You've done a really good job on sealing if your at the stage of needing an ERV. It can be pretty difficult to seal up enough to see significant gains after the sheetrocks up.
We started at an appalling 4,000cfm in a door test. Fixing the damper on the fireplace brought it down to 3,000cfm, sealing the crawlspace and making it inside the envelope sealed the uncountable leaks between the crawlspace and the living space, and really improved the energy efficiency and probably dropped it below 1,000cfm. Removing the open flue of a propane oven, and replacing a range hood with no damper brought it below 500cfm. What is left is some leakage around window seals, a gas fired water heater with an open flue, and a little outside air leakage out of the cold air intake on a high efficiency gas furnace. At this point the house is sealed tightly enough to be stale if we don't crack windows. Yes, it took some effort, but we had a specialist group do the crawlspace sealing and insulating. None of the workers were over 5' or over 100lbs, and boy were they quick and efficient.
Peter
Coulda sworn I answered this, but don’t see it. so
A quick check and here on the Hamakua coast found 1 vacate property under $200k, bur sure doesn’t look buildable. The next listing is over $300k. Of course there are $10k lots in Puna and HOVE, but, you’ld really have to want to live there. About$300sf to build a modest house. TBH we couldn’t afford it now. 20 years in, 3k sf house on21 acres, less than $400k.
Thanks! My memory was that most Hawaiian construction was pretty simple unless some haoule turned up with mainland designs, but labor and materials can be so expensive on the Islands that I was a little curious how it balances out in your area. Here it is more like $500/sq.ft., more if one wants bells and whistles. In town, it can be much much more. (Location, location, location...)
One of the young coyotes came by yesterday with the carcass of a feral, pretty, Maine coon cat that had been hanging around for six months or so.
She turned up injured, healed up with food and a place to hide, but hadn't warmed up to humans yet. As the rigor had set in, I don't think that coyote killed it, which makes me wonder what got it, as it isn't rattlesnake season. We've seen owl/raptor injuries on our older cats once, but mostly the cats stick close enough to the buildings to stay safe. Mostly.
@Wagtail if you don't varnish the door, I suspect that you will likely be back every year or two renewing the finish. I grew up in a house with oil stained trim, and it was a fair bit of maintenance.
@daugen those combines have all sorts of techniques to reduce dust accumulation, including reversing fans, self cleaning screens, and ducting the air flow around baffles to generate cleaner air for the filters. Personally, I'm impressed that the cabin filters do as well as they do, especially in non-corn harvests of beans and wheat that seem especially prone to generating dust. Going around a field you can't exactly stay upwind. Some of the agricultural radiators have extra wide spacing between the tubes to allow better airflow to reduce dust deposition. I think it is fun to see all of the improvements that have been made over the years for more reliable operation. That said, I also find it interesting how many functions within a combine can (and should) be tweaked to optimize yield and reduce foreign material. I'm waiting to see a bit more AI to make that a bit more automated for farmers.
All the best,
Peter
Fast does NOT equal Deep sanding. Fast does equal Delicate/Light sanding. I still have a ways to go.
So I would say yes
