Beebe -- our 1935 Bungalow on Baker Street.

[Lily left the valley]

Drizzly yuck rain again today, more showers on the way. I wanted to at least finish the initial leaf clear, but Mother Nature has other plans, it seems. I will get my wellies on soon, though, and take a walk so I can get an idea of where it's squishy with the lawn. I haven't noticed puddling yet on the highest plane, so we'll see how it goes as the rain continues this week.

So instead today, I'll be tidying up the garage. A few bits have been getting tossed in there hurriedly, so the space just inside the door is a maze. We're still debating how much of the lawn we want to "kill", so I think we'll end up throwing all the wardrobe boxes in the sheet goods bin in there in case we need sun block cover later. Speaking of that bin, there's no actual sheet goods in it. Someone took what little was in there out, and leaned them against the unfinished concrete walls. (Yes, they all took in water, because of course they did! ) What they did put in there was "clean" garbage--like the broken basketball thing. Which of course is a tangled mess that has to be untangled so the trash parts can go in the trash, and the metal bits in the recycling. I'm wondering if any of the piping will be ok to use for a light project--but I haven't really had a chance to look at it yet, so we'll see.

Although I've been making some little progress here and there in spurts, the list of "oh, that needs a tweak or more" list grows. I joked with my Floor Manager recently that I was really glad his health care plan is decent, as I'm still waiting for when an "oops--OWW" might happen unintentionally. So far I've been pretty lucky. I only sliced my one finger a bit when I was dealing with the piled up flooring planks in a rush to make room when he brought home boxes, and I stupidly didn't grab my work gloves. It's all healed up now, though. Wasn't quite deep enough for stitches, just in a bad spot I had to baby.

I'm also getting to the point where I'm thinking of just trying to set a schedule per week. Otherwise, we may never finish unpacking because it's so easy to "just take a look at..." things. I am finding myself doing exactly what happened with the kitchen yesterday. I go to do one thing, and that leads me to something close by then I them get fixated on, and...then it's an hour or more later. So far, nothing has been a crisis, and for that I'm very glad.

The hot water drip in the tub is nosing its way to my "soon" list. We're fairly certain it's one of the reasons why the boiler's still kicking in even now that the temperature is better. If it was the cold dripping, it wouldn't even be a consideration. I did take a look through the access panel in the kitchen today, and sadly when they added the center control unit, they got rid of the old duals instead of capping them. I realize they may have been beyond saving--it's just not what I was hoping to see. Both of us want the side by side controls, so that'll be a bit more work than I had hoped. I also can't find a cut off for the tub water. It may be right in front of my nose, or it may be in the cellar. I'll take another look at that later. I did notice that whatever wall was on that side before, they did not replace all of it around the fixture when they added the surround.

Plumbing is not something I hate, but it is what it is--wet and often more than you bargained for initially. So I'm trying to decide what I can do before we'd really need to call in a pro. So much tube and pvc has been patched in that I really don't know how I want to approach things.

One bit of not so great news is Kira is apparently ill. At first, we thought she was just acting out because we've been so busy, but apparently she simply wasn't making it to the litter box. A few times she started crying, then would trot out of the room, then soon after, we'd find the puddle in the way to the stairs. We brought the litter box downstairs for now, even though she seems to have been dropping solids fine in there. Overall, she seems ok, but yesterday she started hiding and crying which is something she hasn't done since I first rescued her. So earlier today I was combing through local vet info, and if she doesn't suddenly get better by tomorrow (which, after a few days of this now, we don't think will happen), I'll be calling one of them and trying to get her in so they can run the usual older kitty tests. I'm hoping it's just an infection.

Apparently the Australians never use boxes and the country hasn't burned down yet. From a European perspective it feels just as crazy as from an American one though.

Our kitchen light switch didn't have a box either. Originally it was surface-mounted and when they tiled the wall with an inch of concrete instead of the original very thin plaster they simply left a hole for a flush-mounted switch. The whole thing looked a bit crazy as the tile was flush with the door casings! Oh and although there was proper conduit in the wall they didn't use that when they added a socket next to the switch but instead ran a piece of zip cord(!) behind the tiles.

I'm sure there are ways to make it work without boxes. Here, though, we have codes and stuff when one updates--but I know from past experience that doesn't always happen as it should. (Ask me about the lovely historic trap variaties we have with recentish PVC work done.) The one I was mentioning also had been chewed by field mice at some point (one fried one found when we pulled the baseboard to jack the floor up--ack.)

I have seen zip work like that before. My favorite, I think, was when we found someone had used a modern extension cord in a wall to "rewire". That's one way to not have to deal with the breaker box. It was plugged into an outlet in the basement as the power source. So many fun drunken weasel bits at that place, I tell ya. If I had a digital camera back then, I probably wouldn't have hesitated to take lots of pictures so we could look at them later and laugh.

[Lily left the valley]

We're still getting bits and bobs done as time allows. Fortunately, the weather took a turn for the convenient this week. I managed to get some more yard work done on the east side of the house, and half of the bedding nearest the porch in the front. I'm hoping to do the other half soon so the progress towards looking nicer keeps momentum.

Good news, our neighbor who had been hospitalized is home as of yesterday. We had a nice short chat with her. She is such a sweet lady. She looked good, but a bit tired.

More good news, Kira seems better with the litter box downstairs. We are certain, though, that when one of the neighborhood cats uses the sand under the porchlette as a box, she responds with a mark near the door. The rains recently haven't helped, because it keeps the smell from outside pungent as it can't dry out. The door seal, despite the door being modern, is not very good. So we're hoping with the next paycheck, I can get some trellis to block that off so we can break that part of the cycle. If not, there's still some landscape cloth in the garage. It may work for the short term until we can do something more permanent. She's still having some confused "senior kitty" moments, but we're doing our best to keep her comfortable and remind her where things are here. I'm so relieved she's using the litter box more like she should, I can't even begin to say it enough.

The kitchen is coming along, even though I know we'll be revisiting bits later to give them a good earnest final once over. I am ridiculously happy breaking down empty boxes as the contents find a home. We still have a few puzzles as to where certain bits will go, but I'm happy with the progress rate at this point.

It was nice enough today that I actually opened a few windows and brought the screens down so we could have some fresh air in the house. I also removed the fabric I had used to stuff the window with the popped parting bead in the office. Not too much of a worry about air leakage heating wise now, and I'm hoping I might be able to put that back in place this weekend.

One of the things I really want to do is push old cable through the exterior walls and seal them up, but I'm not certain how effective that will be because of the multiple layers of siding. I really don't want to use spray foam for the short term even though I know it is probably the best option. It's just going to be a mess to clean out later when we bring the siding levels back to where they should be--at the wood buried beneath.

I did some spot cleaning earlier today. A few places where drunken weasels with very dirty hands didn't clean up after themselves. It's amazing how much nicer those bits look without smudges.

Now that I have a more realistic notion as to the corner we want to put the mud area in, I'm starting to sketch out ideas for that. When I have a few I'm comfortable with, I'll post them up in my mud room thread. I need to go back and peruse the Angel catalog so I can start to get a sense of what wood we'll need to match the built ins like the ironing cabinet in there.

Speaking of the dining room, I know it's often called the kitchen by others (including the mortgage appraiser), I still cannot find any evidence whatsoever of previous plumbing in that room when looking up from the cellar below.

Speaking of looking up, I should post a picture of something interesting I found near the chimney yesterday. There were some sorts of plugs in the subfloor near it on the one side, and I have no idea what they are for. The plugs seems to be structural. I also found one brick that is crumbling to nothing on the lower part of the chimney, and that just reminded me that we need to find a good chimney company this spring to get a good look at things as well. We have some bricks missing from the exterior top as well.

So that's that for now. More when time and progress allows.

[phil]

I had problems when I bought with the same thing - cats going into the sand under the porch and making a stink. I picked up a big packet of cayenne pepper and sprinkled it in the sand. I doubt it really hurts them but I don't think they like digging around in that and maybe you should wait and see what's going on with Kira first , Hope she is OK. I think they instinctively hide instead of complaining. hoping she didn't get into something she shouldn't have.. she's probably been doing some exploring.

[Lily left the valley]

Whew. What a day (yesterday, now). I rode my bike to the truck rental place to finish up the paperwork. Sean wouldn't get off work until they were closed, and we need to pick up the last three big items at the apartment. I am so glad we didn't have to resort to pushing them up hills on dollies as Gardner is quite hilly. It was my first bike ride since fall. Wow did I feel out of shape is all I'm saying--and that was just riding a bike. Image pushing even a 77 key parlor piano up two of the steeper hills with a 30ft rise overall? No thank you. The rental folks were awesome, and even topped off the air in my bike tires for me while I was there, which made the trip back easier--it was much needed since that's more uphill going that way. I did hop off the bike and walk it up the two steepest parts, though. No use pushing myself too far.

The good news is that Sean's boss realized if he did the Amazon package only deliveries on Sunday, that'd make seven straight days, plus he's already booked M-Th next week, so she made the call to pull him off it (Sunday Amazon deliveries are odd as to who gets allocated for them, as there are restrictions for hours/week, days in a row when it's not during Xmas.) So since he has the whole day off, and he was beat when he got home, we'll be moving the last bits today. It'll be a balmier day anyhoo, which will be better. It almost hit 80° F here yesterday, today should be mid 60s. Now we also won't be rushing to beat sunset.

I am really looking forward to seeing the piano in the parlor here. She needs some restoration herself, but I'll finally take some pictures so folks can see what a beauty she is even before that work gets done. We're definitely keeping the chiffarobe as a side door closet/storage in the dining room for the time being until I can do a built-in on that wall. The vanity will go to the bedroom, which has been much needed with all its drawers.

I did finally find and shut off the hot water line to the tub, and sure enough...no more drip. I'm really hoping that it's just a washer. I still cannot find the cold water shut off for the tub. There is a half way for all the water coming in beyond the main cellar floor shut off, so at worst I'll do that when it comes time to open up in there and see how bad the fixture is. I actually managed to get an answer out of Sean about what he wants to replace the tub fixtures with when we have the funds, and that's a happy check box on my list of decisions to be made.

Speaking of bathrooms, I saw a wonderful image two days ago, and it not only blew my mind, but completely knocked off my path for what I was thinking for the redo in that bathroom. Well, in truth, it's similar to another late 20s bath I had seen ages ago that never left my mind completely and would have worked for '42 (you remember the house that got me here with the lav tub?). Below are both images. The one I really love to the left, the one I still love to the right. Our fixtures are white, so that kind of helps my bias too, I think because the white with the right hand side's colors wouldn't work nearly as well, and I don't really want to replace them just for the color balance. I had been looking more towards deco baths given our sconces, but it's just so FUN, darnit. Now, since we already have grooved plaster (below the rail behind some awful paper backed wallboard that has no right being in a full bath), I don't see why I can't just preserve that style, and paint it more like the image. We'd retain the chair rail, though, because why not? I'm not certain how well I can match for the tub surround if we actually tiled that part. However, we could put in a full shower curtain pole in there since we still have the curtain for the clawfoot at the apartment. That would also protect the wood related to the window.


Let's see...what else? Ah, we did a quick walk around the yard to assess how some things are coming along, picking up the ever present trash that keeps getting unearthed. I raked up a small area behind the garage the other day as I've been trying to brave myself to whatever that pricky tangler is that's covering most of what obviously use to be a large bed. The Not-Og kitty stopped by when I was raking, and Sean finally got to see him. (Sean is convinced it's a male, I tried to get a look to see, but didn't manage.) Although he briefly let me pet him before I went off to get Sean, by the time Sean came out, he was perched on our neighbor's back porch rail, and we just chatted at him a bit before moving on to let him bask in the late day sun. I think it's just a matter of time before he comes to live in Beebe. Need to work on being friends first. Then it's worrying about what Kira thinks. Sean is convinced it's Og come back to us, and he thinks she'll be mad, but she'll get over it. I need to keep a camera close at hand so next time I can take a picture and make posters to see if it already has a home or not.

Something is struggling to break free of the tangles here and there in the big bed, and I have been trying to make the time to clear the prickly off of them so they don't die, but haven't yet managed. I did live head any dandelions I hadn't gotten to rooting up yet in the backyard before the flowers went to seed--some hadn't yet opened up as flowers--but off they went to get buried deep in the compost to rot and help something more wanted grow. The grass is starting to wake up in earnest, and I'm hoping the weather co-operates this week so I can finish raking up what I can and weeding before trying a first pass with the mower. Then I can get back to clearing the beds, and that ridiculous excuse for a fire pit. I still haven't found a good container yet for all the pea gravel on an area that we think was either a play set or pool area. I'm hoping to save it to use for drainage elsewhere. Most of the landscape fabric under it has long deteriorated and been breached. Lots of who knows what, some almost as tall as me.

I am still thrilled to pieces at how much moss we have in the backyard. That's going to save me so much work and funds! I've long wanted a lot of moss in our gardens, and boy howdy do we have it. Despite the rains, we still have not seen any evident flooding or even very shallow pools. Still, I hope next month to get cracking on the north side drainage first, since that's the worst of the water intrusion overall. I've identified where the worst smaller spots are on the east wall--and they're all concrete slab related--ugh. That work I'm not looking forward to doing, although the end result will be worth it.

Our first mortgage payment goes out soon, and it still feels unreal to us, that we have a home. There were so many times when things were bad financially that we never thought we manage, and yet--we have Beebe. We're going to do our best to keep her!

I had problems when I bought with the same thing - cats going into the sand under the porch and making a stink. I picked up a big packet of cayenne pepper and sprinkled it in the sand. I doubt it really hurts them but I don't think they like digging around in that and maybe you should wait and see what's going on with Kira first , Hope she is OK. I think they instinctively hide instead of complaining. hoping she didn't get into something she shouldn't have.. she's probably been doing some exploring.

She does seem to be getting better. I think she was getting stressed out that she wasn't able to make the litter box on time, but now that it's close to where she spends most of her time (in the office), she's a bit more like herself. I did pick up some dental health treats this week because I've been worried about how long she's only been on soft food, and whenever I manage to catch her peeing in the litter box, I give her one. She thinks they're awesome, and they're helping her teeth last anyhoo, so win-win.

I'd try the cayenne, or even some cider vinegar spray, but we keep getting spring showers, so neither will last. What I have been doing is periodically lightly misting the porchlette area with a mix of water and vinegar, which seems to help just a little bit. I'm actually wondering if maybe one of the neighborhood kitties might have actually started spraying the porchlette itself, which is what may have spurred her periodic marking. She only did it once today, and it was very little. So I'm hoping that this is the gradual fade out of that problem. When I block off underneath, that should get rid of the worst of it and hopefully will signal to the neighborhood kitties that they need to go elsewhere!

[Texas_Ranger]

The hot water drip in the tub is nosing its way to my "soon" list. We're fairly certain it's one of the reasons why the boiler's still kicking in even now that the temperature is better. If it was the cold dripping, it wouldn't even be a consideration.

Do you have an indirect hot water tank? Then a hot water drip would surely explain the boiler kicking in.

Australians simply don't seem to consider fires starting inside an electrical box (and spreading into a framed wall) an issue so they only use rings, sort of boxes without a back wall and not very deep. All other countries I've ever heard of require boxes of either steel (mainly found in the US and in Canada) or flame-retardant plastic. The worst (and most common) kind of DIY hack here in Europe is covering a wall with paneling and never bothering to install new proper boxes but rather just fixing switches and sockets to the wood/fibre board with plasterboard screws. I cringe whenever I see walls like that because they were just so incredibly popular with cheap hacks in the 70s and 80s, frequently also hiding all sorts of additional DIY wiring messes. Like rewiring an entire apartment behind/above all that crap, not bothering to leave any junction boxes accessible or - worse - connecting any of the earth wires together or to anything. The incoming mains in that place was original from the mid-1950s, back when earthed sockets were only required in the kitchen and wires still had different colours. The moron tenant who rewired the place didn't recognise the red as an earth wire and just left it floating. He also put all breakers in the neutral wire instead of the hot. I'm still sad I don't have any pictures of THAT place but that was during an internship as an electrician and I didn't bring a camera to work and only went there once.

My parents' place with the zip-cord was an incredible piece of work, I think I shot two rolls of film trying to document all the crazyness. It had permanent extension leads (run exposed through holes in the walls), things plugged in in adjacent rooms (through fist-sized holes in the wall), scarily undersized wiring, loose arcing connections etc. etc. Old houses are generally a fountain of joy and provide countless happy surprises

Seriously, the newest "old" house with questionable wiring I've worked in was built in 1995! As soon as DIYers get involved, you get all sorts of nasty surprises. And of course there's black sheep among contractors too and not too few of them.

[Lily left the valley]

The hot water drip in the tub is nosing its way to my "soon" list. We're fairly certain it's one of the reasons why the boiler's still kicking in even now that the temperature is better. If it was the cold dripping, it wouldn't even be a consideration.

Do you have an indirect hot water tank? Then a hot water drip would surely explain the boiler kicking in.

Since having shut off the shower hot, and the fact that we haven't needed heat even at night for a few days, I'm in full agreement on this now that we've had a day to observe the difference.

I'm still not 100% understanding the difference between direct and indirect from looking them up online, but I believe the tankless we seem to have is neither. Please correct me if I am wrong.

We have a Smith 8-Series S,W according to the manuals in my lap with a Beckett AF/AFG burner attached. Also according to the manual, tankless domestic hot water heaters are available for water boiler application, which we seem to have installed as there are no expansion tanks to be seen. Those I know from the place I property managed. Each of the boilers had them. From the diagram in the manual, the coil seems to be located on the upper left when you're looking at the north side of the boiler.

If you need more info, please let me know and I'll do my best to provide it.

Even without the heat call, we are still taking on too much water in a 24 hour period. I just checked the water level today since shutting off the hot to tub, and still, too much water. So it may be (from what I've read on plumbing/boiler forums) that we have a leak from the domestic hot water. One of our priorities is to get a tech in here as soon as we can afford them because I'm worried about our water bill in particular although I'll be just as happy to get a clean bill of health on it (after fix) as well.

Since so much in Australia is already competing to kill its residents, I imagine they think an electrical fire is fairly low on their risk list.

Given how little experience I have dealing with other folks' work in homes because I mostly dealt with rentals before my short stint as a property manager since moving out my childhood home, I've no doubt you've seen so much more, erm, interesting solutions than I. Sadly, the 1995 home you mention doesn't surprise me in the least. If there's anything to say about drunken weasels and DIY "betterers", time period of the home does not matter.

Some of the electrical "fun with wires" I've had was in old smaller theatres back in the day. Hooo...three phase jerry-rigs. So much fun!

[Lily left the valley]

Real quick, while we're taking a short break...

Sean admitted to me as we walked back to the apartment that after he picked up the truck, because the neighbors had their cars parked as usual in the shared drive over there, he couldn't get the truck down to the garage. So he decided to see if he could push the piano up that godawful steep driveway....and he did it! I scolded him for doing it alone in case something had gone wrong, but I could tell he was quite proud of the fact that lugging all those 75 lb. bags of dog food from his postal vehicle to folks' porches had paid off.

The sky showered us a bit during the briefest move into a truck we've ever done, and now we're watching the sun come out as we decide if we can safely angle the ramp in our narrow driveway (flanked with slopes of earth upwards on either side) to actually get it to the top step of the porchlette or not. If so, getting the piano inside the house will be easy peasy! It does have hand holds on the back if not, but oh, that would be nice if we can manage it. I said I'd even be willing to take off the short back railing if need be so we can just roll it off the truck onto the porchlette too. We were thinking of swapping the stairs to the other side anyhoo, right? It'd have to be done eventually!

[Texas_Ranger]

I don't have all that much experience with central heating systems TBH and none with steam heat. A few years ago I was forced to learn some of the basics when my parents and uncle decided to have the family house with 8 apartments converted to central heat but that's about it. From what I've gathered, indirect water tank means that the water heater doesn't have a burner of its own but the hot water from a central heating boiler heats the domestic hot water via a heat exchanger. Not sure how that works if you've got a steam boiler (a rare beast in Europe, only common in some schools and other huge buildings at a time).
For a leak to be noticeable on your water bill it'd have to be massive I think, unless your water rate is much higher than ours.

Actually apart from that one-month stint as an electrician all my experience with other people's houses is friends and family. And friends of friends. That 1995 place was a friend of a friend's and said friend dragged me in because he'd promised his friend to improve the bathroom fan situation and didn't feel comfortable doing it alone - he worked with HVAC for a living at that time but mostly did planning and I have a lot more hands-on DIY experience than he does. He ended up replacing the stock extractor fan with a spring-loaded, electrically controlled damper, industrial fan, 3-foot muffler and a bunch of round HVAC ducting, a contraption that spread across half the bathroom ceiling. The point was that all the bathroom fans in that huge council-owned block of flats vented into the same vent pipe and he had cigarette smoke and cooking smells coming into his bathroom all the time. The new system did fix that but it looks crazy!

The wires going to the fan were cut fairly short so we tried to replace them (conduit) but failed to find the junction box where they were connected - another of those lovely MDF paneling jobs!

[Lily left the valley]

So we could not get the angle we wanted for the ramp, however...in the garage there was a nice old plank that was just about the right size hanging out in the rafters. (I had tried to convince Sean to use it as a ramp over the stairs when we moved the cast iron stove over--but he didn't do it then.) Still, the wheel base for the dollies we have was 16" on the narrow, and the plank was 12". After a few failed attempts with the piano off the dolly, I went back into the garage and found a sheet of 1/2" ply and it was a darn good fit when we braced it into the door channel bump in the truck plus the stair rail. We just made sure that we kept the weight as much over the plank because I knew if the piano careened too far over, that ply would just crack. It worked!

The piano is now safely in the parlor. The placement is terrible for pictures because that's the room we're keeping all the "no idea what all is in this box" boxes, but I'll see if I can get a few shots later this week. The piano needs love and a good once over. Sitting in the garage for almost a year did not help. The sustain pedal is sticking, but I'm hoping maybe when it has a chance to dry out a bit indoors, some of the quirks it's picked up will resolve themselves. I know it still needs a tuning desperately and there's one missing string. I have a list of numbers for some piano lesson folks to call around to since there's no local tuning guy in the yellow pages. So hopefully one of them will help me connect to one.

I'm having a hard time pinning down info on it which I meant to do ages ago. I'll create a separate antique subforum thread on it with any research yields once I have pictures, but it's likely no older than 1877 according to one bit I found about Morgan & Sons pianos in Google book images from am 1883 book. I'm new to researching pianos from more obscure companies, so I've just dusted the snow off the surface before I can even try to crack the ice.

The chifforobe is in the dining, and blocking the thermostat, but that needs to be moved anyhoo. The vanity is in the bedroom, and since the mirror still isn't fixed, that's under the bed for now. They are a set, but for now, we need the chifforobe downstairs more. Pics when time allows. The vanity did not come with a seat of any kind, and eventually I'll have to remedy that. Since the mirror project is on hold, that's not a rush.

I did run into a small snafu with plumbing at the apartment when I tried to disconnect the extender we put in for the shower head. None of the hardware stores had the part I needed, so since our landlady still hasn't bothered us about when we'd be out, I figure if I just go to the plumbing supply store in the morning, I can get that fixed right away. (I think she's probably on a weekend vacation again. She does that a lot.)

There's still some cardboard boxes we never used there, and I need to do a last broom sweep and vacuum, but we're pretty much out. I should have it all tidied up by noon at the latest on the morrow.

We did not get done with the move soon enough for me to be able to get rid of dandelions here, but I should be able to do that in the afternoon if the rain is still showery like today. Time will tell.

After dropping the truck off, we celebrated successfully getting the piano in the house by going to Cruisers--a luxury we have put off since before Closing.

So far, a very good day. The kitchen and dining are a bit of a mess due to all the moving stuff to be able to move stuff, but it feels so good to just have that last plumbing fix and cleaning to do! Last apartment ever, I hope.

We're both pretty tired, so tonight we're just resting although if I get a second wind I might work on the kitchen a bit more. I want to be at the plumbing store early, so I can't stay up too late.

Not sure how that works if you've got a steam boiler (a rare beast in Europe, only common in some schools and other huge buildings at a time).
For a leak to be noticeable on your water bill it'd have to be massive I think, unless your water rate is much higher than ours.

That's pretty much what I had read regarding the hot water systems too, but I'd never really had to think about them much. With the boilers (hot water baseboard) at the place I managed, they also heated the domestic use water. I learned how to do routine preventative maintenance on the boilers, some basics as to what a stat looked like and how to adjust it and such. Because we had one tenant who was notorious for letting his oil tank run dry, I learned all sorts of tricks with getting those back up and running. We still had a tech come in for the yearly clean and if something more than I knew went wrong, though I observed and learned a bit from that too. I've lived in places with all sorts of central systems, though many I only saw when I had reason to visit the basement or such. A lot of what I know bits and pieces came from research too, but since it wasn't practical for a long while, not much stuck.

We haven't had a separate bill for water since our one rental in North Carolina, and I think the worst we ever had there was $30 which I think was quarterly, but it's been so long I'm not sure--it could have easily been a monthly bill. I just know you'd get a dot matrix printed postcard for your bill, then you could pay it at City Hall if you wanted.

I think I'm overly worried about the water because we're lowering the water via what we see in the glass daily. It doesn't usually take terribly long, but I've not had the wherewithal to consider if we're losing a gallon a day or what. I haven't fully looked at the manuals to even recall offhand what size the tank is.

From what I recall reading, our coil heats water that has a separate run and interior tank area, which makes sense given the boiler water needs periodic skimming and such--wouldn't want that in drinking water. It works fairly well, as even when it was less than warm in the cellar, at worst you'd have a minute during a long shower when the system would kick in to heat up the water again before it was back to proper temp. It is a newish system (I think it was installed less than 5 years ago--don't have the permit copy handy.), and our inspector said it was a "good" system, but a good from him is a solid good from my experience. He doesn't mince words when it comes to the quality of something--a man after my own heart.

Ours is a low pressure steam system, complete with the smaller increment gauge. Some folks call that "dry steam", apparently. I did notice the house was not as humid as what I've experienced in the past with steam systems, but we still get hisses and when the system was over watered, sometimes bubbling too. The apartment we left had hot water baseboard, and you rarely notice much humidity changes from them. I've not lived in this area before, so I'm still learning what the climate here is like, which will take time to learn. Elevation wise, we're not much different than where we left in NJ.

I've mostly dealt with "hole in the wall + fan" exhaust systems so far, and never really dealt with much regarding forced air heat except filter changes and learning about how if the "eye" gets dirty, it mucks up the system. The few times we've lived in places with full out HVAC, I didn't touch them, but can't recall ever having issues either to have grown curious.

I'm a bit loopy, so I offer my apologies if this was a bit long winded.

[Texas_Ranger]

As far as I can tell all heating systems without actual combustion in each room "dry out" the air or - more accurately - don't humidify it. If you've got fireplaces, stoves or gas fires in the room, the combustion creates water vapour and some of that will inevitably end up in the room rather than going up the flue, humidifying the room air. If you've got a boiler or furnace in the cellar, especially a modern sealed direct-vent one you won't see any of that in your living quarters and get fairly dry winter air. Cold air can hold much less moisture than hot in absolute figures, so while relative humidity outside might be high in winter, once you heat the air inside your house, relative humidity will drop drastically (while absolut humidity remains more or less the same). Crazy physics!

Unless your radiators were actually leaking steam I can't see how they'd affect humidity at all. I've never seen a working steam system in my life though and all I know about them is from forums and from old stories. I think my mom once worked in an old school building in Germany (where some rooms had been converted to offices while the rest was still a school) with steam heat and she complained bitterly about how hard to regulate those radiators were, usually just blazing hot. The only other thing about steam systems I remember is that only one pipe is connected to each radiator - steam rises to the rads from gravity, condenses inside the rad and then drips back down to the boiler in the same pipe.