I Was FROZEN Today - I got my new AC and Ductwork!!!

After one hell of a week last week, it was finally time to get a new AC system and new ducts!

External Johnson AC Unit (no idea how old it is)

Any ideas how old it is?

Internal AC system

Bertie guy had told us that we needed to remove the ceiling in the main hallway, smaller hallway, the master bedroom hallway as well as Hubby's office soffit. He also said to leave the ceiling up as long as possible, and take it down at the last moment. Well, since our main hallway and smaller hallway never got repaired from whatever we'd done years ago (drywall was never finished; the screws were still accessible), we left that to take down Monday morning.

Soon to be demolished Bedroom Foyer ceiling

(Yes, the ceiling was already "unfinished" before we took it down again)

Small hallway between office and master bedroom

Sunday was spent demolishing the soffit and master bedroom hallway.

First up, the master bedroom hallway, which in a way, was a large soffit itself.  It's kind of like a hallway to the master bedroom, with the bathroom on the left.  I got in the first whack with a hammer. It felt good.

Hulk smash!

After whacking it, I took out my brand new Ryobi reciprocating saw (oh, yeah!) and we cut out a square to see what was up there (I didn't want to be whacking stuff if there were wires to look out for).

Home improvement means I get new toys!

What we discovered was a hell of a lot of duct damage. Apparently, at some point in the past, there have been, well, multiple critters up here.  I could not believe what I was seeing.

Well no WONDER it's hot as fuck in our room!

Seriously, there is an entire chunk missing!

Eww, what animal did this come from?

Hubby's office soffit, pre-demolition

I took a break once the hallway was done, while Hubby began attacking his soffit.  His office has a wall of cheap 70s paneling, so it wasn't too hard to take down. He was able to save most of the paneling and trim, too, so we can just put it back up when this is over.

With the paneling down, we could see more critter damage. We could also see how old the ducts were.  Anyone know how old this duct board might be? 

Is my duct system just a huge hamster cage?

That should be relatively easy to fix when we're done!

Exhausted from demo, I think we all went to bed early.  I took hubby to work the next morning, and around 7 a.m. started taking down the ceiling in the small and main hallways.  I was able to get the small hallway done, and part of the main hallway before the Bertie crew and superintendent showed up. He didn't seem to be all that happy that the ceiling wasn't down, and had major attitude with me, even as I was explaining why it was still up. Luckily, one of the crew guys gave me a hand to bring it down (seriously, Superintendent Jackass, it took 10 minutes).

I got all of this done before they showed up

Superintendent Jackass took the crew through the house so they could see the layout and how it compared to the plan drawings, and then he left and the guys took over. I had two baldie white guys, and a skinny white guy. I never did get their names at all...

First off, the guys ripped out all the old duct work and threw it on the grass outside. As you can see, our windows are open, letting in that beautifully refreshing 93º, 88% humidity, breezeless August Florida air.  We had I think 3 fans going in the living room all day!

It looks like a bomb went off out there!

With that done, one of the Baldie Twins devoted his day to ripping out the old Johnson unit and installing the new concrete pad and Trane unit.  It's further away from the house than the old unit was, but I think that's because they couldn't put the new pad on top of the old pad, so they put it next to the old pad. (But bonus, now we have a small concrete pad to put a grill on!)

Beautiful new Trane System

Better view of all the trash removed

I spent the majority of the day sitting on the couch, chillin' out and watching TV. I'm sure the guys thought I was watching them, which I was, but not because I thought they needed watching. I thought it was fun to watch what they were doing. 

Watching the Weather Channel

They were patient with the Kiddo, but around 11, she had to give up the sanctuary of her bedroom, so she joined me in the living room.

Day Jeopardy! (My CBS shows reruns at lunchtime)

So. Much. Mess!

During a trip to the potty (before they began on that side of the house), I was able to check out what was going on in the master bedroom hallway. Our master bedroom was an addition (my office used to be the carport); I wasn't sure what I was looking at or why it was green up there.

The wall inside the ceiling, above my master bedroom door - why is it green?

Late in the afternoon, Superintendent Jackass came back. Apparently, the guys were having problems fitting the new ducts into the boots (am I using that right?) of the old ducts.  The old boots were too small for the new boots. I was told that the boots are where the new vents go.  To accommodate new boots, they would need to cut holes in the ceiling or walls to make them fit. I was fine with that (I just wanted shit to be done - I was told this would be a one-day process).

Superintendent Jackass showed the guys how to make boots (rather than rely on pre-fab ones) and they spent an hour or so outside doing air conditioning crafts.

They finished the day by dragging out the old inside unit and cleaning up their mess.  Unfortunately, they couldn't finish the project in one day, as we hoped, but they'd be back first thing in the morning to go again. 

Goodbye, old AC unit!

Awesome! They clean up, too!

Tuesday morning, the guys arrived even earlier than yesterday! Seriously, I'd just rolled out of bed at 7:30 when I saw their truck outside.  They hit the ground running - you could tell they wanted to be done today as much as I wanted them to be done today!  The main guy said he wanted to be done by lunchtime! I like this guy (Spoiler alert - they weren't done by lunchtime).

With drop cloths back down, all three guys were inside, first in the hallway working on the Kiddo's bathroom and bedroom. Then they moved into Hubby's office, then into the Master Suite area.

Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!

Um, there's a dude in my ceiling

Looking into the Master Suite from my Office

Superintendent Jackass showed up around 10:30 to check on the progress. After looking around, he approved of the work and reminded me that we need more attic insulation than we currently have (old house, blah blah blah). Unfortunately, since they had to make all the boots on-site, they don't have matching vent grills for them. They will need to special order them, and they'll come in about 3 weeks. When they come in (and after we do all the vent reconstruction work), they can return to the house to install them.

The kiddo and I hung out in the living room for a while - she got to see the old game show Card Sharks -  but it was hotter than yesterday, so eventually we headed to my office, where the portable AC was plugged in. This was also where Clover, our cat, was hiding.

Clover does not approve of what's happening

But it's cooler by the AC unit, so she moved locations

By now, we had one guy working on the internal unit, installing it, while the main guy was finishing work on the master bedroom ducts.

I had lunch while watching Jeopardy! in the living room. AT this time, they installed the new 5+2 programmable thermostat (I've always wanted one - our old one was the rectangle with the slidey thing)!

Instruction manual for my new thermostat

I'm fancy, y'all!

After another hour or so of skinny guy working with the internal unit, they turned it ON!!  It's ON!!  It's ON!!!!  Then it's OFF. Boo...

Main guy at this point has finished with all the ducts and he's cleaning up while skinny guy is putting the finishing touches on the internal unit.  The kiddo and I went back to my office for a bit - it was stupid hot!

Hubby got home a bit later, and we all hung out and chatted about his day. Superintendent Jackass returned and officially turned on the AC.  He also has a better attitude - now that a penis is around, perhaps?  Asshole.

He reminded us - AGAIN - about getting insulation, and also about the vents coming in a few weeks.  He said it would be fine for us to drop off the check to the office in the morning (rather than give it to him then).

They cleaned up, gave us instructions on how to clean the unit, use the thermostat and how to change the filter, then packed it all up and left.  I think they were gone by 4pm. Not lunchtime, but not dinnertime, either, I guess!

After they left, I happened to look outside and I saw that they left the old unit behind.  It was beat to shit by the guy yesterday because he got really frustrated (which I totally understand), so I sent an email to Bertie to have them come pick it up.

Outside Guy went all Office Space on Johnson

And now, finally, to take a tour of our demolished, but cool, house!

Master Bedroom - One vent to replace the two on the right

Living Room - Ceiling vent to replace wall vent (seen at bottom)

Hubby's Soffit - much bigger, will need more construction

Kiddo's Bedroom - rotated 90º from original orientation

Guest Bathroom - Ceiling vent replaced wall vent

Beautiful new interior unit

My office - the ONLY one to stay the same!

Master Bath - Closer to door, replaces one in foreground of photo

By now, it was time to start dinner, I had Hubby and the Kiddo start work on fixing the smaller hallway while I cooked. 

As usual, when Hubby was trying to fix something, he would try to do it the easy way, then it wouldn't work, and he'd get pissed off that it wasn't working his way.  I tell him the correct way to do it (or in this case, the way we did it last time), but nooooooo, he won't do it that way. So after he gets to the point where he's so pissed off he quits, I came over, did it the right way and it was done in about 2 minutes.  Sigh.  Men are obnoxious sometimes.

After dinner, we started putting the main hallway ceiling back up.  At one point, we were trying to find the rubber mallet. Where was the rubber mallet?

They sealed the rubber mallet in the ceiling of the small hallway...

I see you, Mallet

Once we got the mallet back out, we finished the main hallway and then I headed for a well-deserved early bedtime. I still have to go to the dentist tomorrow, but all I want right now is sleep!

Dryer? Or Hotter?

So, about two months ago, we had a crazy storm here in Central FL, and it blew a huge tree limb down out of a large oak tree in our yard - it came down like a rocket. landing point-side down (rather than longways) on our roof, ripping open a cantaloupe-sized hole in our two-year old roof.  As you can imagine, I was pissed as hell.  And because it was weather-related, the roof warranty didn't cover it.

The cost to repair it was $450, but I was able to sell some of my Disney volunteer tickets to a coworker of mine, so there was no out-of-pocket cost to us (no, I didn't go through my homeowner's insurance; the deductible is $1000).

Anyway, I'd forgotten about that issue.

I came home from work today and hubby mentioned to me that the dryer wasn't working.  It wouldn't turn on no matter what you did.  I wasn't surprised; it was 16 years old (we've had it since our first Grown Up Married Family apartment way back in 2000).  So, he and I hopped in the car and went to my favoritest place in the world - Home Depot!

We looked at all the different models and we knew that we wanted a step up from what we had now, but nothing so fancy as the dryers that match HE washers, or something that has a lot of bells and whistles to break (no steaming, nothing like that). We vacillated between a GE and a Samsung. Both were within $5 of each other, both had the same features, give or take. We ended up with the GE, which cost about $550 after you throw in the YOU MUST BUY IT dryer cord and delivery.

Feeling like grown-ups (yeah, we're in our 30s and 40s, that doesn't make us grown ups!), we grabbed dinner from Subway then headed home.

As I walked into the house, I noticed that it was a bit warm.  (It is August...)  I stood in front of the dining room AC vent (which is the easiest to feel) and, yeah, the AC was blowing warm air.  Okay, we've had issues like this before. Maybe the lines outside have frozen?  Nope. Maybe we need to reset the circuit breaker? Nope. Maybe there's a clog in the drain line? Nope (though that wouldn't affect the temperature...)  I was out of ideas. We opened the windows and left the AC on as "fan" all night because otherwise it would be 90º in there at midnight, but since we have a window unit in our room (old house, bad duct work), we told the kiddo that she was more than welcome to bunk down on the floor if it got to hot in her room.

On Friday, while I was at work, hubby called a few HVAC guys to come out and check on our problem.  AirDucks Heating and Air took one look at our external system and said that we might as well just replace our whole system.  Whatever brand our system is - they don't even MAKE it anymore, so parts would be impossible to find. Both the compressor and the capacitor were shot.  And while it would only cost about $1000 to fix both (gah, only???), there was no guarantee that it would keep the unit running for any length of time.

After the left, hubby called me to relay the news. I was pissed and stressed, as you could imagine.  I asked him to call Bertie Heating & Air to have them check it out too.

Bertie checked it and we got basically the same answer. So, it looks like we're gonna have to drop some cash on a new HVAC system.  Okay.  Deep breath.

When I got home, Bertie was still there and he was able to give me estimates.  A 15Seer was $4000. A 16Seer with Variable Speed was $5000 and a 18Seer was $6500. We decided to go with the 16Seer because it would bring value to the house when we were ready to sell it.  There were other costs associated, of course, and we were looking at about $6000 to replace the HVAC.

Okay, so where's the money gonna come from?  Bertie doesn't self-finance, but they partner with two different local credit unions (one of which I'm a member of).  My credit, however, is horrendous.  Their preferred lender was the other credit union, so I tried them first (the flyer I was given said something like 2.9% interest personal loan!).  Well, I didn't qualify for that, nor any type of unsecured personal loan, but they could give me an 8.9% 5-year loan if I put up my paid-off car as collateral!!! Yeah, no thank you.

Could I get a loan from my retirement account? Nope, Florida Retirement Systems doesn't do loans.  Okay.  That secured loan is looking to be my only option...

But wait!  What about hubby's retirement account? I'd hate to cash it out (we had to do that for the roof, and the tax bite was terrible), but we can't live in Florida with no AC.  We got so lucky - his retirement account allows for loans!  We won't have to cash out the whole account, which means there won't be a tax hit from that, and since we'll have to pay it back, we won't get dinged at tax time, either, because it's not seen as income!  And on top of that, the interest rate is only 4%! And, even better, the loan repayment can come right out of his paycheck, so it's like I'm not even going to feel it! Oh, hallelujah, I'm gonna get a new AC!

But wait... it gets better!  Later that day, Bertie guy came to the house again to take some measurements and he saw what our ducts looked like.  Y'all, I can't even... we need all new ducts too.  Our house is 60 years old. I don't know how old the ducts are, but I'm guessing they aren't new-fangled and energy-efficient.  New ducts will add (drumroll please) $3500 to the cost of our fix.  We are now up to just about TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS...   (to put that in perspective, the first year hubby and I were married, we reported SEVEN thousand dollars - net - on our tax return).  Luckily, Mr. Bertie, the owner, was willing to finance (with some interest) the ducts over two years, as long as we paid in full for the AC.  I was okay with that, and so we will pay $175 for the next 24 months.  (I had the smarty-brains to put it on a credit card that gives cash rewards; I pay the card, the card pays Bertie, I get cash back... I guess it's the best of a shitty situation). 

So, the Bertie guy was able to come to my office on Friday, where I signed the paperwork to get this whole thing started, and he said that he'd bring by a portable AC (one of those rolling ones with the vent that sticks out of the window) to the house by the end of the day so we don't fry!  This is awesome!

Now, to survive the weekend... The Weather Channel says it's ONLY supposed to go up to the low 80s on Saturday and Sunday (though it's hot as hell right now...)  I thank God for small favors!

Bridge of Lions 5k Race Report

Since the Kiddo is enjoying her summer vacation way too much, and Hubby had to work this morning, I was flying solo for the Bridge of Lions 5k in St. Augustine. Not that I'm totally sad about that - I've mentioned it before that Hubby doesn't really enjoy the whole running scene, and it's boring for him to wait around an hour for me.

I was up and ready to go by 4:30 (I had to take hubby to work before heading to the race), and I was so proud of my gorgeous 2-day hair, I felt the need to take a selfie. My skin needs some work, but my hair is great!

Second Day Hair Selfie

No road trip photo this time around, but the trip was uneventful, and I got there around 6:30a.m.  The sky, just beginning to light up was beautiful and I spent way too much time shooting the water!

Good Morning Sunshine

Eventually, though, I made my way over to packet pickup, which was two tables. We got a shirt in a nice reusable grocery bag provided by a local chiropractor. The handles of the bag are obnoxious, so I probably won't use it much (they're too short).

Getting to races early is much less stressful

I took my stuff back to the car to chill out before the race started.

There's not a lot of folks here yet

I got a great spot! (And free until 10am)

Once the sun came up fully, I was out and about again, taking more photos (no seriously, I have more photos of the sunrise than I do of the entire race... but I'll spare you the majority of them).

Bridge of Lions over Mantanzas River

You idiot, a schooner IS a sailboat

More people gathering now

Chillin' at the Castillo

Lots of people chillin' at the Castillo!

Soaking my chill towel before the race

Jump!

Do it! Jump!

LOL, JK! Not gonna jump!

I truly love St. Augustine

Back at the starting line, crowds had really grown!  This is much bigger than last year, I think!

Wow, lots of people this year!

We started shortly after I got back to my car (conveniently within the 12mm pace zone) and we headed down the road.  From behind me, near the bridge, I heard the weirdest noise... like a flapping noise, like someone running in a windbreaker and flip flops. Yeah, he beat me to the finish line.

How he didn't pass out in there, I don't know!

Crossing the Bridge of Lions

Once we crossed the bridge, we went into the Davis Shores neighborhood and quickly came up to Mile 1.

Water! Water!

I love this guy's political sign. There's a shitstorm coming this fall, I can feel it.

Sweet Meteor of Death '16

Another view of the Mantanzas River

We made it to Mile 2, which was actually very close to the finish line.

2/3 done and I'm not ready to die? Good day!

I can see the finish!

I finished with a fair amount of people! Good day!

My official time was TERRIBLE, the worst I've ever done. 53 freakin' minutes!!! I was 84th out of 90 in my age group. BUT!  I beat 86 people!!!  And I had fun, so really, isn't that all that matters?

After the race, though, I had to walk all the way back across the bridge to my car. I passed these classy bitches who think that historical statues are there for you to stand on for photos.  I wanted to push them.

Get your rude, fat asses off the canons! You aren't cute.

I chose the very tasteful selfie instead.

That is ice in my boobs, but I am glad to see you

Back to the car I go! I had fun taking lots of medal photos while I walked.

This is such a typical Florida neighborhood street, I love it

Modeling my medal with Firm the Lion (or is it Faithful?)

One of the drawbridge towers on the bridge

A fellow finisher took my photo for me... I'm smizing

Money Shot

Faithful the Lion (or is it Firm) on the other side of the river

Back in the car, I decided Arby's was the lunch for me. 

It's no Chick-fil-A, but it'll do

I'm literally the only customer here...

And I shit you not, they're playing Christmas music on the radio here.

After lunch, I did some exploring of the non-tourist side of the city and discovered a large shopping center.  It had a Kirkland's, which I'd heard from coworkers was a cute place to look for home decor.

Will I like Kirkland's?

No. It's not.

Unless you want your house to smell like a redneck whorehouse, do not buy stuff from Kirklands. Gah, it's everything I hate.  Wine jokes, too many tacky Tervis tumblers (lol, alliteration), ugly-ass mirrors and huge wall hanging signs with cutesy slogans like "Grateful, Thankful, Blessed" or "Find Happiness in the Little Things." If it's distressed, it's here. If it's tacky, it's here. If you're 67-year old grandma likes to drink wine in the afternoon and get botox on Saturdays, she shops at Kirklands.

Can you tell I wasn't impressed?  Yeah, no.

Anyway, after that little excursion, I went next do to explore Party City (yeah, the Party City, the one with the horrible commercials).  Yeah, we have party stores in my town.  I think we have two.  They're very boring. You walk in and it looks like a circus exploded, because there are eighty bajillion balloons either stapled to the walls or hanging from the ceiling.  PC has that going for them too, but only in the Balloon Area, off to the side. When I walked in, there was lots of luau stuff, lots of summer stuff, lots of patriotic stuff (for the just-passed Independence Day and upcoming Election Day). I liked how it was sorted by section.  In the back of the store was a rainbow section - a bunch of items that come in specific colors. So if you wanted purple sunglasses, purple legwarmers, purple wigs or purple hats, you could go to the purple section. I think there were about 10-12 different colors (obviously all red through purple, plus black, white, neon, gold, silver and rainbow; probably others I can't remember).

🎵 Cuz this is Thriller! Thriller Night! 🎶

And in each section, oh dear lord, each section had head boppers! (I love head boppers, and recently Hubby told me that they made it easy for him to spot me at finish lines, so I've been searching for inexpensive options - I found 'em!) I ended up getting blue, purple, red and multi-color boppers. I also picked up this "Men On" style tiny cowboy hat for an upcoming work function (and eventually, I'll give it to the cat).

On the way out, I discovered another awesome feature of Party City - the wall of candy. 15 pieces for a buck.  Cost efficient? Not really. A nice inexpensive treat for me? Definitely! I scored some Rolos, Brach's Royals, Sixlets, and Atomic Fireballs.  Not bad for a buck! (And it will save me from wanting to get candy at the gas station on the way home, too!)

My stash for when I'm driving

My last stop of "We don't have those in my town" stores is Aldi's.  We have a Sav-a-Lot at home, but it's always struck me as dirty, and one step away from a dent-and-bent store.  Aldi's was supposedly the upscale version of a SaL, so I was curious how they compared.

There is a lot of similarities - off-brands or house brands, that look remarkably similar to their name-brand counterparts.  But what Aldi's does much better than SaL, I think, is their produce.  I don't eat a lot of produce, but I can tell that what Aldi's carries is pretty good lookin' stuff.

I got some Happy Farms whipped cream cheese and HF spreadable cheese (similar to Laughing Cow wedges) to take home and taste test. (I'm happy to report that the spreadable cheese is good and 10 calories per wedge less than LC; but the cream cheese wasn't as whipped as Philly, so I may stick with Philly).

Once I got back to the car, the sky opened up, so I took it as a sign it was time to go home (also, it really was time to go home; Hubby would be getting off of work and he needed a ride home!)\

Rain Rain, Go Away (or not, that's cool too)

All in all, in was a great race (well, except for the fact that it took me so long...) and a great afternoon.  I hit up the closest 7-Eleven for some Gas Station Nachos, then headed home and chilled out for the rest of the day.

Hello, My Name is Lazy, and I'm Addicted to Electric Cheese

Oh, Palatka, you do you - there is a store called "Dollar Wang"