A change of plan…

The first project that we were going to tackle was a hydronic radiant heating system. This entails pulling up the wood floor (which is in bad shape due to numerous strange patch jobs for various heating systems over the years), repairing the subfloor, having the radiant heat installed, and pouring an inch to inch-and-a-half self-leveling concrete over.

Here’s a very impressive resource for radiant heat info – www.radiantdesigninstitute.com.

I first contacted the only hydronic radiant heat folks I could find (EnviroPlumbing) in April and began what became a barrage of emails and phone calls. It took me 5 months to get a quote. 5 months! In that time, I looked on over 80 websites and got quotes from several companies in NM and AZ to get an idea of cost, since the local service provider was so sluggish with the info. Everything indicated that it would cost between $4000 and $6000 for a home twice the size of ours.

In the meantime, I refiled our ’08 taxes to claim the $8000 tax credit and knew that the money would be here in September. Great – we can get our heating system installed before winter. I started laying the ground work for this project in April and thought that I had plenty of time.

The quote finally came in. It was – gulp – $13,400!!!

Wow. I did not see that coming. Time to regroup. Time to rethink. Time to buy some space heaters and tackle this project in May.

We contacted Plumber Mike and said that if demand is such that one can charge 2-3 times the price, and if supply is such that one can keep a potential $13,400 job strung along for 5 months, you might want to get into this. We offered our house as his house to learn on at a discounted rate. We’re waiting to hear back.

In the meantime, the original plan was to scrap the hardwood floor altogether and replace it with formaldehyde-free bamboo in an espresso color. We’ve since decided to by a planer, run the existing floorboards through it, supplement with approx. 100 square feet of unfinished oak, stain it all, seal, and install ourselves. So instead of spending $5000 on bamboo, we’ll spend $1000 on supplies and reuse what we have. I like saving $4000.

Here’s what the floor looks like now. Also, Fenway says hello.