haroldshouse's Profile
Author's Posts
April 30, 2008
Back Yard Dream or ???
My wife and I are ready to hire a landscaper for our backyard. We live in an attached house in Greenpoint that is 12 feet wide; the yard, too, is 12 feet wide by 30 feet long. Our desire was to have brick walls surround the yard and brick pavers on the ground. But someone told us that the brick walls would block a beautiful evening breeze we get in the summer time that comes into our house through the rear windows. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of this? I just don't see 6-foot-high walls of any kind blocking a breeze, but this person seemed certain of it. Thank you.
January 22, 2008
Thermostat Placement
A year ago we completed a renovation on our masonry row house that extended the house to the rear, twenty feet beyond the other houses in the row. We also added a third storey, while the other houses in the row are two stories high.
Problem now is that the new part of the house--the two-storey twenty-foot extension in the rear and the entire third floor, is four to six degrees colder in winter than the original part of the house, which of course is nestled between the other houses in the row.
We have single-zone, gas-fired, radiator steam heat, with adequate radiators throughout the house. But currently the thermostat is in the second floor hallway, within the original part of the house, and so registers the temperature of the warmer original part of the house and turns off the boiler before the new part of the house gets to the desired temperature. Should I move the thermostat to the third floor to be able to better control the heat throughout? Or perhaps there are other solutions to consider?
Thank you for any and all suggestions.
Author's Comments
When my wife and I renovated our very old house, the contractors workers uncovered a walled-up fireplace. To get it working required the chimney be re-lined and, because the fireplace was pre-code, it had to be built out a few inches and lined with a certain kind of brick to be "brought up" to code. This was in 2001, and the cost for everything: lining chimney, building out, lining the inside, was $5,000. Hope this helps.
Posted by: haroldshouse at April 30, 2008 9:25 PM in response to Opening up a fireplace
Thank you all for your help. If we do go with the brick walls and the pavers, we definitely plan to install a dry well at the back of the yard and have two drains running to it. So the pavers and puddling is not a problem. On the one hand, don't want to block the breeze; on the other, sure do like the look of brick.
Posted by: haroldshouse at May 1, 2008 8:40 PM in response to Back Yard Dream or ???
Responses to Author's Forum Comments
if only we were all as smart as "quest", who seemingly has something to say in every thread.
Posted by: guest at January 22, 2008 8:15 PM in response to Thermostat Placement
We did a 2 story 12 foot addition on the back of our 3 story townhouse (neighbors still love us). Anyway, we needed to put a thermostat in the addition. It has it's own zone. (we have hot water heat) and that works great. The addition gets hotter than the original house. I would suggest adding another zone. Oh, and don't listen to the idiots that give you a hard time for your expansion. As long as you stayed within your building code it's your right. Plus, what you are hearing is really envy.
Posted by: guest at January 22, 2008 9:01 PM in response to Thermostat Placement
Is there a font that better displays the difference between a g and a q? At this point, it would be the humane thing.
Posted by: Rehab at January 23, 2008 1:08 AM in response to Thermostat Placement
quest is actually guest and is the username for anyone who posts comments, but does not sign in with a personal username.
hey mr. brownstoner, can you capitalize the "guest" username on posts so it reads "Guest"? Many people seem to have the misconception that there is a user out there named quest who is a know it all :-)
Posted by: guest at January 23, 2008 4:24 PM in response to Thermostat Placement
Sorry, not envy, have original extension on my house - which is the way it was built but not greedy, maximize the far type extension, People have done it on my neighbors block and it is ugly and hurts their property,blocks light in the gardens. I realize it is legal, but there are other things that matter besides legality, such as what kind of person you are.
Posted by: guest at January 23, 2008 4:33 PM in response to Thermostat Placement
But you made it easy to judge you: let's see: a 20ft extension is pretty large (I see a bunch of 8-12 footers around me) and, coupled with the extra floor, obviously makes your houuse somewhat out of context.
That gotten out of the way, you have very few options with a one-zone system. Steam heat is not too flexible. Moving the thermostat will most probably not work out.
The best way would probably be to use a separate furnace (gas, forced air) for the top floor since it could be roof installed (obviously you're not landmarked) and ducting would be easy. Also this by definition creates a separate zone which may be useful and more efficient if you care. You might look into heatpumps (which would give you a/c as well) but I don't think they are cost effective in mostly heating conditions we have here.
If you take care of the top floor that way, you can double or increase the radiator sizes in the extension to improve heat.
I'm assuming you have up-to-snuff insulation everywhere; if not, do that also.
Posted by: cmu at January 23, 2008 6:14 PM in response to Thermostat Placement
You did not mention if your architect/builder did any kind of calculations on if your boiler had the extra capacity or not.
If not, going the separate furnace route would be better and less expensive.
If your boiler was oversized to begin with (or you installed a bigger one) you do have the possible choice of increasing the radiation in the cold spots. But it's a crap shoot. Sizing steam systems is an (almost lost) art. Check heatinghelp.com (I think).
Posted by: cmu at January 23, 2008 6:22 PM in response to Thermostat Placement
I had mine opened by Halstead Welles & Associates, Inc., who are pretty far east on Houston street in Manhattan. Pricey, but at least get a bid and an opinion from them -- they are guaranteed to do a good job, and when it comes to something non-obvious like fireplaces, I'd suggest more expertise, rather than less.
Posted by: guest at May 1, 2008 12:41 PM in response to Opening up a fireplace
Manny LaSalle did mine this year for $6,500.
Posted by: guest at May 1, 2008 3:30 PM in response to Opening up a fireplace
http://www.brownstoner.com/forum/archives/2008/02/throw_a_log_on.php
Click on the link above. Cost for 1 wbfp and 1 decorative fp 6.5K. Manny Lasalle did them. I would recommend him.
Posted by: ohiise at May 1, 2008 5:31 PM in response to Opening up a fireplace
To quest and master plumber: thank you for your suggestions. I will certainly discuss them with my wife and we will think about them seriously.
To cmu and quest, I suggest you refrain from judging people before you know them. We love our 1889 house and the reason we extended was we could not bear to leave it. We interviewed a half-dozen architects and dismissed them because they wanted to build a mcmansion, until we found one who convinced us that he loved the original house as much as we did, and would preserve its spirit. My wife has lived on our block for fifteen years, is well loved by our neighbors, and they are happy that we found a way to stay on the block.
As for what everyone knows and does not know, I am a first-time homeowner, so I am afraid that I have yet to scale the heights of knowledge commmanded by quest. I would respond more directly to your namecalling, quest, but I do think that your behavior reveals more about you than anything I would come up with.
Posted by: haroldshouse at January 22, 2008 6:13 PM in response to Thermostat Placement