Talk:Hut Maintenance

Window weather stripping

I propose to spend about a week this summer, weatherprooofing the SE end of the Brew Hut. My plan is to remove the sheet metal carefully (it's held on with screws), then apply Tyvek vapor barrier to thoroughly seal the wood structure before replacing the sheet metal. At this time we could replace the windows in that wall with solid double glazed tempered glass vinyl frame windows, as it seems that our idea of being "environmentally friendly" and using recycled Plexiglas for these windows was not such a good idea after all. Whether or not we replace these windows, we will apply a membrane-type paint to all exposed surfaces on this wall and to other places where the paint is peeling. The cost should not be too high, maybe $100 for membrane paint, $50 for Tyvek, $500 for windows. Accepting volunteers now, for about a week in the summer. Probably two weekends would be sufficient if your time is more valuable than mine. --Roland Burton

I think the leak is a problem with the window, not the wall. Putting tyvek on the wall will not fix the leaky window. Replacing the windows will fix the leaky windows. Can we replace the windows without removing all the sheet metal from the south wall? Scott Nelson 11:36, 10 December 2009 (PST)

I'm just wondering re: air coming into the hut... where, ideally, would the air for the stove to run come from? Is there some special intake duct, or is it just general inside air? This weekend Roland mentioned that having the wood burning stove in the hut is good for indoor air quality, since it consumes and then exhausts inside air and thus removes all the cooking fumes etc from the hut. Removing those fumes is definitely important, especially considering the amount of cooking that goes on. In order for that to happen, though, fresh outside air needs to come from somewhere, since you can't just remove air from the hut (via feeding the fire) without replacing it. I suppose, though, that if you get more cold air being forced into the hut than the fire needs, then you probably just get some warm air going out somewhere else, which is definitely just bad. It would be interesting to know if air is actually going out anywhere (besides the stovepipe); if not, then weatherstripping that window will probably just make the air come in somewhere else. Or maybe I just don't know how the hut is set up and the air intake for the fire has already been accounted for. On that note, just curious, does anyone know if anybody has ever tried to have the fresh air intake for a hut like this running past the exhaust stovepipe, to form a crude sort of heat recovery system? I mean, not that the window shouldn't be weather stripped, because there was definitely a breeze coming in through there. In fact I don't even know what my point is. Maybe I've just been cramming for my HVAC final too much. I guess all I'm getting at is that it could be interesting to consider where the air would come from instead once this window is sealed up, if in fact the hut is well enough sealed that there is currently only enough air coming in to feed the fire. Sam Mason 15:46, 8 December 2009 (PST) (Copied from forum post)

There is no intake ducts for the stove. The NW and SW windows have no weather stripping, so they let some air. Normally the wind blows from the SE, so they don't let in too much air. Also, air can get in under the bottom edge of the chimney cowling and come in the hole in the roof that the chimney pipe goes though. Scott Nelson 14:10, 8 December 2009 (PST)

Paint

What's this "hypalon" paint you speak of, Roland? Scott Nelson 20:03, 9 December 2009 (PST)