sustainablemaynard.org

With so many unfinished things to work on around the house… why not start another project?

Well, Lisa has been coveting a deck for some time, and the weather has been nice lately.  Plus, we have the help handy now that Chris is living here.  So, here we go…

When we first moved in, there was a back door off the kitchen that had a kind of catwalk to the driveway.  It was partially collapsed, and demolishing it was one of the first things we did.

Here are the only photos we have from 2001.

The original back door of the house.

Retaining wall with steps to back door.

I wish I had taken more photos the first year, since the house was in an amazing state of disrepair.

These photos are from August 2002:

What a mess.

No more back door.

Anyway, I had been envisioning the deck for a while, so I did some drawings using a basic program called Smartdraw.  It only took a few hours.  Here is the result:

Deck elevation

Deck plan

Hole digging machine

Sonotubes in the ground

Where the deck will be

Not all the sonotubes are showing in the above photo.

I forgot to take photos the following weekend, when Jimbo and I mixed the concrete.  It took 40 80lb. bags of concrete mix to fill the eleven holes.  Good thing we have a mixer.

Week three, we started the carpentry.  The weather cooperated, and we got a lot done.  May not look like much here, but getting all these posts cut to the correct height, plumb, lined up, and the beams attached was a lot of work.

The post go up

Another view

The crew shows their spirit.

Chris and Jimbo

And the next day, we got all the joists installed.

Joists installed

Coming next weekend: posts and decking.

I registered this domain name in 2008 when I was working with a group of people in town who eventually became the group MaynardCAN!

I had become involved with the group early on, when they had only met a few times.  One of the meetings I went to involved a discussion about what the name of the new group would be.  A number of options came out of the meeting, and emails went around after the fact listing the top contenders.  Near the top of the list was Maynard CAN.

The name ManyardCAN was strongly favored by some due to the association with MassCAN, the Massachusetts Climate Action Network.  We had had a meeting in which a representative of MassCAN provided information about the state organization.   It seemed that being associated with MassCAN was a no brainer, since this was a loose affiliation, and we were not going to be simply following in the footsteps of the state organization.

However, after the meeting where the name was discussed, a member who was a strong proponent of the name MaynardCAN began circulating emails as if the name was settled and a done deal.  The next meeting was weeks later, and by that time, most people had been convinced that the name was MaynardCAN.  And it was not the same set of people at the later meeting.

I objected to the name MaynardCAN for a number of reasons:

1. We were not in a parent-child relationship with the state organization.

2. Bad connotations.  Think about it: “Maynard can”.  What is a can?  According to Dictionary.com:

1.a sealed container for food, beverages, etc., as of aluminum, sheet iron coated with tin, or other metal: a can of soup.

2.a receptacle for garbage, ashes, etc.: a trash can.

3.a bucket, pail, or other container for holding or carrying liquids: water can.

4.a drinking cup; tankard.

5.a metal or plastic container for holding film on cores or reels.

6.Slang: Usually Vulgar. toilet; bathroom.

7.Slang. jail: He’s been in the can for a week.

8.Slang: Sometimes Vulgar. buttocks.

9.Military Slang.

a.a depth charge.

b.a destroyer.

I need to buy two 7/8″ XL PEX tubing to 7/8″ XL PEX tubing couplers to repair a couple of burst pieces of pex.

I left the garage door to the workshop open on a particularly cold day (when the heat was not running) and the system froze.   I thought I had put enough glycol in the system, but I was wrong.

When I discovered my mistake, I tried to turn on the heat and pump, but the pump wouldn’t turn.  All the copper above the slab was frozen, although none of it leaked.  After heating up the system with a hair dryer for some time, the water started moving, and at that point two of the pieces of pex in the manifold box burst.  I guess all the pressure got concentrated at that point.

Anyway, I think I can cut out about 4 inches of pex and use a couple to add a patch.  There is very little room to work in the box, but the page on the Radiant Floor Company site (”When The Unthinkable Happens”, near the bottom) that describes how to fix a damaged tube in a slab says “You can cut out about 1/2″ of tubing and still have plenty of PEX to make a very secure connection.”

If the patch doesn’t work, I can cut all the pieces of PEX, and move the manifold forward an inch or so.  This would be tricky, but fortunately, the two broken tubes are both on the supply side, so there is only one manifold to contend with.  The return side of the manifold is piped directly to the water heater with sweated copper, so that would be a real PITA to fix.  Either way, I think learned my lesson about having the correct concentration of glycol in the loop… and about closing the garage door when the temp is supposed to be in the teens overnight.

I originally wrote this post in April ‘09 when it happened, but never published it until now.

At one point last month, on an unseasonably warm day, I opened the garage door to air out the workshop, and forgot to close the door, which stayed open all night while the temperature went down to the teens.

When I went to close the door the next day, the shop was so cold that I figured I’d turn the heat on briefly.  It soon became obvious that there was a problem when the circulating pump would not turn.  I had added antifreeze to the system when it was setup last year, but it was obviously not enough, and the pipes had frozen.

I used a heat gun on the copper pipes, and when when the partially thawed, the pressure that had built up in the slab concentrated in the pieces of pex that were exposed between the slab and the manifold, and two of these gave way.  So, now that they were thawed, with a hole in the pex in a position that was not easily fixed, the 100 gallons of water in the water heater was slowly pouring out onto the slab.  So, I had to find the shop vac, and put the nozzle onto the drain valve at the bottom of the waterheater, and draw out the water, and dump it out the door.  And, it was still only about 15 degrees inside the shop.  Needless to say, that was not the most pleasurable morning.

We have been heating with a woodstove for a few years.  It is really nice heat, but one problem is that it is not evenly distributed around the house.

The air near the stove gets heated and pours up the stairs that are nearby, while the rooms on the first floor on the other end of the house do not get any heat.  The thermostat for the oil heat is at the top of the stairs, so the heater rarely runs when the woodstove is going.

We have tried using fans in some locations, with limited success.  So, since we doing the renovation to the master suite, we decided to add some duct work that would draw the heated air from the top of the second story down to places where it was needed on the first floor.

Also, I have been concerned about the indoor air quality.  The woodstove tends to make the house really dusty.  I figured that while we were adding this duct work, it would be a good opportunity to add a centralized dust collection/air cleaner system.

The closet between the rooms in the new master suite seemed like the best place to run the ducts.

Inside the new walk-in closet

The air intake at the top of the stairs

The here is where it lined up on the other side of the wall.

Location of the intake inside the walk-in closet

Duct going down through the floor in the walk-in closet

This is the closet on the first floor

We have had in mind for many years that we would take the two adjoining rooms on the West end of the house and turn them into a master suite.  The smaller of the two would make a nice large bathroom, and the two offset closets between the rooms would make a large walk-in closet.

As with so much of the house, there are mysteries about how things came about.  The indentation in the wall in the North West bedroom is a prime example.

The mystery indentation in the bedroom wall

When we first looked a the house, there was a large family bible with its own stand in this opening.  I thought it would be the perfect place to have a shrine of some sort, complete with Mexican candles and fake flowers, since the inset area in the wall provided a certain reverence for whatever the purpose was.  We didn’t really know why this was setup this way.

A closer inspection of the opening revealed what appeared to be holes drilled in the floor for water pipes.  However, there was no drain.  I figured that there might have been a sink here at some point, but why would there be evidence of supply pipes, and no evidence of a drain?  When we stripped the wallpaper, we could see that there was something that had been attached to the wall.

The thing is, why would there be a sink in the bedroom?  Was this something that they did because they were not sure what ameneties to put in a house at that time?  If the house was built in 1889, and renovated some time in the 1910s/1920s (as the style of the architectural detail, construction techniques, and materials suggests) then it could be that people were not as accostomed as we are to having indoor plumbing.  The sink would make this the master bathroom of that time.

The bathroom in this house had a toilet and claw foot tub.  There was no shower in site.   It seems that this was representative of the way people lived for the first half of the 20th century, the bath being reserved for Saturday night.  It could be that the sink was a way to freshen up in the bedroom.

Behind the wall of this wall indentation was the closet for the other bedroom.  The two closets were offset (with the Southwest bedroom having a much smaller closet due to the sink indentation), and we figured that if we opened up the walls inside of the closet, and moved the door in the Southwest bedroom over to match the location of the closet door for the Northwest bedroom, then it would make a very convenient walkthrough.  It would also provide a nearly four foot wide by six foot deep closet between the rooms.

This will be the walkthrough to the Southwest bedroom

The closet had this built-in set of drawers.

Built-in drawers in the NW bedroom closet

After removing the set of drawers, it was clear to see how the original wood work looked unpainted.  In fact, most of walls in the house had never been painted, since they were all wallpapered.

Closet after built-in drawers removed

Interesting things always appeared when working on the house, like the hole cut in the floor under the threshold, which appeared to be for an electrical box…

So, they needed an outlet under the threshold?

Next, I demo’ed the wall in the back of this closet, and opened it up to pass through to the other closet.

View from closet in NW bedroom into closet in SW bedroom

View looking through the SW bedroom closet into the NW bedroom closet

Since the old sink indentation did not go all the way to the ceiling, it was opened to the attic above, and when we blew cellulose into the floor joists above, they filled this area, and all the adjecent stud bays.  I had to scoop out a bunch of cellulose, and attach some cardboard to the strappings to keep the stuff up there.

Cellulose everywhere!

When we demo’ed the back wall of the SW closet, we found the drain pipe for the old sink.  In this picture, you can see the joint in the cast iron pipe where a section of pipe attached, and went up next to the lathe in the wall.  This was the vent for the sink.

A soil pipe joint in the wall

When we opened the wall in the cubbie, we found that there was space inside the wall that was plastered, and it is not clear what was done first or why.

This is finished wall plaster that was inside the wall

Also, the plumbing we expected to find was there.

The orange pipe is for a home sprinkler system that was installed when we were first renovating the house.  That is a story for another post.

After pulling all the plaster, framing, and lathe, here is what it looked like…

I smashed the connection between the smaller and larger drain pipe with a hammer.  It is iron soil pipe, so a few whacks with the hammer takes it apart nicely.  The smaller drain pipe is lead.  Lead is also used as is the packing material that is placed in the joints between the iron pipes.

We continued removing the plaster and lathe, to get down to the sticks.

The owners who lived here before us had dogs.  And they didn’t take care of the dogs.

Many of the doors, door trim, and jambs have damage from dogs repeatedly scratching, trying to get out of the room.  In many cases, the dogs’ toenails wore through the paint, and created gouges that exposed the grain of the wood, with gouges along the softer parts of the wood, following the growth rings.

It is actually sad to consider how much apparently, the women who lived here were not able to take care of the dogs.  The extent of animal damage to the house was pretty incredible.  Much worse than the scratches is the urine damage.  The dogs instinctively marked their territory using the virtual fire hydrants of the house: outside corners such as door jambs, and especially the colonnade that is part of what we now call the mudroom.  The colonnade suffered some of the worst of the damage, and that is what I decided needed to be addressed.

Here you can see the results of having dogs locked in the house and ignored.  I can’t imagine how bad life was for they poor dogs, never getting out of the house to play or exercise.  I suppose it is better than tying them up and the yard and forgetting about them and leaving them to freeze, which some people do.

This is a closeup of the damage that is seen on the outside corners of the colonnade.

Lovely, huh?

It is a bit difficult to see here, but the finish nails holding the trim in place are actually rusted through from the acidity of the urine.  Also, the wood was greatly cupped, and in some places quite punky.  The short pieces of trim on either side were so far gone that they needed to be rebuild, since they would no longer fit into the space correctly.

This image shows the rusted nails:

Here is a piece of trim that I made to replace one of the damaged ones.  It was pretty easy to do using the existing one as a template, and we have lots of boards of the same type of wood left over from the butler’s pantry that we disassembled when renovating the kitchen.

I took off the side pieces of baseboard to make it easier to fix them, and (no surprise) found an ancient mouse nest.  Actually, I’d be surprised if we didn’t find something like this… our house is like a giant Habitrail.

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So, after getting all the trim off, and prepared for replacement, we needed to address the floor, which is strip maple.  It was incredibly cupped and had huge gaps near the damaged trim.  Other places it was like this in the house, we managed to just sand the floor and finish it, if it was not too discolored, and ignore the gaps.  However, this particular area still becomes very fragrant come July and August, so we had to do something.