Air leaks and weather stripping

IMG_0063, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

If you were wearing an Armani suit, would you wear a clip-on tie? If you bought an super hi-tech HDTV, would you hook it up to your old VCR?

Likewise, if you spent a small fortune installing a fancy front door, would you adhere brown sticky foam around the perimeter of the edge of it to seal out air?

Thus the hot topic for today — the Hands On discussion of options for weather stripping your exterior doors.

OK so maybe I’m a snob. I encourage you to comment and tell me as much. I just know that I’ve priced a lot of doors lately for the flip house, and I own a pretty decent (if neglected) front door. I know how much they cost, and I just can’t get into that foam. And the foam stuff is what I keep seeing energy experts talk about.

I know I need weatherstripping. I don’t need a blower door test to tell me. I can feel a bit of air around the door, and in a couple spots I can see sunlight. And according to Lowe’s, a 1/8″ space around an exterior door is equivalent to a 2×2 inch hole in the wall!

I visited the two major big box hardware stores and found foam and some vinyl. I think this is perhaps one of those items you might need to shop for elsewhere. I checked a premium hardware store here in Dallas called Elliot’s, and a roll of brass flashing long enough to go around my door was just under $20.

Here are some resources I found helpful that I thought might help others:

• Informative guide to types of weatherstripping with pros/cons from the U.S. Dept. of Energy
• “This Old House” super classy project guide to silicone weatherstripping
• Insanely detailed and lengthy list of premium weatherseals from a company called Conservation Technology

Rain barrel story runs in Dallas Morning News

rain barrel story, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

Check out my story on rain harvesting in today’s Dallas Morning News.

Tour my flip house

Complete with Spanish language music.

Four reasons to hire a sprinkler repair guy instead of doing it yourself

fixing the sprinkler valve, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

Yes, it’s great to be able to do stuff yourself. And yes, this is supposed to be “Hands On.”

But sometimes, it’s easier and better to hand a project off to someone who knows what they’re doing.

One example? Sprinkler repair. I would advise anyone who thinks they have a problem with their automatic irrigation system to hire a professional to repair it. I knew a couple weeks ago I had a slow leak on my property, and I suspected the sprinkler. Near a couple heads on the side of the house the ground seemed wetter than it should be, but it was tough to tell given the 45 straight days of rain we’ve had. I logged onto my favorite referral site Angieslist and found a popular company called Billy Jack to come take a look.

I’m glad I handed this project off, and here’s why:

1. The repair guy diagnosed my problem immediately, and it wasn’t what I thought. Knowing as little as I did about sprinklers, I figured maybe the head was broken or a pipe busted near the head. Turns out the problem was a broken valve 50 feet from the head itself.
2. Unless you installed your system, you may possibly have trouble even locating where some of the parts are you need to fix. My system has 10 zones, and for each zone there is a separate valve, buried in the ground and covered with a round plastic cap. My thick St. Augustine turf had completely obscured these — I never even knew they were there. To find them, the repair guys put some sort of electrical meter in the ground, and used headsets to somehow detect valve locations. Not very DIY.
3. The system involves water and electricity. A dangerous mix! An electrical current is required to open and close valves. The repairers knew where to cut it off. I didn’t.
4. Do you really want to dig a bunch of holes in hundred degree heat? OK so this isn’t a very positive DIY attitude, but it is true. Why waste time digging holes when you could spend time on other more fulfilling DIY tasks!

Five curb-your-consumption behaviors you can start right now

When it comes down to it, there are just two ways to curb your consumption:

1. Change the products/systems around you, or
2. Change your behavior

It’s a pretty simple idea, but I think it’s an effective way to start breaking down a really complex problem — how do we go about consuming less?

In case you don’t want to (or already) replaced some bulbs/installed low-E windows/bought a rain tank, here are…

1. Raise the thermostat one degree. Over half of most home energy costs during summer go toward cooling. Raising the thermostat one degree can result in significant savings, some say up to 10%, on your overall energy costs.
2. Only do full loads. The average American family of four washes 540 loads a year, which consumes up to 21,000 gallons of water. The average family also does more than 150 dishwasher loads annually, which uses about 1,500 gallons. Doing two fewer laundry loads a weekand one fewer dish load a week could save 4,500 gallons of water/year.
3. Hand wash dishes like Martha does. Washing dishes is one of those things that no one ever really sits you down and tells you how to do it. Maybe it should be. A kitchen faucet can distribute upwards of 3 gallons per minute, and I can’t tell you how many times I visit someone’s home and see them wash with the water running. The right way to do it is with a hot wash tub on one side, and a hot rinse tub on the other. Just like Martha suggests.

Organized truck = organized contractor? Hmmm…

Catching up on my TiVo I noticed that NYC real estate guru Barbara Corcoran shared her tips this week on hiring a contractor. Among other tips she suggests that a disorganized truck indicates a contractor may make a mess of a job. I am not so sure but will start making note of who rolls by the flip to test this theory.

She makes two very good points about terms and payment — retain one-third of the intended price until the job is totally finished, and discuss up front what change orders will cost. I think we may get burned on the latter there, and I’ll blog about that soon.

Seven ways to find a better contractor

eddie at work, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

This is a photo of Eddie, our do-it-all contractor we’ve hired to work our B. street flip project. He’s quite handy, and his regular daytime gig is working on a crew that renovates high-end Dallas homes. He’s a family contact, and we were lucky to find him with capacity to do this job on his off hours. Another bonus — he pretty much started the very moment we took ownership of the house. In this photo, he’s rebuilding a shower valve, which I’ve come to find out is “extra” work not included in his initial bid, but that’s another post altogether…

Despite my growing sense of unease about these ill-defined “extras,” I’m not sure what we would have done without him. I tried calling other contractors to find out what they’d do the same job for, but I learned quickly how difficult they are to find for small scale, quick turnaround jobs like this one. I find it personally frustrating because there’s work I’d like done on my own house, and I’m not really sure who to go to, given that Eddie doesn’t travel to where I live near downtown.

Apart from Eddie, I’ve not hired any other general contractors, but based off of hiring professionals for smaller jobs like plumbing, and asking people who are in the know, here is my advice…

1. Join Angieslist. This user-supported site facilitates finding contractors based on real ratings and feedback from customers. Homeowners enter info about their experiences with contractors. Theoretically it should help you make a better decision. And, if a contractor totally rips you off you can give them Fs and hopefully save someone else from your misfortune. It costs about $50 a year.
2. Troll for contractors. Within a two block radius of my house there are 3 major renovations going on. I’ve walked through all three in the evening when they’re vacant, and I’ve approached the workers at two of those during the day to get their business cards. Think of it as an on-the-job interview. When you poke your head in during the day you can pretty accurately asess the vibe. If there’s three guys sitting around drinking Budweisers, steer clear. If you can’t believe how much better the place is looking than your own outdated digs, it’s worth asking them if they’ll help you out too.

Five ways to spend your spare $85

This week the Dallas Morning News reported that the unusually cool and wet weather has resulted in lower utility bills. Based on the averages published in this story, people spent about $85 less in June of this year than the same time last year on water and electricity.

The writer takes the piece in an odd direction midway through by asking a consumer credit counselor what people should do with that money. Save it, she said, not surprisingly.

My suggestion? Spend it on something that will reduce your energy and water bills, whether the weather gets hot or not! Here are five ideas for what to do with your spare $85.

1. Buy 10 CFL light bulbs.

They use 70% less energy than their incandescent counterparts and last 10 times as long.

2. Buy a programmable thermostat.

For every 1 degree you lower the thermostat, you save 10% on electricity.

3. Get an A/C tuneup.

A large percentage of these have efficiency problems, inadequate airflow, or other problems that could be solved to increase utilization.

4. Plant a tree in a west facing exposure.

A U.S. energy dept. model says that 3 trees planted in the proper places could save the average house $100-200 / year on energy. Learn more at the Pioneer Thinking website.

5. Get an insulating blanket wrap for your water heater.

It costs about $20 and reduces standby heat loss. Instructions are here.

Five things you must know about fixing the foundation of your house

DSC02805, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

A lot’s happened this week on the house flip project, starting with the repair of the foundation on Monday. Photos of it are here.

This particular foundation is a concrete slab. It’s over fifty years old, and in that time parts of it have sunk due to our shifting clay soil.

Here are five things I learned that you might want to know about fixing your foundation …

1. There is no one right fix to a problem foundation.

It appears that foundation repair is an imperfect science. We got four estimates on this job, and four different suggested fixes. Granted, they were not totally different, but it wasn’t as if one person could say with absolute certainty that their idea was the A-number-one end-all-be-all approach. We went with a company that suggested the addition of 10 piers. But we had estimates suggesting more and one suggesting less.

2. Installing piers around your house will disrupt whatever is next to the house.

The actual fixing process in this and in many cases like it is to insert cylindrical concrete pilings one on top of another underneath the foundation, pressing them down as far as a hydraulic jack will make them go. When they hit rock, or other material dozens of feet down into the ground, the workers jack up the house and set it onto the piers at the right level. they dig man-height holes around the house everywhere this needs to happen. If you have a concrete driveway or a nice shrub in the spot where a pier needs to go, you’re out of luck.

3. Installing piers around your house will disrupt whatever is inside the house.

When they were working on the outside corner of this house Monday, I could see the house move up as they worked. That’s pretty crazy considering how still a house is supposed to be. Walls don’t like being moved like that, and it’s a near certainty that they’ll crack when you have this done. Get a drywall repair crew ready before you fix the foundation.

4. Fixing your foundation may bust the plumbing.

Brittle pipes can crack when moved. Make sure your contractor tests for leaks before and after the job. All the foundation companies we got quotes from paid for an independent stress test on the plumbing before and after the job. We lucked out here – no leaks.

5. Landscaping can affect your foundation in a big way.

The trick to keeping a foundation stable is in keeping the ground underneath it at a constant moisture level. Wet dirt swells, dry dirt contracts. I guess moist dirt just sits.

Water-hogging plants can be detrimental if they suck all the moisture out from underneath a home. The large live oak out in front of the house was noted by those giving quotes as a consideration, and one suggested the addition of a root barrier to bar against potential future water drawing.

Do not plant red tipped photinias next to your foundation. One estimator said they are a huge cause of foundation issues, and they can be found next to a huge number of North Texas homes.

On the flip side, it’s good to maintain some plants at the foundation to hold moisture in the soil. Just not too many.

The repair job was finished by Monday evening, and the house was ready for demolition, which started bright and early on Tuesday.

Cleaning up the flip house

spoils of the cleanup, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

The flip house closed Friday, so the project’s officially started. My bro-in-law D and I pulled out all the carpeting on Saturday and hauled a ton of stuff to the trash area out front. The lady who lived here was in her nineties, and her kids didn’t totally clear the house.

There was some weird stuff left, like a ladies bowling ball and shoes. They were oddly neat and clean compared to the rest of the stuff, leading me to believe those cleaning up forgot to take it, or the freegans didn’t think to look in the particular cranny this ball lived. Other odds and ends — an ironrite machine, a chicken bone taped to the kitchen window, a small kitten figurine made from real kitty? fur that is really freaky.