Bogieblog

And the Winner is . . . Part Two

Yesterday the rain moved out faster than the weather people anticipated, so I got out there and finished up the planned exterior painting.

See that ladder there on the west side? Why yes, I was stretching to reach the top area to be painted from the the top rung (not the top of the ladder). Considering my trepidation with heights, and the fact that I had to put the ladder on blocks of wood (not pictured), I impressed myself.

Proof that I got it all painted. It took about 5 hours for me to get one coat of paint on those two sides. Fortunately my plan was only for 1 coat as I can always do another next year if needed. I was moving pretty slowly because I threw my left hip out last weekend (which also takes my knee with it) and it is a challenge to walk, much less climb ladders or kneel down.

I will be hiring someone to do the underside of the eaves next spring. I also need to take care of the white around the garage door from when I primed the new frame (back in 2020 - LOL).

Now that I am done with the painting for the season, it is time to find a chiropractor to force my hip back into place.

And the Winning Color is -

Saturday I brought home a billion color samples and Benjamin Moore Blue Heather (1620) was my choice. Saturday was not a good day for painting as it was cold with intermittent rain. Yesterday, although heavily overcast, was a bit warmer and no rain. I was able to get two coats on the backside of the house and one coat on the south side of the house. It makes quite the difference and I didn't make a total mess of things.

The guys will be surprised when they go back there today since the two sides they see driving up are the north and front side.

 

Back Porch and Stairs Are Useable

Friday a lot of progress was made on the renovation of the back porch (Previous post, "Slow Progress"). They still have some finish work to do on the porch and stairs, but I am able to use them - and I love it!

The non-pressure treated material is Trex decking in the color "Foggy Warf".  If I were going by the website pictures, I never would have picked that one; I would have opted for something close to the color of PT lumber. But, I trusted Zak (the owner of the company doing the work). When I had indicated I didn't want a darker brown, he suggested Foggy Warf as a way to help tie in the color of the (blue) shed to the house. After seeing pictures from one of his actual projects, I agreed.

The porch sections still need railings as part of the contracted portion. However, knowing that I have excess material, I have asked them to cover the pressure treated boards of the base framing also.

And of course the stairs still need railings as part of the contracted portion. And for an add on, I have asked that they also cover the PT transitions from steps to porch sections.

There is one piece still needed under the door sill as part of the contracted work. The white against the house is the flashing material.

See that dark piece in the picture above? Well, the home improvement center apparently messed up the order and added two pieces of Trex "Clam Shell," which is described as, "an easy-to-match shade of medium grey". In my opinion,it isn't a medium shade, but on the dark side. The home improvement store was informed of the mess up of materials upon delivery (they were extra pieces), but they were uninterested in taking them back at that time, nor have they been interested in picking it up since then (probably cost them more than just writing them off).

Anyway, I had not planned on those dark pieces being part of the build, but realized early Friday morning, that those would be perfect to break up the porch sections and stairs as visual notice there is a level change.

There is also other visual touch up work that I have added. It drives me crazy that there is a waffle pattern at the side of each step, and Trex offers no end caps whatsoever. Zak has figured out a way to deal with that. (the below is a snip of the first picture that is heavily cropped/blown up, so is a bit blurry)

I have been thinking over the last couple of years that I would like to change the yellow portion of the house, and now the new porch gives me both the incentive and the visualization of that new color.

Rooms Without a View

I'm having some work done on the back side of the house. The ramp and back porch started tilting towards the house in the last couple of years directing rain water and snow melt right to the house. So replacing with a larger back porch (not much bigger), and changing to shallow steps. But first things first. While they have the porch/ramp off, they blocked in the basement and garage windows that are useless (and of which at least 2 of the 4 panes in each were broken/missing when I bought the house) and of which the sills and framing were rotting away.

The ramp/porch removed. Last year I had crawled my way under the ramp and installed concrete backer board over the windows and rotting sills to keep them from getting even wetter (or letting critters in).

Both windows removed and blocked in

Close up of Garage then basement windows blocked in

Basement window from inside. There were some challenges they had to overcome including the safe, that is 600# empty, so wasn't going to be moved out of the way.

Someone on a forum asked why I didn't just replace the windows, or put in glas blocks. Well, here is why not:

Those are where's Waldo pictures - find the windows - LOL. The basement window is under, and partially blocked by the ramp so doesn't really supply any light, nor does it supply an egress (not that the window opened anyway). The garage window is blocked by both the ramp and railings.

In 2017 or 2018 I had covered up inside the basement window with rigid foam insulation and sheetrock,

I had already torn that section out last year when I thought I had someone to do the block work (without removing the ramp). But they bailed on me after doing the outside painting.

Hopefully the new porch and stairs will be installed next week. We'll see how well the weather cooperates as we are entering an unsettled pattern.

April 2023 Solar Production Report

Despite 6 days of very little production (2.9 - 10.1 kwh produced), I still logged in a respectable 774 kwh produced in April.

I use anywhere from 6.5 to 10 kwh per day; most of the difference is use of the clothes drier. The west side produced more per panel than either of the other sides (except for 1 panel on the south side).

I do enjoy that with the 3 sides of panels, I start producing some energy about 7 am and it goes thru about 7 pm (as of yesterday). I've seen some houses with panels only on the south side, or east side and wonder how much of the day they get production. Of course the circumstances of the house orientation and roof style impact the configuration.

With the trees starting to leaf out, although at this point they are barely leaflets, it will be interesting to see what the effect is on the east and south sides in the coming months. I don't expect them to reduce production (because the sun angle will be higher). But will production increase on those side? And if so by how much, percentage wise, as compared to the west side increase?

And, as an aside, I added a "Solar" Category for posts. I believe I have updated all previous entries starting from my investigations into solar thru the install and activation, including the tree work and chimney work I had done, and of course my reports on solar production. Hopefully I caught them all because apparently searching for the word "solar" doesn't actually bring up every post that mentions solar, or even has solar in the title.

Shortening - Not the Kitchen Type Though

The chimney for the boiler and water heater has been a PITA lately.

1. I've been watching it because it seemed like the top couple of layers of block were showing signs of damage.
2. It didn't have a covering so any rain/snow came right into the building envelop. The moisture did not seep out of the cleanout in the basement - but it was going somewhere, and I wouldn't doubt that it contributed to the moisture that seeps up thru the basement floor.
3. Since I put in the solar array, it has been very evident that on sunny days one panel is really affected by the shadow it cast, and another is somewhat affected.

I contacted a local mason (the town FB page is very handy for finding the local people that don't really advertise and go by word-of-mouth), he came and looked at it last Sunday.

Now, in my dreams, I would have had the chimney removed. It is in the middle of the house and takes up valuable kitchen space, and then more space in the basement (not so valuable, but  still). Plus I would have been able to close up the roof and block off any air infiltration from the attic into the house. BUT, that would have taken major work, in a fairly inaccessible location (the attic access is thru a closet in the office). Additionally, with the standing seam roof, and the solar array, even more complications are introduced (shingles would have been a straightforward project even with the array). I wasn't sure I was willing to go thru such a major project to gain a couple of square feet in the kitchen. The mason also pointed out that leaving the chimney there just in case it was ever needed again would not be a bad thing. So, we agreed upon it being shortened and capped.

Tuesday he came out and did the work

Is it pretty? No, but it is functional (or non-functional - LOL) and really, you have to stand on my back property line to get a good view of it - and I don't care what the people in the apartments back there see :)

Pictures from 11/05/2022

Last Saturday was nice and I did some outside work. One of those jobs was to touch up caulk on the back side of the house. I bought the brown caulk several months ago, and just got around to doing the job. I didn't necessarily think the brown would be the "right" brown to match the siding, but I was not expecting this.

So now there is a bunch of plum colored stripes in various places back there [shaking head]

I went out to water the pot of mums in the roadside garden and noticed a couple of things: 1st, that the Japanese maple had dumped all its leaves overnight (literally). Second, the Coppertina Ninebark, although mostly leafless, had a bit of color hanging on.

 

The colder mornings have the squirrels building winter nests. The first is in the northeast corner and the second is on the east side. I'm surprised there aren't more as there are 4, sometimes 5, squirrels that are regularly in my yard.

Spot and Rainey (L to R) were exhausted from watching birds, squirrels and bugs

And, if you look really close, you can see a faint reflection of Rita sitting in the window - an ear is to either side of the post of the cat tree and her back is behind the dangly ball.

The Town Did Their Thing

A week ago Thursday, 10/27/22, the town inspector came out and signed off the paperwork. The next day the installer submitted it to the power company. Technically tey have until the day after Thanksgiving to install the meter.

Better picture of that south side (obviously before the work was quite finished). Picture was part of the submission the installer sent to the utility

Solar Install Complete - Now More Waiting

Yesterday the installers showed up to finish the project. Yes, they were hoping for early in the week (Monday or Tuesday), but despite the forecast, it started misting early Monday morning and continued thru Tuesday night. Precipitation for over 36 hours and I received about 1/16" - but the roof was always wet and dripping.

South side - can't get a better pic since all the land on that side is lower than the house

East side - stood on a stump of one of the trees cut back there

West side

It could be a month or more before it is generating power. 1st step is for the town inspector to come out and look it over. Oh, and the electrician has to be here too, so their schedules have to match.

Once the inspector signs off, they send in paperwork to the electric company for them to come out and change out the meter. The power company has 20 working days (4 weeks) to do that. The install company said usually it is within 2 weeks. But, with my luck, it will be longer than the 4 weeks because they will lose my paperwork or something.

So yeah, could very well be Thanksgiving before the switch get turned on.

Starting the Solar Project

UPDATE: New picture of west side rail system is at the bottom of the post.

Wednesday the solar company called and said that they thought a big commercial job may be completed early so they might be able to come over Friday to do the install - would that work for me? It happened to coincide with my Friday off, so I said sure. The rep said she would call me late Thursday afternoon if they would be able to make it the next day. And as my luck usually runs, the weather guessers started predicting high winds and heavy rains starting Thursday night and until noon or so on Friday. The rep did not call my Thursday evening, which is what I fully expected because of the weather.

Well, the winds never materialized for my area, although we did get a fair amount of rain. I was pleasantly surprised on Friday morning when the rep called and said they would be over in a while if it still worked for me. Cool! When I mentioned the high winds that never materialized, she expressed how if the weather turned they would either hunker down for a while, or quit and come back on Tuesday (scheduled day of install).

The crew arrived and started the work. The electrician also arrived and started his part at the panel. Note to electrician, when a circuit breaker is off, you don't just randomly turn it on, being "helpful" without checking with the homeowner. Fortunately it didn't cause any problems, but I had the circuit breaker to the old air handler off for a reason. At least he did check with me later (after he had flipped it on)

I happened to go out and check the progress about 11, and noticed that the east side rail work was not as I had requested. The work order was supposed to tell them to place all the panels as high as possible in order to maximize the sun exposure since that is the shady side of the house. Instead, they had set the rails to make it look "pretty", in a triangular pattern, so most of the panels would have been on the lower part of the roof. I don't care about pretty, I care about efficiency. Fortunately I caught them and it was fairly easy for them to move. The great thing about standing seam roofs, in this application, is that they solar installers don't have to drill holes in the roof, instead they use clamps.

The bad thing about standing seam roofs is they are slick when wet (which is why they dump snow so readily). The crew decided that they didn't want to risk dropping the panels because of the footing, so quit about lunch time. They had not quite finished reinstalling all the rails on the east side, but  they made good progress.

South side - this side will be pretty much maxed out at 6 panels and obviously they still have a minor amount of work to finish up the rails.

East side - still awaiting more rails after they had to take the original configuration down. Not complete yet and will hold 7 panels, some of which will go in front of the chimney

West side (not great pic - I'll get a better one later). This side was made "pretty" and will hold 7 panels.

So a partial crew should be here Tuesday to finish up. Of course, the forecast has changed from possibility of rain, to definitely getting rain, so we'll see.

ADDED 10/16/22: Here is a somewhat better picture of the west side railing system. Looks like they are going to do a 1-2-4 pattern (top to bottom with 7 panels)