There was a lot of upheaval when we replaced our furnaces, as we the crew was here for over a week, and furniture had to be moved out of numerous rooms. Of course the kitchen table and rugs had to be moved out to provide a clear path between the guest room and the sliding doors (pic 1 below). We put the contents of the guest room in the downstairs of the great room (pic 2). We hadn’t moved the TV back to the studio yet, so it was actually a bit cramped, but since we normally weren’t using the space, that wasn’t a big deal.
When the crew arrived, they got to work trying to minimize the amount of mess they’d be making. First they sealed up all the holes in the floors and walls where we had ducts, so we had lots of blue tape patches on the floors; if I remember correctly the total was 18 floor vent holes covered–these would remain long after this project finished. We also had five large and four small wall duct returns scattered throughout the house. These holes were much easier to close up, but more on all of that later.
The amount of filth and dust kicked up was simply incredible. There was no avoiding making a mess; while a lot of it was contained, pulling out 50-year-old ductwork is definitely not for faint-of-heart neat freaks. The crew from Ventwerx did their best to minimize the amount of filth they brought up from down below. Dropcloths were used extensively, and thankfully the weather was lovely so the crew didn’t have to worry about bringing mud into the house.
While the crew were busy prepping, a delivery truck rolled in with all the new stuff to install once they were done ripping apart the old furnace and ductwork–three large outdoor units and all the wall units and tubing were dropped off, but they’d have to wait several days as getting the old furnace out turned to be quite an endeavor. The crew started at the beginning and there was no going back. The old ducts were slowly cut up, crushed and brought out from under the house. The two last shots only show a small portion of what was eventually brought up.
While several guys were under the house working to pull up all the old duct work, another two were busy removing the old burners and condensers from the closet in Agent Smith’s office. Agent Smith’s office was the garage of the house originally, so a big closet with a couple of diesel (heating oil) burning units wasn’t a bad idea. In the mid-80s, the POs turned the garage into a living space and removed the old closet doors to put in the big mirrored doors. They really seemed to adore their mirrors–every closet in this house with sliding doors have mirrored doors; when we viewed the house prior to buying it, there were mirrors hanging on walls everywhere; this was just one of the many nutty things about the POs’ choice of decor. There were also the twelve TVs (one in almost every room!), their proclivity to cover every surface with framed photographs of themselves, or the burglar alarm that sounded, even while disarmed, if you cracked a window in what was their daughter’s room. Check out the original listing images to see what I mean.
But I digress. The crew was pretty busy for three days, pulling out the remains of the old system. Turns out the house had basically been designed and built to accommodate the original setup. It took a lot of work, but the guys eventually got the main return and supply ductwork out of the gaping holes in the concrete pad.
The pad for the garage and mud room (now the kitchen dining area) was poured around the original ducts. They were encased in concrete and prying them out was a tad difficult. The first image below shows the first stage of work as the burners, blowers and condensers were removed, leaving just the diesel supply lines.
Second pic is what things looked like originally. Sometime in the mid-90s, the POs had A/C installed and to do so, they jammed condensers in beneath the blowers (leaving no space for any sort of filtration), instead of pulling out or modifying the giant box the blowers sat atop. We replaced the return vents in the house in 2016 with custom ones that would accommodate filters and kept the air marginally clean for two years. It all sat atop a hollow wooden-framed box (third pic) connected to the ductwork at floor level. After much pulling and prying, the guys managed to empty the closet. Fourth pic is just about everything that was jammed in there (minus the plywood box). The rest of the images are miscellaneous furnace bits.
We had yet another Ecobox dumpster delivered for this project, and it was behind the sports court waiting for all the debris. We ended up filling the dumpster about halfway with furnace bits.
Once the old was out, it was time to put the new in.