I joined a cleaning crew working on fixing up an old couple’s neglected home.
The decluttering went first, then came the maintenance for various things.
The house had an old and rusted boiler in the basement that had outgrown any possible boiler repair. The owners had been using a furnace heater instead but even that needed extensive furnace/heater tune-up. We had to buy new functional HVAC equipment, and we couldn’t afford to, so we called in a heating contractor to help with the project. The HVAC repairman tried to work on each heating technology, but we were out of luck. We all thought that reviving at least one of them would be as simple as replacing a furnace filter, but due to neglect, the HVAC technician recommended a full replacement. Finding the funds for it took a lot of work since we were working on a fixed budget. But miraculously, I can only call it a miracle because someone offered to pay full price for a new one. We couldn’t install a central heater because the house needed more space for ductwork, although that was the cheaper option, and the electric furnace was way beyond all our budgets. Our procurement expert managed to get a deal with the heating and cooling provider, saving us a bit of money from the purchase and installation costs. For the last week of our project, we had a plumber and an HVAC technician team around the house doing installations, and it was such a lively part of the project. Once the installation was done, we scheduled the HVAC repairman for maintenance to ensure that the new unit received better care.