Okay, so I tried to de-winterize last weekend, and failed. Over the course of the week I had the people who'd installed the furnace (Highlands Plumbing & Heating, nee Horrel-Neiderhiser Plumbing & Heating) come up and fix it, and turn the heat on. The plan was to have these guys heat the place up, then drive up and turn on the water so the home inspector could do his thing next week. Well, they say no battle plan survives its first contact with the enemy.
 While the heating guy was successful turning the heat on, what I didn't account for was how the mass of snow on the roof would react with a warmer house. Despite the huge amount of insulation up there, the roof will get warm enough to melt some of the snow. And these big eaves, so wonderful most of the year, are fantastic at refreezing the snow melt as it comes down the roof. Yep, we have ice damming, and water's getting into the house. Not much water, but really, how much water coming in from the ceiling is acceptable? I'd guess none.
 Additionally, the real estate agent decided to schedule the home inspection on Friday, the day before I was driving up to check the heat and turn on the water. Somehow, and my agent can't explain it to me, the water got turned on before that inspection. I'm guessing ghosts.
 So, we can fix the leak by turning the heat off, which will staunch the snow melt, waiting for the roof to clear naturally, and then installing some of the heated wires on the roof that give the snow melt an escape route (I have these on the back roof actually). However, because the ghosts turned on the water, turning the heat off means re-winterizing the plumbing, which means blowing all the water out of the pipes with compressed air like I did back in October.
So I had a new plan. Instead of going up to turn the water on, I headed up with tools and the compressor so that I can re-winterize.
Well, it turns out that there was no way the big compressor was going to make the 50 yard trip from the road (finally plowed) to the house. Not a chance. I could turn the water off, but there was no way I'd be able to blow out the lines, I had to formulate an option C.
 I decided that the best plan would be to keep the heat as low as possible, and concentrate it where it's needed. Almost all of the plumbing is in the bathroom, and the bathroom walls. I set the thermostat, which is right outside the bathroom door, down to 40 degrees. This should keep the bathroom just slightly warmer than that. I closed every other register and threw carpet scrap over them to keep the heat out of the rest of the house. I also closed all of the doors (except the bathroom), and even used a mattress to block the hallway at the living room end. Hopefully this will keep the rest of the house at, or around 30-35 degrees.
Hopefully it will all work out. |
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