Well, the window installation is complete.

In general, I’m quite pleased. The windows are exactly what we wanted … very sold, very secure, and they look pretty good too.

It took a little longer than originally promised, but that was because the installers were using power tools and it started to rain on Friday. They came on Tuesday and completed the job.

I only have two real gripes …

1. They put a half inch quarter round trim piece on on the inside of the windows … which makes it almost impossible to reinstall the old blinds the way they were. I kind of knew this was going to happen, but I think there should have been a way to put a trim piece up without making re-installation of the blinds difficult.
2. I was a little annoyed when the installation coordinator didn’t return my call when I needed to change the credit card, but she was able to void the original charge and resubmit on the correct card.

The installers were absolutely the best … a father & son team. Both from Poland. The father didn’t speak a lot of english, but his son was easy to interact with. They installed the windows neatly and securely. They even helped out when I was trying to figure out a way to remount the window blinds. When they were done with the interior, they cleaned up better than our cleaning service.
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We’re having new windows installed today!

I’m taking better pictures with my good camera … but in the mean time, this will have to do.

In your house, is the upstairs hot while the downstairs pretty cool?

This is the case at our house … but Ginny and I have found a pretty nifty way to help alleviate the problem.

I had a small Vornado fan at my office … but haven’t used it in a while (the new office is much cooler than the old one), so I brought it home. This fan is pretty powerful when set on it’s highest setting. We put the fan at the bottom of the stairs going and pointed it up. When the fan is set on it’s highest setting, it pumps cool air up the stairs which helps to cool the upstairs quite nicely.

It does create a bit of noise … but it’s not too bad. A side benefit is that it helps move air throughout the rooms in general, which can’t hurt at all.

[tags]heat, cool, fan, circulation[/tags]

Oh the joys of home ownership … yes indeedy.

Today I acomplished two major household tasks … one required a lot of work … the other required just a phone call.

The first was fairly involved … at least for me. The toilet in the master bath (such as it is, the bath that is) was leaking underneath the bowl. I figured it was the wax ring, so I replaced it … but that didn’t fix the leak. I’m pretty sure I put the new wax ring on wrong, which caused the new leak.

I got a new item to replace the wax ring … it’s basically a funnel that goes down the drain pipe and sticks to the bottom of the toilet. Seems to be working … although the only way to really tell is wait to see if more water shows up.

This little project only required 4 trips to the home improvement stores (Lowes, Home Depot, and twice to Menards) and took 3 months to complete (yes, we were without a toilet in the master bath for 3 months).

The second major task was calling the sales person from Anderson Windows to tell her that we wanted to go with her proposal.

We’re getting new windows throughout the house … the windows we currently have are all aluminum, which lets a lot of cold through, most of the glass panes have blown seals … so there’s a lot of moisture between the glass, and at least one window’s mechanism is totally shot (we need to use a 2×4 to hold it open).

We got a quote from Pella also … which was significantly higher than Anderson’s … and, although the comments I saw indicated that both Pella and Anderson had quality products, the consensus I saw was that Anderson’s were somewhat better.

We tried to get a quote from Lowes … but it took them almost a month to send someone out to do the measuring … and after waiting a week for them to call me back with estimates, they didn’t even have the measurements available. I was told by someone in their custom installation department that I would be called on Saturday … but didn’t hear from them.

We actually paid $35 for the measurements from Lowes … which I’m going to try and get back, as it took such a long time for them to come back.

Final cost for the Anderson windows is going to be $14K. I think I can get $400 off on taxes ($200 off for the windows, another $200 for the patio door {assuming it counts as an exterior door}). It will probably take 10 years or so to recoup the cost in energy savings, but it will be a good selling point when we go to sell the house (nothing planned in that arena yet).

Luckily we have a fairly sizable amount in the home repair / improvement savings bucket … so the cost won’t kill us.

[tags]Home Improvement, windows, heat, savings, toilet, repairs, taxes[/tags]

In the past few years we’ve had more than a few violent rainstorms where we lost power.

Because of this, I’ve decided that a battery powered emergency sump pump would probably be a good investment.

Unfortunately those kinds of pumps seem to be kind of pricey. I’ve gotten quotes from $1200 to $1500 (installed) for an Aquanot pump. I also got a quote from American Residential Services (ARS), but it was $3000 to install a “Tranco” pump … but I’ve determined that ARS companies seem to quote prices that are about double what normal vendors charge and use products that are not normally supplied.

I’ve got a couple of on-site estimates scheduled (one today, another on Monday) so I’ll probably be deciding soon.

I figure that $1200 is more than it would cost if we ended up having a real flood, even with insurance.