I'll name you Beatrice, you're Beulah, and you can be Bea... I'm gonna need more 'B' names...

We've been thinking about doing this for a while and Mr. Kluges finally talked me into it last September.  We ordered our equipment, put it together, and today, picked up the final and most necessary component to our new endeavor...

That'd be a box full of bees, folks!

We are now beekeepers!  

Mr. Kluges and the girls watched from the back roof/balcony while I installed them into their hive.  To start we got a "nuc," which is basically 4 frames out of the middle of a hive.  They should have an active/laying queen and a bunch of her daughter bees along with eggs/pupa/larvae in various stages, and honey and pollen, too.  All I had to do was carefully remove them from the cardboard box they're in and put them into their prepared permanent home.  I looked for the queen, but didn't see her, which isn't too unusual considering my lack of experience. :)  I'm not too worried (well, not too worried), but I'll look again in a few days and see if I can find her then, or at least eggs, which would mean she's there & doing fine.

Here are some photos of the process.

This is the nuc of bees riding home in the trunk of the car.

After I took the first frame out of the nuc, I showed it to my 3 observers. There are bees everywhere on that thing!

Taking a look at a frame of bees to see if I can spot the queen, observing the capped brood, looking for eggs, etc.

Adding 3 new frames to each side of the hive for the bees to fill with pollen and honey for themselves.

Putting on the inner cover.

Since they're just getting established, I put an empty box on top of the inner cover, then a container of sugar-water for the bees to help feed them until they get going finding nectar sources.

Finally I put on the outer cover and a big ol' rock.  The empty nuc box was placed in front of the opening so the couple of dozen bees still in it could find their way out in their own time.

I retrieved the camera from Mr. Kluges while I was still geared up and took a few pictures.  This circled bee is sticking her rear in the air and giving off the homing pheromone, to help the other bees find the opening and realize that this is now home.

I've already been out to look at the hive quite a few times today because it's just so dang cool.  I even saw a bee returning to the hive with the pollen baskets on her legs packed full of bright yellow pollen (dandelion?) less than an hour after I'd installed them.  The bees seem to have settled in fine, but I'm looking forward to continued observations.  Yay for honey bees!

Cross-posted to Musings & Mutterings

An Unexpected Early-Morning Wake-up Crash

Not that I mean to only write when we've had something bad occur with the house, but this happened...

About 10 days ago, while Mr. Kluges was in Ireland on a business trip, Mother Nature decided that what this extended late winter, is-spring-ever-coming season needed was an ice storm.  A BIG ice storm spiced up with just a little bit of wind.  Yay.

About 5:30 am, I was woken by the sound of some small branches breaking off the tree outside my window.  I didn't think too much of it, as it's a weak tree that often loses a small branch or two in any sort of wind or ice. I lay there, listening to the tap of the freezing rain on my window, and the occasional tinkle of a small branch breaking off and making its way through its brothers to the ground.  Then there was a sudden HUMONGOUS snapping, loud and extended crashing, and a giant, house-shaking BOOM!  I knew right away one of the main branches on one of our neighbor's trees on the property line to the south had come down and definitely hit our house. I tore out of bed into Penguin's room, sure I was going to see branches poking through her window and an hysterical child in bed.  Fortunately, and unbelievably to me at the time, the window was unbroken and Penguin remained asleep.

But I could see out her window that it was more than just that one branch, big as it was.  I then raced over to Pumpkin's room 'cuz the branches obviously went that far - she was awake & asked what that big thunder was.  I told her it was a tree hitting the house, then threw on some clothes, grabbed a flashlight & went out to see what I could see. 

Turns out I was wrong - it wasn't the one large branch we'd always thought would eventually give way and hit our sun porch.  Instead it looked like the entire tree itself had broken off right at the ground and hit our sun porch, with at least some branches hitting the top roof, and it was resting mostly on our sun porch roof, which was obviously damaged and partially crushed.  I couldn't see very much because it was still so dark, but after determining that apparently none of the tree had gone through walls or windows, I went in and messaged Mr. Kluges, who was, with the 6 hour time different, awake and at work.

Once it got light, I went out and snapped some photos so Mr. Kluges could get a better sense of the damage and what had happened.  Here's how it looked.

The red arrow is the base of the tree, where it broke off from its roots. The yellow arrow shows branches coming completely over the top of the sun porch roof, and the blue one shows branches hitting the top roof.

Our side yard

The poor smashed sun porch roof

The reach of the tree up onto the top roof

Penguin's window, the original one I'd expected to be broken out

Pumpkin's window view, with roof completely covered with branches

The view from the backyard

This WAS the gate to the backyard.

Once the girls were off to school, I contacted the insurance company, and then our tree guy, who wasn't able to come out that day because, gosh, he was really busy and we didn't have any branches actually breaking INTO our house (thank God!).  Later that morning, one of our other neighbors called to say she was sending her husband (and his chainsaw) over about 1pm when he got home from work.  They showed up, and between the three of us and his chainsaw and some ropes, managed to get the tree off of the house.  It got easier to see some of the damage then.

Of course, the branches did a number on our custom gutters!

Since then the insurance adjustor has been out, and so has our contractor.  We're waiting for progress with that.  Mr. Kluges and the neighbor whose tree it was decided to take care of the rest of the tree themselves, so it's now all chopped up and off our yard.  The sun porch roof is going to need significant work, the main roof might need some (thankfully we have some of our special shingles around!), and the gutters are obviously in need of repair.  Surprisingly, it looks like just the gate took the brunt of the tree, but the rest of the fence looks ok.  Somehow, no windows were broken and nothing came through the roof or walls!!!!  I'm counting my blessings on that one!

(Cross-posted to Musings & Mutterings.)

Wordless Wednesday - Xmas Bows

(Photo cross-posted to Musings & Mutterings.)

Storm's a coming

Storm windows seem to be the topic du jour these days. I'm writing about them. Stucco House is writing about them. Even our friends in Amsterdam are writing about them. Our storm windows have been off and on my mind for the last three years, especially ever since we had one completely fall apart on us when we took it down in 2008. The corner had completely rotted through. The only thing keeping it together was a bit of paint.

I had hoped that buying replacement storm windows would be as easy as calling the local hardware store or lumber mill. I was wrong. I'm sure there is someone in the area that could make me new storm windows at a reasonable price, but I couldn't find them. The only person I found didn't really want to make them ("It's a waste of money. Just go to Menard's and get an Aluminum storm window."), and he quoted me $400, which did not include the glazing.

So being an independent, self-sufficient minded American, I opted to make my own. I spent the last three years acquiring a table saw, a router table and several router bits. And now I've finally finished the last four storms for the house.




I suspect that most wood workers would have found this a fairly simple project, but it turned out to be a challenge for me, especially figuring out how the mortise and tenons fit together with the routed ogee edge. I'm pleased with how they turned out, and I'm glad the hard part is done now. The windows are currently getting glazed and then they will need two more coats of paint to finish them off. If all goes as planned, I'll have them up by the end of November.

Front Entry Roof Part 7

The roof is done. Roger worked part of the day Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday two other guys came out to finish up the seams and to rework some of the blobby soldering work Roger did. The carpenters (as usual) did a top notch job. Last night I put on the new porch light and I'm calling the roof project done.

Of course it isn't really. There's a bit of caulking that needs doing and bit of painting, but as we'll never really be done with the house, I need to draw a line in the sand somewhere. In all, it took about 70 hours of work from the guys, although it should have taken less, considering the roofing debacle.

Here's a shot of the front of the house now.



Here's what the roof looks like.



And here are two shots of the soffit. Notice how carefully Jake mitered the bead board corners. And compare to some of the original shots.





The original bead board needed replacing, and the replacement bead board found in stores today is not of the same pattern as what is found on the house. So I bought a few Freud router bits and made my own bead board to match what was originally on the house. They're not machined as precisely as commercial bead board, but I am pleased all the same with how they turned out.

And now, before winter comes, its on to the next project.

Front Entry Roof Part 5

Friday was the day they started the gutter and roof install.

I took Friday off, because I wanted to be there when they installed the roof for three reasons. First, I really, really want to know how hard this is to do. Second I want to know how much time it takes. Third I have a history with the metal shop doing this roof and it isn't all sunshine and bubbles.

When we opted to get the front entry done, I went to the historical carpenter that did the carpentry for the main roof project. Of all the contractors we've dealt with - plumbers, electricians, brick layers, roofers and metal workers, he is the only one that has met my expectations every single time. Matt has never, ever let me down. He's expensive and worth every penny.

I told Matt that I was doing everything through him - roof, gutters and carpentry. We talked about options and what I wanted. It was his recommendation that if I was committed to keeping the look of the integrated gutters, a metal roof was going to be the best bet. He said he would get a bid for the roof and gutters from Roger.

Roger owns the company who did the gutters on our main roof. There were (and to a lesser extent still are) some issues with our main roof gutters. They look great. Unfortunately there was too long a list of things that they "forgot" to do. I had to call them back three times after the installation to fix various things. And they were fairly serious items; support brackets missing, seams not soldered and metal folded backwards that needed to be replaced.

When Matt told me he was going with Roger, I made it very clear that Roger had the potential to do good work, but he needed to be watched very closely. If we went with Roger, it was Matt's responsibility to deal with him. Not mine. I wasn't going to chase him up like I did last time. Besides, I figured that Matt would have more leverage with Roger. If Roger screwed up, Matt might stop using him in the future.

Roger's bid came in at about 60% of the only other bid we had, and while Adam did really, really nice work, he was even harder to get a hold of than Roger. If I have to chase a contractor down for a bid, I figure he really doesn't want the work. So we went with Roger. And I was not fully comfortable with it, which is why I took Friday off.

Greg and an apprentice showed up on Friday morning before eight. This was good. I like it when guys show up ready to work. I talked to them off and on in the morning. While they worked on the gutters and the flashing, I worked in the garage on storm windows. When it looked like there was room on the roof, I'd climb up a ladder, watch them for awhile and ask a few questions. I tried not to annoy them and wanted them to know that I was interested in what was going on. The apprentice knew nothing. He was a gopher. Greg was friendly enough, but only bothered to answer my questions. He volunteered nothing.

After a few hours I was comfortable with Greg, he seemed to know his stuff and to my untrained eye, the gutters and the solder joints looked good. I got complacent. I got lazy. And then all hell broke loose.

Once they were done with the flashing and the gutter, they started on the roof panels. To understand what they did, it's necessary to understand the way a flat metal roof is installed. In some ways it's no different than a regular shingle roof. The covering is made of panels, (18" x 24") that are over lapped and crimped together. The upper course goes over the lower course, so that water flows down the roof without obstruction. Courses are staggered, so no seams line up. Here is a great resource about copper flat seam roofs (and other interesting bits about architectural use of copper too).

Initially the two of them were crowded on a corner of the roof and there was little room for me, so once they'd moved to the middle and there was some room, I popped my head up. They were about 40% done and I saw that they had installed the panels backwards. The lower courses of panels were on top of the higher ones. And they hadn't staggered the panels.

I immediately called them out. "Guys, you installed the panels backwards. And aren't the panels supposed to be staggered?" I was told it would be fine. It would all be soldered and be water tight. No worries. And he went back to work.

I wasn't going to fight him. That's why I hired Matt. I went in the house and called Matt. Matt listened and simply said that he wanted to see the roof before he talked to Roger. Considering it was 2:00 on a Friday I could understand this.

After I confronted Greg, the pace of his labors changed considerably. He went faster. By 3:30, he and his apprentice finished up and left, leaving the bottom course remaining, and the other 20 panels installed the wrong way.

I showed it to Ms. Huis after Greg left. She immediately noticed what was wrong (with no prompting). She was furious. I was just depressed, because I knew it meant phone calls and discussions, and uncertainty and conflict. And ultimately, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I crafted a nice long e-mail to Matt on Friday night, along with some pictures, in a professional tone which more or less said, "This isn't going to work. Here's why. We may have to rip off the panels and start over."

And so we waited all weekend, wondering would Matt be able to get Roger to fix this? Would we get our roof put on correctly? Was Roger just going to walk away? Would we need to get a different roofer? How much extra money was this going to cost us?

We didn't get an answer until Monday.

Here are pictures of our roof from Friday. The first is from the top of the roof, looking down. The flat roof on the entry isn't completely flat. It does have a slight patch. Notice that the last course of panels is missing. It's narrower than the other 18" panels and still needs to be fabricated. The last full course sits on top of the next course. During a rain storm, Water would flow towards that hump. The solder job on that seam would have to be perfect. And as soon as it failed for any reason, rain (or melting snow) would sneak in. Even worse, in the winter, the freeze/thaw cycle would force open the seam even more. And notice that the up and down seams are not staggered. Water that enters at one course can easily slip under the next course.



This is a nice shot taken by wife. It's the "water's view". Look at that deliciously large hole I'd like to run into. Again, better hope for a perfect solder joint.


Finally this is the seam between the flashing and the the very first course of panels. Because they started at the top of the roof and worked down, they screwed up from the very beginning. In this case Ms. Huis' hand is the water, straight down into the roof.


I've had better Fridays.

Front Entry Roof Part 4

I'm a bit behind, but that's mostly because I've been waiting to calm down before writing anymore. But I'm getting ahead of myself (even though I'm behind).

This post is about last Thursday. I wish I had pictures to show from Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, because that's when they fabricated the gutters and roof panels for the entryway. I would have loved to have shown the sheet copper being cut and formed in the brake presses. But I don't have those pictures. I wasn't invited to the shop (nor did I ask), and as I only have so many vacation days, I worked on Thursday anyway.

Two guys showed up on Thursday around 1:00 to dry fit some of the gutters and drop off some material. No installation took place. Here are some pictures of what they dropped off.

Here is the gutter ready to go. It hasn't been fastened in yet.


This is a full cross section of the gutter. I'm a little puzzled as to how they made the two 90 degree bends on the right so tightly.



And here's a picture of the roof panels (and of me too). Two sides have the edges bent towards me. The other two sides have the edges bent away from me. When assembling the roof, the over seam and under seam lock together and then are hammered flat. Finally solder is applied to make the seams water tight.


I'll write about the disaster that was Friday tomorrow.

Front Entry Roof Part 3

I'm a bit behind on the days, but I will still blog the progress in the order that the work occurred. Wednesday, Matt and Jake finished up the carpentry required to prep for the roofing guys. The roofers came out today and took the final measurements for the roof after Matt and Jake finished up the carpentry and installed the ice and water shield.

I can't say enough good things about Matt and Jake. They are truly masters at what they do. They took the time to pitch the gutters. This was not strictly necessary as the pitch can be done by the roofers, but it's a nice extra touch.

This first picture shows the box gutters framed up.


Here's what it looks like from the bottom. The fascia is in place. The soffit will wait until after the roof is on.



And here's what it looks like so far. The roof line almost looks normal again.


This is the roof, waiting for the copper. Ice and water shield are in place.

Front Entry Roof Part 2

When we replaced our cement/asbestos main roof and gutters a few years ago, I did not take off enough time. Looking back now, I realize that things would have probably gone a lot smoother if I had been around more often to keep an eye on things.

I resolved not to make that mistake again even though this is a (relatively) small project. So when Matt (our contractor) told us that he had us down to start work the week of the 4th, I took vacation for a half day on Monday, all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Foolish, foolish me.

When I arrived at home at 11:00 am Monday, imagine my frustration when no one had shown up to work on the roof. I called Matt and that's when I learned that in contractor speak, "the week of Monday the 4th" means any day during the week that begins October 4th, EXCLUDING the actual day of October 4th.

Matt volunteered the following schedule. He and and Jake were coming out on Tuesday/Wednesday to work on the carpentry. Thursday, Greg (the roofing guy) would fabricate the roof in the shop and Friday/Monday Greg and company would come on site and install the roof. Matt and Jake would be back Tuesday/Wednesday of next week to do final tidy up.

So I rearranged my vactaion schedule and took Wednesday and next Monday off, to be around in case of questions, but also to learn how the were going to build up the roof. I have a side porch and a back porch that need roof work as well, and watching these guys might save me some dollars in the future (although in the end it will cost me a lot of time).

Matt and Jake did tear off Tuesday morning and found pretty much what we suspected - a lot of rot at the edges. The roof decking and framing that were away from the gutter were fine. Here's the corner framing that was under the gutter.

The decking though was still in good shape and nothing needed to be done with it.

Again, more rot, this time at the end of the gutter, where it butted up against the house. This is actually where some of the worst water damage in the house was. Water flowed through the gutter here, along the brick and then down into the dining room window, where it saturated the interior wall and damaged the plaster. When we tuck pointed the house a few years ago, it solved the water intrusion issue, although the water still leaked out of the gutter and along the outside of the house. Now finally, the water issue will be solved at the root cause.


Goodbye old tin gutters.

Here is the front entry denuded. The roof looks little and out of proportion to the entry way.

When I got home from work on Tuesday, this is what I saw. Matt and Jake sistered new framing next to the old, rebuild the rotted corners, pushed insulation into the space above the entryway (there had been none), and put the floor of the new gutter in place. I was thrilled to see that they had even pitched the floor of the new gutter appropriately. Technically this isn't necessary, as the roof guys will do this, but it's a nice touch and will certainly help. As I told them, the extra hour or two they took to get that pitch in place means I (or someone else likely) might get an extra five years out of the gutters and roof.

Here's one more shot of the framing, along with the blue tarp thrown over the top to protect the roof for the night.

Front Entry Roof Part 1

After my last post, you may be forgiven if you think that I had in fact
s
u
n
k

No such thing. Progress is being made. Windows have been painted and re-assembled. Trim and bead board are painted. The front door has been removed. Storm windows installed. Windows cleaned. Garage cleaned. And there are contractors on site today to start replacing our front entry roof and gutters.

I have been aching to pull down the rotten bead board since we first lined up our contractor Matt. If you've ever felt the need to pick at a scab, or pull at peeling, burnt skin, then you know the feeling. Yesterday I finally succumbed to the urge.

First take a look at this and take a guess as to what it might be.


Ignoring the leaves, this pile represents what is left of the corner framing of my entry roof. And after seeing this, if you are wondering what is left, take a look at this picture.


The red, metal bit in the corner is the underside of the integrated gutter. There is no wood left. It has all turned to mush. Here is one more shot of the framing.


You can see the wooden trough that the gutter sits in, and then the fascia board on the outside. If you didn't understand what an integrated gutter is, then this is a good way to see it.

We also had Dave the furniture refinisher come to take away the front door. The oak veneer on it is de-laminating, so we've opted to have him remove the existing veneer and add new. This means we needed to replace the front door with something. I call it my crack house door.


Lovely ehh? I'm hoping that when he is done, it will look like the interior door.


Check back again soon. I'm hoping (expecting?) that the roof construction will go on all week and I'll post pictures and comments as the work progresses.

Plastered

The plastering is done. They did a great job on the dining room ceiling and a pretty good job on the guest room. Its a huge improvement over what was there. I don't look up and cringe every time I sit down to eat.

I was fairly certain we had overpaid the plasterers when they started the job, but once the ceiling of the guest room needed to be torn down and redone, I felt better. We got enough hours of work out of them to make the quote about right. In total, it cost us about $4 a square foot. That's a lot more than if I had done it, but I know what my plastering looks like. Oak bark looks smoother.

I also finally finished the screens I started eons ago. That project took entirely too long considering what was involved. Its good to have one more thing checked off.

We've had a lot of rain this July. Average rain fall in July is 3.31 inches. We've had 9.45 inches to date and they are forecasting more rain tonight and tomorrow. There's still one week left to July. The good news is that the basement is mostly dry. Some moisture is coming up through cracks in the slab, and hydrostatic pressure is causing dampness around the corners. The only way to fix that is to put in an interior drain field, and that's many years down the priority list.

I'm still waiting on a quote from our carpenter for the front entry. I think a little pressure is needed there. We also got back a quote for refinishing the front door. It looked really good, but now I have to figure out what to put in place of the front door while they are repairing the original. I don't think I'm keen on having no front door for a week or so.

Of course it might be an opportunity for some interesting stories for the blog.