Everything old is new again

Just in time for the new year, a couple of old pictures from my camera which I apparently never posted.

I picked up this table off of Freecycle, planning on using it in my back room/workroom as just a level surface. Originally it was covered in 30-50 year old contact paper (a lovely star spangled theme if anyone wants it) stapled to the underside of the top. When I pulled the paper I found a) a nicer looking old table than I expected and b) a pretty obvious gap between the boards forming the top.
I was thinking about recovering the table in something, but then I noticed that the nails holding one of the boards were loose. Turns out the table was very poorly repaired sometime decades ago (as well as probably rebuilt - looks like there are three different woods used, plus I'm pretty sure this once had drawer). So I pulled the four nails and tried to reset the board. At this point I discovered that the attempted repair job had involved a heavy coat of glue:


The glue had hardened around the outside edge of the leg, so the board couldn't be pulled back evenly. Twenty minutes with a putty knife and razor blade and the glue was chipped away. Snug the board as close to the other as possible (the boards look like they were a replacement top ages ago - neither is fully square so there's still a much smaller gap between them in the middle), tap the nails back into the same holes, and voila!

Before:

After:


Also, and this was months ago, this is how the window on the steps to the basement used to look:

...and here's how it looks now:

These two windows were lying around in the basement and happened to be the perfect width. Together they're a little too tall for the space, but they fit snugly enough with the existing box that a heavy bead of caulk on all three sides seems to have sealed out the wind pretty well. The exterior window (sort of visible in the second photo) is missing a pane though, and I was waiting for the temperatures to come back up before testing out my new glass cutter/glazing points/glazing compound bundle that's now sitting in the back room desiring to be useful. Better pics of both inside and outside once I lay that last pane.

Dangit...

I missed posting on both Wednesday AND Thursday and now I've forgotten half the things I did, I'm sure. I do know I finally cleared a couple of things in the upstairs shower room and hung two mirrors I'd taken down from elsewhere - I would post pictures, but the room is kind of small and you wouldn't get a real good sense of it. Suffice to say a) there are no longer mirrors cluttering the shower room and b) the mirrors now on the walls give it a more open and inviting feel, which it was definitely lacking before.

Minor stuff here and there. Took measurements on the window holes in the attic to prep for making some custom windows. Marked off cuts on 2x4s to use for shelving in the shed. More Kroil and more blowtorch on the stand pipe (still nothing...). Ummm... other things too, I bet.

Today was a bit of a lost day - later start, sidetracked by other projects, and then a lot of wandering Elyria looking for a plumbing supply place in the hopes of getting a couple of small radiator parts. I did manage to get a couple of floor mats for inside the doorways (note to local merchants - selling out of floor mats in December in Ohio is a good thing, and should prompt you to order MORE floor mats because it's not like everyone in town was smart enough to buy them before now) but they need to be uncreased before I can see if they work with my doors.

Righto. A weekend awaits.

More small stuff

Raked about half the backyard.

More clearing in back room and living room.

Took a wire brush to the stand pipe cleanout, then gave it another dose of Kroil. Will alternate this with a blowtorch for the next couple of days and see if it gets us anywhere.

Mapped a few electrical circuits in the basement, including finally isolating the dining room light so I can install the switch and unit - and have a dining room again!

Also sorted through most of the papers that had piled up on the coffee table, which isn't really house-related per se, but at least I now have a coffee table again. And now Sarah's calling saying they're at the Feve, so I think that's it for today...

Project Week, the sequel

No work this week, so the plan is (was) to repeat Fall Break where I worked from early to late on the house doing numerous projectsd small and large. Monday got off to a slower start than I'd like, plus this week I do have one responsibility - Street Law at the high school every afternoon helping the students prepare for a moot court in front of the city council on Thursday. But I did manage to get some bits done in the afternoon and evening - more cleaning in the back room, installed the banister in the back staircase, and tackled cleaning the stove. Both Comet and baking soda and vinegar cut through some stuff, but it's been six months of college students and me using that thing, so it'll take more elbow grease to cut the grease.

Still working on the stand pipe cover - more blowtorching planned for tomorrow.

I was hoping that cleaning the stove top might reveal why the oven isn't lighting. When I turn the oven knob, the igniters all spark, but there is no sound of gas flowing as there is when you turn on any of the burners. This unit has a main feed line that runs along the front of the stovetop under the cover, with six ports for the burners and a separaate distribution - two lines (one pilot, one main I assume) for the oven. No visible clogging or grease on that distribution, but I haven't taken a wrench to the two lines to peer inside yet. No idea what to do if there's not an obvious clog though.

Quick update

I had to take half the door latch off the shed and move it over a quarter of an inch (took thirty seconds, just three screws). I think that it was a little tight to start with, and then the weather and the structure settling slightly was all it took so that the two parts would no longer smoothly fit together.

I was in the shed today, despite the rain, continuing to clear stuff from my back room. I've started building more things into the shed - just some crossbars to hang tools right now; soon enough a shelf or three to take advantage of all the space - so it won't become cluttered like the rooms it is decluttering.

Finally, checked the sump pump today and found that the hose had shifted and blocked the float just enough that the pit wasn't draining (it was actually overflowing onto the floor). Moved things around a little and it's draining fine now, but I think this and the frozen hose the other day are signs I should finally go get some PVC pipe and properly build out the pump line.

Hoo boy...

Okay, it's been cold as heck lately plus I've been shutting down at work, so not only have I done less around the house but when I do things I'm usually too cold afterwards to type them up. I have been continuing to tackle the stand pipe. While Draino and other treatments got things flowing a little, I really just want to open up the cleanout and see if my suspicion is correct and there's just a major blockage right there in reachin' distance. So I've started alternating heat (blowtorch!) and more Kroil to see if this gets us anywhere. If you've never used a blowtorch, I highly recommend buying a house so you have justification to get one. A little unnerving at first, but perfectly safe if handled properly (read the instructions, kids) plus it thawed my shed lock in no time!

Also, some water in my sump pump pipe froze; quick fix (unscrew from the pump, shake it out, reattach) but I'm wondering how to keep that from happening for the next three months...

Also, this has nothing to do with the house, but I was in stitches watching most of it:

Getting rediculous...

Still having clog problems. To recap - there's a clog somewhere in the standpipe below the four drains that feed to the main line (see pic here). It has to be below, down where they all come together, because pouring water down any of the lines - shower, toilet, sink - results in bubbles and gurgling noises in the others.

I relented and used a sulfuric acid drain opener yesterday. This seemed to work initially, but I may just have not put enough water into the pipes last night to know for sure. Further testing this morning reveals that the clog (well, a clog; it's possible this one is further down the line) is still there.

So. The drain auger didn't work - the clog is probably a hair clog (it's quite solid when I do hit it) and I'm not pulling anything out when I do get the snake jammed into it. Enzymes didn't work, which furthers the theory that it's a hair clog. The sulfuric acid may have become too dilute, or there may not have been enough of it, or it may not have worked for some other reason. I'm inclined to think it's the first option - read the directions on drain cleaners and it's clear they are generally made to attack clogs in the trap of a drain, i.e. fairly close to the drain opening. To get the cleaner down to where this clog is means pushing water behind it.

I've also been unable to budge the standpipe cover even with some super penetrating oil loaned to me by Nate. That last one is frustrating because you just know the clog is probably right there...

My options right now seem to be thus:
- keep trying on the stand pipe cover; maybe use a blowtorch (after wiping away any excess penetrating oil) and use vise grips as opposed to a wrench
- find a way to get drain cleaner to the clog in an undiluted form. I'm thinking I could drill a hole in the PVC pipe from the sink and pour the cleaner into a run that heads downwards, as opposed to dealing with the various horizontal runs on the drains. I would then cover the hole with one of those rubber sleeves tightened by pipe clamps.
- call a plumber. I'm leaving this one until I have to - if I can't open the stand pipe, get the thing to move with a snake, or get the drain cleaner to the clog undiluted, I suspect a plumber will have to do some significant labor to have any more luck. In the interest of not spending hundreds of dollars when I could spend several hours of my own time, I'll keep at this until I'm heading beyond my abilities.

UPDATE (February '09): Had to call a plumber and have the drain snaked. Even if I did get the cover off (he did it via vibration - hammer and chisel for a few moments, then it opened with ease) the clog - which he thinks was a bic pen or the like - was 5-10' down the line. So I have a perfectly functioning drain now, which is great. But I did pay $165 for an hour's work...

Catching up...

Winding down with my temporary work, applied for a full-time job, and juggling a few other side projects means I've been doing a little less on the house and posting about that with even greater infrequency. Since the last post, I've pulled another 20'+ of old gas pipe out of the attic, moved a number of items to the shed (despite the near freezing temperatures and snow flurries that have descended upon town) meaning I once again have a foyer and am close to having a back room, and have been dealing on and off with the pipe clog. Using a borrowed drain snake I was able to reach the clog, but it seems to be quite big and solid - hair, most likely. Repeated jabs with the augur didn't get me anywhere. I was set to try some lye, but the stuff I had had truned into a rock and you're not supposed to chip it out and use it. Having had no luck opening the stand pipe cover either, I think I'll grab some washing soda, and some nasty chemical drain cleaner, when I'm at the store Sunday.

More updates as they are warranted.

Plumbing the depths

Been quiet for a few days, I know, but not because nothing is going on. The shed is almost finished out back (some rain and snow (none that stuck) delayed things, but the builder is working hard at this moment in some near-freezing temperatures, and the thing should be finished, including roof shingles, tomorrow) just in time for it to be too cold for me to want to haul anything out there.

Meanwhile, I came home Saturday to find what looked like a minor mud explosion in my downstairs bathroom. Something had forced a lot of the gunk that built up in the pipes up out of the drain and splattered it around a bit. The cleanup was quick and easy but clearly there was a pipe problem. Still is, actually. As I write this, I've located several small leaks in the drainpipes (shower, sink, toilet), none of which should be too hard to fix - that's another post. The bigger problem -and what likely caused the eruption - is a severe clog somewhere in the line.

The water in the pipes is clear - run the shower and it runs down past the trap no problem, for example. But run any of the three long enough and you can hear burbling from at least one of the others; when I used a plunger to test the drains I'd often hear it in both the others. All three - plus the outflow from the washing machine upstairs, and an uncovered(!) vent outside which I've recently covered - feed into a main standpipe and I'm guessing that's where the problem lies:

Trying to figure out what to apply to the clog, though, and how is the trick. With the traps on all three bathroom fixtures - and the clog looking like it's past the traps - it seems like pouring something down the laundry pipe would be best. There's a short run of PVC at the top, though, and the best cleanser I have is lye - I'm reading that lye is not good for PVC (and absolutely not good for aluminum, galvanized steel, and other specific metals with which it can react; fortunately I have none of that - just copper, cast iron, and pvc). I've ordered some enzyme cleaners which will be good for keeping the pipes clear in the long run, but I need to get this clog out soon if I want to actually use my bathroom again - 45 second showers don't really work.

The sink is mostly PVC to the stand pipe. The shower looks like all copper from the drain down. But again both, and the toilet, have a full trap somewhere on the line so I think I'll try the laundry pipe first - if a dose or two does damage the PVC it should be a lot easier to replace that where it connects to the cast iron on the second floor than any of the other lengths.

Nuts!

Or fewer of them I suppose. Upon examining the hole in the porch soffit, and the rest of the soffit board, more closely, I've come to the determination that a large section of board will need to be replaced, and likely some backing board will need to be tucked inside to hold the gutter more firmly. That will have to wait until spring. For now, I've covered the hole with scrap particle board and caulk and added some screws to keep the gutter from sagging at that corner. One squirrel has been wandering around the porch in some confusion as a result - I think he can smell whatever the other squirrel managed to squirrel away up there, but can't figure out how to get in. Hopefully he doesn't start chewing soon, because he seems smarter than the last about avoiding the trap.

It doesn't look pretty (nor does the rest of the stuff around it),
but it does cover the holes. The broken board on the left behind
the gutter is covered too - there's a 2"x5" piece on edge
screwed to the main patch.

Will someone please invent a smoke alarm...

...that doesn't take five minutes to figure out it has a fresh battery in it? Or beep after you've disconnected the power AND removed the battery (that was an almost amusing 'whaaaaa?' moment)?

I just put fresh batteries into the smoke detectors upstairs (after determining that I'd have to run new wire all throughout the attic if I want them connected to each other, and deciding that the things are so damn loud that, should anything ever catch on fire, one going off will be plenty so why bother right now?). With the power off (from that attic checking) I put one in. After a moment, it beeped. No idea why. I pulled it out to deal with something else. After ten seconds, the damn thing beeped again with no power source; capacitor must have held some charge. Anyway, I go around and put new batteries in all of them. I flip on the breaker. There is some beeping here and there. I open a battery compartment to check to make sure it's in. It is. There is still beeping. I press all the 'press here to silence' buttons. Still beeping. I go downstairs to see if the manufacturer has a user manual online (they don't - I don't understand why companies don't archive PDF manuals of discontinued products...) While sitting on the couch. I notice less and less beeping. Then there is silence.

I swear, as soon as I go back upstairs they'll start again. They're just waiting for me...

No, seriously, why do smoke detectors take several minutes to figure out whether you've corrected the problem or not? The same thing happened in an apartment I used to live in. I realize these things are pretty simple machines, but still...

This has been the first, I believe, and only, I hope, post that is much more 'blog' and less 'house'.

Not much

Quick update so I don't let this lapse too long. Shed's due Monday so I've been clearing more stuff in the yard - raking leaves, putting all the scrap metal in one pile so I can haul it to Blue Star at some point, etc, etc. Borrowed one of Joe's aluminum ladders today so I could clear the gutters (stupid fall, stupid leaves). There's been a small drip at a corner by the living room and I finally got a look at that - looks like the metal separated slightly at a joint - tough to tell if it's bent, rusted, punctured, etc. I've tried an experiment that is unlikely to hold up that long but worth trying - plumbers putty. Since it doesn't really adhere it'll probably pull off at some point. I also wonder if it'll stand up to the temperature fluctuations outside. Eh, in the meantime it should keep that drip from happening at the next rainstorm.

There will also be a post soon on how I now have daylight on my basement stairs, but I want to use my new glass cutter first to finish that project completely. It'll all make sense when you see the pictures and I'm not typing this at 12:30am.

Doors and windows

In addition to trying to sort all my tools and supplies in the living room (that's where they've been since I don't have real space in the back room until the shed is built) today was spent painting windows, caulking a few of the storms, and finally finishing fixing (alliterative adventures abound) the porch door. Every window on the first floor is painted; almost all are ready for winter - I need to caulk the new ones in the kitchen and we should be good.

The door had two minor problems. First, it had settled (and I hadn't hung it super squarely to begin with) so the top far corner was rubbing against the frame. There's a simple fix using a trick I learned while hanging some drywall back in high school - wonderbars are just levers, and they let one person do two jobs. Prop the far side with the bar lengthwise:

It's actually best if you flip the bar over (so you are using the lever closer to the door), but this way might be necessary depending on how much clearance you have under the panel you're trying to level - fortunately my very nice old porch door is very worn on the bottom, so I was able to use it the 'right' way. In other words I messed up when I was staging this shot after the fact. Resuming the how to: Take the screws out of the top and middle hinge on the frame side. Press down on the wonderbar to bring the door square against the frame on the hinge side. Resink the screws starting at the top - you may have to go in at a slight angle to catch clean wood as opposed to the old hole. Chances are you'll be fine going straight - old doors tend to have a little more space between them and the frame, so if it's to the point of rubbing then squaring the door will probably move the hinge screw holes over quite a bit.

Problem two was mostly aesthetic. The strike plate was set for the aluminum screen door I took down. You can see where another strike plate used to be set further back, but this one didn't quite fit there. The result was that the door latched but wasn't flush with the frame - it butted out 3/8" on the far side.

I couldn't locate a smaller strike plate during a couple of shopping trips, so I went for the next best thing - carving. A few minutes with the jig and then a pocketknife got me a flush enough space to screw in the plate. I think I'm going to invest in a chisel set for all the wood I've got in this place though.

Properly hung door, seven painted windows, and a living room I can walk through. It's been a good Saturday, even if I didn't get out to the electrical supply place.

Sage advice

Years ago my grandfather said to me - and this was while I was in college - 'Be a plumber. The world is always going to need plumbers.' It should be noted that he was a film and television producer and did all right for himself and his family.

I don't know if I should have become (or still should become) a plumber, but I do know this: there is no such thing as a small plumbing job. In an effort to make my non-working spigot work, I decided to seal any joints and connections along the run. I've found that - and maybe this is just anecdotal - poorly sealed handles and the like can cause decreases in water pressure even if they aren't leaking themselves. In any case, it was worth a shot - some more plumbers tape, a wrench, and half an hour in the basement. Problems here were twofold, and all aspiring plumbers take note. First, the spigot was up a flight of stairs, out the back door, and around a corner, so testing it after making any adjustments required running back and forth. Have a partner, and a set of walkie talkies, to make things go faster. Second issue is an oldie but a goodie - know what's on and what's off. Same goes for electricity, but with plumbing you don't have things like volt testers to remind you if you're being a dumbass. Turn it off as early on the line as you're willing (I should have just shut it off at the main entry line - I wasn't using water anywhere else and the boiler was off). Long story short I've got a sweatshirt drying in the foyer right now. And the spigot still isn't working well.

Also today - found a storm window that fits the empty space in the dining room window storm, and removed the broken glass from the interior sash. I think I'll get that plastic shrink wrap for the winter though just to seal out any more drafts. Oh, and I need to caulk all the storm windows on the first floor at least to seal out drafts. Caulk is going to be my new friend this weekend. And those of you with purile minds can just leave now.

Tomorrow I'm planning on one last Lowes run coupled with a stop at an electrical supply place Dan Gregus highly recommends. If I pick up what all's on my list right now, I should be able to cap this Project Week with a highly successful Project Weekend. Updates as they happen.

And also today...

Put up a small shelf in the laundry room, and picked up the permit for the shed. Hey look, I'm legal:

Quick fix

The dryer vent hose was just tucked in the back room's partly open window, which made for a draft when it was in use. To vent it out without keeping the window open - and this is temporary until I decide if the washer and dryer are staying in this upstairs room, and if so where to put a vent in the wall - I built a quick... I don't know what you'd call it, but it vents without keeping the window fully open. It's just a board that runs the width of the window with a hole for an old vent pipe I salvaged. The dryer vent is just attached to the pipe with a screw-tight pipe clamp.

Two adjustments were necessary. First, the window sash is very old and unevenly worn resulting in some gaps between the sash bottom and the board. I just ran a strip of self-adhesive weatherstripping foam along the board.

Second was the making the pipe clamp work - the vent hose is about 1.5" wider in diameter than the old pipe to which it's connected. Tightening the clamp would tear the hose and/or provide a bad seal. Again, the weatherstripping foam came into play - ran it around the pipe a couple of times to bulk up its diameter, then put the pipe clamp over that section and tightened down a little. Seems to be working fine - virtually no fog on the inside of the window so it appears all the air is going out the pipe as desired.
This still needs two minor things - some caulk or spray foam to plug the small holes between the pipe and the board hole; and some insulation between the glass panes to keep drafts from coming up since the window is still partly open.

Tuesday

Bullets, because it's been a long day:

- applied for permit to have the shed put in out back; looks like that will be fine
- hung a couple of pictures (long overdue)
- dragged all the old shed up to the driveway and sorted the scrap pile into aluminum and steel
- cleared some undergrowth from around where I plan on having the shed installed
- pulled down some broken branches that were stuck in other branches after that storm a few weeks back
- cleared some brush from the area around where the shed should go
- tried installing a missing storm window in the dining room. Having trouble finding one that's the right size - moreover, the sash cords are broken on that window and at one point the lower sash slammed down and I lost a piece of 100 year old glass. C'est la vie. Tomorrow I'll take that whole storm down and try and get something to fit.
- moved a lot of furniture and tools around in the living room because I had one half of Ian Wilson's band crashing overnight.
- older note but worth mentioning: cleaned several of the downstair's radiators' steam valves with vinegar and now have minimal whistling.

The worst thing on the outside of the house

At least I hope that's the case.

There are two big picture windows in the living room, both with some stained glass. The one on the west wall (which is the most exposed to the elements) looks like it hasn't been touched in decades - when I moved in, I could see some separation between the glass and the wood framing elements; the caulk is severely damaged on much of it.


Now, the storm window that's coming will go a long way to protecting this, at least for this year. I've had good success with plastic sheeting in the interim to keep the rain and some of the wind away. Tape on the inside plugs the biggest gaps to prevent drafts. I don't plan on working on restoring or in any way fixing the two sashes anytime soon - painting the exterior frame and getting the storm in is likely all I'll do this fall. However, there are two questions that this window raises.

The first is the obvious - how to best go about fixing the sashes, especially the multi-framed stained glass one up top? Any resources anyone can point me to would be much appreciated. The second is a historical one. Everyone who's looked at this glass has said the same thing - it's not original, and likely went in well after the other stained glass in the house. Is there a way to narrow down when the glass was installed - the color, the style of framing?

Sunday

No more creative a title than that. Today was a productive continuation of yesterday - swapped some lightbulbs through the town lightbulb exchange (Oberlin College students and town residents can turn in incandescent lightbulbs and get CFLs instead - totally free thanks to a donation from an anonymous alum), took my new jigsaw out for a spin (pictures hopefully tomorrow when the rest of that project falls into place), and painted several windows. Most of the windows have pretty weathered sills and surrounds - it's been a while since anyone painted the trim, let alone all the shingles. As long as the shingles aren't loose, they should survive the winter regardless of paint. The trim on the other hand really needed a good seal - I'll probably go over the sills and any rough spots with a second coat this week.

Once again I failed to take a before picture.
Just pretend the trim looks like everything around it.

Both of the big picture windows got attention today. Here's a before on the side window (see next post for more on this) which, like its sister in the front, will be getting custom built storm windows in a few weeks. Great note on that - I went to both Home Depot and Lowes to ask about custom ordering storms, just to see if the price was any lower than what I'd been quoted from an independent company. Neither could even give me a quote - the height and width (combined) of these windows was too large for their computers to handle.

Oh, and also mowed the front lawn - who wants to take bets that this won't be the last time I'll do that this year?

That worked surprisingly quickly...

This time of year, apparently all it takes is two walnuts and a squirrel will squeeze itself into a space barely larger than itself (there were no mid-size traps available at Lowes). I put it out last night as the sun was heading down and when I got up half an hour ago, I found... success!

Just released the critter into the arb. He was healthy enough to scoot from the trap to a tree 20 feet away in about .003 seconds, so I think he'll be fine.

Now to fully patch that hole in the porch eave so this doesn't happen again. This task will be made much easier, I hope, by the fact that I FINALLY bought a jigsaw. After several trips to Jamie's without stumbling across a solid one for cheap, I caved and decided that fixing the eave, building a vent slot for the laundry room, etc, etc were more important than bargin hunting. I may have failed flea marketers everywhere, but at least my house will not have unnecessary holes in it this winter.

Also done yesterday - ordered the shed, put up the second light in the hallway (thank you again, wire clippers!) and... something. I must have done something else yesterday. I need to keep two lists - things to do and things I've done. Yes, I realize this blog was supposed to be the latter.

Excitement! Adventure! Explosions!

No, not really with the explosions. Actually, not really with the other two if you don't find boiler maintenance to be exciting or adventurous.

The boiler's water level sight was coated with rust and other sediment, so I took the opportunity to, as my neighbor Joe put it, get to know my heating system. Monroe's Heating is right up 58 and Tim, the owner, was able to stop down today for a full cleaning and inspection. Gave me plenty of do-it-yourself pointers (including 'clear out the sight glass like you'd do with a gun' - a point not lost on this former Boy Scout, although it's been almost 15 years since I've done that), spotted a couple of potential trouble spots and told me what to look for to know something has to be replaced, screwed everything back together, and headed off.

Minor snag though - he detached the wires powering the starter by hand to shut off the power (not recommended, but doable if you know where to grab and not grab - I always flip the breaker first, but then again I've been known to look both ways and still step into oncoming traffic) and thus was reattaching and capping live wires. I think one of them was loose as a result which kept the burners from kicking on when I turned up the thermostat this evening. Ten minutes with some electrical tape though and things are running fine.

Except for the last part of today's adventure. Heat comes on, normal radiator noises, some of the abnormal radiator noises I've been meaning to address (see below) - and then a new noise from the radiator in my bedroom (which I could have sworn I turned off) which sounds suspiciously like water splashing on the floor. Somehow the valve had been turned upside down and had bled out a good half cup of water. Fortunately I caught it and mopped everything up before it could damage anything.

What all this means is that I've just added a significant (in terms of time) project to my Project Weekend - getting all the radiators in shape. I've been hearing some bad whistling on the downstairs radiators and have been meaning to clean them out - you can literally screw apart the valve and tap/blow out most blockages, and vinegar and hot water works for anything worse. The color of the water on my bedroom floor tells me that there are probably deeper clogs in each unit, which means putting some vinegar into the boiler* and doing some brush and wire work on the inside where the valve screws in. A couple of units also have excessive sloshing sounds, meaning I should level them to make sure water runs all the way back out and down to the return piping. After all that I should still bleed each radiator before winter, but pulling the valves to clean them technically overbled them. This will probably be a two-part project, then. 1) Clean the valves and level the radiators to eliminate unwanted noises; 2) Let the boiler push air and water back into all the radiators, then go through and bleed as necessary to ensure even heating.

*Careful with this if you have a boiler system of your own. It's not caustic, but it can still do damage. Plus my system is a pretty simple steam system - yours may not like the home remedy approach (assuming you have an annual professional checkup anyway your boiler company should be able to tell you the risks and benefits). Moreover, and here's the 'planning' part of all this - if you've ever cleaned out an iron by putting vinegar in the tank, you know what steamed vinegar smells like; not bad, but not what you want around your house all day. You'll need to leave windows open to let the smell dissapate - shouldn't take long, but unless this weekend's temperatures get back to the 60s, the vinegar treatment may have to wait 'till spring at my place.

You know what's useful?

These things:


Thanks to them, the new light in the upstairs closet is finally installed, and (since it's mid-line on a circuit) the light in the laundry room is now back on.

And it only took an hour and a half (although fifteen minutes of that was searching for my wire strippers. Which still haven't been located. Whatever - bedtime.)

This was the old fixture. Clearly it needed replacing:

With friends like these...

I should have more people over more regularly. It's not just the multi-person projects that get done (painting part of one of the exterior walls, for example), something about having other people around gets me more active, to the point that I'll swap a couple of mismatched cabinet handles in the kitchen (that I've been staring at for months) while we're all standing around and chatting.

Sarah and Mike stopped over today and we did the above plus: mapped out shed dimensions to make sure I'm placing it well; installed a new jack in the basement to replace one that was missing (!); moved all the tree limbs that came down in the storm the other week to the front for city pickup; and I just put some plumbers tape on a valve in the upstairs shower to stop a small drip.

Pictures soon.

Catch up

Still digging out at work, meaning not much has been happening at the house. I hope to be back to actually part time soon. I also hope to order that shed in the next two days which will really be the last big thing that needs to happen before winter hits. Even the scraping and painting and such are either isolated sections or, should it come to it, they can wait.

Things done today:
- more porch scraping since the weather was nice; found that the squirrels are getting ready for winter and thus need to get kicked out now.
- hung blinds in the kitchen window so it looks less bare
- turned this:

into this:

Also discovered that this light fixture and both outlets in the room are on the same breaker - the ceiling units and the outlets in other rooms are often separate due, I suspect, to when the lines went in. This is a little bit of a concern because I thought at least one other load is also on that circuit, meaning tenants might not find it so easy to watch TV, have the light on, and run the popcorn maker or whatever else they're doing at once. Will need to double check the panel labels and add this to the list of rewiring jobs for next summer.

Finally, the latest entry in the series 'People Who Passed Out Asleep on my Couch'. Doug took a red-eye drive in from Minnesota (11.5 hours) and fell asleep mid-sentence whilst laying on the couch.

Four rooms

Three, actually, but some with 4 walls. Okay, all with four walls, but the point is - the painting in the bedrooms is done. Hey look, it doesn't look like a tenement anymore!

Only a couple of small projects left upstairs, but I've been bogged with actual work (Alumni Council Weekend this weekend is sucking my office's lifeforce) and a minor cold for the last couple of days. Mofre updates next week, fingers crossed

New tag

I'm adding an 'advice wanted' tag to the blog for projects and peculiarities I'd like to try and crowdsource. If you're looking for a puzzle, these would be the posts that need addressing.

Right now the main point to ponder is at the bottom of this post - how do I get the paint off these spindles so I can repaint everything?

No longer a hole in the wall

Readers may remember the section of wall in the back bedroom that needed repair and how locating a plug to match the old 1/4" wallboard was proving difficult. I decided to just break out the plaster down to the lathe and plug it with drywall instead.

Fortunately I don't think there are other sections of plaster/wallboard that are cracked and buckling, so I shouldn't have to do this - or something smarter - again soon.

This section of wall was clearly redone at some point - we're talking 40+ years ago no real idea if there was a door or different wall there, or if there was damage repaired, or what. If anyone knows when they stopped using horse-hair plaster (which covered the lathe on the left side) and started using the more uniform plaster (used to cover the right), that might give me a sense of whether this remodeling was connected to the back addition (circa 1920) or something else.

In any event, clearing just this section of plaster(s) was an adventure, involving all the tools below plus an aborted attempt to use a circ saw. The 'newer' plaster was very disinterested in budging, which I suppose bodes well for the long term integrity of the house, but sucks for me trying to get this done in a day.

On the left, the drywall plug set to replace all the plaster on the right:


There's some slight unevenness with the two sections of lathe, probably due to the studs not being perfectly aligned. The screws seem to be holding the plug in fine, and I filed the edges a little to create a better gradient. Then used up a quarter of my jug of spackle:

After I was done I realized I'd missed a great opportunity to install a safe or secret compartment. Ah well - plenty of other walls in the house.

Not much to report

Been moving things around in anticipation of tomorrow's (today's) garage sale. If you're in town, come over and take this stuff. Please.

After that's gone, all I need is to figure out where I'm putting the shed out back (still... yes... I know) and then I can move the rest of the things I don't need in the house out of the house. And THEN I can get some work done.

It's not even Labor Day...

And I'm still doing so much work! Thanks, I'll be hear all millennium.

Tasks tackled lately:

- more paneling hung. Have not yet reversed last week's error though.
- installed a double roller catch in the kitchen passthrough so the door stays closed. Would have installed two but I didn't see that the second one I bought was broken.
- finished off trim on window in upstairs bathroom. You haven't done mental geometry until you've tried to match your measurements on a square frame to a series of 45 degree mitre cuts on 90 degree cap molding.
- other stuff I'm sure...

Scraping and painting, and problems with both (now with pictures!).

Plenty of both the last couple of days. I've got one renter moving in right now and am trying to get all the upstairs rooms painted (if they need it). This is mostly standard stuff - tape off, roller, brush, clean up (got an excellent selection of self-priming paints from Sherwin Williams so things go even faster) - but I have one problem in the back bedroom:

A section of the wallboard had cracked and buckled, probably from someone years ago putting their elbow through the other side of the wall. Whatever the reason, I needed to cut the section out down to the plaster. The plan was to buy some drywall or wallboard of the same thickness, tack it into the space, spackle the edges, and paint the whole wall. Unfortunately, this wallboard or whatever is just under a quarter inch thick and something like it probably hasn't been manufactured in years, according to other people who know old buildings. Home Depot certainly doesn't seem to have anything. I'm thinking about just spackling the entire hole, although that seems like a huge waste of spackle, or tacking luan or other wood into the space, although that seems like it will produce a wall with wildly different surfaces.


I'm also continuing to hack at the porch. I finished the entire lower rail today, plan to get the entire ceiling done within the next couple of days, but am really not looking forward to dealing with the spindles which have thick paint that is either cracking or not moving.

The past couple of days...

Have been a veritable flurry of activity. I scraped about 1/10th of the porch. That's a lot when you realize this is the paint on my porch:
At least three layers, at least two of which are heavy-duty exterior paint. Not heavy duty enough, because this is what I'm tackling before I can paint anything:

At the rate I'm going (couple of hours, most days), it should be done by early next week. If the weather holds, I can paint all at once. And maybe even put a coat of the new blue (very similar to the old blue) on the front shingles. You know, the ones that needs painting the least.

Meanwhile, inside... I don't know how the hell this happened:

A tip...

Yes, yes, I know I said I'd be posting in this thing daily. But between work, friends in from out of town, the county fair last weekend (combine... derby....), and today's important home improvement tip, I haven't always been at the computer with thoughts to share.

Today's Important Home Improvement Tip:
Do not go into your attic in the middle of the afternoon during the summer. If you do, don't expect to get much work done.

Note: No, I didn't pass out.

Step one: Tyvek

Forty-five minutes is at least 20 minutes longer than I expected this to take:

Major sources of delay: discovering the bathroom vent pipe wasn't solidly hooked up inside the wall (solution: snip the end of the short pipe so it could be collapsed a little and slide inside the pipe in the wall); and realizing ex post facto that a utility knife would have been a better choice to cut the paper than the shears I brought with me.

Still - some nice old wood under these shingles. I continue to indulge the fantasy of having all the shingles removed, finding not a single spot of rot or weakness or air gaps underneath, and painting the entire building to last, low maintenance, for another 100 years.


Until then, I'll be back up on the ladder soon to put shingles over the paper. I'm looking for the answer to this question - can I use a nail gun to attach the shingles, as opposed to predrilling both shingle and the board underneath, then tapping two nails through each shingle? That's the way the previous owner did it, but if a nail gun with the right size nails and the right pressure setting can do the job then I'll gladly spend the money to spend that much less time.

So close...

See, if the neighbor's cat was really a good hunter, I wouldn't have to call a pest control guy to get two squirrels removed from my porch roof...



This squirrel is missing most of its tail, though, so one of the cats has had some mild success. I can't wait, though - I'm scraping the porch now and want to take out the broken soffit board (where the squirrels got in), replace it, seal all the cracks all along the whole porch underside, and paint it within the next week or so. Then the place won't look QUITE so run down from the outside...