Attic's Done!

Finished the attic today. Pulled up the last bag of insulation (I think that's six or seven total? Roughly $300) and distributed the batts.

So glad that's done.

Won't have to go up there until Jen wants new ceiling fans or a whole house fan.

While I was finishing that, Jen started the leaves.

I think we've got one more weekend of leaves, though I won't be around for a weekend for quite a while.

- b

Light on the Projects

Didn't have a whole lot of time or motivation yesterday so I only got the deck furniture hauled up into the attic.

At least it was a semi-fun engineering endeavor.

At some point I need to make a door/cover for the opening in our garage ceiling to tidy things up a bit.

- b

Septic Fix

All I've ever heard from my father is stuff like "I've lived here 17 years and never pumped the tank!"

So after only being here four years, I didn't think things would be all that bad.

Overall it wasn't that bad, but the system was neglected and installed improperly (or something like that).

The plan was to access the Distribution Box and add levelers to the drain field access points.

We hired the eldredge company to do the work.

They showed up around 8am and started digging. You can see in the picture the "D Box" (the black plastic thing) they brought in case they had to replace what we had.

They found the D Box, an old commercial style concrete one, and discovered it was too deteriorated to install the levelers. Apparently over time methane eats away at the concrete. He showed me how on the inside the concrete had turned soft and you could scrape it away. That of course meant replacing the D Box. You can sort of see from this picture the irregularities in the lid caused by the methane. They had put the lid back on upside down while they went and got the mini track hoe.

With the track hoe, they dug the old D Box out. They also discovered we actually have six drain fields (there were six pipes leading out of the old D Box). This meant a couple of things. They had to get a bigger D Box (7 hole version was required. One inlet and six outlets) and had to inspect the other two drain fields. The inspection included prodding the soil to check absorption in the drain fields and running a camera down the pipes inspecting their integrity.

They found more problems. One of the extra drain fields we didn't know about before has two issues. The first is it's too close to the pool. More specifically the pool wasn't installed at the correct ten foot offset from any septic source. The second issue was the pool shed is installed over top of the drain field. Your not supposed to even drive over a septic field let alone set a shed on top of it. The risk of compaction is too great and detrimental to the draining effectiveness. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot we can do about either now.

When they went to install the new D Box, they found another issue. The inlet pipe coming from the septic tank was angled incorrectly. The inlet should be flowing downhill to the D Box (no brainer right?). In our case it wasn't. Not only that, but it wasn't connected to tank incorrectly and actually leaking down the side of the tank. This part wasn't in the initial estimate and would cost more if I wanted it fixed.

Of course I wanted it fixed, so they did.

Now I have a new distribution box with speed levelers, an empty tank (pumped out 1,000 ga), and a repaired connection from the tank to the distribution box.

Should be good right?

Who knows?

The whole septic thing (at least in PA) is a mystery. Even the septic people seem surprised if it works or lasts. The whole time the guy kept suggesting I look into getting an easement through my neighbors property to access public sewer on the street in front of our house.

Great. I just spent $2k on a fix you're not confident about. I'll be sure to get as much as I can out of it, before I go the easement route.

- b

Fall Yard Day

Finally got around to some much needed yard work and leaves.

Jen fired up the leaf blower and started that part of the day.

While I rented an extendable chainsaw and went after the Wisteria.

It gets so tall I've been precariously balancing on a ladder the last couple of years trying to trim it back each fall. This year I decided to just whack it all down and see what comes back.

Then it was time to rake the leaves that Jen had moved with the blower into the yard.

Of course Gretchen had to help - look close, she's there.

It was after dark when I finished mulching. I'll have to wait and see tomorrow how it came out.

- b

Projects Not By Me

Discovered two issues with our home this week.

Most people think what I do around here is necessary and that our house is a total fixer upper. That's generally not the case. Most of the time I'm just fidgety and need to make things different.

But these projects really are issues.

The first was the trickling sound I kept hearing in the basement.

Turns out the nice new water conditioner we put in less then two years ago is leaking through its purge pipe. It's not leaking all over the basement, but it is leaking. Of course now that I write this, I feel I should have been more adamant about when they should come fix it. Essentially it's the same as leaving your faucet slightly open and running water down the drain. That sucks.

The second is our septic. We've been here four years now and have done nothing with the septic besides fill it. The previous owners had it inspected and cleaned right before we moved in. In considering moving, we decided to have it inspected and possibly cleaned. The inspection failed.

There are four trenches by which it drains (the four blue flags I assume). In between the tank (the white PVC you see in the background) and the four trenches there's a distribution box that obviously distributes to the four trenches. Somehow they determined only the second trench is being used. Their theory is that the distribution box is no longer level and that's why it's only distributing to one trench. They're proposing coming in here to dig up the distribution box and repair it; otherwise, it won't pass inspection.

yay.

- b

The List Gets Longer

My well is leaking.

Huh?

Ok. Not exactly my well, but the pipe that runs the electric out to the well is carrying water back into the house.

My plan is to silicone the joint where it's leaking. Probably not the best permanent fix, but we'll see how well it lasts.

Now if it would just stop raining long enough for the ground to dry enough for the water to stop running in, I could actually try and fix it.

- b

Two Jobs Today

Before I could get up in the attic and finish the vents, I had to fix the hole in the ceiling of our master bathroom.

It's not so much a hole as it is a gap. It was created last May when my Dad and I moved the wall forward six inches (see that here).

My plan was to simply add a bogus ceiling joist (the red), cut some drywall and screw it up there.

As I'm running up into the attic, in the bathroom and downstairs measuring and cutting stuff, I'm explaining to Jen we won't be able to put a center light in the shower because there's a real joist running right through the center. We'll have to offset a light or two around the center... and the bogus joist I'm putting up there she points out.

Damnit. That won't work, so she suggests I cut the hole all the way back to the center joist and put up a bigger piece of drywall.

So I start cutting.

I cut so much, I broke one of my razor knives.

Not related to the broken knife (I have plenty), but for some reason I pulled out the dremel to do some fine tuning of the cuts. What a mess that is.

Since the dremel was out, I decided to cut off some screws that were sticking too far through the wall. Sparks!

Then it was time to cut the new piece. Lucky for me, I have plenty of un-used drywall just hanging around the house.

Surprising it fit pretty well the first time. Sure there was some trimming required, but the new piece went in fairly easily.

Ok, so that one's done.

Run to the distributor and get a case of beer so it's cold when I'm done for the day.

Next job.

I had nine more soffit vents to put up in the attic. What a blast. I hate this job. Though it looks kind of cool and cozy with all that fluffy insulation, it just sucks up there. It's filthy. Oh, and the constant risk of falling through the ceiling and landing on your head on the floor below.

Though some things find it homey.

Figures this was in the last soffit area. I cleaned out the nest, slid the vent down and stapled it.

That was it for the vents. The entire attic is now vented.

I had a bag of insulation, so I spread those hoping to finally cover all the attic with R 40+ something, but one bag wasn't quite enough. I'll have to get another bag and get back up there some other time.

And that was it for today. Well almost. I had to clean this up too.

Hopefully that beer's cold.

- b