Thursday, February 4, 2016

No more winter winds....

Luckily, even though it is a 1920's house, it has replacement windows.  However, they were cheap replacement windows 20 years ago, so they leak air like a sieve.  Even though this has been an extremely mild winter thus far (58 degrees on Feb 1, 2016 and 52 degrees on Feb 4, 2016), I am still committed to making energy efficient improvements.  Enter the interior storm widow build.

If you have not heard of interior storm windows, maybe you have seen people in cold climates cover their windows with plastic to stop the draft coming in?  This is like that, but better.  I have built frames that are then wrapped on both sides with shrink wrap plastic so you end up with a double glazed plastic window insert.  The frames are made 1/2" smaller than the window openings.  This enables them to be edged with 1/2 by 1/2 foam weather stripping that makes them a tight press fit into the window.  It also seals the window area, and makes a big difference in air infiltration.  With less air flowing into the house, there is less hot air being displaced, so the house stays warmer, and the heat runs less.  With a cost of between $10-20 per window, this may seem like a large outlay of money, but my dad, who has also done this, said for the 60ish windows in his house, it paid itself back in under a year.  While I have not kept detailed records, and also have not done a winter in this house without them, I cannot speak to how quickly they will pay themselves back.  On the other hand, I can feel a marked difference in how warm the house feels, and how long it takes for the heat to kick on.

On a tip from my dad, I bought pre-primed, finger-jointed boards, as my windows are white.  This means that I did not have to paint them to match, which cut down on the time it takes to cut, assemble, cover, and install them.  You do have to be careful when assembling them to make sure the primed edge is facing in, as I ripped 1x4's in half, so one edge is bare wood.  The added complication for me was that I used half lap joints to assemble them (stronger than butt joints), so I had to consider which side the dado's were on.  Not all of my interior storms ended up with white borders on the inside, but it is trivial.

Because these windows are covered in shrink wrap material, if a storm window has a dimension of more then about 50", a cross piece is necessary.  If the crosspiece is not used, the shrink wrap will pull the center of the frame inward, making it no longer line up with the window frame (read: it leaks air, otherwise).


If you do a good job measuring where the crosspiece gets installed in relation to the window, it essentially disappears where the two window halves meet.  This makes the interior storms almost invisible.















On the other hand, if you are installing one where no one is likely to see it, who cares what it looks like.  This is covering the hatch to the attic crawl space.  I attempted to weather strip the hatch and insulate it, but both were poorly executed due to space and time constraints.  The hatch is the weak point in the attic insulation at this point anyway, since I blew in about 25 bags of cellulose insulation this fall.  When the house was inspected we were told there was only 0-10" of insulation up there.  In climate zone 6, code for attic insulation is r-49+.  With a maximum of r-32 up there, we were deficient in insulation, especially when you consider that over the dormer-ed sections had none.  By cutting access holes and blowing in 25 bags worth of insulation, we are now above r-49 pretty much everywhere.  The only places the are deficient are the attic hatch and the cathedral sections.  Those are posts for the future though!




Sometimes you just get fed-up....


I have a washer that works pretty well.  It came with the house.  I am not looking to replace it until it fully dies.  Until then, however, I am not interested in fighting with it every second or third load of wash, having to wrestle it back into place.  Part of the problem is that the washer is missing one of the pads on its feet.  I have it shimmed so it is level, but it is not shimmed with rubber, so it has a tendency to walk.  It also is sitting on a not 100% level floor.  The whole floor is sloped to the gravity drain in the corner of the basement.  Also, there are dips and divots and waves in the concrete under the washer, so it doesn't have to move far to then be out of level.  Once the unit is out of level, it walks to the end of its leashes (aka- water hoses), so in an attempt to save a major water issue, and to stop wrestling the damned thing, it has been bolted to the floor.  I realized that it still needs some ability to move, but not much.  It also needs to be removable for when it dies.

Yes, I could have just bought a new rubber foot for the washer and hoped that would fix it.  Sometimes when you are mad, though, you just want to show the damned thing who's boss.  This is one of those times.  Eventually I may build a platform for both the washer and dryer, and that will need to be bolted in place, so in an attempt to justify my poor rationality in this case, I now have the bolts in the floor.


Steampunk? No, just plumbing......

Having bought a 1920's house, there is still a cast iron (clawless) claw-foot tub in the bathroom.  While I love the style and size of the tub, it makes plumbing in the modern era more difficult without spending a fortune on new fixtures.  When we moved in, there was just a sprayer hose connected to the hot and cold water mixer.  We replaced this with one that came off the unit we had in the apartment.  When we did this, we got full city water pressure.  This makes for a great shower, in the sense that you can essentially pressure-wash yourself.  It also makes you go through hot water like no one's business.  While I like the high pressure, I would rather spend less on my power bill, since our hot water is electric.  Enter my plumbing.  I needed to get the system so that I could put the shower head on that was regulated to 2.5 gallons/min.  Not only will this save us water, but it will also use less hot water, so therefore less electricity.  When I get my solar hot water system set up, this will be moot, but I have not gotten there yet.


So, I had some 1/2" copper pipe and fittings, but I had to pick up a few other parts to make the unit work.  I could have spent several hundred dollars on a new plumbing fixture that had both a tub faucet as well as the shower riser.  Instead, I spent a few dollars (>10, excluding tools) to build the riser.  Now I have the shower head mounted with the sprayer attachment.  Once I took a test shower, the pressure is way down, but I no longer run out of hot water in 5 minutes or less.



I do have to note that neither am I a plumber, nor did I look up if this passes code, but I am sure the 1920's faucet doesn't pass modern code either.  And while I was going to pat myself on the back for sweating the pipes and fittings together without any leaks (since I have never done this before), I did notice after a day or two, the bottom fitting was leaking a bit.  I took the whole riser off and re-sweated the fitting, and it appears to be fixed.  I do have to give it a few days though to see if it is really fixed, or just another 2 day repair.





Sunday, October 25, 2015

How to Burn Your House Down......

So while I have been busy with many projects (posts on those to come later), I thought that I might share this with you.  I went into my basement the other day when the dryer was running, and the basement was hot and humid, which is not what one expects in October in Maine.  I thought there might be an issue, so I showed my dad, since he was over helping me with projects anyway, and he mentioned that I might want to take the dryer apart and clean it, since it was not blowing air like it should.  This is what I found as I took it apart:





In case you are not already appalled. this is NOT how the inside of a dryer should look.  I am not a dryer technician, but I know this is not right.  There was lint on the underside of the lid, on all the wiring, above the drum, below the drum, in the electric motor, and even in the heater core.  We are extremely lucky to have not burned down the house with this much lint in the dryer.  In the picture immediately above, do you see something missing?  Take your time, I will wait..........

































 This is what was missing.  Instead of the lint and hot, humid air being blown out the missing vent pipe, and out of the house. it was being injected into the dryer housing and into all nooks, crannies, and possible fire starting places possible.    In case you think I am kidding when I say it was a miracle we didn't burn our house down in the 6 months we've been here, the 5 gallon bucket that I collected the lint into was 1/2 full.  Yes, that is right, 2.5 GALLONS of lint came out of the dryer.  Talk about a fire starter!  If you've never seen lint catch fire before, take some from the dryer catch screen, go outside, somewhere where you won't catch anything else on fire, and light it.  It lights extremely easily, which is why when mixed with wax, it makes a wonderful campfire/fireplace starter.

So, my suggestion to anyone/everyone is to clean your dryer on a regular basis (or if you are not confident in your own abilities, get someone else to do it).  Also, because the dryer is now ejecting the moisture out of the dryer, it should work much more efficiently, and save us a lot of money on our electric bill.  That is a wait and see game.  Seriously though, check your dryer so you don't burn your house down.  I'm off to buy a lottery ticket, even though I am pretty certain that I used up all my luck on the dryer.







Kitchen Update

Ok, so when you move into a 1920's house, especially one that was a rental property for a while, things are not necessarily updated to modern standards.  One thing we wanted when we moved in was a dish washer. That's not unreasonable, right?  Most counter tops these days are standardized at 26 inches deep and 36 inches high.  Ours, not so much.  Try 22 inches deep and 32 inches high.  To fit a standard dishwasher, you need at least 24x32, and those are under the counter-top dimensions.  So then began the scheming.  How do we make this work and not break the budget?  Do we cut the countertop and have a two tier setup?  How are we going to do that and not have it look like poop?  If we do all new countertops, what are we going to make them out of?  Are we going to reuse the sink?  Do we want other features like a sprayer?  Is it maybe just simpler to start from scratch and do the cabinets too?

Once we figured out what we wanted, what materials to use, and what our budget was, then the update began.  (Note: its still not quite done yet)  We started out by going to the local big box stores to price faucets, sinks, etc.  For the record, there is some really expensive crap out there.  We also visited the local Re-Store (associated with Habitat for Humanity) to see if there was a deal there.  Fortunately, we found a sink we liked (although not in the right color) for a tiny fraction of the money we would have spent on that same sink at the big box store.  So because we scored a deal on a Kohler (yes, name brand even) sink, it was worth spending a little more on some tub and tile refinishing magic paint to have a white sink.  I say magic, because the stuff is tough as nails once cured.  I have been quite impressed with the product.  Once the sink was done (refinished) it was off to other things.

Before I launch into the process of building and laminating the counter tops, I have to say a few thank yous.  The first is to my grandfather for the gift of tools.   Without the tools that he gave me (on the promise that I would use them), I would not have been able to complete this or any of the other projects I have done for the house (and for fun).  I am greatly thankful every time I step into my workshop and fire up yet another project.  I sometimes think that the tools carry their own wisdom from all of the projects they have done in the past with you.  Thank you Grandpa!

I also have to give a big thanks to my dad, who, even though he has plenty of his own projects going on, still seems to find time to lend a helping hand, and seems happy to do so.  This kitchen remodel would not have happened without you!  Thank you for your help on this and many other projects!!!!

I also have to thank my wonderful, understanding wife.  She knows that I love and NEED projects to keep myself sane in the free moments I have when not doing child care.  Thank you for being so understanding, and letting me totally destroy things to make our house better!

Counter-top

So I will admit, I knew nothing about building counter-tops.  Ok, so I had read the section in Don Casey's This Old Boat, but boat cabinetry is not quite the same as house cabinetry (although I probably should not have assumed that everything was square, but more on that later).  So off to the internet I went, looking for the best materials and methods, and just finding that everyone was adamant about their method, and even giants of the DIY home improvement world like This Old House were not in agreement with themselves.  One of their posts said to use particle board as the structure, and another said to use plywood.  Both articles seemed to think it was the preferred method, and from the same information source.  I gave up and compared prices, and that made my decision.  Particle board, while it has its issues (as does plywood, albeit different ones), is the least expensive method.  Also, the factory formed counter-top pieces you can buy at the big box store are particle board, so it must be an okay method.  Those would not have worked for this application though.  

What came next was trying to figure out how to make the counter tops.  I knew I was going to have to piece 2 different sheets of p-board together to get the 121 inches of length for the counter-top.  This meant that I needed a means to reinforce the butt-joints, as well as the counter-top in general, as the sink alone weighs about 80 lbs.  This is where I found general agreement on the interwebz.  While the width varied a bit, it seemed to be a consensus that riser strips were needed for making a strong laminate counter-top.  As you can see in the picture next to the clamps, there is a perimeter of p-board around the entire bottom side of the counter-top.  I used four inch strips across the bottom in locations where there would be more stress on the counter-top, like where the hole for the sink was, and where the L stuck out from the edge.  Once all of that was glued together with waterproof wood glue, I could focus on prepping the surface for the laminate.  In some cases, it meant just a little light sanding to bring things flush, and in others required getting out power tools like my router to do major trimming.  

The next challenge was to figure out how to do the laminate part.  Again, This Old Boat gave me a starting point, as there is a section on laminates in the cabinetry section of the book.  With some solid info, I then went off to the webernetz again looking for more info and again found that everyone seems adamant about their method.  With too much information at my fingertips, I again decided that I would price things out and just jump into the project.  I ended up buying the big box store counter-top adhesive, as well as a laminate trim bit for the router.  It was then just a matter of following the directions on the adhesive container (although I generally have a hard time following instructions....) and cutting the pieces of laminate that I needed.  I glued the back-splash and the vertical faces on the counter-top first, followed by the flat top.  I did it this way so that the edging would be overlaid by the top, and hopefully this will help keep water, oils, food, etc out from under the laminate.  This should contribute to its longevity, but only time will tell.

When putting the top on the counter, I used old dowels to suspend the laminate above the p-board until I was ready to stick the two together.  When you are working with full 4x8 ft sheets, this is very important, since touching the two pieces together (both have glue on them) means they stick.  Once the dowels are pulled, the laminate has to be rolled with a special rubber roller to make sure the laminate glue adheres properly.  This was not done correctly in the house I grew up in, and the laminates were always pulling up from the rest of the counters.  I hope to not have this issue in the future, but we will see.  Once the laminate was glued, I could then cut the holes for the sink, faucet, etc.

Then came the fun part.  By fun, I mean lots of work, swearing and sweat.  I had to remove the old counter-top from the kitchen and take out a cabinet where the dishwasher was going to live.  It was time to break out the demolition tools!  When the last counter was redone, they nailed a piece of 1/4 inch plywood on top of a solid wood counter, which was then covered with horrible 70's-esk yellow laminate.  And when I say nailed, I mean they put a nail every 3 inches, and were using 2 inch nails.  So not only did they WAY overkill the nailing of the 1/4 inch plywood to the existing counter, but they also re-nailed the existing counter to the cabinetry below.  (Insert swearing and sweat here!)  What I thought was going to take me an hour or so took me three hours.  Welcome to old house projects.  Do you see a trend here?  After a lot of pulling, grunting, and swearing, I had the old counter-top off, but I also had a pipe chase that was apart, as well as an entire cabinetry section to remove and re-orchestrate.
 Taking care of those took significantly less time, but still took time.  While I was doing all of this, my dad was doing the plumbing for the sink, since there had not been shutoffs for the sink when we moved in.  Here is where I took a page out of sailing plumbing (think thru-hulls) and used ball valves as shutoffs instead of screw-type shutoffs that are common in household plumbing.  They fail after a few years because they are not made from stainless steel or bronze, so after a few years, you are back to not having shutoffs.  With ball valves, especially bronze ones, they are hard to make fail.  This is why they are very common on boats where there are through the hull penetrations, because if you have a pipe fail in the boat, you have to be able to shut it off or you are going to sink and maybe die, depending on where you are.  In that case, it has to work, period.  I feel the same about house shutoffs.  What is the point of having a shutoff if its not going to work after a few years?

Eventually there was no longer a cabinet in the way, so the dishwasher could go in for a test fit.  This was after the 2x4 lift blocks were added to the cabinets.  It was convenient that I needed only 1.5 inches of rise, so the 2x4's were perfect.  Once the dish washer was test fitted, then we could get to work on wiring it into place.  There was an outlet that had been installed (I am assuming for a disposal that was no longer there) that was on it's own circuit breaker, which was perfect.  I just needed to move the junction box and run a second piece of romex that would reach to the dishwasher.  With that and the plumbing done, it was time for a lot more swearing, sweating, and work.

Remember how I mentioning that I probably should have taken more clues from This Old Boat with its hull shaped cabinetry?  Yea, 1920's houses are not square.  Sometimes pretty close, but more often than not, they are really out a square.  When I added the L to the counter top, I assumed that it was square, and built it accordingly.  That might have been because I only took one length measurement for the counter.  I should have measured at the back, middle, and front of where the counter was going to be.  As it turned out, the L needed a little trimming to even hope it would fit.  Even with that taken care of, we ran into another issue.

Remember how I built the counter in one piece?  Yea, that was a mistake.  When you are going wall to wall with a counter top, especially if it is L shaped, consider how you are going to squeeze it into place, especially if you have low wall cabinets to get the counter under.  Three of us managed to get it taken care of, but only after taking off window trim, wall trim, and gouging the crap out of the walls and paint.  If you are considering this, MAKE YOUR COUNTER IN 2 PIECES!!!!!!!!!!  Even still, I think the project turned out well.


There was some final finish work that had to be done, like closing the sink in again, but it was not challenging.  The last remaining thing to do is the put drawers in next to the dishwasher, but that is a post for another day!





Tuesday, August 25, 2015

First Project in the new house

So in the new house. because it has an old electric waterheater, I thought it might be a good idea to check the heater coils to see if they needed to be replaced, and then insulate the tank to lower our electric bills a bit.  What should have been a 30 minute job actually took all day with three trips to the big box store, a trip to an automotive store, and an 60 mile round trip to borrow my dad's compressor.  So much for a simple fix.

 So these are the electric heating coils.  Over time, they pick up deposits from the water than runs through the tank and can become inefficient, or even stop working all together.  To make sure they are not using more power than they should, keeping them clean of the deposit buildup is important.  This was originally all I was going to do, and it was supposed to be straight forward.  As it turns out though, a large adjustable wrench is not the tool of choice for these things.  Big box store trip #1.

At some point in all of this, I cycled the over-pressure valve, and due to its age, the rubber gasket failed.  This meant that I got a steady drip of water from the unit which is no good.  Not only does that cost you in electricity, but because I am on city water, it would cost me there too.  Big box store trip #2.






Finally I got around to insulating the tank.  I put a piece of foam insulation under the tank to act as a thermal break between the basement floor (un-insulated basement) and the water tank.  While the coolest water in the tank is going to be on the bottom, and therefore less likely to shed heat, every little bit helps.  To get the foam board in place required me removing the in- and out-flow pipes on the top of the tank.  Unfortunately, again because its an old tank, caused the rubber gasket in one of the pipes to fail.  Trip #3 to the big box store.


Finally, I got it all back together, with the insulating blanket taped onto the tank.  I was all set to fire it all back up again, so I did.  When I opened the hot water valve upstairs, there was a hiss of air followed by a loud clunk/bang, which resulted in the air ceasing to flow.  It took me a while to figure it out, but I finally came to the conclusion that sediment in the bottom of the tank was forced into the pipe and then became lodged in the T section that splits off to the washer.  I realized that I needed something to break up the blockage.  I was going to use a wire, but there was no practical way to get the wire into the pipe, let alone the 10 feet from the possible entry point to where the pipe was blocked.  What I really needed was air or water to be forced back through the line.  Since I did not have any of that equipment, this is where the 60 mile round trip factors in.  When I picked up my dad's compressor, I grabbed an old air hose, rather than taking his good one in an effort to be considerate.  To my dismay when I got home and plugged it into the compressor, it was full of holes and cracks along its entire length.  I tried to cut it back a few times, but the hose was toast.  This is when I made the trip to the automotive store to get a new hose for the compressor.  Mind you, its now evening, and I have to be at work in an hour or so, my wife wants a HOT shower, and my son is tired of being entertained in the basement while I try to fix my mess.  Fortunately with the new hose, the pipe is cleared and hot water is restored to the house, and I made it to work on time.

The lesson I should have taken away from this, and now that I am a few projects deeper into the old house, was that with old houses, nothing is simple, quick, or easy.  More projects to come.....






Monday, August 24, 2015

Since I am landlocked.....

.... I thought that I would start a blog detailing the projects that I am working on around the house, rather than on the water.  If you are new to my blogs, please check out the $800 Live Aboard blog.  If you got here from that blog, thanks for checking out my other projects.

I have realized in the process of working on the $800 Live Aboard blog that I quite enjoy writing, telling a story if you will, of the thoughts and processes I go through.  Since I can't seem to find the time to work on my boat anymore, I might as well share the projects that are taking up my time.  Again, thanks for dropping by, and I hope you enjoy the reading!