Investment, not a millstone, investment not a millstone...

[kistha]

This is the mantra that I repeat to myself nearly daily. Definitely weekly.

It's about the house.

While I am pleased to be a home owner, and happy to have a house I can call my own, unfortunately find that more often than not, it's one pain-in-the-ass job or disaster after another. This leads to the above mantra. Take this weekend for example -

We spent the entire weekend clearing out the garage. We are about halfway done with getting the "set up" finished. We still need to move boxes to the loft, create and collect and sort and do the "toxic chemical" run and the "dump" run. Going to need to borrow a pickup truck for those, I imagine. (The previous owners were very generous in their leaving objects behind, as well as badly executed remodels, the largest collection being of every cleaning supply known to man.) And, then, sort and store all the tools in a logical manner.

The grossest part was all of the debris that gets in to the garage. Sure it's OK for water and stuff, but we are surrounded and buried in trees and the garage doors are old, and don't seal. So we have tons of spiders, and leaf debris everywhere!

But it just makes it all that much more clear, that the whole garage needs to be renovated. Really, all the way down to the studs. I don't think they insulated the ceiling, and that ceiling is also the floor this office, so it's hard to heat it in winter, and gets very hot in summer. *sigh* Add it to the list. (And why is it that every thing that we need to get done, that we can't do always is 22K? Why?)

Then the hot water tank sprung a leak. As of now, the leak had accelerated to the point where we had to empty the hot water tank. No more showers or laundry for us! Whee. So, until the repair people show up tomorrow "between 1 and 5pm" we're stuck with cold water only. I know bitch, bitch, bitch. But it does mean that I missed my work out today, and will tomorrow as well. I'm sorry - I don't like to stink. The good news here is that it is still under warranty (all hail Sears) and that Vomis' left us the warranty in the first place. Hopefully what is wrong, will be under warranty too, or there goes the money we've set aside for house repairs. *bangshead*

Oh, and my computer started to freeze at random. So I'll have to fuck with that all this week. I'm posting from dthon's computer and checking LJ from here.

Add to that, now I have to go to another useless doctors appointment. Bleagh.

Comments

[sgoilear.livejournal.com]

Cold showers definitely suck!

On the upside, PSE (http://www.pse.com/solutions/foryourhome/Pages/rebatesOnWeatherization.aspx) offers "rebates" for those using natural gas, who insulate.

DIY insulation (well, batt, not blown) is definitely NOT hard. Sweaty, but not hard. One-sie suit, industrial stapler, and however many packs of R-13 or R-19 batt. I think our slightly oversized 2-car garage would take two packs at $50 each (6.25" thick, quite nice).
(Yeah, I've thought about doing it out of our own pocket)

Edit [added]: But drywall takes a bit more skill, and can start costing a bit more. And it's not as easy to transport as huge pillows (err, batt). Still, compared to, say, doing your own A/C ... insulation and drywalling is pretty DIY-friendly. =)

[kistha.livejournal.com]

Ironically, what I was referring to in the (latest) 22K (which has become a somewhat painful joke here) was for the A/C, updated furnace, gas insert and replacing 2 sets of outside doors in energy efficient versions.

(Admittedly, not one thing, but one batch of things all from the same place. We could do them in lots, but all the furnace and A/C things definitely are cheaper together.)

If I get all the mud & wall, I can probably get my brother to come up and do the drywall on a weekend - on the cheep, but that'll be a bit. Also want to look at the energy specs on batt opposed to blown.

Thanks though!

PS - So if my computer freezes after a while in use (a fairly short while) would it make sense to try and repair with Windows XP in the start up phase?

[sgoilear.livejournal.com]

22k: Whew! The post read like just fixing/updating stuff in the garage would be [another] 22k (on its own). And that would suck.

Insulation: My recollection is that properly installed batt of maximum (non-compressed) thickness can equal blown. Batt upside = cheaper labor cost (free if you DIY). Blown upside = fills space perfectly, no worries about plumbing/electric/HAC stuff in the way (no extra labor/time to work around them).

If it's only the garage ceiling (and not the walls), I think you'll find it cost-prohibitive to go blown (paying them to drag the rig out to blow ~200 square feet of coverage).

R-19 (typical batt) is pretty reasonable on the thermal side of things. If you compress, you lose R-value, so you're limited by the "thickness" of the space (6" is somewhat typical, so a lot of batt is 6" (including the ubiquitous Owens Corning PINK).

There's also insulative boards, but they're mostly for exterior facing, and R-values of 5-10. I don't think they're appreciably cheaper than batt rolls; their upside is moisture resistance.

[sgoilear.livejournal.com]

Computer thoughts:

* Overheating can cause system crashes. When was the last time you vacuumed/blew out the case? Even in my no-pet, no-carpet, raised-off-the-floor environment, mine build up dust every 2-4 months. Too much dust/hair = clogged airflow or fans = overheating.

* Try starting up in Safe Mode, and see if it's stable.

* Is it the kind of freeze where the screen doesn't change/flicker -- just that nothing works (keyboard/mouse don't respond, and programs which were running stop)?

* Does it happen whether or not you run any programs? Does it only happen after you open a certain program (even if it's only Internet Explorer, for example)?

* When was the last time you updated it? Is it updated to Service Pack 3 yet? Remind me which anti-virus program you're running, too.

* When was your last virus scan, and last AdAware scan? Most malware is more ... malefic, but you never know.

* Try running System File Check (sfc.exe) from a Command Prompt, with the /SCANNOW flag. This should check all Windows files.

You can try to repair XP by re-running installation (and selecting the 'repair' option); my experience has been that it's usually something else (for that matter, SFC will cover most of what the repair option does). That, and people get worried that it'll mysteriously format their drive (it won't) or their data will otherwise disappear (it shouldn't).

Shoot me e-mail if you prefer, some of my "next steps" could get kinda long for LJ posts. ;)