Home Improvement » ITABWODI

As I write, I am enjoying the dusk of a beautiful spring day, sitting on my back patio (no HGTV, it’s not a lanai! – sorry, pet peeve of architectural terminology) with my laptop on my wireless network (this is, after all, the reason laptops and 802.11g were invented, isn’t it?). I love this time of year because it’s not too hot yet, there are fewer bugs out at night to bother me, and the landscape is a stunning canvas of green, pink, purple, red, and just about every color the Creator programmed into nature. There are even a few robins fighting over the territory of my oak tree – must be a good site for nesting.

Some of the colors of spring.

Ah, a good site. That is the beginning of every architecture project, whether it’s developing a greenfield that’s never had construction or renovating a portion of an existing building or previously developed brownfield site. As an architect, I probably look at my property a little differently than the average homeowner, and that includes a studied approach to planning every improvement, especially a building project like a new shed. I’ve had it simmering on the back burner for several months as we have worked on more important projects inside the house, but it was suddenly thrust to the foreground this past Friday by a storm front that moved through during the night. My wife and I only woke up briefly at about 1:45 Friday morning when we heard a noise and the power went out. It was raining, but there wasn’t that much wind (the trash cans on curb for Friday pickup were all standing where they were left earlier in the evening).

My first view of the shed from the back window.

I called the automated PECO response line with my cell pone and found out that out outage was already reported, but they were still looking for the cause. They had the same message on the phone system when we got up in the morning, but that turned out to be misleading. Hearing some trucks in the area, I walked around to see if I could see where they were working. I got to one of our back windows and got my answer – “Honey,” I said,”they’re in our shed!”

PECO (Philadelphia Electric Company for those outside the Delaware Valley), has a nice website for anyone in their service area who wants to save some money by going green. It is called PECO Smart Ideas, and it is described as “a program that shows you new ways to use less energy and hold onto more of your hard-earned dollars.” I have personally benefited from the “Smart Lighting Discounts” that have made compact fluorescent light bulbs very inexpensive at stores like Home Depot. I have been able to switch a lot of the fixtures in our house over to CFL’s, and this program helped make the transition more affordable. My industrious wife has been looking into the rebates that PECO is offering for Energy Star qualified appliances. We may be able to get rebates for the clothes washer and dish washer we installed last fall. If you’re in the market for any new appliances (washer, dryer, dishwasher, air conditioner, etc.), you may want to check this site to see if any of the offers would work for you.

Why would PECO want to hand out these rebates and work with retailers like Home Depot to sponsor these deals? Continue reading »

According to AccuWeather, we’ve received at least an inch of rain and probably closer to two in the past 24 hours. Combine that with about 3′ of snow that just recently finished melting into the ground, and the soil has gotten pretty saturated around here. It’s pretty obvious when we can look out the window and see ponds in the back yard and streams in the swales between our house and the neighbors’. We’ve had several heavy rain storms over our first year of owning this house, but this one was different – this was the first one that actually came in.

This basement window is sealed tighter than an aquarium.

Let me step back for a moment. When we had our home inspection, we did see some signs that the basement got wet at some point. There was also a broken water heater that was leaking all over the floor, so it was difficult to know exactly where the water came from. However, there was also this one window in the basement. Someone had gone to great lengths to keep it shut and sealed tight: it was caulked, covered with a board, caulked more, grouted, and duct taped. There was also a small garden hose coming out of a hole in the sill and running over to the laundry tub. We figured they must have wanted to drain the window well, but we found it hard to believe it could be that bad.

Ok, back to today. I was taking some tools back down to the basement to put them away, and I thought I should look around to see if any water was getting in. I’ve done this during each big rain storm to try and get an idea of how wet/dry the basement really is. There were a few damp spots along the base of the basement wall, particularly on the uphill side of the house (i.e. the water flows towards those walls). But the real eye opener was that crazy window. Continue reading »

Water: you don't want this stuff inside your walls in any form.

As anyone in the AEC industry should be able to tell you, water is the enemy of building structures. It’s really pretty obvious if you think about it: we slope our roofs so that rain and melting snow run off, we finish the roof with weather resistant materials that don’t mind getting wet, in many areas of the country we use gutters to collect the water and divert it away from the foundations, we clad the vertical surfaces of our buildings with a wide variety of materials that keep the rain from getting inside parts of the building where it can cause rust and decay, we slope the ground around our buildings away so that water does not collect and sit against the walls, and anything that goes into the ground, especially basement walls and floors, have to be built with waterproofing materials and details so that water in the ground does not compromise these elements. (We could, of course, talk about all the fun things we can do with water when we talk about sustainable design, but even then, we pay careful attention to the details so that the water remains where we want it and not in the structure). Once we have done everything necessary to keep outdoor water out, we also take steeps to keep indoor water from creating problems. For example, water supply pipes have shut-off valves in multiple locations so that leaks can be easily stopped and repaired; and drain pipes are carefully sloped and vented to prevent clogs that can lead to floods.

If your home is anything like mine, you may find many of your maintenance tasks relate to this fundamental issue of keeping water in its place. Continue reading »

ITABWODI

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