New Soffits

Today was a beautiful day out, just right for installing new soffits. I swung by the local Lowes to pick up the T/4 vented soffit (GP 423590) and “F” channel (GP 6ZZOTJ46) needed. I used the high quality Georgia Pacific material, but unfortunately, they did not have enough “F” channel to do the whole job, [...]

Calculating Heating Fuel usage based on Temperature

Now that winter is approaching, I started to keep track of the Heating Degree Days (HDD) for this year. I like keep track of such things because that is my nature. One thing that is always interesting to me is the ratio of HDD to Gallons of oil burned to heat the house. This is [...]

Insulating the attic, Part II

The long anticipated, eagerly awaited day finally came today. I

Bathroom Ventilation

When we purchased our 1965 model ranch, we had a mold problem. There were several reasons for this, but one, which became immediately apparent was the bathroom had no ventilation. Ahhh, that nice bathroom with the bright sky blue tiles, matching sink, toilet and bathtub. The very same room my wife called

Tearing down the old soffits

As a part of adding insulation to the attic this fall, I determined that I needed to remove the old soffits to get the rafter insulation spacers in place. The old soffits had no ventilation and I noticed in some mold on the under side of the roof sheathing. It started out rainy yesterday, so [...]

Replacement Windows

This was a big one on my hit list. I have wanted to replace the windows in our master bedroom ever since the first winter night I lay awake and listened to the wind blowing right through them. There was this little piece of plastic that was supposed to be some sort of weather stripping [...]

Home Energy Usage

src= http://www.catskillhouse.us/blog/files/paulthurst41_ESlogo12.gif” alt=”” border=”0″ />There is a good web page that can tell you how much energy you may be loosing compared with other houses your size. It tells you how much money you can save by adding insulation to your attic or basement. This is from the energystar.gov web site:

If you have [...]

Insulating the attic, Part I

Last year I bought 76 bags of cellulose insulation with the intention of blowing it in the attic myself before winter came. Then I needed to make several business trips to Gainesville, Florida, so the project was put off. Then I could not rent a blower, and finally just decided that it could wait until [...]