Week 32 - Flashing & Doors

One problem that had been bugging me got solved this week and then fixed. Since the weather changed and my furnace started to kick on the basement has been unusually warm. I tried to find some sort of leak in the duct work several times, but it wasn't until I actually went down while the furnace was on that I found it.

The vent in the furnace hood was wide open. More importantly, when I tried to close it down nothing happened. So I called the contractor and the same day the furnace guy came. It turned out that when they added the new duct for the addition they had removed the louvers behind the vent and not put them back. He replaced the whole vent unit in just a few minutes. Big difference right away.

The other thing that the contractor finally fixed was the flashing on the porch. When I was going over the punch list this was one of the things I had added. Upon inspection this flashing had a number of sharp corners and was close to 1/4' above the porch decking in several places. As a constantly barefooted person, this just said, "injury waiting to happen" to me.

The best solution of several offered was to round any exposed corners and cover the whole length with 2"x2" boards, which holds the metal flashing down to the porch floor. I also had him bevel any exposed 2"x2" corners to help protect the wood from splitting with any inevitable impacts.

When I stain the porch floor I will also paint these boards to match the rest of the cedar trim. Unfortunately it is too wet and too cold to do it this year, so unless I'm very lucky that will all get done in the spring.

Inside, I finally hung three of the five closet doors. These doors have been stripped but not yet finished. However, they might as well hang where they belong until I get around to finishing them. It's better than having them further clutter up my already full garage. (I guess It's a good thing I don't have a car) I realized recently that can take them down one at a time, finish them, and then rehang them as time permits.

The first one I did was the single linen closet door. As it turned out I had to hang it twice because the opening wasn't square and I had only measured it in the middle. Rehanging the door was complicated by the fact that I needed to move the hinge side, otherwise the post between the single and double doors would vary in width from top to bottom, an obvious and difficult detail. Even so, the opening is still slightly wider at the top, and the trim will be closer to the corner at the bottom of the door when it goes in. Hopefully it won't be too dramatic. Perception is everything in these situations.

Next was the first of a double door set in the office (mostly because these doors were already upstairs). The hight of the doorway was determined by the height of the shortest door (nearly an inch shorter than the ones in the hallway). I trimmed the second shortest door to the same height and then lowered the opening an inch so that the doors wouldn't hang unnaturally high in the opening. This also makes the doorway slightly shorter than all the other doors and windows in the room. It was a matter of which discrepancy would bug me more.

When the first door was in place it became possible to determine the spacing for the second door and the placement of the upright. This time I measured both top and bottom first, and they were the same.

Once these doors were in place, it became possible to put up the door trim as well. The doors still need some adjustment, but that will happen after they are sanded and finished. For now they are functional.

All the doors have cabinet catches to hold them in place and will have simple pulls. For now the holes where the old doorknobs were work fine as finger pulls.

I had hoped to get the last two doors up before the end of the week as well, but I decided to have a party celebrating the final permits and showing people the addition, so my choices were: hang doors, or clean ... again. Cleaning won.

Week 33 - Yard Work