Our Old House

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

crunch the numbers

well, the results are in on our insulating efforts. compared to when we moved in, we are using roughly 25% less gas ... or, comparing the other way (depending on which usage you set as a base value) ... our gas usage when we moved was about 33% more than now. compared to the winter of 2007 (after some initial insulating/weatherproofing efforts ... and i don't have 2006 usage data), we are about 19% less (2007 use was 24% more). these are obviously appx numbers. they do not take into account variable usage in hot water use, dryer use, and cooking use or variations in indoor air temp (if we're here more or less, etc.). it's just a direct comparison of therms/heating-degree-day -- and trying to compare to months with similar total HDDs.

so, that's not too bad. still on the improvement list are repairing the windows (stop some major league drafts and possibly get more efficient glass), replace the water heater and furnace for more efficient models, and i'm considering another layer of batt insulation in the attic. rate of return so far isn't that great (i roughly guesstimate we're looking at a15 year payback period), but that's only part of the rationale.

ok, back to studying.

be well.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

yeah yeah

i know. i'm a terrible blogger. wanna fight about it? i can try to claim the holidays, being sick, being busy ... but frankly i've just been too lazy to blog. blogging hasn't hit priority level. but now that other things are done and it's either blog, study for my P.E., or do absolutely nothing ... i guess posting something isn't a bad idea. and i'm feeling a bit peckish after watching Purdue lose in OT, so this'll help occupy my riled up brain cells for a bit.

so anywho, the house is done! let's do a little time lapse ... except that you'll have do the lapsing mentally because i can't do it for you. here's what we had about 3.5 years ago:

nice. so we did some landscaping and stuff, and by last summer we had this:

getting better. still a bit Amish with all the white. so, now we're looking more like this -- in 3 flavors:

in the first one the gutters weren't quite done, but you get the idea. i think its interesting how different the colors look i various light and snow levels. oh, and we got a foot of snow the other day. that was neat, except for trying to drive through some unplowed streets with my snow pusher ... low ground clearance sucks in deep snow.

so the outside is done. they had some issues trying to get the edges of sloped roof at the back terminate correctly (it wasn't done right before) so i think we're just going to put a new roof on and get all the edges detailed correctly. we did get some leaks from time to time in the past and a poor gutter detail resulted in the gutterboard rotting away ... so some work was probably due. it's small too, so the cost isn't much -- just unplanned.

the downstairs bathroom isn't much different from before unfortunately. i finished framing the shower walls and got an exhaust fan installed and hooked up (and it works) ... but that's about it. lazy lazy Chris. about halfway thru framing for the shower i noticed that my level wasn't reading the same on both sides. the problem was, i didn't know which side was right ... or which side i was normally using. that my friends (ha, John Mccain) is a problem. so i got a new level. apparently NEITHER side of the old level was quite right, go figure. everything was surprisingly pretty close. i must have generally been using the most right side. luckyduck.

the new wall insulation is working well. by my calculations we're using about 20% less gas than when we moved in and about 14% less than last winter (the other improvements are from the attic insulation and other misc. weatherproofing/insulating we've done). not as big of gain as i may have hoped, but it's something. there was more wall insulation than i originally expected, so that dampened some of the potential savings. and, we still have very drafty windows (only a few of them wrapped right now) so have some more economizing to do.

since last post in brief -----

Christmas: short, but nice (got to see my aunt and uncle from KS)
being sick: sucks
movie recommendations: Slumdog Millionaire, Man on Wire, Gran Torino
Over the Rhine's 2 night Christmas show: excellent
cheap stuff found at Ikea: sweet
ultimate grocery store: Jungle Jim's
visits from Ben and Bradys/Rajcics and visiting Sarah & Jeremiah (and Nathaniel): fun
stimulus recommendation: no
snow driving ability of Indy-area residents: pathetic
over: and out

Sunday, December 14, 2008

are we there yet?

no. but getting close.

with the outside work anyway. there's just a little bit of everything left: a little lap siding, a little shingle siding, a little trim, a little soffit work, a little painting ... and gutters. i imagine with some decent weather, we should be done in a few days. and trumpets shall sound and a chorus of angels will burst into song. winter will turn to spring. peace will unfold in the middle east. (pics from all 4 sides on Flickr).

on another note, the bathroom is officially gutted.

the enchanted shell shower exited with a mere whimper. i bought some carbide tipped blades for the sawzall ... the phrase hot knife through butter would be appropriate. strangely enough, the shower enclosure was in no way fastened to anything. it just sat there. also, there was/is a large hole in the floor in one corner where some lovely plumber mangled the floor putting in the drain and water lines. this highly trained plumber also just bent the copper lines instead of installing fittings, supported the drain by letting it rest on the top of a partially removed floor joist (looks like a chainsaw got loose) and using a coat hanger, and has part of a drain running uphill. all in all, excellent work. the marks of a true craftsman.

there was more mold (and former mold) in the bathroom

than expected--in one corner from an old roof leak which we saw from the outside and near the toilet from when it was not working right and the tank was slowly overflowing. so, i had a fun sanitizing session (glad we have our respirators from the asbestos project) ... so it's good we are doing this project to remove possible mold sources. and of course, in the midst of all this, i realized the upstairs toilet wasn't working right (the float wasn't shutting the water off) so had to scavange parts from the old toilet to fix it quickly (and replace the downstairs toilet shutoff). but, since remediation and emergency repairs i've gotten things all cleaned up and on the dry, strengthened the existing tub/shower enclosure and bulkhead, framed in for a shower ceiling and began putting in some new framing for the rear shower wall. i need to get to a 32"x60" enclosure for the Kerdi kit. i won't get there perfectly (without major reworking of what's already there) so am getting it "practically" close so that only minor changes will be needed to the kit (hopefully changes i can easily work out in the tiling).

Mr. Toby had some more antics the other day.

the painters were inside the sunroom again. suddenly one of the painters came and asked me to (in broken english) put Toby in another room ... and he showed me the little white pawprints on the floor leaving the sunroom. apparently Toby jumped into a freshly painted windowsill. luckily it came off the floor easy ... not so much off Toby -- he still wears his badges of shame.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

no turning back

started tearing up the downstairs bathroom today

. pretty much no turning back now. especially considering i managed to take a chunk out of the toilet tank lid while trying to remove a stubborn corner bead. whoopsidaisy. good thing we were going to get another one anyway. looking at a Vitra Evergreen dual flush.

we donated another chunk of change to Lowe's, this time for our tile.

we're going with a multi-colored slate (browns, greens, coppery reds, grays, etc). very earthy looking ... which is fitting for our planned decorating scheme (WPA/WPA style posters of National Parks we've been to). 12" on the floor, 2" on the shower floor, 6" on the shower wall (with 3 rows of 1" x 3" tile as an accent). we kind of wanted to to the 2" on the shower walls ... but too pricey. ended up buying a "disposable wet saw" (as the Lowe's guy called it). it was only $58 (with a blade) which is cheaper than renting one and less work then running back and forth to Lowe's to have them do cuts in their spare time. can probably get a couple bucks for it on Craigslist when i'm done too. looking at getting a Kerdi shower kit to waterproof the shower (kit includes a presloped base and a drain). now, just have to do the work. crap.

Contractor was back out today ... did some work on the north side -- shingle siding and soffits. slow and steady. as long as "steady" is included.

Monday, December 08, 2008

back in the game

last week was fairly hectic as we worked to get some things finished up for the first of two Christmas parties we are hosting this year (on consecutive weekends). the first was Chrissy's girls Bible study group (and alumni) and this coming weekend is the one we host each year. hosting large groups of people is good motivation to get some stuff done! Chrissy got our house all Christmasy ... we got our tree Sat morning. got a type of blue spruce this year. it's a bit prickly, but looks nice and smells great ... mmm. so far only minimal batting at ornaments by the cats.

so the kitchen is 99.99% done now.

yes, miracles do happen. i'll probably tinker on a few touch-ups and want to repaint/restain the door jamb going into the dining room sometime ... but it's essentially done. so, soooooo nice to have it done finally. we love the results. Chrissy finished a bunch of touch-ups and the repainting of the door jambs and the little shelves. i got

the blank drawer front to cover the sink installed as well as the new pantry door. the old pantry doors were configured with 2 sets of 2 doors. we came back with a single large door with 2 recessed panels. and we decided it would be fun to make the recesses chalkboards ... and so it is.

the upstairs bathroom is a totally different world now also.

installed the exhaust fan/light last ... well ... sometime (a week ago Friday?). i'm too old to remember that stuff anymore i guess. it went fairly well. it's always a little scary cutting holes in walls (for a larger elec box to put switches beside the outlet i was pulling power from) and ceilings (for fan) of plastered walls. i was a tad concerned that the whole ceiling would end up on the floor. but alas, the hole went marvelously. running the wire went ok. even working in the attic a few minutes wasn't terrible for once (except for the bat that scared the crap out of me when it

crawled out of a pile of insulation beside me). saturday (i can remember that far back) i got to the overhead shower. today (i'm off this week again to use up vacation time) i did some adjusting of the support hangers, riser piping (one connection was annoyingly leaky), and the gigantically huge long inner shower curtain (180") with two outer curtains. i may make the inaugural shower shortly (just got the drain running well enough to handle it ... i think). sorry the pics aren't great ... it's hard to take overall pictures in small rooms. oh, and Toby is a big fan of the new setup ... he loves roaming around the tub between the curtains.

also today i finished a basement reorganization project i started a few weeks back. removed a bunch of junk (some ours, some old debris from who knows when) from the old coal room so that i could move a lot of boxes into there (stays drier in there and the space was otherwise wasted). added 3 more shelving units to the big room so that now pretty much everything is off the floor and actually accessible. de-spiderweb'd again too. no pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it that it's great improvement. maybe i'll throw some on flickr sometime.

outside progress has been S.L.O.W.

i will say that the contractor warned us ... but its still annoying. the crew seems to use any excuse to not come work. HOPEFULLY this week they'll wrap up the siding, trim and maybe soffits and gutters. please please please please. looks great so far!

escape kitty escaped two more times ... these times by just shooting out the door while it's open. then last night he slipped between the screen/storm door and main door without me noticing. i was checking to make sure the outer door was latched right before going to bed. thought i heard him scratching at something when i was upstairs a few mins later but it wasn't until the second time i heard it while laying in bed that i realized he could have done what he did. he's so sneaky. almost cost him a very very cold night stuck between doors. this is getting out of hand. maybe we can tie him up on a 100' leash in the house?

being productive rocks.
fin.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

pause

this evening we went into a 2 day pause as we've left town to spend the weekend with Chrissy's family. managed to get some time in the upstairs bathroom and on a few misc. items (basement doorknob, cleanup, putting cab doors back on, etc.) before leaving though. and got to see Purdue get hosed against Oklahoma. argh.

here's the new and improved shiny white sink with superduper new faucet

from Signature Hardware (and new drain, trap, shut off-valves, and supply lines .... which may be replaced for slighly shorter ones) . the tub got it's new faucet permanantly installed and drain put in ... but didn't get to the overhead shower rod yet (see bemoaning of Purdue loss above):

added crown (yesterday) to the top of the upper kitchen cabs. note that you

are only seeing one of the cabinet tops. i bought one (1) 8' length of crown only to end up literally 1.5" short. had i realized how close i'd be cutting it i probably could have been really careful cleaning up the ends and squaring up after bevels (when doing 2 sets of outside corners you end up cutting off a chunk of unusable material to get back to a squared end) and have had exactly enough -- maybe. bummer. amazing how much excess you use up making only outside corners. ran to Menards this morning (whoa busy!) and got the extra 1.5" ... err ... 28 9/16" ... err ... 8'-0". will get that up whence we returneth. ignore patching of crack from siding install and tape not yet removed (caulk-line).

i was describing to the painter the pattern we wanted (what got red/white)

for the porch this morning and i realized that the old soffits were off around the porch ... and was quite pleased with what i saw. i think we'll not put soffits back up. we'll leave the rafter tails exposed and just repaint/repair as needed. the profile of the header over the open part of the porch is so much nicer than before. turns out there was

an old "1050" hidden behind the old soffits too ... keeper! sadly, this is probably the nicest surprise we've had with this house. we're easily amused by this point.

oh, and Mr. Great Escape Toby made his second dash for freedom today

(first version was a similar escape plan a few months back). the painters have been working in the sunroom since not all the windows are accessible from the outside (due to non-opening storms, etc.). apparently they left for lunch and Toby found and open window where the storm DID operate. they are hinged at the top so he just pushed his way out i suppose. i was upstairs working and thought it odd i hadn't seen/heard him for a while (if you knew him you'd know what i mean). i searched the house up and down twice and knew he had to have gone out. on my second lap around the outside i saw him casually strolling along the neighbors porch (to the east). i went up to him and he just meowed and let me take him in. he was pretty wound up after that ... i think he was quite proud of himself. little felon. methinks we should have him microchipped. if i start finding little piles of dirt or improvised tools i'm going to start getting really worried.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

let there be bathing

took a while, but the tub and sink are done! the guy came late due to some scheduling issues but offered to stay late to finish up (didn't leave til after 9). the results are no less than amazing. the sink is ... white. real, honest to goodness white. the tub is ... white. and smooth. they really did a nice job. we'll let it cure tomorrow and reinstall all the hardware on Friday. which works well considering it is literally hard to breathe in there now ... them's some serious fumes. wow. here's some shots (including the Toby-proofing of the bathroom ... which reminds me, the blog world has never been introduced to Tobias the cat, maybe in the next post).

i didn't get as far as hoped in the kitchen today, but making progress and thank goodness i'm done caulking (hopefully). since i can't get into the bathroom yet it works out ok. i did get stocked up on supplies this morning (switches, wire, etc.) so Friday should be a productive day up there.

siding work continued also, north side today. 3 painters were out too. i think they're getting close to done on the windows except for some caulking and touch-up of the trim.

tomorrow (later today technically), there will be turkey. and there will be much rejoicing.