daniel gray's shed of geekbooks

Snowy Garden Shed

Here's a shot of the garden shed after last night's snow:

I took this from the deck, looking through the dried stalks of ornamental grass. It's hard to see in this picture, but the T-111 siding is looking a bit ratty. I need to find my tape measure (again!) to calculate how much cedar will be needed for the board and batten siding.

Which brings us to the question du jour:

Q. How are tape measures are like socks?

A. They always seem to go missing.

Come to think of it, my killer RFID app idea should be extended to the toolbox. Wouldn't it be awesome to know whether a specific tool is out in the tool shed, on a garage storage shelf, or down in the basement?

Breathalyzer

As I was flipping through the dial last night, I happened to tune into the Larry King show. Tracey Gold, the actress (best known for her role as Carol Seaver on the ABC sitcom "Growing Pains") was Larry's guest. Tracey shared the frightening story of how she rolled her Yukon after drinking a couple of glasses of wine at a private party. Why the heck am I babbling about this? Because it could have easily been preventable through the use of technology, that's why...

Breathalyzers for Everyone

How to Skip Commercials with Tivo

I've become completely addicted to Tivo. So much so, that when I go to real world sporting events, I find myself reaching for the proverbial rewind button. (Tivo, in case you didn't know, lets you rewind anything in slow-motion.) But my new favorite Tivo trick might just be more cool then that. After all, who doesn't want to skip those lousy commercials?

Our Tivo has become an irreplaceable part of the entertainment system here at ranchero indebto, as humble as it may (currently) be. Installing the Tivo allowed us to gain maximum benefit from our monthly DirecTV investment. Before Tivo, we inevitably missed 90% of the stuff we wanted to watch.

How to Skip Commercials with Tivo, continued

Basement Waterproofing - Inside - Part One

Now that you've covered the basics of basement waterproofing outside your house, it's time to turn your attention to the basement itself. While those first steps will keep a great deal of water away from the foundation under most conditions, the extremely high groundwater levels during times of intense and prolonged rainstorms present issues in many basement waterproofing projects.

The effects of hydrostatic pressure--the force that pushes against your basement walls at any given point as a result of the weight of the water above it--should not be discounted. The higher the water table rises around your basement, the more hydrostatic pressure will be exerted against the concrete. The most common way to waterproof your basement under those conditions is to relieve that pressure, via a sump pump.

Here's a little experiment you can try at home. All you'll need is a good sized mixing bowl and a disposable paper (or foam) cup.

Take the mixing bowl and fill it with water, halfway to the top. Now, grasp the disposable cup by its rim, and holding it upright, place it in the middle of the bowl and press down until it hits the bottom of the bowl. As you push the cup downward, you'll feel the water pushing back. The pressure you feel is hydrostatic, in a sense. Let go of the cup and it will pop to the surface.

A high water table works on a basement wall in a similar matter. Of course, the concrete basement wall is too heavy for the water to pop it out of the ground. But that water wants to find its way in, any way it can. So far, the cup has represented an impervious basement, sealed against the elements.

We're about to change that.

Take a pen or pencil and carefully poke a few holes in the side of your disposable cup. (They don't have to be big holes.) Now, try holding the cup at the bottom of the water filled bowl again. As the water starts to stream into the cup, you'll notice how it becomes easier and easier to hold it at the bottom of the bowl. Once the water level has equalized between the cup and the bowl, the cup will sit their happily ... you now have the equivalent of a basement full of water.

Water seeks a level. It pushes against your basement wall in the hope of getting inside. Once it finds a way inside, watch out.

The worst basement flooding I've experienced took place during Hurricane Floyd. The water first started seeping in through tiny cracks between the basement walls and floor. As the rain continued to fall, the sump pump was overwhelmed and water flowed freely from the sump hole into the basement. As the ground water level rose, the intense hydrostatic pressure popped holes in the basement walls. Water streamed into the basement from those holes as if propelled by by hoses. As this was happening, I scurried around the basement, plugging those leaks on the fly with hydraulic cement (which amazingly enough, will cure both underwater and under pressure).

Through it all, thankfully, our electric service never failed. The sump pump continued to operate and I was able to drop auxiliary pumps into the basement to help with the process of draining. All in all, the basement hit a high mark of three feet, as a result of the storm.

I quickly learned that an adequate sump pump system is one of the most important aspects of a successfully waterproofed basement.

Basement Waterproofing - Start Outside

Many of the basics of basement waterproofing are just good common sense. In short, you should begin by keeping as much water away from the foundation of your house as possible. Starting at the roof, you'll want to make sure that your gutters and leaders are functioning properly ... if they leak profusely, that rainwater will pour downward and form an expressway to your foundation, negating any interior work you've done to waterproof the basement.

Following that, you're not done with the rainwater once reaches ground level. You need to have a mechanism in place to take that flow of water from the gutters quickly away from the house. This usually entails some form of piping or drainage system. If you can get the rainwater out to the street where it can empty into a storm drain, that water will be headed in the right direction (ie: away from your basement).

With that out of the way, the next step in your basement waterproofing quest is to ensure that the ground around (not to be confused with ground round) your home is graded away. This might sound like simple stuff, but it isn't always easy or possible. For the best results, the ground should slope away from the house. If the geography of your lot prevents this from happening, all is not lost. You'll just have to get more creative in redirecting the flow of water, through the use of French linear drains or similar methods.

Once you've taken care of the basics of one-two-three (getting that rainwater away from the house), you can turn your attention inward. In the next passage, we'll take a quick look at the topic of inside basement waterproofing ...

Board and Batten Cedar Shed Siding

I originally built my little greenhouse shed with T-111 siding. It was the fast and cheap way to go. A bunch of years down the road and it's time to freshen things up. I want to cover the shed's T-111 siding with board and batten cedar and replace the shingle roof with real cedar shakes.

I'm convinced that cedar's the way to go.

Now I know nothing about installing B&B siding. Like the old Buddy Holly song, I'm lost in a fool's paradise. (The closest I got was a cedar tongue and groove project back in the 80's.) After a bit of searching, I found a very cool board and batten installation presentation in Flash format at cedar-training.org.

To view the presentation, click on the "Installation of Cedar" link. It's a pretty big file, so if you're on a slow modem connection, it might take a while to download. Once the movie opens and starts playing, take a look at the menu at the left side.

Scroll down the menu and you'll find a whole bunch of excellent info,on the following topics: Installing Board & Batten Sidings, Placement of Fastners, Board and Batten Siding, Installing Battens, Corner Details-Corner Boards, Board and Batten Mistakes.

You'll find a list of lumberyards that sell honest-to-goodness Western Red Cedar siding here.

Color Printing Choices

The design and production work of your desktop publishing project is nearly finished, and it's almost time to get it printed. So how do you know which printer to use? Is the local quickie print franchise the best place to get the job done? Or should you look elsewhere? Can the shop deal with your Windows files or do they only want to see Mac stuff?

One printer can't do it all. While there are many similarities in the processes involved, there are great differences in the equipment used. The shop that specializes in business card printing, for instance, is rarely the one you'll turn to for printing plastic shopping bags. This is because business cards, like most commercial print jobs, are run with offset lithographic equipment (offset or litho, for short). Most plastic bag printing, on the other hand, uses flexographic equipment (or flexo).

Your local quick print shop might be the best place to get the job done. Or it might be the worst ...

Find a Color Printing House That Works for You, continued

Medical Alarm System or GPS Tracking?

Technology and seniors go together like oil and vinegar. Or is that baking soda and vinegar? Naaaa ... perhaps it's **** and vinegar ...

This one made me scratch my head and think. Would she be better off with an additional medical alarm system or GPS vehicle tracking.