Fun in the attic the last couple of days. I got some more floor laid - nasty cheap OSB but with the price of materials these days I just used up what I had left over from a previous job. The boards that were $20 a couple of years back are now $55. Next up was moving a load of stuff around. I need to be able to get at the tops of the walls in the attic so I can spray cellulose insulation into them, to save money next winter given the price of heating oil has gone up over 200% in the last couple of years. It's a temporary measure - when I pull the walls down all the cellulose will come down with them - but it will be a while until I get to these rooms and in the interim I'd like to improve the insulation available. Now I've managed to move a load of stuff such that I can get at the tops of all the walls I need to get at. Because I didn't have to pull up the floor over the room I'm currently working in I could move all the stuff I cleared out of that space back into the space, which made quite a difference. And having rolls of fiberglass piled up against the wall in the corner makes the attic look less overwhelming than having seemingly randomly placed piles that partially obstruct a window. Once I've got the cellulose sprayed a load of stuff can go more or less back where it was, so it doesn't need to be in the middle of the floor. That will also be handy. Hopefully I can get that done fairly soon and with any luck it will also provide some sound insulation as well as thermal insulation. Before I spray the cellulose I want to replace a single socket downstairs - it's a nasty old socket with no earth pin, connected to wires I've long since cut off. I haven't done anything with it yet because it's behind the piano, so I'll need to move that, replace the socket, run a short cable to a junction box in the space below, and put the piano back. Then my wife can have the light over the piano working again.
Fun in the attic the last couple of days. I got some more floor laid - nasty cheap OSB but with the price of materials these days I just used up what I had left over from a previous job. The boards that were $20 a couple of years back are now $55. Next up was moving a load of stuff around. I need to be able to get at the tops of the walls in the attic so I can spray cellulose insulation into them, to save money next winter given the price of heating oil has gone up over 200% in the last couple of years. It's a temporary measure - when I pull the walls down all the cellulose will come down with them - but it will be a while until I get to these rooms and in the interim I'd like to improve the insulation available. Now I've managed to move a load of stuff such that I can get at the tops of all the walls I need to get at. Because I didn't have to pull up the floor over the room I'm currently working in I could move all the stuff I cleared out of that space back into the space, which made quite a difference. And having rolls of fiberglass piled up against the wall in the corner makes the attic look less overwhelming than having seemingly randomly placed piles that partially obstruct a window. Once I've got the cellulose sprayed a load of stuff can go more or less back where it was, so it doesn't need to be in the middle of the floor. That will also be handy. Hopefully I can get that done fairly soon and with any luck it will also provide some sound insulation as well as thermal insulation. Before I spray the cellulose I want to replace a single socket downstairs - it's a nasty old socket with no earth pin, connected to wires I've long since cut off. I haven't done anything with it yet because it's behind the piano, so I'll need to move that, replace the socket, run a short cable to a junction box in the space below, and put the piano back. Then my wife can have the light over the piano working again.
Change of tack. I decided to try upgrading my laptop rather than dropping $2000 on a new desktop. The first stage was to get an mSATA drive to see how much performance improvement I'll get from going to solid-state from magnetic. I know mSATA is old technology but my laptop is ten years old so still supports it. So far the mSATA looks really good - it's running fast and is looking reliable to far. I've only had it running about half an hour since installing it in the laptop so it's early days but so far I'm encouraged. The next step is probably a big SSD, but might be a dual eSATA device, a large 3.5" magnetic drive, and two backup drives. Or maybe both. Most of the time the laptop functions as a desktop so it's not like I have to have full portability, although it is nice. It would be even nicer if I could boot from an eSATA, although I'd need a UPS to make sure I didn't lose the drive if the power flickers. I also discovered that my laptop can boot from a USB device, which is an interesting concept. I kinda like the idea of being able to boot from multiple different devices, such that I could effectively create multiple different machines within one machine.
Major undertaking setting up main storage unit 30 miles away. Closing another unit here. Try to make it nice & readily accessible with 5'x10' cargo (enclosed) trailer, all organized & ready to go. Juggling this with current job. Springtime...Sometime
Quite gone, and anything odd is thoroughly challenged. I think I'm probably the strangest thing around there with respect to my dysphoria.
More fun in the attic. I've been lifting a single strip all the way around the half of the house we're currently using so I can get at the top of the wall cavities. I've got most of it lifted, and once I've got all of it I can get some insulation to spray in and rent the machine to do the spraying. It's not an ideal solution but will give us more insulation than we currently have and hopefully deaden some of the sound issues as well. The trouble with lifting the floor is that I need to be drilling holes and running a jigsaw in a space that often isn't entirely big enough for the jigsaw. I tried using my oscillating tool but that really isn't built for making very long cuts. And for good measure of course there are floor joists at largely random intervals so I need to be careful not to cut into those. As if that wasn't interesting enough I also have a live power cable snaking around very close to where I need to be cutting. Thankfully I've got all but a couple of awkward areas sorted out now, so tomorrow I should be able to get the last couple of patches and be done with it. Today I found a honking great insect nest - I think it was a bees' nest but can't be sure. Long snce abandoned, under the floorboard. I figured it was dead because when I drilled a hole in the floor I rammed a 3/4" spade bit into it when it went through the board and didn't hear any buzzing at all so figured the occupants had long since left.
Sounds good. I tried to register to check things out but it kept telling me I answered the questions wrong. "What book holds the words of God to mankind?: One plus nineteen equals?:" The answer to the second question is obviously 20. The answer to the first is The Bible but it doesn't accept that.
Hmm, let me check into that when I'm back in. Try "bible" and "twenty" as written here, but without the quotes.
More fun in the attic today. My wife was out so I went for a run and then got busy finishing off the work I started yesterday. I had to move a few old windows out of the way but now I've got access to spray insulation into all the wall cavities I want to get at. I'm really not looking forward to emptying my separator this next time - it's a 30 gallon steel trash can and it's mostly full of a rather nasty combination of cellulose insulation, sawdust, decades-old spider webs and dead insects. I might just get a new bag to empty it, to avoid accidentally dumping the contents over the floor. Hopefully I can get the couple of preliminary wiring jobs sorted out quickly, then think about getting a load of insulation to blow and renting the machine to blow it. I just hope the machine will fit in the back of my car. If not I'll ask a friend if I can borrow his truck.
I usually wear my respirator when working with copious quantities of dust and dead bugs. Unless I'm in a confined space I can usually cope with the respirator for extended periods if I need to.
Went for a walk in the woods for the first time in a while. I was able to get down to the vista I really love. I've tried a couple of times this year but turned back both times because of snow and ice. Today everything was clear so I got right through, and took the chance to sit and enjoy the view for a while. When I got back to the car I was seriously tempted to extend the walk to go up the next mountain to another vista but I'd already been out a bit over two hours and the extended walk would add another 90 minutes or so, so I decided to call it a day and come home. The vista will still be there next time.
Nah, Randy got his panties in a bunch and isn't there to drive the appearance of conversation. It'll swing round.