So... What are YOU doing? - Part 5

I should be doing my notes, but instead I'm posting on here and looking around. I'm so far behind. . . .

A generous helping of Fun With Holes today. Yesterday I left a gap only partly filled, because it was big enough I didn't want the cement oozing out under its own weight. Today I filled the rest of it, and felt around what appeared to be another hole. Sure enough, when the house was built they made holes in the inner face of the bricks to house the joists that support upstairs. Needless to say they didn't bother filling in the gaps around the holes. A few places had blown cellulose insulation that kinda-sorta went a little way into the holes but most of them had nothing. So instead of fitting panels, I ended up having to pry baseboards off the wall, remove the laths and the plaster behind them, clear up the mess so I could work, and then set to filling the big holes. For a first cut I went through an entire can of maximum expanding builders foam. Then I figured since I was there I might as well seal up a few of the other gaps between the bricks so got busy mixing, filling, mixing, filling..... and repeated until I ran out of light. I can only do so much using my worklight, and all the electrics over there are disconnected so I can't turn the light on.

No matter, I got a load of gaps filled with foam and another dozen or so gaps filled with cement, so it's another step in the right direction. Maybe tomorrow I'll push on and fill a bunch more gaps. Over the course of today I went from no bags waiting for the landfill to three full bags, so I've probably got about 80-90lb of rubble and other trash to take away. Once that gets up to about 400 it will be time for another trip out there.

Today I took a few more laths down, hunting what I could only assume was the worst hole I was going to find so far. And I was right... although it was slightly worse than I expected. There was one huge hole, complete with narrow gap right through to outside. I plugged it up as best I could and emptied most of two cans of building foam into the remaining gap. There were also a couple more gaps right through, both in places it's nigh on impossible to get at with my mortar, so I used more foam to plug them up. Once the weather is warmer I need to get out there and fix the mortar from the outside.

I also got a couple of larger gaps in the inner face of the wall fixed thanks to a flash of inspiration. A couple of the first slices of concrete I cut were a bit wonky, as I was getting used to using the angle grinder. Today I realised I could fit them into some of the gaps sideways and cement around them. It meant using a little more cement than was ideal but it also meant a couple of larger gaps got plugged sooner, which seemed like a good thing.

Then I got busy cutting and fitting insulation to the room I've been working in downstairs. I fear I may have bought way more panels than I'm going to need right away. The first panel has covered much of the room I'm working on, and there are 23 more panels left in my stack. Where I thought I was going to need 10-15 to do a couple of downstairs rooms it's looking like I'm going to need more like 5. It's not the end of the world, I've got a load more space to sort out eventually, and it may just mean I don't need to order another pallet load at all. I'm not sure where my calculations went astray but for now at least it's good to know I'm not going to run out of panels.

Work to date has cut heating bills by approximately 30% and I haven't even finished plugging the gaps in the exterior wall yet.

in bed

Lämmchen said:

Shall I ban you until you get your work done? Just bein helpful!

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It took me nearly four hours of typing when I finally did sit down and do my notes. I'm not going to keep putting it off next week

Lämmchen said:

Just finished eating blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I found out that my blueberries taste sweeter if I first freeze them for a week after buying them and then thaw them the night before making the pancakes. Is that a fluke that it happened that way 3 times now?

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Blueberries are good

I think we have about a gallon of them left in the freezer.... got a good deal on them during the year so bought a load and froze them.

Still working on my tree...

Yes, still. I cut it up into pieces of a suitable size to fit into a rent-a-bin. After multiple inquires, no one wanted to cater to a 1 day hire. It's 7 days or nothing, and prices are all well over $300. Plus extra fees if it goes over weight and for bringing it to the tip. Stuff them. I only needed a bin for day and not one of them will reduce the price by anything.

So, you don't get my business. Too bad for you. I cut up my tree even further and am saving the bulk wood. What's left are small branches, a huge pile of them. Mulch? Yeah, good idea. Oh...but that's pricey too...a 1 day hire for a chipper is over $300. You're dreaming. I'll be getting rid of it another way.

Watching WWE Monday Night Raw and posting.

Lämmchen said:

Do you split them up when you freeze them? I use the quart size freezer ziplock baggies.

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When we find them at a good price we buy a gallon or two, then usually freeze them in pint and quart bags.

We also freeze raspberries and strawberries. Strawberries come out a little mushy when they defrost but are still good for sauces and smoothies and the like.

Stravinsk said:

Still working on my tree...

Yes, still. I cut it up into pieces of a suitable size to fit into a rent-a-bin. After multiple inquires, no one wanted to cater to a 1 day hire. It's 7 days or nothing, and prices are all well over $300. Plus extra fees if it goes over weight and for bringing it to the tip. Stuff them. I only needed a bin for day and not one of them will reduce the price by anything.

So, you don't get my business. Too bad for you. I cut up my tree even further and am saving the bulk wood. What's left are small branches, a huge pile of them. Mulch? Yeah, good idea. Oh...but that's pricey too...a 1 day hire for a chipper is over $300. You're dreaming. I'll be getting rid of it another way.

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$300 to rent a chipper? Years ago I bought an electric chipper for less than that. It could take branches up to about 1.5" in diameter. I used it to take out a couple of fir trees from my yard and the vast majority went through the chipper.

Are you allowed to burn the wood, even if only as a way of getting rid of it?

Lämmchen said:

Do you have a really big freezer? Mine is so small!!

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I forget the size of the chest freezer. I think I could probably curl up inside it, if I felt the urge. It was interesting watching the guys who delivered it trying to get it through the house.

Another generous helping of Fun With Cement today. Having found the really ugly hole in the wall I sprayed builders foam into it but this morning a spot temperature reading of the area said 32 degrees, which really wasn't good. On top of that I could feel a cold draft on my hand.

Initially I wasn't going to go outside in the cold and play with cement so set to fixing up a few more of the interior gaps. I got a few small ones fixed, as well as a few larger ones where I needed to cement a strip of concrete into place. Then I decided I might as well just get on with the outside work, so got the ladder out, put on some extra layers (it was 26 degrees at the time) and set to fixing it. I fixed up a total of 9 places where mortar had perished or otherwise failed - 8 of them on the ladder and the last one at ground level when I was looking for something to use up the last of the cement I mixed. There are still several more places that need attention outside but I'd got to the point where I could barely feel my hands, so went back indoors.

After less than an hour the point on the inside of the wall that previous read 32 degrees was reading 41 degrees, so I'm happy with that. Everything in that room is disconnected so there's no heat and no light in there, so hopefully it will slowly continue to rise as heat from elsewhere in the house feeds through.

Since I was outside I also took the chance to cut up the rest of a concrete block, which gave me another three strips to use to fill larger gaps in the walls. I'm impressed at just how effortlessly my angle grinder cuts through inch-thick concrete, especially since it runs on a battery.

Went to hang out with a friend, played some cards and drank some beer. On the way there I picked up another 40lb of cement, given I've been going through it at a pretty tidy rate (10lb in the last 24 hours alone). I also picked up a little doodad that shows the temperature and humidity, and also the high and low values for both over the previous 24 hours. I put it in the room that I've been working in, so I can get a feeling of how well my work is progressing.

On a positive note, when I went in there to put the thing on a shelf it didn't feel like there was a nasty chill hanging in the air, like it has done recently.

It's curious to spend this time of year looking forward to the next oil delivery, wondering how much more my work will save rather than wondering just how expensive the cold snap was.