I was at K-Mart, and bought some incense today. I read in one of my books, or maybe on a web site somewhere that I can use turn on all of my out blowing fans (range fan, bathroom fan, Jenair fan, etc), and then walk around the perimeter of the inside of my house with a burning stick of incense to detect drafts.
Since I replaced the door from the garage to utility room, I still have not replaced the trim around the door. I bought some Great Stuff designed to go around doors and windows without bowing them. So I am going to spray that around the door, at least in the spots where we couldn’t easily shove the pink fiberglass insulation, and maybe over some of the pink stuff as well. I calked around the door frame on the outside (garage side) of the door to keep out cold air.
I have been looking at replace the trim. The old stuff was mouldings painted white. I am thinking putting up pieces of douglas fir left unpainted/unstained, but maybe sealed with oil or something else. We have a post and beam house with doug fir beams and posts. So I have been looking in the book Timberframe by Tedd Benson, and have found some excellent examples. I was at Lowes and they had some nice pieces of doug fir that were about $7 for a 8 foot piece. I am also looking at whether I can simply cut a 2×4 in half. I don’t think my table saw will cut that deep. I suppose I could cut on one side, then the other. I am also planning on checking out a local place that reclaims wood (from old houses, barns, partially burned trees, etc). I might be able to find some nice pieces of doug fir there. But anyway, when I rip the old trim off, I can probably spray some of the great stuff in those places, and help keep out drafts, and cold. So hopefully in the next few days, I will have a chance to explore my house with the incense.
Rite Aid drug stores sent a coupon book that advertised the GE mini spiral type light bulbs for 2 for $4 with the coupon. They are normally $9.99 apiece at Rite Aid, and though cheaper at other places, still expensive. Without the coupon they were on sale for 2 for $6, but with the coupon there was an extra $2 off. So on Saturday, I went to 3 Rite Aids in my area, and only found a single 100 watt light bulb at any of the stores, and a few 75 watt bulbs. Today, I decided to hit some stores closer to downtown. The first place had NO bulbs at all. The next 3 or 4 stores had both 75 and 100 watt bulbs. I think I ended up buying about 16 bulbs, and will probably buy some more. They wont go bad, and we will eventually use them. I want to replace our 300 watt halogen torchiere lamps with traditional bulb type floor lamps. The torchieres worked well when we lived in an appartment with white ceilings. They don’t work well with wood ceilings. So when I get the floor lamps, the spiral bulbs will work well.
Having just installed a new door between the garage and the house, it is now difficult to tell whether I left the light on in the garage. The old door had a window, but the new door does not. I am probably going to add a security peephole though. But I decided to buy a motion sensing switch. I was planning on installing it tomorrow when there was natural daylight out, and I could see with the lights out (because the breaker would be off). But I decided to do it tonight, so I got out my headlamp did it. It was pretty easy, and only took about 10 minutes. The hardest part was shoving the switch into the box with all the stiff wires that were already in there. Not sure why there are so many wires in there. The switch came with a default setting of staying on for 15 seconds. I bumped that up to about a minute and a half. I will see how that works, and can always adjust it further. There is also a setting for how much ambient light should be available for the lights not to come on. So if in the summer I am in the garage with daylight coming in, I obviously don’t need the lights to be on. The switch should eventually pay for itself in electricity savings.
The sliding glass doors in our house are not in the greatest shape, and might be original to the house which was built in 1977. One door has a little bit of rot on the sliding door itself, and one small piece of wood has fallen off. So I am looking at replacing that door, and while I am at it, maybe replacing all four sliding glass doors. Depending on cost, I might skip the one in the basement. If I do replace the doors I would go with new Energy Star rated ones with Low-E glass. I was at Lowes and they have some Pella brand Energy Star rated doors for about $450, and installation would be $399 (labor anyway). I also want to look at Andersen, Marvin, Rochester Colonial and a couple other brands. I saw on Andersen’s website an estimated price for a door of $1380. Ouch! My buddy who used to sell Andersen windows said that might be list price. He recommened I wait till spring for a truckload sale where I could get maybe 42% off. I am still in the research phase, and probably wont be doing anything till next year anyway. I don’t think I want have a big gaping hole in the side of my house while they are installing a door in the middle of winter! What if they broke something, or something happened where they couldn’t finish the job right away. That would suck! And if I can wait till summer for a truckload sale and save a bunch of money, that is cool.
Unlike the door between the house and the garage, I don’t think I want to attempt installing a gliding door myself. I will let professionals do it.
Last night I am doing some dry wall work in my garage. I had already made one trip to Home Depot to buy a sheet of 5/8 inch dry wall and a utility knife. I know I have a utility knife, but I couldn’t find it. I got the dry wall home, and managed to get it cut up and screwed into place. I taped the seems with fiberglass mesh. But now I am searching all over the place for my putty knife. I got several of them, and I can’t find any except the small 1 inch knife. Too small. I can spend more time looking, or I can head down to Home Depot. The parking lot seemed kinda empty. I got to the door, and it doesn’t open. Huh? The hours say they close at 9pm, and it was about 8:54pm when I got there. I knew exactly what I wanted, and would have been in and out before 9, but the lazy morons at Home Depot apparently can’t tell time. I know my watch is correct because I had just set it to the atomic clock less than a week ago.
So I couldn’t buy my putty knife at Home Depot, so I whipped over the Sears whcih was open until 10pm, and bought a putty knife there. I got home and covered the seems with mud.
Thanks for nothing Home Depot!