Northern weather

[sarge]

Muppets in Space is brilliant.

Pepe the Prawn rules, as does Animal bellowing, "Woman!!!!!!" Good choice!

[Mitch]

We got about 3" overnight; dry powder, which makes it easy to sweep off the truck. Now it's supposed to get really cold again, near 0, then a warming trend over the weekend. It's been pretty tough over the last 6 weeks. On the 1.5 acre blacktop salt storage area at Freeport Terminals, there's nothing left but some snow. Fall of the year, the entire lot is full of rock salt 30' high and tarped with black tarps. The Terminals supply nearly every municipality in a 25 mile radius. And this isn't the first they've been sold out. A few weeks ago, NS was bringin' in 6-8 PS2s twice a week, and they started restocking, but now that's gone too.
On another note, the Allegheny River, (and of course, the Buffalo Creek) have been frozen solid for more'n two weeks; since we had those -16 degree days. If we get a warming trend with just enough rain to bring the river up, the ice will break up and move. If we get too much rain, the ice will break up and jam, and we'll have some serious flooding. The areas up river from Kittanning are extremely susceptible because of the sharp bends in the river. Parker and Brady's Bend will pile up ice 10' high, and the flooding will get pretty extensive.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Here was today's project. A leak had developed just under that window in that little tower and traveled down through the powder-room (inside that stone wall) and proceeded right down into the basement, falling at a pretty good clip just 4' from the layout. Instead of just freaking-out, we dragged the ladder out (not without a struggle, of course!) and the 9" build-up of cement-ice had to be chipped slowly and carefully away with a bricklayer's hammer. Altogether, it took several hours to shovel that sloped roof and to remove all the ice. Now comes the clean-up inside and the drying-out of walls, carpeting, and storage stuff. I have some portable heaters and much patience.

But I am real, real tired-out. Yup.
Murph

[rogruth]

Murph,

Tell me that is NOT you on that ladder and roof.

Remember I don't see real good.

[sarge]

Ah, the old ice-dam exercise.

When I was a teenager and we lived in the Finger Lakes, we laced the roof with resistance heater wires specially made for the purpose; picture a house-size version of the coils that clear your car's rear window. If they still make them, you might want to invest in a set.

After a few snows, the escaping heat from the house would melt the underlayer the snow on the roof, which would then refreeze at the overhang (which had no house-heat underneath) and dam up the roof. Water from further up the roof would then back under the shingles and come in in odd places.

By the look of those windows, you have one of those lovely full-vaulted ceilings in that room? The insulation difference between the roof over that room (vaulted vs. what would be a "normal" ceiling) and that overhang has an even greater potential for damming; not much space for either insulating material or airspace over the room.

A roof heater over the overhang and perhaps two feet up into the bit over the living space, no more, will permit the bottom to melt first; no damming.

Our house here is older than that house in the Finger Lakes was, and wasn't built for "curb-appeal" just a simple traditional 1930's Cape. There are no unheated overhangs on the roof (when the snow melts, it all melts at the same time), simple outline, deep pitch, very boring looking to the modern eye, but those features were designed in for a reason.

We tend to think in these modern times that we're so dam smart about all things. I'm constantly impressed by the practical "smarts" of people in those days. They have lots to teach those who observe what they left behind, for we as a species have forgotten more of those common sense things than our egos want to admit.

[healey36]

Sarge - Alot of older homes (and some new as well) in Upstate and Western New York have the bottom leading edge of their roof covered in sheet tin or sheet galvanized for a couple of feet, while the rest of the way up to the peak is shingled...why is that? I don't recall seeing that anywhere else in the country, perhaps just New England.

Healey

[sarge]

Same effect, but a different approach. If water hits an ice-dam on galvy flashing, there are no shingles for it to back up under. Also it's much easier for ice to let go and slide off (or get knocked off) the smooth surface.

The down side is, of course, its a bit harder to get on the roof without sliding off.

I've often wondered how we have forgotten those features when I see idiots building shallow-pitch roofs on ranch houses in the snowbelt, fools write residential building codes requiring closed vented soffits rather than open soffits to the attic spaces for even heating/cooling across the roof in the name of "energy efficiency", all those simple things now forgotten in the name of "curb appeal" and "energy savings".

How to insulate an attic does have some subtleties that vary in different parts of the country, and the modern crop of architects have forgotten the engineering reasons why that would be so. Simple things like sawing the entire peak open for venting is stupid in places where wind blows rain in the springtime. Running the cap shingling on the peak of the roof with the prevailing wind rather than against it seems to not be considered very often, even by socalled professional roofers.

So-called "energy efficient" design has us forget how transoms worked and still help with cooling and heating a house. All this common sense wisdom chucked by the granite countertops and stainless-appliance crowd and the same mentality that has us believe those little flourescent bulbs are more environmentally friendly than incandescents. Now, they win and incandescents are on the way out, I have to buy a half-house worth of open fixtures now so the stupid flourescents don't burn the house down when they die and shoot a fire-stream out of the base that's a couple feet long; they and their partners, the LED bulb, can't be used in the old lovely closed fixtures in my house because of the heat buildup, and the environutters have, once again, not considered the manufacturing and disposal processes in their pronouncement about environmentally friendliness. These idiotic floursescents have mercury vapour in them, injected in the manufacture, difficult to dispose of at the end of their lives, and having the health & safety wombles want to move you off into a hotel should you break one in service whilst they decontaminate for mercury. Oh, my. I'm off on another wobble entirely, aren't I?

The point still is how we have forgotten common-sense solutions to conditions all in the name of either aesthetic or the imposition of poorly thought-through enviro-legislation.

I very much like our simple old Cape.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The point still is how we have forgotten common-sense solutions to conditions all in the name of either aesthetic or the imposition of poorly thought-through enviro-legislation.

I don't know that they have been forgotten as much as simply abandoned in the name of greed - all of this foolishness can be linked back to simple greed as it all costs more in the end w/o commensurate benefit; none of us are reaping any financial gains yet we are paying the bills right into someone's pocket somewhere.

[aterry11]

Seems the snow is nothing new. Now just wished I got paid to move all that

[ChipR]

Sarge,

Channel 9 News here in Denver just had a segment on ice dams and stressed the heating coils on the roof.

ChipR

[J. S. Bach]

The headlight is almost as big around as the boiler. Neat.

[Mitch]

J.S., there were two headlights like that for sale at last years' Rough and Tumble in the Flea Market. Not quite that big; maybe only 12" in diameter in the square cast cans. Who, where, and why??? I've no idea. I guess some folks will salvage anything.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The headlight is almost as big around as the boiler. Neat.

Denver & South Park?

[E7]

Oh, my. I'm off on another wobble entirely, aren't I?

The point still is how we have forgotten common-sense solutions to conditions all in the name of either aesthetic or the imposition of poorly thought-through enviro-legislation.

Sarge,

It may be a "wobble", but it's a pretty darned accurate summation of some of the stupidity that goes on these days. What you say is dead on accurate!

Rich

[healey36]

Fifty-eight degrees in the sun today...I nearly wept...

Healey