Back Wall Repair, Repoint


One wall inside our Park Slope home has peeling paint, flaking plaster. I thought it might be a slow leak from the roof or a pipe. But now I believe the moisture is coming in from the back wall.

It’s a 4 story brick with a stucco coat (at least I think it’s stucco). Turns out tho that the part of the wall behind the downspout is totally bare of stucco — you can see an 8 inch stripe of exposed brick from top to bottom behind the downspout.

It’s hard to see from the ground but in spots it appears that all the mortar between the exposed bricks as washed away. Moreover I believe that the downspout has burst a seam in places and in heavy rains flushes water toward the wall.

There are also a few visible cracks in the stucco.
:-(

Would like to have this seen to.

Here’s what I think needs to be done, does this seem a reasonable approach?

+ Remove the downspout.

+ Repoint the brick.

+ Patch the over the bare stripe to match the existing stucco.

+ Patch the cracks in the stucco (not sure if this is necessary — if it is purely cosmetic would skip it).

+ Replace the downspout.

Is this level of patching possible? Am not concerned on getting a perfect match on the color as it will mostly be covered by the downspout, but I do want it to be properly sealed and long lasting.

Can anyone make a recommendation for someone to do this type of project?

There is a fire escape on the building but not close enough to the effected area to remove the need for scaffold I wouldn’t think.

How much might I expect to pay (roughly) for this type of job do you think?

Categories: Exterior
By phripley | 06/09/2010 4:02 PM | Comment

Water Collection


I have a plan for recapturing rainwater for watering the garden (I have a small patch of grass, potted plants and some planted borders). Thought I’d run it by you to see if anyone has done something similar…

Plan is to put a 54 gallon barrel on the fire escape. Attach a diverter to the downspout to the tank and collect rainwater. When the tank is full, water will be returned to the downspout through an overflow hose.

Water from the tank will be hosed into the garden. I don’t think there will be enough water pressure to spray or sprinkle, so I’ll probably have to use watering cans or a drip hose.

The collection area is a flat roof, slightly sloped and there is only one downspout. Roof area is around 640 square feet. My calculations indicate that 1/4 of rain fall will produce almost 1200 gallons of water on the roof!

NYC gets about 3-4 inches of precipitation per month.

A full 54 gallons of water weighs about 450 pounds. I would expect that the fire escape would bear this but am not sure.

Was looking at the water barrels found here:

http://www.sprucecreekrainsaver.com/

Sound feasible? Sensible?

Categories: Garden
By phripley | 05/01/2009 10:48 AM | Comment

Energy Suppliers and Time of Day


Anyone using an ESCO (Energy Supply Co) for Gas or Electric?

http://www.coned.com/customercentral/energyrespower.asp

I signed up for one a while back for both gas and electric and it is really impossible to tell if you get any savings. At one point there was no tax, but looking over my bill that seems to have changed.

My latest electric supply bill I paid $12.4335/kWh plus 4% tax. Can anyone tell me how does that compare with the straight ConEd rate? (This is EL1 residential service)

Also, does anyone have experience with the ConEd’s voluntary time of day pricing?

http://www.coned.com/customercentral/energyresvoluntary.asp

From what I know about how energy supply and demand works it definitely seems like time of day pricing is the future. But there is very very little info on the ConEd site about what to expect if you sign up. Anyone tried it?

Categories: Utilities
By phripley | 11/13/2008 5:52 PM | Comment

Oil Heat Price Lock


My oil company just sent us a price lock agreement for the heating season.

For 9/1/08 – 5/31/09 we will pay 3.99/gallon of heating oil delivered.

I think over the winter last year it got close to 5.00/gallon.

Do others on this board sign such agreements?

Is yours at a similar price?

I have considered trying to create my own price hedge by buying a heating oil shares…

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=uso

But have never actually done that sort of thing before…

Categories: Heating
By phripley | 08/22/2008 4:01 PM | Comment