The last post about our drainage work had me pumping the water out of the trench I’d dug after we getting 6″ or so over the last day. Since then, I’ve started working my way down the side of the house. I was hoping that this would be easier since that’s down the slope. However, …
Continue reading ‘Drainage improvements #3 – Kicking it up a notch’ »
I was asked in a comment in the previous post to share the details of the antennas I made, so here we go. The other antenna in the picture is the J-pole tuned for the 2m amateur band at 144-148MHz. I actually started out building one for the VHF aviation band at 115-135 MHz, based …
I was asked in a comment in the previous post to share the details of the antennas I made, so here we go. The Franklin antenna was made as described here, made out of #6 gauge copper wire (which is 4.1mm diameter). However, bending 4mm copper wire in sharp angles isn’t so easy if you …
Continue reading ‘More antenna business: The 1090MHz Franklin’ »
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve played a bit with “software-defined radio”. By happenstance, I came across the website Flightradar24 which is a Swedish startup company that is building a global flight tracking network. Airplanes have transponders that reply to radar interrogation, and in the latest implementation called “ADS-B”, they are doing away with …
In the last post, I wondered whether rerouting the downspout drainage away from the house would be enough to avoid more flooding… Well, I decided that it was better not to take any chances, so I started digging. I’d already dug a little hole to check for drainage pipes, so it was just a matter …
Continue reading ‘Drainage improvements #2 – a whole lotta’ digging’ »
As I noted in the basement unfinishing story, the basement has moisture problems. I was curious to find out if there was any sort of drainage around the perimeter of the house, so I started digging down along the foundation. This turned out to be rather difficult. While it looks like the house is surrounded …
Finally, we got to the final step in our basement floor recoating project: actually applying the top coat. We used EpoxyShield garage floor coating, a two-component epoxy that hopefully will be pretty durable. As usual when it comes to painting, the actual painting takes a small fraction of the time compared to the sanding, patching, …
After the grinding of the concrete in the basement, it was time to fill. I got some “EpoxyShield concrete patch”, which is basically a very thick epoxy, and started patching holes. First I just filled holes where stones or whatever had come out. (This is an endless task with diminishing returns… I wonder what the …
The basement was advertised as “partially finished”. We weren’t sure what to think of that, it has the scary shower, affectionately know by us as the “torture room” since it would make a great addition to some serial killer drama. The three rooms were also “finished” in the sense that they had carpet floors, while …
One of the remaining (massive) projects is to refinish the kitchen. It has built-in, what must be hand-made, cabinets, which really needed a makeover. However, after moving in, we realized that the kitchen (actually most of the old parts of the house) have lead paint. The top layer is lead-free, but the primer has lead. …