Builders Share

Winter Wonderland, Well...

We've enjoyed a real snowy lead-in to winter here in the northeast. It's a welcome change to recent years when we've wondered whether or not we were going to have winter at all. A snow-filled winter beats a cold and rainy winter every time.

The most recent storm dumped another 6 or 8 additional inches on what was already about 10-12. So when news came the other day that we might get a little rain just before Christmas, we weren't so worried about Christmas not being white. We were concerned, however, about the weight that the rain would add to all that snow.

Current building codes require roofs in the north to withstand heavy snow loads, but old houses like mine, were built before there were municipal codes. And although our house is pretty well built (using 8x8 hemlock beams for a timber frame and 4x6 hemlock rafters for the roof that's covered with 1" think sheathing) it wasn't necessarily built to withstand the 50lb/sqft. snow load required by today's roofs.

You might think, well, if the roof has survived for over 100 years with all kinds of heavy snowfall, why worry about it now? The big difference between now and the last 100 years is that now the house and roof are super-insulated. Where before, the heat from inside the house would constantly escape through the roof, thus melting the snow that fell there, now the insulation captures that heat and the roof remains cold allowing the snow to stick.

Most of our roof is steeply pitched, and will shed the snow if it gets too heavy. But on the ell section at the back of the house, the pitch is not as steep. Before heading out of town for the holiday, I climbed up and went to work with the shovel.

Anatomy of a Switch (part 2)

The old light switch in the mudroom served us well for these past three years but for the last month it started behaving as it did before I took it all apart and fixed it. 

About 70% of the time the switch worked as it should, and the remaining 30% you had to coax it some by wiggling the lever or turning it on and off again couple times.  The worst part was when the lights turned on and then went off after I ventured 30 feet into the barn and then was caught in the dark.  It was time for action.

The old switch (as you can see from the top picture) is mounted on a round plate that can be mounted on an old style octagonal electrical box.  I knew I had an old emergency switch for the furnace kicking around somewhere that was also mounted on a round plate.  I thought this would be the easiest replacement.

When I found the old furnace switch though, I realized that it was too big to mount on the antique box designed for the antique switch.  This meant I had to replace the box too, which meant I had to cut the conduit that ran into and out of the box so the larger box could fit.

This little job of replacing an old switch, like all little jobs around this old house renovation, got bigger real quick.

But the new old switch is in place, and though it doesn't have the charming click-tick of the antique one, it has a definite industrial strength CLICK! that seems more appropriate to entering a mud-room and barn than the ubiquitous "thook" sound that permeates the contemporary world of light switches.

It's the little things that count.

(Am I justifying an obsession???)

--handyman

Anatomy of a Switch (part 1)

When we first took possession of Chez Melendy, and before I started demolishing the interior as planned, I went around the house and tried to spot details that gave the old house the charm that we fell in love with.  I knew that by gutting the house, we risked ripping the soul right out of the thing we fell in love with, so I was careful in saving the tiniest of elements that might preserve its antique qualities.  Maybe too careful.

Just off the kitchen the house has a small "addition" that we now use as the mud room.  The previous owners used it more or less as a broom closet because it only had half a floor--actually a ramp that connected the kitchen to the barn.  I suspect that this little room was used as a woodshed when the kitchen had a wood cookstove, and before that, it was likely the outhouse when the house lacked indoor plumbing.

An early project in the evolution of Chez Melendy was to put a floor in that room and make it into a mudroom.  But let me tell you about the little light switch that controlled the light bulbs that dangled from the ceiling of the that little room and the barn.

The switch worked about 80% of the time and even then required some coaxing.  But I had never seen light switch quite like it. It has a cute little face made of bakelite plastic and has particularly charming click when you switch it.  It's more like a click-tick than click if you can imagine.

Three years ago when I repaired the switch for the first time, I was amazed at its design.  Behind the bakelite plastic face was a porcelain insulator, specially molded to contain the switch contacts and the toggle.  The toggle itself is complicated assembly of brass rods, a spring, and a brass roller.  When the switch is moved, the rods and the spring work on lever that shoots the roller through a channel molded in the porcelain.  Depending on which side of this little channel the brass roller rests determines whether the switch is on or off.  Ah! The early days of residential electrical engineering.

I couldn't throw this thing away.  I was determined to make it work efficiently once again.  The parts were all there, though a little worn by time and use.

It took about an hour, but I completely disassembled the switch and cleaned all the parts.  I noticed that the porcelain channel had developed a burr that was preventing the roller from passing through it consistently, and I was able to smooth it by scraping it with a screwdriver.

Putting the switch back together was a brain teaser.  I knew where everything went, but getting the brass rods positioned just right to compress the spring so that the roller could be slipped in the channel took a few tries, with the little brass roller shooting across the kitchen floor more than once.

But get it together I did, and when reinstalled, the switch served us well for three years in all its antique charming click-tick glory.

NEXT: the switch is retired....

Rub a Dub

The chapter on broken down trucks and forgotten supplies did, in fact, come to a close and the next day I got busy finishing the task of connecting the tub to the plumbing.

Before hooking up the supply lines, I needed a place for the water to go once it was in the tub, so the first order of business was connecting the tub drain to the trap and the DWV (drain, waste, vent) plumbing.  To do this, I had to lift the tub so I could install the tailpiece pipe.  The auto jack that I used for positioning the tub a few weeks ago (see Here's to Jack and Dolly) came in handy here again.  With the tub jacked up, I slipped the flange and the nut over the pipe and then screwed the threaded pipe into the junction piece.

I used a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade to cut the tailpiece pipe to the proper length for fitting into the trap, and then assembled the trap.  I emptied a few pitchers of water into the tub and opened the drain to check for leaks.  A professional might use compressed air to confirm that the piping maintains a certain p.s.i. but as long as I know water can drain and it's not going to end up in the living room, I'm satisfied.

Connecting the supply lines meant breaking out the torch and solder.  I was a little short with the roughed-in supply lines so I had to use two sleeves and a short length of 1/2" copper to connect the hot water.  I'm saving myself some work and money by not replacing the old tub fixtures.  They're nothing fancy but they're serviceable and as long as they don't drip, we'll be happy to use them.

I'll get around to re-painting the supply lines soon enough, but for now, the water's flowing where it's supposed to flow, holding where it's supposed to hold, draining where it's supposed to drain, and most importantly, everywhere else is high and dry.

handyman

Can't Catch a Brake

On Sunday, I finally dove into the task of connecting the old claw foot tub to the plumbing. 

To start with, I had to fix a mistake I made earlier when roughing in the DWV (drain waste vent).  The line between the tub drain trap and the main outlet wasn't at the proper pitch.  Fixing the problem meant cutting one of the lines, twisting it a few degrees, and re-coupling it.

After cutting the line and setting the trap line at the right pitch, I realized that I didn't have the right size coupler.  Did I mention this was Sunday?  Luckily, Dan & Whit's is only about 10 miles away. 

Dan & Whit's is a New England country store in the finest tradition.  Their motto is "If we don't have it, you don't need it," and I haven't found them to be wrong.  In a rambling set of buildings connected by narrow passages over uneven floors, Dan & Whit's provides the locals with everything they need seven days a week.

Since I was going to Dan & Whits, I decided to invite the family.  We all piled into the old Dodge truck and headed south.  After getting the essentials, it was lunchtime so we headed to the local pizza brew pub (that tries to approximate New York style pizza) and ordered a pie.

With our bellies full of pizza, and our back seat full of supplies for home renovation projects current and future, we piled back into the truck anticipating a productive afternoon of plumbing.  That's when I stepped on the brake pedal and it went straight to the floor.  Ugh!

I forgot to mention that on Sunday, the weather was holding at around 20 degrees and damp (a winter storm was on the way).  It was hard enough on my 40 something year-old skeleton, but obviously too much for my 14 year-old truck.  A puddle of brake fluid sat beneath the engine compartment, right under the master brake cylinder.

Well, with every little bit of bad luck comes some good.  The Howe Library which sat less than a block away was open on Sunday. Why was this lucky?  It provided warm shelter and entertainment for my wife and son while I drove the handicapped truck 10 miles home in low gear with flashers going along the breakdown lane hoping the parking brake would serve in a pinch.

With the truck back home sans incident, I jumped into my wife's car and went to retrieve the other two thirds of the family just minutes before closing time at the library.

The misadventure cost me most of the afternoon.  Plumbing would have to wait yet another day.  The truck will have to wait even longer.

handyman

Draft Dodgin'

Now that the temperature has dropped below 10 degrees Fahrenheit,  the character of our little old house becomes a little less charming.  Jets of cold air blow through every available crack, seen and  unseen.

Hold your hand up to an electrical outlet on an exterior wall and feel the breeze blowing through the receptacle holes.  Place the palm of your hand along the base of the wall and you get the feeling of grabbing a cold drink on a hot day.

Mind you this is true even after fully insulating the walls and sills and installing sealer kits in the receptacles. It is a constant battle to cut off all the places where cold air infiltrates the building envelope.  Short of ripping off all the siding and wrapping the house in Typar, drafts are us.

One exercise I indulge in every winter is to tighten-up my old house windows with plastic sheeting.  Some day I'll be able to rebuild each of these windows one at a time and make them tighter, but until then, I'll be sealing them up every November with temporary interior storm windows.

I make these storm windows by nailing strips of wood to the window jambs and then stapling clear vinyl to the face of the strips.  If I think the window is particularly drafty, I'll take packing tape and run it around the perimeter of the window to seal it up good.

I always use clear vinyl that can be purchased at some fabric stores.  It's cheaper than the window film kits you can buy at the hardware store and it's sturdy enough to use more than once.  The kits work well too, though, and are probably more convenient for most people who don't want to go to the trouble of cutting strips of wood.

These storm windows make a real difference in holding the heat in and keeping the cold air out.

handyman