That's So 70's

Over this past weekend we underwent a big project for our house. We replaced our old 40 gallon hot water tank for a 50 gallon power vent hot water tank. I will give you a moment to lower your hype. I know! haha. This was a very exciting project for us, more so Darrel, because this meant we could remove the massive B-vent running through the middle of our house. Getting us one step closer to our open floor plan dreams. What I have been told this difference between the two systems is the original b-vent relies on evaporations/draft to vent out fumes from the hot water tank. And normally they just get reabsorbed into the tank. The power vent has a fan like system that pumps the fumes outside of the house actively, instead of them floating up and outside. I don't think one is better than an other, just a different way of doing it. The nice thing about this new tank is even though it is larger, it uses less BTU's than our previous tank meaning it is more energy...

Here we go again. On boxing day we started demo of the main level. We have since torn out all the remaining carpet, taken down most of the drywall on the walls and ceiling, and removed the non-structural walls. Last week we met with out contractor to get the ball rolling to have the two structural walls removed to create an open floor plan on the main level. We will need 2 steel beams that will run parallel to each other. One of the beams will span from the back of the house to almost near the front, we have been told this will weigh around 750lbs!!! The other steel beam will be parallel to this monster and will open up the kitchen space. This one doesn't HAVE to be steel but since the steel beam is only 8" deep (rather than 12" for an LVL) for an extra $200 I wanted to keep the extra head space. GET SO EXCITED! I am so excited for the project to really start coming together. I am currently most looking forward to the completion of the structural beam install. I can...