25-Jan-2005 Massive update

Written by Daniel A. Bergamini

Friday, 28 January 2005

On a personal note, I lost my grandfather (John Kerry) on my step-mother's (Joanne Bergamini) side. He's been really sick for quite some time and although it's nice to have him at peace, he will be dearly missed. The house froze, we got some wood... delivered, we insulated the basement... it's been really productive. We left a little late this last week, and didn't get up to the property until after 10PM on Friday. The upstairs was quite comfortable (because of the heater), but the basement froze solid with the exception of the hot water heater. They did in fact deliver propane this week, so everything stayed running as we had hoped. I brought the little portable propane heater we have down into the basement and we ran it though the night, and the basement and pipes that had a little ice in them were ready to go by Saturday morning. We ran the generator and got water in the pressure tank and basement pipes, but it appears the pipes in the walls must have frozen as well. It took us until Saturday afternoon for cold water to the second floor, and until Sunday afternoon to get hot. Some time between getting the basement pipes unfrozen, filling the pressure tank and the next time we entered the basement, one of the valves on the pressure tank leaked a good deal of water (2 or 3 gallons I would guess). We cleaned that up, but there was a lot of humidity left down there (from the heater running constantly). We spent a good deal of time insulating the dog shed for the basement and the basement ceiling, which will hopefully help over the next few weeks. We think we identified the problem with the upstairs frozen pipes as well, but only time will tell. We collected some firewood from standing dead trees on Saturday, through the foot or so of snow. That pretty much did it for us, and I was lucky enough to find a guy from Enfield who would deliver a cord of seasoned, chopped hardwood for $170. We agreed it was stupid for us to continue to kill ourselves every weekend to colllect somewhat wet wood. By the time we left, we had a somewhat dry and warm basement, extremely warm garage area, and comfortable living space upstairs. This is just crazy enough to work.

Last Updated ( Friday, 28 January 2005 )