Today's fun was to remove a doorframe. Needless to say it was nailed into position in all sorts of places, to the point I soon gave up trying to figure how to pry everything off and instead used a carbide blade on my oscillating tool to cut through them. I now have a perfectly intact door frame lifted out of place, and a stud pressed into position down the middle of where it used to go. I need to get it positioned exactly where it needs to be and then screw it into place, so I can drywall over the top of it. Then I figured I might as well use some of the faced fiberglass to rest in the gaps in the ceiling. It's not a pretty solution but it helps keep the cold out pending getting the ceiling drywalled. I put a heater in the room, heated it up to 62 degrees, and then turned the heater off. After an hour it was still at 59 degrees, so I think I'm onto something good there. Not only that but there always used to be a chill that just hung in the air, and that is now gone. Finally I got busy taping up some of the seams in my panels. There are small gaps between the panels and the studs, and where panel ends touch. I've got probably half of them taped up now, then lost momentum and stopped for dinner. They'll still be there tomorrow.
My work room dropped to 55 degrees, after seven and a half hours with no heating in there. I think I can feel quite pleased with that. It does mean it won't be as cold in there for future work...
... and this morning the room was still holding steady at 54 degrees. I don't think that's bad, given it went down to 32 outside and there's no heat in the room, or the room below it.
Got some more cleanup done, ripped the trim out of the little closet that's being removed completely, marveled at just how many nails the person who put it in apparently thought were needed, screwed the new stud in the middle of the doorway, taped a bunch more seams and started to clean up a piece of furniture that got covered in dust during the work. There are a few seams I can't get at without taking the blinds off so they can wait until tomorrow. There are a few small gaps that need to be filled with foam, so hopefully one more hit and I'm ready to drywall it all. That will be really nice.
Back to my regular programming. I took my blinds down, taped up the seams that were concealed by the blinds, sprayed a load of foam, and put the blinds back up. Then took to another room that has nasty featherboards where there should be studs, so ripped a load of them down. They are nasty. From the smell when I cut them up I think they might be cedar, but they are so old and in bad shape so I decided not to bother even trying to salvage the splintered wood. I've got nasty featherboards along the top of the wall, tucked behind the drywall that makes up the ceiling, which is a real drag. I'm going to have to cut it off level with the ceiling and pry the rest of it down, then pry everything off at floor level, stud the walls properly (which means losing some of my floor area), then insulating between the studs, reframing the windows, and then I can drywall that room. Hopefully this one won't be a monstrous job but, knowing this house, I'm not holding my breath. I also need to hang the door the other way because otherwise nothing is going to quite work when I restud the wall by the door. Needless to say the brickwork isn't in great shape so I'm going to have to do some grinding and a reasonable amount of filling gaps in the walls. At least it's not freezing cold in there....
Not much to do in my primary work room today so went into another room that's mostly trashed and totally trashed it. All the featherboards are off the walls now, sawn into short lengths and stacked. There's a local lady who uses a lot of firewood and she often takes the stuff I'm getting rid of - I just need to catch her to let her know there's another load ready for her if she wants it. Along the way I pulled down something like 100lb of drywall, and got that bagged up. Now I've got two bags of mostly drywall scraps that are probably 70lb each, and a third that's part full. The room I've been wrecking now will need some work done to the bricks and mortar but since I have to restud this one all the way around I'm thinking I won't need to grind everything back so it's smooth. I can cut the studs a little deeper - if I cut them 2 1/4" rather than 2" I've got enough slack to cope with a little unevenness in the bricks. I'm going to have to reframe the windows anyway, so an extra quarter inch isn't going to make any meaningful difference. This room could actually be a fairly quick one to finish, since I don't need to fix up anything with the walls. I just need to get a big pile of studs in so I can cut them to size and build a frame to screw into place. Having stripped the walls right back to the bricks I can see where the floor joists are resting in gaps in the bricks, which looks like just another way cold air can get into the house. So once I can get at them I'll go to work with my spray foam and get another source of cold air blocked up. That alone should make a huge difference.
A good week for me. The part for my car came in earlier this week and I was able to get my car repaired. And then this morning I got a call saying that the part for my cell phone came in and my phone was ready. After being without it for 2 weeks it is good to get it back.
The temperature dropped below 20 overnight, so I checked the room I'm working on this morning and found the temperature didn't go below 54. I think that counts as a major win. Previously it would routinely drop into the 40s and, if it got really cold out, it would drop slightly under 40.
Oh my! I can't imagine cold like that...It's a balmy rather humid 70 degrees in S E Texas right now. With a cold front moving through tomorrow we're expected to get a low of 39.
Ha, it gets colder than that once winter sets in properly. We don't get the worst of the brutal winters that some areas (MN etc) get but it's not unheard of for the temperatures to go negative. Not much fun when that happens.
I went to MN for a week several years ago at the end of July to do some survey work in a Refinery. Temps were 92 with no humidity. I loved it!!! Although, everyone I talked to in MN seemed to think the apocalypse was happening.
Thinking Santa might go for a new Huskvarna 460 chainsaw and possibly even a new log-splitter (Champion 27 ton). Checking the list; checking it twice... Uh oh
When I heard the song for the first time I thought it was typical American, a bit country and western alike. I was surprised to learn it was a relative unknown 50+ year old dutch guy. Meanwhile it's a big hit here.
The room I've been working in steadfastly refuses to drop below 54 degrees and most of the time it holds at 55-57. I'm feeling pretty good about that