I recently had occasion to wonder what goes on in my yard while I’m not home. I’ve got a couple of Logitech QuickCam Messenger cameras that I’ve been pointing out the windows and use Motion to monitor the cameras, detect motion, capture images, notify me of motion events, and transfer the images to a remote server. Motion provides some handy facilities for the last two objectives. I use the Motion on_event_start to trigger a bash script that connects to various other computers, including my work desktop, and notifies me that Motion has detected movement in the camera’s field of vision. Both computers are configured to use SSH public key authentication. The bash script triggers a Zenity alert box shown below.

Clicking OK on the alert box opens a Firefox browser window to a Qdig Quick Digital Image Gallery. The gallery is populated via the on_picture_save option. When a picture is saved a bash script is triggered that copies the picture to the Qdig gallery directory. When the browser opens the gallery, thumbnails are dynamically generated for the contents of the directory. I can’t yet testify to the effectiveness of the system as I haven’t caught any motion yet, but I’m hopeful.  Motion also provides a mini-HTTP server that can be configured to listen to a remote port so that one could watch streaming video in real time.  In fact, motion is extremely flexible and, due the inclusion of the ability to trigger external scripts, is highly extensible.

Ok, so I suspect it’s hot everywhere. However, it’s really hot here. Here’s a screen capture of my Gnome weather applet.

104 °F! Luckily, though, the humidity has dropped from the high 90’s earlier this week.

I thought I’d upload a photo I took of our weather station in the office. My mobile (L6) has a lousy camera so apologies. What a difference, though, right?

It’s been warming up in the Bull City and our house is not impervious to the temperature apparently. Early on I had assumed that our spiral stairs to the partially finished attic would be a bane to the efficiency of the environmental controls in the house. Ah, how true. Although I suspected it was not the fault of the new HVAC system I called CWJ, the company that installed our new gas pack 3 months ago. The good news in this story is that the CWJ’s service was great. I called at around 7PM and they were out in about 20 minutes. Very thorough, very polite, and willing to talk about things unrelated to their system that I should do to improve the environment in the house. Try that with American Home Shield.

Which brings me to my next point: Attic ventilation. Why hasn’t anyone in the 64 years since my house was built think ventilation might be important? No idea. Perhaps the finishing of the attic has exacerbated things. Either way, I’ve got some work to do. First we’ll insulate the vestibule at the top of the stairs, then we’ll install some soffit venting to compliment the continuous ridge vent, and we’ll think about prying up the planking in the attic to increase the insulation between the attic and the ceiling below.

I’ve had this fantasy of blowing insulation into the walls of the house, too. However, I don’t want to damage the original asbestos siding and I hate to drill holes all over the plaster interior walls so that might not happen. Asbestos siding is actually super-high quality stuff and never needs to be repainted. Replacement windows are out. Our windows are lovely and new windows don’t let light through in the same way.

Brandi posted some pictures of our kitchen on her site. The photos show the vinyl flooring we had installed by Lowe’s. If I recall correctly the floor cost $335 including the flooring, installation, and new shoe moulding. We like it, but I wanted black and white squares in true 50’s fashion. Maybe next time.

We finally reached the limits of our patience with our home warranty company, American Home Shield. I’ve taken so many vacation days to meet service people that it started looking cost effective to replace our 15 year-old gas pack. I thought someone else might find the details useful so I’ll spell them out here. For reference, we have a 3 bedroom, 1078 square foot, 1943 cottage. We have original single-pane windows, which are breathtakingly lovely but less than ideal for thermal efficiency. Our ducts were replaced sometime in the last few years. We acquired 4 bids. The estimates follow.

Company: CWJ
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/80%
Warranty Parts/Labor: 10/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: 10/20
Other work: ducts as req.
Price: $3720

Company: One Hour Heating & Air
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/80%
Warranty Parts/Labor: 5/5
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: ?
Other Work: new line sets,ducts as req.
Price: $4725

Company:Mechanical Man
Unit Efficiency: 14 SEER/80%
Warranty Parts/Labor: 5/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: 0/Limited Lifetime
Other Work: all new ducts, required landscaping
Price: $6320

Company: Brown Brothers
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/?
Warranty Parts/Labor: 5/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: 10/?
Other Work:
Price: $5676

Company: Home Energy
Unit Efficiency: 13 SEER/?
Warranty Parts/Labor: ?/1
Warranty Compressor/Heat Exchanger: ?
Other Work: new supply and return ducts, new breaker
Price: $3900

We chose CWJ, but only partially because of the price. Our decision worked out like this: Brown Brothers and Michael Duke (not listed) inspected the existing unit while we were out and we never met them. We eliminated Brown Brothers and Mechanical Man because they were the highest bids, although I liked Mechanical Man. Michael Duke was mid-range, but we eliminated him because he seemed to do it on the side and he submitted a bid without meeting us. We liked Home Energy and probably would have chosen them, but we got their proposal too late.

The choice, in the end, was between CWJ and One Hour. Both were recommended to us and both were mid- to low range pricing. One Hour provided us with two references. Both said positive things about their service and both references turned out to be personal friends of the One Hour salesman. A colleague helped make our decision for us by detailing her experience with One Hour. She said the salesperson (One Hour was the only company with dedicated sales staff) would say anything and her follow-up service was lousy. I also caught the salesperson in what I will politely call a discrepancy. These two incidents confirmed the tell-you-anything, “I’ll sell you a car today!” feeling we were getting from their sales people.

We used CWJ. They were recommended by several people on the Duke Park listserv. They were fast and friendly, but they left our yard a mess of cigarette butts, soda cans, insulation, and chunks of metal. Also, we’re a little dismayed that a week later no one has called to ask how it’s working out. For ~$4,000, I’d expect a nice phone call checking to see if we’re happy. We’ll see how it works out. Clearly, though, this unit works much, much better than our old unit. It remains to be seen if moving from a 15 year-old 10 SEER unit to a new 13 SEER unit will save us money on our energy bills. Most anecdotal evidence I’ve heard relates savings while using the furnace, which we do little of.

I’ve posted some photos of the house. There are some other new photos up, too, including the revamped kitchen. We’re installing new flooring in the kitchen next week and will paint the cabinets soon so we’re almost there. Soon I’ll start scraping, painting, and reglazing outside. Haven’t seen any treefrogs yet this spring, but it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit last night.

We spent last evening on the screen porch. It was blissful. The weather is marvelous right now. I installed the ceiling fan and light yesterday so the porch is near completion. I have a few trim pieces to paint and put up as well as stapling screen to the bottom of the floor joists. I’ve been wondering how people deal with managing mosquitoes that come from under the house. I’m told most people lay down indoor-outdoor carpeting. I like the wood decking so I’ll try the screen for now.

In other house-related news, our air conditioner doesn’t work again. We’ve submitted a work request with American Home Shield. We’ll see if they can redeem themselves from last season. Also, we need to paint our kitchen cabinets before we get new vinyl for the kitchen floor, which we’ll be doing soon. I’ll try to upload pictures soon. On my to-do list is to reglaze all the windows; scrape, prime, and paint all the trim; plant some vegetables and herbs; and, I’m sure, stuff I’ve put out of my mind to keep from freaking out. I wish we had a landlord to call.

I’ve managed to line up the inspectors. We’re using Brent Willet who has the wonderfully named website www.dontbuyituntiliinspectit.com. We’re going on the recommendation of a colleague at my library who also lives in Durham. Willet recommended a pest inspector, Patrick Holland. They charge $325 and $75, respectively, so we’ll be paying less than we anticipated for inspections. Brent tells me that in 16 years he has never seen radon in Durham (we’re over clay, not granite) so we’ll skip the $125 radon test. We’d also like to get the wood-burning fireplace and chimney inspected but we’ll probably wait on that.

We’ve decided to use the North Carolina State Employees’ Credit Union for our mortgage. They have very competitive rates, don’t sell mortgages, and all of my fellow librarians rave about it. We also considered Duke University Federal Credit Union, USAA, and Wachovia. Duke was the only real contender but I couldn’t face paying 3.5 points in closing. I put together a comparison page while we were shopping for a lender. Looks like the going rate is 6.25%.

I’ve also called Bullock Floor Sanding and Refinishing and Banks Flooring, but neither has returned my call. I expect the floor refinishing to cost $2.25 or so a square foot and, at circa 950 square feet of hardwood floors, that’s pretty expensive. I don’t have the time to do it myself. I’ve done it before but I don’t think it looked that great. Sorry Tom. Of course, if we don’t do them before we move in we won’t do refinish them at all. Living in the same house with that much floor refinishing isn’t meant to be.

Update: Brent was good. We’d use him again. We paid him extra to come out and reinspect following the alleged repairs and he seemed less invested, but it was subtle. Patrick was great. He inspired confidence in us. The Credit Union has been great to deal with. I wouldn’t deal with a commercial lender if I had a choice. The Credit Union also rarely (or never, not sure) sells loans, which is good.