The Butchering of my Trees

Dayton Power and Light must have contracted with the ABC Professional Tree Service to clear the branches away from the electric lines that run down the alley beside the house. These guys drove a large truck with a hydraulic lift basket pulling a heavy duty wood chipper which they used to mulch all the branches. They went down our alley on Tuesday afternoon and when they filled the back of their truck with mulch the guys started to rake the excess leaves onto our property. One of the guys walked this pile of wood across the alley from another property and dumped it in the brush on our slope.



When they came back they did this to our trees;




And left this in my bushes;



They call themselves ABC Professional Tree service! Beware of people who advertise how professional they are.


Four of my trees are going to have to come down now because they have been butchered so badly and look awful. Some of these limbs have been cut a good fifteen feet below the power lines. I'm sure these guys were contracted to clear the trees from the lines and not clear the trees from the alley!

I think it is great that someone could be so considerate as to leave me a chainsaw in the brush beside my van! Especially this week!

A Gift From an Asshole!

After the break-in debacle we decided that it was finally time to clear much of the back yard and alley of weeds. I pulled out the recently acquired Stihl weed whacker with a metal blade attachment to cut through the host of small trees that are popping up all over the yard. When I got to the location of the former garage where the "Beast" sits (my 1975 Ford Econoline Van that I haven't tried to drive for a year) I had a whole lot of weeds to whack, a bunch of empty cigarette packets to pick up and several empty pop bottles to dispose of. When I hacked and slashed my way to the passenger side front wheel I found something that I REALLY needed!

Sitting right there on the ground was a 42cc Poulan Pro chainsaw with... wait for it.... a plastic chain cover. Can you believe it! Only one day earlier someone had stolen mine and now someone leaves me an exact replacement. It even leaks gas just like my old one did.....

Assholes!

Once again the "Crack House" was broken into and once again it appears that absolutely nothing was taken. This marks the third time such a thing has happened. Today the assholes broke the window to the kitchen door and when they realized that they needed a key to get the door open they broke out another window and a mullion and climbed through the opening. I suspect they were kids because that opening measured 15" X 25" and I wouldn't want to climb through it. They went out the door in the back that leads to the basement after undoing the deadbolts and moving the 2 X 4 that jambs that door shut.

I have no clue how many rooms they went through or if the radio blasting away spooked them. Maybe it was our ghost! All the tools were intact (as far as I could tell) and since most of them are old they have little value. The door is fixable and I have lots of old glass so the cost to me is my time. No point in reporting this crime because the police can't do anything except take a report at their earliest convenience which isn't convenient to me and our insurance deductible is so high there won't be any claims. Since it was about 10:00 PM when I stopped by to put the garbage can out I boarded up the broken windows and secured all the other windows in the house and went home to have a beer. I will re-evaluate the situation early in the AM.

This kind of petty crime drives people away from Dayton. In fact, since I have lived here (13 years) I have had at least 7 garage break ins 2 car break ins, an antique motor scooter stolen and three attempts to break in at the "Crack House" but nothing of value has ever been taken (except the scooter which I couldn't get insured for damage and theft because of it's uniqueness). I have realized this though. With all the hassle of fixing the damage, meeting insurance deductibles on the cars and filing police reports it is still cheaper to live here than any of the suburbs or even a different state. If I bought a house of comparable size to either of the two that we have in any other location, we would have to pay out more money in mortgage interest over 30 years than it would cost to pay deductibles and send my child to private school. In fact, if you live in the region and plan to send your child to private schools then you should live in Dayton because you will pay out less money in real estate taxes on a larger home! Tax money that is used to support the public school system. If more responsible people would move here there would be fewer homes for irresponsible people to occupy and petty crime rates would go down because we have fewer assholes in our city.

**UPDATE**
Something was bugging me this morning when I woke up. I couldn't remember smelling gasoline when I stopped at the house last night so I ran over there early this morning to see if my hunch was correct. It was.
The assholes stole my chainsaw. They left the case that it was sitting on but took the blade cover, go figure that one out. Well, I hope it leaks as much gas on them as it did on me!

Look at the Size of THIS!

My chimney is all nicely insulated with vermiculite and capped off with my floating cement cap and this stainless steel chimney cap. Nice, eh?



Now look a little closer..... what's that on the corner?



That is the biggest preying mantis that I have seen in years!

The city inspector will be out today to poke his head up my chimneys that have been lined to let me know if they are usable. He will be the same guy who approved my plumbing rough in 4 years ago. The place has changed a lot in 4 years!

Stay tuned, lots of exciting things to report this week, including how I am attemting to make a concrete sink for the downstairs powder room.

To Cap it Off

This week I made a "floating chimney cap" to cover the opening of the chimney. I made a wood frame with scrap wood and placed it on a piece of insulating foam on the front porch. I wrapped some thin packing styrene around the base of a clay tile chimney liner and placed it at the center and proceeded to make some concrete using perlite and portland cement so that it is light in weight. The thing "floats" because it is not bonded to the chimney so it will expand and contract without cracking. The gaps are filled with fire proof caulk and it will be attached to the chimney with lime morter which is softer than the concrete. There is a slight slope from the center to the outside edges to allow water to run off the surface.



When I was done with the light weight mix I mixed some all purpose sand with portland cement in a 1:1 ratio and troweled that over the top surface. Once I put the thing in place I will trowel a similar mix on the exposed edges.




I will leave the thing in the frame until it is in place. I used a light weight mix because I have to get this thing out of this dormer window on the third floor and along that box gutter



To here



and it is a lot easier when the thing weighs 20 lbs instead of 100 lbs! You can see I already put a stainless steel cap on the chimney. This was to stop the rain from coming down the chimney. We used to get very little water in the fireplace because the brick sucked up all the water. Now, with a stainless steel liner it all enters the fireplace.

I am still waiting for our big bags of vermiculite to arrive so that I can pour that down the chimney to insulate the liner. In the meantime I installed our old time door bell and actually ran old style telephone wire that I salvaged from the house to service it. The old style wire is thicker than modern telephone wire. This cable has 4 wires not two so I will be able to add a second bell to the circuit if I need to at a later date. The bell works great but may not be loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house. We know the house is old (1845) and the ringer is old (1892)but the actual door bell displays neanderthal qualities! I think I'll call it "Sparky"!

For Whom the Bell Tolls.

I got an 1892 iron box electric bell on Ebay this week to use for a doorbell ringer. I didn't like any of the modern chimes or the way they looked, so I opted once again for that old timey stuff.



This thing arrived and I tested it using the transformer that controls my thermostat to the furnace and after hearing it work I mounted it on one of those wood bases that you can buy at a craft supply shop. (I just happened to have a few lying around, stained and varnished of course.) I wiped it with a little linseed oil to make it shine and screwed a hinged loop to the back so that I can hang the thing on a nail or a picture hook. I can use some of that old cloth covered copper wire from the primitive alarm system that I pulled out of the floor for effect as I wire this baby up!

Here is an old catalogue page of a similar bell.



I plan to place it in the hall on the second floor but if it isn't loud enough I might just have to buy two or three more and place them in strategic locations throughout the house! I wonder what the cats are going to think about this.......

A Different Class of Lowes

We were in Dublin, Ohio on Friday and had to make a right turn and turn around at an intersection in order to get back to where we had to go. Deborah asked a question that is always answered with a "Yes".

"Do we need anything at Lowes?"

To which I answered "I need ANOTHER bucket of joint compound."

So we pulled into the Lowes parking lot and I had to take these two pictures.



The front of the store. In Dublin you are Irish 365 days a year so I'm guessing the trademark "Lowes blue" is a banned color.

This is a picture of the eco-friendly cart return station that took me 5 minutes to find. I was looking for the traditional metal corral effect that we have in Dayton.



Once you enter the front door though everything looks the same. To my surprise the bucket o'joint compound was a good 50 cents cheaper than the Dayton variety. I guess it pays to have class. This seems to be one of those high development towns with lots of new buildings popping up all over the place. I guess the population just keeps dub'lin!

The End of an Era!

I can honestly say that after some 70 + years, the "Old Crack House" no longer has ANY rough textured walls and only two moderately textured ceilings (which I did to hide a few imperfections that I was too lazy to eliminate at the time). I have one less hole in the wall too! This was how it used to look;



One down, four to go!
Here is the rest of the room now with walls that are almost done;





Of course the ceiling still looks like crap and I guess you could say it has some texture!!!

A question I may be able to answer!

I got this comment yesterday fron "Alex" on my window repair post from last year.

I realise the trail has gone cold but can you help with a formula for making trowelling mastic to seal the space between a sash window frame and the stonework including under the sill? I recall the main ingredients are (sharp?) sand and linseed oil (boiled?) but don`t know the proportions or if any other ingredient is involved. The shops here only want to sell silicone cartridges and suchlike so your help would be appreciated.

Here is what I can tell you. From the 1909 Household Hints and Discoveries book I have;
Under the index "Putty" I found this.

Hardwood floor filler- The best filler consists of ground quartz mixed with linseed oil about as thick as white lead paint. The particles of quartz are angular and adhere to the grain of the wood.

and this;

After the priming coat is thouroughly dry, putty up all nail holes, dents, cracks and other defects in the surface with pure linseed oil putty composed of equal parts of white lead and whiting. Nearly all the putty sold at present is made of other oils than linseed (chiefly products of petroleum) and ground cliffstone sand. The use of such putty is the explanation of the yellow nail holes and cracks so often marring what is otherwise good work.
The addition of 1 part of powdered litharge to 5 parts each of white lead and whiting in the composition of the white lead putty above specified is permissible, and where convenient, advised.
The addition of the litharge assists in the drying and hardening of the putty.

Your other options would be to mix some lime plaster using sand and masons lime at about 2 parts sand to 1 part lime and using a tuck pointing tool to push into the gap. If the gaps are deep you can plug them with fabric, newspaper or fiberglass insulation. Another option is to use a can of expanding foam insulation to fill the space, cut away the excess and then use joint compound, lime putty or painters caulk to smooth over the surface. If your walls are stone and you don't want a messy junction at the seam, use masking tape on the stone to get a straight crisp line. You may also be able to apply a thin strip of additional molding to hide the gap.

I would be inclined to use the expanding foam and painters caulk myself because it insulates and seals without the threat of cracking later. My next option would be plaster and then painters caulk to smooth and seal the surface. Painters caulk is acrylic based and will smooth nicely with your finger or a damp cloth or sponge. I don't know anyone who inspects the edges of windows to see if the filler is authentic to the age of the house, especially after it has been painted or coated with shellac!

Smooth as a Baby's Bum

In my spare time I smooth out walls. I have done so many like this that I don't need to sand much anymore. I know I have stated in the past that I detest textured walls and ceilings and I have found that the easiest way to smooth out textured walls is to apply joint compound to them. Remember this wall?



Well as of last night it looked like this



Remember this wall too?



Well, it currently looks like this.



What does it take to do this? A strong arm, 4 days and about 4 buckets of joint compound per room. Is it worth it? That depends on whether you detest textured walls as much as I do!