Sunday, October 18, 2009

Miscellaneous Fall Stuff

Irony: Raking your lawn so you can mow it without shredding leaves everywhere, all so that you can later use the leaf blower the next time you need to rake.

Tragic irony: Doing the raking the day before it rains and gusts all day.

Fall's here in New England and I think golf may be done for the year. We actually got snow Thursday night. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my lawn; it's not horrible but I definitely haven't mowed it in a month and it could stand one more before the year's out, if anything so that the leaf blower doesn't just turn long grass over the leaves. Of course, I need a clear weekend when I'm now sick or traveling for that, which hasn't happened in quite a while.

On top of all that, we're trying desperately to get the attic in line for a project. We had a National Grid energy assessment a number of months ago, and one of the big things he highlighted was having them come in, airseal the attic, and lay another layer of insulation on top. To do that, though, I need to pull up all the plywood the previous owners slapped down all over the place. In addition, we still want some storage usage so once that's done I need to put in some 2x6s to frame a storage area that rises above the top of the new layer of insulation. I've made some progress but it's downright painful. There's a central A/C unit up there with all the ducting, and climbing over and under all that crap makes it even harder to work in a dark, dusty, hot attic. All the plywood is actually particle board that's twice the weight of plywood and nailed down with 4" nails, so I've spent two Saturdays now up there with a prybar on my knees, hauling boards around and down.

Not sure what to do around the main A/C unit, though, as it has some pieces -- such as the end of the whole-house fan and some very heavy conductor unit or somesuch thing -- that are mounted on some of the wood I need to pull up or, in the case of the latter, mounted between two beams and resting on a wedge of wood that rests on...a door. Yes, a door. Some jackass hauled a door up into the attic and slid it under one of the major ducts. COME ON. At least that one's not nailed down; it just has what seems to be a 100-pound unit resting on it.

But wait, there's more! We also need to replace our two bathroom fans, which have been just venting into the attic. Once we do that, the crew that does the airsealing will also punch those up and out the roof for us. Which is good, as I don't wish to punch holes in my roof no matter how successful it seems to have been for my friends Chris and Hillary. We figured out what we needed for CFM and picked up two fans at Lowe's, and in one of my forays up there I located the two fans. One was easy, I could see it. The other was not so easy, and unfortunate. They'd rolled a layer of insulation over it. I was pulling up random rolls and found it. However, it and the immediate area are covered with a thick layer of white powder. I left it uncovered but later realized that that may well be some kind of dry mold, which is just lovely. I have a call in to a mold remediation place, but from what I've heard I may be best off just dealing with it myself using a respirator, trash bag, dust pan, and bleach. Whee!

Oh, and some other news -- we have a baby coming in early March. Guess I should have mentioned that one earlier, eh? We've read a bunch, have painted the baby room, and finally ordered furniture yesterday. I guess I haven't posted to this blog since then, for which I have no excuse. Except for all that stuff with which I've been busy. There's a bunch of baby posts coming, though, so fear not.