My Green Home Project, the Blog

REFINISHING A FLOOR, BEFORE & AFTER

2009-05-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Take an old house, remove the carpeting, discover the original spruce flooring, repair it where necessary, hire a guy with a sander and the ability to use it, and you have just saved a floor, a house and a bunch of trees.

Before

After

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER

2009-04-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

When this painter showed up for work without brushes, rollers or ladders, I should have listened to the flea in my ear.

Instead, I loaned him my own equipment.

He worked for one day and never came back, leaving every room in this kind of condition.

OF COURSE I HAD TO HAVE IT

2009-04-12T06:44:00.001-07:00

I used to say if Home Depot didn't carry it, it didn't exist.

Well, this is the only gallon of vapor barrier primer in this part of the world, and it didn't come from Home Depot. Home Depot Canada does not carry vapor barrier primer. The Home Depot staff doesn't even know it exists.

But I had to have it, so I could try it and write about it, so after using the Home Depot phone and yellow pages, I drove across town to the ICI paint store.

I wouldn't have purchased more anyway, because at $30 a gallon, it would have cost too much, and also because at 100 g/L, it doesn't qualify as a low-VOC product (VOC = volatile organic compound, something undesirable if you're trying to be green).

The product that I bought in quantity, and which cost 1/10th of the price – ICI's Speedwall 8130 Interior Latex Sealer – has a maximum VOC of 41.92 g/L. The maximum acceptable VOC level for this kind of paint product is 65.

Sometimes you have to compromise.

A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

2009-04-08T02:45:00.001-07:00

When you're greeted by a cloud of dust and you see a guy on a scaffold, merrily sanding away, you know you're getting near the end of the renovation ordeal.

ANOTHER LADDER STORY

2009-03-31T05:45:00.000-07:00

Folding attic ladders have got to be the neatest invention ever.

Whether you call it a pull-down attic ladder, a foldaway attic ladder, a retractable attic ladder or a telescoping attic ladder – or, as the Quebec-based manufacturer calls it on his website, a disappearing attic ladder – it was the perfect way to retain access to the former second floor of the house after having turned it into an attic and eliminating the original staircase.

You pull down your folding attic ladder when you need it and send it back upstairs when you're through with it, leaving only a trap door visible. If you paint the trap door the same color as the ceiling, it's practically invisible.

Cool!

MY DREAM OFFICE

2009-03-24T10:47:00.001-07:00

See that window at the end? In a few months my desk is going to be under it.

To get to this point, my sunroom-office underwent a few major transformations.

First, we rebuilt the roof.

Then we put in new walls and reinforced the foundation.

This was followed by spray foam insulation.

Then the vapor barrier, then the drywall.

And it only took one year.

Only?

THE LADDER'S FINAL TRIP

2009-03-23T03:35:00.000-07:00

LEFT: March 10th — CENTER: March 20th — RIGHT: March 21st

DANGER! FALLING LADDER!

2009-03-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

I haven't had a good night's sleep since I noticed that the ladder that I had left on the roof over the winter had unhooked itself from the ridge and begun a slow but inevitable journey towards the front yard.

What you can't see on this picture is that below the eaves there is a series of windows -- a sunroom, to be exact.

The law of gravity tells me that there is a huge possibility that as it ends its fall, the ladder -- which is about eight feet long -- could very well take a turn towards the house and hit a window, or fall straight into the snowbank and then hit a window.

I can't wait for it to fall so I can catch up on my sleep.

REUSING SALVAGED MATERIALS

2009-02-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

One of the pieces that came out of the deconstruction phase was this metal door sill that used to belong to the house's original main entrance.

Even though it was over fifty years old, it was in perfect condition because some time in the seventies a sunroom was added to the front of the house.

The door, and its sill, remained where they were, which meant they never had to cope with the elements ever again.

A few months ago, we moved the main entrance from the sunroom/office to the east side, and the other day Tom took out the door, frame and all, and installed the sill. (The grunginess of everything is temporary. We're waiting for spring to change the frame and paint the door.)

If I have anything to do with it, that sill will be there for another fifty years.

WELCOME TO ZHIVAGOLAND

2009-02-21T13:29:00.001-08:00

I am told that this phenomenon is typical of houses with steel roofs.

Look closely and you'll see how the roof has extended itself as a shelf of ice, at the end of which hang the icicles.

I had never seen that until this morning.

I'll have to admit that it's pretty, but when it's on your house, it's also pretty scary.

What happens next? Stay tuned.

MY DAZZLING NEW KITCHEN

2009-02-16T15:25:00.000-08:00

The last time I used foil insulation was on the forced air furnace ductwork of my previous house. I had noticed how warm the (unfinished) basement was, and the colder it was outside, the warmer the basement was. I don't remember how I found out about reflective insulation, but for a mere $25 I wrapped all the ducts, the furnace plenum and the hot water heater.

After that, the basement became comfortably cool, and as its temperature dropped, so did my power bill.

So when I found out that reflective insulation -- a.k.a. foil insulation, foil bubble insulation, reflective barrier -- was also a vapor barrier, I decided that the new kitchen -- which faced the windy north side of the property -- would be a good place to install it.

I thought that room could use the extra R-4 of insulating value, and the kitchen being a naturally warm room due to all the cooking and baking that takes place there, I wanted to preserve as much of that heat as possible in winter. (Summer wouldn't be a problem in this rather cool Maritimes climate.)

The foil insulation was installed on top of the spray foam insulation, and with the foil side facing into the room.

The way reflective insulation works is by reflecting the heat back where it came from. However, to accomplish this it requires an air space, and so on top of the foil we will have to install strips of 3/4-inch strapping, which will also serve as support for the drywall.

You can view the installation of the foil insulation here.

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

2009-02-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

Are you into deconstruction? I hope so.

If you don't know what it is, it's because you haven't seen the deconstruction page on my website.

I call it "the eco-friendly sister of demolition". You're demolishing all right, but you're doing it in a gentle way, in order to preserve the integrity of the materials. That way, they can be reused, instead of ending up in a landfill.

Anyway, all of the interior walls of that house had been covered with sheets of paneling - you know, the type that imitates wood. Each room was done in a different color and style. Some of it had been covered with wallpaper.

It was the fashion, back in the fifties, plus it was something you could install yourself. No special skills required.

It came off quite easily, but some of it broke, some of it was in pieces too small to use, but we salvaged as much as we could. The idea was to turn them around, i.e. the "wrong" side would now be the "good" side. This way, we wouldn't have to worry about matching.

It seemed like a good idea to use it in the new stairwell.

However, after using it for the ceiling, we realized that it was going to be a very expensive proposition.

That space was irregular to say the least, and cutting the panels to fit the ceiling was excruciatingly time-consuming.

And as you can see, the surface was going to require painting, a job I couldn't do myself because of the special equipment required.

Since my workers are paid by the hour, it became obvious that this was not a good idea.

So the panels are going to be used on the laundry walls, in the basement, where I will be able to paint them myself.

And the stairwell ceiling?

We drywalled it.

WHAT'S UNDER THE DRYWALL?

2009-02-06T03:01:00.000-08:00

When you start from scratch, you never have to wonder how it was done.

What you see here is what is going to be under the drywall:

--The white stuff is spray foam insulation;

--The shiny stuff is the vapor barrier, designed to seal the "house envelope";

--The red stuff is "tuck tape", to join and seal the pieces of plastic sheeting together;

--The vertical pieces of wood are the original studs of the house structure;

--The horizontal pieces of wood are for screwing the drywall without piercing the vapor barrier.

Reassuring, isn't it?

FIRST POST

2009-02-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

I'm starting this blog because I feel frustrated at the slowness with which I'm producing material for my website, my-green-home-project.com.

For instance, yesterday I was very excited when I went to the house and found that NB Power had switched my power to the new post that they had put up just for me and my next-door neighbour.

In the photo, the old post is in front and the new one is further back.

Once the phone company has removed its own wires, the old post will be removed and my driveway will be safer.

It was exciting news, but the way the website works it will be months before that shows up there.

Isn't is appropriate that my first post is about... a post?