I have often commented here about the “house” systems in our converted coach; the water (fresh and sewage) and electrical (lights, appliances) systems and their components that make a large motorized vehicle behave like a stationary house. Those components include things that are found in any stationary dwelling (water and sewage pipes, plumbing fixtures, electrical wires, circuit breakers, switches, light fixtures, appliances, etc.), things that are found in some stationary dwellings (sewage tanks, macerator pumps, well pumps, fresh water pressure tanks, reverse osmosis systems, power generators and transfer switches), and things that are not commonly found in stationary homes (yet) (various gauges, batteries, inverters & chargers, power protection devices, solar panels, and even wind turbines.) RVs do not have geothermal or low-head hydro systems.
Today, however, was about actual house systems, that is to say, systems for our actual (stationary) house. We have had a “rotten egg” smell in our domestic fresh water system since we bought the house and finally called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment, a local Howell-based company, to come out and take a look at our current equipment. Brian arrived as scheduled at 9 AM and we walked him through the complete fresh water system. He took some water samples directly from the well (before any filtering, softening, or other treatment). The good news was that our dissolved iron was at 1.2 ppm (mg/L), which is a treatable level, but above the 0.3 ppm at which iron starts to become a problem in the water. The less good news came from two directions: 1) that our Water Boss water softener wasn’t doing a very good job and 2) we appeared to have iron bacteria, which a regular water softener doesn’t treat very well (or at all) even with the special “iron out” salt.
We discussed a range of options but Brian’s recommendation, which we accepted, was a new water softener and a “carbon unit”. The carbon unit is self cleaning using special chlorine crystals, and is very effective in dealing with iron bacteria. We will also have new sediment and taste filter housing installed as part of the installation. There may be other issues with the water system in this house, which was built in 1977, but the water treatment equipment was probably due to be replaced regardless of what else we do. The following website from the Illinois Department of Public Health gives a nice synopsis of iron in drinking water: http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/factsheets/ironFS.htm .
The other fresh water issue we have, based on the testing that was done as part of the purchase inspection, is Arsenic. The level that came back from the lab was 34 ppb (ug/L). The old “safe” level was 50 ppb, but the current “safe” level is 10 ppb. Zero ppb would be ideal, of course, but is not achievable at a reasonable cost. To further complicate matters, there are two kinds of Arsenic found in well water: Arsenic 5 and Arsenic 3. The prior water testing did not test for these separately, but the sample Brian took today is going to a private lab that can/will test for each separately. We were told previously that Arsenic 5 is the more typical and is mostly removed by Reverse Osmosis (RO) but that Arsenic 3 is not removed by RO. The house has a Culligan RO system installed that supplies water to the refrigerator and a special faucet in the kitchen sink. It was in the house when we bought it and we decided to continue renting it until we could determine our true needs and consider our options. Not knowing if we had Arsenic 3 in our water, we purchased a special Arsenic 3 filter from Culligan which installs in the manifold after the RO membrane. We made a call to Culligan to check on our contract and got a call back from our rep (Jeff) who has been a good guy to work with. Long term it makes no sense to rent the unit, so we are exploring purchasing it or removing it and having Adams install a similar system.
While Brian was doing his thing, Darryl showed up from DMC HVAC. Darryl did the HVAC installation for our office/library/garage addition/renovation at the old house and did a great job. When it comes to contractors I like to use local people when I can but I also like to stick with people we have worked with before. Darryl is not local to our new place, but he is a known quantity whose work we respect. Although we have a loop from the hydronic hot water heating system in the Florida room/library, it has some issues.
The major issue is that the supply and return lines run through the ceiling and into the wall which adjoins the garage. We think this house originally had a detached garage with a concrete patio between the garage and the end of the house. Sometime later a roof was added connecting the house and the garage and the two open sides were closed in with 16 feet of doorwall and fixed glass panels. The only practical way to extend the heating systems was to run the pipes overhead.
The other issue is that this space does not have air-conditioning. (There is a small window mount unit in the garage wall. Yup, it exhausts heat into the garage.) We have space in a corner of the garage by this room to install a small forced-air furnace/air-conditioner and get the air to/from the room easily along the garage ceiling. We would also like a ceiling mounted forced-air furnace in the garage so we can store paints and other things that we want to be able to keep above freezing, or bump the temperature up a bit and have a comfortable place to work. Darryl installed one of these at our old house, and it was a very nice feature.
In anticipation of this work, we had a second propane tank installed next to the garage when the whole house backup generator was installed back in May. I told AmeriGas at the time what we planned to do so they did a temporary installation of the tank and ran a line directly to the generator. One of the thinks Darryl will need to do is mount a permanent pressure regulator on the side of the garage and then run pipe to get the propane over to the two new furnaces.
As Darryl was finishing up, Tom and Tom showed up from TOMTEK HVAC. TOMTEK is a Howell-based company that we decided to have service our hydronic heating system. It’s an old Weil-McLain Gold unit with some corroded parts. It was also filled with water. When we looked at the house originally the heating loop to the Florida room was shut off. It turned out that something had failed while the owners were away during the winter and that loop had frozen and ruptured. They repaired it prior to closing, but I never did understand why the system didn’t have an appropriate anti-freeze in it instead of water. As of today, it does.
One of the nice things about hydronic heat is that it is easily zoned. Our system has four zones, each with its own thermostat. One of those thermostats also controls the air-conditioning for the main floor of the house. That may seem odd, but it is a consequence of the A/C unit probably being added sometime after the house was built. As a result, the air handler is in the attic and all of the air ducting is too. It’s a single system controlled from a single point, and is completely separate from the hydronic heating system except for this one shared thermostat. It was the failure of this particular thermostat that prompted us to go ahead and contact TOMTEK and have them out to service the system and install four new thermostats. The one that controls the living/dining rooms and kitchen, as well as the air-conditioning, is a Wi-Fi enabled device that will allow us to monitor the temperature in the hallway, which is the most central point in the house, and control the main heating loop and the air-conditioner remotely if we so desire. Pretty cool; literally. The “boiler” needed some additional service for which TOMTEK had to order parts, so they will be back another day to finish up the maintenance on the unit.
Overlapping contractors made for a somewhat intense day. Fortunately there were two of us available to interact with them, and they all got the attention they needed from us, when they needed it. As soon as Brian was done I called Adams Well Drilling and Water Treatment and scheduled him to come back on the 11th to install the new water treatment equipment.