WE ARE NOT IMMUNE TO MAKING A MISTAKE
Most "how-to "blog posts are a testament to successes big and small. They are conceived out of a passion for the writer to impart pearls of wisdom hopefully to either make your life easier or at the least more interesting. If that's what you thought this blog was going to be stop now or be prepared to be disappointed.
Just prior to the quarantine we signed a contract with a local contractor to do some fairly major work on our home. Then when Covid hit we were stuck having to move forward having signed a contract and paid a bulk of the upfront money with no way to really back out. We decided to go for it with a set of Covid rules: mask always, try to keep the six foot distance, disinfect all surfaces and say a little prayer at the beginning of each day. Luckily we had a contractor with the same set of rules.
We decided to put the downstairs renovations as the first item on our list. We had basically turned our lower level into an apartment for our daughter but ever since we relegated her to the basement she seemed to be constantly plagued with a runny nose and a scratchy throat. Turns out the heating system my parents had installed in the basement when they built the house and before they converted it from an unfinished basement to a family room/fourth bedroom and bath was to install that system's venting in the concrete floor. When the system was on it blew heat up into the room from below along with god knows what else because when it was off it became a trap for dust, dirt and a good bit of mold. After forty years of accumulation it was what we found out to be the cause of Emmy's constant cold.
We started by having the carpeting ripped out
and then we had the old system sucked out and sealed but that was going to mean we were going to be somewhat heatless down under with the only warmth coming from the heat radiating from the floor above. After minutes of research we decided to redo the entire lower level with an in-floor heating system divided into zones and overlaid with ceramic tile.
Previously when we redid the bathroom we had a similar system installed. It worked perfectly inside the small contained bathroom toasting up the floor on those cold Wisconsin winter mornings. Our daughter being somewhat of a polar bear didn't mind that the rest of space was relatively unheated. We were able to install this forty square foot system for a fairly modest fee. The cost of doing the family room, bedroom and bar was not going fall into the modest category. It was not going to be something to sneeze at but with Rick's southern sensitivity to any temperature below Caribbean it seemed like a worthwhile expenditure.
Now after having sealed off the old system and with a bare concrete floor staring at us and our contractor it was time to bring in a heating specialist to begin the task of adding the in-floor heating system. We had dreams of heated slipper less feet floating off to the laundry room unfazed by the previous cold of before.
The process is complicated beginning with leveling off the concrete floor. Once that was completed the padding is laid and then the coils are put down.
All of this needs to be wired and connected to a set of thermostatic controls and each of these steps needs to be inspected after which reports need to be filed for quality and insurance purposes.
Once all the inspections and guarantee information had been submitted and approved the new tile floor could be laid and the heating system controls could be calibrated, set and turned on. Toasty feet ensued. Rick was a happy boy until the gas and electric bills started coming in. We, of course, thought there must have been some sort of a mistake. As part of our neighbor's job, who works in the billing department for the local gas and electric provider, he was responsible for highlighting spikes in charges and we were one of the customers he flagged. We had skyrocketed.
What the heating system company had failed to tell us was that a floor heating system is no substitute for general heating system and will automatically begin trying to heat the slab it was laid on. Our contractor, the floor heating company and the inspector's all knew we had closed off our previous in floor system but none of them warned us that the new system was not meant as replacement heating system but only as means of giving us a toasty path to walk on provided the room was already being heated by another system.
We've gone through negotiations with all of the people involved but all we've received is a series of people throwing their hands in the air and pointing their fingers at everyone else.
The system remains turned off. We are now debating our options. Lesson learned. No matter how much you think you know; you just don't know it all.
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