So, This Is What Me and My Buddy Did Today...

I have a new little girl too. She just turned 10 months today actually. She is the best. But, I still hate this house. It was an old summer cabin so, it was just cobbled together from whatever building materials they just happened to find. I've been slowly redoing it.

I got home from work today and sure enough, the house was 66* the stove was idling along at 450*. The first words out of my mouth were, "What the hell is going on? There is no way the house should be this cold with the stove at 450*. No way."

My wife shrugged her shoulders and replied, "Its been like this all day."

I walked back outside and started looking around. Maybe I missed something obvious. And, sure enough, plain as day. The window in the basement (not the vent, but the window) was wide open. The latch for it is broken, not that I can reach it to latch it anyway, its in a crawl space. I guess since it was somewhat windy today it blew open. So, not only was the vent still open but the window was too.

Pissed off I went to my work truck, popped the lock and grabbed the ream of styrofoam boards that I picked up. My wife had work tonight and tomorrow so I was going to wait till Saturday. I then went back into the house, grabbed a knife and the can of spray foam. The vent got two boards and the window got one. Then both got the crap spray foamed out of them.

As soon as I did this, I walked back into the house. I'm really amazed at how quickly the temp changed. It went from 66* to 72* before I walked in the door.

This weekend I will be buying more insulation and start working on the basement. I may also try to redo both the vent and window to make them air tight in the winter.

I do have a thermometer. It is currently is in my basement, I checked it when I went down there this morning. It read 55*. It was 33* outside. Which is about the norm, its usually always 20* warmer than the ambient outside air.

Adamiscold wrote:Yeah it's very frustrating! The first few years I was wishing we never bought this dump but 14 months ago my wife gave me this beautiful daughter and now I wouldn't change a thing. You'll get there in small baby steps, you have your list of priorities just have to work through the list as best you can and try to keep a positive outlook, you have a job and a wonderful family everything else in due time will fall into place.

I smiled as I read that post because I know exactly what you are talking about. A similar story...We bought our place about 20 years ago the week prior to Thanksgiving. The first purchase for the house was a Mark III because I didn't trust the 35 yo furnace to not poison us. We made it through that winter with plastic on the windows and towels stuffed into holes and around doors and about 4 ton of coal and a boatload of wood from the property. Starting the next Spring built a 15x24 addition that was the kitchen and eating area and we also put a sofa and the tv in there, it was the "clean" room. When that was done we proceeded to gut the house to the outside studs and ceiling trusses, moved every interior wall except one and only because that had the bathroom plumbing pipes spaghettied in it. Started at the top and replaced the roof sheathing and shingles first, then new windows and doors, then all new wiring, then insulation, then drywall, then etc, etc, etc...

We lived here the whole time and it was like camping for 2 years until we got it all done. I kept asking myself why the heck did we buy this thing when we were changing everything about the house. The only thing we didn't do was dig a new basement and repour the foundation and basement walls and we probably should have done that too. But now because of all the work put into it I don't think I ever want to move!

I'm On Fire wrote:I have a new little girl too. She just turned 10 months today actually. She is the best. .

Congratulations on the little girl. I just love mine to pieces, she is just an angel and so funny! I never knew I could be a part of creating something so wonderful!

I'm On Fire wrote:As soon as I did this, I walked back into the house. I'm really amazed at how quickly the temp changed. It went from 66* to 72* before I walked in the door.

This weekend I will be buying more insulation and start working on the basement. I may also try to redo both the vent and window to make them air tight in the winter.

I do have a thermometer. It is currently is in my basement, I checked it when I went down there this morning. It read 55*. It was 33* outside. Which is about the norm, its usually always 20* warmer than the ambient outside air.

They say and inch gap in your house is equal to having a window open, it all makes a huge difference!

You should use your thermometer up stairs on the floor to help pin point the worst areas and then you could concentrate your efforts on there because you know those spots will have the most impact. The outsides of the house were the joist's meet the cement block is where the most air leaks into the home, good to spray foam those areas if possible.

titleist1

The worst part of it all is for the amount of money where are/where paying out we could have simply bought a brand new house and I would have my wood shop by now

The other thing that truly bits is the house five doors down with the same style, size and acreage but with a different (much better) layout of the property sold for about 60k less then what we paid for our house. Money we may never see back again.

Adamiscold,

I'm actually going to do that. I already know a few spots that need to be taken care of. We still have a few windows in the house that are un-insulated, there are two to the right and left of the Chubby that are very very drafty.

I came home tonight and found the house idling at 70* and the stove at 460*. Much better than it was last night when I came home.

I'm glad it's getting better for you. Good luck this weekend!

I just talked to my buddy, the one in the photos in my original post in this thread. We laid out a plan for tomorrow; we are going to finish the trim work on the front windows, run some electric in my son's bedroom, sheet rock his bedroom and spackle. Then I said I was picking up more R35 insulation.

"What for?"

"Basement." I said.

"Oh, you son of a [censored]!" He said.

"Carl, which one of us is going into the crawlspace?" I asked.

"Who do you think? I hate you." He replied.

I just laughed. I love my buddy Carl, he lets me torture him. I'll feed him beer and all will be right in the world.

That's awesome to have such good friend to help you out!

In the front windows did you spray foam around it of put in the fiberglass stuff?

Yeah, the two windows near the fireplace are old windows that haven't been replaced. I'm not sure but I think we are just going to take them out completely.

For now you can simply cover them up with plastic, it'll help and you can put the job off until it's warmer outside.

I'm going to have to do that to all of the old windows. Which, there aren't that many left. There are a total of 4 now.

I'm just pulling my hair out. Its colder than normal by me today and I'm 3 hours from home but my wife keeps calling me complaining that the furnace is running. She just called me 10 minutes ago saying the stove is 430* and the furnace is on. I pull my hair out every winter trying to keep the house warm. I know I'm doing the best I can and I'm completing the projects as I can it just frustrates me knowing I'm not home and my wife is burning coal and running the furnace constantly.

I wish I had the money to not have a pos house or the time to fix the one I do have.

Don't get me wrong, my house is a lot better than it was a few seasons ago. But its still no where it should be.

Yeah it's tough and there's only so much you can do at any given time. But try to stay positive and worry about the things you can fix and not so much on the things you have no control over right now. Family needs to be warm so until you can get to the insulation the furnace will be running, you just have to do it no matter how much it sucks! <--I know it doesn't really help by me saying it, but I'm just trying to help.

It took me a couple of hours to get my stove fully going after I reloaded it this morning. The stove is at 500* and the manometer is at .04-.05 temp and after 4 hours it's finally it 80*. I'm thinking it must be the coal because with the stove at 500* before I could easily get the top floor up in the 80's with no effort what so ever.