Stick Season

I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I last wrote here. Looking back, I’d been waxing about fall for a month or so — the pretty colors, the falling leaves — and that was fun and cute to talk about. But over the past couple of weeks, the much less cute version showed up for real.

It’s been cold. And wet. And windy.

The sudden change has inspired a last push of outdoor work to get ready for winter. I finished scraping, priming, and painting the worst offending exterior spots. I patched and covered the areas of wood rot I’d started back when the temperatures were more forgiving. I raked and hauled endless piles of leaves, cursing those giant maple trees the entire time.

With the critical outdoor work done, and temps now too low for most products anyway, it’s time — by necessity — to turn our attention indoors. I’ve actually been looking forward to this. During the better weather, I knew my window for outdoor work was limited. But now, I’m stoked to start tackling the equally critical indoor projects. We’re going to be spending a lot of time inside this winter… might as well get the place shaped up and feeling a little more comfortable to be in.

The first project I landed on was clearing old phone lines and dead circuits off the electrical panel and out of the basement. I know — doesn’t exactly sound like a priority. But bear with me. The goal here was to label the main panel.

The current situation is… a bit of a mess. For as fancy as this house is (or was), and for as impressive as some of the old schematics are, the main panel is a broadly unlabeled rat’s nest. To make matters worse, we’ve discovered three live exposed circuits so far — one of them a 240-volt line hanging out of a kitchen wall. I don’t know who was responsible, so I’m not casting blame here, but whoever left it this way was critically negligent. The electrical work in this house could have easily burned it down or killed someone.

So, our intent was to trace the circuits and label the panel so we could safely secure or remove the old, exposed, live lines. But as we started tracing and labeling, the maze of phone lines and cut circuits at the panel was overwhelming — and I couldn’t help but start cleaning it up. Before we knew it, there was a giant pile of wire on the ground and a much cleaner-looking main panel and surrounding area.

As it turns out, the cleanup paid off in two big ways. First, having now traced nearly every wire along every floor joist in the basement, I’ve got a much better understanding of the electrical layout of the house — and by proxy, the HVAC layout too. And second, I found a bunch of cold spots, one of which turned out to be an actual hole straight through the house.

So, in terms of air sealing (also on my fall to-do list), we made some big progress. Next up: sealing that exterior penetration, finding a roll of pink insulation, and packing up those cold spots. Hopefully save a few bucks on oil this winter.