My To-Do List as of 23 August.

Here's my list that I can rattle off the top of my head:

1) Finish rehab on the entryway storage hutch. Fix the drawers. Finish sanding. Paint and finish.

2) Finish laundry room. Cover exposed pipe, paint, install flooring, build folding and basket storage areas. Install clothes bar. Build and install foldout drying rack.

3) Build new electrical panel access door in the basement.

4) Build finished housing to cover the opening left from removing the baseboard heating to install the basement HVAC units.

Laundry Room: Updates for the HVAC

The lines for the geothermal HVAC system come into the house through the laundry room and then into the garage. So those exposed lines will need to be covered.

You can see the result of running the lines here. It should be a fairly straight forward process. Frame a box around the wall attaching it to the wall studs and ceiling joists. The drywall, mud it and paint.

Geothermal Phase 1: Finished Drilling

Here's what our backyard now looks like after the drilling, trenching and lines are connected into the house. Of course, the lines come into to the laundry room's new drywall.

Geothermal Phase 1: Drilling Problems

Because of our yard's soil make up what had been planned to be a five day drilling turned into more like 9 days. The clay and gravel held up the first hole for over a day. They move a bit faster with each hole, looping the pipes and then trenching them to the house.

Geothermal Phase 1: Vertical Bore Holes

We will have a closed unit with four 150 foot vertical bore holes for the loop. Because of trees and the property lines a horizontal system wasn't deemed practical. Step 1 drill the holes.

Geothermal HVAC

While technically not a DIY project we decided to switch our oil boiler and an undersized SpacePak air conditioning system with a geothermal HVAC system. It should save us between $250 and $300 monthly on fuel bills. That's a very conservative estimate, I'll post the actual savings as we get the system up and running. Also we should drastically increase the comfort level in the house as well.

With the undersized SpacePak if the temperature got above 85 degrees the system just couldn't keep up. We would set the thermostat at 68 and parts of the house would reach 90 degrees in the evenings. If night time lows dipped into the mid 60s things would cool off but if it stayed warmer the house never could catch up. With the heat this summer we had to do something.

Laundry Room Interuption

The laundry room renovation took a back seat while we had a geothermal HVAC system installed. As luck would have it lines for the new unit had to come in through my brand new drywall. Now I will be covering the duct and pipes before moving on with the renovation of the laundry room.

Laundry Room Part 5

Here's after taping and the first coat of joint compound. I still need to sand and do some more sanding. But I was very happy with the result.

Laundry Room Part 4

Hung my first drywall. I about the gaps between the pieces but the more I read about them the less concerned I was. Some tape and joint compound should fix it.

Laundry Room Part 3

With the plumbing fixed and the damaged drywall removed the next thing was to tackle was the floor. The lovely blue and white tiles turned out to be asbestos based so pulling it up wasn't a DIY option but sealing it up was. Self leveling concrete worked great. A little like the consistency of a of a watery milkshake and a bit smellier than I would have liked but the end result was worth it.

Laundry Room Part 2

Because the drywall got so wet when the spigot was turned on, I had to replace a few sections. First step rip out the bad sections. Pretty easy.

Laundry Room

A cracked fitting on the line to an outdoor spigot left water damage to the laundry room. Some new pipe, a new spigot, and a little solder was all it took to fix the pipe. The rest of the room was a different matter.