AW Home Renovation!

formerlyGDaisy09

Last week we started making real progress on our home renovation projects. this involves 3 main projects (all with various sub projects). 

First we are finishing the basement: this involves finishing about 500 sqft of space into 2 rooms, one is a guest bedroom, the other will be an entertainment/office space. I did not get any before photos in (picture an unfinished basement cement floors and walls). but I've put some progress photos at the end of this post. 

Second we're replacing all the windows in the living areas of the house. the windows in the home were not extremely old, however they are drafty, and not operating efficiently, infact they were so inefficient that they would build up tons of moisture on the glass about 6 months out of the year and we were getting a lot of water damage on our window sils. we're switching from casement windows to gliding windows, in several places this is going to significantly increase the amount of sunlight coming into the house, because there will only be two panes of glass rather than 3. In our living room we're converting the 3 window casement to a 3 window bay and are installing a window seat. 

Third, we're installing Photovoltaic solar panels on the roof to generate most of our own electricity. we're approved for Net-metering by our electric company so our total annual costs for electricity should be $0 (estimated by the solar company given the expected efficiency of our panels and our average usage in the last 3 years). We should be able to expect small checks from the electric company during the summer months as we should generate more electricity than we use, and we should have only small bills through the winter. For this project we've taken down a couple trees in the yard to increase the amount of sun hitting our roof. 

 

The contractor added a little closet to make the ceiling near the furnace easier. the walls around the furnace are going to be hinged so they can fold back when we need access to the furnace. 

This is the space that will be the bedroom. the window is getting made at least twice as large as it is so that it meets egress codes ( the opening must be at least 6 sqft), we're putting in a 4'x4' gliding window. 

hoffse

Exciting!  You're going to long having that extra finished space.

jessica490

Wow looks great so far!

simplyelise

Looks great!

And huge props for the homework you've done on the PV panels. From the utility world perspective, it can be pretty rough when people think it's as easy as buying panels and plugging them in. I work for municipal utilities, so their net metering rules vary widely and their customers can sink a lot of money without looking at the rules, then be very angry.

formerlyGDaisy09

simplyelise said:

Looks great!

And huge props for the homework you've done on the PV panels. From the utility world perspective, it can be pretty rough when people think it's as easy as buying panels and plugging them in. I work for municipal utilities, so their net metering rules vary widely and their customers can sink a lot of money without looking at the rules, then be very angry.

I think we've been really lucky to have found a small solar company to do the work, they've really walked us through every step of the process from net-metering applications with the utility company, to connecting us with arborists to take the trees down, and then making sure any work we're doing that relates to solar (trees, upgrade of the electric panel...) gets submitted for state and federal rebates. 

We should also be getting a federal rebate on the windows since they meet energy star qualifications. 

Xstatic3333

That's awesome! From a fellow New Englander, you will notice huge savings on heat with the new windows!

juliebeannn

Looks great!!!!

vlagrl29

That's awesome!  We really need to finish off our basement but need to get rid of some stuff down there so we have room.  Once his studio opens we will get rid of several things and once we know if we will have another girl or boy for next baby I will be able to get rid of lots of totes with clothes.  He also needs to sell his bedroom set that he used before moving into my home.  I'm hoping that we can finish ours off before baby #2 would come.  He's hoping to do a lot of it himself because we don't really have the funds for it and would have to finance it which I don't really want to do.

short+sassy

I know you all must be excited to be getting to work on these projects!

I have net metering also, but mine does not supply 100% of my electricity .  I'm jealous!  But even if it did, my local energy company only gives a check for overages, above and beyond the energy usage, once the account has been closed.

formerlyGDaisy09

vlagrl29 said:

That's awesome!  We really need to finish off our basement but need to get rid of some stuff down there so we have room.  Once his studio opens we will get rid of several things and once we know if we will have another girl or boy for next baby I will be able to get rid of lots of totes with clothes.  He also needs to sell his bedroom set that he used before moving into my home.  I'm hoping that we can finish ours off before baby #2 would come.  He's hoping to do a lot of it himself because we don't really have the funds for it and would have to finance it which I don't really want to do.

we had been planning to fund the basement ourselves, however once it became clear we had to do the windows too, we had no choice but to venture down the road of financing. 

WE've got tons of stuff that was in the space (currently occupying the garage) I'm planning to go through it as we move it back into the house. fortunately several of the bigger items (2 dressers) will get used in the space we're finishing...one in the bedroom, the other in the entertainment room under where we're putting the TV. We also finally got some boards so the attic could be used for storage of things like clothing. 

CuriousKiddosMama

That is so exciting! It's going to be great when it's all done.

vlagrl29

Ideally we would like the back half of our basement to be storage and the front half finished.  we have a full basement and would love to use it.  Barely anything was down there when I was single but since DH moved in and having DD it's gotten quite full  We will probably end up financing at least half between that and hard wood floors I want on our main level - it's just sometimes inevitable.

formerlyGDaisy09

Not much progress so far this week, BUT H has got both the solar company and the electrician stopping by the house today, so hopefully progress will be made at the end of the week. 

the electrician is going to place outlet boxes where he thinks outlets/switches should go and mark out canned lighting on the ceiling...then H and I can spend this evening adjusting things if we want  so that we have outlets etc. where they'll be most useful to us. 

The solar company has all our parts in, they want to stop by and double check measurements today before they truck everything over to our house!

formerlyGDaisy09

Our solar panels went up this week! they get "turned on" for net metering by the utility company on wednesday morning!

We've also got sheetrock up in the basement, I'll try to get photos of that today. 

short+sassy

Nice!  That is twice as many solar panels as I have.

Once your net metering is turned on, go watch your meter on a nice sunny day.  It will roll BACKWARDS .  Such a good feeling!

formerlyGDaisy09

my grandfather has about the same number of panels ground mounted (so ideal facing and angle for maximum efficiency) he says somedays he'll just stand and watch his meter fly backwards.