Take Two

So in my last post I talked about using a giant hammer drill to cut a giant hole in my house.  I, for some unknown reason, was under the assumption that the pain and suffering I endured during that grind-fest was a one-time thing.  Clearly, I was woefully misguided in that thought.

So one of the many things I did over this past weekend was to cut not one, but three more holes in my house.  Fortunately for me, the holes were only two and a half inches instead of four but the tools of the trade were the same (see last post for pictures).  I keep telling myself that this is saving me money on the install of my central heat and air, but I'm beginning to question if this part was worth the fact that I can't barely feel anything from my elbows to my hands nor anything below the knees.  

Bottom line: cutting holes through stone is difficult at best.  I spent two hours on each hole (that was six hours if you're having trouble with the numbers, Jerry).  It was noisy, dusty, and very uncomfortable (see last sentence from the previous paragraph).  I think I'm finally done "saving money" on this endeavor and can now turn things over to the professional to finish the work.  At this point I'm hoping it gets crazy hot so I can sit inside and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

The Grind

So I'm full-on into several house projects that have all seemed to come together at once.  I started by installing duct work so I could have central heat and air put in.  That involved cutting a lot of holes in the floors and creating a significant mess.  Before I could cut the holes, however, I needed to remove the baseboard heaters and thermostats that were throughout my house.  This left multiple electrical boxes that needed to be removed from the walls and therefore lots of holes needed to be patched.  If you've ever done drywall then you know that this can only adds to the mess.  

While all of this was going on my dryer decided to shoot craps and stop throwing off heat.  I tried a few things but ultimately ended up with a new dryer.  This, of course, meant that I could correct an issue that has been bothering me since I bought the house; that being the vent location for the dryer.  I thought it would be a good idea to vent the new dryer out of the exterior wall instead of through the basement window.  I wasn't quite sure how this was going to happen since my house is made of stone, but I was naively optimistic I'd figure something out.  Well, I did.  

The stone is about eight inches thick.  Luckily I was able to use this:

 

To do this:

I was fortunate enough to borrow a beast of a hammer drill with a tungsten-carbide cutter bit.  I spent about an hour and a half drilling through my house.  It was a lot of work but was easier than I thought.  Now I can get back to completing the mess inside my house that will be lots of drywall dust.  

It's not the Speed

So a little while back I mentioned the fact that I was making an attempt at being a bike racer again.  Well, that hasn't gone nearly as well as I would have hoped and, since I haven't raced since the end of April, I'm beginning to think that this "race season" may be a wash.  It basically comes down to the basic realization that I'm not fast.  And if you've ever tried to race anything; a bike, a car, a potato sack; being fast is kind of important.  

Since I'm not fast and probably won't get fast enough over the next few weeks to start racing for real anytime soon, I've decided that I should just ride as many miles as I can.  This happened again this past weekend when Brian, Scott, and I decided to do the Renovo loop.  This little spin would take us on a really scenic, yet deceptively hilly 103 mile trek.  I've done this ride several times, and yet I somehow forget how much I don't like certain parts of it.

The bottom line is this - it was a lot of climbing; a lot of wind for the last 25 miles; a potential wrong turn that worked out okay in the end; and Scott gutting out the whole thing with a significant chest cold.  I keep telling myself that rides like these are beneficial to my racing aspirations as I'm building base, but in the end, I'm just happy that I got my June hundy out of the way early so I can take it easy until July.  

Improvements

Well, after many more hours than I expected, many more cuts on my hands than I expected, and significantly more dust than I expected, my house is finally ducted and ready for the professionals to take over and install my furnace and air conditioning unit.  While I'm glad I did the work myself because I saved a goodly bit of money (at least I think I did), I now know why my HVAC guy was more than happy to let me do the ducting.  It's incredibly more time-consuming than I expected and not nearly as fun as it sounds.  Of course, when the heat sets in later this summer I'll enjoy the cool comfort of the indoors and know that I made it possible.