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getting by with a toy hole saw
Thursday, November 14 2024
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
My dog walks were even more pathetic today than they were yesterday, with me just going down to the lake and back on one or the other trails. I did at least go as far as the outflow beaver dam at one point, and noted that a fairly large yellow birch that a beaver had started cutting down back in October still hasn't fallen, though its now sitting on not all that much of a trunk. The beaver could've saved him or herself a lot of work by noting that the tree is unlikely to fall no matter how small he or she nibbles the trunk down to, as its upper branches are all tangled in other nearby trees. As for ducks, the only ones I saw today were buffleheads.
I should also mention that, at least during business hours, there's been a constant sound of machines down at Pyotr's building site. It sounded like a mix of things, including possibly a bulldozer and definitely a woodchipper. I also noticed a tall crane rising up over the treeline. Otherwise, the changes happening there are completely invisible from anywhere on our parcel.
When I returned my attention back to the minisplit installation project, it was to begin running the refrigerant lines and control cable for the basement air handler. To do this, I had to drill a 2.5 inch hole though the wall. In the past, when running the big 240 volt electrical cables out of the basement to provide for EV charging, I opted (for some reason) to drill through the solid concrete foundation wall, which is either ten or twelve inches thick. That's a nightmare, so for subsequent penetrations, I opted to drill through the carpentry directly above the foundation wall, which consists of two-by joists and joist headers. The structure of this cabin is very solid, partly because its modules had to survive being shipped here. So it came as no surprise that drilling through the header joist and the clapboards to the outside was not an easy procedure. Part of the problem was my cheapo hole saw kit, which I bought back when I was much more frugal than I am now. It consists of cups that I'd always assumed were deep enough to penetrate a two-by piece of structural framing. But turns out that they are perhaps a quarter inch too shallow to do this. They can cut to a depth of 1.25 inches, but not to 1.5 inches. And this renders them not much more than toys. Still, I soldiered on, since this was the only technology I had on hand for drilling 2.5 inch wide holes. I drilled as deep as I could and then used a very long bit to penetrate all the way to the outside (this wasn't easy; the outside was surprisingly far away). Once I did that, I could work from the outside in. Since the outside layers were thin enough to penetrate with my toy hole saw, I could remove them one by one and keep going. First came the clapboard layer, which was about 0.75 inches thick. Then a half inch air gap. Then an inch of foil-covered insulating foam. Then a half inch of expensive five-ply plywood. Then, finally, the first piece of structural wood, which was not the same piece I'd cut into from the other side. I cut as deeply as I could and with the hole saw and then wondered how to proceed. I tried hammering a flat screwdriver into the circular cut, but that wasn't working and would've taken too long. So then I got out a chisel to see if I could remove enough wood inside the cut that my hole saw could then cut deeper. This proved to be the perfect technique. The circular piece of wood easily split into pieces that I could dig out, and with enough of it gone, the hole saw could cut the rest of the way through. Beyond that was another layer of half-inch five-ply plywood, and then and then finally that two-by piece I'd started cutting from the inside. In total, this all comes to six and a quarter inches of material (with air gap), and that doesn't include a couple inches of spray foam I'd had to cut through initially when working from the inside. Once I was through, I hooked up the refrigerant lines and control cable. But by then it was late in the afternoon and Charlotte needed another lame walk to the lake and back.
This evening Gretchen messaged me from the fancy place where she was spending the night with Fern (I think it was in Chelsea, Manhattan) to tell me that one of our tenants, the youngish man who'd been living with his girlfriend in the second floor apartment at Downs Street, had died. He'd been suffering from an aggressive form of spinal cancer for years and had endured numerous therapies. But what finally killed him was heart failure. Perhaps his heart had been damaged by the therapies. Still, despite expecting him to die all this time, his death came as something of a shock. He was a great guy, and I'd interacted with him on multiple occasions to address various issues through the years. He and his girlfriend had just gotten married in a small ceremony there in the backyard at Downs Street, perhaps so his now-wife can benefit from a life insurance policy or other survivor benefits.
The progress made by a beaver on felling a tree. It's a yellow birch and nearly a foot thick.
Click to enlarge.
Bufflehead ducks in Woodworth Lake.
Click to enlarge.
A crane rises above Pyotr's building site across Woodworth Lake.
Click to enlarge.
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