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Getting ready for winter is something that all homeowners have to do to their houses, but when you own an old house the getting ready takes on new meaning, beyond raking the leaves and filling your oil tank. You never know when some old thing around your house is going to decide to stop working. Then you realize that some periodic maintenance had been ignored by the previous owner and has now reached a critical juncture.
Min Hus writes about the tedious job of scraping, caulking, reglazing, and repainting windows. As a matter of fact I was painting the interior trim of my windows this weekend. They had been removed to scrape, cracked glass replaced, old paint stripped off, and repainted on both sides. My husband put them back in this weekend and it was my job to repaint it all. It sounds so much easier typing it out than the tediously mind-numbing work that it is.
Did I mention this took a long, long, looong time? Like take your reasonable time estimate and multiply it by five. It took me around 15 hours per window, although that includes some drying and cleanup time. But that time provided a LOT of amusement for my neighbors. (look, Ethel, she almost fell off the ladder again!)
Kristin at 1902 Victorian writes about how she has very few demands in life:
I don’t ask for much in life - just a roof over my head, a car that runs, at least one pair of red shoes, fancy bakery cake once a year, my way in everything, the love of a good man (and dog and cats) … and last but not least, a leisurely hot shower in the morning, environment be damned... But as God is my witness, they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never take a cold shower again! No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never take a cold shower again!
What? Too dramatic?
Kristin has discovered the joys of insulating your water pipes. Those of us who live in actual cold climates are forced to do this so that our pipes don't freeze and break.
Ahhhh, and yet another Fall ritual--preparing your radiators.
Over at Fixer Upper, they have a tutorial up about what they have learned about heating their house with steam. They offer some advice for getting rid of the pings, bangs, knocks and tips for making your system work more efficiently.
This past weekend, Teague took some time out from his day/night/weekend job to clean our boiler and perform some general maintenance. We have a one-pipe steam heating system, which is highly efficient when it’s running properly but requires quite a bit of fidgeting & futzing. We spent many a night falling asleep to the clangs, gurgles and pings of radiators that were not well-adjusted before we figured it out all.
Girl Meets House muses:
But here’s a question–steam vs. heat? And is “keying” a radiator the same thing as “bleeding” a radiator? And what’s up with the violent connotations? Adjusting radiators is beginning to sound like some arcane back-woods hunting ritual…
When she isn't blogging about her life at Notes from the Trenches or huddling in front of her wood burning stove, Chris is working to rescue her house from a century of neglect and bad taste.
