I know that I've been talking about Craigslist a lot lately and I'm sorry about that. It's just that I've been using the junk out of it lately and have been scoring some sweet deals. And, whether you want to hear about them or not, I want to write about them. So there. Oops. Now my apology doesn't seem very sincere, does it? It may not be. Just sayin'.So, what have I scored now, you ask? Last night, I picked up two brand new (still in the boxes) glass inserts for our back patio doors. The guy who listed them for sale had them listed for a while, but I don't think that he knew what they were for. He was listing them as fixed glass windows, which they are, I guess. It's just that he thought that they were some custom special ordered items. When, in fact, they probably fit in most wood-framed glass doors. I told him what I was doing with them and he seemed genuinely happy that they would finally be put to use. He said he bought them at a discount building materials store at $80 for the pair. I bought them at his listed price at $40 for the pair. Booyah! Thank you, God!
This purchase is awesome because we put in a lot of work several years ago transforming an old windowed-in back porch into a new 130 square foot addition to our living space. We got the patio doors for free from a friend who spotted them being given away at a garage sale. It's a little hard to tell from the photo, but moisture got in between the two panes of glass in the functioning door which makes it permanently cloudy. The stationary door had one pane broken, so it's actually clear and can be cleaned, but radiates cold in the winter and heat in the summer pretty awful. So, with the new panes, they'll be beautiful, clear, and efficient since they are dual pane and insulated with low-E glass. I'm going to be installing them this weekend so, no doubt, I will post some before, during, and after photos.The night before last, I made two purchases. The first was a really nice furnace for our second story (and I have a lead on a matching AC condenser that I will likely pick up from a guy tomorrow). These deals aren't anything to write home about, really. However, I've looked at several furnaces and with the dollar range that I've been narrowing my search to I managed to see some pretty rough units that were nothing short of questionable. The unit that I got, though, is in great shape, isn't very old, and came from a guy in the HVAC business. He finished out his full basement and then had to upgrade to a larger unit to handle the increase in square footage from 1900 to 3800 square feet. I'm really excited about the prospect of upgrading our home by splitting off the second and third stories from the first into two separate climate-controlled areas. The two individual systems will not only make it more comfortable in our home, but will also take the load off the one unit and run more efficiently overall. Adding an all new system plus all the duct work would run us several thousand in normal circumstances, but we should have it all done installed and running for under eight hundred.
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