Finally up on Geothermal, I must say it has been a great improvement with Groundloop inc.  Once they got started it has been nothing but smooth sailing.They drive about 2 hours to get to my house and they do excellent work.   From the backhoe company to the installers.  They are super friendly, very neat and efficient.

Install was as follows
4/18/13 - 4/19/13 Dug two 350' wells and installed loops & grout. They smoothed out all of the dirt (well at least as smooth as it can get with a backhoe)  They even smoothed out an uneven hill in my yard at my request for free.  I must say I was impressed.  I thought that I would end up with piles of dirt.

4/23  Dug 4' trenches for pipe & fused pipe & manifold leading into the house. Drilled through basement wall and sealed. Disconnected old furnace mo
4/24 Connected unit to duct work, installed flow center and connected pipe & removed old furnace
4/25 Installed new returns upstairs.  They even used excess insulation to cover my DIY project of insulating my ceiling recessed lights. Also connected and sealed duct work going to my bedroom.  It had major leaks. (two more unexpected freebies)
     Now running on auxiliary electric heat.  It sounded really loud when blowing through duct work.  I was worried at first but when I called Ted he told me that was normal when using the auxiliary electric heat. Fan will run on high. I should never need to use it, but it's there as a backup.
4/26  Installed return in basement & Aprilaire A700 humidifier. filled ground loops with fluid and removed old oil tank.  NOW OFFICIALLY RUNNING ON GEOTHERMAL!  It is much quieter & a very even temperature throughout the house.

What's left?  Installing hot water tank for desuperheater install humidifier control and check everything out.  Should be completely done on Monday 4/29.

Murphy's Law

As Murphy's law would have it, we are out of fuel oil, my mother-in-law is here from Germany & the temperature is getting near freezing at night.  We won't have heat for the next 2 days.  So we have space heaters.  I tried to use Diesel fuel in the furnace for a few days but either the fuel line got clogged or there is air in the line.  So I would have to have it serviced just for 2 days so we are on space heaters for a couple of days.

Ted from Ground loop will get the electrical backup heat going for us as soon as possible.  Glad that we decided to move forward with the project instead of waiting until my mother-in-law leaves.

Tomorrow I have to insulate the wall in the basement where the furnace will go. No sense in having an efficient geothermal unit and poorly insulated basement.

Project finally started.

Permit for the Geothermal drilling finally came in on 4/16/13.  Drillers came on 4/17 & finished up by 4/18.  After conferring with my wife, we decided to let Groundloop install the system next week when my mother in law is here.  It is not the ideal situation, but our back yard is full of ground stone.  Waiting until May 13th would only mean that our yard would be a mess into June.  So we opted to have it done next week.  Hopefully they can start on Tuesday when I will be home. (I have class on Monday).

New Installation Date

Okay. I talked to the Ted from Groundloop today. And told him that we have to postpone the geothermal install because my mother-in-law will be here from Germany next week. He tried to say that he can't control when the permits come through and that he submitted the request right after I signed the contract.  I then told him that the request was not made until 3/21 (I signed the contract on 3/3 ( informed him via phone on 3/1 that I wanted the job complete by 4/15 & 4/20 was my drop dead completion date) He told me that gave my info to the driller right after I signed the contract.  That he could show me when he gave it to the driller.He was clearly trying to put the blame on Montgomery County and the driller.  I told him that I had no interest in seeing when he gave it to the driller. That I signed a contract with him not the driller and he can't make the date & that he over promised.

 So now we have to postpone another month until the week of May 12th when  my mother-in-law leaves.
Let's hope that he can make that date.

No Permits

Still no permits from Montgomery County to do the drilling.  Ted from Groundloop said that they would be able to start in 3 weeks.  I actually thought that would be too tight,  so I gave him 7 weeks.  Well we are now in week 5 and I think it will probably be around 8 weeks. I clearly told them that I wanted it complete by the 15th. This is the 1st negative with this company.  Seems like they can promise anything to get the contract.  But it looks like they over promised on the completion date.  Let's just hope they don't miss on anything else.

On the brighter side, my new 21HP Craftsman lawn tractor with pull cart arrived today.  Now the lawn can get some attention.

Still No Permits

Had neighbor sign permission for the drillers to enter our property through his front yard.  

Still haven't heard back from the driller on the permits from Montgomery County, MD.  I was hoping to start drilling by Tuesday 4/9.  But it looks like we won't make that date.   We just need everything done by April 20th.  My mother in law will be here and I don't want to her to have to deal with the noise. We'll see.

Arrival of the 4 ton Water furnace Series 7 geothermal heat pump

Decided to blog about our experience with our new house in Germantown.
It is now March 2013 so I thought it best that we do a quick summary.

2011- 2012 - Spent a lot of time cleaning up my credit.  Surprised at some of the crap on my credit report.

May 2012 - We're pregnant.  Time to settle down and find a home.

July 2012 - Began searching for houses. Oddly enough Vicki Robinson (the Realtor that helped us find our rental house in Frederick) gave us a call and asked if we were thinking about buying.  We knew that we would use her based on our previous experience with her.

Mid July 2012 - Aug 2012 - Searched for houses in Frederick, Damascus, Germantown, Gaithersburg Urbana & Clarksburg.  Probably about 25 houses. Put an one offer in Damascus, it was overpriced so our offer was rejected.

Aug 2, 2012 - Got laid off from Lifetech.  End of the house search.  After all we can't think about buying a house with a baby on the way and one income.

Aug 7, 2012 - Got a phone call from Vicki that we were still qualified for a $350K home loan.  So we continued to look for a house & a job.

Aug 23, 2012 - Maja told Vicki that we liked our old neighborhood in Boyds.  Vicki sent an email letting us know that a house only 1 mile away from our old neighborhood was available

Aug 24, 2012 - Toured house and decided to put an offer in
Aug 25, 2012 - Put in official offer and it was accepted by owner (It was only on the market for 1 day)

Aug 26 - 2012 - 10 5,2012 -  Suffering through the worst experience ever with the worst finance company in the world. Don't use Doug Benner with Embrace Homeloans in Rockville MD. (In short- we had 6 different settlement dates, did not want to be copied on emails to help solve issues that his office was having, emailing & calling from Germany to explain simple bank transactions.  I even had to write to the VP of customer service just to get  the closing done.  There were too many problems to list them all, but trust me they suck)


Oct 8, 2012 - Moving day

Home Projects begin.

So far  projects completed

New Electrical breaker box. & installation of whole house generator interlock kit (we had some bad experiences with power outages in this area before & we wanted to make sure we had power this winter with the baby coming.
Remove wall in kitchen to make room for a larger refrigerator.
Installed a whole house water filter
Installed a water softener
Built a closet organizer for Maja
Built a closet organizer for Me
Painted Joshua's Room
Painted my man cave
Insulated recessed lights
Foam insulated Plugs
Sealed basement