Warmer weather has come and gone and it would seem that fall arrived abruptly.
I wish I could say the lack of any updates here was because I was just too busy to write one, but that’s not the case.
Instead, the cooler weather is a wake-up call to the fact that we failed to make enough progress this year on our many projects.
Our goals for the year were to finish as much of the outside work as we could (which we did), but that meant much of the inside work got neglected. Our funding is still limited and we’re now paying as we go which has also slowed things down a lot.
We thought we’d have the roof of the new building insulated by now, but that just hasn’t happened. With the ridge vents and soffits venting outside air into the new building (and letting heated air escape), it’s a losing battle to heat the building properly.
This summer I debated about draining the radiant heat system as a contingency, but wasn’t sure how I would ensure that there was no water left in the system that would freeze and damage the system anyway, so I left it alone.
Last winter we ran the radiant system just to keep it from freezing. We also lucked out because last winter was mild so although running the radiant heat system in the un-insulated building was expensive, it didn’t break the bank.
In addition, the heating system wasn’t running properly for much of last winter. But after I got the low-loss header installed last January our gas bill skyrocketed, leading me to believe that with the system running properly we began pumping a lot more heat into the great outdoors than we had been.
Now we’ve already had freezing temperatures at night so I was forced to fire up the radiant heat in the new building and recover the manifold walls with the extruded polystyrene sheets to keep the system from freezing.
We’ve got three options: adding glycol to the radiant heat system (something I didn’t want to do as it’s expensive and it will reduce the efficiency of the system); insulating the building; or sucking it up and running the system like we did last year and simply paying the big natural gas bills.
Only the insulating option gets us closer to completion, so that’s obviously the preferred choice. But prior to insulating the ceiling I still need to install the upstairs lighting.
Part of our problem with progress has continued to be getting written estimates from contractors. I don’t know if after seeing the project they change their minds and don’t want to get involved, or they’re just too lazy to follow through and write up their bids, but we’ve had a handful of insulation contractors out and only a few have actually returned bids for the work.
We also started a refinance in earnest last month, but for some reason the mortgage banker stopped getting back to us, so after weeks we’re now starting over with someone else.
The major accomplishment for the year on the new building was getting stairs put in which gave us easy access to the upstairs of the building. But they’re still not completed and are still only secured with temporary supports and braces.
I’m also trying to figure out an affordable railing system for the stairs.
Another one of our priority projects is getting the concrete main floor cleaned and stained. Once that’s done we can start working on framing the walls after which we can seal the floor.
We’ve used the stairs to start moving stuff from the main floor to the upstairs. A lot of extra dog grooming gear is being stored in the new building.
But a lot of building materials remain on the main floor, including the unused floor trusses that we’re trying to unload on Craig’s List and siding that is to be used on the house.
Since we started using the upstairs, a few weeks ago I built a temporary railing on the loft area as it made me nervous to have people walking around up there – it would be about a 13 foot drop from upstairs onto the concrete floor below.
Then I finished installing the subfloor in the west upstairs, after which I moved the polyethylene sheets that we’d used to cover the curing concrete (and that will be used as insulation vapor barrier) upstairs.
The list of work that remains is unfortunately still quite long, with major work including a second set of stairs.
Last week I came within one year of my retirement eligibility date so I’ve been thinking a lot about retiring. If I did retire I’d have a lot more time to do work on our many projects, but less money to pay for materials. But in my mind the decision has already been made; I’m not getting any younger and early retirement is one of the perks of my job.
Meanwhile we’re dealing with another mouse infestation in the house. I noticed evidence of mice in our master bath vanity cabinet a few weeks ago when I was replacing the sink downspout. We’ve had mouse problems there before – I think they come up from the basement via the plumbing and for some reason like chewing on the bars of Ivory soap we have in the vanity.
So I set a trap in the vanity cabinet and have since caught 17 mice, which has bested our previous streak of 9 mice caught there almost exactly two years ago, and the 15 mice we caught in the garage four years ago.
We haven’t found evidence of the mice elsewhere in the house, but I thought I saw mouse droppings on the top of the cat litter containers in the basement. That leads me to believe the mice are living on cat food in the basement, which also means our four house cats aren’t doing their jobs!
Prevailing wisdom is that the best mousers are well fed so they’re full of energy. However, it would appear that our fed cats are just fat and lazy…