Among other things, it's still not good. Well, guess we're just going to have to go 81-1.
13 thoughts on “October 22, 2022: 3PT D”
I picked up a little gas fire bowl that attaches to the patio table at Target ($135 retail, $52 on clearance) so last night we fired it up, sat under the stars and sipped Irish coffee after dinner. It was quite pleasant.
In the past month we've replaced our old stove, refrigerator, microwave cart and tea kettle. Now our cabinets and flooring just look that much shabbier.
I absolutely hate my stove, a glass-top electric that came with the house, but I’m going to wait out its hastening death. I was a firm gas stove advocate, but our home is not plumbed for it. With gas both more volatile then ever and the climate issue more pressing on my mind, I think we’re headed to induction when the time comes to get a replacement.
We love the new stove, it's got a center burner/griddle, the oven heats evenly, and I spent a lot of time getting it level when I installed it so cake doesn't have a low side and high side anymore.
Getting it level sounds like a pain, but may you enjoy the fruits cakes of your labor!
I've sung the praises of our induction stove here before. It combines the responsiveness of gas, the increased power of electric smoothtop, and the easy of cleaning of a glass smoothtop except even easier. Nothing ever burns on the cooking surface.
On the climate part, we recently replaced our traditional AC with a heat pump. We still have to use the oil (not natural gas, fuel oil) furnace as a backup when it gets colder, but I hope our fossil fuel usage will plummet compared to last year. We had some truly gigantic oil bills in the coldest months last year.
Our furnace is at the age where I don’t like talking about it. (Let’s just say it’s older than most of my much-younger siblings, all of whom are out of college and some of whom have multiple kids, and leave it at that.) The furnace tech I had come check out an issue a couple years ago said it probably had a few seasons left. I try to keep the thermostat as low as I can, but not everyone has embraced the idea of wearing socks or slippers indoors, or following President Carter’s suggestion. I’m not sure what direction we’ll go there, because I really haven’t educated myself enough yet. I keep meaning to watch this video when I’m fresh enough to absorb it all.
I’d love to have a tankless water heater, but ours was replaced under warranty about a year after we bought the house. So for now we’ll continue with the one we have. I’d love to install solar and reduce our carbon footprint.
I keep getting lobbied for a dishwasher in the kitchen. Installing one would mean tearing out original cabinets and decreasing some already-limited space. The only way I’m really game for that is a full kitchen remodel, and that it in the cards anytime soon. Even then, combined with professed desires for a en-suite master bath, I wonder if it makes more sense to look for a house with those features than sink the money into one that’s increasingly not a great fit.
We bought a new furnace a couple of months ago, it's been running great. Our old Lennox was original to the house, so it gave 42 years of faithful service. In 28 years here we only had it repaired twice - replaced the blower motor about 25 years ago and more recently an ignition controller that had shorted out. When they installed the furnace I had them put in some new duct runs to basement rooms that didn't have any and I noticed last week it really minimizes the temperature delta between upstairs and downstairs. We used some leftover project loan money (3.9%) to buy the fridge, which is too cold and needs a new damper controller which won't get replaced for another week and a half.
A 42-year-old furnace has had a pretty good run. Running the extra ductwork sounds like a good call; I’m going to do the same (maybe even divide the floors into zones? we only have one thermostat, and it’s upstairs) once it’s time to replace ours.
Our house turns 60 next year, so I think we’re on the second furnace unless the original owners had a lemon. The furnace tech told me to buy the cheapest filters possible, saying it wasn’t designed to handle anything that gives more resistance and we might “prematurely” kill our furnace. So I buy them a half-dozen a time at Farm & Fleet, which seems like one of the few places to still stock the really wispy ones. I think they mainly keep Legos from going through the blower.
I absolutely hate my stove, a glass-top electric
Oh, mama. The tejas house had one of those. I hated cooking on the glass top so much that I bought a gas grill (also the local fire department tried to ban charcoal grills because fire danger….). We have a gas range and it’s awesome but I know that it’s irresponsible to own. I nearly bought a Viking range a couple years ago and really started to hate on myself for not going through with the purchase, but now I’m totally convinced that the right path forward is induction cooktop. I may redesign the kitchen a bit to accommodate a gas oven but if that’s too painful an electric oven with induction cooktop will have to suffice.
I’m not really hoping for the water heater to fail, but when it does we’re going to an on demand unit.
Our house came with an induction cooktop range. I hated it with the fire of a thousand suns. It went to our realtor.
Got a Wolf (gas, plus infrared broiler) to replace it. Been very happy, although the lack of a self-cleaning mode for the oven is kind of annoying. We did have to (re)-plumb a gas line and install an exhaust hood.
The previous owners had redone the kitchen, removing what I think was a downdraft cooktop/oven combo from a different location and redoing the floors. But relocated their range and didn't install any ventilation, which I thought was idiotic.
We also had to install a new vent for the dryer because the prior owners had been venting into the crawl space (a big no-no). And we had the basement door reversed so that it didn't open into the stairwell (who does that? Good lord).
We have gas everything, and except for maybe furnaces there's no near future conversion happening, but replacing our windows a couple years ago and installing smart thermostats have really helped keep our usage down.
This team hasn't really had a time to play together, so it will take some time.
On the other hand, I could see them trading Kat for draft picks within the next couple years so they can keep 🐜 and Jaden.
I picked up a little gas fire bowl that attaches to the patio table at Target ($135 retail, $52 on clearance) so last night we fired it up, sat under the stars and sipped Irish coffee after dinner. It was quite pleasant.
In the past month we've replaced our old stove, refrigerator, microwave cart and tea kettle. Now our cabinets and flooring just look that much shabbier.
I absolutely hate my stove, a glass-top electric that came with the house, but I’m going to wait out its hastening death. I was a firm gas stove advocate, but our home is not plumbed for it. With gas both more volatile then ever and the climate issue more pressing on my mind, I think we’re headed to induction when the time comes to get a replacement.
We love the new stove, it's got a center burner/griddle, the oven heats evenly, and I spent a lot of time getting it level when I installed it so cake doesn't have a low side and high side anymore.
Getting it level sounds like a pain, but may you enjoy the
fruitscakes of your labor!I've sung the praises of our induction stove here before. It combines the responsiveness of gas, the increased power of electric smoothtop, and the easy of cleaning of a glass smoothtop except even easier. Nothing ever burns on the cooking surface.
On the climate part, we recently replaced our traditional AC with a heat pump. We still have to use the oil (not natural gas, fuel oil) furnace as a backup when it gets colder, but I hope our fossil fuel usage will plummet compared to last year. We had some truly gigantic oil bills in the coldest months last year.
Our furnace is at the age where I don’t like talking about it. (Let’s just say it’s older than most of my much-younger siblings, all of whom are out of college and some of whom have multiple kids, and leave it at that.) The furnace tech I had come check out an issue a couple years ago said it probably had a few seasons left. I try to keep the thermostat as low as I can, but not everyone has embraced the idea of wearing socks or slippers indoors, or following President Carter’s suggestion. I’m not sure what direction we’ll go there, because I really haven’t educated myself enough yet. I keep meaning to watch this video when I’m fresh enough to absorb it all.
I’d love to have a tankless water heater, but ours was replaced under warranty about a year after we bought the house. So for now we’ll continue with the one we have. I’d love to install solar and reduce our carbon footprint.
I keep getting lobbied for a dishwasher in the kitchen. Installing one would mean tearing out original cabinets and decreasing some already-limited space. The only way I’m really game for that is a full kitchen remodel, and that it in the cards anytime soon. Even then, combined with professed desires for a en-suite master bath, I wonder if it makes more sense to look for a house with those features than sink the money into one that’s increasingly not a great fit.
We bought a new furnace a couple of months ago, it's been running great. Our old Lennox was original to the house, so it gave 42 years of faithful service. In 28 years here we only had it repaired twice - replaced the blower motor about 25 years ago and more recently an ignition controller that had shorted out. When they installed the furnace I had them put in some new duct runs to basement rooms that didn't have any and I noticed last week it really minimizes the temperature delta between upstairs and downstairs. We used some leftover project loan money (3.9%) to buy the fridge, which is too cold and needs a new damper controller which won't get replaced for another week and a half.
A 42-year-old furnace has had a pretty good run. Running the extra ductwork sounds like a good call; I’m going to do the same (maybe even divide the floors into zones? we only have one thermostat, and it’s upstairs) once it’s time to replace ours.
Our house turns 60 next year, so I think we’re on the second furnace unless the original owners had a lemon. The furnace tech told me to buy the cheapest filters possible, saying it wasn’t designed to handle anything that gives more resistance and we might “prematurely” kill our furnace. So I buy them a half-dozen a time at Farm & Fleet, which seems like one of the few places to still stock the really wispy ones. I think they mainly keep Legos from going through the blower.
I absolutely hate my stove, a glass-top electric
Oh, mama. The tejas house had one of those. I hated cooking on the glass top so much that I bought a gas grill (also the local fire department tried to ban charcoal grills because fire danger….). We have a gas range and it’s awesome but I know that it’s irresponsible to own. I nearly bought a Viking range a couple years ago and really started to hate on myself for not going through with the purchase, but now I’m totally convinced that the right path forward is induction cooktop. I may redesign the kitchen a bit to accommodate a gas oven but if that’s too painful an electric oven with induction cooktop will have to suffice.
I’m not really hoping for the water heater to fail, but when it does we’re going to an on demand unit.
Our house came with an induction cooktop range. I hated it with the fire of a thousand suns. It went to our realtor.
Got a Wolf (gas, plus infrared broiler) to replace it. Been very happy, although the lack of a self-cleaning mode for the oven is kind of annoying. We did have to (re)-plumb a gas line and install an exhaust hood.
The previous owners had redone the kitchen, removing what I think was a downdraft cooktop/oven combo from a different location and redoing the floors. But relocated their range and didn't install any ventilation, which I thought was idiotic.
We also had to install a new vent for the dryer because the prior owners had been venting into the crawl space (a big no-no). And we had the basement door reversed so that it didn't open into the stairwell (who does that? Good lord).
We have gas everything, and except for maybe furnaces there's no near future conversion happening, but replacing our windows a couple years ago and installing smart thermostats have really helped keep our usage down.
This team hasn't really had a time to play together, so it will take some time.
On the other hand, I could see them trading Kat for draft picks within the next couple years so they can keep 🐜 and Jaden.