An Interesting Week

I don't do well in the shortest darkest days of the year, but with the lengthening days, I have gotten more active.  It's nice to start accomplishing things again.

1.  I got The Salvation Army out here to pick up stuff I never used or no longer needed.  Mainly, I had a dining room table and chairs that I bought at their local showcase store 8 years ago.  It had some dings and scrapes, and I intended to completely refinish it as a Winter project.  Realizing I would never get around to doing that, I wanted to give it back.  I was also cleaning out closets and accumulated 8 boxes of miscellaneous household goods in good condition, a telescope (I have a newer better one now), an unopened flat screen wall mount (I decided to use a TV table instead), a nearly unused upright vacuum cleaner (I have wood floors now), etc.

It was all picked up last Wensday (I have decided to change the spelling; "Wednesday" is just medieval).  The new open space in my basement workshop is appreciated.

2.  I decided my cooking habits were in a rut.  20 years ago, I used to make pizzas from scratch.  I relearned how.  The first was bad.  The 2nd and 3rd were very good.  A pizza stone helps.  So does a bread machine with a pizza dough setting.  And leaving the dough sit overnight in a covered bowl helps.  I made my own sauce from crushed canned tomatoes too.  I do that for my spaghetti sauce anyway, just let it get a bit thicker.  Sliced commercial pepperoni, hot italian sausage, green bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions.

And I made chicken cordon blue, my own breaded chicken nuggets, ground hamburger from top sirloin (I have a manual grinder), pancakes from scratch, and egg rolls.

My efforts to make decent hamburger buns continue to fail, though.

3.  Rearranged and vacuumed the entire basement wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling.  The guys who filled the walls with insulation last September left such a mess (even though they did a lot of cleaning).  But I moved EVERYTHING and vacuumed.  I vacuumed some spots that may have never been vacuumed in 28 years.  When's the last time you pulled out the washer and dryer and cleaned behind there?  LOL!

4.  Reorganized all the stuff from the attic that I had to move down into the cats' room and stored them for returning to the attic when I replace the flooring up there.  The cats are thrilled to have more space for toys, exploring, and scratchers.

5.  Took almost everything out of the computer room, threw away lots of old stuff, and returned little.  And there is more to get rid of.  Why should I keep the boxes and disks from the apps from Windows 98?

6.  Emptied out 3 closets and most of the stuff went to a new pile of stuff to go to charity.  It is amazing how much unneeded "stuff" ends up on closet floors.  "Out of sight, out of mind".  For example, 30 years ago, I became the manager of an office softball team.  I had bases, gloves and balls in a box.  I'm keeping the ball and gloves, but the bases can go.  One thing charities can't say is that I have boring stuff to give.

7.  I had boxes of newspaper articles clipped out for "information".  Computer articles, gardening articles, cooking articles.  That stuff is all on the internet now.  So those are going into the recycling bin.

8.  One box was half full on fanfold perforated-edge computer paper!  That goes back to the days of dot-matrix printers.  But I'm not recycling THAT.  I now have a lifetime supply of note-taking paper!  Some old stuff is worth keeping.

9.  The weather today was GREAT.  It reached 67F!  I went outside to do some gardening work.  Mostly, I needed to dig level spots for the 6th of 6 framed garden beds.  Unfortunately, the ground was still frozen 2' down, so I did some work, but not as much as I hoped.  Still I did some work and the next warm day I can get another 2' deep.  That will be enough to build that 6th bed before Spring arrives.

10.  Haircut time!  Ever 2 months.  And I love the feel of heated shaving cream around my ears and neck when the barber does that razor cut!

11.  Visited the bank.  Got 6x higher interest rates on my savings with some creative transfers.   3% interest is better than .5%

I may have had a more productive week sometime, but I can't recall when exactly.  LOL!

Energy Use After New Insulation and Other Stuff

1.  Energy Usage After New Insulation:

One month does not prove anything much, but my first post-insulation project usage for October shows that my Oct 2013 usage was 1326 "some unit" and the Oct 2014 usage was only 973.  It is promising, but weather in one month can be different one year to the next.  I'll wait to see the next few bills.

But it does look good.

2.  The framed raised garden beds are progressing.  3 of 6 completed and the boards for the 4th are all cut.  Now that I have the process of building them routinely, the 4th will be easier than the first.  And I am set to buy the lumber for the 5th and( last) 6th  any day the weather is "OK".

3.  I'm continuing to accumulate a pile of donatable items in the basement.  Its not the "usual stuff".  Today I cleaned out the top shelf of the pantry.  Anyone have  a bamboo multi-layer chinese steamer?  I do, and I haven't used it in 20 years.  Onto the pile it goes.  I hope the Salvation Army knows what it is.  LOL!  I keep holding off calling Salvation Army for a pickup because I keep finding new stuff to add to the pile.  I wonder what they will do with a 4" lens refraction telescope, for example.  But that's their problem/good luck.

4.  I'm loving the new trash pickup!  I got rid of 12 bags of kitty litter last Friday and 10 today.  They say they don't accept "lumber", but I have a barrelful of scrap ends, and so far as I can tell watching them mechanically lift and dump the dedicated container they provided, they can't see what is in it.  I can keep cutting the trash lumber into 6" pieces and put them in bags all month until is is all gone.  It sure will be nice to not have to drive to the landfill this winter!  And I have a lot more junk to get rid of.  I'll fit it it into the dedicated Evergreen container even if I need a sledgehammer to break it up.  And I'm not trashing any recyclable or compostable stuff.

5.  Last night was the first hard freeze here.  I dug up 4 Basil plants to try to keep them growing inside on the south window.  Picked the last tomatoes too.  A few were at orange, so they might ripen.  For the others, I will look up "fried green tomatoes".

6.  Got out my 3 window box planters tonight.  I can get some fancy mesclun lettuce from them over the winter,  I have just enough potting soil left from last Spring to fill them.

7.  The lowering sun this time of year is now blasting my eyes through the kitchen window.  I found a tension rod to fit across the window and a valance to hang just low enough to prevent the glare as I make my lunch.  28 years and I'm finally getting around to doing that!  I had a choice of 2 valances.  One white lacey and one red.  I chose the red; white lace isn't quite my style.  Red doesn't fit the white wall and black appliance colors, but who cares.  The cats won't complain.  I've been considering having the kitchen tiled in various shades of 4" green and painting the rest of the kitchen celery.  Maybe I'll hang a little label on the red valance "annoying red dissonance".  LOL! 

Actually, I like red/green/black as a color scheme.  My living room is hunter green, the TV room (traditionally the dining room) is dark red, and all the other stuff is black except for the medium wood furniture.  Oh well, I never expected to be displayed in "House Beautiful".  I like what I like.

8.  Next indoor project is to arrange the planting area.  Everything since Spring has just been piled into the grow-light shelves.  Since growing season starts indoors here in 2 months, I better get started on that soon.  Or I'll need to do it fast the day I want to start planting.

The Insulation Project

Home insulation work is messy!  Its sure not like having a plumber come in replace a faucet, LOL!  First, I had to take everything out of the attic and move everything away from most of the basement walls.  That was bad enough.  But then the contractor went to work...

The attic wasn't bad.  They only had to add a duct from a bathroom exhaust fan to the outside, add baffles against the roof edge to direct fresh air in toward the roof ridge vent, spray a foam sealant along all the edges, joists, and around all the pipes that came up through.  Then blow 13" of fiberglass insulation around levelly.  Oh, and they added a removable insulation cover over the attic staircase opening.

The messy work was in the basement, both inside and out.

They used more foam sealant around all the edges.  And to properly fill the wall cavities, they had to drill holes in the paneling.  Mostly, they could do that above the suspended ceiling tiles I installed.  You can see the wooden plug they tapped in afterwards.

But along one wall they had to seal the top edge and then drill access holes below the ceiling tile.  My fault, because of the way I attached the framing studs.  They could have lined up the holes better (see the row of plugs?) but I was watching someone else at the time the holes were drilled.  Well, I can stain them to blend in better, and it IS just a workshop.  Its not like they did that in the living area.

Here's a picture of an unplugged hole showing the pulverized newspaper filling.  Yeah, those newspapers you recycle come back to you sometimes.  Some of that insulation may even be MY old newspapers!

Then they went to work on the outside of the basement.  The front of the house hangs over the foundation 2'.  Which looks rather nice and adds some living space above, but is terrible for insulating.  The only insulation that was there was 1/2" plywood sheathing.  No wonder the initial energy auditor's infra-red camera showed the entire front side of the living area of the house as being  hot!  A better builder would have insulated that.  So these guys did!  They removed the vinyl soffit and sprayed foam insulation into all the edges.

Then they drilled holes in the plywood sheathing, and blew it full of pulverized newspaper and plugged the holes.   Then, of course, replaced all the soffit panels.

It was a bit messy...

They were about to vacuum it all up afterwards, but I told them not to.  Its untreated newspaper, so it is just fine as mulch.  And I KNEW they would thrash that vacuum hose all around through my plants.  So I just swept it gently off the plants with a broom after they left.

I wish I had had this done right after I moved in.  But the electrical company only started advising users of how THEIR usage compared to their neighbors last year.  Until then, I had no reason to think my usage was any different from my neighbors.  Seriously, have you ever visited a neighbor to compare electric bills?  Maybe you should!

Besides, when I started getting notices about my electrical usage from the supplier, I assumed it was because I was retired and home all day.  I was using hot water more often, opening doors to go in and out all day,  cooking more meals at home, watching TV, having lights on, etc.

I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation today based on the expected reduction in my electrical bill.  I'm estimating that the poor-quality job the builder did has cost me about $25,000 (allowing that electricity used to be a lot cheaper) and will save me about $1,000 per year (so the payback is 3-4 years).  And more in the future as energy costs rise...

If your electrical company has a subsidized insulation improvement program, take advantage of it!  My initial subsidized energy audit cost only $100 (and they gave me $100 worth of compact fluorescent bulbs so it was really free).  The company that partnered with the electrical supplier had an A rating on Angieslist, and guaranteed a 20% reduction in outside air leakage (I got 41%).

Give it some thought.