What home improvement work did you do today?

I don't even remember how I stumbled upon it, but for $25 it's fixed 3 doors in the house in about 15 minutes so I don't have to lift the door to have it latch. Well worth it.

 

I’m pretty excited about it. It’s out for delivery.

 

what the fuck?!?

 

Weren’t you just in Arizona? You might want to get checked out in case one of them crawled into an orifice while you were sleeping.

 

Hey look, your GIF works here too.

 

After some quick searching, it’s a palo verde beetle larvae! No wonder those scary bastards just emerge from no where!!!

 

Like peoples bungholes? I thought there was some weird shit in Texas. Y'all can keep Arizona.

 

And I'm sorry for getting emotional. I'm just worried about my friend Casey.

 

Nah - because when we went to HI they ran me through the agricultural scanner looking for just that sort of thing.
Now, what I just came back from Vegas with is anyone's guess...

 

Just gotta roll the dice, don't ya?

 

Never seen these. I use those Styrofoam covers that go over the faucet.

Are these better?

 

I think so but we are pier and beam and it can get pretty cold under there. Takes any guesswork about having to drip the outside faucets because it’ll do it automatically.

 

Well then, I might be acquiring one to try out.

Thanks Joel!

 

Are your floor joists not insulated in the crawl space?

 

Nope. It was built in the late 1800's in Central Texas. I thought about insulating under there but heard it could cause moisture issues. In the winter it feels like a breeze coming up through the floor. I like to stand on it in my bathrobe doing my finest Marilyn Monroe imitation.



Sexy.

 

Now y'all are just being mean.

 

Correct. The registers still need to be cut into the spiral duct and mounted. The registers haven’t arrived just yet so we are waiting to install them.

 

Should be laying pipe tomorrow, maybe even tonight! All the old clay is out and in someone else’s trash can! Both of my connection points are exposed, but I’ll need to clean up the cast iron at the building.
Hope some backfill volunteers are ready on Monday!

 

And now I'm blaming you for me wanting one.

How does it work exactly?

And I hope I don't screw my camper up because I didn't winterize it yet because we are using it the week of Thanksgiving.

 

It has a little metal rod in it and when the water touching it gets cold, the rod shrinks (@Fotnot has a NSFW video explaining the science behind shrinkage) and it starts dripping automatically. The colder the water gets, the more it opens up. Seriously saved my house during the last couple of freezes.

 

My part is done. Now more backfilling and concrete(they will do hand prints in the fresh crete, but they are charging per hand print……)
The old pipe had a decent belly in the middle seen by the camera we sent down, but I ended up with a good pitch the entire run. Threw three bags of softener salt in the trench, concentrating around any couplings or joints. And then a layer over the entire run on top of some dirt.

 

Wow, What's the heat load calculation come to with all those windows. Why the odd transition from Square to round at the point?

 

Wow you do a lot more at your school job.

 

The HVAC load calculations was done by an engineering firm. I don’t know that off the top of my head. I’ll check my records and see.

I wanted to use the round spiral trunk line but it would have presented multiple issues. We did the square ductwork because it has a higher volume in a smaller area versus the original proposed 36” round spiral ductwork. The round ductwork also proposed several other complications. If you look at the round spiral duct radius before it goes to the second floor vertical stack you can see it would have kicked out the entry trunk really far off the wall. This would have pushed the car lifts over by at least a foot. The clearance I had from concrete to the top of the garage door in the open position was 11’3”. After the square HVAC trunk line was finished I cleared the garage door by 2”! With the 36” round spiral duct this wouldn’t have worked. The other issue was the car lift placement needed to be centered with the 24’ garage door. The other challenge was having a 20 ton unit on the exterior and entering into the building with a round spiral duct versus a square opening. The square opening is a lot easier to seal and make the finish and fit cleaner.

All of the windows will have a UV film installed to help with UV rays and heat loss.