whole house fan and ivy

More frustration and incompetence on the whole house fan front...... I called the distributor and asked some very specific questions about the dimensions of the fan. After transferring me twice, I did get an answer, but later found out it was dead wrong! I thought about driving to the distributor, but C talked me out of it saying that they should be able to answer some simple questions on the phone but they couldn't. Of course. They did give me enough information to solve the problem however. What is really amazing is that so much basic information is lacking from their website. How do people figure out if the fan will fit without knowing how big it is?

Another frustrating thing is that the company will not refer an installer until you purchase the fan. As I mentioned before, there really is nobody to walk you through this process. I wanted to call one of their experienced installers and pay for a consultation so I could make sure I got the best fan for my needs (they are very different in price, size, performance, etc) and that it could be installed in my attic. Space is really tight up there, so I am not at all certain that it will fit.

After explaining my situation, the distributor gave me two installers to call. The problem(s)? They are both located well over an hour away in perfect traffic, which means that it could be easily over two hours in less than perfect traffic. I have had really bad luck hiring contractors who live far, and it's a deal breaker for me. They just cannot get here reliably. The second problem? The installers are electricians. The unit is a plug-in, so barring special circumstances no electrical is needed. Why are all of the installers electricians when no electrical work is normally needed? I couldn't make this up.

The problem with hiring an electrician is that they are not qualified to put the roof vents in, and very few of them can and will patch drywall. I am completely on my own on this. I talked to a general contractor already (the one decent one we worked with) and he was clueless. He advised me not to put any ventilation in the roof.

Think about this. You have a high powered fan blowing a powerful stream of air into a closed space. That won't work. Isn't that obvious? According to the manufacturer, it is really dangerous for anything with a pilot light and if the air cannot escape through the ventilation, it will escape any way it can which means it seeps back down your walls and can create a breeze in your electrical sockets. Sounds great.

I also worked on cutting back more ivy. I didn't get much because there wasn't a lot of room in the yard waste bin. We were away last week and it didn't get picked up.

Here is a before shot of the ivy. Check out the brown fence peeking out on the left edge of the ivy - that's how you can see I got a little bit done.




Here is an after shot. Not much progress, but a little every week will get the job done.



I also put down 7 bags of wood chips, and my total to date is 32 bags. Here is a before shot. You can see the bags of chips piled to the right.




Here is the after shot - 7 bags goes pretty far. I have been buying the chips at Home Depot, and in contrast to the first year or so of the remodel when I went 2-3 times a week I only go 1-2 times a month. I estimate it will take a year to get the chips down all the way around the yard, but at least I'm making steady progress. I think it is such an improvement when the chips go down.



This has nothing to do with remodeling, but it sure is funny. This is Danny sleeping on the bathroom floor. He likes to sleep on an olive green bathmat my mom got me to match my green tiled bathroom. The mat is way to small for him, but as long as he's happy...... He really was sound asleep like this - I didn't pose him and this is really his tongue!