Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[Chris333]

Get or rent one of those torpedo heaters.

[C855B]

We were looking at propane-powered versions a couple of days ago. I personally think they're risky, however, although safe enough if you show respect for the potential problems. The kerosene type will not happen - after all the time/money replacing odor-permeated insulation, we're just not going there.

I have to wonder, tho', how effective they'll be for when I'm 14' up on the lift. My occasional helper has a building around the corner from us, more or less in a similar position with a partly-finished large space. The similar heaters he had didn't do squat. If you parked yourself in front of 'em you could warm-up a little, but outside of a very small cone of heat (and a lot of noise) they just weren't cuttin' it. To gauge the extent of our situation, the space originally had three of those overhead garage/warehouse heaters.

The core problem here is getting distracted with the exterior stuff in early fall. While we have beaucoup insulation, it's mostly sitting in rolls in the storage area waiting for studwalls to put it into. I s'pose that doesn't help. :rolleyes:

[Scottl]

Warm air rises, so you'll want to be on the lift!

A more central problem I see is that the building is either inadequately heated or insulated, or a combination.  Winter storms happen and frozen pipes are no fun, even if it happens once in a decade.  While that causes you grief in the winter, it also means you are paying for a lot of extra cooling in summer. 

I'm rather sensitive to this issue today, as it is -25C here and my home furnace is definitely working harder.

edit.  just read your post fully.  Face palm, my bad.

[Philip H]

Mike,
Couldn't you manage some sort of temporary insulation fix before you do the stud walls?  I've seen plenty of buildings similar to yours with the insulation between the steel structural members and no other internal walls.  If a day or two of that sort of work offered you relief . . . .

[C855B]

Last winter we did some temporary insulation fixes when we were working on the studio area (22x24) with an existing 8' ceiling, with old R-11 we were replacing. The opening into the layout room was covered by plastic sheeting to at least limit the air transfer. That seemed to work OK, we got'r done.

Unfortunately now, we're dealing with the big space (44x42) also open into the workshop (22x24) and no ceiling, it's all the way up to the roof, 20' at its peak. 2400 sq. ft. of temporary insulation tacked to the roof joists would get expensive quickly. Believe me, I've considered it, but was scared away by the numbers, and it's certainly not going to be a quick job because the space below isn't clear - too much stored materials. Also, it's not just the uninsulated roof, the walls above 8' in this space have nothing other than the 1/2" foam backer under the siding, and some air penetration.

It all comes down to poor contingency planning on my part. The "layout room" (we call it "the auditorium" in front of non-MRRs to convey the size) was planned for a grid ceiling with R-38 on the panels, open attic above. Typical open-space commercial practice. We already have the R-38, and were supposed to have it up by now. If I: 1) for a moment suspected we weren't going to have interior walls up by end of 2013 and 2) had a clue that this fall and winter were going to see sustained, near-record cold, I would have split the insulation between the grid and under the roof panels. The roof contractor asked about insulation, and (now kicking myself) I declined, citing the long-term plan.

Adding insult, we have a very nice, new furnace... but it was sized for the end-game. It cannot keep up with the uninsulated open space. I closed off the unterminated duct tubes that were dumping into the open space so we could heat the finished, insulated area. That does very well, but that's not where we need to work right now.

[C855B]

The layout building survived the "polar vortex" moderately well, even considering we had a very uncharacteristic 12" of snow to go with it. No broken pipes, and we kept the paint stash above freezing. Had a small ice dam above the layout room when things were warming up, but it only dripped (very little) for a couple of hours. No biggie, next winter will have that space properly temperature-equalized below the roof. I was somewhat thankful we had the building to store a couple of the cars; it was nice to not have to dig cars out after all the snow.

The warm-up is bringing progress. The grungy, space-eating stairs up to the former mezzanine area are gone gone gone, and in the dumpster. We finished the cleanup from the deconstruction today, and I have already started on the studwall for the workshop area where those old stairs were. Once that is up, there is a wing wall off the studio area to do, then we can get the new stairs up in the new location going to the future lounge area. Knock on wood, I hope to have stairs up by the end of this week.

Project creep strikes in a big way. Again we're finding ourselves on a deadline to get things far enough along to have a place for our college kid to crash when he gets back home in May. First of all, I have to finish the mezzanine expansion enough to move materials storage out of the planned lounge space. Then it means a major plumbing binge when we get enough warm (and not wet) days so I can peel some of the building skin to run a 4" waste line to the second story for a 3/4 bath. (Previously, I had rigged up a shower in the workshop area. It was OK enough to get by for the three weeks he was here, but this summer we need something "real".)

Yesterday, Robyn asked when I was planning to take a break from construction and starting working on the layout. "Doing something fun for yourself," was the question, noting some of the layout materials bought 3-4 weeks ago. Serious answer was I can't do much until the old mezzanine floor trusses are all out from above the layout room as part of the new mezzanine project. And then there are some studio finish issues remaining.

[sigh] Lots to do, lots to do!

[Philip H]

Ain't retirement great?   

[C855B]

I wasn't going to talk about that, but yeah.     Robyn has been helping me fall into the "why are you still in your bathrobe, it's 1:00?" daily routine, but I'm trying to fight back with "the studio isn't going to finish itself!"

Actually, I'm enjoying the construction a little more now that it's my quasi-job. Before, there was always quite a bit of angst if I wasn't in front of the computer or next to the phone.

[C855B]

Well. I just got my comeuppance.

Given the news that Nest had been bought by Google (and their personal activity micromonitoring apparatus), I was on the warpath to replace the Nest at the layout building with something else. Turns out there is no something else outside of the $800 "comfort system" offered by the heat pump maker via the HVAC contractor. Problem is the very new equipment, with features conventional mass-market thermostats don't understand. I bought and could make the Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat work, but I'd lose several energy-saving features, especially the dehumidifier. So the Honeywell goes back to Lowe's on the next trip.

So... Nest it shall be. However, it and the Hue lights are each going to get their own public-side IP. That way they can blab all they want to about our comings and goings, but the breadcrumb trails will be isolated gobbledygook.

[C855B]

Oh... we heard from our college kid about his summer plans. We had more or less planned on him not being here for more than a couple of weeks since we expected him to be touring schools for his PhD work. "No travel! None! I've had enough!" was the response. Upside - I have reliable construction help for three months. Downside - the pressure is that much more intense to finish the "crew lounge" by the end of April to make it a seriously livable space.

[Scottl]

Wifi thermostat and lighting.  You are going to sweat in the dark one July evening because of some teenage hackers.   

PhD students have summer plans?  LOL

[C855B]

Trust me, the temptation is great to isolate these things and eschew the external connectivity. What's especially scary about the Hue system is that the mothership server has a .ru domain. If it wasn't for frequent genuine firmware updates I would've blocked it the moment I saw it in the tcpdump stream (and I did for while). The Nest's remote management capability has been very important this winter, however, so I simply have to grit my teeth and do what little I can to defend against the concerns.

Yeah, the kid is still working on his Master's thesis, and playing the school politics battle for his T.A. spot in the fall. So already I know it will be occupying his evenings. But during the day he's MINE [evil grin]. It helps that - oddly enough - he's a great cook, so dinners while he is here will be events... provided we can nudge him off his south Asian cuisine kick. Things like "Oh, the food here [India] is a little spicy... it would kill you guys...".

[Scottl]

I'll be interested to see how the Nest improves energy consumption.  I suppose with a building that has highly irregular usage, the adaptive algorithm might save energy, but I would lean towards the simple stuff like a seven day programmable thermo, extra insulation above the false ceiling, and I would think in your southern climate, good window shading and films to minimize AC load.  A steel box like that could gobble up your train money feeding the AC (and heat for those rare events like you just had).

Can't go wrong with a great cook around, even if he likes it hot.  Just watch out if vindaloo becomes a word he uses with any regularity!

[railnerd]

Trust me, the temptation is great to isolate these things and eschew the external connectivity. What's especially scary about the Hue system is that the mothership server has a .ru domain. If it wasn't for frequent genuine firmware updates I would've blocked it the moment I saw it in the tcpdump stream (and I did for while).

Wonder if the manufacturer actually knows about this?  Might be worth a call to Philips.

-Dave

[C855B]

We continue to bat 1.000 with the HVAC in the studio.

I'll be interested to see how the Nest improves energy consumption. ... A steel box like that could gobble up your train money ...

Unfortunately, I have no baseline. The Nest was installed along with the new heat pump.

Your thinking was incredibly prescient. I just saw the electric bill this morning that included the recent super-cold snap. >$600, and we have cheap power here (9¢/KWH). Firsthand lesson in the poor performance of heat pumps when the going gets tough. With another snap starting tonight I think today will see some temporary insulation going up.

Gee, ya' think???