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Showing posts with label home maintenance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home maintenance. Show all posts

Sunday, January 31, 2010 5 comments

Score One for DoubleRed

Late last winter, Mrs. Fetched started noticing mold spots in the ceiling above our shower, shortly followed by water coming through there. The assumption at the time was that the upstairs shower drain was leaking, so we simply told The Boy and Daughter Dearest to take their showers down here until we could get it fixed. The problem went away with the cold weather, and we didn’t give it much thought for a while.

Jerry-rigBut then it started up again, and Mrs. Fetched called the plumbers. They went up, had a look, and said, "It’s coming out of the furnace, not the shower drain. You need to call an HVAC person.” To be helpful, they cut through the damaged sheetrock to reveal what was underneath. After Mrs. Fetched got tired of the water dripping not always into the shower, and I got tired of hearing her complain about it, I tacked a nail into the joist and hung a bucket up. The bucket would fill up twice a day, and I usually ended up emptying it morning and night.

So… one day last week I was working at home, and DoubleRed came rolling in. “Hey,” she said, “I just remembered something. We had the same problem at a place I worked at up in Blairsville, the furnace condenser was leaking. They told us that it was algae building up and blocking the drain, and to pour a cup of bleach in it. We never had a problem after that.”

I’d never heard of such a thing, and said so, but wasn’t completely incredulous. I tried to get DoubleRed to describe the inlet where the bleach was to go, but couldn’t get much beyond “it’s just an opening.” It took another week and a half, but after Mrs. Fetched got wind of it, she was on me to climb into the attic and have a look. Fortunately, going through Daughter Dearest’s closet, there’s a light switch with a light right above the furnace. I thought it was burned out, but when I flipped the switch there was light, so I pocketed the flashlight and worked my way down there. You can see what I saw: an open water pipe right at the corner of the furnace, brimming over with water (and the blue bucket underneath).

Knowing what I needed to do, I came back down to gather materials. “You find it?” Mrs. Fetched asked.

“Yup. Just need something to siphon the water out and a cup of bleach to pour in.”

“Great! I’ll see if we have any bleach.” Great time to be checking, I thought, but figured we had some and went out to get some line. I knew we had some air lines from back when Mrs. Fetched had a couple aquaria; they were covered themselves with dried algae but I got some soap on the end and scrubbed off enough to get my mouth on it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Fetched located the bleach and put it in a cup for me.

Once more into the breach. I sucked water out of the opening, let it siphon down into the bucket, then poured the bleach in. I got most of it in… then it bobbed up and down a couple times before it went glurk-glurk-glurk and drained away. I poured in the remaining bleach and called it good enough.

So DoubleRed gets the gold star for this one. The proof will be when the bucket is empty tonight… then we’ll have to figure out how to patch up the ceiling. Always something.

Thursday, January 14, 2010 2 comments

Appliances and other minutiae

Yes, I did mention the incredible spark-shooting refrigerator incident from late last month/year/decade (pick one). We packed the other fridge as full as we could, and things that didn’t absolutely have to be kept cold (e.g. coffee can) went in the pantry. Over the last couple weeks, we slowly winnowed out leftovers and I was starting to think we really could live like normal people who only have one fridge in the kitchen… then Mrs. Fetched caught the neighbor (who does appliance repair, among other things) and asked him to come have a look. It took him about 20 minutes to see, find, and fix the problem: there’s a rather elaborate wiring harness going into the door, to support accessories we never had, and something in there shorted out. He took the direct approach, cutting it all away and capping the wires. The ice dispenser no longer runs, but it wasn’t that useful anyway. Rats… I was going to try locating one of those old bread-making stations with the pull-out kneading board and flour dispenser; it would have fit nicely into that space taken up by the (now working anew) fridge and given us a little more work space.

A while back, the garage door opener gave up the ghost — or the “up limit” switch did, anyway — and we’ve not had cars in the garage since then. Mrs. Fetched happened to run into a guy who works on garage doors and the like, and I got him the make and model of the unit to see if he had a working switch in his bonepile; he didn’t. But I learned a while ago… if you wait long enough, stuff you need to come to you. Some guy on Freecycle offered up a garage door opener, but someone else claimed it pretty quickly. But more often than you might think, whoever claims something doesn’t ever come to pick it up, so I emailed the guy anyway and asked him to let me know if that happened. Sure enough, a couple days later he emailed me and told me to just come pick it up out of his driveway. Then we got snowed on and I asked for a little extra time, no problem. This evening, I borrowed a pickup truck, grabbed The Boy since his apartment was on the way, and we went and got it. Now we just need to contact the garage guy and have him come put it up. And get a couple of remotes.

Mason had his checkup yesterday. He’s continuing to get ever bigger (we know) and he’s been cleared to eat more than formula (cereal and veggies, no fruit yet) — big milestone there! I don’t know when we’ll try giving him anything, but if I have the opportunity you know I will get a cereal-spackled face picture. He’s been pushing the limits of fighting sleep lately, but when he’s up past 11 we have a pretty good chance at a full night’s sleep, hooray! We’ve had two full-nighters this week, and the way things are going tonight we might get another one. The Boy and Snippet say they’re going to start moving into the manor this weekend, which for me is a big ol’ pile of mixed emotions. It’ll be nice to have them taking care of their own kid, but there’s going to be no small amount of friction. Maybe I’ll get to do some more writing again; I haven’t had much opportunity in the last couple of weeks, but I haven’t worried about it too much because White Pickups is really slow going. The good news is that I have 5 months’ worth of episodes in the can, and I’ve started going back to fill in some details of the Sondra-Cody-Kelly triangle. The big issue is that a major change happens, but I’m not sure why. I know how the story ends, pretty much, but there’s a long stretch of middle/late stuff to get through. It’ll happen.

Now Mason is kaput, I hope until at least 6:30, and I need to get in bed myself…

Saturday, October 17, 2009 No comments

When it Showers, it Pours

Mrs. Fetched had pretty much lined me up to do some maintenance down at the rental place yesterday… seems the shower faucet was loose again, after I’d tightened it up just a couple months ago. She sent the plumber to have a look, he said the splash board was rotten and that wasn’t his line of work. Well, it had been up there for a long time, I think since we replaced the tub back before FAR Manor swallowed my paycheck. Having little choice, I ran to Home Despot and got a new splash board and a tube of adhesive.

Using hammers, chisels, and fingers, the old splash board came off, revealing a piece of plywood underneath that I wasn't aware was there… and it was rotten around the faucet too. We took measurements, I wrote them on my palm (as opposed to a Palm Pilot) and went back to Home Despot to get a piece of replacement board while Big G disposed of the original piece, and changed the water filter while I was gone. We cut off the water, removed the faucet, and then drilled new holes to fit. At the last minute, I remembered that we needed to glue up the splash board — and cut it to size before putting it up.

The new splash board is some kind of plastic, which is good since it won’t rot… but it was rather difficult to cut. Big G tried a utility knife and a hack saw blade; I tried heating a utility knife (which worked better than one at room temperature), but then Big G got the jigsaw and finished the job. I stuck the glue in the caulk gun and slathered it onto the plywood, we slapped up the splash board and I caulked the edges, then Big G held the board in place while I drilled out the holes from the back. Plumber tape on the threads, slap the mounting nuts and water lines back in, looks pretty good. We went out to turn on the water again. The filter did its usual “leak a little, then seal up” routine, and I heard water splashing. I checked the lines where they connected to the shower and everything was reassuringly dry… but we still heard the water.

Suddenly Big G squawked, “the linen closet is flooded!” and threw a bunch of towels on the floor… by then it was leaking into the bathroom. This is usually a sign of hot water heater FAIL, and I told them so. So it looks like the plumber (who installed the water heater in the first place) will be back to fix it under warranty.

The only reason I can think of for it failing now is that turning the water off and back on created a stress of sorts. Mrs. Fetched is convinced that someone ran the hot water after we cut the water off… but with no pressure, I asked her, where would the water come from? “Doesn’t matter, it would run back,” she said. But run back to where? The water is cut off under the house. Sometimes, I can’t come anywhere close to figuring out her logic.

Today was supposed to involve cutting wood, especially since we’re already using the insert what with the cool weather. I think Panda and Daughter Dearest did some, or should I say Panda did it while DD slept in the truck, maybe enough for a couple nights. Oh well, there will be wood cutting tomorrow.

Saturday, September 19, 2009 2 comments

Weekend Roundup

Mrs. Fetched with MasonYet another pic of Mason, just because I can. We haven’t seen him all week, which is probably a good sign because it means The Boy and Snippet haven’t needed our help.

And happy birthday to the great-grandparents, Mom (tomorrow) and Dad (on Monday)!

FAR Manor being FAR Manor, there’s still plenty of stuff going on even without a grandson in the house. Even when it has rained pretty much every day since we got back from vacation, and rained here a few times while we were gone. You know all that rain we didn’t get in May, June, and July? We’re getting it now. But we get a break most mornings, which means this morning I took care of most of the “go outdoors” stuff before breakfast: replace the kitty litter, empty the compost bucket (a coffee can) into the composter, pick a few tomatoes. Today ’s rain, as seen on radar, is moving in a little slower than I expected — but it finally got here.

After taking care of those little chores, then scarfing some breakfast, DoubleRed shocked the living daylights out of me: she asked me to follow her to the bank and (almost) caught up on all her rent… since May! I now have something in my pocket that Mrs. Fetched might like to get her hands on for a change.

I’ve mentioned problems with the manor windows before — not only do they have aluminum frames, which aren’t exactly wonderful for keeping out the winter chill, the funky mechanisms that are supposed to hold them in place when you raise them are pretty much all wrecked. Mrs. Fetched got curious recently when someone at Home Despot was trying to interest anyone in their window installation services, and considerably brightened the day of a rather discouraged worker. She made an appointment for their window guy to pay us a visit, and he did so late Thursday afternoon just as I was wrapping up my work at home day. With 18 windows that need to be replaced, fortunately all standard sizes, the total bill came to $12K. Um… thanks for your time, dude. I still want to replace at least the two windows in the bathroom, but with standard sizes and a friend who’s done that kind of work giving us advice, I might be able to get to that before winter. Meanwhile, I have a roll of window film that has been waiting for me to put it on the bay window in the kitchen, and I’ll be getting to that shortly. It helps that I figured out (on Thursday, while Window Dude was measuring) how to go about it with the least amount of waste.

Mrs. Fetched had been asking me to cash in some stock for some time, just to cover Daughter Dearest’s college for the rest of the term, and (during vacation) it got to where I thought it was worthwhile. The “problem” was, I thought I was cashing in stock options when I was actually cashing in restricted stock… so I ended up with a check for four times as much as I was expecting (but not enough to cover the window replacement). That caused a moment of panic, thinking the guy cleaned out my account, but when I pulled it up again I realized what happened. We’re going to kill off a couple of nagging bills and cover most of Daughter Dearest’s second term. Mrs. Fetched suggested I go ahead and accessorize my camera — so I ordered a smart flash and a 100-300mm lens last night — that should pretty well cover everything now: I have the 50mm f1.8 and the flash for indoor venues, the 28-135mm zoom for some indoor and short- to mid-range outdoor work, and the new lens will cover long-range work. What DoubleRed handed me this morning more than covered it.

Finally, if you haven’t seen it yet: this is NSFW, but very funny. Check out the woman’s expression about 6 seconds in. Besides, it’s good advice: I learned long ago, what you don’t do to the chicken, the chicken will do to you.

New story starts Monday… it’s coming along well, so I’m pretty comfortable with the head start I have.

Saturday, July 18, 2009 4 comments

Kneecapped Again

It has been a while since the last one of these… in fact, I had to go look it up.

Seeing as I’m off work for the next two weeks (hooray!) but we won’t be leaving for Michigan until later in the week (boo!), I figured it would be a good time to look into some of the maintenance issues at the rental place. We’ve known about the rain gutters for a good long while, but there was also a recent problem with the A/C unit kicking the 50-amp breaker (very bad). I threw some tools into the crate on the back of the bike and putted down there.

Big G (not Big V, we both have issues with her) was there, which helped a little. After making sure the breaker was off, I inspected the wiring and found a small kink where some wire was showing through the insulation; the wires were exposed to the elements but the rest of the insulation looked OK. I wrapped that up with some electrical tape and sealed up the wire nuts, just to be sure. Then we cleaned some crud out from around and inside the coils and hosed them out as best as we could. It kicked on later and seemed to be working fine.

With the small job out of the way, I started on the gutters. When The Boy (at age 10-ish) and I put up the gutters, I also bought and installed screens to keep debris out. They mostly worked, but some have rotted over the years and others broke off… and plenty of crud had collected in there. The roof isn’t very steep, but Big G “doesn’t do good on roofs” and I’m quite comfortable up there anyway… so he handed me a blower and I got a bunch of debris off there (and out of the ridge cap). My knee started giving me a little pain, but it does from time to time and usually goes away. It has been like that since my early teens — a disinterested doctor dismissed it at the time as “growing pains” — so I can still pretend I’m 30 even if the knee is acting up.

With the roof dealt with, I turned to the gutters themselves. I knew there was a wasp nest on one side, but got caught up in what I was doing and got too close. One of the SOBs got me on the left wrist, which hurt for a minute then stopped. And my knee stopped hurting, too. Acupuncture? Or maybe just my brain dampening the pain receptors? Whatever. I took care of the gutter on the other side, blowing all the crap out and nailing up a place where it had come loose. The gutters on the other side need more than that… the fascia board was cracked where the nails had gone in all the way down one 8-foot length, and the one on the end looks rotten. I’ll have to get new boards (and screens), paint the boards, then pull down the gutter to replace those boards before nailing it back up again.

After I’d finished on the roof, and we were looking at what limbs need to be cut off an oak tree, my knee buckled. Very painfully. I hadn’t had one of those in a long time. After getting home, I should have stayed home instead of going to the retail district to get lunch and repair parts, but live and learn I guess. I’ve got the ice cuff on it now; I expect it to be better before we make the long drive north.

How did it happen? I blame the chicken houses: I was helping to run feed last weekend, which entails a lot of bending and stooping to shake the pans and flats. My legs were quite sore the next day; my left leg cramped up pretty good around the back of my thigh, and was like that until this morning. I’ve been putting more weight on the right leg all week, and I guess the knee decided it needed its own vacation. All in all, an inauspicious start. But I’m hoping that’s the worst of it, and things will get better from there. At least I’m out of the honey-do loop for a day or so.

Thursday, February 19, 2009 15 comments

We can has Fire! and Battery!

Working at home is always useful.

About 4:30, I grabbed the w0rNg battery and took it back to the motorcycle shop, and got a new one. Ironically, the smaller battery cost more — WTF? But now I have it and I’ll be ready to ride as soon as it warms up again.

After returning from the shop, I ran a chain down the chimney and it was clear all the way down. I should have known that by the way the sheet I put in front of the fireplace was getting sucked into the chamber. I brushed off some more of the accumulated crud above the damper, shoved the insert back into place, and Mrs. Fetched let 'er rip. Just in time: Winter #5 is upon us, after a rather ugly line of storms yesterday evening. The insert is burning better now than it has in a long time, nice and clean, and it’s warming up nicely in the living room.

Maybe the storms carried the Vortex of Suck™ away with them.

[Holy moly… post #900!]

Sunday, February 01, 2009 16 comments

Smokin'

The wood stove has been increasingly smoky lately… until Wednesday night, when the smoke stopped going up the chimney altogether and started coming out from around the trim panel. We closed the damper and draft down completely, choking off the fire in the box, and let it dry out.

Today, we got around to having a look at the situation. We pulled the insert out and found chunks of creosote here and there, but not enough to choke off the draft; I got out a paint scraper and ended up with an impressive amount of gunk. We swept it up and put it in a bucket.

Mrs. Fetched’s uncle said a “home remedy” was to swish a chain around the inside of the chimney to loosen up deposits… but like I said, it was clear all the way up. We decided to try it, so she went to get something for the chimney while I went up on the roof to see what getting a chain (or a chimney brush) down there would involve. I found a mesh of dog wire covering the exit, which was covered with creosote deposits, so I called Mrs. Fetched to tell her I found the problem.

I went down, got the paint scraper, and got the crud off the top of the screen. This didn’t do much for the stuff underneath, so I lifted the screen… and found about a centimeter of gunk like a blanket across the top of the chimney. This I removed then replaced the screen.

We lit a piece of paper, and it caught and went up the chimney… so Mrs. Fetched started a bigger fire. And the smoke’s coming right back into the house. I guess we’ll call a chimney sweep.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 7 comments

Building a Cold Frame

I actually managed to get one of the things done that I wanted to while off work!

Ever since I’d heard about cold frames, I’ve wanted to build one. Getting the tomato plants started a little early is never a bad idea, after all. We have plenty of scrap lumber around the manor, but not much scrap glass, so on Saturday I asked the local FreeCycle chapter for a glass shower door. By Saturday afternoon, I had two pieces: a 5½-x-2 foot door, and a 39x35 inch random piece of glass — both just straight glass. Sweet! So...

Glass lumber


So after helping Mrs. Fetched with the chickens today, I started sorting through the scrap lumber we had, then measuring out each piece against what I needed to build the frames. Interestingly enough, using the shower door frame worked out slightly better with the least wasted wood, so that’s the way I went. Naturally, I couldn’t find my circular saw (I think it got used at the chicken houses and “relocated” by one of the workers), so I borrowed one from Mrs. Fetched’s mom. It’s kind of cool; it has a laser pointer… not terribly practical for cutting 2x4s (as seen below) but really nice for plywood.

wood cutting

With the 2x4s cut, I proceeded to put the long sides together. I didn’t have nails long enough, but I had 3" screws and a drill… so I screwed it up, so to speak. I did managed to screw up a Phillips screwdriver bit, but fortunately I had another.

Once I had the long sides done, I fastened them together with a pair of 2x4s on each end:

completed framework

It turned out to be easier to cut the plywood on the table saw, so I struck my chalk lines and fired the big guy up. After that, it was simply a matter of screwing the cut pieces onto the frame and dropping the shower door on top… well, I had to remove the handle from the side facing the wood and find a couple of shorter screws to keep the handle I wanted, but that was a minor detail. Here’s the completed project, minus painting:

completed cold frame

The astute reader may notice a pair of 2x2s screwed to the front of the completed cold frame. There’s also a matching pair in the back; they’re to keep the door from slipping off when propped up. I didn’t put the glass on hinges, which lets me take it off so it’s not in the way when putting seedlings in or taking them out. It also lets me prop the thing up on either side, so the wind doesn’t blow straight in.

Considering I had all the wood laying around waiting for a purpose, and I got the glass for free, I’m pretty happy with the result. I just need to paint it & put it outside.

Sunday, August 31, 2008 No comments

To-do list mostly crossed off

Given that this was the first weekend in some time that I had more or less free, I was looking forward to crossing a few things off my own to-do list (not the one that Mrs. Fetched keeps, which is infinite and growing anyway). Here’s what it looks like at the moment:

Fix the dehydrator (it might be fixable, if I can find a replacement thermocouple)

Work on my windmill project (learned I had a few missing parts, will proceed tomorrow)

Replace broken floodlight fixture above the garage

Start setting up the back garden for next year (longer-term project, wasn’t really planning to attack this weekend)

Replace latch on back porch screen door

Fix the Civic’s sunroof (just needed a little lube on the rails)

Not bad — of the five I actually intended to at least start, I finished three and started the other two. And I have one more day to plonk at the windmill. I think I'll have the mechanical bits done tomorrow; the electrical end requires more parts & time.

Friday, April 25, 2008 9 comments

Go Yard

New lawn mowerI was going to post this last night, but got tied up on a proposal for work. Weekend Cinema will come tomorrow. I hope to have a new FAR Future episode ready next week.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we did a lot of shopping last weekend to burn up the last of the tax refund. Our major purchase was a Cub Cadet lawn mower. Mrs. Fetched wanted self-propelled and a bagger. I wanted a Honda engine and a decent (i.e. not Wal-Mart) build quality. This fit the bill, and was pretty much in line with what we were seeing for similar mowers.

One of the nicer features is that you can control the drive speed by squeezing a lever, so we can easily vary the speed to match the part of the lawn we’re working on. Straight ahead? Let 'er rip! Stumps or landscaping? Ease it back. The swivel wheels up front allow tighter turns as well, and can be locked (although in our yard, turns are plenty so they’ll likely remain swinging).

ComposterOf course, with a bag that fills up two or three times, you need a place to empty it. I’ve been wanting to get a composting bin for a while, but I never saw any places that carried them locally and I balked at the $120 prices online. I’d contemplated just buying a big garbage can and cutting some holes in it, but Mrs. Fetched wanted to go to WalMart… and guess who is the only place in the free-range insane asylum that has composters? I sighed and coughed up $44 for the coffers in Bentonville.

I put it together that evening and plunked it down on top of the compost heap I’d had going for a while now. The next day, I pretty much filled it up with grass clippings. Two days later, it was only half full. It’s magic! I told The Boy that if he has any worms left over from fishing, to throw them in — they’ll help digest the fodder and make more worms. It’s just the right height to comfortably pee into (given the situation with the septic tank, the fewer flushes the better, and the composter can always use a little extra nitrogen).

Split seamOf course, the motto “if it’s WalMart, it must be junk” applies here too. This seam first popped loose when I was working the
composter into place. It popped open again on its own later. I’ve given up wasting my time trying to put it together for now; eventually, I’ll grab some flashing and a pop riveter and go for a more permanent fix.

I think I’ll try building another composter out of a big garbage can and see if I can get Mrs. Fetched’s mom to warm up to the idea. She loves her gardening, and free soil enrichments would make her happy.

Saturday, March 22, 2008 4 comments

Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s Home to Work I Go

Not many opportunities for rest at FAR Manor, especially on weekends.

The light fixture in Mrs. Fetched’s closet croaked last week, and she’s been on me ever since to change it. I’d put it on my to-do list, and planned to tackle it this weekend anyway. Naturally, the standard ceramic closet socket is unobtanium these days, so we ended up with one of those two-bulb sockets with the square glass dinner-plate diffuser. I put that up in the last hour, and all is well in the closet once again.

But, of course, that’s only the beginning. Mrs. Fetched has assigned to me: replacing a toilet seat (sorry, wrong size); taking out some saplings out front (which ones?); inspecting the roof in the back near a big oak tree (limbs coming off), and general clean up the house stuff to absorb any free time I manage to end up with. I suppose I could go pick up all the limbs blown off trees in last week’s wind storms, to provide enough wood for the week.

I need to: drain a little oil out of the Virago (not sure how I overfilled it); change the oil in the Suzuki; take the Suzuki out to scrub in the new tire ← very important, you understand!; work on FAR Future (I’m 2/3 done with the next+1 episode and have a pretty good idea for next+2, next one’s pretty much done).

Off to early lunch. Mrs. Fetched is hungry & cranky.

Sunday, February 24, 2008 11 comments

A Quiet Improvement

Oh grey water, keep on flowin’
Planet Georgia moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me…


As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve had some issues with the septic system (we’ve had to have it pumped a couple times since then). A few months ago, it occurred to me that if we could divert the non-toilet drains into an irrigation system, we could take a lot of non-essential load off the septic system and, if not solving the problem entirely, at least put off replacing the field lines. My father-in-law and I put in the field lines at our old place; it wasn’t too difficult but he no longer has a backhoe — so it’ll be a multi-thousand dollar fix now.

Since the in-laws have a handyman living & working on the farm at the moment, Mrs. Fetched’s mom decided to jump into the project with both feet… or at least toss the handyman into it. It was the work of a morning for him to punch a hole in the foundation, run a 2-inch pipe through it, and divert the kitchen and laundry room drains. I consider the job half-done — ideally, I’d like to divert everything but the toilets — but this may be all we can do practically.

This project may have also decided for me where I’ll locate the forest garden. I like the idea of using water twice, especially if we’re going to have more drought… which doesn’t seem likely at the moment, but you never can tell. I also like the idea that being less wasteful could save us some money (like with the fireplace insert). There’s still a little more work to do once I’ve figured out where the water will go, a bit of ditch-digging and pipe-laying… nothing I haven’t done before.

Saturday, February 02, 2008 26 comments

Inserting an Insert, The Grand Finale

Cleaning outThe big day arrived at last. We wanted to make it as easy as possible, so we had moved stuff out of the way, including removing the door between the kitchen and living room.

We scooped out the ash as much as possible, and pulled out the grate (which got cleaned off and will be used as a wood rack).


Finishing upIt occurred to me to brush down the sides and top of the fireplace. This yielded a rather large quantity of black soot, more than I’d expected, but I just pulled the cover off the ash hole and swept it all in there. Then I vacuumed in the corners.


Doors removedAt this point, Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest headed off to an extended “check us out” weekend at a nearby college. I stayed on target and tackled the glass doors. It turned out to be held on by two clamps inside the fireplace; loosen two bolts and the whole thing came right out. I sat it outside to scrub the soot off the glass and get it out of the way.

Of course, with the doors out of the way, I was clear to get more soot and ash out of the fireplace. This I did, and followed it up with one more vacuum run to get it all cleaned up.


Rolling it inGeorge’s son Roland showed up first. We chatted, waiting for George… and waiting… and waiting. Finally, Roland figured he was looking for the drill that Roland already had, and took off to look for him. I remembered that I needed hardware, and took the opportunity to scare up some screws. I also measured the door into the living room (29-1/2") and then the insert — and learned that the only way we’d get through was to tilt it on its back and bring it in sideways. Sometimes, delays are a good thing.

Roland showed up with his dad in tow, and the festoovities began. They tipped the insert up onto the dolly, while I scared up a piece of plywood so we wouldn’t have to carry it up the steps. I had to grab from the top and pull, while they pushed from the bottom, but it came in fairly easily.

At the fireplaceWe had laid down blankets and throw rugs in the living room to make sure the floor would be OK. It rolled right into place.

Push!George and Roland managed to pick the insert up without damaging themselves and pushed it into place. George wasn’t sure there would be enough front-to-back clearance to get the insert all the way in, and was telling me about some workarounds they could do if necessary. But they ended up having to pull it back out a little bit — there was plenty of clearance.

CompletedWith the insert in position, they attached the trim panel and centered it up. We tossed a couple pieces of paper and a small cardboard box in side and Roland lit it. The smoke went straight up the chimney, just like it was supposed to. George was concerned that some of the smoke might make its way to the front and seep out through the mortar joints in the brick, but that wasn’t a problem.

And that concludes the latest improvement at FAR Manor, minus any little details that might come up. George suggested that if we get smoke out the mortar joints, there’s some stuff at Home Despot to seal that up. It’s a fairly nice day right now, so I’ll light it up this evening and try it out.

Sunday, January 13, 2008 13 comments

Inserting an Insert, Part 2

When the weekend comes, use Rust-Oleum
— Ad jingle from the '60s


Painted insert, front viewThe sun was shining, a beautiful beginning to the weekend. After a slow morning, taking our time dragging around, I grabbed the spray can and a roll of masking tape, and got to work.

Being in a hurry to get started, I elected to start painting on the side(s) that didn’t have any labelling to worry about. That took all of five or ten minutes, then I had to put down the spray can (my fingertip was already black) and pick up the masking tape.


Painted insert; rear viewAfter masking off the labels here and there, I got at it. After painstakingly attempting to fold a round piece of paper to mask the decorative ceramic thing on the door, I realized that two bendable tabs held it on. [DUHHH ← me.] I painted the door and finished the insert… by this time, the paint can was getting pretty light but no problems.

With the insert painted, I went back to the drill and attacked the trim panel. This turned out to be slightly more difficult than I’d anticipated: I had to lift the edges up off the driveway to get to them. But perseverance paid off in the end, and I hung it up and hit it with the spray can. The spray began to stutter about 3/4 of the way through, but I (barely) managed to get it done before all I got was a hissss.

The instructions on the can say to wait “less than one hour, or more than 48 hours between coats.” I got the new can today, but I’ll wait until tomorrow to finish it up. I think there's a couple of places that need to be smoothed off first anyway.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008 13 comments

Inserting an Insert, Part 1.1

Fireplace insert after wire-brushingAfter an evening using the big drill with a 3" wire wheel, I figured there had to be something bigger that would let me get the job done faster. After some evening errands Sunday night, I swung by Home Despot. Although it was 7:53, the girl at the door told me they were closed (they nominally close at 8) and wouldn’t let me in. Fine: if Home Despot doesn’t want my business, there’s a Lowe’s near my office.

So on the way home from work, I picked up a 6" wire wheel and a 3" cone wheel for the odd corners, strapped them to the back of the bike, and headed home. The 6-incher made a huge difference; I got the top, back, and right side done in the same amount of time it took to do the left side with the old 3" wheel. That left the hardest part, the front — that iron filigree work was a bear to work around and through.

Somewhere along the line, I plugged in the blower and hit the switch. It came on, with a bit of a groan but got going after it remembered what to do. I still have to de-rust the trim panel and, but it’s flat so I don’t expect much problem there.

Tomorrow is probably going to be a down-day, with choir practice eating up the evening, but I’m still holding out the possibility that we’ll install it this weekend.

Sunday, January 06, 2008 25 comments

Inserting an Insert, Part 1 [UPDATED]

fireplace insert with surface rustSome friends of ours decommissioned an Earth Stove fireplace insert some time back, and had it sitting under their porch ever since. When they learned we were talking about getting one, they were only to glad to give us that one. Of course, there were the minor details about getting it delivered (as it’s several hundred pounds of steel and firebrick) to the manor, and what kind of shape it was in. The Boy has been disappearing all weekend for most weekends, and then I managed to hose my knee. But then their sons showed up: J and his older brother, a skinny Marine home on leave; they devised a roller system with some PVC pipe (which you can see under the insert) and rolled it on his truck and then off into our detached garage.

I had a little time yesterday, and the anti-inflammatories have done a pretty good job (my knee still aches but it’s only annoying), so I spent half an hour getting stuff together. Wire brush, dust mask (plenty of those around, thanks to the chicken houses), jacket, gloves… and the camera, of course.

Ashes insideI opened it up to find several inches of ash still inside the thing. I guess I can’t complain about a freebie though; but I could (and did) scoop it out and toss it in The Boy’s firepit.

With the initial preparations out of the way, I took wire brush in hand and got to work. The rust on the box is actually pretty light, except toward the bottom — I think a lot of what came off was dirt. I’ll probably go over it with some medium sandpaper, just to make sure, but I’m already half-done with the initial phase of the project (Phase 2 = painting, Phase 3 = installation).

There are two possible wrinkles that I need to be aware of. First is the blower; they told me it worked when they plugged it in a year ago, but it’s been sitting in a non-climate controlled area since then. So I’m going to pull that unit out and have a look at it before plugging it in. Second is Mrs. Fetched… she’s not sure she wants black. Rust-Oleum has several colors of high-heat paint; I have some black paint (put to good use painting an old grill & a motorcycle tank), but she’s not sure she wants black. She certainly doesn’t want green, though. There’s a “copper” color, which might be interesting… I might use it on the trim panel and maybe the door & hood if nothing else. But I have a little time to make those decisions.

UPDATE: I has a drill. They use large DeWalt drills in the chicken house as winch motors; like anything in the chicken house, they develop problems. The thing I like about them is that they are built to be repairable, and Mrs. Fetched brings them to me to repair. I happened to have a couple drills in the queue; I tried one and it shot fire out the back. I snagged the brushes out of a “parts” drill, added some gear oil to the gearbox to quiet down the shrieking, and it run fine. I put the wire brush on it and got to work. The drill is heavy as all get-out, but never even got warm and it took nearly all the rust off that the hand brush missed. The insert is much more black than rust color now, at least on the side I did.

Saturday, October 27, 2007 5 comments

Must be Deer Season

Someone nearby is getting rid of his ammo, at 9pm no less. Almost sounds like Baghdad out there.

I started hunting up rock for the patio this afternoon. I found several rocks of a good size & shape (flat, a couple inches thick, small enough to handle) and several huge chunks. I guess I’ll have to borrow a tractor from the in-laws to get them up to the backyard. One of them will need the tractor just to unearth — I figure it has to weigh close to 500 lbs all by itself. I'll have to bust those big ones up, but if I can split them properly I might not need any more rock.

And if I do, finding rock on Planet Georgia is like finding water in a lake.

Sunday, October 21, 2007 14 comments

A Weekend Roundup

Earlier in the week, The Register coughed up a rather interesting article. I had a good laugh, then was inspired (if that’s the word) to write a poem on the subject. I decided that Asimov’s might print it, so I let it sit for a few days, made a few tweaks, and got it in the mail (before I lost my nerve). On the way back from the post office, it occurred to me that I ought to revamp the Crash and Burn story for a wider audience, and send that in too. I’ll tackle that this week. If nothing else, I’ll have a rejection letter or two I can tack to the wall in Studio FAR and give the finger to each time I go in there to write.

The septic tank is starting to get full again. At least it went almost a year this time. Mrs. Fetched is going to call the kaka-pumper tomorrow. I’m thinking of re-routing all the non-toilet drains to a garden area… we can use the water twice and that should take the load off the septic tank. Seeing how much cut basil and other herbs cost in the supermarket, a small herb farm might be a pretty decent way to put some of our acreage to use.

With more rain coming in tomorrow, and possibly staying on through most of the week (hooraayyyyyy!!!) I figured I’d better put new wiper blades on the Civic. Then I got tired of looking at the dangling windshield washers, which broke off when The Boy put it in a ditch last year, and got some new ones. Of course, I snapped off a stem when bolting it down, so I took them off and exchanged them this afternoon. Actually, I like the new ones better anyway. Finally, I got the idle adjusted (it was way too low). So now I’m ready to drive in the rain.

The homebrew is starting to mature. Maybe another week. But I need alcohol now

UPDATES: I can’t believe I forgot these.

This video (“Slam” by Pendulum) was one of the funniest things I saw all week. The music is wicked good too, if you like drum&bass. The album is on iTunes, so if I can’t find it at the store I’ll be grabbing this one for sure.

The in-laws have a muscadine vine that climbs really high. Like 12 feet. I grabbed their big stepladder & got a gallon or so. They have red & white ones growing together; the white ones are little sweeter but the reds are more numerous and have a bit more complex flavor. Muscadines are like the sunflower seeds of fruit: you do a lot of spitting (skins are tough and bitter, and they have seeds) so it’s definitely an outdoor snack. I spent a little quality time out front distributing seeds and skins around the edge of the dropoff to the road.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007 8 comments

Trim work, in a nutshell



Working under the “picture’s worth a thousand words” theory, I threw together a little composite image of the current FAR Manor maintenance project to show you what I’m up to. From left to right, you can see: trim with peeling paint, trim that’s been partially scraped, and finally re-painted trim. The latter needs another coat, in my opinion. This is just the part above the garage; I haven't even started on the part above our bedroom (which needs to be replaced, not repainted).

Using a ladder means the work is going pretty slow at the moment. I scrape what I can reach, then paint it. I ran out of time before finishing the paint part; with any luck, I can get a little time in through the week and try to finish this weekend. I might try laying on the roof, reaching over, and scraping that way — it might be less hassle than the ladder, but it will probably not be very comfortable.

Scaffolding. I need scaffolding. Actually, I don’t need the scaffolding until Saturday. Right now, I sure could go for a beer. Too bad I’m out.

Sunday, September 16, 2007 8 comments

Oddments

Bits of this & that from the last week, that didn’t get into any other post…

When we came back earlier in the week to drop off Big V and toss chickens, I found that The Boy had swiped two bottles of beer. They had only been in the bottle for a couple of days, so I’m sure they were pretty raw (and not much alcohol content either). I’d kind of hoped they would give him a bellyache, but he told me today that they were pretty good and not flat. I’m still going to put off drinking any for a month.

After the wedding yesterday, I came out to Barge Vader to find Daughter Dearest waiting. Even with the windows down, it was still fairly warm in there, so I dug out the keys to open the sunroof. “It’s just because I’m so hot,” DD joked deadpan. “Yeah, I see steam coming out of that little vent there,” I said. Her dress did a good job of covering the decotellage, but had a small opening (I suppose to push the “naughty” button).

“Maybe not,” she said, “but the groom got a good long look as he went by. I don’t think she [our friend, the bride] noticed, though.” Or maybe she did: she smeared him good with the cake downstairs.

I discovered that the (push) lawn mower is pretty well toast: J must have hit a stump or huge rock last time he mowed. He didn’t bend the blade, he bent the shaft. You could say it had the shaft, but doesn’t have it anymore. I also discovered today, that the riding mower has no brakes — makes for an exciting trip down the driveway to mow along the road. I also had to adjust the belt tensioner to get the mower blades to turn. Good thing I got the weed-eater going yesterday, because there’s no way I was going to try riding that beast in the ditch.

I got bored this afternoon and jumped on the motorcycle, using the need to look at new lawn mowers and pick up a how-to for laying patio stone as excuses. I’d just as soon get a reel mower as a replacement, but Home Despot has none. Plenty of online sources, though, all of which think the brands they carry are the best. The Sunlawn line is a bit more expensive than the others, but tend to be a bit lighter (not sure that’s all good or not) and have optional baggers.

Some text-spam scammer has been dinging us for $20/month on our cellphone bill. AT&T is going to fix this, or it’s going to cost them a lot more than $40 (two months). I’ll just turn the phone off, toss it in a drawer, and toss the bills in the trash while getting the PSC and FCC involved.

Cleaning up the grounds, I learned a little bit about the litterbugs that frequent the road passing FAR Manor. They like to eat mostly at Dairy Queen, but Zaxby’s and McDonald’s are also popular. They drink primarily lite beer, but Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Dr. Pepper, and fast food drinks are all represented as well. They smoke a little, and shop at Wal-Mart (of course) — the empty plastic bag was actually a welcome find, but only because I had filled the one bag I’d brought with me. Spammers, of course, are a sub-species of litterbug; neither one has any respect for other people’s property. Or, judging by their diets, their own health either. I’d like to find the morons who thought tossing glass bottles would be a good idea.

Korean baseball is, shall we say, a little strange. The link showed up in my email this week.

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