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[SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>]

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.