The House That Frangie Built: WIND, WIND, WET & COLD

Sunday, December 13, 2009

WIND, WIND, WET & COLD

WEEK ELEVEN: The title says most of what happened this week. The wind blew and blew and blew. It rained. It snowed. The temps were low during the days and nights, and the wind blew--hard--making it bitter cold. Frank has been working on Tonya's guest bathroom during weather like this. The shower and lighting are functional. The plumbing is ready to attach the stool and the sink. He has added drywall and spackling. This week Tonya painted the room. Her friend will be coming to help her lay the tile floor. (Frank was going to do this until he realized that he did not have the tools needed for the job.) This friend did her own house, and will be glad to work with Tonya on this project.

We keep working on getting the basement dry. We are still having problems with the first floor deck leaking. We had ordered large tarps, and they arrived. We were able to lay them over the deck and place boards and weights on them to keep them in place. It also snowed while we worked on this, so we weren't sure how well it would work. We went out one day and cut one of the tarps to fit, put in new grommets and tied it to the perimeter box. Since the wind was blowing that day, that tarp was not tight, and water came in anyway. Finally, Saturday, the weather was CALM, although cold. We again worked on the first tarp--making it fit tighter. We also blew off the back half and cut that tarp to fit and tied it down. When I looked over there Sunday morning, the deck was flat for the first time all

week!

We have made progress on the leaks. The back half was dry. The front half still leaked with the rain we had all day. We think that all the flapping in the wind made holes or weak spots in the tarp. If we have a couple dry, calm days, we will see if that can be fixed.

We did look at appliances and order a washer, dryer, and refrigerator to be delivered in March, I think. Frank heated up the basement and worked on internal basement walls.