As many of you know, we have been raising funds to install a new climate control system in the Kaminski House for years. I’m thrilled to tell you that the work to install this new system has finally begun. During the installation process, the interior of the Kaminski House will be closed to the public. We hope to reopen for tours sometime in March.
Harold and Julia Kaminski installed a Carrier central air-conditioning system in the house in 1941. As time marched on, and technology improved, it became evident that the duct-work system was woefully inadequate to maintain the Kaminski House Museum’s interior climate control system. This old duct-work has now been removed from the house and we are currently in the process of having the new duct-work installed.
All the duct-work for the first floor of the house comes up from the basement and the duct-work for the second floor comes down from the attic/third floor level.
We hope that you enjoy viewing some of our photos of the project’s process:
Basement
Before - showing the interior side of the exterior basement door. Note the insulation hanging off one of the rusted old ducts.
After - showing the same doorway with the duct removed.
Crawl Space Encapsulation
Before - In addition to installing new duct-work and HVAC equipment, we also had the crawlspaces encapsulated. This will help keep moisture out of the interior of the house. The before photo shows a lot of brick rubble that was strewn around the crawl space. These bricks were removed and saved for later use
After - In this photo, you can see a corner of one of the new ducts to the left. The photo was taken before the ducts were insulated.
Third Floor/Attic
Insulation…take a look at the old duct insulation in the following photo. It looked like some kind of cardboard (we don’t know exactly what it was made of) and it absorbed lots of moisture from the air conditioning condensation.
The attic walls are made of very old plaster and are painted celadon green which was the Kaminskis’ color theme for the whole house. On the right side of the room is a closet that was installed by the Kaminskis, likely in the 1940’s.
Work on the third floor has called for some of the original floorboards to be taken up. The boards will be reinstalled when the new second floor ducts are installed.
In this photo you can see the old duct work and the top of the round vent in the middle of the photo.
We hope you have enjoyed seeing some of our photos of our new climate control system being installed. Stay tuned for more photos of the work as it progresses.
