Update on wind damage etc

We had some neighbours over for supper on Saturday. They are going to Florida for a trip in a week and had asked Freda a while ago if we could dog-sit their little schnauzer named Max. Max gets along famously with Tawny and Taz - it is actually quite comical to watch. When they were over they mentioned this and e had forgotten. Actually, one of the grandparents had wanted to watch Max and Freda thought that was the new arrangement. Because of this oversight, Madelaine stuck notes up all over the house to remind us about Max. We have left them up because it is so comical!


We lost a piece of fascia in yesterday's high winds, but Freda found it today when she took the dogs out for a play. It is a little bit bent but is not damaged too much. I will straighten it out and put it up today. The weather is pretty nice today, -2C and no wind. It was quite tricking lifting the ladder up in yesterday's high winds.

A crazy weather day

Dec 28, 2008

This morning came in with Calgary like Chinook weather. The warm front that started coming in yesterday had settled in overnight and the day dawned with +11C. It was a beautiful morning for a walk.


Of course this meant that most of the snow had melted already.


Dec 28, 2008 pano

Most of the snow on the hill had melted. The lake iscovered with water. The dogs wanted to run down to the lake so we kept them on the leash for the whole walk.

After we got back, I checked the weather channel to see if it was going to stay mild all day. The forecast was that it would drop to -3C overnight, and there was a Wind Warning:

SEVERE GUSTY WINDS ALONG AND BEHIND A COLD FRONT.A STORM SYSTEM IS MOVING ACROSS NORTHEASTERN ONTARIO WITH A FAST-MOVING COLD FRONT DRAPING SOUTHWARDS FROM IT. THE RAIN AND UNSEASONABLY MILD TEMPERATURES HAS COME TO AN ABRUPT END WITH THE PASSAGE OF THIS FRONT. IT IS MOVING THROUGH THE EASTERN CORNER OF THE PROVINCE EARLY THIS AFTERNOON. WIDESPREAD WIND GUSTS OF 90 OR 100 KM/H ARE OCCURRING ALONG THE FRONT AS IT SWEEPS ACROSS THE LOWER GREAT LAKES. WINDS IN EXCESS OF WARNING CRITERIA WILL LAST FOR A FEW HOURS BEHIND THE FRONT AND THEN EASE SLIGHTLY BUT WILL STILL REMAIN QUITE STRONG FOR MOST OF THE AFTERNOON. THESE WINDS ARE CAPABLE OF BLOWING TREES OVER AND BRINGING DOWN HYDRO LINES AS WELL AS LOCAL DAMAGE TO SOME STRUCTURES THERE ARE NUMEROUS REPORTS OF POWER OUTAGES ACROSS MANY PORTIONS OF SOUTHERN ONTARIO. ENVIRONMENT CANADA CONTINUES TO CLOSELY MONITOR THIS SITUATION. PLEASE REFER TO THE LATEST PUBLIC FORECASTS FOR FURTHER DETAILS.

I highlighted the interesting parts of the warning.

We had lunch and then went out. We saw lots of branches down all over the place. The wind was incredibly strong - it blew the Christmas tree lights out of the tree.


When we got back, we looked to see what had happened to our house because of the wind. We saw that we lost a piece of fascia and another piece was flapping, some of the soffit had come loose and was bent over but still there, and some shingles were flapping in the breeze. Fortunately I had a tube of black gooey stuff for repairing roofs and so I went up on the roof and glued down the flapping shingles, and put a nail in a couple of them for good measure. After that, I moved the ladder over and put a couple of screws in the bottom end of the fascia so it stopped flapping. The wind was so strong that it almost blew me off the roof, and the ladder wasn't quite long enough to reach to do any more so I left it for tomorrow, when hopefully the wind will be non-existent.

We got off easy - our neighbour lost a section of his roof about 10' long and 6' wide.

Boxing day barking

December 26, 2008

On our walk this afternoon, Taz smelled some kind of critter up this tree and took on the classic "I found it!" coonhound pose, accompanied with barking, of course. Tawny was doing her classic activity of liberating sticks from captivity by those awful tree creatures. :)


We also saw the remains of a large dead bird on our walk - we believe it was a wild turkey. The dogs were quite interested in all the smells, of course. Don't click on this photo to see a large version if you don't want to see Mother Nature's work.

Christmas Day - pano

Christmas Day 2008 panorama

On Christmas Eve, we had rain, quite heavy at times, and it melted quite a bit of snow. We can now see the grass appearing, and in places the ground is bare of snow. Christmas Day came with a bright cheery sun and nice temperate normal day.

In this photo, you can see that the guys who like ice fishing have been down to the lake and have already been doing some of that - you can see a few holes and disturbed areas on the ice in the middle of the photo by the shore of the lake.

My favourite Christmas ornaments

A collage of my favourite Christmas ornaments

Clockwise from top left:

• ornament representing a gift of a goat to a developing country, courtesy of my sister Mary
• hand carved ornament by Bob Miller, the other side of the scarf says "Peace on Earth"
• ornament representing gift of medical supplies, courtesy of my sister Mary
• ornament representing gift of classroom supplies, courtesy of my sister Mary

Snowstorm

December 21st, 2008

A snowstorm with lots of snow and blowing snow. This was taken from the front door. The autostitch software didn't get the vertical bits correct for the column on the left or the wall on the right.

Santa comes to visit

December 7, 2008

Taz and Tawny getting their photo taken with Santa. Tawny was very good. Taz was kind of howling - we think he thought we were going to leave him with Santa. Very funny doggies, but they were pretty good.

This was a fundraiser for BARK - the dog rescue outfit that we adopted Taz from.

Pano - Monday Dec 15, 2008

Pano - Monday Dec 15, 2008

We had heavy rain and +10C temps on Monday morning. As a result most of the snow disappeared and we could see lots of puddles on the lake.


Pano - Monday Dec 15, 2008

The sunset was just gorgeous on Monday. When we took the dogs for a walk in the evening, the stupid critters ran out onto the ice. We were very concerned they would fall through, but thankfully they didn't. We kept them on the leash after that.

Insulation, part III.

This is a photo of the torn vapour barrier after it was repaired.

This is a photo of the attic hatch in the spare bedroom, after the area beyond the hatch had been filled with blown-in insulation.

This photo shows the blown-in insulation as it is partially done. On the right side of the photo, you can see that the insulation has been brought up the level of the plywood baffle.

This photo is looking across the top of the master bedroom area, you can see the baffle between the garage and the house section at the very front of the photo. The new level of the insulation is even with the top of the baffles.

Increasing attic hatch insulation

The attic hatches are a piece of particle board with an 8" thick piece of styrofoam insulation glued to it. Since the insulation in the attic was being increased, the insulation on the attic hatch needed to be increased so the hatch wasn't a weak area, from an insulation perspective. Here the 8" thick piece of insulation is being used as a pattern, and is sitting on top of a 1 1/2" thick piece of styrofoam.

I cut out two pieces of 1 1/2" thick styrofoam (using the 8" thick piece as a pattern), for a thickness of 3 inches. I took a thin piece of fiberboard, and fastened two 2x4 pieces on the sides (to help hold the fiberboard down on top of the attic hatch). I took two pieces of 1x4 and fastened the styrofoam to the fiberboard using 4" screws to go through the fiberboard, the styrofoam, and then into the 1x4s. For the top, I took some more styrofoam and fitted it between the 2x4s and had a few other scrap 1x4 pieces to hold those together. This photo was taken when the pieces were being test fitted.

Here the pieces were all assembled.

Here the extra hatch insulation has been placed on top of the bedroom attic hatch. It fits like a glove (perfectly). So the attic hatch now has 12 1/2" of styrofoam insulation above it. I believe this white styrofoam (technically: expanded polystyrene foam) is about R-4 per inch, so that makes it about R-50, so that should be good.

Pano-Dec 11, 2008

Pano - December 11, 2008

After a 30 cm snowstorm.

Adding a light in the garage

The garage needed a light over the stairs into the house. The time to add a light was before the insulation was put in, and this was relatively straight forward.


This is after the box was installed but before the light was attached.

A thick plastic bag was put over the electrical box and taped to reseal the vapour barrier.

This is the light after the power was switched on and you can see that it works!

Attic insulation - before

So I went up into the attic to check out the insulation status. This was because the energy audit we paid for said our attic insulation was only R-35. Charles and the insulation contractor said that it was R-40 (I had asked for R-50 or better but Charles said a good vapour barrier made anything more than R-40 a waste of money). Well, I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it know.

We bought a bunch of cellulose blow-in insulation a while ago. This is what the coverage chart from Home Depot says in terms of "blown inches" (after installation) and "settled inches" (after cellulose has had a chance to settle down):

R-32 9.4 8.4
R-40 11.8 10.5

With that information in the back of your mind, here are the photos.

This photo is above the closet by the great room, and shows a large hole (I could put my hand through it) where the electricians roughly made a hole for the wire. You can also see condensation in there because the cold air can enter the space and condense the warm inside air against the cold plastic. You can also see there is absolutely no insulation against that plastic....


This photo is looking south along the front wall of the house. You can see the soffits on the right, and in the center you can see the top of the wall. The solid plywood wind barrier should have been in line with the outside of the outside wall, or right above the 2x12 (which is a bit weathered, beside the new looking 1x4 strapping).


For this photo, you need to know that the solid plywood wind barrier is 1 foot tall (almost everywhere). You can also see the trussesin this photo, which are made of 2x4 and 2x3. If R-40 of insulation was installed according to the table form Home Depot, then only 1 1/2" of plywood should be showing - and clearly there is a lot more visible....


I said the wood barrier is 1' tall almost everywhere. In this location, it is only 11" tall. Not such a big deal, but the insulation on the other side is about 3" - 3 1/2" below the top of the wood, which means that there is 7 1/2" - 8" of insulation. According to the Home Depot table, that makes it less than R-28...

Losers and liars.... that describes the builder and the insulation contractor...

Anyone want deer for dinner?

Dec 5, 2008 - by D.J.W.

This photo was taken by our neighbour. He watch three coyotes brush wolves chase a deer onto the lake, where it broke through the ice and was trapped, and then they killed it. The carcass of the deer has not yet been finished off, and the crows etc have also been enjoying the fruits of the coyotes brush wolves' labour.

Mother Nature at work...

Update Jan 1/09: these were not coyotes but are what are locally known as brush wolves - they are larger than coyotes and smaller than the classic wolf.