Getting Rid of the old Gravity Furnace and Getting a Brand New Furnace!

The day finally came! On August 14, 2008, the old gravity furnace, nicknamed Octopus by almost everyone who saw it, was dismantled and carried out. I stayed home and took photos as it happened.

First, the two young men laid canvas drop sheets in the path I had made for them from the front door to the basement door.

I followed them downstairs, showed them around, and when they exclaimed after they removed the first big duct, I ran down to take this picture of the garbage that had tumbled down that hot air duct. You may not be able to see the bottles and toys, and what-not that lay there.

They started to take the ol' octopus apart.

One of the fellows started carrying pieces of the old furnace outside. He made many trips past my desk!

Here's an early stage of the octopus duct work lying outside, with the top of the furnace nearby.

Now the octopus was stripped of it's outer shell and many arms. Kevin asked if they couldn't persuade me to keep this ol' octopus. I said, "No way!"

I heard some whacks of the sledge hammer after I went up to my desk again, and soon they had carried out half piece chunks. When I went down for another photo, there was just the footer left. But that had to go too.

Now the furnace is all out here, waiting for pickup - and it's only mid-morning!

I was amazed! I had thought it would take them all of the first day to get rid of the old furnace, but in two hours they were done, and were carrying in the new one!

There. The new furnace is standing in place, ready to hook up! Notice that it is smaller than the water heater.

Before long the basement was swarming with more workers, and in no time there were shiny new ducts hugging the ceiling. But of course, much smaller than the ones they had carried out.

They wanted a way up the chimney - so I cleaned out my kitchen cubby hole. Shane was assigned to cut a hole up to the chimney.

The electricians stayed longer than the others to hook up the wiring

Oh-oh! Look at the soot! Now, they had to go home about 5 pm, so I just cleaned up a bit, and left the rest for Friday. But Friday I had promised to be at the WTM office to fill in for someone else. I did come home to check at noon, but otherwise was away all day.