A Century of Heat

This has certainly been a long time coming. After something like 120 years, there's finally heat on the second floor.

The house didn't originally have forced-air heat, of course. In fact, I'm not entirely sure how they did heat the place, because no remnants of the old heating system remain. We might have found part of an old boiler exhaust back in 2010, but I'm not even sure about that.

Much later on, someone installed a furnace under the crawlspace and added four forced-air heating ducts on the ground floor. That made the downstairs nice and toasty (when it worked), but left the 2nd and 3rd floors with no heat at all. That's how it was when we moved in.

Upstairs, we have this antique coal stove in the 2nd-floor dining room. It's a "Moore's Air Tight Heater" and weighs a metric ton. It's been heavily used, although I have a hard time imaging how you'd operate a coal stove in the middle of a house. Anyway, it got converted from coal- to gas-burning sometime around the 1930s or 1960s. We've tried to have it re-lit and put back into service, but none of the local furnace experts will touch it. It's not vented properly, it's not far enough from the wall, it's not safe, blah, blah, blah. The guy from the utility company refused to even light the pilot, but said I could do it myself if I waited until he got back in his truck and drove a block away. We finally got the message.

So how do we get heat upstairs? Turns out, there's an unused dumbwaiter shaft between the first and second floors. (It doesn't go up to the third floor, alas.) It's plenty wide enough for an 8-inch insulated duct, so we routed a new line up from the furnace to the second floor, added a wye, and brought out two new heat registers. One's in the 2nd-floor dining room, right near the defunct stove. The other is under the stairs to the third floor. Ah, heat. After the first day we could already tell the difference.

Getting it in was trickier than we planned, however. The dumbwaiter shaft takes care of the vertical run, but how do we get the heat out to the other rooms? The trick was to pass through Dr. Hart's Mystery Closet(TM). The closet is under the stairs, but only under the tallest part. The shorter part of the stairs is sealed off, wasted space. So I cut through the plaster and lath on that side, opening up access to the big triangular area under the stairs. From there, I could cut a 4x14" hole for the heat register.

I know I've droned on about this before, but it still surprises me every time I see it. The wooden supports under the stairs are all knot-free virgin redwood. Even the stringers, which are typically made from scrap, or at least cheap wood, are as thick as my leg and completely free of blemishes. The buried stair risers look furniture-grade. Geez, these guys sure knew how to waste good wood.

Anyway, once we'd gotten access to this space, it was easy to route the new heating duct. Now we've got a big silver snake coiled up at the bottom of the closet. Kathy will lose some of her storage, but we figure it's a good tradeoff.

A bit of history: The furnace we have now is at least the third generation of forced-air units to be installed in this house, not counting whatever they used in the 1800s and early 1900s. We installed a new furnace almost the very day we moved in, because the existing one was "putting out more carbon monoxide than heat," according to one inspector. But the one before that was still lurking under the house, taking up space. For some reason, nobody had hauled it out. I've been doing laps around it every time I go down into the crawlspace.

I say, "for some reason," but I know exactly why it was never removed. It's too big. Like the story of the man who builds a boat in his garage, only to find it won't fit through the door, the previous-previous furnace was bigger than the hatch into the crawlspace.

I measured the furnace and came up with something like 28" across its widest point. Then I measured the hatch: 27-3/4 inches. Really? You're that close and you're not going to fit? There's no way to widen the door, either, because it's between two studs. Which means it's never been any wider than it is now. So how'd they get it in?

We think they cut a hole in the floor and dropped the furnace straight down. As far as getting it out, that wasn't an option. But with only a quarter-inch difference, there must be some way to force it...

Kathy came outside with a concerned look on her face. "I heard a lot of banging. Are you okay?" A sledgehammer and tin snips made short work of our old furnace. What I couldn't cut off I battered with the hammer, and whatever didn't respond to battering got cut off. Eventually I "reduced" the dimensions of the furnace to 27-3/4 inches. You wouldn't want to install your shiny new one that way, but as far as removing a rusty old one, I was okay with it.

RIP, Mrs. Bergerac

The first restaurant to move into Dr. Hart's house was Maison Bergerac, and by all accounts, it was fantastic. Raymond and Betty Bergerac were French, and they'd moved to southern California in the 1960s before moving north to Pacific Grove and opening their restaurant here.

Bergerac's was the kind of place you went on special occasions. The food was outstanding and the waiting list was months long. They opened the reservation book for one day each year, and immediately sold out the entire season. It was that popular. Every winter, the Bergeracs went back to France to visit family, tour their favorite restaurants, and try new recipes. Their four children helped in the kitchen and, when they were old enough, waited tables.

The Bergeracs retired after about a dozen years and turned the restaurant over to new owners. The kids grew up, married, and started their own families in the area. I'm sure a few of them drive by here, their childhood home, every few days. Raymond died a few years ago, and the bench out front of the house is dedicated to him. Last year, Betty Bergerac died, and her name has been added to the bench, right next to Raymond's.

Her obituary appeared in the paper just as we were closing up the wall in the restaurant kitchen. We decided she'd be happy hidden away here, in the kitchen where she did so much to build its reputation, amid all the new clutter and bustle.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are grey.

You'll never know, Mama, how much we love you...

That Olde Tyme Look

The steady march of progress is robbing this kitchen of some of its original charm. Don't get me wrong: the room is far more sanitary than it ever was. It's an improvement, to be sure. But there's a real contrast between how this room was originally finished and how it looks now.

Take the walls. This room was originally finished in nice bead board below the chair rail, with plaster above. The redwood tongue-and-groove bead boards are all around the lower half of the kitchen. The redwood was stained originally, but got painted over later. Oddly, we've found a mix of green and yellow boards on the same wall, and some are more faded than others.

I had briefly (very briefly) thought we might restore the bead board in the kitchen, but after taking a closer look we quickly abandoned that idea. It would never pass the health inspection, but even if it did... nah. It's too far gone.

The first restaurant that went in here in the 1970s covered the room in a mixture of stainless steel and aluminum. The stainless held up pretty well, but the aluminum sheeting corroded and was pretty nasty. When we removed the old kitchen sink we also tore off the aluminum behind it, and uncovered all of this bead board. That also gave us the opportunity to replace the old plumbing and re-wire the electrical outlets on this wall. See that ungrounded outlet near where the sink used to be? Yikes.

After all the behind-the-wall work was done, the next step was to mount "green board" over the top of the bead board and plaster. That's water-resistant drywall, and lays the foundation for the new stainless. We had a local stainless guy come in and take measurements. Then he scurried away to get the materials and came back at the end of December to install it. Installation took maybe an hour, with another day to let the adhesive set.

Now the "wet wall" is all shiny and neat and up to code. Once we get the sink installed it'll actually be functional, too. We've got new PEX plumbing in the wall, new shutoff valves, and a new GFCI outlet. (Electrical note: the entire metal wall is now grounded.) It may not look quite as charming as the old redwood bead board (at least, back when that was new), but it's a lot safer for cooking and a lot easier to clean.

...the Kitchen Sink!

You knew there had to be one.

Or five, actually. One of the things we learned about restaurant health codes is that you need five -- count 'em, five -- sinks in a foodservice kitchen.

• One for washing dishes
• One for rinsing dishes
• One for sanitizing (bleaching) dishes
• One for washing your hands, and finally...
• One for washing vegetables and other food

Five freakin' sinks. In one kitchen. The first three are usually combined into a triple-basin sink. The other two stand separately, but the hand-washing sink has to be within 10 feet of the stovetop/oven. I think the idea is that it should be easy to reach and you won't be tempted to simply wash your hands in the dishwashing sink.

Oh, and the three dish-washing sinks all have to be large enough to submerge the largest pot, pan, or utensil in your kitchen. In our case, that means washing a full-size sheet pan, so an 18" minimum was required.

Regulations also require two drain boards, one on each side of the sink, as sanitary places to set dishes. But since our kitchen wall is pretty short -- and we've got to make room for five freakin' sinks -- the health inspector gave us a waiver and allowed us to get away with only one drain board, as long as we promise to set the dirty dishes somewhere else. I held my hand over my heart and promised.

The triple sink got delivered on New Year's Eve, which I feel sure was the highlight of the truck driver's afternoon. Ironically, even though the sink is pretty small and light, it didn't fit through the door! Or more accurately, its box didn't fit, so Kathy and I unboxed it on the back porch and wrestled the stainless steel beast into the kitchen.

I haven't plumbed it in yet -- there's some dispute over the regulations regarding air gaps, grease traps, and drainage. Once that gets settled, we'll hook this baby up and have a working kitchen!

Chill, Dude

At the same time the mega-range got delivered, its more sedate sibling came in the mail, too. We ordered a True model TWT-76 six-foot-long countertop refrigerator. It's basically a normal fridge lying on its side, with a stainless worktop across the top. That gives us some much-needed counter space as well a refrigerated storage.

As big as it is, the fridge was a whole lot easier to deliver than the range. It's awkward, but not nearly as heavy.

Both pieces almost didn't make it into the house. The delivery guys were that close to taking them back. When I ordered the appliances, I made sure to clarify the delivery options. "You guys will bring them all the way into the house, right? Okay, we've got a deal."

Appliance makers are no dummies. They know their gear has to fit through doorways when it's delivered to a restaurant. But they're thinking of wide, ADA-approved doors, not odd Victorian-era doors. They told me they could deliver the range and refrigerator if I could guarantee them a 31-inch-wide opening.

I measured our downstairs kitchen, and we had a 28-inch door, a 29-inch door, and a 31-inch door. Bingo! We're in business.

You would think. They also stipulated no stairs. Ramps are okay, but no steps of any kind. Fair enough; they're hauling an 890-pound range. I wouldn't want to take that upstairs, either. The ramp Kathy and I made last summer took care of most of the elevation, and a makeshift ramp I made out of plywood took care of the rest. Now we're in business, right?

Maybe. They got the range down off the truck okay, and we threw blankets over it to ward off scratches as the three of us pushed and pulled it up the ramp from the sidewalk into the backyard. Then we turned the beast 90 degrees -- in the sand -- and aimed it up the plywood ramp and toward the promised 31" back door.

The range got about four inches into the doorway and got stuck like Winnie the Pooh. We took the knobs off the front, but that didn't help. We took screws off the back, but it was still too tight. We took the blanket off, because the fraction of an inch that it added made a difference. I removed the weatherstripping from the door frame. I  countersunk nails. Finally, we tightened some bolts on the back of the range, and that little 1/32 of an inch adjustment allowed us to just barely squeeze through, scratching the paint off the door all the way. When these guys say they need 31 inches, they don't mean 30.999. They want it down to the molecule.

That got the range in. Now it's time for the fridge. It's lighter but a foot longer, and that presented its own problems. You see, the back way into the kitchen is through two doors, not just one. They're both 31" wide (just), but they're not aligned with one another. There's a slight jog as you move from one door to the other. It's barely noticeable when you're walking, but when you're moving a six-foot appliance...

We got the fridge through the first door okay, but then it wouldn't go through the second door. We couldn't angle it over to the other door because it was exactly as wide as the first doorway, forcing it straight ahead. (Stand around and look confused for a while.) Finally, one of the installers gets an idea. "Stand it up on end," he says. We tip it up, walk it though the doorway (which is more than six feet high), then twist it and walk it through the second door. And we're in! Piece of cake.

Now we have both fire and ice. In fact, we've got everything but...

Heavy Metal

Woo-hoo! The stove and refrigerator got delivered on November 14!

Once we got the new kitchen floor down, it was time to start stacking things on top of it, starting with the major appliances. First up: the heavy metal.

We shopped around quite a bit for the range and the refrigerator before settling on a semi-local source in San Francisco. Turns out, commercial ranges are custom built. You order the size and features that you want, and they make it at the factory somewhere in the Midwest. The whole process takes maybe four weeks, depending on the options you order.

For the range, we got a 60" Wolf Challenger XL with six burners, a 24-inch griddle, and two gas ovens. The 60" dimension means it's 5 feet wide from side to side. It's freakin' huge. It's all stainless steel, MIG welded, and weighs 890 lbs.

Each of the six burners is as big as a dinner plate, and puts out 30,000 BTUs. Just lighting the pilots makes the room noticeably warmer. We could have fit up to 10 burners across the top, but that seemed kind of pointless, so we got six burners and a 24-inch griddle. The griddle plate is a solid block of metal and is so heavy it took two guys to lift it. It's not even fastened down; it's just held in place by gravity. Lots of gravity.

Having two ovens allows us to bake different things at once, and both are "bakers depth," meaning they accept a full-size 26" sheet pan (as opposed to the half sheet pans I'm used to). They're also gas-fired, with their own pilot lights.

With everything running, the range can put out over 250,000 BTUs, or about enough to launch a Saturn V. It sucks down gas faster than a Hummer. I love it.

I Shall Call You Fireball

Voila! Our first official restaurant appliance. This is your basic KitchenAid stand mixer, but turbo-charged for heavy-duty commercial duty. See that important-looking orange power cord and spiffy NSF logo on the side? That's just like a BMW logo: you pay extra for that.

Actually, it's a pretty nice mixer, as mixers go, and it's got a 7-quart capacity; much bigger than the civilian model that we've been using upstairs for years. It came with all the usual beater attachments, although it's not compatible with some of the gizmos that plug into the top, like pasta rollers. No problem; we don't intend to use those anyway.

So far, Fireball is still clean and unused. We've yet to fix our first batch of scones in it, but I just know that day is coming.