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 Canada
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.
