STRUCTURAL CLAY BLOCKS

When digging or planting in your yard along the house, you may have noticed a difference in the building materials, where the ground meets the foundation. Many homes that were built from about 1915 through to the 1950’s, used structural clay (tile) blocks for the foundation walls. Prior to 1915, cut stone blocks or bricks were often used to build the foundation. Clay blocks were less expensive than stone blocks and easier to handle because their light weight. Their larger size (approximately 8" x 12" or 8" x 16") provided a labor savings in erecting the foundation compared to brick and were usually found on the outside foundation wall, below the soil line (or “grade”) with several rows of the more costly bricks exposed above grade

Clay blocks were not fired long enough to have a hardened surface like brick, so they are vulnerable to the destructive effects of weather exposure. If the outside foundation walls become open to the elements, the blocks can become soft and porous, and will spall or deteriorate in a fairly short period of time. This can lead to voids in your foundation and water seeping into your basement. It’s important that you fill any voids where the block face may have broken away. Use some old bricks and mortar to fill the opening. You can use the same method to make a repair on the interior surface of the wall.

If your lawn has settled over the years, exposing the clay blocks, it is to your advantage to get it covered back up again as soon as possible. There are several ways to go about this. The easiest approach is to ‘ramp’ soil around the house so that the exposed blocks of your foundation are covered, sloping away from the house to the level of the rest of the lawn. The ramped soil will also direct surface water away from the foundation preventing water seepage into the wall. Another way would be to bring in a couple of loads of topsoil to raise the level of the lawn around the house to cover the clay tile. Then, you would have to plant new grass seed. This method involves a lot of labor—your own or paid help—and patience in tending the new grass. A third method would be to take some railroad ties or treated landscape timbers and enclose an area surrounding the foundation. The enclosed area, when filled with dirt high enough to cover the exposed blocks, will give you a raised bed perfect for planting shrubs or flowers. Keep shrubs a couple of feet or more away from the house.

There are some other simple ways of doing all this—but, however you do it, the object is to get the tile covered and protected from the weather. Like many smaller repairs, this situation has a way of turning into a bigger problem, if care is not taken. So, take a look around your home, see what is your situation, and plan your course of action. 

Kunselman's laws of home repair

I'm no Albert Einstein (although I admire his genius), I don't even pretend to be that smart and I know I can't compete with the laws of General Relativity.  It was just that in the early 1980's while working as a counterman at a local hardware store in Cleveland, that I came to the realization of my own version of Murphy's laws.  While scientific researchers have never proved or disproved my theorems, I just offer them to you as possible explanations for some of the  mysteries of home repair.  And to immortalize myself; of course, I named the laws after me (me being Kunselman).

Kunselman's First Law:   
Never start a project after the supply stores close.

Even if you think that you have everything you need to do the job, up to and including Aunt Sadie's bloomers--something will snap, break or disintegrate within nano-seconds of the store closing.  Sunday morning is the worst time to jump into a big repair job because whatever it is that you broke will not available at a Home Depot or Lowes' and you'll have to wait until the supply store reopens on Monday.

Kunselman's Second Law:  
Always take the broken parts with you to the supply store.

If you have a Humma-Dunker faucet made in western Austrobovia, is it the model with the what-zit mounted on the front or on the side?  If you bring the old part with you to the store, the counter clerk and you can eyeball the new part to ensure that it's gonna fit.

Kunselman's Third Law:  
Learn the names of the parts on the item that you're working upon. 

I can understand this can be a tough one for most people, because I speak Construction and had learned English as a second language.  It's still very difficult for me, (I am fluent in Profanity, however) but knowing the correct part names makes it much easier to communicate to supply store clerks to get the part you need.  It amazes me how much information is out there on the web, so look it up. Some vendors on the web have exploded views with part names and order numbers. If whatever item you're working upon has a plate or tag with a model number and a serial number, write those down and bring along, too.


Kunselman's Fourth Law:
Never tell anyone that you know how to fix/build things or that you have tools.

Let me tell you, if you let it get out that you can do things around the house, you're in deep trouble. You'll be stuck wiring fixtures in your cousin Eddie's kitchen, then insulating your mom's attic under the shallow pitched roof and getting wedged.  The next-door neighbor will want you to show her how to install a water heater.  In fact, you shouldn't tell your wife, husband or spouse-equivalent, that you know how to work on anything.  My spouse-equivalent has 10 years' worth of 'Honey-Do' jobs for me to complete, I'll never see a Saturday again.  
As for not telling anyone that you have tools--I'll just say that my kid brother has had my pressure washer for five years now. I think you get the idea.

Instantaneous (Tankless) Water Heaters

You know, I’m getting downright cheap in my old age.  I just hate to spend money for utilities if I’m not home to ‘enjoy’ them.  One example is that I lower the furnace thermostat when I go to bed or when I’m away from the house.  My household critters don’t seem to mind as they have fur coats and they make use of each other to keep warm (and sometimes my sofa, too).  I use compact fluorescent and LED bulbs for lighting and I even have solar powered spotlights to illuminate the back porch.  I’ll try anything to save a buck.

But there doesn’t seem to be much we can do with tank-type water heaters.  I’ve added tank blankets and pipe insulation, but it doesn’t seem to save all that much.  Since 2004, storage tank-type water heaters have been mandated (by the U.S. Department of Energy) to be more energy efficient as well as a combustible vapor requirement.  Despite that (according to the DOE), water heating accounts for 20% or more of an average household's annual energy costs. So, the operating costs for gas storage tank water heaters average more than $200 annually.

Rinnai whole house water heater

A tank-type water heater maintains the water temperature to the thermostat setting on the tank.  The heater does this even if no hot water is drawn from the tank.  This is due to "standby loss": the heat radiates from the walls of the tank and out the flue pipe. These standby losses represent up to 20% of a household's annual water heating costs.  One way to reduce this expenditure is to use a tankless (also called " demand " or "instantaneous") water heater.

Instantaneous water heaters are common in Europe and around the world.  When I have visited my relatives in England, I noticed the water heater in their homes were mounted on the wall in the kitchen.  Unlike the common tank water heaters, tankless units heat water as it is used, or “on demand”. A tankless heater has a sensing device that is activated only when you open the spigot, the heater will fire up and give a constant supply of hot water.  Junior can do his normal 40-minute shower and there’s no waiting for hot water for your shower when he is done.

Ariston demand water heater

The largest gas units, which may provide all the hot water needs of a household, are installed centrally in the basement or small units at the point of use, depending on the amount of hot water required. For example, you can use a small electric unit as a booster for a far-off bathroom, dishwasher, or laundry. These units are usually installed underneath a sink or nearby in a closet.

What I have learned from using centrally-located tankless heaters is that you need to find the highest flow rate you can get. Also you may need modify your water-use behavior a little bit.  Despite manufacturers’ claims, you still do not get the same flow rate of water as you would with a tank type heater.  With a 3.5-gallon per minute showerhead running and a large water-using appliance cycles on, one or both may not get much hot water.  So hopefully, you get to finish your shower before Junior decides to turn on the dishwasher. 

Now if I can only figure out a way to convert the excess energy that my dogs have to heating the house.

A Summer Reading List

A recent gift from my companion is 'More Straw Bale Building' (from Mother Earth News and New Society Publishers), as she expects me to learn how to build with bales and get busy with making our country cottage dream home.  So, I'm under orders to read it now.  Yes darlin', it's right here in front of me.  Maybe this fall I'll write a review of it here.

'Building Construction Illustrated' by Francis D.K. Ching should be possessed by every architect, designer, contractor, handyman, lumberyard, hardware store counterman, homeowner and Saturday morning thumb-banger. I think you get my drift. It's in its fourth edition now, my copy of the second edition was printed over twenty years ago, but still relevant. You can find it on Amazon, Ebay, and what few bookstores that are still left.  Fire up that Kindle too....because you can download it for only 12.95 (no shipping cost!). My youngest granddaughter is just a year old, maybe I'll get it for her as a Christmas gift.

The trade magazine Journal of Light Construction (JLC) is an excellent monthly 'encyclopedia' of construction techniques. Most of the how-to articles are written by contractors themselves. While I receive the hardcopy in the mail every month, I often check their website for the free .PDF's to download. Tool reviews and ads are helpful, too.  Also available from JLC is a DVD-ROM of the past 20-odd years of the magazine.

Tumbleweeds Tiny House Company may not have been the first site to promote smaller houses, but Jay Shafer is the out-front leader of the tiny house movement.  For more than a decade, Jay has been living in 100 square feet or less.  He has books, plans and advice for anyone considering downsizing to the smaller house.  The house plans go from 65 sq.ft. to almost 900 sq.ft.  Another site to see is Kent Griswold's TinyHouseBlog.com for more big ideas about living small.

Building the Future with the Past

Tiny Texas Houses website is back online. They were offline for a while, and I'm glad that they're back up. I really like their designs and the fact that they use as much recycled material as possible. I've placed the link back on my link list and hope to see more of them in the future.
 

I keep The Kneeslider in my link list which has absolutely nothing to do with housing, but I'm still a motorcycle maniac. It's a well written blog by Paul Crowe, formerly of Cycle World magazine. He covers all brands of motorcycles (foreign and domestic), news and tech development.
 

Finally, for all of us tech-weenies and garbage gadget-teers out there (we know who we are), the two sites that I love most are; the MIT Technology Review and Instructables I get the MIT newsletter every weekday and the Instructables newsletter weekly, so be sure to sign up.

Coleman Quad Lantern

I wanted a battery-operated lantern for when power outages occur (which in my area is several times a year). About two years ago, my companion Mary found the Coleman LED Quad lantern at a warehouse store and bought it for me . We liked it so much that we immediately bought a second one. The light output is a bright cool white (190 lumens), it doesn't flicker like the fluorescent lanterns I replaced with this unit and the batteries last longer. Besides handling its primary duty, we have used it in the back yard in the evening, and we've taken it to the cabin that our hiking club maintains. The cabin has little outdoor lighting, so the ability to take the individual panels off for the short hikes to the outhouse is a great thing and the panels have survived being dropped by small (and not so small) children.

Each panel has six LEDs and 3 NiCad AAA batteries that charge from the base unit 8 D-cell battery pack. Alkaline D-cells provide 1.5 volt each and NiCad or Lithium-ion rechargeable cells only put out 1.2 volts.  While the lantern does work on 9.6 volts, it's brighter with the alkaline batteries.   

Coleman makes a rechargeable 6 volt battery pack for the two panel LED lantern, but unfortunately, there's no 12 volt rechargeable pack for this lantern as yet. And while I'm making up my 'Santa list', I'd like to see a 5-to-10 watt solar panel charger for it, too.  It would be nice to have a 'non-grid' way to recharge the unit for the extended power outages or when camping. I've been seeing the LED Quad lantern selling in the $50-to-75 price range, so check your favorite online retailers for the best price.  We think it's wonderful product, reasonably priced for what it offers.

Passive House (PassivHaus Institut)

If you haven't heard of the "Passive House" movement or you just haven't heard what it means, I'll try to explain it best I can.  Concerns over the effects of housing heat exhaust to the climate and pollution brought about the desire to eliminate as much energy/fuel use as possible. 

The PassivHaus movement began in Germany during the mid-1990's and it is the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world with over 30,000 buildings built to date.  The PassivHaus ideal is simple; build a house that has excellent thermal performance (super-insulated), exceptional airtightness coupled with mechanical ventilation.  The building is heated by solar gain from windows and doors along with internal heat gain from people and electrical appliances. The summer cooling load is controlled by low-e coatings in the glass, window orientation and shading.  Any remaining heating or cooling demands are covered by a small heating source. Think of it as creating a livable thermos bottle, what is warm stays warm without using a heat source most of the time.  As Lloyd Alter of Treehugger.com says; "Forget Energy Star and LEED, green building is PassivHaus".

Graphics courtesy of PassivHaus Institit.

This approach to building design allows the architect to minimize the heating demand of  buildings, and may specify only a heated towel rail or small electric baseboard heater as the source of conventional heating. A mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) unit reduces indoor air pollution, by supplying fresh air which is filtered and heated by the warm exhaust passing through the HRV unit.  Triple pane windows and insulated doors, both with multiple weatherstripping sets are also required to bring the building into the standard.

A PassHaus buliding to the right and a conventional structure across the street. 

While it's much easier to build a new structure to this standard than try to bring an existing building into it, there are folks out there trying to do it.   Basically the insulation required to come near PassivHaus standard is R50 walls and floor (yes, floors), R70 ceiling or roof.  One method would have the interior of the house gutted before new inner walls can be constructed to provide ten-to-twelve inches of blown-in insulation space.  At a green building seminar I attended last year, one Cleveland manufacturer showed off a custom six-inch thick XPS (extruded polystyrene) panel with molded-in steel studs for fast setup.
A representative comes out and does measurements, wall panels are shop-constructed and brought to the site with electrical boxes mounted.  The existing wall gets blown-in insulation, the XPS panel is mounted over that. Spray foam makes the airseal at any joints.  Drywall is screwed to the embedded steel studs.

Getting the house airtight enough seems the hardest thing to do, but finding the doors and windows that meet the performance requirement is still difficult in the US.  Read 'limited availability' as much higher cost.  I estimate that to bring my 1925 Colonial-style (1400 sq-ft) home to near PassivHaus standards, would cost approximately 55-to-70 thousand USD.  Though I'm sure that as more houses are brought into the PassivHaus standard, the prices of materials and services will drop.

A Shocking Surge--When lightning stikes

 I’ve had a long history of dodging lightning, I sometimes have a feeling that someone up there is using me for target practice. One instance back in the mid-70’s, I was sitting in my car at a gas station in Tampa, FL, a iron post about twenty feet from my front bumper was struck by lightning. I was so surprised that I jerked violently, bent the steering wheel, and rocked the whole car. The pump-jockey laughed and said, “Ya best get used to that around here, man.” That was not the first – and certainly not the last – close call I’ve had with lightning.

During a storm about a few years ago, lightning struck the service pole at the end of my property. Because my electrical service box is connected to two 8 foot-long grounding rods in the earth outside the house, the surge did not affect the house wiring or appliances. But unfortunately, there was an ineffective connection (a corroded clamp on an outdoor hose spigot) to the ground for the phone system. Because of that, the lightning was able to enter my house by way of the phone line, taking out the computer modem, answering machine, and three telephones.

Because electrical, TV cable, and phone services in my area all come in on overhead wires, they can act as an antenna for lightning. Even buried wires can be affected if the strike is near them. So, it's important to have adequate grounding capacity to dissipate the surge into the earth. If you have had a new electrical service panel installed in the past ten years, you should have one or more grounding rods installed outside. My local electrical inspector insists upon a minimum of two rods. Older panels may only be grounded by one rod – or have no outside rod at all – so you may want to add additional rods for protection.

Inside the telephone interface box, there is a lightning arrestor on the company access side. To protect your phone lines, connect a 10-gauge wire from the arrestor to the ground rods for your electrical service panel. (You may have to contact your phone provider to get into that side of the box.)

And, while you’re at it, install a coax grounding connector on the TV cable on the outside of the house, route a wire to the ground rods and clamp the wire to them. If you have outdoor TV or radio antennas, you can ground them with a coax grounding connector as well.  The whole idea here is to divert any surges directly to the earth instead of allowing them to come into the house.

Finally, you might consider a whole-house surge suppression unit that mounts onto the service panel. They are designed to protect all of your household appliances and electronics from all voltage spikes besides lightning. Some surge suppressors are one-time use ($80-100), others are resettable and retail for $120-150. Not a bad idea to get one, considering what it could cost to replace all your major electric appliances.

Home By The Numbers

Uh-yup, I’m just another one of those aging baby boomers and my eyes ain’t what they used to be.  Of course, I blame my failing eyesight on my son and daughter.  Each time they have given me a new grandchild, (I have four) my eyes have taken a dive.  I didn’t have to wear glasses before the first one was born, now I can’t find my way around the house without the specs. I guess I'm descending into geezerhood.

So I’m out looking for this house a few weeks ago and after driving by three times, burning up expensive gas--I still can’t find the address I was given.  One house had three numbers nailed to a tree but it was a neighborhood with four-number addresses and next two houses had no numbers visible on the entry.  By looking at the addresses across the street, I made a deduction at which house I had my appointment.  When I pulled up to the house I finally saw the address plaque under the bushes next to the driveway.  The numbers were about 2 inches high on a rusted black background that blended well into the shadows and while I might be due for a new prescription for glasses, it was mighty hard to see that plaque from the street in daylight.

Now think for a moment about emergency responders (Fire-EMS-Police) trying to find that house address in the dark, if the numbers hard are to find—it can cause delays.  I’ve decided to display my address in a couple of places. The original set (3 inches tall) is still right next to my front door near the doorbell button.  The new set (6 inches tall) is at the end of my porch roof under a light.  It’s well illuminated at night when I turn on the porch light and the pizza delivery guy said he really likes that.  In my hometown, the city code (see it below) doesn’t say the address has be right at the front door, it should be near by.

Another thing that I see a lot is the house numbers that have been painted over with the siding color.  Once the sun goes down, they just blend into the wall and are invisible. 

1351.32  STREET NUMBERS.

     Every dwelling structure shall have the correct street number of such dwelling prominently displayed so that it is clearly visible at all times from the street in front of the property.  The numbers shall be numerals, not in script, and they must be at least three (3) inches high and in contrasting colors.  Such numbers shall be placed in close proximity to the main front entrance to the building.  (Cleveland Heights OH Ord. 67-1971)

Many communities will ticket a homeowner for not having an address on the house and the Post Office can refuse to deliver the mail when the address is missing.  If you don't have a roadside mailbox and the house sits back a long way from the street or is hidden from view by plantings or terrain, a post with the address should used at the end of the driveway. So just maybe, this old geezer will be able to find your house.

My Summer Reading List

Just a quick note; I've discovered today that the Texas Tiny House website is back online. It's a shame they were offline, because I really like their designs and the fact that they used as much recycled material as possible. I've placed the link back on my link list and hope to see more of them in the future.
 

For some new small-living lifestyle ideas, check out; Smalltopia: A Practical Guide to Working for Yourself by Tammy Strobel. You can preview the first chapter of her book at the bottom of her page.
 

I added The Kneeslider blog to my link list which has absolutely nothing to do with housing, but I know that many folks (even an old cuss like me) are motorcycle maniacs. It's well written by Paul Crowe, formerly of Cycle World magazine. He covers all brands of motorcycles (foreign and domestic), news and tech development.
 

Finally, for all you tech-weenies and garbage gadget-teers out there (we know who we are), the two sites that I love most are; the MIT Technology Review and Instructables I get the MIT newsletter every weekday and the Instructables newsletter weekly, so be sure to sign up.

Hanging Stuff 0n Plaster Walls

Lath-and-plaster walls are common in houses constructed from the late 18^th Century until the early 1950’s when drywall became the common building technique.  Whether it’s that oil portrait of Great-great Aunt Sadie or kitchen cabinets, hanging things onto older lath-and-plaster walls can present a bit of a dilemma.  So, if you don’t want to see old Sadie crashing down onto the piano in the parlor, you’ll need to learn how to attach things to the walls. 

First, let’s describe how lath-and-plaster walls are constructed.  Once the house was framed (generally with the studs at 16” on centers); the exterior sheathing, siding completed, and the doors, windows and mechanicals (plumbing, heating, electrical) installed, the plasterers would start covering the walls with wood strips called ‘lath’.  The lath would be about 3/8” thick, 1-1/2” wide and 48” long with a gap of 3/8” between them.  A thick layer of gypsum-based coarse plaster (gray or brown colored) was troweled onto the lath until it oozed through forming ‘keys’ that held the plaster to the lath.  A thin layer of white finish plaster was applied once the coarse layer had cured.

To attach lightweight items to the walls, drive a nail or screw into the wall.  If the nail goes through easily, pull it out and go up or down a 1/2” and try again to get into the lath.  But the hard, fast rule of hanging anything on a plaster wall--if it's more than a pound-or-so, find a stud and screw or nail your item to that.  Also, it’s best to attach switch and outlet workboxes directly to the studs so they won’t become loose and move about as you try to use them.  That all said, how do you find the studs?  Well, some of the old-timers used a powerful magnet to locate the lath nails (My grandfather kept a small horse-shoe shaped magnet inside the lid of his metal tool box just for that job).  Gramp would wrap a piece of wax paper around the magnet to keep it from marring the wall finish.  He would sweep the magnet horizontally across the wall until he felt the tug on the magnet over the nail. Then he would slide it vertically to see he could tell if there were more nails indicating the stud.
 
Many years ago, tool manufacturers came up with a swiveling magnetic stud finder in a clear plastic vial. This finder locates the lath nail in the plaster. Keeping with my family tradition, I keep some powerful rare-earth magnets inside the lid of my tool box that a friend had salvaged from some old computer hard-drives. 

In this our semiconductor era, someone had invented an electronic stud finder.  They have been on the market for quite a long time and they usually work well on drywall, though sometimes, they have a problem locating a stud in a plaster wall. I have a few different brands, but all of them measure the density of the wall to locate the stud. The uneven distribution of plaster behind the lath can give you false readings. So, I continue use my magnet (as Gramp did) to find the nails.