Whatcha doin????

Thinking about this wonderful piece of wiring and how I want to rejig it all, I think I'm going to want another piece of board. Trying to balance on joists is one thing when the roof is three feet above the joists but trying to work in a space where the roof is barely 18 inches is more of a challenge. A single piece of board, cut into strips, would give me something I can sit on, lie down on, crawl on, reach out on, generally make life a whole lot easier than it would be trying to do those things while balanced on narrow beams.

I hope not to have to do much more than clear some cellulose insulation (I have a cyclonic separator to help with that) and drill a couple of holes through the lath ceiling into the wall cavity. Then I can hopefully get cables through the holes, and get them all connected up. That's the theory, anyway....

 

Tango, I know what you're talking about walking on joists. When I was growing up my dad finished off our attic into 2 bedrooms a half bath and storage. Unfortunately I got drafted into helping. Walked on joists a lot. Particularly when the roof developed a leak. Guess who had to empty the bucket?

 

Walking on joists isn't so bad, it's when you're kneeling on joists, resting elbows on joists, all the while trying to fiddle with cables and trying to avoid banging my head on the nails poking through the roof that gets really tedious. And working in a space where the the roof slowly closes in on you is even more fun. For bonus points there's very little light available and in the summer time it gets unbearably hot in there. It won't be much longer before it's too hot to be in there at all - last summer the highest temperature I clocked in there was somewhere north of 130 degrees.

At my last house I laid fiberglass in an attic like that, and ended up using a couple of boards to rest across the joists to support some of my body weight while I reached over my head (in a mostly horizontal position) to get the fiberglass as far into the space as I could manage. That isn't something I'm in any hurry to repeat.

 

I only recognise one 5 o'clock per day and it isn't AM.

 

I remember a time when 5am would be about the time I went to bed.

 

Today's excitement was trying to remember how the air conditioner went in the window such that all the gaps were blocked. It's truly remarkable that the manufacturers gush on about how important it is to create an airtight seal, when their product is made so such a shoddy standard it's not humanly possible to even get close. And of course places where you might need an air conditioner tend to have lots of bugs, so the shoddy workmanship not only means it works harder but bugs can get in through the numerous gaps.

It's truly pathetic when a $400 air conditioner needs copious quantities of sealant between the side fins and the main unit, foam all around it because it doesn't fit properly, and pieces of plywood cut to brace the fins - partly because they try and retract and partly because they are also made to such a shoddy standard that bugs can get in over, under and around them.

 

Since you're basically revamping the whole place anyway, why not go in for a heat pump?

 

That's part of the plan. I just don't want to put things in that will then get damaged by copious quantities of dust. I've been contemplating the assorted split units and casting an occasional glance at going geothermal.

 

I was just talking to someone about geothermal. He indicated that going that route becomes essentially a philosophical decision because it's highly unlikely you could recoup the savings in heating bills from the actual installation of the system, especially when compared to a high efficiency natural gas furnace which cost a fraction of a geothermal system.

 

That's interesting, I've often wondered if it's the sort of thing that is financially worthwhile or if it's just something that people do so they can show off their green credentials.

I remember some years ago I looked into solar electricity and worked out that if you paid cash upfront (i.e. no interest on a loan) and they performed as indicated (unlikely, given they usually quote "up to" figures), and you didn't have any problems with them, then you'd just about get your money back over their expected lifespan. Hence I didn't bother getting solar panels. Maybe the numbers are different now, it would be kinda cool to have free electricity

Speaking of which, I've often thought the way we use electricity leaves so much to be desired. So many appliances seem to have the plug that goes into the wall socket and picks up AC current, feeds it through some kind of transformer and rectifier to turn it into a lower DC voltage, and loses some along the way. So when we have a device that generates 24V DC we feet it to an inverter to turn it into 120VAC and loses a load of it in inefficiency, only to then feed it through a rectifier to turn it back into 6V DC and lose another bunch of it. It seems it would be so much more efficient if electrical doodads just plugged into a 6V DC socket (or 3V, or 12V, or whatever), houses had a single transformer to feed a low voltage DC circuit, and dozens of power bricks could become redundant. It would also mean that generating electricity locally would be simple - the solar panels produce 24V DC which is easy to convert to a lower DC voltage.

 

I've looked into in-stream, no-head DC generator for the river house. By the time you do the inverters and batteries and controllers and the whole nine yards, it ends up being just north of $20,000.00

That puts me on a 10 year payback if everything goes right, shorter if there is any excess capacity to sell back to the local utility company (which there should be)

Still haven't decided whether to pull the trigger or not.

 

What's the expected lifespan of the system?

 

Tinkering with some code constructs to see if I can make some more of my code more generic. It's an academic exercise to help me understand some aspects of coding I've tended to shy away from, but recently came to realise are actually not difficult if you just take the time to understand them properly.

Yesterday's fun was looking at pointers in detail. Today I plan to do some more work with pointers, having realised that the way I'd been doing things previously wasn't as efficient as it might be.

 

Curiously it turned out that pointers just added a needless layer of complexity to what I was trying to solve. After a couple of false starts I now have a handy little doodad coded that handles all sorts of cool tricks the hardware dongles I've been using can offer.

 

Our dog just got attacked at the dog park by another dog. It took three adults to get the dog off. Fortunately our dog seems to only have one deep bite mark. And of course these things happen at the times when the vets aren't open. But he'll see us in the morning to have a look. I wasn't there when it happened as my wife took her there along with the kids. I think they are all a bit traumatized over it. My daughter in particular was really upset about the other dog, wondering if it would have to be put down or something.

 

Dog parks.... an unnatural creation of an urban society.

Sort of like elementary schools are for children, or corporate cubicle farms are for employees.


Sorry to hear about the pooch. Hopefully both pooch and daughter will recover quickly.

 

Sorry to hear about the dog Teddy, hope it turns out OK.