Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Up on a Roof Top...

Two recent developments to discuss in this photo:


This past week, we addressed some of those "not-so-noticeable, but very-badly-needed" items. 
By the way, I hate these!  I'd much rather spend money on things that can be seen, but I guess that's the price of home ownership!

The first is the chimney. 
We had to get a new flue liner & a cap for the furnace chimney.  During bad weather, rain was pouring down it & flooding the new boiler- definitely NOT a good thing. 
We also wanted to keep out any critters (the fireplace chimney already has a cap- thankfully!) 
It's hard to see, but it's the chimney on the left.  At least we can check that off the list!

Second item is the fascia board.
During the house inspection, a hole was found above the second window from the right (2nd floor, above the gutter) that went straight from the attic through to the outside, so we knew this needed to be patched. 
By the time we moved in (April) we had a birds nest, and from the sound of it, little baby birds. 

Yeah- I'll now admit I was afraid to go into that side of the attic all summer!

Once the birds flew the coop attic, we boarded up the hole.  In the process, Mike had to remove some of the blown in insulation from the floor of the attic.

Can you guess what he found (besides the birds' nest)?

Take a look...

When Mike pulled up the first one, he thought, "Oh man, there must have been a raccoon or something up here!"  But there are several HUNDRED corn cobs.  We showed my mom (she's a historian) and she confirmed that long ago they used it for insulation!

Now I'm off to research the R-value of corn cob insulation... aka- do we need to remove it (fire hazard?), or better to just leave it (since we have additional insulation on top)?

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