Bleeding Radiators

It's that time of year again.

When it starts getting cold, it's time to bleed the radiators.  Usually you can tell which ones need to be bled by whether they get warm or not.  ;-)

We've been in the house long enough to recognize a pattern.  There are a couple in the attic that get a little air in them.  The rest are typically fine except for one in the kitchen.  For some reason it always has a lot of air in it.  And that means the kitchen is stone cold while the rest of the house is quite comfortable.

If you look closely, you can't find the guilty radiator in this picture.

That's not because it isn't there.

Rather, it's because it's cleverly disguised as a set of kitchen cabinets.

That's right.  It's that little slot underneath the window that lets the hot air escape from the radiator (normally the perforated metal grate on the counter covers the hole; I've removed it to get to the bleed valve).

It's extremely effective at keeping our seldom used baking dishes pre-heated.

It's also effective at taking up lots of cupboard space.

It's not so good at keeping the kitchen warm.

Oh boy am I itching to completely remodel this kitchen...

Carriage House Doors - Part 2

Early in the year we had new carriage house doors installed.

The doors were primed prior to being installed back in January.  Obviously it was a little to cold to paint then, so I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

For no particular reason, I guess.

Last weekend I finally got a round to putting on the finish coat of paint, just in time as it were - overnight lows are expected to be in the 20s over the weekend...

It's the same color as the trim on the house and it works well with the stone.

Boiler Pump

A few weeks ago it started to get a little cool at night.  We haven't had the heating plant "cleaned" since we moved in four years ago, so we figured it was time before we needed to turn on the heat for the winter.  We also received a "Fall Tune-up" special in the mail that happened to be from the same company that installed the new boiler for the previous owners. Things were starting to align.

When I turned on the boiler, the pump started to make an awful racket.  It didn't make that noise last year.

Good timing.

When the service guy came he checked everything out.  Everything on the boiler all looked good, except the pump.  It would run for a while, make an awful racket, and then shut off.  So they ordered a new pump and would come back in 10 days or so to install it.

Meanwhile, it started to get chilly at night so we broke out the blankets.

When the new pump arrived they came to install it.  It took several hours to drain the system before they could remove the old pump.  There's a lot of water in those old pipes.

When they finally could remove the old pump, they discovered that the blades on the impeller were pointed the wrong way.

It's a wonder we got any heat at all...