Under The House
Feb. 16th, 2011 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillSo you may recall that yesterday I was crawling around under the house and discovered that one of the ducts for the heating system had had a section come lose and fall. Today I went to the hardware store to see my clever friend Steve, who bought a beater house many years ago and has basically fixed most of it up from scratch himself, thinking "Steve will know what to do," even if it turns out that what to do is call a professional.
And yes indeed, Steve said that the solution was to bend half the tabs on the fallen piece out straight, fit them inside the round hole cut in the big box where all the ducts joined, reach inside the short piece and bend the inside tabs back against the inside of the box. (Thank goodness for leather gloves.) This puts half the tabs on the outside of the box and half on the inside of the box, trapping the tabbed end of the duct in the round hole in the box. Then press the not-fallen length of duct away by half an inch or so, so you can align the end of the formerly fallen piece and the end of the not-fallen length, and slip one inside the other. He sold me some metal tape intended for sealing up ducts ($2.73) and I went back to the house with a lighter heart.
I also picked up the plywood for drawing the stations on, but when I got home I decided to work on the house first. Putting the duct back together worked just as described except that the two pieces of duct only barely met. Hopefully the tape will hold them together. I feel quite proud of having (I think) solved the problem without having to spend a lot of money.
And seeing as that went so well I thought I'd drag some of the six mil plastic down under the house and see if I could spread it by myself (six mil means 6/1,000 of an inch, which is actually fairly thick, heavy plastic. Just thought you might like to know what a mil was.) And the answer is yes, I can spread it by myself, though it is a bit of a pain. So I spread plastic under half the house--the half farthest away from the crawlspace entry. I had to cut it in places to get it to fit around the central weight-bearing pillars and the occasional prop, which was also a bit of a pain. I left about six inches excess to run up the walls, and overlapped it by about six inches in the middle of the house. However I have not done the hardest quarter yet, which will be the quarter where the heating ducts all come together in a giant tangle. That tangle has at least one leg that runs all the way to the ground and I'll have to make a slit in the plastic to accomodate that, and I really can't see under there very well.
But that is a problem for tomorrow. Since I fixed the duct for $2.73 and a lot of wriggling, and did half the plastic by myself I'm calling today another win..
Oh, and while I was spreading plastic I found a jawbone. About three inches long, narrow, with many small, sharp teeth. Opossum, maybe? I wonder if it is from the same animal that left the poops I found yesterday--slightly smaller than cat poops, noticeably bigger than rat poops. And, now that I think of it, where the rest of its bones are.
I think I know where animal(s) are getting in, now--there is daylight visible under the ductwork's connection to the furnace. The furnace itself is outside the house, and a big rectangular duct thing runs into the crawlspace, where it sprouts many round ducts. This area is complicated by the bathroom plumbing, which makes it harder to get in and out, but a basic caving worm-wriggle accomplishes a lot. I think I need to seal off the opening with some kind of heavy wire or something, because I have decided I don't want to share my house with animals--no, not even the crawlspace. I need the stuff in there to stay in good shape with minimal care for decades and that means no lodgers. Perhaps another trip to consult my friends at the hardware store is indicated.
And yes indeed, Steve said that the solution was to bend half the tabs on the fallen piece out straight, fit them inside the round hole cut in the big box where all the ducts joined, reach inside the short piece and bend the inside tabs back against the inside of the box. (Thank goodness for leather gloves.) This puts half the tabs on the outside of the box and half on the inside of the box, trapping the tabbed end of the duct in the round hole in the box. Then press the not-fallen length of duct away by half an inch or so, so you can align the end of the formerly fallen piece and the end of the not-fallen length, and slip one inside the other. He sold me some metal tape intended for sealing up ducts ($2.73) and I went back to the house with a lighter heart.
I also picked up the plywood for drawing the stations on, but when I got home I decided to work on the house first. Putting the duct back together worked just as described except that the two pieces of duct only barely met. Hopefully the tape will hold them together. I feel quite proud of having (I think) solved the problem without having to spend a lot of money.
And seeing as that went so well I thought I'd drag some of the six mil plastic down under the house and see if I could spread it by myself (six mil means 6/1,000 of an inch, which is actually fairly thick, heavy plastic. Just thought you might like to know what a mil was.) And the answer is yes, I can spread it by myself, though it is a bit of a pain. So I spread plastic under half the house--the half farthest away from the crawlspace entry. I had to cut it in places to get it to fit around the central weight-bearing pillars and the occasional prop, which was also a bit of a pain. I left about six inches excess to run up the walls, and overlapped it by about six inches in the middle of the house. However I have not done the hardest quarter yet, which will be the quarter where the heating ducts all come together in a giant tangle. That tangle has at least one leg that runs all the way to the ground and I'll have to make a slit in the plastic to accomodate that, and I really can't see under there very well.
But that is a problem for tomorrow. Since I fixed the duct for $2.73 and a lot of wriggling, and did half the plastic by myself I'm calling today another win..
Oh, and while I was spreading plastic I found a jawbone. About three inches long, narrow, with many small, sharp teeth. Opossum, maybe? I wonder if it is from the same animal that left the poops I found yesterday--slightly smaller than cat poops, noticeably bigger than rat poops. And, now that I think of it, where the rest of its bones are.
I think I know where animal(s) are getting in, now--there is daylight visible under the ductwork's connection to the furnace. The furnace itself is outside the house, and a big rectangular duct thing runs into the crawlspace, where it sprouts many round ducts. This area is complicated by the bathroom plumbing, which makes it harder to get in and out, but a basic caving worm-wriggle accomplishes a lot. I think I need to seal off the opening with some kind of heavy wire or something, because I have decided I don't want to share my house with animals--no, not even the crawlspace. I need the stuff in there to stay in good shape with minimal care for decades and that means no lodgers. Perhaps another trip to consult my friends at the hardware store is indicated.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-19 01:07 pm (UTC)Someday I'm going to stage a revolt and insist on everything being converted back to Imperial units. Science can use the metric things, but they are no use for real world stuff.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 03:13 am (UTC)In Massachusetts one summer we had raccoons in our eaves, running all around the house. Couldn't get them out. Somebody offered to bring his ferrets over -- great, so we'd have raccoon corpses rotting in the eaves. No thanks.
Mother Nature was our friend that time. We went away for a week, and when we got back our neighbors told us there'd been a really bad hot spell, just ending. Apparently it was too much for the raccoons, who had abandoned their too-cozy new quarters. I nailed hardware cloth over the hidden opening they'd gotten in by to keep them out while I got a pro in to close it up properly. And it did.
I still keep a roll of it in the basement, for... whatever.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-17 04:11 am (UTC)* I think that's what they're called. The business end is about 5/8" wide and the jaws come together along that whole length, so you can get a GOOD grab on whatever you're grabbing.
No, that's the wrong name
Date: 2011-02-17 04:18 am (UTC)I tried "hog nose pliers" and got a bunch of pictures of various sizes of Vise Grips, some of which had horizontally-extended jaws for gripping sheet metal. That's in the right direction, but really a bit too far.
The ones my dad had were black, and 5/8 to 3/4 inch wide across the face of the jaws. The handles were at least 6 inches long. You'd be able to grab at least two strands of hardware cloth with these.