Replacement windows, aluminum capping, interior doors, and attic stairway at rehab house ; starting on the 2nd rehab house ; trip to George Washington National Forest
(posted from home)
(This post covers 23 – 31 October, 2010)
---------------------------------------
Sunday, 31 October-
I spent the morning on the web (primarily browsing 'LifeHacker.com') and rode the Concours to the Tollgate Starbucks for coffee and the Times. I took along the laptop this time (first time taking it on the motorcycle) and took advantage of the free wi-fi to read an interesting article on Wired about a reporter who dropped out of sight and challenged readers to find him within 30 days. I then spent a few hours (at Starbucks and at home) updating and posting a blog update before finally getting to the paper.
--------------------------------------
Saturday, 30 October-
It's SO nice to be home. This morning I caught up on web stuff, then decided to ride the recently-repaired Concours. Unfortunately, the battery didn't agree. I knew it was weak but was surprised it wouldn't start the bike. If I had been using it regularly, it would have started but once it sits for a month or so, I have to start it three or four times before it will keep running and that was the case today. After three times it wouldn't turn over fast enough to start.
I then jumped on the GS650 and rode into the Battery Warehouse for a replacement battery. I found a decent high-performance battery for $100, came home, and installed it with mimimal fuss. In doing so I found potential problems with electrical connections and cleaned them up as part of my installation.
I took a test ride on the Concours and picked up some St. Brendan's from the State Store to mix with my Van Gogh Double Espresso vodka tonight.
That evening we watched 'Frank Lloyd Wright', the Ken Burns documentary. We had visited Taliesin West outside Phoenix this Spring and were very interested to learn more about Mr. Wright's work. GOOD film!
--------------------------------------
Friday, 29 October-
This morning was windy and colder... and, with the cloud cover, darker and more foreboding. Last night I had thought I'd take a walk up to the Tibbets overlook but it didn't look like much fun this morning.
I pulled out the map again and began planning a tour. I wanted to see the various campgrounds (particularly the free ones!) and also get a look at dispersed-camping possibilities.
I decided I'd first see Trout Pond but along the way I'd check out the horse-trail parking spots. These are rudimentary parking spots where horse trailers can be accommodated, typically near trailheads. And they sometimes make a good spot to overnight with a relatively clear view of the sky and no lights to interfere with sky-scanning.
It didn't take long for me to completely miss the first one. There are no signs, it turns out. Once I reached a road intersection clearly showing me I had missed the spot, I declared it time to learn how to use the edge-printed scales on the map to get a fairly close GPS position and then use the GPS go-to function to alert me to it.
I once bought a plastic scale for this but of course I have no idea where it is right now. And a quick glance at the map's edge-scale revealed that the most useful (closest together) labels were in UTM (the Universal Transverse Mercator) system, not in the latitude and longitude coordinates I've used to this point.
That turned out to be a minor problem, though. I found I could simply use the Setup menu on the GPS to set Units in UTM coordinates rather than lat/long's degrees and minutes units. Simply by changing units, I could now see my position in UTM. And once I did that it was simple to take the coordinates from any point on the map and put them into a dummy waypoint (I called it XXX) and then use the Go-to function to get there.
Using this method I easily found the roadside pull-off I had missed and then I knew why: there are no signs. I had driven right by it without seeing it. Once I turned up the unsigned dirt road, I saw six rudimentary parking spots big enough for horse trailers. And I saw trail marks on the trees. In this case the marks consist of a vertical bar with a square dot above them. Different colors indicate different trails. And I could see trail numbers on the map and then get a trail name, distance, degree of difficulty, and suitability for hiking, mountain biking, and horse-back riding. I like it!
I then drove on to Trout Pond Recreation Area. This area had an upscale campground (and charged $15 - $22 for a spot, the latter with electrical hookup). There were a surprising number of sites occupied but then again I had seen a lot of development cabins and homes nearby on the way in. Apparently this one is very popular. But the trout pond itself was small ; I think I could have thrown a stone across it in any direction.
By this time I was ready for backcountry to I took a nearby forest road toward Wardensville. I was amazed to find how good the road is – it's all well-maintained limestone gravel with no washboards, ruts, or washouts. There are some narrow spots with blind curves but only for short distances.
The forest road led me to Squirrel Gap, where there's a giant parking lot for hikers, bikers, and horse trailers. I took a break there and plotted the next leg.
I drove SR55 for a bit to get to another forest road and that one took me to Hawk Campground. This one was a primitive campground but a bit nicer than Wolf Gap had been. I then decided to go back into Vance Cove, one of the places the District Office folks had told me to avoid. I had asked whether there were any places I should avoid because of hunters (bow season and small-game season are in) and this was one. But since rifle season isn't in yet, I didn't see why it should be a problem.
This little cove was beautiful! The road was narrow enough that meeting a vehicle would be a problem so I had to keep track of pull-offs as I might have to back up to one to let an oncoming driver by.
I pulled off in a primitive campsite and started making a sandwich for lunch when another truck pulled in. I spoke with the guy and met his dog, Jack. We had a pleasant conversation about Jack and grouse hunting. I then went on to the blockade at the end of the road and hung out there, enjoying the sunny clearing while plotting the next move.
That took me to county road 600, a very nice narrow little road meandering through upland pastures and a surprising number of homes and cabins hidden away in the hills and hollows. I followed it to county road 603 and took that up into the mountain. At the blockade I parked Mocha Joe, walked a bit, then took a short nap. The air outside felt decidedly cool but the sun heated Mocha Joe very nicely.
After my nap I again pulled out the map. I had covered the northwest portion of the national forest very well. And this made me realize I'd rather save the rest of the George Washington National Forest for another time. It was 1530 and I was only three hours from home.
I crossed into the Shenandoah Valley and got onto I-81 North at Exit 291. I had an uneventful trip home, reaching the driveway shortly before 1900.
That evening we watched “Independent Lens: Between the Folds” a good little documentary about origami.
----------------------------------------
Thursday, 28 October-
Though we went to bed so very late we woke about 0800. I wanted to take a weekend trip so began looking at possibilities and then packed. By noontime I was on the way to the George Washington National Forest while Labashi was happy to stay home and work on her projects.
At the Virginia Welcome Center I learned the National Forest office wasn't far but I'd have to rush to make it before closing time. I made it with just 15 minutes to spare but that worked out great. I bought the Trails Illustrated map of the northern section of the National Forest and picked up brochures about trails and facilities as well as hunting season information for both Virginia and West Virginia.
I then drove west out of Edinburg to Wolf Gap Recreation Area. I had seen this spot in my web research this morning and had decided to try it for the night. The free campground has nine primitive sites, one of which had another camper tonight.
I arrived about an hour before dark and began reviewing the map and brochures. After supper I took a short walk to the trailhead for the Tibbets Trail and back. Around 1900 I had the laptop going for an offline blog update when I noticed the time. That reminded me I had an email from Maypo about a Skylab flyover around this time. I looked out through the windshield and immediately noticed a super-bright star at about 11 o'clock. That must be it!
I jumped out of the van to watch but the wind had risen quite a bit and the overhead trees interfered with the view. I lasted only a few minutes. Once back in the van I glanced up now and then but the novelty soon wore off.
I spent the rest of the evening catching up the blog and reviewing the national forest maps and information.
----------------------------------------
Wednesday, 27 October-
Orat finished up the interior doors today while Labashi and I spent the entire day caulking the outsides of the replacement windows and the newly-covered door frames. The day had looked rainy and in fact we had some sprinkles this morning but by mid-afternoon it was a picture-perfect day. We took advantage of the nice weather and kept working until 1830 to get all the exterior caulking done.
We all then had dinner with Maypo and the Mrs before heading home. We arrived home at 2200 and were so exhausted we couldn't sleep. We stayed up until almost 0100 watching the rest of Season Two of 'Entourage'.
---------------------------------------
Tuesday, 26 October-
Orat and I installed the drop-down attic stairs this morning. We didn't have much trouble with the installation and in fact the stairs seem more stable than others we've had experience using. Orat then finished up the second screen door and started installing the new interior doors while Labashi and I slaved away scraping glazing-caulk and paint on the windows of house #2.
Toward the end of the day I finally had enough. This just wasn't working. We had thought we'd scrape and re-paint the windows and re-use the storm windows but it soon became clear that the storms were completely unusable and the double-hung windows weren't much better. They're either way too tight or way too loose in their sliders, several panes were cracked, some of the hardware was broken, and it was clear now that our paint job would be barely adequate when compared to the super look of the house next door. We all conferred and decided to abandon the scraping, painting, and re-glazing and install vinyl replacement windows as well as aluminum capping material on this house too. The work will be far less and the results far better though the cost will be about $200 per window where replacement storms would have cost about $60 per window. But then again we'd have an extra week of work getting it done. And in such a poor housing market, the upgrade may well make a difference in getting the house sold.
----------------------------------------
Monday, 25 October-
Orat finished up the replacement windows today. Labashi and I had made a run to Lowe's for supplies and two screen doors and Orat finished most of the installation of the front screen door by day's end. Labashi and I had gone back over to the second house and had spent a miserable day scraping out the old glazing putty. We each broke a window doing it and we both had problems later in getting the replacement panes to fit ; our measurements were off.
We had dinner with Maypo and Mrs. M.
---------------------------------------
Sunday, 24 October-
Today I helped Orat with the aluminum install a bit to learn how it's done and Maypo began installing the vinyl replacement windows. I removed the old glazing caulk from the living room window and then scraped and painted the frame before re-glazing with a latex window caulking material. I tried using the traditional glazing putty but had trouble with it but the latex material went on relatively easily using a caulking gun and masking tape.
By the end of the day Orat had all the aluminum work done and we had half of the twelve new windows in.
Late in the day we helped Maypo move a load of furniture into his new house and then we all had supper together there.
---------------------------------------
Saturday, 23 October-
This morning we were supposed to go to Chambersburg but first I had to pick up the Concours from Cycle Tech. I didn't want it sitting around outside the shop until I return.
I was very happy to get the bill of $250 for the repair of the exhaust system and an inspection renewal. Both header pipes had been compromised by the rust (of the cross-over pipe between them) and those headers are each $250 plus something like another $200 for installation. Skip at Cycle Tech cut off the rusted cross-over pipe back to good metal and then welded on a cap to resolve the problem.
We then loaded up Mocha Joe and drove back to Chambersburg for another work-week re-habbing the C-burg house.
I had bought the tub/shower surround at Home Depot in York yesterday and we picked up the drop-down attic stairs at the Lowe's in Shippensburg along the way. The box was also open on this one so we pulled it out of the box and verified that it was all there and the instructions were there.
We arrived at Maypo's house just as Orat arrived from the other direction-- great timing! We then all went to the project. While Orat installed aluminum cap over the sills and brickmold, Labashi and I began work on the windows of the second rehab house (next door).
That evening we had all went out to dinner at Norland Pub.
************ END OF POST ***********
(posted from home)
(This post covers 23 – 31 October, 2010)
---------------------------------------
Sunday, 31 October-
I spent the morning on the web (primarily browsing 'LifeHacker.com') and rode the Concours to the Tollgate Starbucks for coffee and the Times. I took along the laptop this time (first time taking it on the motorcycle) and took advantage of the free wi-fi to read an interesting article on Wired about a reporter who dropped out of sight and challenged readers to find him within 30 days. I then spent a few hours (at Starbucks and at home) updating and posting a blog update before finally getting to the paper.
--------------------------------------
Saturday, 30 October-
It's SO nice to be home. This morning I caught up on web stuff, then decided to ride the recently-repaired Concours. Unfortunately, the battery didn't agree. I knew it was weak but was surprised it wouldn't start the bike. If I had been using it regularly, it would have started but once it sits for a month or so, I have to start it three or four times before it will keep running and that was the case today. After three times it wouldn't turn over fast enough to start.
I then jumped on the GS650 and rode into the Battery Warehouse for a replacement battery. I found a decent high-performance battery for $100, came home, and installed it with mimimal fuss. In doing so I found potential problems with electrical connections and cleaned them up as part of my installation.
I took a test ride on the Concours and picked up some St. Brendan's from the State Store to mix with my Van Gogh Double Espresso vodka tonight.
That evening we watched 'Frank Lloyd Wright', the Ken Burns documentary. We had visited Taliesin West outside Phoenix this Spring and were very interested to learn more about Mr. Wright's work. GOOD film!
--------------------------------------
Friday, 29 October-
This morning was windy and colder... and, with the cloud cover, darker and more foreboding. Last night I had thought I'd take a walk up to the Tibbets overlook but it didn't look like much fun this morning.
I pulled out the map again and began planning a tour. I wanted to see the various campgrounds (particularly the free ones!) and also get a look at dispersed-camping possibilities.
I decided I'd first see Trout Pond but along the way I'd check out the horse-trail parking spots. These are rudimentary parking spots where horse trailers can be accommodated, typically near trailheads. And they sometimes make a good spot to overnight with a relatively clear view of the sky and no lights to interfere with sky-scanning.
It didn't take long for me to completely miss the first one. There are no signs, it turns out. Once I reached a road intersection clearly showing me I had missed the spot, I declared it time to learn how to use the edge-printed scales on the map to get a fairly close GPS position and then use the GPS go-to function to alert me to it.
I once bought a plastic scale for this but of course I have no idea where it is right now. And a quick glance at the map's edge-scale revealed that the most useful (closest together) labels were in UTM (the Universal Transverse Mercator) system, not in the latitude and longitude coordinates I've used to this point.
That turned out to be a minor problem, though. I found I could simply use the Setup menu on the GPS to set Units in UTM coordinates rather than lat/long's degrees and minutes units. Simply by changing units, I could now see my position in UTM. And once I did that it was simple to take the coordinates from any point on the map and put them into a dummy waypoint (I called it XXX) and then use the Go-to function to get there.
Using this method I easily found the roadside pull-off I had missed and then I knew why: there are no signs. I had driven right by it without seeing it. Once I turned up the unsigned dirt road, I saw six rudimentary parking spots big enough for horse trailers. And I saw trail marks on the trees. In this case the marks consist of a vertical bar with a square dot above them. Different colors indicate different trails. And I could see trail numbers on the map and then get a trail name, distance, degree of difficulty, and suitability for hiking, mountain biking, and horse-back riding. I like it!
I then drove on to Trout Pond Recreation Area. This area had an upscale campground (and charged $15 - $22 for a spot, the latter with electrical hookup). There were a surprising number of sites occupied but then again I had seen a lot of development cabins and homes nearby on the way in. Apparently this one is very popular. But the trout pond itself was small ; I think I could have thrown a stone across it in any direction.
By this time I was ready for backcountry to I took a nearby forest road toward Wardensville. I was amazed to find how good the road is – it's all well-maintained limestone gravel with no washboards, ruts, or washouts. There are some narrow spots with blind curves but only for short distances.
The forest road led me to Squirrel Gap, where there's a giant parking lot for hikers, bikers, and horse trailers. I took a break there and plotted the next leg.
I drove SR55 for a bit to get to another forest road and that one took me to Hawk Campground. This one was a primitive campground but a bit nicer than Wolf Gap had been. I then decided to go back into Vance Cove, one of the places the District Office folks had told me to avoid. I had asked whether there were any places I should avoid because of hunters (bow season and small-game season are in) and this was one. But since rifle season isn't in yet, I didn't see why it should be a problem.
This little cove was beautiful! The road was narrow enough that meeting a vehicle would be a problem so I had to keep track of pull-offs as I might have to back up to one to let an oncoming driver by.
I pulled off in a primitive campsite and started making a sandwich for lunch when another truck pulled in. I spoke with the guy and met his dog, Jack. We had a pleasant conversation about Jack and grouse hunting. I then went on to the blockade at the end of the road and hung out there, enjoying the sunny clearing while plotting the next move.
That took me to county road 600, a very nice narrow little road meandering through upland pastures and a surprising number of homes and cabins hidden away in the hills and hollows. I followed it to county road 603 and took that up into the mountain. At the blockade I parked Mocha Joe, walked a bit, then took a short nap. The air outside felt decidedly cool but the sun heated Mocha Joe very nicely.
After my nap I again pulled out the map. I had covered the northwest portion of the national forest very well. And this made me realize I'd rather save the rest of the George Washington National Forest for another time. It was 1530 and I was only three hours from home.
I crossed into the Shenandoah Valley and got onto I-81 North at Exit 291. I had an uneventful trip home, reaching the driveway shortly before 1900.
That evening we watched “Independent Lens: Between the Folds” a good little documentary about origami.
----------------------------------------
Thursday, 28 October-
Though we went to bed so very late we woke about 0800. I wanted to take a weekend trip so began looking at possibilities and then packed. By noontime I was on the way to the George Washington National Forest while Labashi was happy to stay home and work on her projects.
At the Virginia Welcome Center I learned the National Forest office wasn't far but I'd have to rush to make it before closing time. I made it with just 15 minutes to spare but that worked out great. I bought the Trails Illustrated map of the northern section of the National Forest and picked up brochures about trails and facilities as well as hunting season information for both Virginia and West Virginia.
I then drove west out of Edinburg to Wolf Gap Recreation Area. I had seen this spot in my web research this morning and had decided to try it for the night. The free campground has nine primitive sites, one of which had another camper tonight.
I arrived about an hour before dark and began reviewing the map and brochures. After supper I took a short walk to the trailhead for the Tibbets Trail and back. Around 1900 I had the laptop going for an offline blog update when I noticed the time. That reminded me I had an email from Maypo about a Skylab flyover around this time. I looked out through the windshield and immediately noticed a super-bright star at about 11 o'clock. That must be it!
I jumped out of the van to watch but the wind had risen quite a bit and the overhead trees interfered with the view. I lasted only a few minutes. Once back in the van I glanced up now and then but the novelty soon wore off.
I spent the rest of the evening catching up the blog and reviewing the national forest maps and information.
----------------------------------------
Wednesday, 27 October-
Orat finished up the interior doors today while Labashi and I spent the entire day caulking the outsides of the replacement windows and the newly-covered door frames. The day had looked rainy and in fact we had some sprinkles this morning but by mid-afternoon it was a picture-perfect day. We took advantage of the nice weather and kept working until 1830 to get all the exterior caulking done.
We all then had dinner with Maypo and the Mrs before heading home. We arrived home at 2200 and were so exhausted we couldn't sleep. We stayed up until almost 0100 watching the rest of Season Two of 'Entourage'.
---------------------------------------
Tuesday, 26 October-
Orat and I installed the drop-down attic stairs this morning. We didn't have much trouble with the installation and in fact the stairs seem more stable than others we've had experience using. Orat then finished up the second screen door and started installing the new interior doors while Labashi and I slaved away scraping glazing-caulk and paint on the windows of house #2.
Toward the end of the day I finally had enough. This just wasn't working. We had thought we'd scrape and re-paint the windows and re-use the storm windows but it soon became clear that the storms were completely unusable and the double-hung windows weren't much better. They're either way too tight or way too loose in their sliders, several panes were cracked, some of the hardware was broken, and it was clear now that our paint job would be barely adequate when compared to the super look of the house next door. We all conferred and decided to abandon the scraping, painting, and re-glazing and install vinyl replacement windows as well as aluminum capping material on this house too. The work will be far less and the results far better though the cost will be about $200 per window where replacement storms would have cost about $60 per window. But then again we'd have an extra week of work getting it done. And in such a poor housing market, the upgrade may well make a difference in getting the house sold.
----------------------------------------
Monday, 25 October-
Orat finished up the replacement windows today. Labashi and I had made a run to Lowe's for supplies and two screen doors and Orat finished most of the installation of the front screen door by day's end. Labashi and I had gone back over to the second house and had spent a miserable day scraping out the old glazing putty. We each broke a window doing it and we both had problems later in getting the replacement panes to fit ; our measurements were off.
We had dinner with Maypo and Mrs. M.
---------------------------------------
Sunday, 24 October-
Today I helped Orat with the aluminum install a bit to learn how it's done and Maypo began installing the vinyl replacement windows. I removed the old glazing caulk from the living room window and then scraped and painted the frame before re-glazing with a latex window caulking material. I tried using the traditional glazing putty but had trouble with it but the latex material went on relatively easily using a caulking gun and masking tape.
By the end of the day Orat had all the aluminum work done and we had half of the twelve new windows in.
Late in the day we helped Maypo move a load of furniture into his new house and then we all had supper together there.
---------------------------------------
Saturday, 23 October-
This morning we were supposed to go to Chambersburg but first I had to pick up the Concours from Cycle Tech. I didn't want it sitting around outside the shop until I return.
I was very happy to get the bill of $250 for the repair of the exhaust system and an inspection renewal. Both header pipes had been compromised by the rust (of the cross-over pipe between them) and those headers are each $250 plus something like another $200 for installation. Skip at Cycle Tech cut off the rusted cross-over pipe back to good metal and then welded on a cap to resolve the problem.
We then loaded up Mocha Joe and drove back to Chambersburg for another work-week re-habbing the C-burg house.
I had bought the tub/shower surround at Home Depot in York yesterday and we picked up the drop-down attic stairs at the Lowe's in Shippensburg along the way. The box was also open on this one so we pulled it out of the box and verified that it was all there and the instructions were there.
We arrived at Maypo's house just as Orat arrived from the other direction-- great timing! We then all went to the project. While Orat installed aluminum cap over the sills and brickmold, Labashi and I began work on the windows of the second rehab house (next door).
That evening we had all went out to dinner at Norland Pub.
************ END OF POST ***********
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 16:36
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home