Posts Tagged ‘home maintenance’
Fair Exchange
I have been given a chance for a mini-vacation for a few days this week in an advance payment for holding down the ranch solo next week when Cyndie takes a trip to visit friends. Cyndie arranged for a local contractor at our lake place in Hayward to do some work inside the main house and wanted to have someone here to let him in and be around while he worked in case he needed anything.
Her solution was brilliant, as far as I’m concerned. She offered me the chance to come up alone, and I accepted without hesitation. A solo road trip! Yahoo!
Not that I was excited or anything, but I packed the night before and snuck out the door at 5 a.m. yesterday for the drive to the lake. It felt reminiscent of my time commuting to the day job, except it took another hour and a half longer to get here than it did heading to the old workplace.
There had been just enough snow (you know, “nuisance snow” amounts) that I did a fair amount of shoveling to clean up walkways and stairs to both buildings for Brad, the contractor. He will also be doing some work for us in the little cabin while waiting for the sheetrock mud to dry.
Old seals on the hoses to the washing machine in the laundry room leaked when nobody was aware of it, and the resulting water damage included moldy sheetrock.
I took a picture while he was dismantling some shelving to show the yucky wall. After helping carry the frame and countertops out of the way, I gave Brad some space and listened to construction sounds from a distance.
With all obstructions out of the way, he made short work of ripping out the old and installing the new.
While Brad was doing real work, I enjoyed a leisurely day free of any animal duties and listened to my music library at high volume, set up a jigsaw puzzle, did some reading, took a nap, ate like a king (of course, Cyndie sent me off with oodles of good food!), and watched shows on Netflix that Cyndie won’t tolerate.
The hardest part of my day was learning that after a full day of the waterer in the paddock working fine and the temperatures moderating a bit from the most bitter cold, the line still froze again yesterday afternoon. Aaarrgh! Cyndie was able to melt it again and has the installer coming today, hopefully, to check out whether one of the heat tapes needs to be replaced.
I feel bad that the problem continued into her solo watch. One way to look at it though, maybe the added stress yesterday could help her to appreciate even more her vacation from animal responsibilities next week.
Giving each other separate turns to have an extended break from daily chores is a fair exchange. Right now, I’m soaking up my brief autonomy opportunity at the lake with maximum appreciation.
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Crown Complete
You know what else feels lovely? Having a long-awaited project completed. We’ve known for a few years that the crown on top of our chimney was compromised, the cement cracked and allowing water penetration when it rains and snows. The kind of issue that was invisible to us on the ground and could have lingered unknown for a long time before it emerged as very costly structural damage to the whole chimney.
During a regular chimney cleaning appointment, we were informed the crown was aging poorly. That chimney sweep told us he fabricates metal crowns that can be placed directly over the existing cement.
Sounded good to me in my total niaveté. Sign me up! Of course, this happened in the fall, and the guy said he was way behind on making these custom chimney caps, so he could not predict when he would get to us.
After about a year of waiting with the nagging concern that water was seeping in with each bout of precipitation, I called to see what his schedule looked like.
He ghosted me. ‘Nuff said. We asked for an assessment from a more reputable company this fall, and now the problem is solved.
It is quickly obvious when you have landed a contractor who knows what he is doing. One who efficiently solves complexities and quickly achieves good results.
I never noticed that the old crown didn’t look all that impressive until the unveiling of the new one. With fabrication complete, they spent a few hours sealing the new cement and then continued all the way down to the bottom, covering the stones and masonry with a fresh coat of sealant for protection against the elements.
I love that we have one less concern in our ongoing quest to protect our place from water damage.
Looking at the weather forecast for the next few days, I happily say, “Let it rain and snow!”
We’ll build a nice warm fire and watch the precipitation with one less worry.
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Crown Replacement
The latest, and hopefully last, home improvement project of the fall is a replacement of the concrete crown on our chimney. The structure is 34 years old and was cracking and headed for increasingly problematic water penetration. On Friday, work began in earnest, beginning with the demolition of the old crown.
Just because it was starting to crack in places didn’t mean it was going to simply fall apart in Jason, the contractor’s hands, after a few blows from his heavy-duty hammer. The old masonry put up a fight that forced him to spend twice the time he expected the demo to take.
Watching his partner, Charlie, muscle the massive chunks down three ladders over and over again made my muscles ache in sympathy. Especially knowing he is going to need to muscle buckets of new cement up three ladders over and over again when they pour the new crown.
Luckily, he gets the weekend between each phase.
From a safe vantage point on the ground, I watched them work up there and several times felt my nerves wobble as they moved around in awkward positions with awkward loads or wielding power tools with dangly power cords.
As they cut into the point where stones end, and concrete began, the dust blew into the air, looking like smoke coming out the top.
When Jason finally arrived last Wednesday, several weeks after it was hinted they could fit us into the schedule, he was alone and warned he would probably only be able to complete initial preparations. His partner was out unexpectedly that day due to a death in the family.
The next day, Thursday, would be unavailable because of doctor appointments. I had told the company that Wednesday was a good start because we had company coming over the weekend, hoping they would be done by then.
What can ya do? On Friday morning, Jason checked one last time before showing up to ask whether I wanted them to wait until Monday to start making a mess of things since we had people coming for a visit.
“No!”
I didn’t want any more delays, and the weather was supposed to be perfect, and it was just Cyndie’s brother bringing his new “friend” and her kids to see the place for the first time, and it would be no big deal if the place looked under construction. Get ‘er done.
The original plan was to break up the old crown in the morning and pour the new crown in the afternoon, but that isn’t the way things worked out. After they got the old crown removed, they needed to do some additional grinding of the stones around the top to create a flat surface to secure the framing for the new pour.
It’s very satisfying to see that every aspect of this project is beyond my DIY capabilities. It makes the not-insignificant expense easier to accept.
In the end, it will probably be similar to the cost of a new crown from a dentist, which is a steal because these guys are installing a crown in the equivalent environs of a circus high-wire act.
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Needed Distraction
Today, we are granted a welcome distraction from election results in the form of chimney contractors reportedly planning to show up around 9:00 a.m. The crown of our chimney, which is currently more flat than crowned, is cracking to the degree that I have ordered it to be replaced.
This is an image taken by a drone, which, in addition to the cracking concrete, reveals the ceramic extension on the left is disintegrating. If the date on the side of the chimney by the floor inside the house is accurate, this masonry is 34 years old.
I’m almost twice that old, and I’ve only recently started to crack. I guess I find ways to shelter myself from extended exposure to extremes of hot and cold temperatures and prolonged abuse by ultraviolet radiation.
As long as they are climbing around up there, I’m having the entire height of stones and masonry freshly sealed against the elements in hopes of giving it another 34 years free from trouble.
Doing expensive maintenance projects in my mid-60s frequently brings me to the conclusion that I shouldn’t need to worry about it again in my lifetime. Our shingles are reaching the end of their life, so managing a re-roof will be another thing I can do for the last time in my life.
I need this distraction to keep me from perseverating on my chances of ever getting to vote for a woman for President again in my lifetime. Will I live long enough to see the Electoral College abolished? Will perception and reality ever become identical?
Never mind all that. I’m busy making sure contractors have everything they need to make quick work of this chimney job and get out of here without leaving a trace behind except for the smooth and shiny completion of their work.
Then, I’m going to hang out with our dog and the horses because they don’t know anything about an election or what difference the outcome will make. What kind of bliss that must be.
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Water Woes
I’m beginning to feel that water is the real “can’t live with it; can’t live without it” element in our world. It’s obvious that we need water to survive. It’s a little odd that I’m choosing to dis water during a phenomenally dry period of more than a month. This current stretch of dry weather has taken us from an unusually wet spring and summer into problematic drought conditions.
Cyndie added a water bag around the trunk of the young maple tree in the center of the labyrinth yesterday to help it cope with the water shortage.
One of the pesky water issues that triggered me yesterday has to do with the inspection of our chimney. I learned different ways water is the culprit we need to fend off constantly. The 34-year-old “crown” at the top of our chimney is flatter than it is crowned and the masonry is cracking. The rain and snow that lands on those cracks can seep in and become problematic in various ways.
One thing I didn’t consider is how condensation inside the chimney can contribute to the degradation of masonry or corrosion of the metal of the damper or firebox components.
Looking closely at the masonry around the stones on the outside of our chimney reveals a few cracks forming and has me resigned to adding a sealer to extend the life of the structure.
We just finished re-sloping the landscape around the garage foundation, and I’ve rerouted gutter downspouts, all to protect our house from water. The logs and deck have been sealed to protect them from the abuses of water. The integrity of our roof shingles is a constant concern to protect the house from water damage.
Cyndie just got home from the lake, where she spent the weekend dealing with a water leak in the basement laundry room, where signs of mold along the baseboard are already evident.
I’m anxious to find out if the potential failure of an electrical splice is somehow water-related. I uncovered the three splices yesterday and didn’t see anything obvious. I chose not to mess with it so the electrician could observe the condition they were in when uncovered.
I truly hope this old repair proves to be the problem. If not, the alternative may require burying a whole new run of wires the full distance from the circuit breaker box on the shop wall down to the barn.
That would involve a long pathway beneath the large expanse of asphalt in front of the shop garage.
Please let the fix be in the splice I’ve dug up.
Back to water problems, my brain is hurting from the ongoing news reports about the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, and now Hurricane Milton is winding up with a scary level of intensity bearing toward Florida’s Gulf coast.
Water, water everywhere. It gives us life and it can be the bane of our existence.
For the sake of all our growing things, I sure hope it rains here pretty soon. And when it does, I also wish the water would stay out of all the places we don’t want it to go.
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Saving Money
Last spring I contacted four landscape companies asking for quotes on upgrading our front walkway area which has settled to such a degree it doesn’t properly drain water away from the house anymore. Two of the four responded and showed up to submit a quote. It was good to hear some of their thoughts about possible solutions but the costs were a real shock.
They came in at $11K and $8K to remove what was there and replace it with a new finish.
I decided to do a much more minimalist fix using DIY labor.
We have nibbled away at the project over a very long span of months but the last few days of Cyndie’s boundless energy has increased progress significantly.
We knew there was a concrete sidewalk beneath all that stone but we just didn’t know how much. The bad news is that the concrete had settled in the wrong direction for draining water away from the house.
It occurred to me yesterday that we could hire a concrete lifter to solve that part of the job. We’d need to spend some money on that but it would be a lot less than the cost of total replacement. Then we would be able to more easily finish the re-installation of the slabs and river rock ourselves. Think of the money we’ll save!
I sure hope my body will be up to the task. A shoulder injury I’ve been dealing with for months has recently flared up to a degree that has me questioning the ultimate success possibilities of my self-healing routine. I was enjoying slow increments of improvement that gave me hope prior to a few instances where use caused new pain and loss of strength.
On top of that, for good measure yesterday I dropped some boards on my foot and gave myself a painful contusion.
I was able to toss 80 bales of hay last night without much in the way of limitations, so I’m optimistic my abilities won’t be too much of a problem.
I’ve started watching the 2nd installment of Netflix’s NFL series, “Receivers” and it has me wishing I could have the immediate attention of trainers and physical therapists like professional athletes have.
Of course, by not having them, think of all the money I’m saving!
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Successful Test
We didn’t get the downpour I was expecting would show me the improvement achieved by my rerouted gutter downspout, but the daylong drizzle yesterday produced results.
A puddle was almost forming in the grass beyond the outlet of the last stretch of the downspout. That is water that would have been soaking into the dirt along the foundation from the ineffective (broken) plastic solution that had previously been in place for years.
It must have been more than a drizzle at some point in the last 36 hours because Cyndie reported over an inch of water in the rain gauge last night.
Knowing that this kind of rain was on its way, we jumped to accomplish as much as possible on Saturday afternoon during a dry spell. I pulled out the diesel tractor, rearranged equipment, and retrieved the wood chipper from the back of the garage.
Using knowledge gained from previous failures, I detached the loader bucket to reduce weight and picked a strategic route to reach the wood chip “station” by the labyrinth without a problem.
A few years ago, I got stuck and created a muddy disaster trying to drive that tractor along the fence line of the back pasture. Saturday, the tractor tires did nothing more than leave a reasonable impression on the soft earth.
There is so much I don’t know about using heavy equipment, but in the eleven years I’ve been playing the role of Wintervale’s property manager, I have figured out how to get along at a level that serves our needs. When the shear bolt broke during the session of chipping a big pile of oak branches, I wasn’t the least bit fazed.
We used that excuse to decide we had done enough chipping for the day and I simply wrenched in a new bolt when I got back to the garage. No big deal.
Before gaining these years of experience, I would have perceived a broken bolt as a sign I had done something wrong. I saw it as a failure. Something to be avoided. Now I keep stock of spare bolts and suffer no unnecessary concern when they are needed.
A successful day of using our equipment to accomplish tasks is a good test of the knowledge I’ve gained from the school of hard knocks.
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Over Top
This is a test. For the next period of substantial rain, I will be testing a new downspout configuration from the gutter along our entry walkway. I have rerouted it overhead.
If it appears to work, I will continue with the next phase of creating an arbor to camouflage the aluminum a little bit. That work will probably commence after I tackle the masonry crack repairs and re-grade the landscaping along the foundation.
When I started contemplating a change in the way that downspout drains, almost everything I searched dealt with burying the drain beneath a walkway. The total lack of information about routing a downspout drain overhead had me assuming there was a functional reason that isn’t done.
However, like all online search exercises, you need to ask the right question to get the answer you seek. When my search refinements finally provided images of others doing what I was considering, I gained the confidence to take a crack at it.
I won’t take long to observe this new setup in action. Rain is in the forecast for the next five days.
Sure wish I’d gotten more mowing done before this next wet spell. There are areas where the grass really needs trimming but the ground hasn’t been dry enough to support the weight of the lawn tractor. I’ve been chipping away as time allowed, using the hand mower in certain areas but it will go much quicker when I can use the rider.
When the rain finally stops, it takes about three days here for the wet zones to drain enough to make mowing feasible. Meanwhile, during those three days, the blades continue to get taller by the minute.
It would be great if someone would design a flying drone that cuts grass in wet areas. Just need to figure out how to keep the propeller down draft from flattening the grass you are trying to cut. Oh, the drone could fly high enough that it wouldn’t affect the grass and the cutting sickle bar could hang on a long suspension line.
Look at that. We are almost done inventing it. Just a couple of minor details left to work out. What color should it be?
Okay, that’s a little over the top. Well, so is my gutter downspout. Do you think it will be a viable solution to get the water away from the house without obstructing the walkway? I’m favoring function over form here. It might look a little hokey at this point, but it is better than the (broken) plastic setup that it’s replacing.
Bring on the rain. This is only a test.
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Helping Family
When we got the message from Elysa that she could use some help with several home maintenance projects, Cyndie and I agreed to show up without hesitation. We packed up some tools and supplies and headed to the Cities.
I’m no carpenter but I have learned how to screw boards on a deck.
We decided to pull some boards off and flip them over as a temporary fix until a more permanent solution is figured out. The original screws were rusted almost to dust which made some easy to remove and others a real battle after the heads broke off.
While I finished putting in new screws to re-secure the boards, Cyndie helped with the removal of an unwanted bush.
Now you see it.
Now you don’t.
Next, I mounted new latch hardware on the back gate to the alley that will keep their dog from muscling his way out when the urge strikes.
Mission accomplished. Temporary fixes R us.
Somehow, I solved all the challenges of the various repairs without once resorting to using duct tape. Hopefully, the new screws hold.
It is an honor to be able to lend a hand when family is in need. Especially when I was just the beneficiary of help from Julian the day before, pounding down fence posts.
Doesn’t seem that long ago that I was shoulder to shoulder with them as little kids, looking out our master bedroom window in EP at a thunderstorm and striving to dispel anxieties over the flashing and booming. We made up a rating system to judge the impressiveness of the brilliant zig-zagging bolts and loudest booms of thunder.
Now we all face home-owner ‘adulting’ type problems. It’s nice to know we’ll never stop helping each other.
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Feeling It
It’s been over two years since I retired from commuting to a day-job and yesterday was one of the few days in that span of time when I fully felt the liberation of not being tied to a work schedule. Sure, I’ve thrilled repeatedly over no longer feeling dread on Sunday nights, but those have seemed like small victories.
Yesterday morning, I didn’t change my routine with the shift of clocks to Daylight Saving Time. It felt liberating. Around lunchtime, Cyndie, Asher, and I hopped in the car to head for the lake place. Leaving on a Sunday night to go up north felt rather decadent.
We can go to the lake any day we’d like. We are retired. And I am feeling it.
With only ourselves to accommodate, I enjoyed the luxury of ordering a cheeseburger and fries “to-go” from a nice lakeside diner along the route to fulfill a craving that usually goes unmet. It’s often not the right time when we pass by or there are time constraints, or some other random obstruction that prevents stopping there. Finally getting what I always think about when we pass that restaurant made it taste even better.
There was no traffic heading our direction, though we passed a fair number of cars returning to the Cities. Many of them were carrying muddy fat-tired bikes after a weekend of riding CAMBA trails.
There does happen to be a method to our madness for being here on a Monday. Some work on the house is scheduled to start this morning by a contractor that Cyndie arranged over the phone. This will be a chance to meet him in person and be on hand in case any issues arise in the replacement of a bottom chord truss under the eave on the lakeside of the log home.
Being the only ones up during the week this time of year feels a little disorienting. We can make a mess of the house and not be in anyone’s way.
Actually, the place looks a little like the empty mansions in the movies with covers over the furniture. Cyndie didn’t want Asher to shed on the couches.
There aren’t enough people around to occupy the furniture so he thinks it becomes his responsibility.
I doubt he’ll have any time to rest with strangers working just outside the windows all day long. I expect they will need to be barked at with gusto.
It’s either them or the squirrels.
I think maybe Asher is feeling the same as us. Seems to me this feels a lot like being retired.
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Relative Something 