Old Roof on an Old House

I just wanted to add an update to the roofing article I posted a day or two ago. About 40 years ago I lived in a house that was built about 80 years before. It had the original wood shingle roof. the roof was in perfect repair and had never needed repair. The shingles were hand split and were attached to 1x3 purlins spaced at 12 inches on center. These were attached to 4x8 beams.  If you stood in the attic during daylight hours you would see sunlight shining through spaces in the shingles. If you were in the attic during the heaviest of Florida rainstorms you would find no leaks. This type of roof lasts a very long time. Part of the secret of this type of roof is that the back side of the shingles were open to air so that they could dry. The other important factor is that the shingles were split and not sawn.

pasting article into blog

For some reason the window or whatever it is for pasting an article into my blog does not like to have articles pasted into it. I'm sure there is a technique, but I have noticed job offerings on odesk commenting on the problem. My other blog is on wordpress and their program really makes a mess of it. I gave up trying to post articles in the Ghostblogger site.    Why these people don't understand that people use word processor programs escapes me. At least tell us how to do it. (I found out how. Use notepad)

article on metal roofing

Metal roofing

One of the most critical components of a house is a sound roof. Unless you live in a totally rainless part of the world a leak free roof is essential to the continued integrity of house since moisture can lead to mildew and even rotting of structural elements of the house.  

The top surface of a roof may be thatch, shingles, tiles, built up, or metal sheeting of some type. Metal roofing systems may be steel roofing or aluminum or copper. Beneath the top layer there is frequently a layer of felt. Beneath that there is usually either sheathing or purlins. All of this will be on some type of framing. Each type of roofing requires specialized techniques for any repairs.

Most houses in North America will have either some type of shingle, built up, or metal roofing. Thatch and tile roofing repairs are usually handled by specialists in that type of roofing. Those types of roofing are usually either used in very special historical settings or in areas such as Florida, Arizona, or California where specialized roofers are readily available. Repairs on these types of roofs should never be attempted by someone who is not experienced at working on that type of roof.

Roofing is one of the most dangerous of occupations. It is very easy to slip and fall off a roof when working on one. Be sure that any person hired to work on your roof is completely insured. If you are considering working on your own roof, be certain that you are aware of all safety procedures and follow them assiduously. 

Any roofing work requires that all layers must be sound and appropriate. Wooden shingles are often laid on spaced purlins on older homes. This type of shingle roof may survive well over a hundred years and repairs require roofing experts who understand that type of roof. The best option is probably to sheath it with plywood or OSB board. Some roofing systems such as built-up may have to be removed before being replaced. Built up roofs are usually used on flat or very low slope roofs and may be the only option for those roofs short of major structural work to change the slope of the roof.

 Most tile roofs are built on specially strenghtened roof systems because of the weight of the tile. These roofs usually last indefinitely and should br repaired when possible. One of the best options for most other homes would be metal roofing systems. The most economical type of metal roofing system would be steel roofing. Steel shingles offer a stylish and durable answer to re-roofing a modern home. They can be applied over most existing roofs if the existing roof is in good repair. This is a decision that should be made by someone well experienced in roofing. A reputable roofing company can guarantee their work. The cost of a new roof is great enough to warrant being sure that it does not need replacement for a very long time.  

Other Blog

I just realized that I have had another blog for about six months. I didn't realize that I had created this other blog. I call it Pendrake's Other Passions. It really will cover the same stuff, but I may reword stuff. I may write different articles. I'm trying to figure it all out . Probably will get a blog post out on bicycling as an alternative energy concept. I guess I'll have to write two versions

Barnraising for Alternative Energy

    I'm working on an article about barn building. This made me think about the old-time American/Canadian tradition of barn raisings. In case you don't know much about American history, a barn raising was when the community would come together as a group of volunteers to help build a barn, frequently for a newcomer to the community. Some groups continue to hold barn raisngs, and such groups as Habitat for Humanity continue the tradition in a broader sense.

    It occurred to me that there just might be a need for a similar movement in the alternative energy community. I am hereby issuing a challenge to the alternative energy community.People, someone get a movement going. Contact me if you know of any such movement or if you want to get something going.
 

Is Fracking Any Different From Fragging?

   I got busy trying to make a few dollars to survive on and it has taken me longer than I thought to get to this post. My apologies. When I started thinking about the subject of fracking my creative-divergent intellect immediately noticed the similarity between the verb to frack and the verb to frag. Those of us who come from the Vietnam war era remember fragging as the practice of killing fellow soldiers with the use of fragmenting grenades. The question is if the practice of fracking is all that different.

    Fracking is the practice of injecting water, sand, and assorted chemicals designed to facilitate the flow of water into gas and oil bearing rock to fracture rock and allow oil and gas out. In the early 1970s I was actually involved in some of the early research associated with the process. The experiment involved measuring viscosity of chemicals that were highly sensitive to detergent. I was shocked to discover that the chemical engineers did not know that cleaning lab glassware in highly purified water would leave detergent on the glassware because the detergent would bond to the sodum in the glassware. This is taught in analytical  chemistry, a second year chemistry course. I was hired because they could not get consistent measurements. These are the guys who do the fundamental research on the safety of fracking.

    It should be mentioned that fracking unquestionably makes available large quantities of cheap oil and natural gas. This is not clearly a good idea even though it seems good to consumers. The bad side of this is that cheap hydrocarbon fuels prevents development of renewable, environmentally positive energy
alternatives. Politicians who are the lap-dogs of environmentally insensitive energy concerns look for any reason to keep killing children for profit. Many petroleum companies are concerned about the future and even honestly see natural gas as one step towards a cleaner and healthy future. It sure beats radioactive coal. All coal is radioactive. Coal also has a whole lot of other environmental poisons.  The mere act of coal mining releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is 25 times as dangerous pound for pound as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. The EPA estimates that coal mining is responsible for 11% of U.S. methane emissions. Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas.

      Fracking has been implicated in increases in earthquakes in some areas where it has been practiced.  So far it has not blamed for serious earthquakes, but wastewater injection wells have caused earthquakes as strong as 5.6 on the Richter scale.  This was caused by injecting wastewater into earthquake faults. I wonder what genius decided to try that. I guess the reasoning was that the earthquake producing fault would hold lots of dangerous wastewater.

     In some places where fracking has been practiced ground water has become toxic due to the injected chemicals and  ruined the wells of the residents. In many cases the water wells have become methane wells. It is inconvenient when the water coming out of your kitchen sink becomes explosive.

     Another concern with fracking is the environmental damage done on the surface by the well site and operation. Fracking requires the injection of millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground to fracture the rock bearing the gas and oil. Much of that highly polluted water comes back up and has to be dealt with.   Perhaps there may be an earthquake fault nearby to inject it into.  

    Obviously we will not be free from fracking in the near future. Well designed regulation based on competent research  conducted by competent scientists not funded by industry concerns will reduce the dangers from this practice. Better yet, alternative energy development will reduce the perceived need for
this type of energy source.

Fracking Article to Come

I am getting ready to do several articles about alternative energy sources. I am going to start with an article about fracking, the practice of fracturing mainly shale stone deep underground in order to   facilitate natural gas extraction. My ex-daughter-in-law also writes  content online and was asked to write a positve artcle about the subject. She began to research for the article and had to turn it down because she had trouble finding anything positive to say about it. She turned down the job offer.

Fracking has caused the price of natural gas in America to plummet. The United States sits on massive  stores of natural gas, much of it easily accessed by fracking. The current practice of fracking has caused serious environmental problems in some areas. I suspect that improvements in the techniques used or  new approaches to fracking could eliminate or minmize most of the hazards. Areas in which fracking can produce earthquakes may never be useful. The best solution is to develop those energy sources that do  not require net production of carbon-dioxide.

More tomorrow.

Do Spiders Have Psychic Powers?

About six weeks ago I wrote about a Golden Orb spider (Nephila claviceps) that lives out my back door. I have  also written about the Marbled Orb Weaver (Araneus marmoreus) for someone else. I assume it was published  under someone else's name. 

Orb weaver spiders are generally considered as harmless to people but tend to weave their lovely webs in  places where people want to walk. This habit is inconvenient to both people and spiders. Another orb weaver I am  fond is the Spiny Orb Weaver, Gastrocantha cancriformis, also called crab spider occasionally. I like to call it   "smiley face" since the female has a rather charming smiley face on it's back.

A Marbled Orb Weaver has recently shown up in my back yard. I was trying to get a photo of it, which is a little hard  because it is shy and hides during the day. The Marbled Orb Weaver is a somewhat scary looking critter, much like  the Golden Orb spider. To me, all three spiders just feel friendly. They don't invite you to hold them, unlike the  jumping spiders, who can be rather friendly.

The first time I ran into a papal cross spider I felt it behind me, even though it was trying to remain unseen. Folk lore frequently has spiders having psychic powers of some sort. I know of many people who assert that they can sense  certain types of spiders. Some spiders just seem to say "lets be friends" while others just reek of evil. Many people  just hate all spiders. It is called "arachnophobia", which actually refers to an irrational fear of spiders. Some fear of  spiders is perfectly rational, depending of the spider. 

The point of this article is not all that much about spiders and whether or not they actually have psychic powers. What is signicant is that the concept is widespread in societies that have no common history for tens of thousands of years. 

Carl Jung wrote of the concept of synchronicity, which is when unlikely events occur at times that are very   coincidental, such as a scarab beetle crashing into his office window just as a patient was talking about a dream  involving a scarab beetle. Another related concept is the Pauli effect, named after the great theoretical Physicist  Wolfgang Pauli. Experimental Physcist found that equipment broke when Pauli visited their lab. Once a piece of  equipment broke when Pauli was on a train that stopped for a few minutes at the train station in the city where the  laboratory with the equipment was located at the same time when the equipment broke. 

The fact that unlikely coincidences occur with unlikely frequency suggests that certain phenomena have explanations that are outside known explanations. I know people who routinely reach for phones before they ring. Many times I  have thought about people I hadn't seen or thought of for years only to unexpectedly see or hear from them. 

Some people refuse to believe in psychic phenomena or God or flying saucers because they believe that no proof 

for these concepts exists. They call themselves skeptics. A skeptic would also refuse to disbelieve. Most Atheists 

refuse to believe in God because they say no proof exists for God and that is proof that there is no God. 

Besides the fact that many physical facts point to the likelyhood that there is no God is about one part in a number  with more than 30 decimal points, the greatest mathematical logician of the twentieth century, Kurt Goedel,   posthumously published a logical proof of God.  The mathematical likelihood that there is no God has been  compared to the likelihood that you would end up wth the complete works of Shakespeare if you took a set of the  encyclopedia Britannica and blew it up with dynamite and waited for the pieces to settle. Don't hold your breath. 

Atheism is a belief system based on pure faith. Sounds like a religion to me.