Very Bad Things

There are quite a few things one should never do to an old house (any house for that matter). One of them is illustrated quite clearly here, which is cutting almost completely through a floor joist to run hot air ducting. This was undoubtedly done by the company who supplied the furnace for the changeover from hot water.

Floor joists are sized and installed, believe it or not, to support the load of the floor, the occupants of the house, and the walls above, and should never be hacked apart in such a fashion. Luckily the floor hasn't sagged much, and I have enough room to 'sister' a plywood brace into position, after figuring out what to do with the wiring. Not to the right, the newly relocated duct which is running to the upstairs bathroom, and shortens the duct length by about 16 feet.

Fixing Someone Else's Mistakes, Again (Part Two)

So with the fabric conduit removed, the 80 year old hot and return pipes cut out of the way, and the 120 year old large diameter vent pipe pulled up and out of the wall, I was then able to measure, cut, connect and install the five inch conduit to carry heat up to the two front rooms.

Now instead of heat carried via 6 inch contuit in the basement, and then flexible fabric tube to the floor near the heat registers, it runs along the same conduit in the basement, steps down to 5 inch rigid conduit up the wall, across the floor, and up to a 5 inch tee that has been specially cut to fit in place in between the two registers serving the front rooms. The photographs below show how this was installed.