Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] was High speed Internet in the country, stuffing leaky spots

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] was High speed Internet in the country, stuffing leaky spots
  • Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:41:31 -0400

EarthNSky wrote:
You're right of course, I do love my hills, but I'd even settle for 56K speed-it'd be twice as fast as what I have.
Got that. My system had the audacity to hook up at 2.4 kbps the other day. Not fair. Also nothing to do about it, yet. Some day. Or maybe after I get moved!
....Do you not have tree fall with 70 mph winds up there? If we have anything over about 45 mph, we are losing trees. I'd have trees on the house with 70mph winds.
Well, this is the third one of these rotten things in the past few weeks. First one got most of the iffy stuff. I did hear this pm from a friend who lives Downeast (actually northeast of here, don't know why they call it Downeast, weird Mainers!) and she said they've lost trees in this one and still a lot of places up there with the power off. Ours was off for an hour or so last evening, then in the night sometime the dog came to tell me things weren't right and that proved to be power off, but by 5:30 when I got up it was back on, been on all day since.

I have the crack and crevice problem, too. I stuff rags and towels around windows.
I spent a large part of the day dropping pinches of flour to see where the small drafts were, then stuffing all the little gaps full of wool. I stuff with an old, unserrated table knife, works pretty well, and some oddball almost-pointy wire thingy David rigged for the purpose a long time ago. I can actually tell a difference now in the stairwell to the basement. I could always feel drafts there but this is the first time I hunted them down. This is the last of the crackstuffing for this floor, but still have one corner of the basement to do yet, and haven't even started on the attic.
Then, we will just take off the plastic frames in the Spring and put on the screened frames, and then in the Fall, reverse it.
That sounds too handy to be true! I have 2 fixed windows and 2 very large old (this is the 3rd house they've been in) ones of which parts are fixed and parts open, but all parts are single pane. I have everything tight around them between the expanding foam we used putting them in and the stuffing since, mostly where green wood shrank. But they all have their own window covers, made with Warm Window and that pretty well stops anything going through there. Of course, can't see out with the covers up. Generally I take them down as the sun hits the window (I made them in long narrow panels that velcro together for that very purpose), and as the sun moves across the window, put up panels on the portion where it is no longer shining. Wouldn't work if one were gone all day but since I'm here, works fine and saves much wood. Plus it ups the comfort level considerably. I do hate sitting in a draft.

My north roof is pitched 16/12, and goes all the way to the ground, no openings. Took care of the north drafts with that! One good snow and I'm insulated on that side for the winter. Had that rig on the first house too, worked well enough that I made it that way again after the fire.
So exactly what are you stuffing
Anywhere the flour shows me there's a draft gets plugged tight, around light switches, a crack in the concrete, anywhere
and how, and is there any particular reason you are using red fleece?
Stuffing with the above-named tools. The wool was some old corriedale that I wasn't using for anything else, left over from a raucous project I did on contract. Decided it might as well be busy doing something, and it will be covered by drywall eventually so I won't have to look at it. I dip it into borax powder, and stuff away. I've often used scrap wool that way. If you stuff it tight it stays pretty well in place rather than working its way back out, packs tightly, and is a good insulator, not a fire hazard. I will admit it looks funny but I aim to finish the drywall in here this winter, so it will soon be out of sight. All scoured dyed wool goes into a pail that is the "wool for whatever I need it for" bucket. The stuff that isn't dyed goes into the compost, but I don't like to put dyed stuff where it will get into the food chain, even if the dyes are nontoxic, which they supposedly are.

Susan Jane, in Maine, where the wind is gone and it's so foggy I couldn't see the dog when he was out to pee.





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page