Friday, February 17, 2012

Farmhouse Info:





The Farmhouse was built in 1850, It is Spacious (2200 sq ft), sunny and there is a river view out of all but one window. We bought the house in 2006 and have made significant changes for better energy efficiency. 

-Propane for the oven & clothes dryer are included in the rent.
- Average oil use for the past 3 winters was 750 gallons. 
-A new energy efficient refrigerator brought the energy bill down.
-There is a shared laundry area that is just off the mudroom that includes machines.
-There are two parking spaces available, as well as some limited guest parking.
-The owners live and work next door and use the garage to store equipment. Another couple lives in a studio unit above the garage. 
-We pay for trash pick up, plowing, landscaping and take care of all septic and water costs. 
  

Friday, September 4, 2009

House Tour:





The living room...


great natural light throughout the house...



loads of closet space...
This bedroom has a private half bath..

Lots of natural light...

Blue Bedroom

The loft space is above the Kitchen....

Spacious Kitchen....Breakfast nook looking into dining room

Dining room:
Over All View:






Saturday, July 18, 2009

Improvements




The Farmhouse sits on these big beautiful granite blocks, and this one had shifted over time. We had to budge the house up gently to slide this beautiful stone back into place. a loose stone foundation is typical of the area, however ours has enormous granite stones which would have been quite hard to move back in the day, so in that aspect its unusual. As these basements go we have been told ours is relatively dry. The floor is brick made in Dresden with cat paw prints and a few thumb prints fired into the brick. It is graded so that any water that does come in runs out a drain. One of the biggest changes we made in insulating was to install  foam  in the bulkhead door. That has made a big difference in keeping the house snug and warm in winter...

After our first year using almost 1500 gallons of oil to heat the house we got an energy audit. It was amazingly helpful.  The first energy retrofit brought the homes cfm from 9311 down to 5020 and (drumroll please) our most recent project (new windows in the kitchen) gave us a cfm of 2700 ! After a very long cold winter the tenants report that they used just under 700 gal of oil and burned 2.5 cords of wood. Not bad !

The loft space after new insulation and sheetrock:
New windows in the kitchen and dining room
Previously the laundry had been in the basement and the mudroom was dark and hard to access. We took out a wall, insulated and put up sheet rock. Now it is an open clean space, and a great way to enter the house......