Days of Shades

Dad brought up the heating situation again, and it leaves me feeling faintly murderous. Not because he brought it up -- I'm glad that his brain engaged when I got the permit, because there's been a lot of "oh, yeah, that'll work, we'll figure it out" instead of actually trying to figure it out and answer my questions -- but because trying to research this question is HELL.

Heating appears to be an, ahem, hot-button issue in the home improvement world. People are zealous about what method is the 'best', cheapest, most efficient, most comfortable, etc, with all the normal annoyances associated with zealotry. I see blog responses that start with "It's always been known," or "X is clearly superior in every way," or "Oh, I can't believe you were idiotic enough to let your client do THAT." Then there's all sorts of 'most people experience' comments that have no basis in research; arguments over whether people are defining radiation right, and on and on and on. No one compares like to like -- they talk about an insulated house with heating system X and a non-insulated house with system Y, or compare to east coast propane prices (entirely irrelevant to me!) or or or or. I see directly contradictory statements given as fact on different fora all the time.

(My current favorite is the one that says "Electric baseboard has always been known to be the worst for efficiency... but sometimes radiant can be worse." One: that sentence doesn't actually compute. Two: it has NOT always been known. Three: Those are my two real options, damn it).

If I could afford it, I'd seriously consider getting another natural gas fireplace insert and hiring a mason to rebuild my current fireplace/chimney such that it could have an insert sticking out each side (one into the living room, one into the studio). As-is, I'm afraid a little freestanding gas stove would be too spendy, and I don't know where I'd put it.

Electric radiant floor under tile prices out to about $500 more than a fancy electric baseboard (with laminate flooring, but it could be . Something durable and cleanable). That's totally worth it if it makes a better experience and doesn't cost me an arm and a leg every month, but I can't tell. And I need to figure this out, because it impacts the electrical plan I haven't submitted yet AND the level we need to build the floor to.

My only real tester for electric radiant is my parents' bathroom, which is a quarter the size of the space I'm going to be heating (and who knows how much of their bill is the floor). I have electric baseboards -- dull, ugly, cheap -- but the new electric/hydronic ones are supposed to heat more evenly and more quietly. I've never seen one in action.

I just want good information, for crying out loud. It's not magic; it's thermodynamics!

By this point I have a rather odd relationship with the city building officials, pretty much all of whom I think I've met (I look at my little pile of business cards and think GOTTA COLLECT EM ALL). My initial talk with the city about my plans was with an older guy who happily talked about the various issues in the building project and suggested all sorts of things. He argued on my side when I was stymied by The Guy Who Says No. Then I took months being in an emotional funk (and busy with holidays and things), building it all up in my head to something almost insurmountable, before I finally called the City Administrator -- the very top, save for the council -- because I thought he was the next guy up the ladder. I met with him and the actual next guy up the ladder, the head of the planning department, and we worked out a compromise -- and they were totally, totally nice and understanding about it... and clearly disapproving of the incorrect information given to me by The Guy Who Says No. Then yesterday I got a call from another guy I hadn't known existed, who heads up the actual building inspection end, saying he 'had some questions for you, but they won't delay your permit.' Then a call this morning saying the permit was ready even though I still didn't know what the questions were, so off I toddled, ready to be absolutely stumped by something I hadn't considered... and he asked a few questions that were all to make sure that in the places I'd specified overbuilding* I was doing it of my own volition and I hadn't been pressured or mislead by any of his staff. And then he suggested a cheaper way to build the floor, and told me as far as he was concerned I didn't have to use pressure treated lumber and could make a framing/insulation change which may have just saved me, oh, $400.

Then we talked about dogs for awhile, because he googled me, saw I play irish music, and he has an Irish wolfhound. And it turns out he's friends with my boyfriend's boss, because wolfhound people all know each other.

And one of my awesome neighbors came by mid conversation, and I mentioned one of his awesome tools (he has a LASER CUTTER), and the permit guy put his hands on his ears and said "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT ANYONE DOES IN THEIR GARAGE." (My neighbor said "Okay, I won't tell you, but I will say I've got a very nice fire extinguisher sitting right next to my tools. Does that help?").

SO.

I HAS PERMIT.

NOW I HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO STUFF OH GODS.


*Building to standards above and beyond that required by code.

My new renter was supposed to arrive today, but she's not coming until tomorrow. My parents were supposed to get back from vacation tomorrow, but they're not coming back until Sunday.

The schedule change is the only thing keeping me moderately sane, since I'd thought I was going to have to clean my house to not-scaring-the-new-renter-standards AND clean my parents' to make-them-happy-and-relaxed-after-long-trip standards in one morning. Now I have most of today for their house and my common areas, and tomorrow morning for finishing up here. Eesh.

madalchemist, otherwise known as housemate Xed, already cleaned the bathroom. He said, as he normally does, "Well, it's not perfect, but I gave it's better."

One of these days I'm going to say "Okay, so why didn't you make it perfect, then? Just once?"

I really don't mind; he does a perfectly acceptable job. It's just the niggling feeling that if you can SEE more that could be done, once in awhile you could... just... do it.

Anyway.

Most of the filth in my house is my fault, because I spent the last two weekends building a fence, which meant I was exhausted, busy, and tracking dirt into the house every time I came in for water. We did game night at my folks', so I didn't have my usual incentive to clean on Fridays, either. Filth has accumulated; I'll feel better when it's gone.

...which bring's up Xed's other point, that the new renter is "going to find out we're not clean people sooner or later." He doesn't understand that I aspire to be one of the clean people someday; it just never seems to happen.

I was actually really on top of the dishes for a week! ...and then I started the fence.

Not one of nature's little housewives, damn it.

Well, I didn't have to entirely re-apply -- I just dropped off an amended site plan with the city. Thankfully one of the guys I had the meeting with was there to take the papers. He said someone in their office had been being 'finicky' (50 bucks it's the guy I had issues with) and wanted to see things like water/sewer lines on the plan, which I didn't include, but that he'd talk to him about it, since I'm not changing the footprint so they're entirely irrelevant. He also made it sound like it'd get expedited, since 'it's been such a pain for you, anyway.'

At this stage it really doesn't make any difference to me whether I get the permit today or in two weeks; the first thing I need to do is replumb the gas line, and I don't know how to do that, so it needs to wait for dad to get back from his road trip. And the weekend after he gets back is Folklife, so nothing can actually start until June -- which is fine, because the garage still isn't clean enough to work in, and I'm still on the hook to help my neighbor with the fence.

Speaking of the fence: Last weekend we got all the post holes dug and the posts set in concrete for our 60' of shared fence line. Now we need to coordinate setting the rails (very much a two person job) and then we can work on boards whenever we have time. The work went really well, and M was easy to work with. We needed to take few arms off a nut tree that grew right on the fence line, but she has an arborist friend who did it yesterday morning for $40, which is a great deal (and the tree looks happier, too -- he threw in some much-needed pruning of crossing branches).

Fence work will probably account for my upcoming weekend.

Trying to restore some semblance of order to my tumultuous brain workings, here.

Before May 12
- acquire dresser for rent-a-room Thanks Lyns!
- put together the flake's abandoned desk for rent-a-room, bed, etc.
- take apart heater connection for diagnosis Diagnosed as FUBAR.
- do something about the heater (reconnect, replace, or hire electrician, as needed) Call electrician; reborrow space heater from parents.

Before permit re-application PERMIT GET!
- stake out/paint/string rough landscape plan in front yard to be sure it'll work
- Driveway questions
-- research and decide on permeable pavement material (grasscrete, turfblock, etc) Turfblock is by far the simplest
-- price out materials
-- amend site plan
- Floor questions
-- research requirements for leveling floor w cement
-- price out materials and compare to current (wooden) plan
-- amend plan or leave as-is
- Window questions Decided to leave plan as-is; may change later.
-- sketch window differences
-- cardboard mock-ups in garage?
-- amend elevation drawing as needed

By June 1
- Clear out garage
-- Cardboard to back yard for mulching
-- post flake's shit (except for desk) on Craigslist
-- tools? Bike? Random crap?
- Make plan-of-attack list (i.e., what do we start with?)
- finish chapter one of sequel thing and send to beta
- paint on mail box
- write letter to tune composer for Pinniped Never mind.

Other upcoming house related
- Help neighbor remove & replace fence (determined by her schedule) Done!
-- set posts
-- install rails
-- install boards
- Mulch with woodchips when/if woodchips magically appear on my property (someone said he'd bring some but didn't say when)
- Front yard prep
-- get Dad to bring builder's level to mark references for leveling front yard
-- dragoon housemate into holding ruler to mark height references
-- build up area near street with turf blocks
-- acquire fill dirt
-- root prune rhody
- finish weeding and adding soil to patio spaces

Once I get the permit re-application/amendment in, I should have about two weeks before I get a final answer. My parents (key to really starting this thing, since I'm relying on Dad's experience) are out of town until mid May, and I need a little time to dither, so I'm guessing actual work could start in early June, which means I need to be ready to start (garage clear) and have cleaned off my plate a bit (worked on, if not finished, the mail box, actually POSTED something on the story, etc).

I feel like I should be overwhelmed by this, but instead I'm rather chipper. It's possible the sane part of my brain is gibbering in a corner somewhere.

My meeting with the City Administrator and the Permit Manager is tomorrow at 11.

I keep telling myself that they wouldn't schedule a meeting, let alone a meeting with more than one person, just to tell me the same things I've already heard. Unfortunately I have slightly too much experience with bureaucracy to believe it. There's a bit of additional stress from the whole 'my neighbor and I are going halves on a fence project that's technically on a public right-of-way but you'd never give a shit about it under other circumstances' thing, but mostly I'm just worried that I really won't get any new options.

I'm really banking on that property line calculation I did that indicates I'm a foot short of the space required. That could be my loophole.

I'm really hoping I don't become an on-the-verge-of-tears mess. It's profoundly out-of-character, and besides, I already did it once and it sucked.

The new housemate left a note on my door with his key. He lost his job and he's moving out.

At least I won't have to kick him out.

If anyone says anything along the lines of 'you know how to pick em' I may punch them. The whole point of this over a year worth of flaming CRAP has been that for the first time I haven't had a choice. I never used to have problems finding housemates. The rent's the same as I asked for when I was subletting a duplex. I've just ended up with nothing but irresponsible adult children who think a lease is what you use to walk a dog.

I hate this. I'm tired of having strangers' smells in my house; of being stuck somewhere between landlord and Only Responsible Adult, of the whole precarious thing making me wonder if buying this house was the right thing to do in the first place. I'm ready to move on to the next stage -- E moving in, making a household of three people who we already know share space well -- but that can't happen unless I can make some headway with the city and the remodeling stuff, because we know we can't share this *little* space.

And the remodeling stuff, if the city ever approves it, requires money. Which I once again won't have.

The City Administrator called me back this morning. He was quite friendly, and sympathetic to the basically un-garage-like nature of my garage (which is great, but doesn't imply anything about the final outcome -- it's perfectly possible to be sympathetic but still rules-are-rules). He said he'd look at the plans I had on file and get back to me with what my options are. He also clarified that the variance process can be expensive, and that's why the staff warn people off it -- a nice bit of info I hadn't had before. Otherwise, he pretty much laid out the same options dad did, I think -- either find a compromise within code (and I really think there isn't one I'd be happy with), go through the variance process (which may or may not work and costs money), or lobby to change the city code (which may or may not work, and takes a lot longer).

Still, it's nice to feel like things are moving forward, even if they're just moving towards another dead end.

Now, if I could only get to the point where I was making actual forward progress instead of completing things that are long overdue or scrambling to make repairs, that'd really be something.

Friday a best buy repair guy came out to look at my wobbling washer. Upshot: The third-party installers were indeed crap, but so is my laundry room floor. It's not just uneven, it's squishy (unsurprising; house is 1960, laundry room has had water issues), which is why we could feel the washing machine in the kitchen, and why the washing machine took itself for little strolls (either that or it hates the life of a washing machine and wants to see the world).

He suggested reinforcing that section of floor with a bit of super thick (inch plus) subflooring, which is pretty much what dad had suggested, and gave me his direct line so I can call him back to check everything afterwards without spending an hour in customer service hell.

(He also liked cats, which is good, because when Calliope sees a human lying on the floor staring intently at something she assumes it must be interesting, and she gets down there and stares too.)

Spent Saturday at my parents' house printing my New Year's cards, since I broke my printer last week. Desktop printers are awful about odd paper sizes and I made the card using InDesign, which my parents don't have, so I went in armed with two different pdf versions (identical except for placement). Neither of them printed correctly. Thankfully dad had just installed photoshop CS2 (Adobe accidentally gave it away free a few weeks ago), which allows you to print with specific image offsets, and by rasterizing it at a high enough resolution to make smoke come out of dad's machine* I was able to shove things around until I could print 'em right. Then reprint them, because I somehow did the insides upside down. Then fight with mail merge. Then fight with getting printer to eat envelopes.

Dad was working on his shop and making trips back and forth to home depot, so he picked up a sheet of subflooring for me and had it cut to size, and I borrowed his long level and his handtruck (and car) for Sunday's adventure and made another trip to home depot for giant decking screws, so I could fix the laundry room.

Sunday started with cleaning the laundry room and moving the new washer and dryer so I could get at the floor under them. Dryer was easy; washer required both me, madalchemist, the handtruck, and a lot of grunting.

I spent awhile carefully leveling the piece of subfloor based of the high point in the far corner. Naturally I sunk the first screw there, and naturally it sank over an eighth of an inch and I had to relevel everything as I attached it. Seems like some of the floor squish was due to crappy vinyl, and screwing the subfloor over it acted like a clamp. Anyway, it took me waaaay too long fiddling with shims, but I got it securely down and, while not perfectly level, it's a vast improvement. madalchemist jumped on it as a test -- I could feel the floor move when he jumped on the floor, but couldn't feel it when he jumped on the new sheet. We shoved everything back where it went and re-attached all the things that needed attaching. Now I just need to get the nice repair guy out again and maybe the wobble will actually be gone.

My knees are bruised to heck -- I didn't think of getting my gardening knee pads until I was well into the job, and then I thought it'd be over soon, so why bother? (Hint: It wasn't over soon). Now when I kneel my knees touch the floor and then bounce back up almost of their own volition, and I end up doing the crouching tiger yoga pose to get things off the floor. :P

*Dad wants his computer to fail so mom will let him buy a new one, so he was actually hoping I'd abuse it past it limits.

Murphy's in full force over here.

My tenant moved in January 2. January 3, he reported the heater didn't work in his room. Sure 'nuf, something's screwy with the thermostat, and of course I didn't map the heater circuits to breakers when I did everything else. Friday when both the guys were gone I tracked them all down... all but the one I actually need to fix, that is, because every heater has two hot wires, and in my house some of those hot wire pairs are on different circuits. With one half of the problem thermostat not getting juice, I can't actually be sure that it's off -- which means I need to turn off the entire house before I attempt repairs.

I'm not doing that when it's 10 degrees F below freezing, thanks. I borrowed a space heater from my folks as soon as AJ told me about the problem, so that issue will keep for awhile.

Which means I need a new issue, right? My house thinks so!

So the washing machine broke.

It's not spinning at all, and there were interesting rubbery/electrical smells, which made me suspect the motor. My helpful-fix-it book suggested motor or transmission, and that the appropriate action was to call in someone else, as these are not easily home-fixable. Since the washing machine was a $25 craigslist find that's probably as old as I am and even worse for wear, I don't particularly want to drop money on a repair that may or may not work, which leaves me with a few options:

1. Buy off craigslist.
Pros: you can get a washing machine for anywhere from $50 to $600 dollars.
Cons: You have no idea whether it will work and no warranty, and you usually have to pick it up. Not to mention the whole 'play phone tag and email tag and hope someone hasn't bought it already, then find time in the busy week that works for both you, the seller, and the friend who you cajole into loaning their truck'.

2. Buy from a refurbisher
This is what I did when the dryer started eating clothes earlier this year. The new dryer is just as old as the old one (again, about as old as me), huge, and ugly (not that I consider aesthetics important in a dryer). The refurbisher was just fine to do business with and offers a short term warranty, but the 'free repair' bit ran out after two months and the dryer started becoming less efficient after four.
Pros: More guarantee than craigslist. No more choice. Delivery and removal of old machine included.
Cons: Not so impressed with my new-ancient dryer. You're still getting old equipment that's had problems before, even if they've been fixed. The refurbisher I went to the first time is waaay the hell out of town, and I couldn't get there until Friday, earliest -- which means no delivery until next week.

3. Buy new
I wasn't even considering this until mom mentioned it today, because it's just a LOT of money.
Pros: Warranty and peace of mind, both in functionality (you can return lemons) and in ease-of-purchase -- delivery and installation of new and removal of old is all included.
Cons: Only money.

My thrifty, waste-hating side tends towards keeping things in use and circulation as long as possible (and saving myself money), but my tired-of-freaking-dealing-with-it side really likes the idea that I could go to a store and have the problem fixed by tomorrow. The fact that I'm a landlord and two other people are dependent on my to fix the problem really drives that home -- I have an obligation to provide functional laundry facilities; I can't dither around for a few weeks doing laundry at my parents while I figure it out.

I have to admit, it'd be nice to have something that's clean, new, stackable (to allow more room in the laundry room), and more efficient -- it just takes a large chunk of money, and whenever I start looking at that big a chunk of money I think about all the other things I could spend it on, and how it should be saved for working on the studio. Then I think about why I'm not working on the studio, and how I still don't have a plan, and, well... you see how this spiral goes.

Best Buy has an 18 months same-as-cash deal, though, which makes new really appealing. I could replace BOTH washer and dryer for about $90 a month -- which coincidentally is the same amount E owes me for his share of the phone bill. He hasn't been paying because his car needed repairs and I wanted to contribute, and this month he was going to start again, so it'd be almost a wash, month to month.

That would leave me with the guilt of spending $250 on the dryer last year, but I can't second guess too much. The washer was working fine at the time, and I didn't have a housemate so my income was questionable. I suppose I could try to recoup $100 or so on craigslist, though that's still a pain, usually.