The Explanation…

shorty_the_slug

Sooo…yeah…Shorty the Corgi…who is ‘Shorty the Slug’ in the mornings…NOT a morning dog…

But…even with those short stubby legs and tubby physique…he’s much faster than he looks…faster than he has any right to be…at least when there’s something he wants to chase. His “selective” hearing kicks in at these moments too…and he will ignore commands and then later…when scolded…will engage the cloaking cuteness device and avoid all ire with practiced ease.

I should already KNOW this…from the time when he yelled “Avast ya scurvy dogs!” and boarded the UPS truck, but that’s another story.

And so it was…as I opened the front door to let one of the cats in…there happened to be a hot hard-body of the cute female persuasion jogging down our street, wearing essentially a bikini…oh yeah, I’m sure it was one of those trendy exercise brand lady-sport boulder-and-butt holder thingys…but yeah…a bikini…and a skimpy one at that.

Just an FYI…the quality of the scenery in a neighborhood is important, so I am highly in favor of this practice.

Anyway, running with her was a small dog…looked like a lab-puppy…except without that puppy awkwardness.

Shorty the slug was interested in playing with the small dog…He ‘woofed’ out, “Make it so Number One” or perhaps, “More power Scotty!” and engaged his warp drive. He was out of our front yard, accelerating down the street and rapidly gaining on the testosterone-carbonating hard-body’s pup before I knew he’d gotten out the door.

And that…my friends…is how this old fat guy came to be at a dead run, yelling what was no doubt incomprehensible and somewhat threatening (to anybody but Shorty) entreaties and chasing the previously referenced bikini-enhanced testosterone-carbonator down a residential street while wearing absolutely nothing but my skivvies and socks.

“Stop shorty!”, “Come here!”, and “Dammit please stop!” and the like served only to encourage the hot-body in her exercise regimen…

She only looked back once…and then she put on a burst of speed that would put any sleek muscle-car to shame (and, mind you, inducing a similar “drooling” effect on most males withing visual range) and with her pup flying by the end of his leash and scarcely touching the ground, handily outdistanced us both…much to Shorty’s disappointment…since he plopped down in the middle of the street, turned on the “cute”, and refused to walk back home. I ended up carrying him.

They say walking the dog is a good way to meet chicks…I’m not really sure of that…

But it’s sure a good way to meet cops.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Pets | Leave a comment

The Old Vic–Illustrated.

Here we detail the nitty-gritty of the work on The Old Vic project, post pictures and such…

But…I’m also doing something new. Yes, it’s related to the Old Vic…

Some of the stories in and around our adventures in the Old Vic lend themselves to … other … methods of storytelling.

So, check out The Old Vic–the webcomic…and let me know what you guys think!

victoriancomicteaser

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Yuck…

I think about this picture every time I go to the paint store…

Thankfully...not me.

Thankfully…not me.

Posted in Paint | Leave a comment

Door repair on the square…part the deuce.

Working on the Cupola building this weekend. Doors. Again.

Glass reset. Rot repaired. Frame screwed back together. Stripped. Primered. Painted. Can’t seem to find a good “before” picture…(one will turn up)…everything was the pinkish color and hadn’t been painted in a couple decades. All peeling etc, down to bare wood in lots of places. Ugly. Tough job…a lot of work…that door is heavy…it’s 8 feet tall…and that’s 1/4″ laminated glass…but it’s done.

Not a fan of the pinkish…they call it “faux sunset” or some bs like that. I call it “labia minora”…but it’s one of 4 colors the historic society and main-street committee selected for my building decades ago and I can live with it…

I have the light blue, darker blue, “labia minora”, and a sort of aqua green/blue. With the right combination and contrasting trims etc that will work.

it and the light blue are actually VERY pastel and not at all what would have been applied to the building in it’s age…they went “bold” back then.

Anyway, looking better.

Oh, and a smaller side door…same treatment. Hours of work. Still dammed heavy!

Oh, and I cheated on the stoops. They are “Dover Grey”…from a quart can of 30 year old oil-based paint that I found (along with about 100 of it’s buddies) in a hidden “nook” in the building. Mix it well and it still paints just fine!

That door is 8' tall!

That door is 8′ tall!

Smaller, but still damn heavy.

Smaller, but still damn heavy.

Posted in On the Square | Leave a comment

Door repair on the square

Worked on the rear (side) door of our building on the square this weekend…this is the door that leads directly to the staircase that goes all the way upstairs.

It may be original…hard to tell…but unlike the other exterior doors on this building, it is the original size for the opening.

It had several problems to address. Peeling paint, rot on the bottom end-grains, and loose/rotted trim that holds in the glass. The lockset also needed substantial work…over the years it had become a two-man job just to open this door.

The door has bars on it (added later). They are in good condition but have some surface rust. I’ll prime and paint them the same color as the door.

I had to remove the bars for this project though.

After the bars were off, I removed and reset the glass with new trim and glazing. The condition of the trim was so poor I removed it all with basically just my fingers…One good slam and the glass would have exited the door. The glass is double laminated and is quite heavy. Swearing could be heard echoing about the square as I struggled to reset the glass without breaking it…or myself…

Next, the rot.

The bottom end-grains were rotten because the door basically touches a concrete threshold…a bump in the concrete entryway…and the grain wicks moisture up into the door. There is also no sweep etc to help seal the water out. I figure it’s been working on rotting for 50-60 years…fortunately it’s sappy yellow pine and is quite slow about it.

No need to replace the entire door just for a bit of rot though. Solve the moisture problem, plug the rot, and we’ll go for another 100 years or so with regular maintenance.

The plastic wrap is critical...

The plastic wrap is critical…

Bondo is your friend.

Bondo is your friend.

I used Bondo to fill the rotted areas. It is an Epoxy-based plastic filler. It won’t absorb water, hardens to workable in 20-30 minutes, is VERY shape-able (grater/file/sanding), and will last indefinitely. You must be careful, like with any wood repair product, to solve the problem that caused the rot originally, but if you do, the Bondo will be a permanent repair. It costs around $30/gallon as opposed to many times that price for dedicated Epoxy-based wood repair products.

I wrapped a couple pieces of scrap wood in plastic wrap so they didn’t end up permanently bonded to the door, clamped them on as a form, mixed up a fist sized amount of Bondo, and worked it thoroughly into the rot. 25 minutes later I removed the forms and shaped the result with a rough file and presto! Done. I then flipped the door and did the other side. Remounting this door is no small feat when you’re by yourself…

Scraping and final caulking came next. It was a quiet Sunday…until I got out the carbide paint scraper. The resulting noises echoing down the quiet streets of the mostly deserted square were impressively loud and sounded much like what I can only describe as an “elephant orgy”.

I’m sure anybody within 3 blocks of the square was looking around and exclaiming, “What the HELL is THAT?”

Primer and paint next weekend.

Y’all take care…and FIX something, will ya?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square, The Cupola Building | 1 Comment

WHAM WHAM WHAM!

porchcrackOne day, I’ll have to jackhammer this entire porch out and put in a proper one…it was not correctly backfilled and there’s no rebar/mesh in it…this corner chunk blew out some years ago, but had been getting worse. I can’t seem to find a picture of when I got started…I seem to be bad about that…once I’m ready to work on something I just get going.

The concrete corner of the wall had broken out and was leaning out at about a 45 degree angle. We dug out the fill behind it, and bashed it back into place using…nothing less…than a pickup truck…

Yes…I actually had a project that called for me to ram my house with a pickup truck.

Gotta love old houses…

Deliberately ramming your house repeatedly with your pickup usually gives your neighbors some cause for alarm…but that got it back into place. I then ran some “J” bolts in the cracks, hooked the (as yet) unbroken part, and bolted them down to hopefully keep it from shifting anytime soon. Mortared it up this morning, working it well into the crack.

Maybe that’ll “learn” it…

Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments

It’s ALIIIIVVVVVEEEEEE BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Replaced all these fried parts:
minisplitfriedcircuits

In here:
minisplitservice

And our mini-split heat pump is back online. WooHoooo!

We are dead certain we got spiked again…so in addition to this I installed a whole house surge protector at the main panel, as well as individual ones at the expensive appliances. Not gonna do this again if we can help it.

Is it worth the trouble?

The short answer is yes.

New technology…new paradigm.

It’s a difficult thing for me to accept…that I can heat the house cheaper with a high-efficiency heat pump than I can with direct natural gas.

Economics is part of it…NG is WAY overpriced for the end-consumer market. But the technology is part of it too. This system uses 1/3 the energy to cool as a comparable AC unit that’s not the high-efficiency heat pump, and less than 10% the energy required to heat via resistance heat. The cost to heat with it vs natural gas is impressive too…it costs 1/3 the amount. Real numbers.

Even with that repair, AND factoring in the cost of adding whole house surge protection and additional protection on the sub-panels AND the expensive appliances…this unit will pay for itself in cost savings inside of 18 months.

Posted in Heat/Air Conditioning | Leave a comment

Well…crap.

The bad with the good I suppose…

Just when the amazingly low utility bills were getting me excited about my ductless mini-split ac/heat pump…

Blam.

Blown Board Amcore Mini-split heatpump

Blam!

Blown Board Amcore Mini-split heatpump

Probably the capacitor did it…

Worse…Amcoreaire…the maker of this particular unit…went out of business shortly after I purchased it. Due to problems of my own, it sat around a couple years before I actually got it installed. It’s only been running since July.

A company called Pridiom took over, but they have not been able to source the parts. Even though they build what appears to be the exact same unit…even to the same model number, they say the boards they make are not compatible with my unit.

I may have to replace the entire thing. After 7 months. I am enormously discouraged. The industry, and world-wide users seem to indicate this is an aberration…and normally these are very reliable…but I am still discouraged.

It’s even possible it was damaged in a power surge…we’ve had one, two, in the past at this home. All lightning strikes to power/cable lines nearby. NONE since this install…that we know of…

Still have not had the final “piss off, you’re screwed” from Pridiom, but they seem to have stopped responding to my emails…I’ll give ’em a bit…folks do take vacations and such…

A whole new heat pump? Gah! Ah well…it’s only money. Wonder if I’ve got any more of it hanging around here…

Posted in Heat/Air Conditioning | 2 Comments

The results are in…

Bigger parts

MAD SCIENCE IN PROGRESS!

Well…I’m impressed. The bills are in for the Old Vic utilities through last week. Y’all may remember that last summer we installed our first ductless mini-split unit…a SEER 20, 12,000 btu heat pump. The new super efficient unit is in the kitchen and heats/cools a similar area as the other living area, which is heated by a modern space heater and cooled by a 12,000 btu window unit.

It was easy to compare cooling costs…as I can directly measure the current pulled. Heat was more difficult…comparing electricity use to natural gas use for heat is a challenge. It is doable with all kinds of math but outside temperature matters (heat pumps get less efficient as the temperature drops) so I decided simply to run the two rooms the same and just see what happened with the bills.

So, we knew on the cooling…the new unit uses 1/3 the power, AND makes the room much more comfortable as it removes more humidity and stirs the air around. It is also MUCH quieter than a window unit.

Now, to heat. The bills are in…and again, it costs 1/3 as much to heat with the heat pump as it does with natural gas. It also is more comfortable…it runs the fan slow to keep the air stirred around. With 12′ ceilings the heat tends to go UP, and this unit, being mounted high, takes care of that, circulating the heat back down into the living space. There are no cold drafts like most folks complain about heat pumps.

Soooo…real world testing…this thing costs 1/3 as much to run as other methods for both heating AND cooling, AND keeps the area much more comfortable.

I. LIKE. IT.

I was skeptical. Not now. This thing will pay for itself in energy savings in 12 months.

We will be installing more of these.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in Heat/Air Conditioning, Kitchen | 1 Comment

So sore…

Lots of work this weekend…lugged 1000 pounds of stuff up the stairs…then most of that up to the roof…then spread goop and cloth and more goop. We also had to cut out and replace a couple rotted places on the deck. Not technically difficult, but really slows things down.

Got about 40% done…maybe less with some of the trim work and such…but 40% of the most difficult part…

And we got a rain test Monday…the part we covered was also the worst of my roof issues and was successful.

More as I have good weather days!

Muchas thanks to Mike and Tyler…I could not have done this alone.

Roof work in progress

Rain test on the part we have done…(to the left). Still more to do!

Now, I need about another 1000 pounds of stuff…and some more help to get the rest of the cloth down…once that is done I can touch up the rest of this in smaller “efforts”. There is still edge work to do along that wall to the left (north wall), and some leveling/fairing work in ponding areas…there’s only two significant ones…and some other miscellaneous work…but man…what a relief to eliminate the major issues!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Posted in On the Square, The Cupola Building | Leave a comment