Snow = progress on the building

Yesterday we cancelled all services at church due to the snow. So I had something like a second Saturday to spend on my building.

Saturday I had spent a good deal of time putting up insulation in the walls. I'd finished the back right corner, because I wanted to get the small wood heater installed (it's really COLD in the building with no heat!) With walls a bit over 10 feet high, it takes a full batt of insulation, plus 27" or so additional, to fill each space between the studs.

I had acquired some Hardie-plank soffett boards from the Habitat store, and was planning to use these cement-based boards for wall backing behind both the wood stove and the small propane heater I bought in January. But I also had to build a box with no insulation in it roughly 15"x15" and faced inside and out with Hardie-plank to take the place of a 'thimble' through the wall.

Cutting the outside square of plywood was going to be a big problem, until I remembered my electric chainsaw. That did the job in a couple of minutes. Cutting the round holes for the stovepipe in the Hardie-plank squares was a good bit harder, involving power and hand tools, since I couldn't locate my jigsaw. Then I managed to mis-cut BOTH the wall panels that surrund the place where the pipe went through the wall.

Getting all the stovepipes to work right was a pretty good job, too, as was placing the completed stovepipe atop the outside elbow. I think I'll have to go back later in non-snowy weather and place at least one more 2-ft section onto the pipe outside, to get it well above the roofline.

I was able to burn one of those fireplace logs in the stove, but it didn't do too well. I'll have to see what the problem is--either the log doesn't burn well in the stove, or the stove doesn't allow enough air onto the log.

I managed to get the wall panels up to protect from the heat of the stove, but the firelog never got hot enough to even really heat up the stovepipe! And I got the insulation and paneling up so I could mount the propane stove, too.

Today I plan to get the rest of the wall insulation up, if I can locate some T-50 staples. Using my air nailer doesn't work too well, since it's so powerful it sometimes drives the staple all the way through the paper. I may have to try a trick with a string that a friend showed me, if I can't find the T-50s for my hammer stapler.

Getting the ceiling insulation in place looks to be a two-person job...any volunteers?

The building continues...

My long-term project to build a storage/workshop building continues. Earlier in the week I was able to work for most of a day, and got a lot done on the floor. Now I have to finish with the insulation and the screening in the eave vents.

All this has to get done to finish installing the old wood heater I found, and also the propane heater that I am installing. They were to have come last Tuesday to run the gas line, but it was too wet.

At least I am in the dry, even if it is very cold down there right now!

New Computer...and more

Well, my old PC lasted a very long time, but finally the motherboard 'gave up the ghost' a couple of weeks ago. I had to replace the whole computer (lots of things are breaking at the same time around here! See below) and in the process got a really small box with lots more memory on the hard drive and on the motherboard. Doesn't seem that much faster yet, but then, it's also running Windows 7, which is 2 generations past the XP I was using before.

The really, really frustrating thing is that even though I had a 'backup' of 'everything' on my old hard drive, I haven't yet figured out how to retrieve all my old emails and old contacts from the backup...but I hope I will!

In addition, over the last several weeks, these things have all broken down or had to be replaced...

• Our heating/air system first burned up its squirrel-cage fan, which had to be replaced to the tune of over $200...but then the thing had a freon leak, which resulted in a power bill over $500 for last month, and the leak could be fixed but not guaranteed, leading me to have to replace the whole heat pump system...and even though they added freon yesterday, the house is cold again today, and I'm out of firewood to use in the Buck stove insert!
• BJ had a minor wreck in his car, but since it was so old, the damage totalled it. So he's been driving one of my vehicles...he was driving my truck, and it quit on him...it's sitting in his yard in Kennesaw.
• And he was driving my little convertible, and a friend of his backed into it, doing some body damage that I HOPE she will fix...
• And now he's called me to say that the convertible is 'acting funny' and having to be jumped off, but this AM when he jumped it off, a friend's car's battery terminals were labeled backwards, so he hooked things up wrong, and now THAT car's on the side of the road somewhere in ATL...
• Not to mention that I had to replace an eye on the stove...
• And I haven't found the printer drivers for our computer printer yet!

Can you sense my frustration?

Oh well, that's life. You deal with it.