Monday Milestone -- Short Post

Seems like I've slipped out of my routine of posting daily progress every evening. May be because there is so much for me to do here that I crash and burn earlier. I'll try to post when there is progress to report....even if it's not every day.

Monday there was progress. Another milestone has been reached. 3283 now has a fully functional heating and air conditioning system. Yesterday morning Doug and Mike from Bremmer and Bouman arrived and finished making the final Freon line connections and installed the humidifier.

Mike is soldering the Freon line to the coils in the upper portion  of the furnace.
Yes, the heat/smoke from the torch set off the smoke detectors.

Mike also made the Freon line connection to the compressor  unit.

Doug is connecting the duct that connects the humidifier to the return air duct.

The 4 ton AC compressor is a little bigger than I expected.

They also walked around the house with me and made sure all the vents had register covers. The ones for the areas of new construction were left for me and the ones we found 'missing' [the four basement heat vents] were promised to be delivered. They said Jason from 'service' would be by in the afternoon to charge the system with Freon and get the thermostat set up. I guess it was around 12:30 or so when they left -- their work complete.

I had just enough time to call Bobbie and report on the progress when Jason arrived. He quickly set up his pressure test on the coolant gas lines and came in to start playing with the high-tech thermostat. With him at the unit, and me on my laptop and iPad we managed to:

• get the wifi enabled thermostat to connect to our home network
• get the network and unit to connect to the Honeywell web site, 
• download apps to my iPad and phone, and 
• get my iPad and smartphone linked through the internet to the thermostat.

I can now sit anywhere in the world [that has cell phone/internet access] and adjust the temperature  at 3283.  Actually, once Jason pronounced the AC to be ready to start up for the first time I changed the control settings from "heat" to "cool" from my phone while standing in the back yard.

Once the AC ran for a few minutes Jason gave the system another shot of Freon [Actually Freon has been banned for years.....but everyone still uses the old DuPont trade name for similar refrigerant gases. What runs through the AC systems now is actually a product called Forane 410A.] and pronounced the system operational.  The heat and air conditioning at 3283 are now operational.

Jason pressure testing the refrigerant gas system to the AC compressor.

Arkema the maker of 410A probably hates it when every calls the stuff Freon.

By mid afternoon Jason packed up and our HVAC system was up and running.

Evening seemed to come quickly to 3283 yesterday. It was a bright sunny day and I was expecting a typically clear sunset. But a bank of clouds formed late in the day that could have obscured the setting sun. But Old Sol wouldn't be denied. And I, luckily, grabbed my camera just as the setting sun peaked between the clouds and the horizon. Shot quickly, through a window, but a beautiful sunset none the less.