Category: Home Improvement?

Letting The Numbers Speak

I have been keeping a log of all of our utility usage and costs this year.  I’m hoping to drop our electricity usage by a meager 2% per year.  I don’t want to start large and disappoint myself.

My logs for other utilities, such as water, sewer, telephone and cable haven’t been as closely monitored because I seem to can’t find some of the statements.

Our home is a total electric home, so it is easy to disseminate our total usage.

In 2007 we used a total of 17,712 KWH (Kilowatt Hours) of electricity.  We used an average of 48.9 KWH per day, which cost us on average $4.90 per day.  On average one KWH of electricity cost us $0.10 in 2007, and we paid $1,777.41 for electricity in 2007.

How do your numbers look in comparison?  I really don’t know if ours is bad or good.  So if you are a dork like me and like to keep track of things such as these, perhaps I can get some information to set my household on a track to help this earth, instead of harming it.

I’ve spent the past hour trying to get information on “average household electricity usage” but the DOE’s website is junk, and I can’t find anything else useful.

What A Concept

After living in our home with an attached 2 car garage, we have finally parked a car in it.  Hopefully for good.  Last fall, I demo’ed our garage due to many reasons.  It just needed done.  With winter on us now at full force, we thought it would be good to park the car in the garage. 

Several things had to take place before this could happen though.  When I demo’ed the garage, I removed all of the light switches and wiring attached to our florescent lights.  Over the past year or so we have had to plug in any lights in the garage to see.  Around the time of the demo, I purchased a light and heat activated switch and a receiver and transmitter for garage door openers.  Our garage door openers are old, and do not have built-in wireless remotes like they do today.

I finally got around to installing them this weekend.

Here is the switch:

It’s quite interesting.  Right now it is on all of the factory settings so when no motion or heat is detected for 5 seconds the lights go out.  They went out right before I took this picture.  Pretty good for being completely in the dark!

To make this happen, we essentially shuffled some things around.  The other side of our garage is quite “dense” now.

But the end result?  A warmer car in the morning, that won’t have any frost, ice or snow on it.  Which means I can sleep a little bit later, cha-ching!

The little Kia seems to be right at home too.  I have to admit, Rachels’ car is cute, it’s just not right for me.

I think Mr. B will concur with me on the problems with tall men in little cars.

The Five Day Holiday

Rachel and I had 5 days off for Thanksgiving this year.  Eigenmann Hall, where we work, was essentially shut down.  We visited with many people and did many things with our time.

Wednesday:  Taylor came up to spend her time off with us.  It had been a while since we last saw her, and we sure missed her.  She brought along her 2nd grade pictures, which I think are the best she has had thus far.

Thursday:  A very busy Thanksgiving.  I must say, I’m very thankful for all the friends and family I have around.  We started the day early and headed to my memma’s house.  We didn’t stay long, just long enough for Taylor to see her memmas’.

We then headed over to Basswood, where we used to live, and where my dads’ family’s Thanksgiving has been held for a little over 10 years now.  This year was much different, there haven’t been as many children around since I was a child.  Overall there was a feeling of happiness, although there has been some much felt losses.  We ate a little bit, talked and spent some time mingling.

Then we rushed the 3 miles or so back to our home.  As this year we hosted the Lee family (my in-laws) Thanksgiving.  Not fifteen minutes after we got home, my mother and father in-law showed up.  This was destined to be a blast.

We had prepared the turkey last Friday night as it was originally planned to be last Saturday.  A certain football game in Atlanta changed who showed up and I think the atmosphere for all.

We followed directions on how to prepare this bird from both of our mothers’ and added a little thought of our own, and voilla!

 

Overall, I think this was a Thanksgiving to be truely be thankful for.

Friday:  Mom, Taylor, Rachel and I went to see the new Disney movie, “Enchanted.”  I must say this is one I have wanted to see.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up on this one.  We then spent the rest of the day with my memma, Taylor and her had loads of fun playing Connect Four.

Saturday:  Taylor and Rachel primered the hallway while I rehung our dining room chandiler and installed a new receptacle.  The girls seem to like to brush versus rolling paint.  We then ran some errands and went to the MCPL.  Taylor has been wanting to go for a while, but it’s hard to do when you’re 2 states away.  She found some interesting books about “Dumb Bunnies.”  So we all read and laughed.  After getting back home we got a special visit from my little sister.  She flew out last minute from Phoenix!  Sadly her BFF’s dad was killed in a wreck.  We capped off the night by watching E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.  I hadn’t seen it since I was Taylor’s age.

Sunday:  After playing Uno Attack for what seemed like forever, Taylor left for Tennessee around 1:30.  Rachel and I seemed to act like teenagers for the rest of the day.  We paid for it once the sun fell though.

To get my wife’s perspective, check out http://raclee.blogspot.com

All in all, a very good five days.  Very good indeed.

 

Runnin’ On Empty

Rachel and I have been busy the last week with lots of preparing for our first Thankgiving in our home.  Since we are young ones in our families, we generally go elsewhere to have this holiday feast.

Our first task was to finally start painting.  We have decided on 2 colors, with one color used for an accent wall.  Our colors?  “Bookmarker Red” and “Grand Stand Tan.”  The red color is a color from The Biltmore House.  If you’ve never been, I highly recommend a visit.

Painting was a royal pain.  I have painted for a living, and never in my life have I had to put so much work into two walls.  This red color required SIX COATS!

Here is 2 coats:

Here is 4 coats:

Here is 6 coats:

Our second task was to replace our old almost non working range.  We had picked one out, and was waiting for the right moment to buy.  I asked my family for Lowe’s gift cards for my birthday, so we put them to good use.

Our third task was to purchase a new dining room set.  Our aging dinette set was past it’s prime, and more suited for a college student than dare I say it, adult homeowners.  We went to Big-Lots to purchase the rest of a set of living room furniture and fell in love with this table.  Since we needed the table more than we needed the new couch and chair, we went for it.  I must say they have really got some good furniture.

Then, in my spare time today I installed new drapes and rods.  Our house is really starting to look more like a home.

We’ve decided to take a break until after Thanksgiving.  Then we will be painting the “Grand Stand Tan.”  After that we are painting all of our trim white!

Ding Dong The Shed Is Gone!

When we purchased our home, there were several things we didn’t exactly like about it.  Those things mainly being the above ground pool and the shed.

Yes, having a shed is nice.  This one was impractical though.  It sat almost a foot off the ground and the setup was weird.  It had a loft level accessible from the deck, a door on the side and the main doors were shot.  Plus the view out one of our bedroom windows was the roof!

Most people put things in sheds like mowers and other “outside” type items.  We could not.

So it was decided to try to get rid of this, but how?  It’s not an easily movable shed, such as ones that can be purchased at home improvement stores.

I placed it on Freecycle.  The first time, I got many responses.  Nothing turned out to be serious though, as nobody even came out.  The second time seemed to be the charm though.  It was removed today, 4 days after placing the post.

The plan is to build a new shed in an area we assume used to be a garden.  It connects to our driveway, and is perfect.  I have some other projects to do before I can get to building.

Bye bye shed, I hope you make your new owners happy.  I heard you’re going to be a greenhouse!

Brain Drain

Over the past year, I’ve forgotten how much mental energy an office job takes.  My stamina has long gone away.  Most of this week, I have been exhausted by this new job.  I’m not complaining, just explaining.

We have been “address cleaning,” as it’s called.  To put it in layman’s terms, we are sent database tables which have names, addresses, citys, states and zipcodes.  Sometimes they have more information, such as a student ID numbers or e-mail addresses.

The purpose of address cleaning is to format the addresses to the USPS standard, which can be very interesting if you haven’t had to do that before.  Did you know that there is a way to shorten almost every street name, IE drive, road, lane, etc.?

The tiring part is these tables, some were as small as 300 entries, but others were as large as 6800!  When we thought we were done, they were checked, and the remaining errors were shown to us.  Nothing bad, just constructive criticism.

Thursday night after work we went and picked up Taylor in Louisville, Ky.  My mom helped us out and took a half day off of work and drove to Clarksville, TN to pick her up.  They then drove back to Louisville where we met at her house.  We then had to drive back home so I could make it back to work in the morning.  We left as soon as we left work, and got back home around 11ish.

Lets just say I was of no use to anyone on Friday, and luckily my new job is very flexible and I was able to work only 6 hours.

So today I am doing some home remodeling and it goes much smoother with my lil helper!  I’m re-installing our stair hand rails to a much more comfortable position, with new hardware.  And I’m patching the rest of the holes in the drywall.  We also picked out our paint colors, which hopefully will be done before Thanksgiving.

Not Level, But Smooth

I’ve spent the vast majority of this week preparing our living room, dining room, hallway and entry areas for paint.

This has entailed a lot of drywall patching, sanding and even texturing.

The final picture is enhanced to show the joint compound.

I patched 4 problems like this, plus we had 2 holes in our walls due to an earlier installation of some type of intercom or home speaker system.

The major problem was our ceiling, as there were many cracks.  There were also several places where the “tape” as it’s called came loose from the ceiling.  I had to remove the sections and replace.  The best part was making it look nice, which required the purchase of a new tool!

The only part I am not completely satisfied with is the ceiling texture, as I have no way to perfectly match it..  I purchased some spray texture, but it looks more like a popcorn ceiling than what is there.  I think after we paint it will be less noticable though.

Not bad for someone who doesn’t have much experience in drywall.

And There Was Light

Today I’ve been working on removing our old entry chandelier and replacing it with a new one, more suited to our tastes.  Our old one is on the right.

It is similar to our dining room chandelier, but much larger.  We purchased it months ago, but the height of our entry was too high for my ladder.  Our entry is only 6′ x 4′, but it’s about 15′ tall!  I left early to rent a ladder, but decided to stop and see if my neighbor Gary could help, and help he did.  I asked him if he had a ladder taller than mine, and his works!

After about 3 hours of interesting work, I finished, and the most important thing, it works!

Now I just need to finish the walls.  Our house is begging to look more like a home.

Letting The Numbers Speak

To help us determine ways to save energy costs and consumption, I have created spreadsheets of our utility bills and a spreadsheet for the fuel consumption of my truck.

From what I have entered thus far I have found some very surprising facts.

I believe there is something “fishy” going on at our water company, as the numbers just don’t add up.

Here’s an example:

In March, we were billed for using 1980 gallons of water, which we were charged $9.43.  A month later, we used 1990 gallons and were charged the same amount, $9.43.  Our sewer bill shows this same descrepancy as we were charged $46.00 each month.

What’s 100 gallons of water and sewage when you’re only being charged 1/2 cent per gallon for water and 2 cents per gallon of sewage?

Here’s the amazing thing.  The installation of our new heat pump has significantly reduced our electric use.  Here’s the numbers:

Billing Date     Total KWH Used     Avg. KWH/Day     Total Charges
   3/5/07                   3023                     107.96                $261.94    
   4/4/07                   1379                       44.48                $138.55

The first set of numbers are consumption prior to installation.

Our home is powered completely by electricty.  We are using more and more energy conservation methods, and when something needs replaced we always look at how much it consumes before purchasing.

Hopefully we will get that new solar attic fan I wrote about before sometime soon.  We are even discussing purchasing a tankless hot water heater, when the time comes.  Electric models require much more infastructure than gas ones, but are still just as good.

How does your household rate?  I read somewhere that the “average” US household uses 1000 KWH per month.  If we could drop the average by 1%, we would be doing the world more than we know.

Disconnected

It’s been a long time since I last posted.  Part of me feels bad for leaving it abandoned for so long, I wouldn’t even have this if it weren’t for the kindness of Editor B.

Since starting my new job, I have felt “disconnected.”  My life has been connected to computers and technology since I was a teenager and I haven’t had the time to enjoy my computer much lately.  I cannot access computers while at work

Many things have happened since then, so I will update.  Hang on, cause there is much to say.

My daughter has officially graduated 1st grade, and left the state.  She took my heart with her.  With the help of my wife (thanks Rach) we made her a goodbye present.  A DVD filled with a slideshow with pictures of her and everyone who loves her.  It also included video of many of her loved ones saying goodbye and giving some life lessons.

I’ll miss you sweetheart!

My video business has suddenly picked up.  I am now more busy than not with projects people are wanting me to do for them.  I am going to advertise for the first time as well.  It also helps out high schoolers so I say why not?  I have also added a new service:  Cassette tape to CD or MP3 transfers! 

Work has been crazy.  I have been pushed to a point where I no longer think of it as a possible career anymore, just a job.  I am treated like scum, which is also what I clean.  With the heat and humidity, I can barely stand it.  Just like a few of my co-workers.

My little sister has moved in with us for a couple of weeks.  Her lease was up, and she has a new place lined up.  It’s just a matter of timing until she gets in.

We have picked up the pace on house projects.  Over the last few weekends we have removed the hideous wallpaper around our home.

Interestingly enough, underneath all of this were drawings.  These drawings were made by the children who lived here at the time.  We only have the kitchen and Taylor’s room to go.  Currently I am prepping the walls for paint.  We need them to be as perfect as possible for the deep, rich tones we have decided on for paint.

I also installed a new light fixture in our dining room.  We found a beautiful set for the dining room and foyer areas.  The one for the foyer has 2 tiers and is much larger.  Installation will be a different story though, as the ceiling is 1 1/2 stories high.

I cut down the dead tree in our backyard, that was fun!  I haven’t done that in over 10 years!  I have cleaned up much of it, but there is a lot more to go.  I am saving as much as possible for firewood, as I would like to use my fireplace sometime.

I wrecked my truck:(

The damage isn’t bad, just the bumper and a side piece to it.  I was returning from mowing at work, and while backing up jack-knifed my trailer.  It’s easy to do with a trailer that’s so small you can’t see it behind you.  And it just happens that my neighbors grandson just wrecked his truck which is essientially the same as mine.  It’s totalled, but the bumper is good!  I spoke with him today and I might get a new bumper on the cheap!

Hopefully once a few things settle down, I can start posting more often.