Knock Knock

It seems last night I had a visitor come calling.

Hello? Do you have a moment to talk about landscaping?
Have we got a plan to help you with your grubs!

He wandered right up to my back door. Snuffled around the edge of the house, up to the bird feeders, down to the shed, paid super special attention to the garbage can (but didn't attempt to climb it.) Then the tracks go under the shed.
For all I know he's still there.
I didn't get down to check.

Funny little hand prints in the snow.

At first I thought they were raccoon tracks (which I really don't need taking up any sort of residence. Adorable, but a pain in the neck.) On further examination I saw the funny thumbs, which leads me to think it's an opossum. If so, it's the biggest stinkin' opossum I've ever seen. But 'possums eat a ton of bugs, and aren't generally hugely pesky, so he can stay for now. They are kind of so ugly they're cute. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes from the trail camera.

This has led me to think about jacking up the shed and putting a solid block foundation under it, so nothing can set up permanent residence there, though.
I'm the only one who should be receiving mail at 107 Brigham Hill.

Quiet time

My apologies to those who swing through here regularly looking for updates. It's been kind of difficult to work up enthusiasm for house projects when I'm wading through a ton of quotes for work I didn't anticipate having to address just yet. The dollar signs are starting to stack up. While I'll be very happy when it's done, and I likely won't have to deal with most of this ever again (for this property) it's a bit demoralizing. My friend Chip sent me this book though, which looks super helpful. I'm sure I'm going to get good use out of it.

Thanks, Chip!

On top of the flood of contractor quotes, I received notification that my employer is going to be going through "divisional headcount reduction" - a fancy phrase for layoffs. I really don't know what to think of my situation, so I'm taking the tack of hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I've got my work backed up, a bunch of boxes packed, and I'm trying to tidy up so that if I'm made to walk away I can with minimal fallout to who ever is left behind to pick up the pieces.

I did do a bit more brush clearing last evening. With it relatively clear of snow, now's a good time to pull bittersweet, and man is there a lot of bittersweet to be pulled. It's providing great cover for the local rodent population. I'm going to borrow a trail camera from my sister and try to see what's been wandering through my yard - something large-ish comes right up the front and then crosses in front of the shed to go up into the woods. The snow was too powdery to get good tracks last time.

The Roof, the roof, the roof is ...

...not on fire.

(Props to the Bloodhound Gang, who get referenced every time I have to deal with a roof. What can I say? I was impressionable in 2009.)

I met with John the Roofer this morning. He confirmed a few things - that no ridge vent will work because of the ridge beam, that there are no soffit vents because the construction method means it's solid there and unvent-able, that some sort of powered solution is going to be my best bet, and that the roof is nearing it's end of useful life.
He's going to work up a quote (itemized) that will include:
• installing two powered box fans, one in each crawl space. (He'll run the wires down, but the electrician will have to connect. Which is good, because I like Wayne the Electrician, but he's not as young and nimble as John the Roofer.)
• new roof (asphalt on top, and either rolled or metal on the lower)
• leveling out the roof over the bathroom
• run of gutter on the north and east side (he's up there anyway.)
• repointing the chimney (again, he's up there anyway. Just have to get some sacks of lime for him to use, and make sure he doesn't hit it with portland (unless that's what's up there.))

We talked about radon, electrical, and how the fewer holes in the roof the better. He suggested removing the un-used chimney, but I'm not ready to do that just yet. I will hold onto my hope of being able to reuse it somehow.

What the heck

The neighbors were setting off fireworks after the end of the game last night, so I dealt with the 2 roller shades and the curtain rod at about 10:30.
Something to note! In the kitchen, I'd replaced one roller shade (black out weight) with one from Lowe's. Then last night, I installed a new one over the kitchen sink that I got from Home Depot. At night, there's no difference. When it's light out, the Lowe's brand shade has a blueish tone while the Home Depot shade has a reddish tone. I work in print production. I know vinyl can carry different temperatures. I just didn't expect it in window shades for some reason, but I'm not surprised.
I'm going to see if I can move one of the kitchen shades to the stand-alone window in the upstairs hallway so that at least all the tones in a given room match. The whole house doesn't have to be match-y, but at least all in the same room should. My preference is for the cool tones from Lowes.

This morning I was hit with a wild hair - I wanted to know what was behind the mirror left behind by the Fords, screwed to the wall in the dining room.
I was hoping for something interesting.
A hole to access long-forgotten plumbing or electrical?
A gap to see the framing?
Buried treasure?
I got out my trusty screw gun, (let's not kid, I hadn't actually put it away), and got that sucker off the wall.

Pooh.

Nothing. Nada.
Just 4 little drywall screw holes (now).
Oh well.
I might just put it back up for now. It's an appropriate piece for the house.
But I was pretty disappointed in the lack of... anything.

A long weekend

It's been a couple of days. A lot of typical housework - cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming, etc.
There's been some seasonal work - shoveling the rest of the driveway, filling the bird feeders. Then some monthly upkeep - change the filter on the cat fountain, filter on the fish tank, putting a pack of enzymes down the drain for the septic, checked the furnace filters (it's fine), checked the water filter (it's fine).
I confirmed that the floors are only finished around the edges. (Not uncommon - The same was true of my Grandparent's house.) I found where Ms Mary had been using newspapers to pad under the carpet. Interesting, but nothing older than 2004.

She cut out the carpet pad so the basement door would clear the carpet,
but didn't want the carpet to damage the unfinished floor.

Saturday I decided to make two fakey storms for the kitchen. I sort of got sidetracked by scraping the flaking paint off the mantle, and then (since the flakes fell down the heat register) I disassembled the heat register, vacuumed the heck out of it and scrubbed the metal register housing. Then I remembered I had to deal with a crock of saurkraut that's been needing tending since November.

I eventually got to the storms.

Still not perfect, but functional

This time I found some 1x2" firring strips at Home Depot. They were more robust than the molding I'd been using, and cheaper. The width allowed me to use two screws in each corner, so that negated a lot of the rolling. Only issue is, where the molding was decently square, these firring strips are glorified wooden noodles. Doing this with hand tools, on the dining room floor, with stock that is fighting back, is proving to be a challenge.

I love that little Disston dovetail saw.

The nice thing is, by the 4th window (the second in the kitchen) I sort of worked out a system. It looks like this:

It might be hard to tell, but this shows the top and bottom, then the three uprights, then the two cross pieces next to each other. Setting it out this way made visual sense to me.

Another view - three uprights, the top and bottom, the two cross pieces.

I hammered out two more Sunday morning, so now the kitchen, dining room, and office that I'm using as my bedroom are done. Next up - the 5 windows in the living room. Then there's one window in the bathroom and the first floor will be done. The bedroom is already less drafty.
I've figured out that these cost roughly $12 to make - 3 firring strips at $2 per, 2 rolls of foam weatherstripping at $2 per, and the window plastic which comes in a kit of three for $6, so $2 ea. Then 12 screws and a nail (with the head cut off).
They aren't super pretty, but they seem to help. The bed room is already less drafty.

For some reason, when I embed links, they aren't showing up as live unless you hover, so here's the link to the place that I'm cobbing my design from.
http://www.islandinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Interior%20Storm%20Window%20Directions_0%202.pdf

Island Institute uses two layers of plastic. I'm just using one for now so I can use the supports as handles to get them in and out.

Getting better.

I picked up roller shades for the dining room and kitchen. Tomorrow I'll see about putting them up.

Brrr.

When the Mass Save Energy guy came out, I made a point about asking about the windows because they are kind of crap. Sure, they keep the weather out, but not much more than that. I could tell by the amount of masking tape Ms Mary had gobbed on the frames that there are issues. Energy Guy said that there were loan programs, but not much more - Mass Save doesn't deal with windows, really.

Well, the weather has gotten downright chilly. With the temperatures plunging into the negatives last night, I set about turning the house into a cave, hanging blankets over windows that didn't have roller shade, and even over some that did. In the kitchen, one of the worst offenders is over the kitchen sink. The window well is about 10" deep, so I took a tension rod and put a folded fleece blanket over the opening. It's not air tight at all, as you can see from the line of light coming over the top. In some places it's only one thin layer deep, wehre you see it's lighter.

Very fashionable, thanks to my dear friend Monique.

My indoor/outdoor thermometer lives on that shelf, so I can see the temps when I'm doing the dishes. It's where my parents have theirs, so it's a familiar location. This morning, I pulled back the leopard print to see what it was outside.

34.2* inside, -7* outside.
I didn't bother looking for the night time lows.

Please, tell me again about how double paned windows are better simply by the virtue of being double paned? 
Granted, I keep the house at 60 at night. But that's 34.2* in my house. Right above the sink, with pipes and stuff that you do NOT want freezing. I left the faucet dripping last night, and dripping today while I'm gone.

In other news, the breakdown of mold men looks like:
#1 - $1700 (estimate)
#2 - 3900 (quote)
#3 - no show
#4 - $1700 (estimate)

Gutter guys looks like:
#1 - $975 (quote)
#2 - $930 (estimate)
#3 - comes on 2/11 at 10 am

Now there's a roofer in play. He's going to come out when he can actually see my roof (not just snow) and not damage anything when he goes up there. Including himself. I find this approach exceedingly reasonable.

Tales of the Mold Men (and gutter guys)

Not much fun to report. Had two more quotes scheduled from mold mitigation outfits this morning. One was a no-show. The other was nice enough. We'll see where their quote nets out against the others.
After the mold men I met with a gutter guy. Also nice enough (and on time) - his quote came in at $975 to do the two long sides of the house and fix one of the short pitches. Probably very much worth the money.
Talked to Wayne the Electrician last night. While he'd have no problem taking my money and putting in powered vent fans, he suggested talking to some roof guys about ventilation first. Snaking power through this type of old house is not easy, so it would mean running conduit up the outside of the house. Not pretty.
So more phone calls. With more contractors. Half the time I don't know who to believe. Who's going to do it right? Who's just conning me? At what point do I write the checks and hope people don't suck? If I spend every minute second guessing every contractor, I'll be old and grey and nothing will have gotten done.
Or I have to start taking classes in all of these skills, and I'll be old and grey and only half of everything will be done.

One thing I did accomplish for short money was ordering and setting out a long-acting radon detector. On 1/1/20 I'll send this little puppy back to the lab and it will be able to tell me variations over the year.

Radon meter. Can't be near windows or doors, and must be at least 2' off the ground.

This weekend will hopefully see more progress cleaning the basement.

Right now the list of things that sort of need to happen in a rough list of how:
• Gutters
• Order a few yards of Rip Rap to stuff the holes in the foundation
• Pull dirt and organic materials away from foundation
• Repoint foundation
• Hit sills with Boracare
• Get sump pump installed
• Talk to roofers - deal with vents?
• Get mold dealt with
• Get insulation installed

If my income holds out, hopefully by this time next year.
Time will tell.

Bit of a pause...

My sister wanted help with the cattle for the weekend, so there was no work on the house.
A tiny sea of fuzzy cow butts though. No one wanted to pose for good pictures when there was already hay in the feeder.

Winter Coats

More mold quotes tomorrow, and possibly a gutter quote.

Mold, it's not just for old bread.

Entertained two different mold remediation contractors yesterday. It is confirmed - the attic is hosting a not-inconsiderable amount of mold.
Come to find out, there's a huge disparity on just what exactly constitutes "mold remediation". One outfit will clean it and then paint over it. The other outfit will clean it, and then fix the ventilation that let to the problem in the first place. I'm sure there's going to be lots of dollar signs involved in either. I've got a few more concerns coming out next Tuesday to give me their two cents. I feel like I have to understand what all my options are, and these two original outfits feel light years apart.

Last night the deep freeze broke, and everything started to melt. On one hand, that's awesome, because I might get the rest of my driveway back. (I only shoveled half.) On the other hand, now I know exactly where the water is getting into the basement (and evaporating, sending moisture up into the attic, where it allows the mold to grow.) It seems that the gutter downspout extenders have done the trick on the south side of the house, but the east and north need some attention. Gutters will have to be added. On a whim, I emailed a local place to see if they can come give me a quote next Tuesday while the other mold people are here. Then I can decide if it's worth doing myself or paying someone else to do it.

Onward.

Found a use for those hot air vents.

Still messing with hardware

There's just a few bits of hardware left on the first floor that haven't been cleaned. One was on the office door in the front, and one was on the door between the kitchen and the living room.
I'm pretty sure the kitchen door is from the first iteration of the house, and I'll have a whole post on it later.
The door to the office is giving me fits. It's also one of the older doors, I think. It's not as ornate as the later door hardware. Many of the screws are frozen, and one even just fell out, taking a chunk of door with it. I've tried stripper and scraping. I've hit it with penetrant to break the screws free, but to no avail. Two of the lock escutcheons just will not budge.
I was able to get the door knob plates off though. Nothing fancy, just iron, I think. But they have these four little pins on the back of them. I think the idea was that the little pins would hold them to the wood better once they were screwed down.

Two screw holes. Four pins.

That's a great theory.
In practice, if those little plates even get a little loose, they turn into spinning saw blades. This is what it does to the door.

Looks like tiny beavers lived back there for the last hundred years.

This door does have a Corbin mortise lock, much newer than the other hardware on the door. I opened it up, cleaned and oiled everything and got the lock moving, but I don't have a key for this one either. I found it in a 1941 PF Corbin catalog:

"Good buildings deserve good hardware."

As Ian is fond of saying "Things were done, no one was spared." I think this door is a collection of all the left overs. It's the only door in the house where the lock escutcheons don't match, and the door knobs are brown, not black.

Swirly. Pretty in the light, but a little scuffed up.

I hit that door knob plate with some Gibb's so it would stop rusting. I guess I'll drill off the lock escutcheons tonight so I can clean them and finally call this one done. When I sand down the door this summer, this one is going to need wood filler in those chewed up areas. I might consider filing the teeth off the back of the knob plates too.

An Experiment

After the first pass of shoveling part of the driveway (a snow blower is going to be necessary long-term) I returned to the house to try out a project.
The windows in this house are not great. Sure, they are double paned, but that means diddly when you can see daylight through the seams in the vinyl. I do not have money for all new windows at this point, and I haven't had the time to make exterior storms. I hate the window plastic sheeting because the double sided tape either leaves an awful sticky residue on the paint, or rips the paint off entirely.
I found these plans at the Island Institute website. I don't have a table saw to rip down 2x4's, so I wandered the molding section and came up with some small rectangular stock that I hoped would work.

Dining room will have to do for a shop.

I made the first one for the dining room window, since it's the easiest to access. Things I needed for this were: measuring tape, drill, handsaw, hair dryer, narrow wood, screws, wood glue, double sided tape, plastic shrink film, and some weatherstripping.
The small stock was good, because it flexed a little to accommodate these not-square windows. But the problem was it flexed over long spans, just under the pressure of the plastic film, bowing it in from the edges.

You can see the bow at the top of this on in the dining room.

I had enough material to make a larger one for the room I'm using as a bedroom.

The center is offset to allow for the screws. Should have just been a through pin.
I measured half a dozen times, and there's still a gap at the top.

So things I learned -
A) These aren't that hard to make, but I need bigger stock (and a better place to work.) There's only one screw in each joint, and that make it so that everything wanted to spin.
B) These can't be made too tight - they need wiggle room to get in. There's where the foam weatherstripping comes in to take up the gap. (Though not as big a gap as I somehow wound up with on the second one.)

I'm pleased that these could be removed and reused, rather than all that plastic sheeting winding up in a landfill.

Snowstorm Prep

We're supposed to be getting some sort of weather tonight, so I decided to do the most natural thing in the world - cut brush.
That's what you do, right? No? Must just be me then.

Blackberry and goldenrod, and leaves that haven't been raked in years.

It all started because I wanted to dig out a piece of siding that's fallen off the shed and get it inside so it didn't get damaged under the snow. One thing lead to another, and a few hours later, I've got two cleaner spaces.

The offending missing siding is now in the shed.

Both of the areas that are still full of leaves are some flavor of garden. The pile there in front of the shed is all the brush that was in them. From what I can tell, there's a lot of hosta at play, maybe some day lily. The blackberries may have been cultivated once upon a time, but they are everywhere, and thicker around than my thumb, with thorns to match. There's still a ton of it around, so I didn't feel bad whacking these back.That very large shrub still standing is part lilac, part bittersweet, part random saplings, and part poison ivy. It got a haircut back from the driveway, but it'll need more attention in the future. There's a knee-blowing hole just in front of the shrub mass that appears to be an unoccupied woodchuck burrow.

I walked down to the road to look at the walls (and get the mail) and started looking harder. There's a few areas of the wall that will need to be put back up, but there in the middle, what I thought was a stone slide? Not a tumbled down spot at all.

Stairs!
(Tumbling to the right that will need repair.)

Brick pavers leading from the road to the stairs!

After an expensive week of mean surprises, this was pretty cool to find. This will be really satisfying to bring back in the spring. Once the lilacs bloom, that whole thing is going to be cleaned out and pruned heavily. Then the wall can be tuned up.

The little things

I wasn't going to post about this, because it didn't seem like a big deal at the time.
I mentioned to Energy Audit Nick that this house just felt cold all the damned time. Part of that was me being paranoid about oil consumption and keeping the house at 60-62, but part of it wasn't. Even in the evenings when I'd tweak it up to a luxurious 65, it just always felt cold. I knew, sitting in the living room, with my hooded sweatshirt up, the cat on my lap, both of us under a blanket, it just wasn't that warm in here, though the thermostat was quite content that it was. Who was I to argue with the thermostat?
I submit to you evidence A: (It's not an 8x10 color glossy, but it'll do.)

The white spot on the wall is where the old thermostat lived.

See the hot air register on the floor in the lower left? The one blowing warm air conveniently at the thermostat? EA Nick suggested that if I move the thermostat away from a hot air vent, perhaps things would get better. He would even give me a free programmable thermostat to replace the old manual up/down one.
Last night I decided to dive in and just do it. Electricity is one of my not-very-learned things, but this isn't that dangerous, as it's two AAA batteries talking to the furnace, not real house currant. I was just moving it to the other side of the wall/closet. (You'll recognize the closet as the one I wedged myself in to paint.)

Seemed appropriate to keep all the furnace switches clustered.
Also, that vent in the wall (lower right) is a cold air return.

 Found my 1" drill bit, popped a hole in the wall, mounted the backplate, linked a new bit of furnace wire to the old furnace wire with a significant amount of twisting and electrical tape, and viola. The furnace now talks to it's new upstairs brain.
I intend to run a new furnace wire all the way to the furnace in the future, now that I have a 49' roll of wire.  (You can't buy it any shorter than 50' from the Big Box stores.) The old wire was much lighter than this new wire.

While it's sill not warm in here, the heat is now significantly more even. That's a huge improvement. And now with the programmable thermostat, I don't have to worry about forgetting to set the heat back down when I go to bed.