So... What are YOU doing? - Part 8

[tango]

Spent a while running cables for a new thermostat. I need to split my heating loop into two. I've got the stubs ready on the furnace, and some PEX connectors on hand. Next I need to drain the system, rejig it, and refill it. Ideally before it gets properly cold.

 

[Lamb]

My husband and I went for a quick walk. It's a little chilly though.

 

[Stravinsk]

Whoo hoo!

Finally got all my materials for the "Quantum Battery". And it works! One thing the initial video didn't mention was that the paper was to be soaked in water infused with magnesium. However, this can be avoided by using magnesium strips instead - and it really makes a difference to voltage.

After cutting out the necessary sizes to put it together, I assembled a 5V battery in a few minutes using no harsh electrolyte and the size of which is about 1/4 the length of my finger.

There is one drawback to this battery, it's internal resistance is large, which means the current output is tiny...in the uA range. This also makes it safer to handle at larger voltages. But you can't run anything that takes appreciable current. That said, I tested it, and it will fill capacitors (which can deliver larger currents fast), although there is a time factor. Could fill a 1mF cap in a few seconds, but larger caps....say 1F and above take a much longer time. Thankfully...an impressive amount of energy can be stored placing the caps in parallel and just letting the battery fill them over time.

 

[Lamb]

We had a long drive yesterday from my dad's house and ended up going to bed extra early. So we're up early. The little girl on tv is singing the National Anthem.

 

[Messy3]

I'm making a map for a colorblind guy who sees green and red and orange as dirty brownish, but he does see blue and yellow. First we had a blind woman at the office, bought an expensive printer especially for her and she wanted a whole book with maps and then mkay bye got another job, so now I am very happy that I can make this map and Photoshop can show how it looks when you have that kind of colorblindness, so I try it there and if it's ugly I change it.

 

[tango]

Today's job is to figure out how to remove some coving in the kitchen so I can insulate the walls. The crucial part is removing the coving such that I can put it back again when I'm done, so we don't have ugly gashes in the wall in the kitchen. But first my wife is cooking something, so I don't feel like raining sawdust over her while she cooks.

 

[Lamb]

I just woke up and am looking around at the Christmas decorations I put up yesterday. It's festive here!

 

[tango]

I'm debating whether to remove the coving carefully enough to put it back or just pull it down and plan to replace it. It's covered in an elderly wallpaper that is unique within the room so it's not like I need anything to match - I can put fresh coving up and paint it and it will look nicer. But that means buying a sheet of wood and cutting it to size, which could be a hassle. I'm going to need to get my shop vac into some pretty awkward spaces to see if I can clear some crud from the cavity wall, as well as clearing up some residual dust from breaking apart some more lath and plaster wall that's lurking behind the coving.

I found some unexpected fiberglass behind the coving, and now I can't remember whether the plumbers who replaced the pipework in the space added the fiberglass. It doesn't look like it's been there for decades, so I guess they pushed it into place as best they could given they had very limited access too.

 

[tango]

I got the first section of coving taken down. I had to cut the top of it because the ceiling tiles covered the top, but the cut will be hidden once the corner trim is put back on. So now I've got a nice big gap in the coving at the top of the cupboards, I pulled down some more lath and plaster wall, found a few more gaps in the wall that are letting in nasty drafts, but ran out of time to finish the job before my wife needed the kitchen back so I stuffed a few wads of fiberglass in strategic places and cleaned it up. The coving survived being taken down so I should be able to put it back up more or less exactly as it was. It was surprising just how many nails pinned it into place. When it goes back up the chances are I'll just put a small number of white-headed trim screws in it to hold it where I need it.

Tomorrow I have a big bag of salvaged cellulose I can feed into the wall cavities, and hopefully get some of the gaps in the wall filled. Some of them are behind studs, which makes it more difficult. If needs be I can use spray foam to fill them, although I'd rather do a nicer job than that.

It already feels warmer in the kitchen. A couple of power sockets that have had cold drafts coming out of them for ages no longer have cold drafts coming out of them. Hopefully this will save us another chunk of cash through the winter, there were parts of the kitchen that got unpleasantly cold.

Since this looks like it has made a difference I'll most likely take off the next piece of coving. I wasn't sure whether I'd really want to be doing that, but I think it will be worthwhile.

 

[Messy3]

I got the first section of coving taken down. I had to cut the top of it because the ceiling tiles covered the top, but the cut will be hidden once the corner trim is put back on. So now I've got a nice big gap in the coving at the top of the cupboards, I pulled down some more lath and plaster wall, found a few more gaps in the wall that are letting in nasty drafts, but ran out of time to finish the job before my wife needed the kitchen back so I stuffed a few wads of fiberglass in strategic places and cleaned it up. The coving survived being taken down so I should be able to put it back up more or less exactly as it was. It was surprising just how many nails pinned it into place. When it goes back up the chances are I'll just put a small number of white-headed trim screws in it to hold it where I need it.

Tomorrow I have a big bag of salvaged cellulose I can feed into the wall cavities, and hopefully get some of the gaps in the wall filled. Some of them are behind studs, which makes it more difficult. If needs be I can use spray foam to fill them, although I'd rather do a nicer job than that.

It already feels warmer in the kitchen. A couple of power sockets that have had cold drafts coming out of them for ages no longer have cold drafts coming out of them. Hopefully this will save us another chunk of cash through the winter, there were parts of the kitchen that got unpleasantly cold.

Since this looks like it has made a difference I'll most likely take off the next piece of coving. I wasn't sure whether I'd really want to be doing that, but I think it will be worthwhile.

I always read your posts in amazement. Recently my wall was so filthy and disgusting that I ripped off the wall paper and painted the wall white. Took hours and I could do the other wall too and the bedroom, but bye maybe in another 5 years or so. Yet you just always go on and on.

 

[Messy3]

My dad was for a long time doing drainage under the house when I was a kid. Put pipes there, so the ground water could go to the ditch. But there was a small hole he couldn't go through, so he asked me. Sure no problem. But then I saw a white dead spider under the ground and aaaaaaahhhh nope not doing it, so my mom had to crawl through the hole.

 

[Lamb]

I got the house all decorated on the inside yesterday, so now I can start the Christmas cards and baking soon.

 

[tango]

I always read your posts in amazement. Recently my wall was so filthy and disgusting that I ripped off the wall paper and painted the wall white. Took hours and I could do the other wall too and the bedroom, but bye maybe in another 5 years or so. Yet you just always go on and on.

The project certainly seems to go on and on

Today I pulled down the last couple of laths, filled a few gaps in the wall I'd found (a couple went right through to outside, and were letting in very nasty drafts), and got a bunch of cellulose poured down between the wall studs. The cellulose was nasty - not only is it nasty to work with but I needed to poke it down into a couple of spaces with a small piece of wood, because I was trying to get it into a very small space.

Once that was done I cut up a sheet of 2" polystyrene I've had kicking around for years, and trimmed that to fit snugly between the exposed sections of stud. There are a couple more pieces of polystyrene to trim and fit, which I couldn't do earlier because I was waiting for the cement I used to fill the gaps to dry. Maybe I can finish that off tomorrow.

It feels much warmer in the kitchen already. Once this section is done and the coving is put back I can look at taking down the next section and repeating the fun all over again. I can hardly wait. But with the next section I can also replace a nasty light with something newer, and might as well take the chance to replace some nasty old cable with some nice new cable. I've got a bucket piled high to overflowing with scrap cable I've removed, as well as a bunch of old wires. Looks like I'll be adding some more to it soon.

 

[Messy3]

-

 

[tango]

This morning the kitchen is warmer than it has been in years, even with the heating set to the same level. But the adjacent section of wall, the one I haven't worked on yet, is still showing signs of cold spots. I wasn't entirely sure whether opening that up would be necessary or just worth doing to check, but now I know it really needs doing.

I also figured I might as well put some insulation around a couple of pipes while I've got everything opened up, but the local hardware store ran out of pipe insulation so I need to wait until this evening when I'm in town so I can get some then. For some reason I'm not the only one wanting to insulate pipes....

It's irritating to lose a day - I don't feel like making a special trip and burn $5 in gas to buy $4 worth of insulation - but everything is in hand in the meantime, it's not like the place is a scene of devastation or anything. It should be pretty easy to finish the first section once I've got the pipe insulation, and then I can put everything back in place and move on.

 

[Messy3]

Bought a Christmas tree. Normally never this early, but if I wait too long they may not have em here anymore around the corner, which is the easiest, since I have to walk with that thing on my bike. It's a bit big. I normally have smaller ones. Flip thought it was very interesting and wanted to eat from it, but the needles are poisonous, so I put it on a table.

 

[tango]

On taking a closer look I found I can't insulate the pipes because there isn't enough space around them, so I put the first piece of coving back and took down the second piece. Tomorrow I get to pull down the lath and plaster wall tucked away behind the coving. I hate lath and plaster walls, but at least now I've got a better idea of what I'm going to be dealing with. This is going to be a bit more awkward than the last section because there isn't as much counter space to stand on and the fridge is in the way. Reaching past the fridge could become tedious. I'm not sure if moving it a few feet sideways is going to be an option. I'll need to move it for a time anyway because I want to replace the wire that feeds the socket it uses, which obviously means being able to get at the socket to disconnect everything.

 

[Lamb]

Heading to Walmart for a few things since my husband will be using my vehicle next week while his truck is getting worked on.

 

[tango]

Today's fun project. Firstly taking down a section of lath and plaster wall without spreading plaster dust throughout the kitchen. That was mostly successful, although a couple of pieces pinged unexpected and landed on the floor. That revealed a number of gaps in the wall, including one huge hole that was providing a very generous draft into the cavity space. That now has a big wad of fiberglass stuffed into it.

Then I got to go up and down the stairs a dozen times feeding cables through to the basement, so now that section of the kitchen is powered by nice new cables that include nice features like a ground wire. Previously one of the sockets was kinda sorta grounded with a thin piece of copper wrapped around one of the water pipes. Now that whole lot is pulled out and it's properly grounded at the breaker panel. The nasty light over the sink is gone, soon to be replaced with a nice recessed LED downlight.

Next up was to stuff some cellulose into the wall cavities, which I did until I emptied my bag of cellulose. I can use another bag of it for the rest of the work, but it's late enough I don't want to do dirty work any more.

I'm pleased with progress today. Tomorrow I can get busy fixing the gaps between the bricks, and finish off pouring cellulose into the wall cavities. I don't know if I have enough polystyrene insulation to hit all the spaces in this wall so might end up using fiberglass instead. I'll check the gaps between the studs and see if that would work - these studs were put in long before building codes expected any form of consistency.

 

[Lamb]

Helping my husband with an Excel problem for a user at work.