Wednesday, January 20, 2010

It's an industry term

Nick is extremely handy, which is a super lucky thing with our oldold house.

Because me, I am all focused on the pretty, like, ooh, let's paint this room yellow!

Which it turns out you can't do until old water damage behind the walls has been repaired. For example.

There are a shocking number of things Nick can fix himself. And then he recognizes other things that I'd never think of, and goes about remedying the situation.

Like the astounding coldness of parts of the house.

It turns out our house had absolutely no insulation in the roof. And so where we are connected to side houses, we stay warm. And where we are unconnected, we were brutally cold.

We had some freezy rooms, basically because the dread cold would just mince in through the cracks, or settle on the roof and ooze on down, settling all comfy into the walls and kicking back on the floor.

Very brrr.

So Nick hired an insulation company to remedy this.

They brought a big truck and all these blocks of what turns out to be cellulose! (I am not kidding you when I asked if it was asbestos, causing Nick to look at me like I was feeble.) They fed aforementioned cellulose into this machine and shot it through a pipe into holes they made in our walls and ceilings.

It was a tremendous process, filling our space with wallboard dust and tubes and cellulose and probably years worth of stuck in the ceiling dirt.

But now we are much warmer.

We have this little cupola, under which we've put two chairs. It's a nice, cozy place to sit. So last night, I looked up and realized there were a ton of patched holes in the ceiling.

"Why so many holes?"

Nick reached up and patted the slanted ceiling. "It turns out it was incredibly cold behind these walls."

Somehow I immediately pictured the sudden cold that would appear in the Sixth Sense, where you could see your breath. I imagined a very technical process for determining cold, very cold, incredibly cold...

"How did they know? Did they have to use a special device? Like some kind of temperature measurer?"

Nick's nostrils flared, just a little. "A thermometer, perhaps?"

10 comments:

  1. Tsk...really. You are the visionary, not the muscle. You want it warmer, they fix it. The HOW of it all isn't that important, is it? At least, this is my claim at home in situations like yours.

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  2. Reading this post made me all brr, like. And I have always had trouble remembering the name of that temperature taking thingamajig.

    Thank goodness for Nick's handiness and his mastery of the English language when it comes to technical terms.

    Kiran

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  3. it's nice having a handy man like that around while we sit and devise ways to make the abode look pretty pretty.

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  4. Oh I side with Nick on this one. I am a DIY gal with a better tool cupboard than most men I know.
    Temperature Measurer ?? Too funny. hehe

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  5. Thermometer is so ... pedestrian. "Temperature measurer" sounds much more badass.

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  6. This made me laugh out loud. Awesome!

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  7. That Nick is right on top of things!

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  8. They probably used a temperature gun... they are bad ass. :-)

    Temp Gun

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  9. Susan H - I like how you think. The HOW has never been of much interest to me, it's true.

    Kiran - I know. I rely on both on a regular basis.

    brookem - I'm glad you feel like the pretty pretty is the important part for us to focus on.

    Go-Betty - My mom is exactly like that, too. She asks for power tools for Christmas.

    Hillary - Thank you. Yes, terribly pedestrian. I should remember that.

    Beach Bum - :)

    kayare - He really, really is.

    Wendy - Yes, I know.

    VVK - Hi! I miss you!

    And now you're going to make my husband want a new gadget.:)

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