managed to actually get some protection on the deck, finally! sanded the entire thing with 120 then 220 grit on a random orbit sander, used a belt sander with 120 grit on the edges to make ‘em all sooooper straight, and hit the posts with 220 grit on a finish sander (just so i could use one of each sander i’ve got ).

used compressed air to blow all the dust off, and clear in between the deck boards, then wiped the whole deck down with tack cloth. probably could have skipped that step… and probably should have. wouldn’t have made any difference, except for blowing a half hour that i could have been doing something else.

one coat of cabot spf to the deck surface and the posts, because it is the only reasonably clear (non-tinted) UV protection for the cedar that i could find.

it looks pretty good in person. tung oil would have looked worlds better… but after a couple months of sun, it’d look like crap. i really don’t like gray wood…

now, you may notice a complete lack of rails. that’s because we have yet to get the lumber, and really… how much use is the deck going to get in the winter? the rails can be done here and there… in between other projects.

close up, one of the posts… pretty cedar…

~

the cleanup stuff from the other day… we managed to get down to the concrete runner on one side of the “driveway”

ever mention how much i hate shoveling? i’m not the only one… rebecca doesn’t care for it, either. it doesn’t look like that much in the photo… but let me assure you, it really is. roots, hard packed, rocks, etc… pain in the ass.

we also thinned out our salvage pile, a lot. got rid of more than half of it, cleaned and stored a bunch more… this is the only stuff left in the yard

well… it’s getting there…

both cars fixed, for a grand total of $8.38. $10.88, if you include the cup of coffee i had while fixing them as an expense.

~

the nozzle of the oil furnace is cleaned. twice. so is the entire furnace, for that matter. being a jackass, i dropped my screwdriver inside the furnace. the only way to get it out was to disassemble about 1/2 of the case. figured while i was in there, may as well make it all fresh and clean!

~

the biodiesel tank was full. burned through a bit more than half of it, already. that was quick. i’ll blame 1 gallon of it to an ever faulty fan control, though. i don’t trust the thing at all… when i hear the faint sound of the furnace fire up, i find myself counting to 60, waiting for the blower to start. each time it doesn’t, i jump up and start heading to the furnace. usually by the 4th stair down into the basement (the one with the pokey thing i trip on), the blower starts up. after a near stumble/tumble down the stairs to a soft landing on the concrete… i make the mental note of fixing the stairs.
the time’s i’m not home or not awake, the burner starts… but the blower doesn’t. runs for an hour or so… until it gets hot enough to shut itself down. it also uses up a whole bunch of biodiesel in that time. frustrating.

i’ve got a plan for the fan control… one that will have the blower start 30 seconds after the burner starts, no matter what. electronics geek stuff: use a 555 timer and transistor to trip a 24v bosch relay, which will stay active until the fan control takes over, or until the burner shuts off (whichever is first). best part is i already have the stuff sitting here… and it was all free, to begin with.

~

the deck is sanded. well, 98% sanded, anyway. looks and feels niiiiice! pics? nope. tomorrow, if i remember. too chilly and dark to take ‘em, now.

~

bed? ahh… not done, yet. fan control and clear/sealing the deck, first. then bed, then clean the gutters, then finish the cellar door, then…

BUT! i have another project i want to do, too! ok, it’ll likely come a bit further down the list… a passive solar water heater. should lower the electric bill a bit… and i do like the “free energy” and “alternative energy” projects…

if we just had a living room full of salmon, we’d have a nice supply of smoked lox right now.

when the fireplace flue drops shut… while there’s a few logs (ok, 2×4 and 2×6 cedar trims) roaring in it… makes for a mean smokehouse. the 90+ year old cast iron flue is held open (in the up position) by a cam action lever. that lever, when not locked in just right, noted by today’s experience, lets go… dropping the lid, so to speak.

i was down in the basement, pulling apart the growing headache of an oil furnace to clean the nozzle and adjust the igniters, when i realized that my flashlight was in the living room. going upstairs, i was thinking “hmm, the fireplace sure makes a nice, ‘campy’ kinda smell.” further up the stairs, it got stronger. and stronger. walking around the corner to the living room, there’s a nice cloud hovering up around the 9 foot ceiling… yeah, that wasn’t there earlier.

my first thought was “the fire isn’t hot enough… needs heat to pull the smoke up the chimney.” no, no what it needs is a clear path up the chimney, not blocked by something like a shut flue. that part didn’t occur to me immediately. no, i wanted to put more on the fire… more heat. luckily, the flame was bright enough to take notice of the flue. the flue that’s supposed to be open.

after shoving a poker into the flue, mildly singeing my fingers on the cam lever (which is right above the fire… brilliant location, really), got the thing locked open. the fire, being able to breathe got toasty warm right quick. you know, while my arm was opening the flue.

ahh, the quirks of old homes. it still kinda smells like smoke…

i’ve got lotsa experience with open flames; working with wood, coal and gas forges, torches and molten metal makes you aware of what exactly you’re doing. makes the hair on your arms sizzle, too…

~

i think the nozzle is somewhat clogged, on the oil heater. the biodiesel, being a solvent, dissolves the gummed up heating oil deposits… sometimes clogging things like the nozzle, with it’s rather small holes. the flame doesn’t look as hot as it did a few days ago- there’s a dark orange spot on one side. gotta be the nozzle… which means i’m working on the furnace again, tomorrow. having the house warm is worth it, i suppose… and admittedly it’s pretty fun to work with… but i’ve got lots of other projects that are adding up.

tomorrow:

• rebuild the alternator in the rav4, which failed and left us needing a jump start at the airport, followed by limping it home before the battery dropped to a low enough voltage that would make the car stop. made it, though.
• plug the flat tire on my car, because some asshat (me) apparently left a nail in the driveway.
• clean the nozzle on the furnace
• fill up the 5gal biodiesel tank, because it’ll be empty by mid morning
• finish sanding the deck, so it can be treated before it rains again
• then there’s the bed that needs to be built…

the biodiesel is great. the furnace is great. the fan control? not great. a mind of it’s own, it seems to have.

see, when the house cools down, the thermostat tells the furnace “hey, it’s getting cold, do something!” the furnace then fires up. when it’s come up to temperature, the fan control starts the blower… forcing nice warm air through the house. the house warms up, the thermostat then tells the furnace “ok, that’s good.” the furnace then shuts down. when the air in the furnace cools down, the fan control stops the blower. well, in a perfect world.

in our world, when the thermostat queues the furnace to fire up, it does. it comes up to temperature in about 15 seconds. sometimes (and that’s the key word) the fan control does nothing. the furnace keeps burning and burning… because the thermostat hasn’t noticed any change in temperature… because the blower isn’t blowing… because the fan control doesn’t work. the furnace will just keep going and going…. burning fuel at the rate of about .89 gallons an hour. makes it VERY toasty in the basement… but at $3.54/gallon, i couldn’t care less about the basement being warm when it’s chilly upstairs.

that’s what happened this morning. the first cycle of the heater worked fine, bringing the house up to a reasonable temperature. the next cycle didn’t see the blower come on… so that cycle was long. think we ate up about 3/4 of a gallon before realizing it. yay.

this… this thing…

this is the fan control. tomorrow i’ll take it out again, strip it completely apart and rebuild the whole thing.

ok, on to happier thoughts. this is the fuel pump and burner control, that i replaced all the rubber seals in, with synthetic seals.

i have a bunch of o-rings from an alcohol burning motorcycle i used to have (used to really be into drag bikes)… which are synthetic (silicone). happened to be just right for this project. biodiesel is a pretty strong solvent… and eats natural rubber up. gotta get rid of the rubber parts before going bio.

the temporary biodiesel tank. wee little 5 gallon, but it’s all the hardware store had on hand. made a quick pickup/return setup on the tank (red thing in the cap).

where this all sits, in the basement:

while it may appear to be less than safe, you may note that there is a row of cardboard boxes between the desk and the furnace. now, anyone who’s built forts as a kid knows that cardboard boxes are near indestructible to the forces of raiding armies, arrows, dirt clods, what have you… so they are obviously more than adequate protection in this instance.

~
on to the yard cleanup, and the broken backs…

we filled this:

the second one we’ve had since getting the house. 20 cubic yard dumpster. i feel kinda bad about sending so much stuff to the landfill (if that’s where it goes), but there’s nothing else we can do with it. nothing is even remotely salvageable, can’t give any of it away, can’t recycle any of it. a great deal of it is lumber that’s in such poor condition it’s unsuitable for even firewood, and unable to be used for compost for many reasons.

there used to be a pile of old lumber here that took up a great deal of otherwise usable yard. after removing it, we’ve discovered that the yard is still greatly unusable due to it being a mud bog… but at least there’s no debris sitting around.

there was a pile here so large, you couldn’t see the carriage house from the street. getting to it, while carrying anything of significant weight was a feat of athleticism. not puncturing your flesh on rusty nails or breaking an ankle was pure luck.

the carriage house used to have a barn style door, and concrete runners down to the street. sometime in the 40s or maybe 50s, there was a driveway poured up to the house… concrete runners still going back to the carriage house. whenever the underground oil tank had been put it, it looks like part of the runner on the right had been broken up and moved. then, sometime after, some jackass put wood chips over the entire area. it may have looked “nice” for a month or two… but then i’m sure they started turning gray and dirty. that “dirty” look was likely soil from the yard… because the wood kept the drainage from working well, letting the water stand long enough to loosen the ground soil.
now, there’s about 3″ of hard packed dirt, compacted and reasonably decomposed wood chips, stones, roots, grass and all sorts of mess over the entire area… all preventing proper drainage from the back yard, letting water stand against the house’s foundation. whoever the genius was that put the wood chips down in the first place didn’t seem to know or care about what 30 or 40 years of poor drainage would do.

removing that layer is a pain in the ass. that’s been the most back breaking part of this cleanup session. but it’s great now that it’s done, right? i don’t know. it’s not done, yet. tomorrow if i don’t feel like complete crap (think i’m coming down with something), i’ll start shoveling and scraping it away in the morning, until they come to pick up the dumpster.

~

we did a little bit of work to the house, as well…

ok, it wasn’t much… but it’s a good improvement. we (ok, mostly rebecca with her kickboxing demolition techniques) removed the ugly lattice that covered the now open area between the pillar and the wall, on each side of the house. we also took some odd plywood away that was covering the railing and it’s 4×4 ballisters.

~

last bit, for the day…

got this great old long clamp for $10, the other day. up to 5′ clamping distance, wrought iron ends, hardwood body. best estimate on it’s age is sometime around WWI. makes it rather appropriate for the age of this house…
plus it’s a fine clamp. used it a few times on a project, already.

there’s also a great old k.r. wilton drop forged c-clamp in use, in the photo… bought for $3, along with the long clamp… the style and shape make it likely to be sometime around WWII era… either the decade before, or within a couple years after. cleaned up nicely, and it’s back to being used, after sitting in a box for ages.
(remember, old tools are always the perfect gift… )

again, 9 minutes for a 12 degree rise in temperature. not bad, seeing as the house is virtually un-insulated, the furnace’s fan control is temperamental at best, the duct dampers are not adjusted with any proper method (just “this looks ’bout right”), and the incredibly old honeywell mercury thermostat looks like it belongs in the trash.

(more…)

… with biodiesel as the energy source. after many moons in this house, half of which our bodies layered in sweaters and wool socks, we have actual warmth forced throughout the home.

(more…)

* although, i’ve realized my work days are only a few actual hours long.

ok… so the work day…

woke up at 7:15am, brought the older child to school. came home and did the “send out the resume” thing, ’cause unemployment isn’t cool. hmm. that’s a dirty word… how about “in between contracts”, as i’m a consultant…

i had fully intended to go to the basement and install more insulation for a while… but the wee one woke up and was calling me. i went into the bedroom, and somehow ended up in bed for a while… reading books and playing with her. then we got up and ate breakfast. went for a nice walk down to stumptown coffee. strolled back, stopping to see every flower, and play with every cat.
by now it’s around 11am.

fully intending to now start working on something, i remember that the new dryer we got from sears last month is on the fritz. spent way too long trying to get through their crappy automated phone system, so i can speak with an actual person. got transferred a few times, then finally was able to set up an appointment for someone to come fix the thing under warranty.

walking around the house, gandering at all that needs to be done… (a lot)… there’s a wet, mushy, splashiness in the basement. after a night of constant rain, the basement got a bit moist… time for a cellar door. guess that project will be bumped to the top of the (very long) list.
for those who live in areas without basements… think something like this:

but not so ugly.

OK, here we go… i got started at about 2pm (WTF happened to the last few hours????)… went to mr. plywood. rummaged through 88 pieces (i counted) of 1×3 radiata pine, to find 8 good pieces. bought the last of 8 pieces of 1×2 radiata. got a sheet of exterior grade 4×8′ baltic birch solid hardwood core plywood. this is something i’ve never seen before… but it sure is pretty…

(exterior grade plywood is made with non-water-soluble epoxy, rather than low grade glue that falls apart in water exposure. “solid hardwood core”, means it doesn’t have chips of scrap wood in the center, but larger pieces of hardwoods like oak. birch is a pretty nice wood)

got a few more misc. pieces of lumber, loaded it all onto the work beast, and came home. somehow the trip there and back along with buying and loading took about an hour and a half, despite it being only 4 miles away. another half hour to unload and navigate the horrid disaster of a “driveway” and yard, where about 10 cubic yards of construction debris lay, and get it all into the carriage house.
play with the little one for a bit… all of a sudden it’s 4pm, and i haven’t actually started working yet.

i get out to the carriage house and set up the router table…

super low-buck router table, it is. a well used early 80s Craftsman 8″ table saw, which i modified to hold a router as well. i don’t have a proper fence for it, so i just clamp a piece of straight, smooth wood on as a fence. works very well, just not as quick to setup as a real fence. gonna make one, eventually… unless one shows up at ted’s tool shed (a cool used tool shop here in portland, that has hidden gems of vintage tools hidden among piles of crap).

cut all the pieces needed for the frames of the doors. routed the pieces so the plywood can sit flush/framed in…

somewhere around there, went inside for dinner…. guess around 5pm.

back out to the carriage house.
ripped the plywood to size, then routed V-grooves in them…

the router:

a cool Craftsman pro, picked up second hand. not sure how old it is, but at least 15 years. has a nice feel to it, very solid, balanced well. for being only 1.5hp, it easily out powers my previous router- a 2hp porter cable.

came inside around 7:30 or so, took a shower, back to playing with the wee one (who’s teething, i think… could explain some things). really don’t know where all the time went, today… because the actual work that was done is about 2 hours worth, if i were billing somebody for it (and believe it or not, this is what i did for a living, for a long time).

maybe tomorrow will be more productive….
maybe.

maybe tomorrow’s writing will be better, too… but the reason for the poor writing is well worth it: the wee one. she loves being right there for everything. writing included. it’s tough to write when a toddler is hanging on you

aside from antique pieces, i have a difficult time bringing myself to buy furniture. most of the new stuff is made in china, using questionable materials and generally of substandard quality. much of the overseas wood is from overharvested non sustainable forest clearing, which further dissuades me from purchasing. plus, it’s fun to build it myself.

we need a bunk bed, with a desk… and drawers… and shelves… a whole unit, of sorts. here’s the start of it:

it’ll still get a desk drawer, as well as leg side cabinet. this will sit under one end of the “bunk” bed, the other end will be supported by a drawer and shelve unit. the space in between will nicely fit another bed, perpendicular to the bunk. hard to explain, hopefully it’ll be done soon enough to just post pictures of it.

the materials are plantation grown radiata pine (sustainable), poplar solid/hardwood core plywood, some oak and hickory. the oak and hickory are from cast-off pieces that have been salvaged and re-sawn. no exotic hardwoods, but the radiata pine is quite hard (for a softwood), and great to work with. i cut v-groves in the plywood used on the sides to give a tongue and groove appearance. dowel and glued joints, no visible fasteners, lotsa routed tongues and groves in the structure. the drawers will likely be finger joints, ’cause dovetails are tough by hand

i probably should have taken pictures of the building process, but the amount of dust in the small workshop surely would have done the camera in. lungs are more resilient than overpriced electronics, so i was fine in there.

speaking of “there”… the 10.5′ by 17′, 94 year old carriage house that’s my workshop:

excuse the mess… not much room to put stuff. have to rotate tools from the floor to the workbench, to the shelf on the opposite side of the room… back to the floor. i get a good groove going with it all for a while, then all of a sudden can’t find anything. it needs a bit more workbench, and more utilization of vertical space (instead of things being spread over the floor). organization is tough when you’re just using some existing (old) nails in the framing to hang stuff, putting faith in gravity failing the moment a nail holding a saw that’s overhead lets go due to rust…
overall it’s not a bad space… pretty comfortable to work in, actually. you know, as long as you’re not claustrophobic.

this… this is what i need for organization of such a small space:

an antique pattern maker’s tool chest. mounts to the wall (can also be transported), holds… well… everything. one for woodworking handtools, one for metalworking handtools, a proper cabinet for power tools… all easily accessible while working.

more to come tomorrow, when i’m better rested, have more to show, and don’t have my little helper tugging on my arm and kicking me as she flails about while i try to write this… as much as she loves helping me work on stuff, she doesn’t like me typing when she wants attention… so attention she’ll get!

my grandpa was the foremost father figure in my early years. he passed away when i was thirteen, after a couple years of fighting cancer. two years after he retired. he was a hard worker, usually having more than one job… and multiple trades.

(more…)

ok, not entirely house related… but to at least have something about the house: adjusted a closet door and shaved a bit off it’s top, and adjusted the back bedroom’s door… so they both open without a shoulder thrown into ‘em.

now back to the welding shop… i really do wonder how a welding shop would do, here. more precisely, trailer hitch and metal fabrication… AWS certified welder, oregon licensed contractor, so structural and ornamental stuff could be done… trailer hitches, because i know ‘em well and it’s something that’s steady once established (although partially seasonal)… and real blacksmithing… all rolls in together.

i think about it multiple times a day. every day. for years. pretty much ever since i was a foreman/manager of a fabrication/trailer hitch shop, some… err… 10, maybe 12 years ago. i left to go onto bigger and better things… namely to go back to college (which i later “took a break” from). i wanted to be a mechanical engineer, focusing on metal… as in metallurgy. somehow ended up being a software engineer… which was somewhat fun-ish for a while (dot coms), software isn’t exactly the worst thing one can do with their life… but it’s not fun. at all. actually, it pretty much sucks. ok, it’s better than digging ditches (unless using a tractor… because clearly, operating heavy machinery just plain rocks). back to the welding thing… and the software thing… the best way to put it: metal > software.
oh well… i can dream…

ok, back to reality… and back to house stuff…

quick sketchup layout of the upstairs:

more to come once there is some detail added… new walls, plumbing, electrical, etc…