Abandoned apple orchard

Husband wants to take down the giant metal triangles. I think it's art.

What do you think?

the work continues

We are, like the rest of the country, in a brutal cold snap. Daytime highs in the 20's and lows in the single digits. Meanwhile, we still don't have heat at the farm. But the work continues...

The contractor finished removing all the plaster and lath from the attic, and, aside from the 50 pounds of bat poo he found in the ceiling of one attic room, the rest of the other attic room had even more bee hives. Luckily, just abandoned bee hives and no more bees. I'm glad I wasn't there to see the mess, but kind of would have liked to see a picture. I did take these...

So much for leaving the chimney exposed. What a freaking mess. It's a kittywompus, sticky, yucky thing. Any ideas how to beautify this guy without breaking the bank? A coat of plaster? Brick veneer?

another frozen window...

Also, we are suddenly tasked with figuring out an electrical scheme.

The contractor thinks the easiest route is to leave the sub panel in one of the bedrooms. I don't like the idea, because I don't want a bed placed right next to an electrical sub panel. He suggested rerouting the wires from that sub panel to the living room of the attic, but again, there would still be electrical wires concentrated in that sleeping area. Upon closer inspection, we realized that almost the entire house is being fed wires from this panel. Why? Why would you run a wire all the way up to the attic to a sub panel and then wire everything off of that? We told him, just cut the wires to the rest of the house and have a sub panel feed just the attic. We'll figure out the rest of the house as we go on.

Then I schooled myself on EMF's. Holy cow, I guess sub panels are really evil. Now I am thinking of removing the sub panel altogether and running wire from the basement in an emf shielding pipe. I think that idea is the best. Concentrate all the breakers in the basement. He's on board with that too.

When I mentioned that I want outlets in the baseboard molding, he mentioned that a former client of his read something about the positioning of the outlets sideways causes some kind of electrical current action that is worse than if the outlets are vertical. I found it pleasing that I am not the only one out there OCD'ing on all things electrical, and am now tasked with learning about that. Luckily he gave me her number, so we can obsess together.

Look, I just want a retreat that is healthy, safe, and away from the noise, pollution, and craziness of the modern world. Does it have to be that complicated?

Before we left, I took some pictures of the orchard and pasture. So pretty in the snow.

On the way home, I convinced my husband to cruise down the Old Historic Columbia River Highway. I have always wanted to see the waterfalls in a deep freeze. Here are the pictures I took.

Multnomah Falls:

and Horsetail falls:

Stay warm out there!

A case for double hung INSULATED windows

When ice forms on the INSIDE of your single pane windows, maybe those replacement windows make more sense? Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.

Searching for heat

Our main source of heat is an old oil furnace, wrapped in asbestos tape, wrapped in old insulation, covered with many years of dust.

Once the cold weather came, we knew we were in trouble. Probably doing something about this when we moved in, say in July or August would have been a good idea, but we were so involved with the exterior, we didn't have a chance to address this very important problem.

The oil tank is in pretty good shape. The wet floor below isn't from a leaking tank, it's from rainwater pouring through the cellar door and travelling to the drain at the opposite end of the basement.

This is actually a wood fired furnace. The oil furnace is to the left. Note hairy octopus arms coming out of furnace.

And here is our lovely oil furnace. I am not sure when the last time it was serviced, but I got a call from the previous owner right before heating season, telling me I should probably have it serviced.

Last week, I had an asbestos abatement crew come to remove the duct work containing asbestos. Because it was on the interior as well as the exterior, it had to be completely removed. We didn't know the extent of the tape, because quite a bit of it was covered with insulation. But the translation was lost, so every time the crew told me they were finished, I pointed to something else they forgot. It was a frustrating experience, but I am so glad I was there for the entire 8 hour process, in the freezing cold.










































All the boots were removed as well. My beautiful registers no longer have ducts to cover, but this gives us the opportunity to open up some walls before we decide what kind of heat this house will have.

Originally, we were thinking of ground source heat. However, the price is astronomical, even with government incentives. One company quoted us $30,000, another quoted $18,000. The incentives are pretty good, 30% rebate. But it's still so high, and now we need to replace ducts as well.

Radiant heat is an option, but having the house laid out properly, and making sure we have a plan in place first is paramount. Looks like heat won't happen this season.