This article tries to capture the interest of privacy seekers, but then the article itself is hosted in a privacy abusing Cloudflare space that excludes some Tor users. WTF.
Are flues water-tight? When I would close the flue in other homes, I would typically hear the sound of metal hitting something hard, which somewhat implies they don’t have a rubber seal.
There are 3 tubes & none of them have caps, so apparently it’s deliberate. Most of the neighbors have no caps either and I think most fireplaces are blocked off in the region.
It freezes but I guess I wouldn't expect pressure on the masonry because the chimny seems to be a cast iron tube so I would think the expansion would be forced to happen vertically.
Going from memory, when I was standing on the roof I think at least the first few cm/inches are open. It might be hard to get close enough to stick my head in, but maybe I can toss a snake cam in for a better view.
I briefly considered adding a 2nd floor to a 1-story home, and the 2nd floor would be a self-contained passive house, effectively, because for environmental reasons I’m unwilling to build anything that’s not passive (that needs heating and cooling). The new floor would need its own support system (could not simply be supported by the existing structure). So the cost came out to the same building costs as it would be for building a whole new home. Upon realizing this, I scrapped the idea. I might as well be building a separate home on an empty lot at that point.
One factor to consider: you never want to be the best house on the block. The low value of other homes will pull yours down while your higher value will prop their values up. Not sure if your plans are significant enough for this to matter.
My assumption would be it’s for airation. I’ve seen pipes like that before and have no idea why they are so high off the ground.
I know someone who has a septic tank with an airation appliance. It’s basically a dog house with AC power and an airator on a timer that you can hear periodically turn on. Perhaps that’s an alternative. I would figure an electronic appliance would more effectively air out the septic.
FWIW, I’ve heard that if you let vines grow directly on the exterior (or if you run cables and plant the kind of vines that need to climb cable), the vegetation will insulate/shade the house from the extreme sun.
I can’t say it’s 1st-hand knowledge but perhaps worth looking into. Evaporatie cooling might have a small role in that too. Of course the caveat is if you let vines grow directly on the stucco, they will destroy the stucco which many folks consider a bad trade-off. The other caveat is plantlife brings insects so you might not want to bring insects right up to your walls.
When it rains sometimes it drips water along the top interior window frame. One one occasion water collected behind the interior wall paint and formed a water balloon. I took a guess at how the water was entering and corrected it. But even after that I still have water dripping from the top window frame.
I like the lime idea. Lime comes in many forms (e.g. quicklime, hydraulic lime). I’m not sure I’d be keen to work with the stuff that needs a complex number of steps with a mixer that can withstand heat. Suppose I buy “white lime” (which is marketed as a whitewash for trees as an anti-pest control, and for cosmetic changes on brick walls). Will that do the job? I think I simply mix it with water. How do I bond it? With PVA?
(edit) Since I guess you speak French, perhaps you can tell me if this stuff is right for the job:
^ I have some of that stuff already on-hand but it was opened ~14 months ago, so it might be oxidized into chalk. I’m not sure how to test to see if it’s still usable.
It appears the #Cantillana varieties of lime render are simply rendered on with no bonding steps or additives.
If you decide to keep the vented dryer, it’s worth noting that humidity is good for energy efficiency in the cold season. Some vented dryers in some parts of the world are even designed with no ducting (the dryer just vents where it sits). Not ideal, but just a bit of perspective. Anyway, this guy explains how and why to vent into the house.
Ideally you would have a humidistat that vents into the house until a threshold is reached, then switches to vent outdoors. If you don’t want a complex ventilation project, it might be wise to simply vent indoors in the cold season and space the loads a day apart, and manually move the ducting to go outdoors in the summer.
Probably good advice, but I should note that I’ve been in several home improvement stores the past few days and they all have green particle board. One even had green plywood. I’ve seen how conventional particle board becomes like a sponge to water, so it’s a bit surprizing that they can treat it well enough to make it suitable for moist environments.
I told a salesman that although I would prefer a foam cement board Wedi type of thing, it’s too expensive. He then suggested the green particle board. It looks like they soaked the sawdust so that every spec of wood gets the water-resistent treatment before pressing it together. So perhaps it would be good for this.
I’m currently leaning toward using sticks of green (treated) solid wood for the frame, and ordinary drywall for the surface because I have this on hand. Then I would smother the whole thing in a liquid rubber of sorts. The particular liquid rubber I would use is most common in roofing but they advertize that tiles can be glued to it.
(edit) The liquid rubber brocure lists things it can be applied to.
“To be applied on bituminous foundations and on the most common construction materials such as concrete, stone, wood, steel, aluminium, cement plaster and polyester”
Hmm.. no mention of drywall. So perhaps I will need to make it entirely from wood before using the liquid rubber on it.
I’ve heard that the lint filters that are on the top of the drier and pull out upwards are supposedly much better than the kind that are just inside the door.