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Thursday, December 23, 2010

we're moved in!

Yayyy...finally moved in and together as a family. And right before Christmas too. The place is a disaster because we moved in without the interior being finished. Cindy is busy now painting the closets so we can install some closet organizers and get stuff out of bags and off the floor. Everything works for the most part. We are still having some problems with the Rinnai hot water system. The vent/air intake pipe continues to freeze up at night and shuts down. It is a good thing that we are in a straw bale house. It is in the minus 20's lately and the house can go the entire day without the hot water heating the in-floor system and the house will only drop a few degrees without the wood stove going. With the wood stove, the house is just too hot. We bought a very small Vermont Castings stove and the salesman kept warning us that it would be too small for our 1300 square foot house...wrong! During the day though, the sun hits the black plastic vent pipe and melts the accumulated frost for the H2O heater...sometime during late afternoon I can turn the thermostat on and it will run long enough to heat the slab back up to room temp. I think the problem is that lately it has been unusually humid outside. It is minus 20 or worse and the humidity is still up around or over 80%! That is quite unusual for us...typically it is very dry during our winters.

It is good to know though that the Rinnai heater runs long enough to run a bath or use domestic hot water even when the vent is frosted. I haven't figured out a solution to the problem, but we'll investigate further once we get a little more settled. In the meantime it is completely livable.

6 comments:

  1. Congratulations! Do you have any photos of the move?

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  2. We'll have some photos soon enough. Too many boxes and mess around...you wouldn't see the house!

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  3. always nice to have a place to call home. Congrats!

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  4. hey, Congrats on settling in! I had a "frost-up" problem similar and experimented by installing a 20" curved shaft about 48" tall over the vents - open at top and bottom for proper draft. it worked! No more freeze up. I will have to invent something better looking next spring but the function was at least proven. Look forward to pictures. hope you all were able to have a fun Christmas and New years with all the chaos of moving. Best to you from Frozen Iowa at -20C

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  5. glad your in the new house. I bet it feels good. I was just telling my wife today it'd sure be nice to live in a home where the heat is even throughout - not a cold bedroom when the wind is southern, or a cold livingroom when it blows Northeast or the like. Someday!!!

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