I smoked some ribs and just threw the bones in the trap when I was done. Caught two trash pandas and a skunk in 3 days.
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Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?
- Thread starter mimico_polak
- Start date
What are people doing with skunks once they are in a cage? Don't they get ****** and spray you or can you throw a blanket over the cage and it stays calm?
Hopefully the cage is small enough the skunk can’t fire away. When dad accidentally caught one instead of a raccoon the thing couldn’t pick up it’s tail.
Took it to the park, opened the cage and ran like hell.
trebuchet
I feel bad for your neighbours. The cage will break open on impact and they will have a very ****** off skunk in their yard (or if they are very unlucky, in their living room if it flies through a window).
on the upside, it’s no longer my problem
sburns
Well-known member
Very interesting, thanks! Were you in the house before you did the reno, or did the reno before moving in.Entire main floor when we did our reno 3 years ago.
Asking to get a sense of the improvement before and after etc.
I've been thinking of doing spray foam upstairs, which basically has no insulation just a double brick air gap situation, but haven't found anyone who has done it to share the experience.
We lived in the house for 5 years before doing the reno. The house was built in '76 and was all original when we moved in. It's tough for us to gauge the difference in temperature retention, because there were a number of other changes that could affect the difference:
- We didn't have the heat loss measured to start with and we haven't measured it since the reno.
- The entire house was all carpet except for main entrance and we had it all replaced with hardwood throughout.
- We replaced the 7' sliding door to the backyard with a 16' sliding door with additional peaked windows.
- We enlarged and replaced every other window in the house (circa 1976 & 2003), with high quality modern windows.
- We replaced the wood burning fireplace with a gas fireplace and we also removed the entire chimney stack.
- We removed all the interior walls, so we lost the the HVAC vents in the middle of the house and now all the vents are along the perimeter.
- We had to have the HVAC rerouted to the perimeter vents, adding resistance and more 90deg bends, affecting overall air flow.
- We had siding added to the entire exterior of the house, over the existing brick and wood siding, so provides great wind protection.
If you can afford it and will stay there for a while, then it might be worthwhile. Any questions - just ask
If you wanted numbers, as a first cut, gas bills before and after the reno get you close. You could even correct for degree days without much trouble. Your extra bends should hurt your electric bill (furnace fan working harder) but shouldn't touch the gas bill much. Without the glass wall, I would suspect that you would use less BTU's per degree day now but replacing 54 sq ft of R15 wall with R3 window really changes things (but also probably makes a huge positive difference in the feel of the house).We lived in the house for 5 years before doing the reno. The house was built in '76 and was all original when we moved in. It's tough for us to gauge the difference in temperature retention, because there were a number of other changes that could affect the difference:
In general I think the house now holds heat very well, except one bedroom, which happens to be on top of the uninsulated garage. I don't know much about insulation, but I recall reading somewhere that it fibregalss sags and maybe degrades over time, so it stands to reason that our 40yr old insulation doesn't compare to either the current R value of the spray foam, or the tightness and quality of the fill.
- We didn't have the heat loss measured to start with and we haven't measured it since the reno.
- The entire house was all carpet except for main entrance and we had it all replaced with hardwood throughout.
- We replaced the 7' sliding door to the backyard with a 16' sliding door with additional peaked windows.
- We enlarged and replaced every other window in the house (circa 1976 & 2003), with high quality modern windows.
- We replaced the wood burning fireplace with a gas fireplace and we also removed the entire chimney stack.
- We removed all the interior walls, so we lost the the HVAC vents in the middle of the house and now all the vents are along the perimeter.
- We had to have the HVAC rerouted to the perimeter vents, adding resistance and more 90deg bends, affecting overall air flow.
- We had siding added to the entire exterior of the house, over the existing brick and wood siding, so provides great wind protection.
If you can afford it and will stay there for a while, then it might be worthwhile. Any questions - just ask
Our house had a gas fireplace that was removed before we bought it. That makes most of the living room wall solid with windows on each side. Boo. At some point, I may finally have had enough and take out the brick wall and install the window it deserves.
@shanekingsley curious how they removed the chimney from the house?
I’ve got 2 fireplaces and would like to remove both. It would open up the main floor a LOT. But both need to go. Otherwise if we keep the bottom then it still goes through the centre of the house.
Also, when you’re doing the garage open up the ceiling and insulate that. We did and noticed a major difference in our bedroom.
I’ve got 2 fireplaces and would like to remove both. It would open up the main floor a LOT. But both need to go. Otherwise if we keep the bottom then it still goes through the centre of the house.
Also, when you’re doing the garage open up the ceiling and insulate that. We did and noticed a major difference in our bedroom.
Especially if he is doing sprayfoam. He will probably be bumping into minimum order price anyway so the insulation will be close to free, it will just cost him some board. I would likely be lazy and leave the garage tracks attached with the drywall cut back to within a few inches and install some backing/scab in some drywall to patch those areas after the sprayfoam was done.
When I ripped out my garage I did the spray foam with those kits from HD. 2 kits and then BATT insulation. 100% improvement in the floor in our bedroom.
Only thing I need to do is get the side door sealed properly and should be good. Coldest days of the year and our garage went down to 1C….made working out not pleasant.
sburns
Well-known member
Thanks again for sharing very useful info. I'll have questions, maybe at the next burger meetup if we are there. Otherwise we'll connect.If you can afford it and will stay there for a while, then it might be worthwhile. Any questions - just ask
Yeah, I use a moving blanket and hold it up and walk toward the trap. Drape it over it and put the whole thing in the Blazer. Take it about 2 miles away over the ridge to a nice swamp and I have a clothes hanger bent so I can pull the latch from a few feet away. They would rather run away than bother to spray you. The blanket smells a bit when it gets wet, but isn't bad most of the time.
They just bashed the chimney to bits and let it fall down a slide onto our walkway, however the falling brick broke a bunch of stones on that flagstone walkway which I wasn't too pleased about, because it's stone that can't be purchased anymore. We had grand illusions of using the wood burning fireplace, but having grown up with them all my life, I'm not into the cleaning and maintenance of them. Love the gas fireplace w/ remote control!
Yeah the garage ceiling will definitely be insulated - some of it is and I think some of it isn't, but have to check.
I'm lazy like that too. And I was thinking about the minimum price anyways, so we are all of a sudden thinking about where else we can use it.
But my wife just said she would like to move to a house with a pool for her and a double car garage for me, so I have no clue what's going on.
Sorry, we aren't selling. A pool is good for the first year or two. Then it's maintenance, maintenance, maintenance, even when you don't swim.
Here's the neighbor's garage after they jackhammered it out, and repoured it.
Probably the way we'll go in a few years if the resurfacing doesn't last.
Hahaha. You thought you were in for a high four figure garage renovation and just talked yourself in to mid six-figure house swap.
As much as I love the bigger garage, the associated bigger house, higher insurance and pool expenses are really a drag on cash flow. I would have been ok in our much smaller house if we didn't have kids. In the long game though, the bigger house is still way ahead, it has appreciated at more than double the dollars/yr of the small house.
I house sat for someone long ago in what was at the time a really big house. Two people living in ~5000 sq ft. There was the sitting room, the sitting area in the dining room, the sitting area in the living room, the upstairs sitting area and the lounge. wtf. They always sat in the same place, the rest of the places were just wasted money on furnishing and hvac.
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