Restoring Irving Gill's "Williams House"

There is a nocturnal animal under my office

I can hear it right now.  It sounds like it's eating the house.  This can't be good.  Perhaps I should investigate. 

I have not had great luck in the pest department lately.  Two nights ago I sat in my office and heard a strange sound in the adjoining kitchen.  I finally stopped to listen and thought to myself "that sounds like a mouse dragging a snap trap behind it."  I headed into the kitchen, but took a round-about way that would allow me to turn on the light before entering the room.  (Our lighting options are not as abundant as one might hope.)  In the light I saw that, indeed, a scared mouse was dragging a trap around by its foot.  I did what any reasonable person would do and I grabbed the camera.

Propane is on and Little Susie Homemaker is Back

We had two weeks without propane service after Sander asked for a systems check.  That meant no hot water for showers, to run the dishwasher, or to wash nasty clothes.  That also meant that we had to use a single-burner electric job to cook our meals.  I believe it was about a 10 BTU burner and I don't mean 10 thousand. 

I believe I set a personal record.  I went a full week without a shower.  When I finally grabbed a shower at our neighbor's house, I was amazed upon setting out down the road for the shower that I didn't leave a trail of stink behind.  But then after the shower, I put on the same sweatshirt I had been wearing pre-shower and realized how wrong I was.  I also noticed that there were about 50 flies in our bedroom.  You be the judge.

Electric down nearly 70%

Just like last month, we opened our electric bill with excitement today.  Our bill for September was $57.25 and our usage was down nearly 70% compared to September of 2004.  But it gets better:  our electric company Southern California Edison offered a rebate program if you decreased your summer usage by 20%.  Our usage decreased 48% compared to last summer and so we easily qualified.  The rebate was a 20% credit on our summer bill, almost $77 applied to our September bill.  So actually we have a credit of about $20 with SCE right now.

I summarized all of the changes we made in this post.  We don't have any more changes we are making soon, so I expect we'll be holding ground for a while.  We do hope to have the money this winter to put in a new pump for our well with a holding tank system, rather than a pump-on-demand system, but it's anybody's guess as to whether this will make the top of the funded list.

The other interesting tidbit from our electric bill is that they provided data on the energy sources used to generate the electricity in 2004 and a projection for 2005.  If the projection is correct, renewable energy will make up a bigger percentage in 2005 -- 19% compared to 4%.  Coal generation is down to 13% from 29% but nuclear sources are up from 2% to 20%.  Natural gas is used to generate about 45% of our electricity (same in 2004), so the cost to generate this electricity is obviously up this year.

Propane usage still very, very low

In fact at this moment, our tank is still locked down by our propane company.  The gas company did a systems check on Thursday, October 6, found a leak, and locked down the system.  They did not have the staff to do an assessment, so we called a competitor and told them they would have a new customer if they could fix our line.  They were happy to oblige. 

Two very nice gentlemen came Thursday with a brand new competitor tank and great determination to fix the line.  The really good news is that there is no underground leak.  It looks like Frederick gets to go to college after all.  ;) 

The have isolated the leak to under the main house and said it is too small to find with the half pound of pressure that they can put in the line.  They tried.  They went through a whole lot of bubble stuff.  They left at dusk, hours after they planned on heading home, and gave us a recommendation for a plumber. 

Needless waste of fossil fuel stops here

That's at least Sander's story and he's sticking to it.

We're on propane here.  We switched the water heater and dryer over this summer and we have a gas cook stove.  Both the dryer and stove had to be converted from natural gas to propane and it's the propane company that does the conversion.  I asked them to do a systems check while they were here, thinking it would be a good thing to take care of any leaks while we were adding the new appliances.

The technician showed up last Thursday and hooked up the dryer and the stove.  The stove is an old Wedgewood, by the way.  We thought it was late 40s, but as we have looked at it, it seems pretty clear that it is from the 50s.  The technician thought it was a 1954.  In any case, it's a beauty.  It has four burners and a griddle in the middle.  The tech thought that the burners each put out about 25K BTUs.  This thing has the goods of a pro-range (except of course for the jumbo oven).  He also disabled the pilots for the burners and said to light them manually to keep from killing ourselves.  Check.  The oven and broiler have new safety valves, so they are good to go.  The new/refurbished scratch and dent dryer works like a charm.  All is good.

So on the systems check, the tech said "You know I don't have time to fix the leaks if there are any and if there are any, I have to lock down your gas until they are fixed.  Are you sure you want a systems check?"  You might guess Sander's answer.  I was in Visalia at the time and got a phone call: 

"Amanda, are there any other gas appliances besides the stove, dryer, and water heaters in the big and little house?" 

"No." 

"Then I have some bad news..."

So on Thursday, October 6, 2005, Sander made a clear stand against the needless waste of fossil fuel here in California Hot Springs.  And I sit here nearly a week later in desperate need of a shower.

We searched around for a plumber to make the hike up here and all of the locals kept saying "why doesn't the gas company fix it?"  Good question.  Ours was too busy and I expect we are one of a handful of customers up here in the sticks for that national company.  A number of locals mentioned a local company:  "they fix everything for us."  Tomorrow we will have a new company and I hope to also have a hot shower.

Holey Moley Satellite on the Roof

The satellite man is here right now and wants to put the satellite on the roof.  Look up at the historic picture.  It would go on the right hand side near the big rock.  I did not appreciate how big the satellite would be when we set this up.

Pardon me.  I have some business to take care of.

The beasts of the country; Postmaster's squirrel is returned safely

We are in the mountains and face continual battles with four-legged creatures who either want to reside in the house with us or dine out of our garden.  In the summer of 2004, a good friend lived with us who was assigned to rodent control after a few unfortunate situations in the garden. 

Despite various measures to keep squirrels out of the garden, we had two who, at separate times, found their way in through an open gate and had an on-going feast on our dinner.  We are all committed to eating and counted on the garden produce for food.  Our friend found a squirrel in the garden and he literally beat it to death.  This guy is as gentle as you can imagine so this animal beating represented the peak of all of our frustration over saving the dinner for ourselves. 

Woodstoves

Our main house is heated solely with the heat from three strategically placed woodstoves. Two stoves are freestanding in enclosed porches, one stove is an insert in the fireplace in the great room. Through the winter of 2004-05 the house was very smoky from our old woodstoves. They simply smoked a lot before we were able to get a roaring fire going. That is a common problem, but they did smoke more than usual. In addition, part of the stove pipe in the view room stove feel down into the stove area and blocked the draft.

Automatic Watering System

An automatic watering system is critical for us since all of the well water we pump from over 250 feet in the ground costs us money and the property is so large that moving hoses around is nearly a full-time job.  An automatic system reduces our dependency on well water because it gets water where it needs to go when it needs to go there.  There is no more watering pathways and roads like is inevitable with sprinklers that you might move around.  There is also no mistake of leaving the sprinkler on all night when you intended it to stay on for one hour.  We have nearly five acres of land and about one acre of that is landscaped.  The hose and sprinkler moving is a killer in that context. 

Re-working the Green Bedroom

Our bedroom is in what we have traditionally called “The Green Room,” for rather obvious reasons.  Its paint is still in good condition, save some areas in the ceiling with water damage.  However, it has been painted in the same green since I was in high school and I am finding myself a bit tired of it now that I have become a permanent resident of the room.

Ironically, the room will remain green.  We plan to paint the walls in a slightly warmer green than what is currently there, trim in a bright cream, and the beams in a light brown.  The ceiling between the beams is very difficult to paint, so we hope to touch up the areas with water damage with matching paint and just leave the rest of the ceiling as it is.