Warm and toasty!

And still sick. Ugh. I have one nasty persistent bug. Every time I start to feel better, it comes back with a vengance. Nothing like having your 2 year old tell you "Mumma's sick. Mumma was barfing. Mumma's sad." Yep, all of the above. Thank goodness for my folks living so close - my mom made an emergency run to Rexall for ginger ale, pedialyte and Imodium. I slept most of the day, and have managed to keep everything down since last night. Bryan was a sweetie and made me some Jello today, and kept Lily amused while I rested. At time of posting, I am feeling OK. It's Lily's last swim lesson tomorrow, and we promised her a special waffle brunch for finishing them! I don't want to miss it.

Back to the warm and toasty part - the furnace install is 90% done. There are 2 heat runs for the basement that need to be installed. I'll call them on Monday to make arrangements for that. The crew had forgotten their paperwork, so they missed that part of the work order. And because they didn't have paperwork for us to sign, they didn't take our cheque. The crew was great, right on time, really polite and cleaned up their work area. And didn't use any technical language. Even when it took them at least 2 hours to drill through the concrete wall for the venting required for the high efficiency furnace.

Overall, I am really happy with the new system. The furnace is super quiet, and has a great recirculating fan that keeps the house at a nice even temperature. The tankless water heater works a bit differently than a regular tank, but it's fine. The hot takes a bit longer to get going, but once it's there, it doesn't run out. I had a blissfully warm bath last night before bed! After reading the manual, I've found that I can program the tankless unit to recirculate from 6-9pm so that the hot water is instant during that time. Most tankless units work on a demand system. Turning on the tap triggers the heating unit to fire up, and once the water has travelled through, you have hot. That means that the first water you turn on isn't hot because it hasn't travelled through the heating unit. In addition to the on-demand supply, this system has a small (2 gallon) holding tank that will recirculate the hot to eliminate the lag in hot water supply.

I can't wait to see the gas savings this winter. In the cold months, we were paying between $300-400 a month on the old no-efficiency furnace. I'm hoping for $80.

There is so much more space in the basement! Now that this is done, the real work will start. Next is some hardwood upstairs for Miss Lily, and then our electrical upgrades. After that, demo demo demo. Stay tuned!