Another Pipe Freeze, Part 2

Last week, I started an explanation of the crisis that we had at our house last week. This is the second and final part.

An addition was built onto our house by the previous owner, making our kitchen huge, and adding some other 1st floor rooms. It was probably the main reason we decided to buy this house in the first place. During the recent sledgehammering, I discovered that air from outside is somehow getting into area above the ceiling in the addition. After some investigation, I found out that there is a small gap between the floor joists in the original house, and the joists in the addition, allowing cold air (above the kitchen ceiling) to go from the addition into the original part of the house (see below diagram).


Below is a picture of the corresponding area, after I jammed a whole bunch of insulation into the gap between the joists.


Of course, there is still the question of how cold air is getting into the area above the ceiling in the addition. But at least we have hopefully taken enough action to prevent the pipes from freezing again in the future.

Another Pipe Freeze, Part 1

Last week, I alluded to a crisis that we had been having at our house.

First, some background: About 10 months ago, a pipe froze above our kitchen and burst, doing a lot of damage to our house. Insurance covered the repairs, but in the process, discovered that the floor joists in that area had been improperly notched, creating a potentially dangerous situation that had to be fixed. So, we had the joists reinforced (and a bunch of new insulation was crammed into this area) before our kitchen was put back together.

The consensus among everyone who looked at the damage was that because the third floor of our house (which contains a full bathroom) was not fully insulated or heated, it allowed the pipes to freeze. The pipes then froze downward, and one just happened to burst above our kitchen. Over this past summer, Heimlich and I spent a lot of time fully insulating the third floor of our house, to prevent this scenario from repeating itself.

About a week ago, the temperatures dropped into the single digits again, and the same water pipe froze. After trying just about every technique that we could think of to thaw out our pipes, I eventually took a sledgehammer to our kitchen ceiling, and then Heimlich thawed out the exposed pipes with a hair dryer.



Obviously, the problem had not been solved by us insulating the third floor of our house... But the most important thing is that we were able to get the pipe thawed out before it burst.

More tomorrow.

ACK!

We're kind of having a crisis over here. I literally have not slept at all since 7AM yesterday morning. I wish that were an exaggeration. And it culminated in me taking a sledgehammer to my (beautiful) kitchen ceiling this morning.

Let me tell you, after I have been up for more than 24 hours straight, I'm not the most coordinated person (as you might imagine). At that point, the last place I should have been was on a ladder, swinging a sledgehammer overhead.

More on this after I regain my sanity...

Never Moving

Earlier this year, I mentioned that the facility that I work at might be relocated to the Nashville area. For a while, all of our long-term (personal) plans were put on hold while we waited to find out if we were either going to move or whether I was going to look for a new job. Fortunately, it was announced later that although the facility I work in is moving into a brand new building, it will be built nearby.

At that point, we reverted to our previously plans of moving closer to work in a few years (Heimlich and I both currently commute a long distance in the same direction). We weren't thinking about moving immediately because of the downturn in the housing market and because Heimlich doesn't think that she has built up enough seniority at work to feel long-term job security yet.

Recently, it has occurred to us that she may never have the kind of job security that we would want before moving, due to the nature of her job. So, our current thinking is that we're not going to be moving. At least, not for the foreseeable future.

The upshot is that we love our house, and we'd get to stay in it. It is a modestly-sized house, so we are living well within our means. And it is also a very nice house, with refinished woodwork throughout, so we love having it. We have also spent a lot of time and money fixing it up, and it's finally at the point where we want it. Here are some shots from a few years ago, when we bought it:



We're also in the inner ring of Cleveland suburbs, meaning that if Heimlich needs to find a new job, she would have the best chance of finding one around here. If we moved closer to where we both work now (out in the country), her job choices would be very limiting.

We also live in a great city (Lakewood), with tons of like-minded people, and almost everything within walking distance.

The downside of staying where we are is that we both have long commutes right now (which become even worse when it snows). I'm putting around 30k/year on my car. However, our commutes are against traffic, so even if the drive is long, it isn't in stop-and-go traffic.

House Moving

My old PhD advisor is moving a house (as in the house itself, not the contents). I would never have the confidence to wheel around a house without worrying that it was going to tip over in the process... The big hole in the following pictures is where the old foundation was.





More pictures on Flickr [flickr.com].

Akron and Murfreesboro

It was announced a short time ago [ohio.com] that the Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tech center will be moved to a brand new facility either in Akron, OH (where it is currently located) or in Murfreesboro, TN (near the corporate headquarters). The tech center currently employs somewhere between 600 and 1000 people in facilities that are nearly 100 years old.

Originally, there were several options on the table, including an extensive renovation of the current facilities, and building a brand new facility in some other locations. All of those other options have been eliminated from consideration.

Both Akron and Murfreesboro are located about an hour away from a major city. Akron is located near Cleveland, OH, and Murphreesboro is located near Nashville, TN. Other than that, I really did not know much about Murphreesboro (having never been there before). So, I decided to do some research. Here is a rundown of the two cities:

	Akron, OH	Murfreesboro, TN
Population:	209,704 (2006 estimate)	100,575 (2008 special census)
Population Density:	3,497.3 people per square mile	1,764.9 inhabitants per square mile
Racial Makeup:	67.22% White, 28.48% African American, 0.26% Native American, 1.50% Asian (source)	79.85% White, 13.89% African American, 0.28% Native American, 2.69% Asian (source)
Median age:	34	29 years
Median income/household:	$31,835	$39,705
Average Temp:	49.6F (Cleveland, OH)	59.1F (Nashville, TN)
Nearby Professional Sports Teams:	Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Browns	Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators
Sales Tax:	6.25%	9.75%
Job Growth	-0.66%	17.85%
Median Home Price	$74,900	$142,000
% population with commute 45 mins. or longer	9.6%	18.5%

In summary, it appears that Murfreesboro is whiter, more affluent, and booming. Whereas Akron is suffering from the malaise of much of the industrialized northeast US. From my point of view, the biggest minus of Murfreesboro (other than it being far from family and friends) is the average temp. Does any of this make up for the fact that I would be totally useless in the summer because of the heat?

Lawn Care

I'm slowly becoming one of those crazy lawn people. I wish I were kidding. You know those people who spend an inordinate amount of time trying to keep their lawn looking like a golf course? Those people that go out and pick up individual leaves off their lawn in seasons other than fall? It's either that or complete insanity that I'm heading towards... Is this what homeowning does to a man?

The other day, I caught myself looking for lawn care weblogs to start reading. Lawn care weblogs!?!? As if most weblogs weren't boring enough to read (take this one for example) -- and now I'm looking for ones that just talk about this or that fertilizer to try...

Anyway, for any other crazy lawn people out there, I did find The Green View [greenviewblog.com], which is a weblog all about lawn care.

I also found a link to an EPA guide on eco-friendly lawn care [newdream.org].

If anyone sees me buying pink flamingos to put out on my lawn, please shoot me and put me out of my misery.

Kitchen

I have been posting about the disaster in our kitchen. Hopefully, this will be the last post on the subject for a while.

The last time I posted about my kitchen, the ceiling had been repaired, but the room needed to be repainted.

It is becoming increasingly likely that we will be moving in the next 5 or so years. Everything is so uncertain at this time. But anyway, although we loved the color of the walls in the kitchen, we felt that they did not look good in pictures, and may make the house more difficult to sell at a later date. So, we decided to go with another color (since it had to be repainted anyway). Here's a picture I took of our kitchen back when we bought the house:


We decided to have it changed to a more neutral color. Here is a picture of the kitchen in the new color:


The big cubby hole on the upper left is where our microwave normally sits. We are currently in the midst of cleaning everything top to bottom, since a ton of dust got all over the place during the demolition process.

Hopefully, our house will return to normal soon.

[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Feb 25, Mar 6]

Enough with the Snow Already...

Dear Terence,

You are a dumbass.


The next time there is a forecast for a foot of snow and near-blizzard conditions, check that you have enough gas for the snowblower. Because it will take about 5 seconds, and will save you from having to drive all over the city in the middle of the storm, looking for the one gas station that is crazy enough to try to stay open in those conditions.

How they ever let an idiot like you get a PhD is beyond me.

your snowblower

House Update

A little while ago, I posted about how our kitchen is a disaster area due to a pipe freezing and then bursting. Here's an updated picture:


We're almost there. The joists have been repaired, a new ceiling has been put up, and the texture on the ceiling has been replicated. Speaking of the ceiling texture, I have to tell you that I never really looked closely at our original ceiling. To us, the new texture looks really exaggerated, but it's really hard to say. Here is a closeup of the way it looks now:


It's entirely possible that it looks almost exactly the same as the original ceiling, but the texture looks exaggerated to us because we are scrutinizing it right now.

At any rate, we are close to having a normal kitchen again...

[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Feb 25, Mar 12.]

Houston, We Have More Problems...

It isn't my intention to turn this into a home improvement weblog, but my house has been preoccupying my mind as of late.

Last week, I posted some pictures of our kitchen after a pipe burst. Our intention was to rip the ceiling down, put a new one up, repaint, and then everything would be back to normal. Well, of course, things never go that easy...


The above picture is of the floor joists in the kitchen ceiling. We had our first look at them ever after the ceiling was pulled down (having only owned this home for 2 years). These joists support the 2nd floor bathroom, which has a really huge bathtub in it.

The finishing work on our house was beautiful, which was one of the reasons that we bought it. And since then, we have found that a ton of the underlying work was done in a really half-assed manner (see above picture).

The thing that is wrong with the above picture is that several of the joists have been cut almost all of the way through so that pipes could be run. Those joists are now sagging from the weight of the bathroom above. Obviously this has to be fixed first.

So, like every other home project known to man, it is expanding far beyond the original scope, and doesn't seem like it will ever end...

[More entries on this subject: Feb 18, Feb 19, Mar 6, March 12.]