Planning & Purchasing for upcoming Projects

It has been a rather uneventful weekend for house projects, though the credit card has been seeing some action in the service of upcoming projects. Using a sweet 20% discount coupon, we bought a bunch of R19 insulation batts for the basement, where there are a few bays in the laundry room without any insulation at all. We also learned about some energy efficiency initiatives, including a tax credit for adding insulation. We're also thinking about a couple of new storm doors (one for the kitchen and one for the pink room), but those projects will wait for now.

We would like to add insulation to the walls and ceiling, particularly in the areas of the house that always seem cold, like the kitchen. The trouble is, it's hard to figure out where there is already insulation. So it looks like we may get some thermal photography of the house done, so we can figure out what's worth doing, and where to do it.

We also made a trip to the attic to assess the vent pipe situation. BTW, all is well up there, no visible water or varmint problems that we could see.


As you may recall from earlier posts, this is the situation:

The Studor Mini-Vent will be our solution. Check out the stats here.

So we've placed our order for that, as well as some insulation and weatherstripping for the attic hatch. We're hoping that once these two tasks are done, we will have sealed off the last remaining source of moisture and warmth, and that our attic will be in tip-top condition.

I also set about ordering some objects to solve our hole problems, also known as some of the "WHHHAAAAAAT?" situations in our house. Specifically, we have a hole in the basement, on the chimney, currently filled by a red sweatshirt. I discovered that the piece we need is called a flue stop, so I've ordered one of those.
[I would normally advise against decorating ideas that begin, "Wouldn't it be funny if…" for much the same reason I advise against witty bumper stickers: Even if it's funny the first 100 times, that's still only the beginning. That 200th time you look at your joke wallpaper/bumper sticker, I guarantee it won't be funny. That said, we don't spend too much time in the basement, and wouldn't it be funny if we got this flue stop? -jb]

I also ordered a couple of really large corks to fill the weird hole in the bathroom floor.

So fans of 83 Durant can look forward to some small but hopefully successful and educational projects in the near future (probably over Spring Break).

We did do another draining of the boiler today, and found much less of the gnarly water.