response 126 of 191:

Feb 11 00:10 UTC 2013

We had an interesting day at the reskilling event.  Talked to a newly
appointed U of M mycologist who was selling mushroom spawn, someone
demonstrating a very small steam turbine, sang rounds in a circle, and ran
into several people we knew including the electrician who kindly took a look
at our electrical panel and other wiring briefly once and said he would call
this week about checking out our work  before the inspector comes.
Our friend showed a slide show of how she is building her house (complete with
mud and ice) and then she mixed up a batch of fiber-reinforced cement (the
new drill burned up in the process but she had brought the old one) which
people played with in yogurt cups and also troweled onto a piece of styrofoam.
One guy was really into it and wanted to cover the whole board so I suggested
she hire him to help build the house on weekends (he agreed).  He works for
his father who trims trees and is big and strong.  Our friend is small and
stronger than many men.  My 'builder' left at 5:00 to fix our neighbor's
toilet while we cleaned up so I am not building today.

There were people selling all natural organic vitamin-rich catfood and
'no-sugar' dog cookies (made with honey) and caps made from wool they spun
themselves and books about gardening with native species.  SOmeone from
Project Hope in Ypsi talking about their Feb 16 seed exchange.  Two women
making soil blocks to plant seeds in (just dip the tray in water) and someone
tanning animal hides.  A sock darning class.  A freecycle table where I found
shoes, wool sock and gloves for our architect friend and two winter jackets
(medium tall so not as baggy) and overpants for Jim and a wool hat for me.
A big meditation class which we skipped.  Ditto on bike mechanics and repair.

Rudolph Steiner school is full of student drawings, paintings, sculpture,
mosaics, on all the walls and even outdoors.  A fun place.  There was even
a biodynamics table.   Lunch was not organic (most of it) or whole grain but
the dishes (please donate 10 c each) and utensils were compostable.

response 128 of 191:

Feb 11 15:47 UTC 2013

LOL. If you are going to put honey into something, you might as well put
high fructose corn syrup into it since at a molecular level, they are
almost identical. As a sugar addict myself, I have been sucked into the
idea that even though HFCS is bad, honey somehow is good since it is
"natural". Not so! It is still sugar. 

response 130 of 191:

Feb 11 18:57 UTC 2013

I am drinking Diet Rite.  I think there is a vending machine on the
other side of a Black Hole and that's where this cola comes from.  It's
like "hungry water" from the RO system which leeches nutrients on its
way through the pipes.

response 132 of 191:

Feb 11 19:55 UTC 2013

regards,ts   734,817,1982
tsty@cyberspace.org
tstytest@gmail.com

response 134 of 191:

Feb 11 20:20 UTC 2013

Re #128: You are quite right that HFCS and honey are very similar in 
their composition, but it is misleading to say "It is still sugar.". 
There are many kinds of "sugar". "Sugar is the generalised name for a 
class of sweet-flavored substances used as food." They differ in taste 
and behavior as nutrients. There are even indigestible sugars.

response 136 of 191:

Feb 11 23:17 UTC 2013

as far as I know, there is a big difference between honey and high fructose
corn syrup.  Honey doesn't spoil, ever.  Can the same be said of HFCS?  As
I recall, even honey product spoils over time, and it is 50%honey, 50%HFCS.

response 138 of 191:

Feb 12 01:10 UTC 2013

I called and he called back and will stop by to help Wednesday.
He is still very happily married and does not mind his contact info being made
public on grex since it is already in his plan.  We need to make the electric
panel, wires in the crawlspace and wall look less like tangled spaghetti, and
he may have ideas on how to get the circuits to upstairs and between rooms
upstairs (through walls and floor).  

response 140 of 191:

Feb 12 04:19 UTC 2013

Thanks, Tony.  Today I ordered three 24-hour timers for $17 including
shipping, a discontinued model that controls 15A (or 1000W tungsten) rather
than the other 20A model.  Our relay for the water heater only needs about
1A at most.  They wear out after 5-10 years so I am set for a while.
I also ordered two heat-only LUX ELV4 electronic programmable thermostats.
I want at least one programmable on each floor and maybe a timer on the
others.

After putting in the last downstairs smoke alarm, we discussed where to put
the upstairs ones, using wiremold to run the wires on the ceiling like the
lights, or high on the wall (tops 4-12" below ceiling).  On the downstairs
or upstairs lighting circuit (if on the upstairs, move one downstairs light
to upstairs circuit).  Also where to put the lights and switches and how to
wire between them (through the walls and floor).  And the upstairs outlets
- how to get the power between different sections of wall with door between
them (probably through the floor).  How to get one upstairs outlet on the
refrigerator circuit (for a freezer or a summer kitchen) and the upstairs
bathroom outlet on the same circuit as the downstairs bathroom outlet
(junction box in crawlspace?).  We need to do 90% of the upstairs wiring
(planning, first outlet in a wall) before putting on the downstairs ceiling.

I got back at 8 pm and our architect friend gave us a private showing of the
video we missed yesterday while helping her setup.  Very complicated house
that will be heated through PEX tubing with water that is heated during the
summer by the sun and stored in a very well insulated place then pumped
through the floor.  16" thick wall insulation - styrofoam blocks with fiber
cement for strength on the outside.  It looks a lot like adobe construction
but the 'stucco' looking part is a grey skin over a white interior.  There
is a special plastic sheet outside to keep water away.  They will be heating
partly with sun, which there is more of by March once the stored hot water
has cooled off.  They will cool in summer with the same stored water.  The
house reminds me somewhat of an Egyptian temple.  In the photos, you can see
the neighbor's house above them on the hill - double garage without windows,
house some place behind it.  The neighbors have never shown any interest in
the housebuilding for two years now.

The cement gets pumped and sprayed on the walls where a crew trowels it flat.
This crew was not ver perfectionist so the owners will have to put something
smoother over the inside walls.  There are also standard wood-framed walls
and ceilings and roof with drywall on the interior (not cement board as in
my house - too hard to work with).  We had considered plaster over metal lath
and did the front porch wall that way but it is awful to work with - hard to
get smooth, sets much too fast, and you need to clean out the bucket
completely between batches because any gypsum that has started to set acts
as a catalyst for the next batch if even a trace is left in there.  The
thinset can in theory be worked for 2 hours but we used up each batch in about
30 min (5 lb instead of 5 lb powder).  

We considered a skim coat of plaster over 'blueboard' drywall.
Through about the 50s people used to put a thick (1/2"?) coat of plaster over
plaster lath, which is 2x4' pieces of dense gypsum board.  It made for a nice
dense hard surface that cracks at all the seams.  Nowadays drywall is taped
and sanded.  I may use drywall on the ceiling as it would be difficult to skim
coat a ceiling and the ceiling does not need to be hard since nobody will be
bumping into it.  (Jim says he once drove a forklift through a drywall wall,
and we had a friend whose dog would go through the wall during thunderstorms).

Before plaster lath, there was 19th century wood lath, made by sawing thin
sheets of wood and soaking them in water and letting them crack - the Museum
on Main St. has a sample in the attic.  Some time before the 30s this was
replace with thin slats of wood that people plastered (or cement stuccoed)
over.  The idea was to force some of the material through the cracks so it
would hold on tighter.  

They are now making and advertising less dense drywall (that you can talk
through) and sound-resistant drywall (has several layers in it which block
sound?).  There is greenboard with water-resistant paper, and a drywall in
which the paper is not on the surface but ground up and mixed with the gypsum.

There are at least two kinds of cement board.  Durock is reinforced with glass
(zirconia?) fiber.  It is flexible, and rough surfaced, and harder to cut.
We used it on the outside of the house, 4x8' sheets.  You put it up with
rust-resistant Durock screws (from scaffolding), mix up a bucket of grey
cement-based powder (with some polymer in it) and trowel that on, then paint
with latex-sand mixture and it lasts forever.  Looks like rock, and there are
two colors of lichen growing on the wetter areas of mine.  It can also be used
behind or under tile.

Hardiplank is exterior cement board with often wood-grain effect, put on like
regular wood siding but it won't rot or split.  Our neighbor has it. They sell
a less outgassing type without the woodgrain, in 1/4" or .4" thickness, for
use with tile (the thinner stuff goes over a wood floor or counter).  We used
that for the walls, with Hardibacker screws (square drive).  I got lots of
opinions what to coat it with if used without tile and ended up using thinset
mortar, the more expensive grade with a lot of added polymer to make it much
stickier because the board is smooth and I apparently got a cheaper Lowes
grade without polymer in it.  I got it with white instead of grey sand.  It
can be left as is, covered with a concrete patching product to make it
slightly smoother, painted with cement primer and then other paint, or tiled
over later.  Or you can tile directly without the skim coat.  

To skim coat, you spray the board so it won't absorb water from the mortar,
mix up a batch (the recipe is for 50 lb but we got a kitchen scale and a tofu
tub to mix 5 lb batches).  Smear it on the wall, then trowel it flat.  It 
smells for weeks afterwards and most of the water comes back out and we pour
it out of the dehumidifier and reuse it.
Before troweling we used zirconia fiber tape on the seams, and mortared them
and the screws a day ahead of time.  Before that we put acoustic sealant in the
corners and along the floor edge.
I got the most expensive type made with butyl instead of acrylic caulk, to
keep it flexible.  It never hardens so needs to be protected.  

The board is a real pain to cut.  You score it with a special carbide tipped
knife then break it at the cut, which looks easy in youtube videos but in
reality if you have a narrow piece to remove you need to clamp it to some
angle iron (bedframe) and push down on that, also using a board underneath.
Cutting irregular shapes out is tricky.  Someone sells a drill attachment that
nibbles a line through the board which we ought to buy next time.  The cement
dust gets in everything and is bad for the lungs so I wore a mask over my
nose.  I tried wearing goggles but the mask made them fog up.  I would mop
up the dust before sweeping and wring it outdoors.  This kept us overheated
at 40 degrees.  Wiring is more taxing on the brain but less on the back.

The board was harder to put up because it went over flexible metal resilient
sound channel (for sound proofing), which tends to bend away from your screw,
so you need to clamp the ends of it, and first drill a depression, then put
in the screw, then sometimes back it out because it hit wood when it should
not have, and mark blue chalk lines on the board showing the safe area between
the top of the wood and the top of the metal and try to hit those.  We had
to put some screws in then remove them and cut off the tips with a special
bolt cutter so the tips would not hit wood in some areas.  The boards we used
on the walls were 3x5'.  The windows started about 35" from the floor so we
ran a row of boards sideways under them then an upright row above that.
These boards weigh 40.  For the walls without windows we will use the 80 lb
4x8' boards.  The ceiling is 7' 6" so we have to trim a few inches off each
board, using bedframe.  When we do switches and outlets they will be surface
mounted.  Instead of cutting out a rectangle for an electrical box (which is
pretty difficult in cement board using a drill) we will drill large holes and
run wires though, then screw the boxes (handyboxes not gangboxes) to the
outside of the wall (and probably use firestop caulk around the wires).  
Same for the ceilings, but with a round metal plate above to distribute the
weight and a threaded arrangement under that to hold the wiremold box.

Cement board has the advantage over drywall of not needing sanding.  And it
gives you twice the exercise.

response 142 of 191:

Feb 12 10:58 UTC 2013

The library has a new cookbook for dogs (cooking for them, not cooking by or
with them).  One recipe calls for sauteeing finely cubed boneless skinless
chicken breast with ripe tomatoes and blueberries.  The dogfood at the
festival also had blueberries.  What is this with dogs and blueberries, some
new fad?  I doubt the dogs care about the taste.  Also why can't they eat the
other half of the chickens?  Does canned dog food now advertise white meat?

response 144 of 191:

Feb 12 18:22 UTC 2013

Honey usually has more taste.

Today we need to put a smoke alarm and a light in a small room with metal wall
and ceiling studs and joists.  No need to drill holes for the wires because
they come with premade holes, but you need to add plastic grommets to protect
the wire sheathing, also use clips instead of staples to fasten the wire to
the studs.  There are special boxes for metal studs, and the grounding is done
differently (maybe this assumes your walls are grounded?) but since we are
putting all our boxes on the wall surfaces we can use handiboxes and wiremold
boxes as usual.  Hopefully TS can help with this.  The metal studs etc.
constitute a box inside a box and will make this room more soundproof - a
place to escape to when there are garbage trucks going by continuously, or
neighbors with power mowers.  My piano has headphones so no need to put it
in there to keep noise in.  The window would benefit from a metal shutter.
We won't actually put in boxes or fixtures, just wires to a junction box
downstairs (not connected to the electric panel) so we can close up the
downstairs ceiling then wire upstairs another year.  We may need to wire
between 3-way light switches through the floor.

Repeat this for outlets and heat and doorbell etc.  
Getting a late start after trying to put yellow toner in the laser printer
cartridge and discovering the problem is that the previous owner put in a new
cartridge and neglected to remove the tape over the slot that lets toner out.
Now we can print smoke alarms in brown or orange instead of pink.
Yellow on white is not terribly legible.  The printer was free at the curb.

response 146 of 191:

Feb 12 22:27 UTC 2013

The heater went on for a few minutes while we were planning how to run
lighting and smoke alarms upstairs.  We found a way to run only two more wires
up for lighting - one in the wall between bathroom and bedroom, and one in
the wall between the other bedroom and a smlaler room, then snake them both
downstairs using some existing holes in the wood to a junction box.
The four smoke alarms will probably need three but maybe only two runs.

We decided to leave the 3-way switch for upstairs hall/stairway light but add
a motion sensor that senses both motion on the stairway and motion in the
upper hall (people coming out of bedrooms).   

We also planned how to run power to more upstairs outlets from the two there.
We managed to avoid wiring in ventilation shafts, where we would have to put
wallboard and ductwork before wiring (though it might mean fewer holes in
wood). Through the edges of a slanty closet area over the stairs, through the
floor to go around doors.  Parts of this can be done after the downstairs
ceiling.

If the upstairs bathroom door swings out (against a shaft/shelving area) not
in (against another shelving area) both the light switch and the heater
can go where the door wood have swung in against, making the wiring much
simpler and also pointing the heat in a better direction.  Jim was very
much in favor of the outswing door and will be happy about this.

I should post floor plans some day - we have them plain, with plumbing,
with lighting, with wiring, with smoke detectors, or with heaters.  It got
too crowded to combine them, but now we need to draw in the outlets to make
sure the heaters don't go under them, and the door swings to place the switches
and heaters (can't be behind a door swing). 

Jim drew a big pink circle connecting the four upstairs smoke alarms but in 
order to conform to reality we are changing this to two (three?) zigzags.
It drives him crazy when he has to change all his lines to show where the
wires are in practice rather than in theory.  

He drew in outlets every 12' or so, and we moved them to be on both sides
of where beds might go.  He drew a door swinging to where we want to put
a heater so we reversed the door swing (it can block a closet when open).
Armchair architects don't have all the information.  

Roger is replacing the lighted 3-way switch for upstairs hall light with a
rocker-type unlighted one because we will use a motion sensor light up
there.  Also putting in a shallower gang box and wiring it neatly to
impress TS and the inspector, with green wire nut instead of green clip.


The box is embedded in a doorpost.  There are three others like that, one
of which we need to move out of the doorpost because it will keep us from
putting in a 1 3/4" metal exterior door (or probably any thickness door).
It will go inside a shelving area instead, where we now have enough room
because we don't need to wire in that area.

One new outlet or switch or light a day is good progress but so is 4 hours
of planning rather than putting things some place they will need to be moved,
or discovering we need to run three wires in a hole made large enough for two.

response 148 of 191:

Feb 13 15:45 UTC 2013

I spent an hour on the phone with my architect Christina Snyder talking about
heat recovery ventilators - ductwork, dampers (you can adjust the supply air
ends to give variable amounts of air which is necessary since all the ducts
are 3" and rooms are different sizes and the longer duct runs have more
friction), and balancing.  She thinks I should have someone balance the runs
(it may be required) but I would prefer to wait on that and do the whole house
- why balance three rooms that you can just leave doors open between?  Because
of continuous ventilation, the whole house islikely to end up the same
temperature unless I close off unused rooms (I should mark the dampers so they
can be put back to the balanced positions again).  She thought I should set
the thermostats a bit higher than I wanted to compensate for 8 hours without
heat (11 am to 7 pm peak rates) but I don't expect the temperatures to drop
more than a few degrees anyway.

We will need some way to cap off the upstairs ducts until the upstairs is done
- I suggested plastic bags with rubber bands - and/or only run them above the
floor and use couplers later (which leak some).  

She also suggested 120F hot water.  New faucets are required to have
temperature regulators set to 110F - maybe they can be adusted to 90.
I had hoped to set the hot water to the desired end temperature so as to avoid
the need for mixing hot and cold.  

I was going to spend the morning on legal stuff but time flies.  Ductwork is
much less stressful.