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Showing posts from March 12, 2023

Carbon Monoxide!?

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Weird. The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured out what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared, I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace draft (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heat...

Chased by a Bear

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It was/is good to hire others to do the work on the house. It is very uncomfortable at times, but it accelerates things. I am unhappy with the craftsmanship. The most prized skills for this kind of work is speed. Quality skills comes in second. In the normal DIY home improvement strategy you do the inside work first then do the outside work. If you do it the other way around your taxes will go up while the inside is not worth it. I always say that property should have higher tax assessments on property that is not kept up, not higher taxes for property is kept nice. The poorly conserved properties are a drain on civilization. There should be an incentive to keep your property in good repair. Well, you might say, ""I dont want the government judging what should be done to my house". The fact is they are already judging your house with an assessment that penalizes only on how how nice your house "looks" as well as some basic stats (which are good and should be p...