Full Steam Ahead!
Rebuilding a Beautiful, Vacant Historic Detroit Home (Episode 35)
Desperate for Heat
So the last few weeks things have been getting coooooooold at night. It started with a couple mid-30s nights and has been trickling down consistently. Our house was managing to stay about 10–20 degrees above outside temperature for the most part on its own, but as temperatures dropped into the low 20s, we knew we needed to get heat in the house fast.
We moved in to high-gear as we attempted to get the house ready for radiators to be re-installed. All of our trim, walls, and sometimes windows that fell behind radiators needed to be taken care of before they could be placed back in. This meant Brandon and I needed to make choices on room colors quickly. We went around the house with our palette and decided on what colors would work and look best in each space, painting swatches on the walls when necessary. Calvin asked me when we thought we’d be ready or him to call the HVAC company to install them and I estimated that it would take me about one week of working evenings and the weekend to get them ready. I think he seemed pretty skeptical we could manage it all, but he agreed to schedule HVAC the following week.
It was a rough week of work, but I held to my estimate and we had all 18 radiator spaces sanded, primed, sanded, two coats of trim paint, and finally color behind each one! With the next week getting even colder we were happy to have the house ready for heat! Brandon spent a few evenings while we waited for HVAC to arrive sanding and cleaning each supply pipe to the radiators as well. We will paint these pipes with high-heat paint once the radiators are in, but at least we wont have to sand them while radiators are installed.
Radiators go in!
Our radiator install went smoothly. All 18 radiators were re-installed and new supply valves and traps with them where necessary (which was most of them). The HVAC company was short a couple valves and traps, so they’ve placed those parts on order and for now we have 2 or 3 radiators turned off in the meantime until they arrive.
We also installed our new Ecobee4 smart thermostat with our AC and radiators and so far we are having a TON of fun playing with it. Our Ecobee3 has Amazon Alexa integration, so we’ve already set it up to find our lost phones or keys with Tile, tell us the weather, add things to shopping lists, play Jeopardy, and soon, we will set it up to control our lights around the house. I was washing storm windows in the kitchen and asked the Ecobee to play me some music and the little speaker was actually pretty impressive! It also has a second sensor that can be placed on another floor of the house so you can monitor temps both upstairs and down, which with 3 floors makes a lot of sense for us.
With our radiators finally in place, they look amazing. Brandon and I are both in complete agreement that it was one of the best splurges we’ve made on the house. They look brand new, and gorgeous with every room. Federal Industrial couldn’t have done a better job!
Once the system was turned on we were also completely blown away with how quiet the heat is compared to when we bought the house. When we first got the keys, it was constant clanking, banging, and hissing whenever the heat kicked on. But now, our system is almost completely silent. I think we’ve heard one or two bangs in the 6 days or so the heat has been running, compared to every 5–10 minutes before. It just goes to show you what a well-maintained steam heat system can be like! We re-installed most of our storm windows yesterday and with the added sound barrier, it’s remarkable how quiet it is inside the house since there’s no furnace air movement.
More Room Painting!
Brandon’s father showed up last week to help us for a few days with some drywall work and painting on the 3rd floor! By the time he left, our hallway is only a few steps away from final paint and our former nursery/playroom is now freshly painted and looks great!
After Brandon’s father left, I got to work finishing the paint in the maid’s bedroom and with the radiators installed, the room is warm and beautiful! The only remaining thing to paint in this room is the windows themselves, which Brandon and I plan on painting a dark grey color to match the leaded windows.
Back splash!
And finally, after weeks of issues with our counter tops not fitting our range, we were able to get our back splash installed. Val did a wonderful job installing the hand painted tile I chose for the wall. It looks great in the kitchen! We still have a mini disaster to deal with for our range. The slide-in range is still an 1/8" too tall for our cabinets and counters, so we need to find a solution to fit the gaping we have, but we have a few ideas to address it.
Cleaning Tip From a Friendly Neighbor
After receiving a tip from our neighbors Dan and Ryan, I took a white Magic Eraser to our pink tile and voila! You can see from this photo the drastic difference a little scrubbing made, even with the grout. This will be a lot of work down the road to do all of the tile, which has 90 years of build up…but I think the results will be worth it!
Next…
We’ll be working on one of our second floor bedrooms. If we can get it ready to rock, I’d like to start moving some things in as soon as next week! We also have a problem with our master bathroom shower we are trying to resolve, as well as a defect in our kitchen counters we are trying to work out how to repair, but nothing can stop us now!
Our Journey isn’t over!
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