Team Seacats

Hot.  That’s been the word of the day around here for about two months now.  Working outside, especially in the upper level with no ceiling or insulation to offer protection from the radiant heat coming from the roof, is brutal.  I’ve been working in the early weekend mornings upstairs until it gets too hot and then moving downstairs until I’ve had enough (usually around noon).  I then retreat into the house to catch up on things there.  During the week, I’ll sometimes wait for the sun to go down and put on a head lamp to do some work in the garage and office followed closely by a fan.

I’ve been slow to get updates here – I have several to make and will break it up a little into different sections.  For now, a simple post about sofit baffles.  Sofit baffles protect the vented sofits from insulation and other debris that might block the air flow into the attic.  They’re needed especially when you will be working with a blown-in type of insulation.  I was a little unsure about the ridge vent roof ventilation system having heard some negative things about it.  Since then, I’ve become convinced that most of the time folks have issues with a ridge vent, it’s probably because of inadequate intake ventilation in the roof…i.e., the ridge vent can only vent as much air as can be drawn into the attic.  So I studied sofit baffles and settled on this particular ABS plastic type.   I had to order these because most of the readily available baffles are of a lightweight foam type that are exceptionally fragile and just tuck straight down into the sofit. They offer very little shielding from the top plate and if pressed lightly, can buckle and fail.  You can’t really tuck insulation in with those foam ones without risking breaking them.  The baffles I ended up with first staple to the top plate of the wall and they lay across the top plate horizontally toward the roof sheathing where they bend sharply and follow the roof sheathing upwards.  A few staples through the baffle attaches it to the sheathing and holds it in place. The molded stand-offs in the baffle allow multiple channels for air to flow from the sofit into the attic space while still allowing insulation to be tucked in deeply above the top plate to reduce any (very common) cold spots during the winter around the perimeter of the ceiling/wall joint.  I first thought I was going to use a pneumatic stapler to attach these but the staples were shot so violently that it was shattering the ABS plastic.  A manual stapler didn’t have the same issue…so I ended up manually stapling them in place.

I finally found some time this holiday weekend to invest some more time on the Garage Mahal and made some decent progress! The two 1 ton heat pump outdoor units are mounted and one is even wired. I have to get a couple more electrical fittings to finish wiring the downstairs unit. The writing / descriptions below are a little rough…I’m short on editing time (as usual lately).

My first time working with vinyl siding was rough…I don’t know anyone with direct experience that could help me sort out the trimming details so I had to figure it out as I went along. It took some time to get it right – but it is right ‘perty. I purchased a couple of brackets to mount the heat pump units on the wall. This gets them off the ground and provides more opportunity to get them further out of the weather and hidden. I had intended to mount them in a completely different location, but after conferring with Bonnie, she pushed for mounting them under the stairs on the north side of the building. This messed me up on the refrigeration line-sets because the two (rather expensive) sets I already bought were too short now. I’ll see if I can exchange them for a couple of longer sets. I’m also short on the control wiring to the indoor units so an inquiry as to the store’s return policy and some more buying are in my future. All said, I am quite happy with where they ended up. After trimming in the stairs with some lattice, the units will have a very protected and hidden home. I am a little concerned that they may be a little noisy facing the primary back yard – but these are supposed to be exceptionally quiet units…so fingers crossed.

The wall mount consists of a pressure treated 2×4 coated with multiple coats of stain, caulked to the sheathing/house wrapped wall, and secured with long lag bolts to 2×4 blocking I installed on the inside of the wall. After trimming out the first piece of wood, I decided I needed an easier method of providing a base for the ‘elbow’ of the mounting brackets…so I whipped out the welder and welded large washers on the head of more lag bolts. These are screwed into the wall (again into reinforced blocking) and lined up perfectly with the bumpers on the ‘elbows’ of the brackets. That was much easier than mounting another 2×4 and trimming it out. They should hold up just fine (everything caulked for good measure with a very long life caulk). I then trimmed in a couple of dryer vents to form an entry cowling for the refrigerant line-sets to enter the wall. They’ll later be sealed with expanding foam to keep the critters out. The electrical boxes were mounted to the wall with long wood screws and spacers to keep the boxes just barely spaced from the siding…again plenty of caulk applied. I also ran some PVC roofing material under the stairs to divert rain/snow/ice from getting to the units…I hate seeing heat pumps covered in ice during the winter when they’re trying to heat! The 220V 12 gauge power was also pulled to each unit – though I need to tie it into the breaker panel. I also started boring the 2″ holes for the four lineset tubes in the wall headers. I’ll end the linesets and control wiring in the areas that the indoor wall units will reside and can move on to making a couple of minor changes and finishing up the electrical wiring (which is very close to being ready for inspection!).

I only wish they had given us just a little more of some of this spectacular footage! But, I guess that’s the point. I can’t wait for the first AC45 event.

While we’re waiting for me to have a Garage Mahal update (I’ve had record months at “both” jobs and haven’t done anything to the garage lately), here’s a cool project underway by Ian Lindahl and his dad. They’ve scratch built several A-cats and dubbed them “LR”. This one, being fourth in the series, is the “LR4″. I haven’t been a big fan of the shape of the LR2 and LR3 boats as they were a bit un-traditional looking…but having seem them in person, the quality of the workmanship and the home build method is undeniably outstanding. They’ve made very simple solutions to the mechanical fittings and build process that has resulted in a very robust, relatively low cost, and well performing a-cat built at the minimum class weight (165lbs). They’ve gone back to the drawing board and are well underway with construction of the LR4 – which has a more traditional bow shape and looks awesome so far. Check out Ian’s project at http://lindahlcompositedesign.weebly.com.

So how do you provide live (and fair/accurate) on the water judging for a sailboat race when the boats are as fast as the RIB’s that would carry the judges? Consider also that the judges will need kidney belts, goggles, and snorkels to withstand the jarring and spray through the chop as their power boats try to keep up. How do you do it? You do it with technology! Check out this Sail-World.com inside view of an early test of the electronic “control room” judging software being developed for the next America’s cup. There will be racing perimeters setup for the course and about mid-way in this video you will see Oracle White sail beyond the perimeter and get penalized immediately. This is cool stuff.