Keeping the Heat in, Even With a Sunroom.

Yeah, I'm with you on the new construction. There's just something missing, like character I suppose? They all look like the proverbial cookie cutter or Mac Mansions, ....I like the fact that many generations have lives their lives in my old place. Allot of ghosts around to add to the ambiance. I didn't realise that Sherman's march to sea kind of started right there in the Richmond area, and how much it impacted the area. Makes sense though.
I suppose that you'll find most old homes were built of whatever material was abundent in the area. Up here, the soil is pretty "boney". Allot of sand and gravel quarreys. I'd imagine that this are was under the sea at one point? That why you'll see so many old stone foundations. My kitchen and dining room is split by a fieldstone fireplace that the Glenwood is hooked up to. It has a fireplace (that is my wine cellar on the other dining side. It was built and is decorated with Jasper stones from nearby Jasper Beach. You can see it in this pix.

Wow, and acre garden iss a nice size! That could be a good side source for Farmers marketing or provide you with all the produce you need plus the famers market. I need to expand mine some as I have the space to do so. It's a bit swampy though and I'd have to cut out a bunch of alder roots. Maybe I'll put a couple pigs in back there and let them do the work .

I never get tired of looking at pictures of that stove of yours. It just looks like it belongs.

w used to use a drape in our old house that was rubber lined they were room darking got them from JC Penny's they really keep the room a lot warmer

Jeff

they were like this here

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Smokeyja wrote:

SteveZee wrote:I got the stone foundation goin on too here of course with a 225 year old house. I also have a large sun porch facing south (which is the coast line too). The difference is it's build onto the outside wall of the house and so there are two doors. On a sunny day that thing is warm though and I actually use it for a green house in spring to start my plants. I could use a better door from the porch to into the kitchen as its all panes of glass with a cat door but still its not a huge leaker. Mine is not considered a part of the living space, at least not in winter! This is an old pic of the front but you can see the porch with the deck on it. Big ole tomato plant in the window!

great house Steve! Wow 225 year! It looks great! Here is the rest of the shots of my house.

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back2.JPG

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But the real reason I bought the house was the Garage its around 1500sq ft with a lean to on the back that used to house two horses. That's where I keep my tractors

cubhome.jpg

I was throwing around some ideas with my Dad about the sunroom. It's going to be expensive but whatever l guess. Once I get the base heater I can just crank up the heat more. At least thats my logic behind it

Smoky,the original part of your house is much older than you might think it is. It is a, "Federal Style," built in a form that was very popular in the South from about 1810 all the way up to the early 1840's. It was built with the fireplaces on each end and a large open breezeway which runs from front to back on both the upper and main floors. The breezeway is a critical part of the design to keep the house cool during the hot, humid summers. Even on the hottest, muggiest day without wind, there is a breeze in the central hallway, even if it is slight. Cooling the house in that climate was more of a more difficult problem to solve than keeping it warm. There were two kitchens, one in the house for the winter and another outside in its own little building for the summer. You will find that genrally the rooms are larger and ceilings higher in these houses than their contempories up North. The back wing of the house was added during the 1920's and the whole house got new windows during the 20's. The front porch, now enclosed was added years after the house was first built. Federal style houses didn't have front porches originally, they had back porches though. I thought you might like to know a little bit about the architecture of your house.

wsherrick wrote:

Smokeyja wrote: great house Steve! Wow 225 year! It looks great! Here is the rest of the shots of my house.

The attachment side.JPG is no longer available

The attachment back2.JPG is no longer available

The attachment back.JPG is no longer available

The attachment garage.JPG is no longer available

But the real reason I bought the house was the Garage its around 1500sq ft with a lean to on the back that used to house two horses. That's where I keep my tractors

The attachment cubhome.jpg is no longer available

I was throwing around some ideas with my Dad about the sunroom. It's going to be expensive but whatever l guess. Once I get the base heater I can just crank up the heat more. At least thats my logic behind it

Smoky,the original part of your house is much older than you might think it is. It is a, "Federal Style," built in a form that was very popular in the South from about 1810 all the way up to the early 1840's. It was built with the fireplaces on each end and a large open breezeway which runs from front to back on both the upper and main floors. The breezeway is a critical part of the design to keep the house cool during the hot, humid summers. Even on the hottest, muggiest day without wind, there is a breeze in the central hallway, even if it is slight. Cooling the house in that climate was more of a more difficult problem to solve than keeping it warm. There were two kitchens, one in the house for the winter and another outside in its own little building for the summer. You will find that genrally the rooms are larger and ceilings higher in these houses than their contempories up North. The back wing of the house was added during the 1920's and the whole house got new windows during the 20's. The front porch, now enclosed was added years after the house was first built. Federal style houses didn't have front porches originally, they had back porches though. I thought you might like to know a little bit about the architecture of your house.

William, I want to grab a cup of coffee and sit and talk with you for hours about this. This is the first time anyone has ever told me anything about my house. This is amazing and your description of my house is spot on! Behind my house where the old back porch was (now a deck) there is a old foundation that I thought might be a kitchen or smoke house. Also I actually do have a bit of stone in the foundation that the addition sits on. I will try and see if I can get a picture under the porch of it. I always wondered why that bit had stone in it and possible it could have been the original back porch. There was a third addition at some point in time to the porch and then it looks like they tore down the side wall to the 20s addition and opened it up to the addition of the large kitchen where a porch used to be. There is a staircase now where there might have been the other chimney. I also have hundreds of old hand made bricks that match the standing side chimney, so maybe they took the other side one down at one time. There is the original well still as well. I just need to put new leather gaskets in it to work again. When they built the addition in the 20s that you were speaking of, they just built right on top of the room, shingles and all. The shingles on the original roof seem to be correct for the period being the larger shingle that was once rolled out and cut. Here is the inside of the original part of the house. There is so much more to this house and I have no records on it so I really appreciate the history lesson on the style. I would like to learn more about this. How do you know all of this? This is some seriously good information. Even my counties historical society wont give me the time of day.

I too excited and almost on overload ! yesterday a french piece of history and now today my house history! WOW!

BTW my house stays very cool in the summer. I have no Air conditioning, but open up the back door and the sunroom windows and this house will be a lot cooler than outside all day and night long. also the current siding on the house is asbestos is in awesome condition and I am sure that when the add on was made in 1923 the siding was added as well. The kitchen has wood siding and seems to be a later addition.

Love that water pump outside! I'd give anything to have one of those on my property. It's always great to have a second water source if you are like us and on public water all of the time.

musikfan6 wrote:Love that water pump outside! I'd give anything to have one of those on my property. It's always great to have a second water source if you are like us and on public water all of the time.

Up here its all drilled wells. Mine is 508 feet deep and the water is outstanding good. Always nice and cold too. I think that water is Maine's biggest resource.

musikfan6 wrote:Love that water pump outside! I'd give anything to have one of those on my property. It's always great to have a second water source if you are like us and on public water all of the time.

From the looks of it. Originally they had no running water in this house, then tey ran pipes after the fact from that hand pump well too the pump room which are capped off now because later on they had a deeper larger well dug which we get our water from now still on an old 110v pump which works great! The water unfiltered is better and colder than the county water, had to have it tested of course. We are also using a septic system that is over 100 years old, at least that's what the septic guys said. It's a 3 slab top large tank that looks like the concrete they used to make in the 19th century. I had to have all te header lines replaced to the drain field which is my neighbors back yard lol... That's how old this property is and no one could tell me where the septic system was when I bought the house. I had to pay a company to find the darn thing.
Here's a photo of then digging out my collapsed D-box an putting a new one in.




The septic people Said I probably would need a new tank in a couple of years, but I said as long poop isn't backing into or under my house this tank works just fine and has for the past 100 years right?
I also have a grey water tank. Some of you might know what they are. It's a seperate tank exactly like the septic tank that all your washing and shower water goes into. The EPA or whoever deals with that ban the use of separate tanks in the 70s I believe. I have no idea why because grey water systems make so much more sense!

SteveZee wrote:

musikfan6 wrote:Love that water pump outside! I'd give anything to have one of those on my property. It's always great to have a second water source if you are like us and on public water all of the time.

Up here its all drilled wells. Mine is 508 feet deep and the water is outstanding good. Always nice and cold too. I think that water is Maine's biggest resource.

508' crap! That's deep! Mines like 50-100ft I believe. We have a good source of underground water as well here. I was looking into having an artisian well like you have but my water is cold and good yet round so... Do you use a water filtration system at all? I have a $5000 one in the pump room from the previous owner but it's been in bypass mode sense I bought the house and I haven't seen the purpose behind having it cleaned and using it either. It's all digital and confusing anyways lol. Also with a 225 year old house you are bound to have at least two other wells somewhere right?

musikfan6 wrote:Love that water pump outside! I'd give anything to have one of those on my property. It's always great to have a second water source if you are like us and on public water all of the time.

**Broken Link(s) Removed**Drill a small deep hole and run some pipe .

Smokeyja wrote:

SteveZee wrote: Up here its all drilled wells. Mine is 508 feet deep and the water is outstanding good. Always nice and cold too. I think that water is Maine's biggest resource.

508' crap! That's deep! Mines like 50-100ft I believe. We have a good source of underground water as well here. I was looking into having an artisian well like you have but my water is cold and good yet round so... Do you use a water filtration system at all? I have a $5000 one in the pump room from the previous owner but it's been in bypass mode sense I bought the house and I haven't seen the purpose behind having it cleaned and using it either. It's all digital and confusing anyways lol. Also with a 225 year old house you are bound to have at least two other wells somewhere right?

Nope zero filtration needed at that depth. I test it every few years to make sure but it's always top shelf stuff. Yep your right about the old wells. There were two. One was a huge covered job that fed a sardine cannery down the hill on the river and another was an old surface type house well I filled in and covered over.

William, I found out more about my house that confirms your description of it and it's age. I did some digging under te house today while tracing pex water lines and found the bottom of the old chimney where it once was on the opposite end of the house. It looks like the house was neer built on a brick foundation originally but when they did the addition In the 20s , they lifted the house off an old wood foundation and put a foundation around the addition an original house. The interesting thing is the foundation is old Portland-lime so obviously its newer but the second chimney with the terracota liners is made with old lime mortar . There is a lot of old stuff burried under the house and if I ever get the nerve to crawl in such a small space I might be able to get to it. I also found something interesting about the old pump room. It seems to me that below its floor boards the basement like stone cement combo goes very deep, a lot deeper than the foundation of the house and almost makes me think it was some type of deep basement like room that's been filled in because there is a very old bulb socket hooked to the houses old wiring and it's right at the dirt . Who puts a bulb on the ground? No one right so there has to be more to that. The roof also used to have a tin roof because it seems in some spots they left the tin and shingled over it. So I know it's pre-civil war now but how old beyond 1840... Let me ask you this: how old would hand joined wood flooring be?
All these boards you can tell we're hand joined and cut to different sizes.

This is after I ripped the carpet up, what a mess, but I saw beauty!
Here is after refinishing and I found a flue in the wall that was un covered behind the sheet rock! I felt a draft and poked some holes and sure enough.


Here is the finished room. Trim cost am arm and a leg so I bought western cedar rough cut and made my own trim. It mathes the aromatic cedar closet. I also took out te sheet rock and plaster covering the chimney and framed it in.

Nice work Josh! Love the floors and the exposed flue. I hear you about the crawl spaces. Especially down your way, you never what what you'll find down there! Hey! maybe there an old stove!

My place has wide pine floors with boards cut as they came off the trees. So you got some 12" wide and some 6" etc.... They also used some hemlock for flooring on my front porch. That stuff is pretty hard as it gets old and drys. Bend allot of nails on it!

SteveZee wrote:Nice work Josh! Love the floors and the exposed flue. I hear you about the crawl spaces. Especially down your way, you never what what you'll find down there! Hey! maybe there an old stove!

My place has wide pine floors with boards cut as they came off the trees. So you got some 12" wide and some 6" etc.... They also used some hemlock for flooring on my front porch. That stuff is pretty hard as it gets old and drys. Bend allot of nails on it!

I hear you on bending nails! It will even bend the maze hardwood nails. The upstairs of my house is all heart pine the downstairs is all oak. There was an abundance of heart pine on the east coast up until the mid 19th century.
The crawl space is too small for a stove haha most of it is only a little over a foot so I'd be squished in there and I'm not a fan of small spaces an I have broad shoulders so small spaces don't work well with me. There is pieces of an old stove in the woods though ! I only have a few pieces but in sure ill find them all one day. I'll share the pics on here sometime . You find anything crazy at your place?

Yep I found some old pieces to a cookstove scattered around the property. I used one, the piece that holds the lids, as a top for a compost pile . Looks like a small two holer .