Apparently this was posted in 2012, if the intro is to be believed. Din't know I went back that far with this thing. More Winter Prep. You'd think you'd know about this stuff by now. Sheesh.






Jeez, it's been a while since I posted. You should check out "Architectural Vestiges" because that's where I've been hanging out. If you like the drivel in THIS blog, you'll love "vestiges."

This is from two winters ago, but aside from the mention of the midterm elections, all still holds up.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR

 11-10-10

TURNING TO WINTER AND WHAT YOU CAN’T DO ABOUT IT

 

The wettest, coolest year in ever in Arkansas was, of course, followed by the hottest, driest ever. If that’s not incentive for moving to Canada, I don’t know what is. Also possibly the mid-term election results. Either way, more than my faith in Americans’ voting preferences is cracking.

I have received more calls than ever about plaster cracking. Not drywall, mind you, but plaster. It seems the extremes in temperature and moisture are playing havoc with the expansion and contraction gods, and they’re taking it out on you.

Hairline cracks can be taped with fiberglass mesh and floated smooth with drywall mud, but larger, deeper cracks may require special attention. Open the crack to a width of 3/16ths of an inch with a utility knife or paint scraper, making sure to expose the spaces in the wood lath behind. If the plaster is on brick, you don’t have to worry about the spaces. Like duh.

Create an inverted ‘v’ by making the bottom of the crack wider than the top, vacuum out the dust, wet down the crack with water from a squirt bottle, then fill the crack with setting-type joint compound. This stuff comes in powder form, will set up hard in the time indicated on the bag (20 to 90 minutes), and will bind the wall back together. Make sure to push the wet mixture deep into the crack with enough pressure to squeeze it through the spaces in the lath behind. Make sure it lies lower than the surface of the plaster, because after it dries, you will float out the repair with regular old drywall mud.

It’s a great way to spend the holidays, especially if Cousin Guido comes to visit with a large suitcase and his drum kit.

Old houses have some issues particular to them at this time of year, so I’m now going to chastise you for not attending to them.

Have you closed your foundation vents? How about the gable vents in the attic? You cretin. These only make your electric bill more astronomical than normal. And though some of you will erroneously assume that closing attic vents will lead to moisture buildup, trust me. Your old home’s attic is so full of air infiltration that you could put a humidifier up there and the steam it creates wouldn’t even condense.

Put some Styrofoam hose bibb covers onto your outside hose bibbs. And don’t ask me where the word ‘bibb’ comes from; I’m still trying to figure out the origin of ‘soffit,’ and I’ve been using that word for thirty-five years. Pipes near open foundation vents are subject to freezing first; wrap them or cover you damn vents already.

This has been a banner year for rats and mice; I found this out the hard way when I fired up my oven for the first time since spring (I cook exclusively outside in the hot months). Oh, my! The kitchen has a rather piquant aroma now, I can tell you. Time for the Easy-Off. I’ve been pretty successful with warfarin baits in my client’s homes, but I prefer a goodle fashioned mousetrap with peanut butter. Creamy Jif, of course. I wouldn’t touch the stuff, but the meeses love it. The problem with poison is that it sometimes leads to dead rodents in the wall. Then you’ll be calling me to extract them.

Okay, enough of that subject. Let’s talk about something much more pleasant; your house burning down.

The holidaze are upon you, and though the Grinch in me screams “Get them off!!,” (hey, Chuck! Remember that line from the 1996 OHD?) you are saddled with them. Don’t like it? Become an atheist. After the operation, you’ll hardly notice the difference. Everyone else will, though.

Several wonderful scenarios come to my mind at this time of year; the dog watering the tree in his own special way, the kids lopping off limbs with real light sabers you were stupid enough to give them for Christmas, Cousin Guido thumping away upstairs as he practices Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick.”

But the scene that pushes these out of the way is that of the wires in your wall sizzling before they ignite.

Holidays tend to see more of a load on your electrical circuits due to the electronic games, computers, DVD players and other gifty effluvia you people waste your money on (excuse me; that was rude! I meant to write ‘on which you waste your money’). Add the lights and the robot Santa and eight tiny reindeer on the roof, and you might be heading for disaster.

If you have had your old house completely rewired with grounded Romex (identified by a plastic white or yellow sheath surrounding a bare wire, a white wire and a black wire), and you have a large gray breaker box equipped with black switch-type breakers, you might be in the clear. If, however, you have screw-in fuses, you might already be on fire.

Most homes with these early fuse boxes have a much more limited electrical load capacity, and therefore can only handle so many Wiis and Xboxes.

Honestly, who comes up with these names? They’re complete undiluted drivel.

The fact that you might have ungrounded sheathed cable (usually indicated by silver sheathing or two-pronged receptacles) lets you know that power surges, spikes and close lightning strikes are not going to be safely directed into the ground. And even if you have three-pronged outlets, they should be checked by an electrician; many older homes have had these installed on a two-wire system.

If you go into the attic and can see two individual wires running side by side and held off the joists with white porcelain insulators, you have what is known as a ‘knob and tube’ system, which is the most ancient of all. Even if it is ancient and ungrounded, it only becomes unsafe when it is either covered with cellulose insulation, has its sheathing removed, or becomes overloaded. The insulating sheathing on this type of wire is cloth-covered rubber, which, if disturbed, will crumble like American voters’ resolve does every two years. And if something crosses the two wires, there will be many sparks and a nice warm conflagration next to which you can warm your toes.

So don’t overload your system. Remember that VOLTS are used as a measurement of how much power comes from the outlet (110 in most cases, 220 for stoves, air conditioners and dryers), but AMPS are the amount of load that each appliance draws. Microwaves, power tools, and toasters draw 20 to thirty amps, and most of the breakers in your house will trip beyond this level. Run two thirty amp appliances on one circuit, and the breaker will trip. But if it’s a screw-in fuse, it will burn out if you’re lucky. Otherwise, get the marshmallows.

Electricity is nothing to take lightly. Talk to an electrician before big chunks of sizzling power begin to roll around the house.

Some other things you haven’t though about because you’re too busy watching television shows about snarky people trying outdo one another’s snarkiness, or featuring decomposed bodies and how they got that way (really, who writes this ordure? And more importantly, why do you watch it?).

Have you got the ice melt? It won’t do you any good if it’s still at the hardware store after the Big Storm. Got candles? Have you outfitted at least one room with a gas space heater so you won’t freeze your butt off when the power is out for six days?

I heat my house exclusively with antique gas heaters, and I will laugh at your pleas to stay at my home as you shiver at the bottom of my stairs. And you won’t be able to climb them, either, because though I HAVE ice melt, I don’t use it on the stairs specifically to deter freeloaders like you.

Well, there you have it.

Chunks of falling plaster, freezing pipes, rats in the oven, your house going up in flames, falling on the ice, living in an unheated house for a week, and Cousin Guido practicing Led Zeppelin on his drums in your guest room upstairs. Have I left anything out?

Oh, yeah, decomposed bodies and the kids lopping off each other’s arms.

That should just about do it.

This is the Old House Doctor telling you to have a Big Merry One.

I need a drink.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR

9-27-12

GET TO WORK

 

You sit there all fat and happy, thinking, “Damn, I'm still running my air conditioner and it's October!” Okay, the summer’s lasted since April, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore the fact that your old house has been aging and falling apart beneath the couch that supports your fat ass. Get up and gather some tools, me bucko, because I’m puttin’ you to work.

Yes, it’s time to think about winter.

I know, I know. Footble’s beginning and baseble’s just getting interesting and the Fed Eggs Cup’s finished and all that. Shut up and grab a ladder or you’re really going to be sorry when your house collapses on you during the Superbole.

I KNOW you don’t have a ladder, but you know someone who does. Let them borry your Stop Making Sense DVD and you borry their ladder; that’s the way it works.

Get up and examine your roof. Be careful; all these things are dangerous. You’ve been warned.

If there are leaves in your gutters, wait until the trees start to drop them before you clean them out….but wait! Because you’re ESPECIALLY lazy, you didn’t clean them out LAST year. Put on some gloves and pull that yuck out of the gutters or they might collapse with the extra weight after flooding your precious wood eaves with overflowing water. Tap on your upper downspout elbows; if the ring hollow, you’re blessed, and if they sound full, you are in league with BeezleBoob hisself. But even BB can be handled if you dig the goop from the elbows, put a coathanger down them (unwind it first, you dope), and flush them out with your hose. Whattaya mean you don’t have a hose?! BORRY one, dammit! Bribe someone with some brownies (easy on the hash, you stoner!) or let them watch your “Bewitched” DVD collection. Who can resist Lizzie Montgomery? Not me, that’s for sure.

Maybe you don’t have gutters. Maybe you don’t have a roof. Maybe you live in a cardboard box under the Markham Street Viaduct. If that’s the case, I know what this paper’s going to be used for once you’re done reading it.

But if you don’t have gutters, look for leaves gathered in your roof’s valleys; they can hold water and cause backup leaks during the winter, especially when they ice up.

If your roof is too steep to comfortably walk on, stay off it and put a long extension on your rake to reach the leaves in the valley. Do this while it’s dry and it will be a lot easier than after the rains start.

If your roof is walkable, you might as well check your roof vents and metal flashing for gaps. If gaps are found, they should be cleaned out then filled with clear silicone or polyurethane caulk. Do not use water-based caulks like painters’ caulk or cold-process tar-in-a-tube. The tar dries out and crax and the painters’ caulk will dry, separate, and grow mildew. Soon the spores will enter your brain and you’ll start listening to Raunch Limburger as you beat people to a pulp with you protest sign reading “WE DON’T KNEED KNOW HELTH CAYR.’ Which is kind of oxymoronic, if you really think about it. Don’t think about it. I tried, and now my head hurts. Mighta been that guy with the sign.

While you're up there you might as well look for gaps around your chimney/roof joint. Push on the roofing around the roof near the chimney to find any soft spots; that's where water tends to penetrate and rot the decking below.

Another thing you can do to check for leaks around your vents is to look where they penetrate the decking from below, which means you need to get up in your attic with a flashlight. Don't walk on the spaces between the wood joists or you'll fall through the ceiling, you dope. If you check the vent penetrations (pipes that go through the roof)  while it's raining outside it'll make the exam easier. Also look around for squirrel nests (bunches of sticks and leaves piled up near the eaves), light coming through the eaves, and bats roosting in the rafters. Clear out the squirrel nests during the day (squirrels are diurnal, and if you don't know what that means, buy a frickin' dictionary) and leave the bats alone until summer. I'll have written an arktickle about how to humanely remove them by then.

One thing about silicone and polyurethane caulk. They must be cleaned off your hands with mineral sprits (which is certainly NOT turpentine), or you’ll end up with black marks on your hands, and those won’t come off until the Springsteen Administration. The marks, not your hands.

If you have gable vents (those triangular slats below the pointy part of your roof; God, I don’t know how your species has survived to this point), check them while you’re still laddered. Be careful! Wasps love to nest up there. You should have screen or hardware cloth behind them, in the attic. If it’s missing, get back up into the Hot Place and tack some up. Otherwise you’ll become host to many more little bats, which are nice to have because they eat mosquitoes, but you really don’t want them in your house. They tend to stink it up even worse than what YOU managed to do. Hard to believe, I know.

Once you're back on terra firma, close your foundation vents until it gets hot again, probably February next year (thanks, Exxon/Mobil and the coal industry!). Tap the bottoms of your downspouts like you did up on the ladder (you DID thump them while you were up there, didn't you?), and if they don't ring hollow, take them apart and clean them out. If they drain into an underground conduit, put a hose into the conduit and see if it's really draining. Many old clay pipes have roots clogging them; if the drain backs up you can have The Rooter Guy snake it out (oh my!) or you can bypass it entirely, letting the downspout drain on the ground. If you do, add an extension to keep the water away from your foundation.

So, there you have it. Ladders, Talking Heads, Coathangers, Rooter Guys, BeezleBoob. It all leads to disaster. I suggest you get some gin and tonic and remember summer the way you should; in a drunken stupor. But only AFTER you’ve got the leaves from where they oughtn’t be and  done all that other stuff I tole you to.

I’ll ignore as many letters posted to my blog as you can send. Just go to http://oldhousedoctor.blogspot.com.You’ll wish you hadn’t. Once you've become disappointed in that, check out http://architecturalvestiges.blogspot.com . Then you'll REALLY be depressed. You cretin.

 

           This is one of my last arktickles for The Lovely County Citizen, and is surprisingly non-humorous. Possibly because my wife had just announced her desire for a divorce. If I'd known how good it was for both of us, I'd have injected a little more levity.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR

                           3-7-05

FROM THE PAST

          Isn’t it funny how things can come out of the past and chomp you a good one on the tookus? Such as the fact that the well pump on my eleven-year-old log cabin went out last month, and when we pulled it out, the date on it was 1981. Oh yes, we got a big laugh out of that one all right, ha ha. Paying thirteen hundred bucks for something you already have is quite humorous, I can tell you.

          The same thing is true when it comes to old houses. You don’t know what bozo homeowner or contractor has done in the past to create latent problems with which you will eventually have to deal. And sometimes it’s fads or building code changes that makes our miserable lives truly humorous. Ha ha.

Take aluminum electrical wiring, for instance. In the sixties and seventies, it was thought that aluminum wiring would create major savings in the building business, as it was cheaper than copper. It turned out to be a dangerous thing to have; aluminum wire expands and contracts as AC current pulses through it, causing it to loosen at connecting points such as junction boxes, switches and receptacles. This can cause arcing (loose chunks of electricity) and as a result, possible electrical fires.

To find out if you have aluminum wiring, you can look in your junction boxes, located in your attic or crawlspace. First turn off the circuit that you want to examine (it’s best to throw the main breaker or unscrew all the fuses), then unscrew the cover to the box and look inside with a flashlight. Aluminum wire is silver and copper wire is, well, copper-colored. It is even possible to have a mixed system with both types of wire.

What to do if you have it? You can ignore it, of course. Many homes have aluminum wire and live long and healthy lives. You can replace it, but that is an expensive process of snaking new wires through walls. Or you can routinely tighten your connections. Best to talk to an electrician about your options.

 THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 11-24-02

TRIX OLD AND NEW

          People who have worked on (or lived in) old houses have seen a lot of tricks to make the hideous appear, well, less hideous. Just look around YOUR old house. Do you have flattened tin cans nailed over holes in the floor? Of course you do, and some of you are darn proud of it. Ever pulled off a piece of trim to find ancient newspapers filling the void behind it? I have. ‘Insulation of the worst sort, it is’, as Yoda would croak. It might keep out the “draffs”, but it feeds the termites and mices. Steel wool, chewing gum, wads of tape, all have been used to seal the cold wind out. Usually in a pinch, when you’re drinking coffee on a lazy Sunday morning and the cold wind inside your house just gets to be too much.

          I have found toothpaste filling wall holes (this is one you renters [and yes, you too, Barbara]) have used for years. Works great on white walls. Just don’t try it with the blue or red stuff. I’ve personally used corks to fill round holes in floors, and will readily attest to its efficacy. I can’t tell you how often I’ve found scraps of glass covering window holes, artfully attached with scotch tape.

          Most people would patch cracks and voids in plaster with setting-type joint compound, followed by paper tape and drywall mud. Floated to a thin line, of course. Many, though, would rather stick a piece of duct tape over the crack, and, if they were feeling especially energetic, splash some paint on top of it. Hopefully it matches. It’s not exactly the kind of repair I would make, but I don’t care what you do. It looks good from my house. And makes for a good laugh later on.

          There are lines that, when crossed, make things go awry. Use just any old chunk of scrap wood to shim that porch joist, and you may pay for it with a swayed floor. Use pressure treated wood for any foundation-to-structure shim. Filling old mortar joints with “Quickcrete” might work for a while, but the hard mortar might very well cause the softer brick to flake and crack as the years go by. Then where would you be? Probably hiding in your ramshackle house, watching reruns of “Love Boat” and sucking the filling from maple doughnuts while you take down license numbers of illegally parked cars.

          Oh, yes, precious. You KNOW who you are. And so does everyone else.

                       THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 1-11-04

FIX YOUR OWN DAMN WATER HEATER

Dear Old House Doctor,

            My water heater has stopped heating water. Could it be the electrical connection? What in the world can I do?

            Signed

            Filthy From Not Bathing

           

Dear Filthy,

            I hold my nose as I answer. Your electric water heater is suffering from Lime-o-nitis. It has built up so much lime that the lower element has burned out. As you say, What can you do?

            You could smoke a couple of bongs and go into the woods to burn a circle, but praying does little for electric water heaters. I know, because God told me that she wants you to use natural gas.

            Okay, I’ll tell you how to rejuvenate your electric water heater, but you’d better be prepared to work at it. Otherwise you need to shell out up to four hundred bucks for a new one, and I know you have more bongs to do, so bear with me for a couple of weeks whilst I explain this.

            Electric water heaters heat water using an element that comes in contact with the water itself, as opposed to gas heaters that use flames to heat the tank. With me so far? Good. The water around here has a lot of lime in it (calcium carbonate to you cavers), and the action of heating causes oxidation, which coats your heating elements with a hard white scale. This eventually causes the element to burn out. Don’t axe me why, it just DOES.

            Your electric water heater has two elements; one halfway up the tank, and one at the bottom. The bottom element does the lion’s share of the work, and is the first to burn out. HINT; if you replace one, replace the other! Labor is the main expense in any construction project, unless you build with gold or platinum. Anyway, you don’t need to toss the whole thing. A couple of hours work will make your electric water heater last nearly forever. Trouble is, you need to do this every other year.

            Do WHAT?, you axe. Unh-unh-unh. You gotta wait til necks time. Cold showers for you, you dweeb.

          THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 2-9-04

ELECTRIC WATER HEATER REPAIR II

            In our last episode, we discussed why the lime in your water burns out water heater elements. Now I’m going to tell you what to do about it.

            Find the breaker for the water heater and turn it OFF to keep you from dying. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.

 Turn the cold water to the heater off. Connect a hose to the drain valve at the bottom of the tank and open it, then SLOWLY lift the lever to open the pressure relief valve (it’s near the top of the tank). Don’t scald yourself. This will drain the thing. If you can’t find these things, you are either incompetent or unlucky, and should call a plumber. Or a psychic.

            You should already have picked up an element wrench (six bucks at the plumbing supply). Remove the element cover at the bottom of the tank and disconnect the two wires. You already threw the breaker, RIGHT? The tank has drained, HASN’T IT? Place the element wrench over the nut and turn it left (lefty loosey / righty tighty). Once it is loose, try to pull it out of the hole (oh my!). If it’s stuck, it is probably because the element has a lot of scale, or is shaped like a doubled-up U. Use a large screwdriver to knock off the scale and to compress the ends of the element together. Do this by using the edge of the hole as a fulcrum. This may take some work, but keep at it, using a flashlight to see what your doing. Do the same thing to remove the upper element.

            Once the element is out, take it to the plumbing supply and get another; make sure to get the same type, as they have two different thread sizes.

            Then do the whole thing in reverse order. Close the drain but not the pressure relief valve, and turn on the cold water. Once full, water will try to come out the P.R.valve; close it and go to your upstairs sink, turning on the hot water to drain the air out of the system. If you don’t, the trapped air will burn out your new elements.

            Next time: Removing the Remaining Lime! A trade secret.

              THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 2-23-04

ENOUGH WITH THE WATER HEATERS AWREDDY

            I know that I told you how to replace your electric water heater’s elements last time, but I want you to go back in time so you can clean it out while it’s empty. Just go to www.gobackintime.com  to find out how.

            You’ve successfully wrested the lime-encrusted elements from their holes and your last (and most important) task is to clean out the lime that fills the bottom of the tank. If you don’t, the lime granules will breed new lime on your elements, and then where would you be? Snurfling for crusted gum on the bottoms of bus benches, I bet.

            Borrow a friend’s shop-vac, get some duct tape and a two-foot section of the largest diameter garden hose you can find. Make a long handled scoop that will fit through the element hole and reach the other side of the tank (I prefer a cheap camping ladle with the spoon ground down). Use a flashlight to check your progress as you scrape the lime granules towards the front of the tank.

            Lime that gathers at the bottom of the tank is not solid; it fell off the elements. These granules are easily moved to the front of the tank, where you can vacuum them out with the piece of garden hose you duct-taped onto the shop-vac hose. Your piece of garden hose will clog almost immediately, and squeezing the hose firmly (oh my!) to break up the clogs will be a constant task. The lime is crushed easily, and though this task of scooping, vacuuming, crushing and peering with your flashlight seems monotonous, the boredom can be assuaged with regular doses of fine tequila.

            The whole process may take a half an hour or so, but keep at it until the bottom of the tank is completely clean and your vacuum weighs more than your Saint Bernard. Squeezing the hose constantly is the key, and letting the vacuum rest occasionally will keep it from burning up, as stepping down the hose size makes it work harder. Then go to www.goforwardintime.com to find your job done and your hot bath waiting.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 10-11-04

POTENT PRESERVATION POTABLES

          An old house dweller (OHD) has many tools in the household kit; vise-grips, duct tape and WD-40 are always within easy reach at my house. If it moves, and it shouldn’t, use duct tape. If it should move and doesn’t, you’ve got WD-40. And almost everything else can be crimped, loosened, tightened or whacked with a pair of regular-duty vise-grips.

And no old-house-dweller worth their salt would be without the necessary tool kit for internal adjustments; I refer, of course, to a well-stocked liquor cabinet. All suggestions are for après labor, of course.

          Got a water heater to replace? Or a refrigerator with which you’d like to decorate your porch?? Beer and sangria are the professionals’ choice for such a task. Easy on the brain, no falling down. I recommend Rolling Rock and Yago.

          Up on ladders? Using power tools? Stay off the booze, friends, until you stop. Then a nice vodka and tonic in summer or hot buttered rum in winter can round out the day. Don’t waste the Belvedere on mixed drinks, though; stick with Gilbey’s.

          Just bought yourself an old house? You fool. Take a few slugs of cheap whiskey, because you won’t be able to afford anything else for the next decade or two.

          Just sold your old house for a profit? Congratulate yourself with a bottle of Moet and Chandon champagne. If you plan to buy a new, maintenance-free log cabin, buy a case.

          For nasty plumbing problems that require crawling around in the sewage that leaked out your water closet drain, only tequila will take that taste away. I just love the quaint term “water closet,” don’t you? It brings up visions of turn-of the-century hotels with Brett Maverick in the bar downstairs. Drinking Don Eduardo anejo, no doubt.

          For masonry problems, especially those that cause your home to slide downhill, the fashionable OHD turns to gin martinis. Just one word; Beefeater.

          Need a new roof? An entire rewiring in order? Building inspector sent you a fax that’s on its eighteenth page? The hell with it. Absinthe is the drink for you. A little wormwood goes a long way!

OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 1-21-02

HOME SELF-EXAM

PART 1

          Now that Grandpa has been sent back to the future (did I hear a collective sigh of relief?), we can get back to keeping up with your home’s health. I’m going to teach you to perform a seasonal home self-exam so that when Cletis the Plumber or Jayfus the Roofer comes to you with a repair bid, you’ll have some foreknowledge of its details. You might even be able to head off those guys, if you do this twice a year. Catch the smaller problems BEFORE they turn into monsters.

          Your home’s greatest enemies are time, moisture and yourself, though not necessarily in this order. And as every GUY knows (can I get a group HARUMPH?), worming around your crawlspace is the best indicator of a home’s health. There isn’t a guy in the world that can truly resist an old house’s spider-infested basement. Well, only a few, but they’re dead. But I’m sure it’s not from spider bites. Put on your overalls, we’re goin’ underground.

          The crawl should be DRY. Covering the dirt with clear plastic will keep the moisture away. The masonry piers that support the floor joists toward the center of the house should make full contact, be plumb (straight), and the mortar should be solid. If not, add shims and repoint. Any water or gas pipes need to be off the ground, as should those electric lines. Attach them all to the floor joists with proper hangers and staples. Chewed-on electric cable can be wrapped with electric tape IF no more than one of the wires has been exposed, but it’s best to get Elmo the Electrician to do it. That way I won’t get sued. Examine the areas below the bath and kitchen for leaks or wet wood. Are there pinholes throughout your joists? You may have boring beetles, though they don’t like to be called that. Poke your wood with an awl or screwdriver to test its integrity around termite damage. Look for moist mud tunnels around piers and masonry. You might have active termites. If so, call Porky the Pest Guy.

          I’ll be giving a talk on Home Self-Exams Thursday January 24^th (hey, that’s tonight!) at 7 PM at The Community Room on the Square in Berryville. Y’all come.

         

         

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 2-9-02

KNOW YOUR HOME’S HEALTH

PART TWO

          Last time, we talked about your crawlspace, and how it is a gauge of your home’s health. You put on overalls and wormed around with a flashlight, looking for telltale signs of rot such as colonies of glowing fungi shaped like Newt Gingrich. You cursed the fact that you even read this stupid column, and doubly cursed that you’re gullible enough to actually TRY this stuff. Well, keep those overalls on, because we’re going up top now.

          Your attic has the top job (HaHa) of your home’s components: to keep the rain away from the structure. Once up there, turn off your flashlight and look for the light coming through the cracks. Never mind that the spiders have moved closer to you in the dark. Cracks of light near the eaves are natural in old homes, unless they can admit squirrels. Patch them with hardware cloth if you see squirrel sign such as plant material or droppings.

          Another visitor is the bat. They like your roof’s tight spots in the peak, and, unless they are in numbers, pose no great risk. Their droppings, though, can cause respiratory problems, so bring a dust mask with you. Do not harm them, it is illegal and VERY bad karma.

          That mask might also keep you from breathing the fiberglass insulation fibers in the air. Old houses NEED as much insulation as they can get, and the standard 3 ½ inches isn’t half enough. Insulating your roof rafters is a no-no: the heat trapped between the insulation and the shingles will cut your roof’s longevity in half unless a ventilated air space is provided.

          Look at the roof joints, especially around vent and chimneys that penetrate the roof decking. Black streaks indicate a leak, but if it is dry during rain, it is a past leak. Touch the area to make sure it’s dry. Examine the underside of the ridge as well. Most leaks can be stopped with an application of cold-process roofing tar or silicone. No, it must be applied OUTSIDE the attic.

          Check your A/C ducts for leaks, your electrical wires for chewed areas. Seal either with the proper tape. If TWO adjacent wires are exposed, call Elmo the Electrician.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 6-10-11

FUCKING BUGS AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY TO KILL THEM

OR FOR YOU MORE TIMID SORTS,

KNOW YOUR BUGS, THEN KILL THEM

According to Doctor E.O. Wilson of Harvard University, there are over ten quintillion insects in the world, give or take a few billion. And I’ll bet there are some pissing you off right now. So I’m going to write about what you can do about them.

I don’t mean building ant farms or hiring them to pull little wagons; I mean how to recognize and get rid of them. Notice I didn’t say ‘how to preserve them.’ This isn’t “Wild Kingdom.” And I don’t much like dealing with formaldehyde myself. Preservation, indeed. We are not children here.

Now, don’t all you entomological types get up on your soapboxes. Oh, okay, go ahead; you’ve nothing else to do, being entomologists, and you look so silly up there. I could use the entertainment.

I do not condone killing bugs wholesale; there are undoubtedly many services they perform, other than making my idiot of a neighbor scream in pain when he steps on a stinging one. THAT’S sometimes worth it. But most are just plain impossible to live with. Bugs, not neighbors. Though in his case…

Take spiders. Yes, I know they’re not technically bugs. They’re not even arthropods, they’re arachnids. But just get one crawling on you in your sleep and see if you care.

The only two spiders you should care about are the black widow and the brown recluse. Both can hurt you, and the black widow can kill you outright.

Black widows love darkness and wet. I most often find them in the water meter enclosure, and they are so beautiful that I hate to kill them, but I usually do. I don’t want a meter reader or plumber or homeowner to open the meter box and have a fourteen inch spider grab their faces and suck them dry.

Actually, black widows seldom grow to more than three quarters of an inch across. They are shy, gloss black, hairless, and play the piano quite well, thank you. The females have a bright red hourglass shape on the underside of their abdomens to identify them as extremely poisonous. Isn’t that handy? Either Mother Nature or God has a sick sense of humor when you have to turn over the most dangerous spider in this hemisphere to identify it.

Okay, if it’s shiny, black and slick, kill it or leave it alone.

The brown recluse, on the other hand, is much more common. There are hundreds in your house right now.

Here is a picture of one. If you see it, kill it.

  They are low to the ground, splayed-out-looking, light tan to dark brown, hairless, and look more like crabs than spiders. Though they tell you there is a violin shape on their backs (there is), their thoraxes are so tiny that by the time you identify the mark the damn thing has jumped into your blouse. That’s a lie; they don’t jump. They will crawl into your bed, though.

The recluse bite tends to rot your skin and muscle adjacent to the bite, leaving a huge, seeping, stinking wound that will eventually heal after depriving you of muscle tissue and a social life. They hide in linens, shoes, and anywhere they can spin their messy little webs. Vacuum around and under the bed and in the window sills. They are scavengers as well as live feeders.

Kill them. I mean it.

All other spiders should be left alone. They kill all those bugs you hate and are no threat to you. As a bonus, if you kill one, the spider God Ulthalla will sneak into your room at night and relieve you of your insides. It’s not pretty.

Cockroaches have been on this planet for longer than most species; they go back to the Silurian, when frogs were the size of Volkswagens and everything was swamp. Come to think of it, things haven’t changed all that much in Arkansas.

There are two types of cockroaches in my estimation; little ones and big ones. Oh, I hear the entomologists moaning again. Somebody feed them some grubs or mealworms.

The big ones show up one at a time, and the uneducated among you (The Majority) call them Water Bugs or Palmetto Bugs. This is a lie, people. They are cockroaches. GIANT cockroaches. They crawl through spaces air can’t even penetrate and they leave disgusting roach slime all over your food. If you manage to smack one with a flyswatter, they just look at you. Then they fly up in the air, land on the back of your neck, and crawl down your shirt.

Don’t think you’ve got ‘em? Look in your food pantry and under your sink. If you see tiny black round specks the size of tiny poppyseeds, you have them. This is their offal, their ordure.

These roaches are normally absent in the winter, but as soon as the spring rains come, they come a-callin’. Then they come around again when the weather turns hot and dry, because they are attracted to water.

Forget traps. Use a chemical spray under your sink  and along the paths upon which they travel. Ortho’s Home Defense is a good one; it comes in a large container with a pump-up handle and will pretty much banish the buggers. Spray baseboards, kickplates under cabinets, and under the fridge. Keep your sink cabinet clean and dry, spray there, and they will go elsewhere.

Little roaches, however, are difficult to exterminate. These are the half-to-three quarter inch variety, and they come out in numbers. You have them because you inherited them from a filthy individual or they hitched a ride home from another filthy individual. If you leave dirty dishes around, if you leave your trash to fester, they will come. And they are a nightmare to eliminate. I suggest the same chemicals and to clean up your act. Do NOT bring home paper bags or liquor boxes; they love the taste of glue and will be happy to relocate and then breed.

Let’s talk about the flea.

You can’t crush them, because they’ll just laugh and bounce away. They can jump the equivalent of you leaping a twelve-story building. They suck blood and killed most of Europe in the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

If you have them, they likely came from pets. Treat your pet with one of the chemicals that sterilize the females (Advantage and Revolution are two), and they will begin to die. It just takes a few drops placed between your pet’s shoulders to start the killing, then do it once a month.

If you have an infestation, get rid of your rug; that’s where they incubate. Sorry, it’s unlikely you can clean it of eggs. Remove all your cushions, take them outside, and vacuum your furniture. Vacuum the house BIGTIME. Wash your bedding and vacuum your bed, as well as the area beneath it. Go to the vet’s or the Farmer’s Association on Stagecoach Road and get VetKem or some seriously expensive spray with which to treat your cushions.

The most important thing is to keep the pets treated once a month with the sterilization drops. They will eventually go away.

Little black ants come into your kitchen and take over. What to do?

Wipe up the kool-aid and sweet stuff, go down to Besser Hardware and buy a small bottle of Terro Liquid. The ants will gather round the inch-wide pool you squeeze onto the counter (do it along their scent path), lap it up, and then they will disappear. Rinse and repeat if necessary. The stuff is very low in toxins and will do the trick.

My favorite bug (okay it’s an arachnid) is the chigger.

Small red dots the size of the point of a pin, these little boofers are the bane of humans in the summer woods of Arkansas. They live a charmed life, hanging on the edge of a blade of grass until they sense something warm-blooded walking by. Then they stretch out their tiny claws and get on your pants.

Before you can say ‘knife,’ the chigger crawls on your skin to constricted area such as your waistband or socks, where they find a pore. Then they bite     into it and secrete a substance that is both caustic and anesthetic, numbing the fact that your cell walls are dissolving. They suck up a minute amount of your protoplasm/blood/nuclei/mitochondria/farandolae (a tippo of the ol’ hat to Madeline L’Engle there), and then crawl off of your skin, dropping off into the grass to go and find a mate. Your blood helps to make many, many more chiggers.

And there’s the rub. You never get ONE chigger bite. You get fifty or a hundred. And the cell walls they infested continue to dissolve, making you itch for weeks. The common myth is that they die in your body, but that’s a lie. Nothing lives to die inside you unless it reproduces first, and chiggers just don’t play that.

Coat your constricted areas with DEET if you are going into the woods in summer, or if you want a less poisonous repellent, go online and get some Cactus Juice. Made from prickly pear extract, this crème smells like oranges, is non-greasy, and a tiny amount will keep the little boofers at bay for hours.

I haven’t even gotten to termites, mosquitoes, wasps, yellowjackets, or Sarah Palin yet! Stay tuned!

Next time; MORE bugs to kill! Summer’s just started.

Got a problem with my opinions, or, more likely, want to buy me drink? E-mail me at king.oldhousedoctor@gmail.com. I’ll be waiting.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 6-21-11

FUCKING BUGS AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY TO KILL THEM PART TWO

“THEM WHAT STINGS”

I just can’t get enough bugs in my life, yaknowwhattamean, Vern?

Well, the bugs must think that, because they just won’t leave me alone.

Now I know that TRUE bugs are actually an entomological term, and they are actually different than wasps, dragonflies, and Mitt Romney. Okay, scratch that last one. And add Michelle Bachman to the list. Since she claims that carbon dioxide is such a harmless gas I figure that wrapping her in a plastic bag can only be good for the nation. We just have to make sure we don’t harm her antennae; she needs to sense every minute of the experience so she can tell us all about it in her next misinformational press conference.

So back off, bug scientists; this is MY column.

One of the banes of old house dwellers is that old houses present many places for stinging insects to nest. Since I’m still on my bug kick from last time, I shall continue.

Let’s talk about wasps.

Paper wasps come in a variety of colors, and all will sting you if you disturb them. Wasps and hornets have smooth stingers that can be used again and again, as opposed to the honeybee, which has a barbed stinger. This means that when a honeybee stings you, half its entrails are left behind along with the stinger. The bee goes off and dies, which is unfortunate. Bees are cool; don’t kill them. They eat nectar and make honey and little bees. Without them, you will die. Farms cannot function, flowering plants will not propagate. Pray for the world’s domestic bees, for they are in grave danger from apiary fungus and the invasion of imported, aggressive species that kill domestic hives and do not pollinate as prolifically.

Paper wasps, though, are aggressive and will attack you en masse. The red ones make small nests with up to five or six members of the colony, but the yellow striped variety make much larger nests and will defend their territory until you run away screaming with hundreds constantly stinging you.

If you have a red wasp nest, avoid it. If the wasps are striped with yellow, hire someone to destroy it, or you will be sorry.

         

      I nearly put my face into this nest on Arch Street. It was a dark morning.

Paper wasps, bad as they are, are the impotent little brother of the yellowjacket. Yellowjackets are hornets, and come in two varieties. There are those that live in the ground and those that live in wall cavities; the wall-cavity dwellers are referred to as European Hornets. Both will be happy to kill you.

More yellowjacket attacks happen because of lawnmowers disturbing the nest than for any other reason. They issue forth in a huge cloud and sting the hell out of anything warm-blooded; if it’s you, you are doomed. They fly at forty miles per hour, can constantly sting every second, and will follow you for a quarter mile to make their point. If you find a nest, call a professional; if you are stupid and brave, pour gasoline down it. Do not do this, really. They often have more than one entrance to the nest.

I am allergic to yellowjackets; five stings from a red wasp attack leaves me hurting, but three from yellowjackets is my limit before a hospital visit. If you are allergic, get your doctor to prescribe an epi-pen, and keep it with you. This is a one-time emergency syringe with enough steroids to keep your throat from closing after you’re stung, which is a handy thing, I can tell you. Stab your thigh right through your clothes, and hopefully you won’t die from anaphylactic shock.

Other ground-dwelling waspids to avoid (seriously, do NOT disturb or bother these, as they are non-aggressive but have extremely painful stings) are the cicada killer and the tarantula hawk. The cicada killer resembles a huge hornet, and the tarantula hawk is a large black wasp with red or orange wings. The cicada killer grows up to three inches long and the Arkansas variety of tarantula hawk seldom tops an inch and a half. Both dig an L-shaped tunnel and then go in search of large prey such as spiders and small dogs.

I have seen cicada killers two and a half inches long, clumsily flying back to their nest with a poor drugged locust. They will stuff their stunned prey into the tunnel, lay an egg in it, and go off to die. The young wasp wakes surrounded by food, and after eating their host alive a little at a time, emerges as a full-grown three inch wasp. This is a real-life “Alien.”

Have respect; leave them alone.

                    How many times do I need to tell you? LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!

If you have a bees’ nest in your home, I pity you. Wild bees are wonderful in trees in the wild, but a nuisance in the home, and are unlikely to be charmed into leaving. In fact, because of the apiary fungus spreading through domestic hives in the U.S.A., the rule is to kill the wild hive to staunch the spread of this very harmful condition. If you have a nest in your walls, the moisture from it will eventually dissolve the interior wall of your home, and they will come in for a visit.

Sorry, bees. I love you, but you need to go, and that usually means death if you nest in my house.

Individual bees should be left alone. They are your friends.

Bumblebees are not as goofy as you might think. Despite the fact that physicists keep telling them that their wings are too puny to allow them to fly (I’m not making this up), they do it anyway because they can’t read. They will live in any cavity that will allow them access, and if you disturb their nest, one will bumble around in front of you, lulling you into a sense of security. Meanwhile six more will sting your neck from behind. Leave them alone.

I grew up in Texas, where the centipedes grow to twelve inches and have two-inch stingers on their butts. Sporting orange legs and dark red bodies, I’m not sure why I avoided them; they’re just so darn cute. My point is that in Arkansas, even little centipedes can sting. Stomp them into centipaste if they invade your territory, otherwise let them go about their evil little business.

Scorpions are rife anywhere rock cavities occur; they like dry, cool places. I had a cabin in the Ozarks that apparently had an upside-down dance floor for these guys above my bed, because that’s where they’d perform. Kill them. They have very painful stings similar to hornets, and will hit you with that tail as many times as they can before they drop off the bed and crawl beneath it. Kill them as soon as you see them. The smaller and more transparent they are, the more wallop they pack. KILL THEM!!

Mud daubers, believe it or not, have a very powerful sting, but are so non-aggressive that most people think they don’t sting. Yes, they do. Leave them alone or whap them if they infest your shop. Just stand and listen for their buzzing while they go about their business in their nest; you’ll hear them.

Carpenter bees are solitary bumblebees that bore small round holes in wood, then fly about to guard their hole. They are not dangerous, though they can sting. I have several at my house, and they are pure entertainment. Leave ‘em be.

Fire ants must be destroyed. My country neighbors pour gasoline in their mounds, and I don’t know if that’s any more harmful to the environment than using the expensive toxins made for that purpose. I HATE them and kill them any way I can. I leave the big red ants alone; they don’t seem to bother me.

Speaking of ants, if you come across a big hairy ant with red and black fur, leave it alone! It is a velvet ant, a type of wasp. It means no harm to you, but it will sting you if you bother it. Observe it and learn how to get along with your environment.

Funny how I started out this colulumn killing everything, but as soon as I got to the stinging, dangerous bugs, I tell you to leave many of them alone.

Hey, there’s still Ron Paul, though he seems to keep his other two appendages hidden. I always thought he was that crossdresser with the TeeVee shows. Go figure.

Bitch at me at king.oldhousedoctor@gmail.com. Then go eat a bug.

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR

12-21-01

GRANDPA

          “Why, back in MY day,” Grandpa said as he sat on the pile of rubble that was once the Crescent Hotel, “we had ALL kind of tech-know-logical marvels….. ONLY THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED HERE WERE TOO LAZY TO USE ‘EM!!!” The group of children at his feet were taken aback by his tone. No one spoke loudly and vehemently about opinions since the PC Act of 2023. Grandpa continued. He didn’t hold to PC.

          “Sure as kin be, and you don’t believe me!” he spit. “Why, those lazy bugggers wouldn’t even go out in the rain to look at their houses to see where the water was soaking the woodwork!” The kids yawned. Old people DO rave.. “And NOW look around you.” He swept his arm widely, nearly bowling over Tquiera. “None of the old buildings left.” A heavy sigh was heard. The children looked around.

          He was right. They had all seen pictures of the town back at the turn of the century, and at the turn of the century before. It was beautiful, with a rich mix of stone, iron and wood architectural elements. The early city had built in the trees, then had stripped the forest around it. The restored city of the late twentieth century had a robust mix of buildings and trees, but the population elected to preserve the trees and ignore the buildings. The trees grew, and the buildings declined.

          The scene in the Eureka valley was a mixed jumble of foliage, plastic, chrome and lines that held no concert with one another. Curves fought with angles, and war waged between the natural and the artificial.

          “It’s the people’s fault,” Grandpa sniffed, a tear coursing unevenly down his wrinkles. “Stupid PEOPLE didn’t know what they had. One of the most fantastic cities in creation, and their petty bickering let it slip through their hands…” He trailed off. M’lina turned to ask, “Why?”

          “Why?” Grandpa repeated, looking at her eager face and smiling. It was a question seldom asked in these days of political conformity. “Because people were CHEAP, that’s why. Because they valued their leisure time above their architecture. Because they would rather watch their properties disintegrate and complain about it, than to get off their lazy butts and keep them up.” The children were giving him their full attention now. He narrowed his eyes and told them the awful truth. “Because they would rather argue against their neighbor in a public forum than be seen with a hammer in their hand.” They gasped.

         

THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 1-7-02

GRANDPA AGAIN

Grandpa led the children through the streets of Eureka Valley: it seemed a strange procession to those who watched from behind pulled curtains. Grandpa was going on about the “goodle days”, back a couple of hundred years ago. Before the Water Wars, before the Corporate Government. The group stopped before a fast food stand backed by a thirty-foot cliff. Grandpa cackled at the familiar logo, which he referred to as “the big yellow bum”.

“This was called Basin Spring back then,” he croaked. “Used to be a park.” Tyree spoke first.

“What’s a spring?” Grandpa looked sadder than before. He shook his head slowly.

“This town was called Eureka Springs once. It had hundreds of places where clean water just bubbled out of the ground.” The kids looked doubtful. Water was bought at the Depot, it didn’t flow on the ground. “Did too, and in the King’s Valley, too.” The kids asked what had happened to all the water.

“Oh, well, it disappeared when everybody moved out of town. They all dug wells and the groundwater just dried up. The people moved out of town when the tourists stopped coming.” He could see what was coming, and didn’t wait for the attack. “The tourists stopped because the town got shabby, and it got shabby because people argued about how to keep it up. They argued with the city government, they argued with each other, and the worst thing in the world happened. No new people moved into town. The populace grew old and bitter, and nobody wanted to work on the old houses because of all the rules the city set up. Not that they were all bad. But working on old houses is hard enough, and the workers made more money outside of Eureka. Without craftsmen or caring owners, the old buildings fell apart..”

“I want to go home,” M’lina sniffled. Grandpa sighed.

“So do I, child. So do I.”