Tag Archives: drywall work

2014/09/01 (M) A Day To Labor

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One of the odd things about being “retired” is that holidays, like weekends, do not have the same significance they had when we were employed full time.  We no longer have “3-day weekends.”  We also do not have a tradition in our family of gathering on the summer holidays, so those days tend to blend into the days around them.  If not for our Saturday morning ham radio breakfast and the Sunday morning Howell Farmers Market we probably would not know what day of the week it was.

Knowing that today was Labor Day, Linda prepared vegan cinnamon rolls yesterday and baked them first thing this morning.  This was the first time she has made these and they were a real treat. Vegan, yes; whole plant-based food, not exactly.  These will be a rare treat for us.

As has been my pattern for the last few weeks, I sanded and touched up drywall first thing after breakfast.  Most of the drywall compound was finally smooth enough that I felt it was ready to prime.  I discovered that I was out of primer, so I went to Lowe’s to get some and picked up a few other things while I was there.  It was very humid today, which tends to slow the drying of paint, but primer is thinner than paint and gets absorbed into the paper drywall covering   I was hopeful that I might get a first coat of paint applied this evening.

Mike (W8XH) sent an e-mail Saturday evening to the members of the SLAARC announcing the availability of the new WordPress website and indicating that they would each be receiving a unique username and password from me in the next few days.  I wanted to wait at least 24 hours before I started creating users.  That waiting period had passed, so today I parked myself in front of my computer and registered users.

Part of the registration process required me to create a username.  That was easy for a ham radio club as (almost) everyone has an FCC call sign.  It also required a valid/unique e-mail address.  When I created an account an e-mail, with their username and a randomly generated password, got sent to the e-mail address I entered.  The e-mail also contained instructions on how to get to the website, how to login, and how to change their password.  I finished creating the last user account around 9 PM, but I did not work on this between 5 PM and 8 PM.

The vegan cinnamon rolls made for a filing and somewhat higher calorie breakfast, so we skipped lunch today and had an early dinner.  I had requested a picnic type of meal to celebrate the end of the summer tourist season, and Linda fixed a nice one.  We had vegan potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, and pan-grilled tofu slices with BBQ sauce and caramelized onions served open-faced on some of the Italian bread she made for dinner on Saturday.  Dessert was watermelon balls.  And the wonderful thing is that I am maintaining a good weight.  Eating well and eating healthy are not mutually exclusive.  However, like low-fat and fat-free foods, and then gluten-free foods, the processed food industry has discovered a “market” for foods that are free of animal products.  That, however, does not mean they are free of unpronounceable chemicals or excessive amounts of sugar and salt.  There is a growing amount of vegan junk food available in the marketplace.

We spent a little time after dinner on the back deck watching wildlife as a storm front approached from the west.  As the wind kicked up we lost our AT&T DSL connection and then our phone went out, exhibiting the same behavior we have had throughout most of August.  I shut down my computer and changed back into my work clothes to do some painting.  I put a coat of paint on the east wall of the garage and both the inside and outside of the utility closet.  It started raining really hard so I had to close the garage door, which cut down on my light, but eventually the rain let up and I was able to open the garage doors again.  The inside of the utility closet may need another coat, but I think that most of the outside of the closet, and the east wall of the garage, may be done.  That means I can finally mount the thermostat for the garage furnace and put cover plates back on switches and outlets.

I am still working on the outside of the south wall of the utility closet (with the door).  I am using drywall compound to create a smooth transition at the hinge edge of the door to correct for a carpentry error I made when installing the door much earlier in the project.  The transition will make it possible for me to install trim around the door, but I have to build up the transition in thin, tapered layers, allow it to dry, sand it smooth, and repeat the process over, and over, and over.  Ditto for the west wall of the library, which is the other side of the east wall of the garage, where I am building up a slightly recessed area where the opening was for the old window A-C unit so it will blend in with the surrounding wall surface.

2014/08/28 (R) This And That

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I put in a full day working on our garage project while Linda put in a full day working on this and that.  She baked vegan muffins, made vegan rice pudding, worked at her computer on bills, banking, and RV club financial records, and helped me in the garage with drywall installation.

My first task was sanding down drywall compound from yesterday and then adding more in certain places.  I then measured, marked, and cut the drywall for the inside of the new utility closet.  Linda helped me install it.  We had to cut one piece in half lengthwise in order to get it into position.  I also had to drill a hole for the garage furnace thermostat cable and push it out through the utility closet wall.  Once all of the pieces were secured with drywall screws I applied self-adhesive fiberglass tape to the seams and then applied drywall compound to the seams and screw dimples.

Jasper doing his cat thing.

Jasper doing his cat thing.

Since I could not sand, prime, or paint until the drywall compound was dry I worked on some loose electrical ends.  I installed a saddle connector in the side of the library HVAC for the armored AC power cable and a cable strain relief for the thermostat cable and A-C compressor control wires.  Darryll had already installed these cables through the gas pipe hole, so I made a diagram of how they were connected, uninstalled them, re-routed them through the strain relief, and reconnected them.  I prepped the AC power cable, partially installed the switch in the surface mount electrical box, and connected the armored cable to the saddle connector.  The final AC power connections for the library HVAC unit will have to wait until the drywall is finished and the surface mount junction/switch box is installed.

I mounted the library thermostat on the wall above the air return but did not connect the wires.  The color coding of the wires in the thermostat cable does not exactly match the labeling of the terminals and the instructions were less than clear, so I thought it best to leave this for Darryll.  I removed the side panel from the Reznor garage furnace and made the AC power connections.  I did not, however, connect the thermostat wires and I left the documentation packet inside the unit.

After dinner I checked e-mail and edited a half dozen blog pages before turning in for the night.

 

2014/08/26 (T) Dinner With Kate

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Darryll planned to be back on Wednesday morning.  He figures two more days to finish everything except the hookups to the gas meter.  I figured I needed to have at least one coat of paint on the east garage wall today to stay ahead of him, so my first task after breakfast was to paint the wall.

Madeline being read to by Aunt Meghan with Grandma Linda.

Madeline being read to by Aunt Meghan with Grandma Linda.

 

Madeline goes for a ride on her new Radio Flyer tricycle.

Madeline goes for a ride on her new Radio Flyer tricycle.

When I was done with the morning painting I did a light sanding of the drywall compound on the outside of the utility closet walls.  After a cursory inspection, I decided it was good enough and went ahead and painted it and then cleaned up the paint tools.  I took care of a couple of minor electrical tasks and then sanded the library side of the former window A-C opening and applied some more drywall compound.  I cleaned up my drywall tools and by 11:30 AM was done with construction projects for the day.

I got cleaned up just in time for lunch.  We had left over Koshary, after which we sat outside and read.  Linda is reading an e-book titled “Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat.”  The book is about the intertwined evolution of cooking technique, cookware, and utensils.  I started reading the September-October 2014 issue of The Gypsy Journal, which I had downloaded on Sunday and e-mailed to our iPads yesterday.

 

MEF3 steers the Radio Flyer with a little help from her dad.

MEF3 steers the Radio Flyer with a little help from her dad.

We left around 2 PM for our son’s house in Ann Arbor, making a stop at the Whole Foods Market for some dry ingredients.  The reason for our visit was to deliver Madeline’s new Radio Flyer convertible tricycle and visit until time to meet Kate for dinner.  Madeline started day care yesterday, which is a really big deal.  We were curious how the first two days went, and just wanted to see everyone; I think it’s only been a couple of weeks, but it feels much longer.  Today was my lucky day as Madeline decided I was the designated book reader.  She has let me read to her occasionally in the past, but usually goes to her mom, dad, aunt, or Grandma Linda, all of whom she has spent more time with than she has with me.  It made for a very special afternoon for Grandpa Bruce.

 

 

The Radio Flyer tricycle even has a sunshade!

The Radio Flyer tricycle even has a sunshade!

We left Brenda and Shawna’s house around 5:45 PM and found ourselves in the middle of the evening traffic jam on eastbound Washtenaw Avenue.  We slowly worked our way east towards US-23 and then turned into a strip mall to pick up some disposable paint tray liners at an ACE Hardware store.  We got back into the traffic flow using a street at the end of the strip mall that had a traffic signal.  Once we were back on Washtenaw Avenue we had more reasonable traffic flow the rest of the way in to Ypsilanti.

After weighing several options, Kate chose the Wurst Bar in Ypsilanti for dinner.  Linda had been their once before with Kate but it was my first visit.  It was well rated on Yelp and the menu had several vegan options.  They also had one of my favorite beers, the Lindeman Framboise, a raspberry lambic ale brewed in Vlezenbeek, Belgium.  They were out of the Lindeman but had another lambic from a different producer.  It came in something that looked like a large sparkling wine bottle and cost $15, so Linda and I split it.  Long before hops were used in beers they were seasoned with fruits and vegetables.  I’m not a big fan of hops, but I like fruit.  The substitute was OK, but not what I recalled from the last time I had this at a restaurant in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

 

Grandma Linda's turn to "drive" the Radio Flyer.

Grandma Linda’s turn to “drive” the Radio Flyer.

 

Kate had recently been to Paris, France and to both Venice and Padua in Italy with one of her nieces and nephews.  She had printed about 40 photos (8×10) for us to see.  While these are inherently beautiful places her photography was, as usual, superb.  The Wurst Bar serves “tots” instead of French fries.  Linda and I had some as an appetizer with vegan sausage crumbles, vegan cheese, and sliced jalapeños. Not health food, to be sure, but at least no animal products.  For dinner Linda had the vegan wurst and I had the Asian tofu burger.  Kate had a regular wurst and a dark beer on tap that she had not had before.  She really liked it, but I did not catch the name.

 

 

 

It's finally Grandpa Bruce's turn to drive the tricycle.

It’s finally Grandpa Bruce’s turn to drive the tricycle.

 

 

By the time we were done eating the lights had been turned down and the music volume had been turned up, so we moved to Sweetwater Coffee and Tea a couple doors down the street.  We all had coffee and to our delight they had a piece of vegan apple pie, which Linda took, and a piece of vegan mixed berry pie, which I took.  I really like fruit pies but they have always been a rare treat; all the more so now that we eschew animal products.  So tonight I had fruit beer and fruit pie.

 

 

 

I had planned to put a second coat of paint on the garage walls when we got home but the lateness of the hour disabused me of that idea and I went to bed instead.

Madeline shows her new tricycle to he mommy. It's not a Subaru, but it's pretty cool.

Madeline shows her new tricycle to he mommy. It’s not a Subaru, but it’s pretty cool.

 

2014/08/25 (M) AT&T and the MPSC

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I was scheduled to participate in a meeting of the FMCA Education Committee at 4 PM today but it got rescheduled to Monday, September 8, same time.  That was a welcomed change of plans which allowed me to concentrate on our construction project.

Roese Construction, the contractor for Consumer’s Energy, is still working along our street.  The main gas lines are run.  They are now digging the connection trenches, fusing the sections of pipe together, and filling the trenches back in.  We heard them working at the west end of our property and walked down to see what they were doing and take a few photographs.  A large backhoe was just starting to fill a trench at the northwest corner of our yard where two pieces of main line were joined with a branch line going to the cul-du-sac to the west.  There was a lot of water in that trench and it looked like a (muddy) lap pool.  The surface of the water was only about two feet below the surface of the ground.  I asked the backhoe operator if that was ground water and he said it was.  The northwest corner of our property is a low spot that forms small ponds around many of the trees when it rains, and stays wet for a very long time even after the surface water disappears.

We spent the morning and afternoon sanding drywall compound and touching up a few spots.  While the compound was drying I worked on electrical tasks and Linda worked in the kitchen and did some weeding in the beds around the house.  Somewhere in the middle of all that we put all of the sections of the ham radio tower back on the middle deck, had lunch, and made a trip to Lowe’s for a light switch and various cover plates.  I also picked up an 18″ x 28″ sheet of 1/4″ thick Plexiglas to use as a temporary replacement for the fogged window in the bus when I finally get around to removing it to have it repaired.

Our AT&T phone and DSL service is worse than useless at the moment.  After three un-returned phone calls to both the technician (who gave us his number and said to call him directly if the problem re-occurred within 30 days) and the infrastructure manager for this area (whose name and number we got from the technician) we were fed up, so we filed a complaint with the Michigan Public Service Commission.  About four hours later we got a call from a women who claimed to be from the Office of the President of AT&T letting me know that she was in receipt of our commission filing and that she would be coordinating the “investigation and service repair process.”  The audio level was low and the noise on the line was high, so I could barely hear her and said so.  Apparently she heard the noise too, so at least she knew we were not making this up.  She e-mailed us shortly thereafter with her name and contact information.  That’s a start, but what we really want is the clean, reliable signal that we pay for.

There are things I can do, and need to do, at my computer that do not require me to be online, such as editing the rough drafts of blog posts and selecting/post-processing photographs.  The last post I uploaded to our blog was for August 1st, so I am once again almost four weeks behind.  I needed to finish processing the tree photos from last Thursday, put them in a Dropbox folder, and e-mail the link to Paul at Detroit Tree Recycling, but I did not get that done either.  When I wasn’t eating or driving back and forth to Lowe’s I was working in the garage.

Speaking of food, Linda made stuffed mushrooms for dinner and served them with a side of grilled asparagus.  Both were very tasty.  After dinner I gave the east wall of the garage a final sanding and then worked on the utility closet wall while Linda vacuumed up the dust.  I wiped down the wall with a barely damp sponge and applied a coat of Zinzer primer.  It should be dry enough to paint in the morning.

I drove back to Lowe’s to return a couple of incorrect cover plates I had purchased earlier in the day and get the correct ones.  I picked up another gallon of paint while I was there to make sure I had enough on hand for tomorrow.  On the way home I had a nice QSO (ham radio contact or chat) with Mike (W8XH).  Ham radio is fun and we have yet to get involved in making long distance (DX) contacts with folks all over the world on the HF (high frequency) bands.  Getting our tower up with some HF antennas on it will help a lot.

 

2014/08/24 (N) The Critical Path

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The current “critical path” on the garage/HVAC project is the east wall of the garage which has to be finished before Darryll returns.  Although not as pressing as the drywall work, our first task after breakfast was to (finally) connect the separate ground wire from the garage sub-panel to the house main electrical panel and remove the bonding screw that tied the grounds and neutrals together in the sub-panel.  That took about an hour, but that was because it was work that had to be done carefully as the main panel was energized while I was working on it.

With the ground wire taken care of we sanded drywall compound on the east garage wall.  We wiped the dust off with a slightly damp sponge and I applied the next coat of drywall compound.

We then worked on wiring.  I finally decided on the locations for the two furnace switches, each of which had to be within three feet of their respective units.  I decided to locate the switch for the library HVAC unit on the new wall opposite (20″) and above (16″) the cable entry hole in the side of the furnace.  The switch will be in an outdoor rated surface mount junction box with the supply cable entering from the rear.  I had already run the cable into the middle wall cavity and had to drill a hole through one of the studs to get the cable where I needed it to be.

I decided to locate the on/off switch for the ceiling mounted garage furnace on the ceiling about a foot to the right of the right rear corner, again using an outdoor rated surface mount junction box.  The dedicated 15A cable was already routed to that general area so we just had to move it to the new location.

We also had to install the wiring for the thermostats.  Darryll brought a large reel of 4-conductor, 18 AWG thermostat cable, so we had the material we needed.  I was studying the installation instructions for the thermostats and it appeared that they needed 24 VAC to operate.  I called Darryll and left a message regarding this.  He called back fairly quickly and told me we did not need transformers as they were already in each of the furnaces.  He also left me know he would be back on Wednesday morning.

With the transformer question answered we were able to proceed with the cable installation.  The thermostat for the garage furnace will mount on the outside of the west wall of the new utility closet, so we had to run thermostat wire from that location through the attic to the ceiling mounted switch box.  The thermostat for the library HVAC unit will mount on the wall to the right of the door into the garage and above the return air register/duct, so we also had to run thermostat wire from there through the garage attic and over to the location of the on/off switch in the utility closet.  I worked in the attic while Linda worked in the garage.

We took a break for lunch and then started installing insulation in the utility closet walls.  We got one staple installed and discovered that we were out of staples.  That meant a trip to Lowe’s.  Lowes’s is about six miles driving distance and we prefer not to go for just one small thing, so we made a list.  The Arrow staple gun takes T50 staples.  The surface mount junction boxes have several threaded holes into which you can screw different clamps depending on how the cable is connected.  I planned to use flexible armored cable, sometimes referred to as “greenfield”, to bring 120VAC power to the furnaces.  Lowe’s had 6′ lengths of armored cable with an extra foot of wire on each end.  I needed a little more than 36″ for the library furnace and a little less than 36″ for the garage furnace, so that worked out nicely.  The guy in the electrical department got me set up with the right clamps for the ends called saddle connectors.

When I got home, I discovered that I had bought brads rather than staples, so Linda headed back to Lowe’s to return the brads and buy the staples.  While she was gone I pulled the wires out of the armored cable and cut the armor into two pieces.  I fed the wires back through the shorter piece and connected it between the garage furnace and the switch box.  Linda got back before I could complete the cable for the other furnace, so I set it aside to finish later.

With a good supply of staples we insulated the west wall of the utility closet and the space above the door on the south wall.  We then installed drywall over those same areas.  We had to notch around the flue pipe and the black iron gas pipe, but we measured carefully (and twice) and the panel fit just right.  We applied fiberglass tape to the one vertical seam, and prepared a length of corner bead for the outside corner at the junction of the two walls.  Linda prepared dinner while I applied joint compound to the seam and screw dimples.  I mudded the corner, pressed the corner bead in place, and then mudded over it lightly.  I then did some touch up sanding on the east garage wall and applied what I hoped would be a final coat of drywall compound.

I finished just in time to clean up and have dinner; vegan Pad Thai made from scratch.  A small glass of the 2009 Egri Merlot and some lemon melon later for dessert put a nice cap on a very productive day.

 

2014/08/22 (F) Radio Flyer

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Today was mostly about drywall.  Most of the drywall on the lower half of the east garage wall was removed by the previous owners to access and repair baseboard heating pipes that had frozen (they used water in the system instead of coolant).  We also have a 19″ h by 29″ w opening higher up in that same wall where the window air-conditioner was installed.  (It cooled the breezeway by dumping heat into the garage.)  We needed to replace the lower drywall and patch the A-C opening before Darryll returned next week as he will be running supply air ducts down the wall at two locations to feed through the wall into the library just above the hot water baseboard heat radiator.  Before installing the drywall, however, we had some prep work to do.  When Linda wasn’t helping me she broke down cardboard boxes and got them ready to go to the recycling center tomorrow.

On the lower part of wall I drilled through the corners of the two register locations Darryll had marked on the library side.  We then added horizontal wood 2×4 blocking above and below the locations of the two registers.  We also added blocking around the inside of the old A-C opening to provide backing and attachment surfaces for the drywall.

With the carpentry done we removed some old insulation that was not in good shape and insulated the lower section of the wall.  I marked the locations of all the studs on the floor and on the upper half of the wall.  I also marked the locations of the horizontal blocking, the hot water heating pipes, and the capped off gas pipe that supplied the wall-mounted propane heater in the library.  Finally, we were able to install the drywall.  It took two pieces, 48″ x 87″, to cover the lower half along with lots of screws.  By the time we finished it was time for lunch.

We needed another sheet of drywall to cut the two pieces for the A-C opening, so after lunch we drove to Lowe’s and bought a 4′ x 8′ sheet.  When we got back we cut the two pieces and installed them.  Linda then helped me apply self-adhesive fiberglass tape to all of the seams.

The next step was applying drywall compound.  While I “mudded” the drywall seams and screw head dimples Linda started assembling a Radio Flyer configurable tricycle.  She ordered it for our grand-daughter a couple of days ago (Amazon Prime) and it arrived late yesterday.

I finished the first coat of drywall compound at 6 PM and cleaned up my tools.  While Linda pulled together leftovers for dinner (potato lentil curry, sautéed green beans with garlic, and naan bread) I measured the tow bar on the back of the bus to see how long of a cable we needed for the EZ*Connector system.  24″ + 34″ = 58″, about 5 feet, so their standard 6′ cable should be a good length.  Although it was only 3 PM in California, I decided to wait until Monday to place an order as I still needed to determine some circuit details.

After dinner I tried to check my e-mail and discovered that our DSL connection was not working, again, even though the AT&T gateway said it was.  The phone (POTS) had gone out earlier in the day and was out again.  I called Ken, the AT&T technician, and left a message and then called Steve, the AT&T infrastructure manager for the Howell and Lansing areas, and left a message.  I had called both of them twice this week already without getting a return call from either one.  My message this time indicated that I expected a return call with some information as to what they are doing to try and resolve the problem.

I called Chuck (on my marginal connection Verizon cell phone) to get a status update on his bus tachometer, then called Mike to firm up arrangements for him to bring his oscilloscope to breakfast tomorrow so we can go to Chuck’s shop and investigate the signal feeding his tachometer.  I texted Chuck back to confirm that we would be there by 10 AM.

I helped Linda finish assembling the Radio Flyer tricycle.  It is very spiffy and, of course, very red.  We spent the rest of the evening reading.  As I was typing this post I realized that I forgot to insulate the wall cavity where the window A-C unit was installed.  That meant I would have to remove the piece of drywall on the library side, insulate the cavity, and then cut and install a new piece of drywall.  I had already applied the seam tape and initial coat of drywall compound, so it will be a messy task.  Fortunately, I do not make those kinds of mistakes very often.

 

2014/07/27 (N) Attic Access

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We had a long day of work today.  We were up just after 7 AM, had a light breakfast of toast, fruit juice, and coffee, read a few blog posts, and got to work.  My first task was to apply a second, light coat of drywall compound to all of the divots in the wall.

Our main morning task was the installation of the fold-down ladder for the garage attic.  It was definitely a two-person job.  Per the instructions, we installed temporary installation boards to support the assembly while we secured it in place.  The installation required one of us to be in the attic and that job fell to me.  We put the assembly on top of a plastic shelving unit to get it close to the ceiling.  Once I was in the attic with all of the tools I would need, including a headlamp, Linda slid the shelving unit so the assembly was directly under the rough opening.  It was still too far from the ceiling for me to reach from above so she placed two footstools under it.  I was then able to reach one end from above and pull it up into the opening while she lifted the other end into position from below.

We read and followed the directions carefully so we already had the pull string and T-handle installed.  That allowed Linda to move the plastic shelves out of the way, carefully open the door from below, and position the step ladder.  I dropped her the cord for the worklight and then had enough light to work comfortably.  We temporarily secured the unit with deck screws.  They were cheap screws and the heads tended to strip easily, but we got them in far enough to hold the unit in place while I installed the lag screws.

The 10 lag screws got installed through pre-drilled holes, six of which went through metal hinge plates.  The instructions said to drill through these holes into the trusses and headers, but the folding ladder hardware made that difficult, and my drill buts were all a bit short to do much.  By cutting the zip ties and partially unfolding the ladder I was able to get all 10 lag screws most of the way in with my drill.  They all had to be shimmed.  The final tightening was done with a socket and ratchet.

We took a break for lunch around 1 PM and had leftover miso soup, tofu hot dogs, and fresh apples.  I made a quick run to Lowe’s to get some additional electrical parts I needed to install lights and a light switch in the garage attic.  While I was there I also bought a baby gate for our basement stairs.  Up until now we have blocked the landing for the basement stairs with a couple of chairs when grand-daughter Madeline has come to visit.  Now that she has successfully spent the night at our house we anticipate many more such visits and wanted a more permanent solution.

The device I bought had a gate with a latch.  It was designed to be installed under tension, but the directions said it had to be anchored to the walls if used at the top of a flight of stairs.  We were not thrilled about mounting it to the walls, but we did.  The installation took about an hour to complete.

Back in the garage I found an old, unopened drywall sanding/finishing sponge.  It had a 1/4″ thick coarse pad on one side for sanding.  The regular sponge side was used to wipe off the drywall and slightly wet the areas to be sanded.  I let the sanded areas dry, wiped everything down, and applied a coat of white exterior semi-gloss to the area of the two existing walls and the ceiling that will be inside the utility closet.

The probability of rain rose steadily though the day and finally resulted in thunderstorms around 4:30 PM.  Steve said yesterday he would be here today and I tried to get him to understand that based on the forecast he needed to be here early.  He wasn’t.  He showed up with the excavator about an hour after the rains, by which point the retaining wall work site had turned to mud.

He took the excavator back there anyway and we watched him work while we had dinner, which consisted of a very nice green salad with strawberries and the rest of the Pad Thai from last night.  (Even left over it was still exceptional.)  He was moving boulders and a lot of dirt trying to get rid of the small mountain range that blocked the flow of water away from our lower deck and was spreading the dirt around in an effort to create some of the final grading.  He brought a helper with him and they had long lengths of drain pipe that I think the intended to install.  But the skies darkened, the rain started, the wind came up, and the warning sirens came on.  He shut off the machine and the two of them made a run for their truck and left.  More rain is forecast for tonight with a chance of thunderstorms, possibly severe.  The probability for rain on Tuesday is currently 60%, and stays at 40% through Wednesday.  At this juncture it appears that they won’t get much work done here this week, and their machine may be stuck here until it dries out.

After dinner Linda and I finally built the base for the platform where the library HVAC unit will be installed.  It’s a 40″ deep x 46″ wide box with center cross bracing.  It’s made of pieces of 2 x 12 on edge.  We set it in the northeast corner of the garage, leveled it with shims, and secured it to the studs in the walls with 3.5″ nails.  I had to make all of the cuts with my Rockwell 8″ circular saw as the chop saw won’t cut something that wide.  I did not cut the plywood platform as I need to install it after the new (west) wall of the utility closet is in place so I can nail through the base into the wall studs.  I will, however, cut the plywood tomorrow before the wall is built as I will be able to set it on the base and trace around it on the underside to get a perfect fit.

My goal for tomorrow is to cut the platform, build the west wall, set it in place and anchor it, and install the platform.  Linda has a 12:30 PM dentist appointment, so I will have to do most of this work by myself.  By that point I will need to get cleaned up, shift gears, and get ready for a 4 PM FMCA Education Committee work session.

 

2014/07/26 (S) Climbing Ladders

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We did not go to our usual ham radio breakfast in South Lyon today so I could get an earlier start on the construction work in the garage.  Before I even got started I got sidetracked by a small rain gutter project which led to further gutter projects.

I bought a downspout elbow yesterday and wanted to get it installed before the next rains, which are forecast for tomorrow at 20% in the early morning riding steadily to 90% by 6 PM.  The elbow is a replacement for a short straight downspout section that feeds water from the end of one gutter into a slightly lower gutter that is perpendicular to the first.  The second gutter has the main downspout at one end.  Rather than dumping water straight down into the lower gutter, the elbow will direct it towards the lower gutter drain hole and away from the house.  A picture would make this much clearer, but I did not take one.

While I was installing the elbow I noticed that both gutters had a lot of “stuff” in them and the wire mesh drain hole grates were mostly clogged.  I cleaned all of the gutters last year, although I do not remember exactly when.  I expect a certain amount of organic material to accumulate in the gutters—the house is surrounded by trees after all—but I was surprised by the amount of granular material that had washed off of the shingles.  There was a lot of granular material last year, which I assumed had taken many seasons to accumulate, and I had flushed all of it out of the gutters with a hose.

The guy who inspected the house when we bought it said the roof was “serviceable” without being much more specific.  I suspect it is approaching the end of its useful life, but is not a project we can take on this year.  We have a ranch house with a low pitched roof, probably not more than 4-in-12.  It would take me several weeks to roof it myself, but it’s something I am (still) capable of doing.  Perhaps next summer, after we build the barn.

Given the condition of these two gutters I decided to check/clean all of them.  In the process I found that the gutter on the front of the house had three mounting screws loose at the west end.  I tightened them up, completing my unplanned roof tasks for the day.

There are several interesting things about “small construction projects.”  One is that they seem small because you can conceptualize the outcome and visualize all of the major steps quickly and easily.  Another is that you assume they aren’t going to cost very much; they are, after all, small projects.  Having been educated and worked as an engineer at one point in my life I tend to design things rather than jump right into the building phase.  The design phase is where I usually get my first reality check as I start to consider all of the details of the project that I was not able to quickly and easily visualize.  The next reality check comes when I am finally ready to build, which means cutting and fastening wood, only to realize that I have many days of other tasks I must complete first.  The tricky part of construction is that stuff has to be done in a certain (correct) order.  If not, you end up having to deconstruct something and then reconstruct it, or engineer an entirely different solution which takes even longer and costs even more than what you planned to do in the first place.

So even though I worked all day I did not build the platform.  Here’s what I did instead:  removed some drywall to expose a wire that was a little too short to get the sheathing into the new sub-panel; installed an outlet box and duplex outlet using the old wire and ran a new wire to the panel; filled out the panel with circuit breakers I will eventually need for new or rewired circuits; patched holes in drywall; cut and installed two studs in the north wall to provide 16″ on center spacing for new drywall; bored holes through the new studs for an old wire; installed a switch near the rear garage door fed from the old wire; ran a new wire for a new outside light; went to Lowe’s and purchased a 36″ exterior grade door (steel), a fold-down ladder for the garage attic, an exterior LED light fixture, and a light fixture for the new utility closet; enlarged the garage attic access opening from 22.5″ x 45″ to 22.5″ x 54″; read and pondered the installation instructions for the fold-down ladder; and decided to call it a night.

Somewhere in all of that we had orange/grapefruit juice, Teeko’s Sweet Seattle Dreams coffee (a blend that Jeff does just for us) and Linda’s homemade granola for breakfast; tofu hot dogs for lunch with sweet cherries, and; vegan Pad Thai for dinner that Linda made from scratch.  The Pad Thai was a complicated dish but Linda’s efforts really paid off; it was outstanding.

By the time I showered, worked on this post, and caught up on some blogs I follow it was time for bed.  I was tired but, having exerted myself physically and mentally and accomplished tangible things, it was a good kind of tired.  I no longer climb corporate ladders.  Today I was up and down real ones.