You know you're old when...

...getting a new boiler is a thrilling experience.  

This week we finally got our new boiler!  Back before we bought the house, we had an inspection (obviously) and the inspector almost hit the floor when he saw our heating system and water heaters.  They were original to the house (vintage 1982, just like Andy).  Water heaters are not supposed to last 30 years. 

Yes, we had TWO water heaters.  Apparently this was common in the 80s, especially for houses with jetted tubs.  One of them had been turned off for years when we did the inspection.

Doesn't the whole thing look like a huge mess? The pipes were rusty, the one with the orange tape is the main gas line just kind of jutting into the garage and there were wires everywhere. It wasn't pretty and it made us nervous.  

Instead of having the sellers fix it up, our inspector recommended that we apply for the energy audit program.  The municipality has a program where you can get up to $10,000 for making repairs to your house that improve energy efficiency.  This way, we could pick what we wanted instead of dealing with the sellers picking the cheapest possible option and we could hopefully get some money back to make other upgrades like windows, insulation, etc. After checking into the program, we signed up before we even closed on the house.  We were really low on the list, so we figured it would take awhile, but we got notice that we were in line for our pre-inspection before we even got the keys.  About two days after taking possession, we had our pre-inspection/audit.

In addition to measuring the house, and checking insulation and other visible things (including our old boiler, which he confirmed needed replacing), the inspector sealed up the door and ran a fan to check for heat loss.  The process was really cool!  He even walked around with a thermal camera and showed me all of the cold spots in the house.  

Note the lack of furniture...I told you we JUST got the keys!

To our surprise, the current windows do a pretty good job insulating the house considering their age, and the only thing aside from the heating system and water heaters we really needed to replace was the old wood garage door.  No big deal.  (under the program they tell you that you can do all SORTS of things to improve efficiency, up to and including ripping off all your siding and putting foam core on your house.  No thanks, we're not millionaires).

This week we finally had someone come to replace the boiler and water heater(s).  Check out the after!

Isn't it beautiful? It's so much cleaner and more organized - and there's no rusty pipes or random wires anywhere.  Also, our water heater is extra efficient now because it runs off the boiler rather than acting as its own appliance.  No ventilation or any special attention needed, it's just a big tank essentially.

We're really happy with the result.  Sadly, in a completely ridiculous coincidence, we woke up to water dripping out of one of the baseboard heaters in the dining room the next day.  The repairman came out and discovered that the previous owners caused, and then decided to repair, a prior leak.  The genius repair involved wrapping it with approximately three rolls of electrical tape even though the leak was fairly serious, which I'm pretty sure any professional will tell you is a brilliant idea, and the tape finally stopped working.  The fix wasn't very complicated, but it certainly wasn't free.  Being a homeowner is so fun!

Now we just need to get the garage door replaced and we're ready for our post-inspection audit so we can hopefully get some money back from the city.