Snow Chain Giveaway

I've got more tractor tire chains then I need, so I'm offering up a set for free.

Package says they fit 23 x 10.5 - 12 tires, but they didn't quite fit mine.

Maybe I should have used the included extender links, but I never did.

Honestly I can't guarantee that's the right packaging for these chains, so the chains themselves measure 13.5" x 48". Since the wheels on my tractor are 23 x 10.5 - 12, I figure if you have something slightly smaller these would work perfectly, or try the extenders.

I also have a brand new set of these

for sale $25. That's half off. These are the ones (another pair) that do fit my tractor wheels and work quite nicely.

Email me or leave a comment if interested.

- b

Skimmer's Done

Finished the pool skimmer caulk last night in the dark.

I had enough caulk this time, but not quite enough experience.

I had a suspicion I would need to completely caulk over what I had caulked earlier in the week, otherwise you'd see an obvious difference in flow. Sure enough this morning when I checked it, there's about an eight inch section I didn't re-caulk and it's noticeable.

Oh well. Lesson learned. At least it's done and I don't have to worry about ice cracking the coping or concrete because there wasn't any caulk.

- b

Chores Before School

Not completely done before work, but I did get up early one morning and paint these spots in the kitchen.

The above had been a hole in the wall since June 2008. The switches below had been open and exposed the same period of time. Ouch.

Now it's all done or done enough - haven't decided which.

- b

Night Moves

Spending all weekend trying to best utilize the weather, I ended up having to relegate some things to Monday night after work.

The tractor's got lights right?

Yeah it has lights, but once you try to use them, you realize they weren't really meant to be used. I need to do what my dad did and rig up some old car headlights on the front and maybe mount the current lights out back (reverse is very dark at night). Maybe mount some KC Daylighters on the front?

Jen would kill me, but they'd work nicely. They even come with a nice little toggle I can mount in the dash of the tractor. Hell. I've practically convinced myself.

I only did the front yard (dunno why. wishing now I did the back too). I hadn't cut the grass or mulched the leaves in a few weeks. I figured a quick trip around the yard would give me a little head start if/when I got to it this weekend. Unfortunately the sun doesn't come up for nearly another hour, so I really don't know how well I did.

After the yard it was back to the pool skimmer.

I have to admit. The expansion joint caulk made me nervous. After the super-duper adhesive experience I had with the pool tiles, I was a little nervous using some other caulkable pool thingy. My fears were unfounded. This stuff was great. Almost too great. It came out of the tube like warm butter, which I thought was pretty amazing for a silicone based product. It flowed into all the depth and gaps and leveled itself out nicely.

It didn't take long to realize I was going to run out. Unfortunately it took until this morning to realize I should have simply put a thin layer down inside all the joints to seal in the bottom of the gap, then gotten more to finish off the job later. Instead I tried to do a couple of the joints completely and left some of them completely undone.

And now it's pouring outside. Worse case scenario (I hope) I have to do it again. At least I'll know how to do it and how much I'll need.

- b

For Caulk Sake

So the day before I noticed a huge split between my wood siding behind one of my gutters.

We need new siding. That's just plain and simple. The splitting is nothing new. A few years back I spent a few days caulking the entire front of the house (needs to be done again) hoping to get a few more years before we actually had to get new siding.

But this split takes precedence. This one is cause for concern. It's on the western side of our house. It takes the brunt of the majority of the weather we get. Also I have suspicions the effects of this one has actually penetrated the house.

In our living room, at the ceiling along that side of the house, we have this funny thing going on with the paint. It appears to be bubbling.

Typically when paint bubbles there's some kind of contaminant. Now our house originally had popcorn (i.e. textured) ceilings. It could be this is some kind of leftover from the work done to remove the texture. Either way, I'm not taking chances and the fix (even if temporary) isn't that difficult.

So up the ladder I went.

The split was pretty bad. There appeared to be things living in there.

The bad or missing paint is where the gutter was. It really wasn't hard removing and replacing the gutter. Why the painter didn't do it (LAZY) is anyone's guess.

After cleaning out the crap, I stuffed as much of the gap with backer rod (strip of foam to fill up the space too big for just caulk).

Then caulked it. Considering the western orientation and my possible moisture infiltration, I went ahead and caulked this entire section. It's about five and a half feet wide between the chimney (which I caulked too) and the front edge of the house. I think it took three tubes of caulk, which meant a trip to Home Depot for more (I should just keep a case of the stuff around).

In the caulking mood, I decided to tackle a similar job at the pool.

Since replacing the pool skimmer, the expansion joints between the concrete pads and coping has been missing or damaged. Not only is it unsightly (especially if you're considering selling), but it can cause damage if water gets in there and freezes over the winter. The expansions joints that were there are made of some kind of really hard, yet flexible, plastic. It's a real pain to remove or work with, so I spent most of the time since the skimmer job trying to figure out the best way to remove it. Finally it came to me. I could use my pneumatic cut-off wheel to just cut it out, so that's what I did. I got the majority of it cut out and cleaned up. To replace it, I'll use pool expansion joint caulk. It's a self leveling super durable caulk that does the same thing as the plastic. It just comes in an easy to use dispenser.

I got it all cleaned up, dry and filled with sand (sand is cheaper then backer rod, since I had it free in my yard, with cat crap no extra charge!), then went to apply the caulk.

The reason why I was doing any of this caulk stuff that day was mostly because of the weather. It was sunny and 65° F all day. That's great weather for caulk. As I'm reading the pool caulk instructions, I see it's application is good down to 0° F. Knowing that, I decided to leave the spot alone for a day or so to dry out more. With a temperature rating that low, I could effectively apply the caulk one night after work regardless of outside temp (at least for a few weeks), and instead spend more time caulking other things that did have temperature limitations.

Back to the siding.

This is on the front of the house. I re-caulked (the previous owner had done it at some point) the front of the house two years ago. Most of it is still ok (just ok, not fine). I'm guessing because of the window install the integrity of this caulked area was lost. In the bottom of the gap, you can see the backer rod I put in two years ago.

The gap had gotten so big, it required two more pieces of backer rod (Yeah I know. This is like using a band aid for an amputation).

So now I'm really in the caulking mood and proceed to check out what else is in need.

Of course everything needs it. All the windows in our downstairs haven't been touched since we moved in.

Then I find our bay window is like this.

And suddenly I get bored/tired of caulking. It's late anyway. At least that helps explain why our bay window leaked last year.

At this point, all I can muster is filling some carpenter bee holes.


You'd be surprised how roomy those little holes can be.

- b

The Attic Sucks

Since yesterday was supposed to be rainy and semi-cool (70° F isn't exactly cool, but it was raining), I decided to get up in the attic and hopefully finish that job.

You may remember last spring I started putting in rafter vents so the air from the soffits could more easily travel between the rafters up to the ridge vent. This is done for two reasons. In the summer it helps to cool the attic. In the winter it helps to dry the attic. When our roof was replaced in 2006, I think nearly half the plywood was replaced because it was rotten from too much moisture. The previous owner stuff the insulation too close to the soffits, thus stopping the air flow and trapping moisture in the attic.

I had something like 30+ of these vents to install. I wanted it done and over with so I didn't have to go in the attic again. I put on my attic garb and headed up.

While working at the western most part of the roof I found this.

I put my sweaty fingers near it and the wood felt damp beyond the dampness of my fingers. When I could hear the wind outside, I could feel it on my fingers. Crap.

Have I mentioned how much I loved our roofer.

For comparison here's a spot that used to be wet, was fixed, and has since dried.

I climbed out of the attic, took off my gear and went outside to investigate. The obvious part was this was happening near the chimney, so I got out the ladder and climbed up.

I found two spots that looked like they could use some caulk, so I caulked them.

While I was up there, I noticed this huge open gap in the seam of our wood siding behind the gutter. Guess what I'll be doing today?

Later, back in the attic, I was at the far western edge and checked my possible fix. I put my fingers back up to the wet spot and thought I felt a breeze, but it was pretty stormy outside. With all the rafter vents in place in that part of the attic, it's breezy in general. So I'm kind of stuck. It's a really difficult spot to get to in our attic with all the insulation I have up there. The ideal way to check if the caulk fix worked is to go back in a few weeks and see if the wood has the past wet now dry look to it like the picture above. The other option is to call the roofer and have him get up there. His work was guaranteed for 5 or 7 years, but he's a pain in the ass.

I'm really not sure what I'm going to do at this point.

Somewhere around 6pm, I got sick of the attic and came down.

My sick of the attic shot with the new camera

I got one half of the attic completely vented and insulated to R40+. All that's left is 9 or so more vents and some insulation. Hopefully I'll get to that today or sometime this week.

By the way. I also found another fossilized mouse. Nothing but fur and bones. I think that makes 30 something dead mice found in this house since we moved in.

I hate the attic.

- b

Damp Sunday Chores

Today started out drizzling and breezy, so it was another day of inside chores.

I began with trimming a switch cover to install on one of two coverless switches we have in our kitchen.

Since adding the dimmable fluorescent switch, I've had to replace the cover, but any new cover in our house requires fitting and trimming to fit with our woodwork. Ideally I should move all the switch boxes away from the woodwork for better balance, but that's not happening anytime soon.

I thought this would be a quick job, but no. Turns out one of the switch screws that attaches the switch to the box was stripped (it's the box that's stripped, not the screw), so I had to fight and fight with it to get the switch positioned just right for the cover to fit. Finally used a toothpick jammed under the slipping screw to hold the switch in place at least until I got the cover on and screwed tight to the switches.

Bitch of it is that I should have used a larger cover. This one is too small. Doesn't cover enough of the wall around the switches and doesn't match the other cover plates we have, so at some point I'll have to do all this again for these switches.

Next job was finishing the dimmer switches we bought for the basement last spring.

I had only managed to get one dimmer in and not even really. The box had too many wires, seemed to small and I couldn't easily figure out the breaker for the other switch (the lights and switches are on different breakers?).

With the breaker situation figured out, I decided to replace the box with a deeper one I had. When I measured the new box against the old box just to be sure, I found out they were the same size.

Damn!

I got some coffee, a chair, and sat down to try and make the wires take up less space.

See the wire sticking out of the top of the box? If you look (real close) in the first picture you'll see the box screw hole is busted. While I was messing with making the wires tighter, I glued the screw hole and used that trash wire to hold it in place while it dried.

In the end, it all worked out pretty well.

Of course there are things I could do to make it a little better, but it's way better then having a dimmer switch hanging out of the box against the wall. Try fumbling for that in the dark.

Next on the docket was cleaning Yarnall's Demo 9.

I borrowed it back in August when I went downhilling with Buddy and Rick. Yeah, yeah, I'm lame for not returning it sooner, but he didn't need it and I was contemplating borrowing it again. Anyway, the big deal about borrowing Yarnall's bike is cleaning it before you return it. Makes sense huh? Maybe? Partly I hadn't returned it because I was afraid to clean it. I was afraid I wouldn't clean it well enough, so I pick a cold dreary day to do it. Genius right? I had a bucket of super hot soapy water, a rain jacket, wool hat and cold hose water to make the effort. Rinse, wash, numb fingers repeat.

I got to the point where I knew I made a good effort. I did all kinds of OCD things I don't even do with my own bike. It was during this time of obsession I found this.

(clicky makes biggy)

Looks like something out of Aliens, but that's not the point.

So the swing arm is cracked. Sent Yarnall an email with some pictures. Maybe now he won't notice the dirt I might have missed, though I'm hoping that's still more important then a possible cracked swing arm. I can't imagine my skinny little butt was the root cause of this.

Moving on.

I cleaned the pellet stove for the first time this season (that's the fire pot). I was kind of neglectful last spring and didn't clean it before the summer, so it was a little over-do. It was also a little rusty (not the red you see above, but where the red arrows are pointing below).



Not sure what that's all about. There were other places too. Maybe leaving the ash in all summer was a bad idea? Maybe it soaked up moisture or something? We'll see what it looks like next cleaning. Something tells me a week of solid clean burning will "fix" things. I'll just have to be sure I clean out the ash before the summers.

I also cleaned the stove glass today. What a difference that made, and it's simple! Just a wet paper towel and the glass is clear. I can see every lick of flame in the fire chamber. It's almost better then TV; then again, it is my TV.

After the stove I moved onto our "blue room" where we have boxes and boxes of crap in storage. Jen and I both have been randomly cleaning stuff out of there. So far our efforts have resulted in one trip to Goodwill and one trip to donate six boxes of books to the public library. We also have a large pile of stuff ready to be freecycled. Today's effort resulted in a pile of paper stuff I don't need anymore (to be recycled), finding my old Star Wars cards and other interesting goodies I'll have to post about later.

What a day. I'm exhausted, though staying out till midnight with a buddy from work last night probably had more to do with that.

- b

Rainy Day Jobs

Not much (I want) to do outside when it's 37°F and raining.

So it's a day for inside chores, which means I needed the truck, which was 440lbs. full of stuff to go to the dump.

Off to the dump the dogs and I went. Gretchen wasn't happy about it.

After the dump it was Home Depot to get insulation for the attic (great cold rainy day job).

But Jen wasn't home, working in the attic sucks, so I decided on something else (wasted trips?).

Since we've started using the pellet stove for the year, I decided to finish the electric project I started this summer in our downstairs hallway. - see it here. In that process I temporarily took out the programmable switch that powers the fan

(the switch is programmed to turn on/off the fan in sync with when the stove goes on/off) that moves the heat from downstairs to upstairs.

The programmable switch was in the box on the right. The original owners had installed this switch box to power two lights we don't use or have chosen to switch from somewhere else.

I could have put the programmable switch back in the box on the right, then find a cover for a decora switch and blank (pain in the ass), but I had another issue. The switch box on the left was wiggling. To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to put in a more stable three gang box on the left and either put a solid cover on the right box or just patch (w drywall) over it completely.

First step was getting the wiggly left box out. Mmmm wires.

Second was cutting the hole bigger (including my hand accidentally), rerouting some wires from the right box and putting in the new three gang box.

Now the box on the right is empty.

Next step was wiring up the light switches, programmable switch (which needed new batteries), and the receptacle powered by the programmable where the fan plugs in.

So it's all wired, programmed and plugged in, but no fan.

Hmmm.

Check this. Check that. Still no fan.

Call Dad.

He says try a regular single pole switch, maybe the ($30) programmable switch is bad?

Sure enough. Switch is bad.

Luckily I had another one. Not quite as functional as the first, but programmable none-the-less.

So that's done. The lights all work as they should and there's an automatic program powering the fan at the appropriate times for the stove.

I guess if I was really cool, I'd get a thermostatic switch to power the fan when the temp in the hallway reached a certain setting.

Maybe next time.

- b

Pool's Closed

Finally! Freakn' took forever to get around to it.
Even replaced the tiles I should have replaced months ago.

Though something tells me I'm going to regret the 3m marine adhesive I used.

Either the cover somehow got into it before it was dry or the mortar I didn't remove (see photo above) from where the tiles were will pop off and take half the tile with it next year if/when I open it.

- b