New construction lighting issues and a blower door

Here are a couple of pictures from two nice houses we consulted on recently. I wanted to show some of the funky lighting that happens when there are a bazillion people working on things and not all of them give a shit.

In the picture above, I'm not sure the architect intended the sconce to be where it is. Even if he did mess up and not realize how spacially challenged that location is, the electrician and site super both should have caught it and had it fixed prior to final fit and finish.

Below, there are several things I can nit pick about the kitchen lighting, most of which aren't visible in this picture. However, I want to point out how important it is to choose light fixtures and/or bulbs that have the same color characteristics, especially in an indirect lighting use. The recessed can and pendant lights are fine for color, but the two undercabinet areas are lit completely differently. The one on the left has a warm light (lower color temperature) and the one on the right is bluer and has a higher color temperature (cool white light). Yes, it's confusing that warm white light has a lower color temperature than the cool white light, which has a higher color temperature. But then again, this is from an industry that calls bulbs lamps and lamps luminaires... In any case, the fixture on the right should be longer to fill more of the space over the switches.


The picture below is of a blower door. It is essentially a nylon sheet to block the door and a calibrated fan. You depressurize (or pressurize) the house to a certain level below (above) the outdoor pressure. From knowing the pressure difference and the flow rate through the fan, you can estimate how airtight or leaky the house is. It's a fun, but sort of painstaking, process. Half the time I've done it, I've finished up and am putting things away when I realize I forgot to close all the windows all the way or block the dryer vent (known hole). Then we have to redo it. I don't usually do this type of testing, so I'm not as good at is as the guys who do it all the time.

We recommend this type of testing on every new house to be able to know the envelope was built tightly. I recommend it also to existing houses because it can help the homeowner make decisions on what projects to tackle first to get the biggest benefits from retrofits.

When I leave for work

It's hard to get up and leave the family in the mornings...

Coffee cup musings

Coffee. It gets me through the afternoons. This is my favorite coffee cup in the office. There are three of identical manufacture, but this one stands out to me. There are lots of other mugs here, but they're all too large. Too much mass. Too much coffee. Not set up for good sipping. The smaller mugs reduce my coffee intake, saving my liver from certain death.

The bit of personality that makes this particular cup special to me is that it has a small crack. The handle is actually only fully attached at the bottom. The top is sort of vee-connection now. The crack profile aligns and supports the handle side to side, but not against the torque induced by lifting the cup by the handle when it is full of coffee. Every time I pick up this beautiful piece of imperfection, there is a slight shift as the top part of the handle separates ever so slightly. Perhaps I have heightened senses, but I would swear I hear the tiniest 'chink' as it pops into its loaded equilibrium position.

Some day, this cup will dump hot coffee all over me and my keyboard. I love the uncertainty and adventure I experience every time I pick up the mug. The little things get me through my days.

Part of the cycle

Where does the soul go? When does it go? Is there a soul to depart? What connects and coordinates those entropy-loving neurons, cells, molecules?

This young creature only got to grow as large as Guthrie, our dog. Must have been hit on the road above and then dropped down to the trail.

Maybe the saddest part is that there may possibly be a cycle for this soul, but there is no cycle for the body. Some city worker will pick this adolescent deer up, throw it in a plastic bag and then in a truck. It'll eventually make it's way to some stratum in a landfill to be compressed into a jelly, never to decompose properly and become food for carrion beasts, worms, and microbes. Not to be born into new life for eons, perhaps.

Well, maybe we'll start mining the landfills sooner than later, speeding up the process.

I suppose the cycle is still there. We just screw it up for a while, as is typical.

First run of the year

I made it out for my first run of the year yesterday. I had to take a month off because of the surgery and recovery, but I'm feeling good. I went out for a casual 2 miles on a nice, sunny Sunday afternoon. Bethany, Silas, and Guthrie strolled along the Eliza Furnace Trail while I ran and then we continued to stroll together for a bit. Guthrie was so happy to get out. Between me being cooped up, and Silas taking up so much of Bethany's time and energy, the poor dog spends much of his time on the couch either sleeping on licking one of his paws raw.

Below is a funded mural on the large retaining wall that supports the Parkway East and an entrance ramp up to the highway from Bates St. It cracks me up that the little description calls it public art, but they covered up all the other 'public art' in the area with gray paint. Evidently, the only art that can be public has to be officially consigned.

Below are some shots from and of the Hot Metal Bridge. It was an important bridge in the steelmaking heyday and the war effort in WWII. The bridge was a rail line between the blast furnaces and rolling mill of a steel plant.

Yamming

He's so serious in this photo; it cracks me up. He does love sweet potatoes, though. Ok, actually it's a baked garnet yam cut with breast milk. Yes, I know that a garnet yam is not actually a yam (genus Dioscorea), but a sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas).

Super Bowl with only one Pittsburgher

We watched the Super Bowl over at Maya and Ryder's house. It turns out that Silas was the only Pittsburgh-born person in the room, which I found pretty interesting. Nonetheless, Maya and Jan love football in a fully naturalized Pittsburgher way. :) Not that Ryder and Ben weren't showing the Steelers love, but not as exuberantly as these two ladies. Rachel, Bethany, and I aren't much into football in general, but still find the Super Bowl interesting and fun.

Silas was fascinated by the big HDTV. He hasn't spent much time in front of one. We don't have one, but he gets a little time in front of the computer. It was cute how he'd get super absorbed in trying to figure out what the TV thing was, but then people would start cheering, and he'd look back at them trying to figure out what they were yelling about.

It was a fun night.



Ryder's cheesing it up in the background. He was kind enough to lend Bethany his hat and Terrible Towel as well. We wandered the closed off streets of Bloomfield for a bit before I took Silas home. He fell asleep despite the crowd and fireworks and police sirens.

45 minutes in two museums (musea, if your prefer)

Here is the last post from my urban hiking yesterday. Here are a couple of shots from the 45 minutes I spent in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum of Art. They're attached and the entrance fee gets you into both. We have a family membership, so it is easy and painless to go and gawk at art, casts of architectural facades, and long-dead animals for a short amount of time. Above is an adolescent tyrannosaurus rex. Below are a set of plate armor from the 1500's, a sculpture of the Buddha from the 13th century, and a close up of a favorite part of one of the paintings in their collection. The artist escapes me right now, but I'll update this when I remember. Perhaps Bethany knows and will comment before I can update.

St. Paul Cathedral

On my stroll through Oakland yesterday, I checked out St. Paul Cathedral at 5th and Craig. It was opened in 1906. It's a beautiful building that creates a very peaceful atmosphere inside, despite the old stodgy man that went out of his way to brow beat me for taking pictures. I gave the other three people inside a wide berth so as not to get in their sight lines and disturb their thoughts or prayers.

Urban hike to Oakland

As I can't really do much exercise yet because of the surgery and recovery, I went for a nice urban hike. I wandered from Bloomfield into Oakland and back. Total of 4.4 miles, not including inside distance walking inside of the buildings. I stopped into a lot of businesses I'd never been in. I also went inside a big old catholic cathedral. I made it to the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History a bit under an hour before closing. I'll post pictures in following posts.

The GPS got pretty confused a couple of times. For instance, on Craig St. below. I promise you that I didn't run around in circles in the middle of the street.

The GPS unit doesn't really like urban areas so much with all the buildings and whatnot. I did go into a few shops here. I perused some great antique books at the Caliban Book Shop and Townsend Booksellers. Both had some wonderful old texts. Caliban has a small corner devoted to music, which they call Desolation Row CDs. Perhaps it's a separate business that rents the little nook. In any case, I got the new Animal Collective and Blitzen Trapper CD's. Jury's still out on both. I've only gotten one quick sort of background listen in. There is a nice little Indian grocery and a Middle Eastern grocery and food counter along the route.

Leaving Bloomfield heading toward Oakland, one must cross 'the Gully.' It's where the water once ran out of the hills toward the rivers before this place was fucked over by having a city put on it. I get really sad sometimes when I imagine how beautiful this area was before it was concreted over with Pittsburgh. It makes for a nice city, but damn it, I'd much prefer the original hills and the spectacular confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers without taming from the dams. I bet the gully was a wonderful wetland and riparian area.


From the second floor of the building that houses Dreaming Ant, the sun paints a nice glow on the buildings of Oakland.