I recently met a neighbor who lives across the street from our Grand House, a neighbor whom I shall refer to as Steel. Steel, it turns out, is the 'hood historian, and he has been observing doings on our street for many years (possibly many decades). His house is a mirror image of our house, at least externally, and Steel says that both houses were built by the same builder, the mysterious Builder to whom we have referred to in previous Episodes.
I met Steel one day several months ago. We both happened to be outside at the same time, and he walked over and asked if I could help him out by looking for some video footage from a certain date and time range - he was trying to ascertain if something happened that he suspected but did not witness. Of course I was glad to help, and we got to talking for a few minutes. Steel told me that the Builder did some weird things when building both houses, and he was not surprised when I told him of some of the corrections we had to make shortly after moving in.
Do you remember this mess, corrected in
Episode XXXVII, in September, 2012? As it turns out, this, and other, issues that we attributed to the pre-Bishopians might actually date all the way back to the Builder. We may have wrongly accused the pre-Bishopians of some of the blatant, flagrant mistakes we have had to correct. I have to believe, however, that the pre-Bishopians are still to blame for many things we have encountered in our Improving House.
I looked at the requested video footage, but did not see the event that Steel suspected. Meanwhile, Steel, possibly inspired by our example, has put up some home security cameras of his own.
Hood Vent Again
The issue detailed in this section definitely originates with the Builder.
It all started (continued, actually) one evening a few months ago, when the sun stayed aloft well into the night. I was lightly charring (heavily burning) some steaks in my trusty cast iron skillet (I'm still learning to cook steaks), and our wonderful hood fan, installed in
this Episode, was operating at its full capacity, pumping air up and out of the house at 220 cfm. I crouched low to retrieve something from the floor, and upon looking up I saw what appeared to be smoke pouring in the open kitchen window. This was unexpected, so I went outside to investigate.
It turns out that the hood's exhaust vent is directly above the sliding glass door, next to the kitchen window, as can be seen in this photo. So all of that smoke I was pumping out of the kitchen was billowing out of the vent and blowing back into the kitchen through the open window. D'oh!
Here's another view, from directly below. I had been aware of this vent for some time, but never thought much about what went into our out of it. Now we know. And now we will have to have the windows and sliding glass door closed when we use our wonderful 220 cfm hood fan.
New Tool Team Member
Give a big New House Blog welcome to Willy, the hand axe.
There are situations where a full-size axe like Bari is just too big and cumbersome, and a small hand axe is called for. Willy is such a hand axe, seen here with the protective sheath.
With the sheath removed you can see that Willy has already proven to be useful.
And just in case you're wondering, hatchet leads to hatch, with leads to hatch chili, which leads to chilly, which leads to Willy.
Palm Removal
For several years there has been a persistent little palm tree that has repeatedly grown up from the ground after being knocked down. Said little persistent palm was located just inside the backyard gate, in the corner. We don't know how it got there, or why, or when the seed originally fell, but it was unwanted and required removal.
Enter Willy. Bari would have been too big and cumbersome, but Willy fit right in and got the job done. After chopping this little guy down almost to the ground we dug down (we didn't use Willy for digging) and removed the roots.
We don't anticipate the return of the persistent palm.
Workbench Update
One issue with our Repairable House is the lack of electrical outlets, in the garage, where I've had to stretch long extension cords across the floor (or across bikes and bricks and lumber) to supply power to power tools at the workbench. This bothered me for a long time, and I finally ran power to the workbench.
This also solved the other big issue in the garage - the lack of electrical lighting. The power strip and lights were my dad's. and they have proven to be a huge improvement over the nothing that I was using previously.
BYA Update
Finally, we wrap up this Episode with a brief Back Yard Archaeology update. While digging up the roots of the pesky palm we uncovered these rusty bolts.
The thickness of the rust, and the depth at which they were found lead us to conclude that they are either pre-Bishopian, or possibly they date from the building of the new fence (see
this Episode). It's also possible that the multiple types of bolts are from multiple eras.
Cute Cat Closing
I call this "Edgar In The Bag."
You've been warned - our section of the 'hood is now covered by cameras on both sides of the
bIsh
