I also hooked up the remote thermostatic controller, based on a unit made by Johnson Controls, to control the DeLonghi radiator heater (old version from 1997). It was easily adjusted to setpoint of 70 degrees. I left the thermostat on the heater set to "1" (which delivers a room temp range of 65-78 without external thermostat) and the heater set to minimum (350 watts or thereabouts) because kept the inside temp at 65 even with the outside freezing (even with the door bottom seals missing).
I had lots of reasons to do these things now, especially that I found some dead bugs inside Lyndhurst that had apparently crawled in through the doorway, and the electric bill for December 2012 was way higher than last year.
When I had previously removed the door bottom seals, I was thinking that one of two things was possible:
(a) the door bottom seals had picked up smells from the spray foaming, tiling, plastering, painting, etc.
(b) the door bottom seals blocked airflow from the bottom, however the lack of seals at the top of the door (fixed several weeks ago) created a negative pressure at floor level, sucking in smelly air from under the floor moldings. By removing seals from top and not the bottom, I had created an unbalanced pressure situation which would normally produce undesireable negative pressure at floor level.
This was something of a moment of desperation because while the chemical smells did seem to be decreasing, and were often not noticeable at all, sometimes they seemed to come back at a significant (though still reduced from original) level. So I wanted to try something new.
At the same time as I removed the door bottom seals, I also finished cleaning the undersides of all the wood shelving (where a lot of the smell seemed to be originating from, or maybe it was just that the smell had affinity for the paint on the shelving).
The combined result seemed at first to be the second most important smell reduction I achieved (the first being cleaning the top sides of all shelving). But I could not determine whether the improvement came from removing the door seals or cleaning the shelf bottoms.
Later, there was one particular day when the smell was almost back to the level before those changes, and after that I wasn't so sure about anything.
Anyway, once the door seals were off, I also considered the possibility that having the door seals off was providing needed ventilation after November 1 or thereabouts when I officially ended the formal outgassing period and closed the doors routinely.
The seals around the top and sides of the french doors had actually been removed by the contractor when I pointed out they had paint on them. I can't remember exactly how this went, but I might have told the contractor I would replace the seals (because I would buy new ones, whereas the contractor might try to use the old ones, just cleaned off a bit).
But I figured that with the top seal removed, the stack effect would force warm expanding air out the top of the door, but the seals on the bottom of the door would not allow new air to flow in, creating a small vacuum at floor level. Whether or not this was true, I determined I should replace the top seals first. I had purchased replacement seals in mid 2012 but finally installed the top seals a few weeks ago. About that time, I also purchased new door bottom seals, making sure they matched the ones originally on the door which I had stashed in Palmhurst. They did match, almost exactly, but needed trimming.
Replacing the top seal did actually seem to reduce the smell somewhat (though I no longer have much confidence in such assessments because they are highly variable and related to outside and inside temperatures and humidities).
I tried to replace the bottom seals for the first time a week or so later. I just brought some scissors into Lyndhurst to cut the new ones to size. But that cutting turned out to be more difficult than expected, and then I found I also needed to cut the spine of the molding which holds it into place. It needed to be cut back 1 5/16 of an inch to match the factory ones. That cutting could not be done with scissors.
I finally did do the cutting on the same day as I was finally clearing out the Queen's Room in my house. I had temporarily stored the new door bottoms in that room. The cutting was done with a large wire cutter and was very messy because I had to cut off small pieces which flew everywhere despite my trying to direct them into the trash can. That was OK because just after I finished, I vacuumed the entire room for the first time in at least 4 years. I intended to do the re-installation the next week, but didn't get around to it until the following week.
The seals went on very easily. I just pushed them up into the door, starting at the hinge side. I then went side to side pushing the seals up as far as possible. I kept doing this until the creaking noise it made while getting pushed up went away, indicating the seals could not be pushed up any more.
I had previously thought the door seals needed to be slid into place, and figured that might be rather difficult. Or possibly they might need to be nailed into place. The factory seals were stapled in place at the ends. The instructions actually say you must remove the door to replace the seals. But none of that turned out to be necessary. Installing seals is actually quite easy, and people should know this because seals are one of the most important parts of energy efficiency.
I plan to do the door side seals later, or perhaps leave them off. My thinking has been to leave a gap in the door seals on the sides, starting from about 4 inches up (to deter bugs) and then ending about 2 feet up (to prevent too much hot air loss). This would be the passive ventilation plan for the building, which otherwise is far better sealed than most buildings.
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