Less Bad, But More Expensive.

I have the good fortune to live one house away from (as I turn anti-clockwise through a circle looking around the neighborhood) a nuclear physicist, a licensed master plumber, and the maintenance guy for a local shopping mall. The latter has both R-22 gauges and R-22 kicking around his house all the time. I needed a few pounds of R-22. He needed $60. Problem solved! 49 degrees at the outlet of the air con. in the house is good enough for me!

Still, that's going to be an additional $60 on the cost of air conditioning this year. That will put us all the way up to just over $2.26 per month invested in service of this old system since we got the house. That doesn't sound too bad, but then you have to consider it's probably got a SEER of 7 or so. American standard's new flagship a/c system has a SEER of 20! Last year's high electricity bill was $200 over baseline normal house electricity use. Cut that by 2/3 and we're looking to have the new air conditioner pay for itself pretty fast, even if you don't count tax "credits" we might get with it.

We're happy to be cool and dry tonight, thanks Jesus, but that old system has got to go, and I'm thinking it's going to be this year.

I still need to finish putting up the raidant barrier in the attic, cut in some new soffit vents, finish putting the low-e film on the windows, and maybe blow in some insulation upstairs. THEN we'll be ready to get the house evaluated for a reasonable load number and spec. out a new air conditioning system. Keep your fingers crossed.

That's about it for "Fix Up Chez VFD" weekend. Let's see:

Waist-deep in the dishwasher, clean out a cup and a half of smutz, to include pieces of plastic popsicle wrapper, twist tie, and plastic bread bag clip, check.

Reseat toilet in guest bathroom 3x including breaking one Chinese bolt, and then replacing the waterlogged spacers with plastic ones, check.

Seal up the base of the toilet with 1/2 a tube of silicone caulk after the floor dries overnight, check.

Clip the taller of the grass/weed stalks in the front yard, check

Recharge the air conditioner, check

Fix the pipe maze under the kitchen sink so both sides will drain properly, check

Install one more window worth of window tint, check

Welcome to home ownership.