House Remodeling Thread (long)

[SadieKate]

Check with your local power company about tax rebates, etc.. You'll probably get some good info about appliances and installers.

I dearly want on demand water heaters. Oregon had a tax deal on them last year, maybe still do but we're not in a position to replace them just yet.

Still have one house for sale.

[Trek420]

I dearly want on demand water heaters. Oregon had a tax deal on them last year, maybe still do but we're not in a position to replace them just yet.

I'd loooove an on demand water heater. With my tiny condo it'd free up another closet. But I was told I'd have to redo almost all my plumbing. My plumbing's fine as is, I have good pressure etc but it would need to be able to handle the pressure and deliver that water faster.

I'll leave that for the next owner. Gotta leave them something to do

While you're in the planning stages get yourself organized. As you decide what you'll do you can be making lists of all the materials you'll need. If you see deals, a sale, items on Craigs, if you see a great deal **pounce***.

I got my flooring at 60% off long before I was ready to install and so on ... you can save on the materials, you will not be able to save on labor unless you can do it yourself.

[bmccasland]

One thought on woodstoves - if it requires power to run, ie a pellet stove with a blower, it won't work in a power failure. I was snow bound at a colleague's house during a blizzard. Fortunately we were able to get back to the office for a generator once the snow stopped, so we had heat again. Was another day before the roads were cleared enough that I could go home (lived 16 miles out of town at the time). Heating my house with a wood stove lost it's charm, but that incident completely turned me off of pellet stoves. I want to be able to stay warm in during a power failure if I ever live in snow country again.

All other work - make certain you get a licensed LOCAL contractor. Check your state licensing board to double check that the contractor actually has a license. Get references, short of that, make certain they've been in business for a long time.

[Tri Girl]

Yippee on the house and the remodel. How fun!!!! I used to LOVE to remodel and work on our house... until I started biking. Now I just don't have the time for my house like I used to.

We have a gas on demand water heater. I do love it! We replaced the traditional one about 5 years ago. I never thought about water pressure, but ours is on the medium side and we've not had any problems (we had my father-in-law install it because he worked for the gas company and we are cheapskates). The one issue I have with it is this: our pipes are in our attic and in the winter the water gets very cold and in the summer it gets very hot. We have to adjust the temperature gauge with summer and winter to get the temp. of the water just right. It usually takes a week or so to adjust the flame just right so the water isn't too cold in the winter and to scorching in the summer. Don't know if all houses have this issue or not- may be just our house since it's old and kind of crummy.

[tulip]

Such good info here!

I haven't closed on the house yet; that'll happen the end of July. Still a hoop or two to jump through with the bank, but I'm almost there. After that I'll post pictures.

I'm in the thinking-about-all-my-potential-options stage right now, so this information that you all have provided is really helpful. I didn't think about the weight of the concrete countertops, for instance. And the pull-out cutting board--I am there!

I will interview contractors and get recommendations and make sure they are local, reliable, and good. Central air will depend on if the ducts are large enough to handle the a/c. If they are too small, the friction heats the air as it goes through the ducts, and that's counterproductive. Window units would only be a stop-gap measure.

I also will do much research on the water heaters. I've been told that the electric ones are not very reliable yet. More work to do there. I lived in an apartment with solar hot water and it rocked! But this place has huge oak trees around it, so solar won't work, but the trees help save on cooling costs.

Luckily all the floors are original wood, recently refinished with a dark stain. I like it, so I won't change that. Even in the kitchen--nice.

Oh, and very good info about redoing the floor in the bathroom when I replace the toilet. There's cheap linoleum in there now, and I can do better than that for sure.

there is some insulation in the attic under the floor, and the house inspector suggested putting fiberglass batting between the rafters. I want to investigate effective insulations of other materials, too.

The good thing is that the place is livable (with a microwave and dorm fridge) so I can move in and live there while the work is going on. I like that because I like to learn about this stuff. I gotten fairly adept at plumbing in my old house, and I'd like to learn more with this one. I might take a carpentry course at the community college. But FlyingScot, I don't want it to last 11 years!! Ugh!

And then of course, there's the outside. As a landscape architect, I'm really excited about that (and can do it myself!)

I will post an update when it becomes officially mine.

[divingbiker]

Congratulations on the house, Tulip! But I thought you were buying a condo a few months ago? Maybe I'm remembering wrong...

I love concrete countertops! My nephew runs a concrete countertop business, and the things he does are just amazing. He's wound copper into coils and embedded it into the concrete, then polished it to a shine. Brightly colored glass embedded is also gorgeous. He's really creative, and has lots of great ideas.

I keep trying to convince him to come out here (he's in Omaha) and make a countertop for me and my neighbors. But he thinks I should just wait till I move back there and put one in that house. Dangit.

[tulip]

Yeah, I had a reservation on a condo, but it was just too small with nowhere to dig in the dirt. So I found a little house instead.

[Crankin]

We just replaced our hot water heater (gas). Our plumber recommended that we did not get an on demand one, as our basement is really the lower level of the house, where we have a family room, bedroom, and bath, in addition to the utility room. I can't remember the reason, but they have a propensity toward leaking more than regular ones and we didn't want to take the chance of that happening and the water leaking down to the family room. We bought a regular, energy efficient gas water heater.
We have totally remodeled a 22 year old contemporary home that had never been taken care of. The heating and AC was in unbelievably bad shape. Some rooms would be burning/freezing, while others got nothing at all. Our AC/heating guy couldn't figure it out. My husband went in and found that someone had done all of this weird stuff to the vents... unbelievable. He fixed it. The biggest thing we have done to reduce energy costs is last year we put in all new windows. This was a huge expense. I can't tell you how many windows we have in a 4 level home. But, our heating/AC bills are half of our neighbor's and our houses are the same size. Even on really hot days, I don't put the central AC on until noon (unless it is really humid).
Ditto for the Toto toilets. We have 2 and 2 others that are also energy efficient, but cheaper (from Home Depot).
We had a whole house fan in our last house. I liked it for the days when heat would build up in the house, but it wasn't really hot outside. Putting the fan on for a few hours would cool the house down for night time. It was noisy, though. And, not a replacement for AC, which I couldn't live without anymore than heat.