along with the wiring in the attic/upstairs, the knob & tube to the wall switches needs to be changed out. although (apparently) knob & tube can legally be joined to romex circuits (given that the circuit is limited to at most 15 amps), the junction boxes to join them would be inaccessible as they’d be under insulation, subfloor and finished flooring. unless “guessing where the junction box is and busting through the plaster from below” counts as access? probably not. because of this, i’ve spent too many hours today fishing through the walls.

the bathroom was particularly tricky because there was no clear path down the wall. first there’s a triple top plate… no idea why, but triple. easy enough to drill a 3/8″ hole to drop the fish tape in, and pull the romex back through, right? would be, but there was something else about a foot below that. ok, drilled through the mystery piece with an extension. fished through that… and again, something about a foot below that drilled through… and damn it, again, something below that. my extension is 3′, so there was no drilling through that last piece with what i had on hand… so i decided to go beside the next stud over. but still, not so cool. that was much more successful. carefully cut out the plaster with a couple swings of the hammer, to fit the new switch box, pulled the wire up and tied it in. the old switch was plastered into the wall… one of the screws was touching the hot wire… so with a wet enough hand, there could have been a nice little zap. it wouldn’t have felt much worse than a really strong static shock… ok, pretty cool if it’s someone else getting shocked…

all the knob & tube has been cut off in the attic (and the corresponding breakers disconnected), so anything that’s not new at the moment doesn’t work. that leaves us with no ceiling lights in the back bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, breakfast room, dining room, living room, front porch or basement. basement? yeah… for some reason the basements lights were connected in the attic. no clue why. their hot runs up to the switch by the kitchen, then keeps going up and 15 feet over to a hot above the living room. weird. guess i’ll run a new circuit for the basement.

we do have lights in the front bedroom (as shown in the pic… love that fixture!)… but that’s about it; the only part of that circuit which is connected. a floor lamp, desk lamp, some under-cabinet lights and a flashlight… that about covers the rest of what’s working in the house. a few more connections tomorrow and we’ll have light in half the house again. then we’ll lay insulation and OSB subfloor over that half… so the stuff stacked up on the other half can be moved and that part of the flooring removed (yeah, i’m lost too). then the wiring can be finished… insulate and subfloor that side…

once insulated, we’ll be able to keep the heat produced by the furnace… such a novel idea! we went from around 1 gallon/day to 2.5 gallons/day of biodiesel, recently. a great deal of that has to do with the whole “complete lack of insulation or weatherization in the upper half of the house” thing. i like the cold weather… but don’t the cold weather in the friggin’ living room.

i’m pretty torn on what to do for heat upstairs. i’m pretty set on the solar-assisted hot water heating… but keep going between using old radiators, or subfloor hydronic (tubing run in a pattern under the floor) . old radiators look cool, are relatively cheap, have pretty good thermal storage ability and are quick(ish) to install. subfloor would make the area more evenly heated and is more efficient; even 100f water will warm the floors, 120f will make the room reallywarm. the radiators start feeling good around 140f. using a large (500+ gallon) storage tank and solar heat collectors, we could easily get to at least 150f in the tank… giving us 10f of room. the lower temperatures required for subfloor hydronic probably make it the best choice as we’d have lots more room with the temperature (thus likely requiring less assistance by another fuel source)… but the installation wouldn’t be as straight-forward. bah… i dunno…

now that the temperature is dipping into the mid 30s at night… and the forecast calls for high 20s by week’s end… we’re happy that the biodiesel furnace is able to heat the house up quickly. unfortunately it’ll cost a fortune…

… as the house was built before insulation was a requirement, or really even much of a passing thought… we don’t have any (save for a bunch of 30s newspapers laid about here and there). further, the attic/upstairs has a window completely removed, no wall or ceiling covering, and 1/2 of the flooring is removed. at least when the flooring was in, there was somewhat of a buffer between the main floor’s plaster ceiling and the frigid air wafting through the attic. all of this means that while the house comes up to temperature very quickly, all that precious warmth is taken by a main floor ceiling that won’t break above 58f. we need to install all the insulation that’s so conveniently sitting in it’s nice bundles, in the basement.

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… so got some work done outside.

cut stringers for the steps… 7 1/2″ rise, 12 1/4″ tread. flows well with the deck.

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it’s really going slow. “it” being “everything.”
the deck is coming out very nice… but it’s taking forever. finished installing the decking surface on the upper deck, got maybe 1/3 of the lower deck’s on.

trimming the boards to go around the 4×4 posts as tight as possible took some time. ’specially with a pretty broken jigsaw. ended up doing most of it with a japanese trim saw and a chisel.
trimmed the end of the boards just before nightfall, so i at least feel like there was some accomplishment today.

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but is it on the deck? nope.
the framing is complete, the wood is treated…

lovely green, it is. luckily it’ll all be covered/hidden by the decking and facia. the green stuff is a copperex (sold under lotsa brand names), which is an oil-based copper oxide and stain that the wood soaks up real well. prevents water damage, dry rot, fungus, termites, etc… it’s quite similar to what’s used on pressure treated outdoor wood.

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THAT should be added to the title.
oh, she’s cute… and i love having her work with me… but it definitely takes a lot longer to get things done. it’s not necessarily her being in the way, which she’s actually very good at avoiding, the slowdown comes from things like me playing with her. it sure is cute when she lays in the trench i just dug, and says “HIIIIII” with a big smile…

i do think it’ll be advantageous to both her and myself to have her help me with the work: she’ll get to learn as i did… and i’ll get to teach her. my grandpa had me help with everything, starting when i could walk. mowing a lawn, felling a tree, rebuilding an engine, or repairing a TV. anything and everything in between. sure, part of it was me being free labor (once i was old enough to actually provide proper labor, rather than just make a mess)… but i use what my grandpa taught me, daily. he instilled the “i can do it myself” attitude that led to me learning to do everything myself. further than just doing it myself… doing it right, solving issues, and enjoying it. mechanical aptitude, technical thought and determination (along with stubbornness and being too cheap to have anyone else do the work) has become part of me. i’m proud to have the ability to not only do work with my own hands, but to be good at it. my grandpa imparted upon me a set of values that are priceless.
now it’s my turn. i can only hope that she’ll enjoy it even half as much as i do.

~

the trench:

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