pretty cold

Was away for the weekend. Never lit a fire in the stove, none of that stuff. Was by the place yesterday AM, temp was about 18F. This AM, I stopped in, it was 16F. Wasn't around yesterday, and it was cold. Wasn't around much saturday, and it was also, cold.

Too cold in fact.

Bought meself onna them fancy remote IR thermometers. No, they are not all alike. This one is supposed to be + - 2F inside a range one would want for HVAC work, and +- 1.5% overall. Not great, but close enough for who it's for I suppose.

Anyway, much to my dismay, the basement crawlspace, which I expected to be 50-ish, maybe in the 40s, was down in the high 20s. Yes, the dirt floor was showing 22F, the stone foundation, coupled to the ground, showing 29F. Ouch!

I have to get some therms into this area, lest I lose the existing plumbing. Now, I intend to replace it all anyway, but it's nice having a working sink, and toilet. Ya know?

checked the new floor, a whopping 19F. Won't be putting any water in that floor anytime soon.

So, on to other fun stuff.




A rudimentary test of the home made collector. Not very scientific. No real way to measure temps, fancy thermometer or no. Need better stuff for that. I added a sheet of foil faced polyiso insulation to the back of the collector, and set it in the low sun for a while. Once the back of the collector came up to about 100F (which I could measure) I plumbed the collector into the 'water feature'. That stone thing there, with a waterfall and a pool. It has a submersible pump in there, and I knocked a hole in the very thick ice, and connected up to the pump, and ran it through the collector, back into the pool. After about 4 hours, it melted all the ice. So, I guess that means it makes heat. Best measurements I could take showed me adding about 4F to the water, at some flow rate that's way too much. I dunno, not a very good test, but it was something to do.

Since I made a trip to the store for some insulation, I got to play with this new toy:



Back when I still had a job, and still had an income, and knew I wasn't going to have an income for long, I took a deep breath and bought this tool. Knowing I was going to be shaping a LOT (fsvo 'lot') of foam board insulation, some of it foil faced, I figured this was the correct tool. One reason folks don't use more foam board insulation is because it's actually kinda tricky to work with. This tool puts that problem to bed.



My cuts have been accurate to within a 1/16", nature of the material that you can't get a lot closer than that. easy to set up, works great. Jeff Finnel, shineonsolar-at-gmail-youknowtherest. He invented it, and he made it. There aren't many of these. Rumor has it that someone may be interested in licensing it for 'real' manufacture. Good on ya Jeff!

Anyway, with this tool, you can do this:




make cuts EXACTLY the way you want. No kerf loss, no dust clogging up your tablesaw burning out the motor, and the waste stuff is useful, and you retain more material.

So, onward into the cold.


Someone email'd me and asked.

And the answer is yes, there is a 1" or so gap between the roof decking and the 'shiny' side of the polyiso board in that pic. The idea is that the gap creates a radiant thermal barrier. Heat radiating from underneath the roof is retarded by the shiny insulation and convection occurs inside that 1" gap aiming that hot air at the ridge vent, drawing from the eaves. In the winter, any temp differential at all should draw the outside cold air from the eaves, soffit vent, up to the ridge vent, cooling the underside of the roof, which should help prevent heat from the living space melting the underside of the snow cover, which is what creates ice dams at the edge of the roof.