When the English muffin I just slathered in oily peanut butter and jam landed face-down on the kitchen floor, I predicted it would be one of those days - limited productivity in getting towards a "home solution" for my growing family. I popped another muffin in the toaster, eventually upping my meal size to a total of 1 1/2 slices (I just couldn't bring myself to salvage the half stuck to the floor) - not bad.
With our pre-construction house in chaos, I force myself to embrace the 1 1/2 slice view - with the curtains pulled open on this drizzly morning, I see green and trees and flowers blooming in early spring, hearing only the faintest whistle of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe engines roaring eastward toward the Columbia River Gorge. This house - or more accurately this neighborhood - is at least 1 1/2 English muffin slices. It is hard to imagine that we are mere minutes from the bustle of downtown. I'll have another muffin with peanut butter please...
What better place to start a home remodel project than the basement? George Nash, in his book Renovating Old Houses, certainly makes it clear that this is the place to start. Where else could you possibly get less bang for your buck than repairing underground concrete walls, replacing leaky water supply lines, and upgrading dated HVAC equipment? Yes, it is the responsible thing to do.
But in all likelihood, it is the place that former homeowners have most neglected. It is certainly hard to legitimize sinking a third of the remodel budget into the underbelly of this house when the biggest issue we face on a daily basis is space. My wife swears that she cannot go another year without the addition of a second bathroom. The fact that she has survived four years in this cottage while sharing a solitary commode with three boys (including me), is testament to her strength as a human and her desire to stay in this neighborhood [I hear that faint whistle of the train again...].
So this is as good a time as any to take stock in the 'below-grade' goings on for our house. For starters, the water supply lines are shot. I had a plumber out to investigate a dripping pipe four years ago. He gave to me what was clearly a well-rehearsed speech intended for all his clients that live in the old part of town. "Well...if I touch that pipe, that will break the next fitting, which will break the next fitting...and basically I'll end up replacing your entire supply system. In fact, I just did this last week..." His advice was to wrap a salted rag around it for a few weeks and the ensuing encrustation of rust would stop the leak. He concluded this lesson in witchcraft by telling me to give him a call when I decided to replace the whole system. Well, that time is now. Unfortunately, the plumbing portion of the project pretty much falls outside the budget constraints we've established, enabling us to deliver on some of the non-negotiable items (think: second bathroom). So that leaves me to upgrade the water service... this will certainly be the source of discussion in future postings.
Where are we? Did I mentioned the HVAC system dates to 1985? To call it HVAC is a bit generous, suggesting we actually have AC. That isn't the case. We (and apparently all preceding habitants) depend on the reliably cool night air of Portland, combined with creative application of window fans to bring us summertime comfort. Somehow, the old 80% efficient furnace keeps turning over. Well, that isn't entirely true. At the coldest part of this winter, it stopped working. Period. Prior to this episode, I knew absolutely nothing about furnaces. I can proudly (??) say now that I know something about how they work. I have learned that many furnaces are code-equipped with a sensor switch that shuts off the system entirely when the blower door is opened, analogous to the switch on a washing machine lid - apparently in an effort to keep the operator from sticking their hand in the spinning motor or getting electrocuted, or both. After dissecting various other components in the beast, I discovered that the pressure switch is prone to shorting out when I accidentally leaned on it and the furnace came to life (!).
The offending switch removed
It is hard to get it right with words my frustration leading up to this discovery. The repair involved removing the failed switch and (against building code) inserting five cents worth of copper wire jumper. This isn't the type of fix I would normally pursue. Something I haven't yet mentioned is that the entire HVAC system is slated for replacement at the end of home construction. I am ethically/morally/genetically opposed to putting any capital into something headed for the scrap yard by summertime. I would like to say the problem ends there, but it simply doesn't: a mere two days prior to the arrival of another well-advertised cold snap of the winter, it quit again. This time, however, there were some telltale symptoms that lead me directly to the cause: a fried blower motor (kill the electricity when opening that door!). The overwhelming smell of overheating electrical equipment and the hot-to-the-touch motor sent me looking for a replacement. The 'gang' at Conrey Electric (http://www.conrey.net/ ) set me up with a reasonably priced replacement motor and we are making heat again - just in time for the temperature drop. The $120 spent there certainly beats out the multiple cases of 'EnviroLogs' we envisioned having to burn as an alternate solution to our winter heating woes.
I close out this posting with the briefest mention of issues I face in trying to repair and seal the inside of crumbly basement walls. As I try to wrap my head around the not insignificant challenges that any basement remodeler faces, I am left thinking during Pacific Northwest rainy days of the title of a favorite Norman Maclean book, A River Runs Through It. No trout swimming in our basement, but there are countless rivulets that meander from behind the washer/dryer across cold concrete to the sole floor drain. While I wish it wouldn't, I am guessing the effort to mitigate this challenge will occupy a ton of emotional and physical toil, and likely get translated onto these pages.
