder (we are short), hot water heater 31 years old needs replacing, TV died and needs replacing. All this was the day we arrived home. Biggest problem was “we don’t serve the Northern Neck anymore”. Know your pain!
Water heater in, HVAC next week, TV end of month, don’t know about garage door, but ordered. Garage light last. Husband hip replacement 1 1/2 weeks. Garage door temporary fix so it works, still needs replacing.
Dang. Practical and modern necessities being planned and soon installed WHILE working on aesthetic things like the woodwork! Hate that there are complications with the A/C plans. If I was in that situation, it’d be very difficult because I have no prior experience or a whole lot of knowledge about it. I’ve had a pipe dream of you guys being able to create a sort of half, if not full basement. I wonder if that would be feasible and cost-effective enough, if planning permission would be necessary and how extensive it would be. That way, you wouldn’t have to crawl into it and would have some extra space…though I know the house is spacious enough as it is.
We hope to one day own a historic house with a full basement again. This one could be deepened. There are techniques where dirt is excavated out and the foundation is "underpinned" with concrete walls. There are some interesting videos on YT showing time lapses of that being done.
I'm glad you moved filming locations before you got ants in your pants, Jeanie! That mystery structure sure is intriguing, but I'm sorry it is causing you problems. It is admirable how you take all these things your house is talking to you about in stride. I would feel a bit overwhelmed! I know you two can handle it though 😊
@@1834RestorationHouseThat's so true that taking time to think it through usually reveals a solution, especially with all your experience restoring houses. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!
Go to the local nursing home and find the oldest local plumber you can find... Take cookies and your photos. =) Harbor Freight sells a little scraper tool kit with 4 or 5 pieces. I bought mine 20 yrs ago to remove paint from window mullions, or is it munrins? Each tool has a different shaped head so you have an infinite number of options to fit curves, beads, grooves etc. Mine has been very handy through the years.
We had a pipe break above a 2000 gallon cistern. It overflowed and flooded the basement. Expensive month as it ran the electric well pump the whole time
Sounds like an old cistern is failing under the house. Could the pipes be the a/c condensation drain pipes? Much research needed. I look forward to that.
The AC condensate has been located and it's outside at the unit. The iron pipes seem to be disconnected from the house, but it doesn't make sense why it's so wet at that spot.
Mike, most of what you see there with the HVAC is insulation around the trunk pipes for supply and return. If you go to a metal ducting system, you'll have to re-insulate it. Otherwise, it won't be efficient at all. Best of luck with that water tank down there.
Wow, I do not envy you having to crawl around under the house! What a challenge to figure out how to reroute those air ducts!! Will you have to bend tin to make the ducts yourself? My brother had an old Victorian farm house with a well and a cistern under the house. I don’t know how he ever learned how all the pipes worked, but I think cistern water went to at least some of the fixtures. He told us not to brush our teeth with the water from the sink in our room when we visited! Wonder if it was any worse than the water from that black filter under your house! Yikes!! Best, Jan
One has to admire the ingenuity of our ancestors as they built water systems with whatever they could find. Still, it's a bit sketchy compared to our modern plumbing. I'm going to buy whatever duct parts I can, and tin-bend the rest.
In many old houses, the downspouts fed into a cistern which was used for water for washing usually. My grandparents house had a hand pump next to the big laundry sink in the basement that came from the cistern. Do any of those brick "rivers' outside your house head to the cistern? I know you showed where one heads right under part of the porch. If that big tank is plumbed with water lines it is probably the pressure tank for a well. It seemed as if you said the big air ducts were making it so you personally could not squeeze beyond them in order to put in some other stuff? IF that is what you meant, instead of fabricating some metal part why not just disconnect the big ones, get you in the space you need to be, do the new ducting stuff for this other system and then put the big flex ducts back on? Your compressor is TWICE the size of mine, making it enormous to only be doing the lower floor of your house. Maybe you NEED an actual HVAC person to examine this set up! It does not seem correct.
There are some mystery pipes going under the house, one of which is connected to a catch basin. Now you have me wondering if there is a connection there? I researched the AC package and it's a 3.5 ton unit. Running some calculations I learned that the unit is a good size for the house. There are too many registers, not enough return ducts, and the supply ducting is too big and takes the scenic route. Ugh!
I find that intriguing when you said Old Houses will talk to you when there is a problem. I live in a 100 year old house and twice I feel the house did speak to me in dreams to alert me to problems. I don't know if it was the House itself or the Spirits of former Owners but definitely I was being alerted in no uncertain terms.
If I ever win a lottery, I'm donating to you both. I was thinking of you when you had varmints in your attic. I just moved into my newly constructed home and right as we moved in we have birds in our dryer vent and our Radon vent. Now I have to deal with that. YUCK!
Have you thought about having the A/C checked by a local company to verify the ducting through the chimney and the return for any filters? Also, if you have a water leak, have you had any large water bills? That would certainly talk to you about a leak; oooh, a filter that is black, yuck!!!! Good you decided to order a new system. Seems like your house decided to rebell at the same time, so you end up with multiple and expensive repairs at the same time. Ah, the fun of home ownership. 😉🤨😵💫🥴 P.s. good thing you're an engineer.
We're not running anything through the chimney itself. There's a gap between the chimney and the adjacent closets that is perfect for fishing wires and pipes through. Yes, these old houses are always needing something. Thankfully they seem to know what pace we can handle!
The house is like a pandora’s box. There’s a surprise at every turn! You two have more patience than I. It would be miserable for me to do such a tedious task! I’m glad it’s you doing it versus me.😅 How’s school going for you Mike? Are you going to take summer classes this year? Hugs, Doc❤
It's not fun being under a house, but I seem to find myself under every one that we've owned, for various reasons. I'm about to dive into summer semester and there are some good classes this time around. Thanks for asking! 💖
@20:00 can you take off the closet paint with a CO2 or Sand Blaster (given that its inside a closet and not visible fine moulding). Is chemical stripping easier? Which do you prefer? Loved you shellack video, I did a deep dive after watching your videos. Really cool natural product!
A couple of years ago I went looking for a CO2 company but the only one I could find wasn't interested in doing residential work. Have you played with shellac yet?
@@1834RestorationHouse Not yet! Hope to buy a house just like you guys one day. Buut, I did built a scrap wood work table and finished it with candle wax. Wish i had undercoated it with shellac. Even the wax made the plywood warm right up. Not enough wood in my life at the moment.
Flex ducts have plastic on the inside and outside layers. I think that they would deteriorate over time. I've very concerned about critters clawing their way into a duct to stay warm. Since they are made of thin plastic and fiberglass, it wouldn't take much effort to break into one. We partially restored a mid-century house in California many years ago. While we had the crawlspace open, the neighbor's cat darted under there and came out a few minutes later with a rat! Needless to say, the old flex ducts got replaced with metal ducts...
It's still a work in progress. The heat stripping goes fairly quickly on the flat surface. I'm going to try doing the whole surface with heat, then apply a chemical stripper to the grooves and see how that works. Thanks for stopping by!
Pine trees have a thick sticky sap that the old timers called pitch. It is used to make pine tar, violin rosin, and turpentine. It's also highly flammable!
Are you going to take the brown paint off the areas you painted when you thought you were going to have to sell? History didn't happen in a hurry, and neither does restoring an vintage home happen in a hurry. It's going to be beautiful!!
The green pads are intended for kitchen use. The red pads are a medium duty pad intended for paint preparation. We got ours at an auto body/paint supply store for a box of 20.
@@1834RestorationHouse Ah, I understand. Too bad, though. I get the green ones at Sam's Club and the big box lasts me for years and years. I'm cheap like that. lol
