Mishmash
The news this past week is rather scattered. Nothing too big to report on any particular front. I’d have skipped this post entirely but a number of you are expecting these things and will email me to ask what is going on if I don’t share something. And sending out an email is almost as much work as writing a quick post.
The reason I am late today is that the contractor was here installing two new bathroom fans. These are a huge improvement over the old ones, and we needed a roofer to deal with installing vents on the roof. We had a break in the rain and managed to scrounge up a roofer, so it happened today.
There is still drywall work to be done on them, but the fans themselves are in and working. In one case we even removed the old vent and patched the siding there as well.
That’s the house status. We still have to get the flying buttress removed and the fencing installed, but that is all waiting on the fencing fabrication. Another week or two before that happens, I think. And we need to do all the sheetrock work inside as well. I am told we’ll get someone here at least one day next week to get started on that.
In other news, I bough an air quality monitor. This one was cheap but it seems to do the trick:
That photo makes it look huge, but it’s not. It’s actually about 2.5" wide and 3.5" tall. It monitors PM2.5 (that’s particles 2.5 microns or smaller) and AQI or Air Quality Index, as well as temperature and humidity. Given the house gets closed up for the winter and we have no forced air heating (which filters the air as it heats it), I thought it would be interesting to see how good (or bad) our air is over time.
An AQI less than 50 is good, and a PM2.5 of up to 12 is good. As a rule, our air looks fine so far. But Anne cooked turkey burgers the other night and that spiked the readings. It smelled wonderful but the AQI was well over 300, sometimes reaching 500, and the PM2.5 was up around 150. Those numbers are very bad. It all settled out in 24 hours though, either through gravity or our normal comings and goings.
I hope to build some new air filter boxes this winter, and when I get that going will share the plans and results here. Those filters may help clear the air more quickly, and might even help with the dust.
In other news, I learned that fireworks on Halloween is really only a tradition here in BC. A friend sent me this article:
Which says the local love of fireworks is due to a mixings of the celebration of Chinese New Year and Guy Fawkes Day. It seems that BC has been more influenced by British and Chinese traditions than the other provinces, so here we are.
Thankfully we’ve had a lot of rain in the last week, so the fire danger is dropping. At this point the fireworks on Halloween are only going to be annoying rather than actually being dangerous. As usual we’ll put a loud movie on the TV to keep the dogs from freaking out and life will be fine.
I spent the rest of the time working on a special edition of our local monthly email and then got going on the next edition that goes out in early November. It’s been a lot of computer work.
Sorry I don’t have more news to share, but life goes on, and things are happening. I trust everyone is doing well!