Brody Ekberg

Kevin Olson wrote:As a point of reference, when one of the local highways was repaved some years ago, some utility services attended to at the same time, not least water mains and sewers.  They pulled out tamarack water mains which were, or at least appeared to be, untreated.  They'd been bored through, peeled, banded with iron straps, presumably to better resist the internal pressure, and the ends were coned (male on one end, female on the other) so that they could be connected together.  I believe these were still in use at the time of removal/replacement, and had been since roughly the 1920s.  A length or two ended up in one of the historical museums, if I recall correctly.  Maybe I can find the article about the tamarack water mains in the newspaper's archives (wish me luck!).

Tamarack was often used historically in ground contact situations - railroad cross ties, post foundations for structures, sill logs for cabins and saunas, stulls (support timbers) in the mines, etc.  It's not black locust, but it's pretty rot resistant.

That being said, any or all of your proposed treatments and installation methods should help to prolong the lives of the fence posts.

Around here, there are very few large tamaracks which survived the mining era, and I don't know if the same is also true over by Iron River, but I have seen some big tamaracks in the swamps over by Stevenson and Carney - easy to spot in the fall when the needles turn, even at a full gallop, so to speak.  Smaller trees, good for fence posts, are common here, though.

And, speaking of black locust, we do have some around here, though I suspect we're at the ragged northern edge of the range.  Most of them seem to be on the fringes of residential neighborhoods, or perhaps that's just where they are most noticeable or I can plainly see them.  But, I don't much notice them out in the woods.  Still, locust would be hard to beat, if available.

You sound like a fellow Yooper! I just saw recent pictures of wooden water mains being dug up in Republic. They looked just like what you described. Pretty interesting!

I suspect Ive seen some black locust, or at least a relative here and there. Are they scraggly, rough, thorny trees with bean pod looking things? Definitely not many of them around but Ive seen a handful of them like that around neighborhoods like you said.

Good morning! Looking for advice/opinions about using tamarack as fence posts. I’m planning an 8’ tall high tensile fence to keep deer out of a community garden. The board is unwaveringly against treated wood and cedar is out of the budget, so we’re getting tamarack logs. Area is Michigans Upper Peninsula, so we’re planning to set them 3-4’ deep.

Questions are:

1. Peel the logs or no? 1/3 of them already are peeled but the rest are being cut now and wont be unless we peel them. Since some already are, it might look better if we peel them all. But a local woman here used unpeeled tamarack for posts and got 30 years out of them before they rotted off.

2. Backfill the holes with pea gravel or no? Or something else? Same woman referred to above backfilled with gravel and they lasted 30 years.

3. Char the butts or no? Seems like this would help with longevity but will also add a lot of time and effort to the process and Im not sure if its worthwhile.

4. How likely are we to be able to pound fence staples into this stuff? I figure green maybe but dry, probably not. I do have access to a Milwaukee battery stapler so maybe that would work better than a hammer.

Any advice or opinions are appreciated!

Steve Zoma wrote:Probably not the case, but you mention having a propane baseboard heating system as well. Are there any pipes of any kind going through there? If you do, you might have had a frozen pipe and the baseboard heating system is leaking, other plumbing is leaking including drain lines that might have froze, or even water infiltration from the siding or roof. Water travels a lot longer than what people give it credit for including water that travels uphill from wind and capillary action.

By your description it sounds like it came on suddenly. That's not typically a moisture problem in a system that has been in place for four years.

You might want to rule those water leaks out before thinking it is a moisture issue.

The pipes for the boiler system are about 8” below the floor in that spot and none of them are leaking. The valley of the roof used to leak there but that was fixed several years ago and 2 years ago I tore the siding off and replaced all the insulation and sheathing that was rotten. I could see the drywall facing outside and it wasnt discolored.

I dont think this came on suddenly. I think it probably got and stayed moist in the cold stretches of winter ever since my wife put her dresser there and we started heating with wood 4 years ago. This winter was extra cold for a few weeks and that made extra moisture. She found dampness on a nearby wall and thats what made me think to check that spot since it’s the coldest spot of the house with the least amount of air flow.

Catie George wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:

Michael Helmersson wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:

Our walls, from inside out are drywall, fiberglass insulation, plywood sheathing, tar paper then aluminum siding with that backer board.

No vapor barrier then?

Not unless the fiberglass insulation backing or tar paper counts. And actually our walls arent just drywall. They seem to be 1” thick made of 2 separate layers. The layer closest to the outside seems like drywall but the layer we can see inside the house seems different. Its harder than regular drywall. Can’t pound a nail in without busting chips out. Its like drywall but harder. And not all uniform thickness. The 2 attached pictures were taken from a single piece I cut out of the wall and theres almost 1/8” different in thickness

I admjt to being lazy about reading this whole thread, ans this might already have been answered, but it looks like plaster over rocklath. I have it too. It was kind of a intermediate step between drywall and plaster, with all the advantages, and disadvantages of both. I actually really like it (when I am not trying to hang something from the wall).

Very off topic but to pound a nail, predrill. Cut any holes with a diamond tipped saw and expect a ton of dust. Do not use drywall anchors. To find studs, buy a 'Stud Pop's magnetic stud finder. The rocklath is secured by nails over the studs.

Back to your actual question...

My solution to uneven heat in a house I try to spot heat with a cheaper source, (pellets/wood), while keeping cold and moisture in check, is to run my boiler for a few hours each day, usually first thing in the morning to bring the house up to temp after I let it cool off overnight and restart the stove. In my case, I do it to prevent freeze, but it would also likely help your moisture issues. I dramatically lower my oil consumption by doing this, vs. running just oil, and the house is more comfortable. Seeing those pics, I wonder if the discolouration in the floors of the two back bedrooms is from the previous people doing what you were doing...

Long term, I plan to add mini split heating to that side of the house, but this works for now and is cheaper than mold issues or a frozen pipe in my basement.  If I were you, and considering installing a basement woodstove, I would put it on the opposite side of the house from the upstairs stove - I have one in the basement and one on the main floor, both on the same side, which STILL leaves the back bedrooms cold even when I run both.

Also - for circulation with fans, push cold air along the floor towards the stove, with fans at floor level, not towards the bedrooms. For warm air, run ceiling fans to wash it down the walls, or fans in the top corners of doorways, pushing warm air to the bedrooms, which, as it cools and sinks, gets returned by the lower fans. You want to create a circulation pattern of air.

I'm also considering insulating my rim joists. I've been mulling just Rockwool, since I also have concerns about spray foam and rot in a humid climate with a house with no vapour barrier... Plus, Rockwool is inflammable and doesn't offgas. Other sources say my plan will CAUSE rot because it causes condensation on the surface of the joist, so I keep mulling it and haven't done it. So this is certainly not advice.

I sent the pictures to a few local contractors and they agreed its plaster over drywall. And yes, stud finding is tricky!

As for the boiler running daily, it tends to anyway since my wife and I are both gone enough during the day for the house to cool down enough to the point that it needs to kick on. Usually it isnt for long enough to actually heat up though because as soon as I get home I get the stove ripping again. I think long term, Id like to add another small stove directly under those cold rooms, insulate the outside of the house when residing and add ceiling fans to the bedrooms.

Douglas Campbell wrote:Be careful with sprayfoam under aluminum corner caps.
The foam expansion may blow the caps off (I once had similar (?) aluminum corner caps on horrible 'beaverboard' press wood siding).
And spray foam is a vapour barrier so you could create condensation/rot pockets under the foam.

Maybe think of insulating the corners from  the inside, sort of like a vertical cap, like a crown moulding?

Maybe Ill just use fiberglass insulation. I could just pull a handfull off of the paper backing and shove it under the caps. For this winter, Ive just piled snow up on the area and that should insulate better than anything else until it melts

Michael Cox wrote:Where you have known cold spots that are getting damp issues you need to guarantee good air circulation. Pull back furniture away from walls, remove fabric like curtains etc...

The problem is that the cold spots are at a lower temperature (at least some of the time) than the air in the room. The warm air in your living space holds lots of moisture, as that circulates through the house it cools and becomes saturated, then condenses out in the cold spots.

You can address the cold spots directly by insulating as you have already suggested.

Otherwise you need to address the humidity in the air itself. In our case we installed a powerful dehumidifier upstairs on the landing, in the cooler part of the house. It runs through the damp UK autumn when the relative humidity is high. We were emptying about 4 litres a day from it to start with. The fabric of the building holds a lot of moisture in the timber, plaster work etc... This has the advantage of making the house both feel warmer and then be easier to heat as well.

We moved everything out of the way of those cold damp corners and have been running air purifiers nearby and thats helped a lot. Plus we have a couple fans blowing warm wood stove air down the hallway towards the bedrooms and have been leaving the bedroom doors open. Turned off the 2 humidifiers and let the kettle on the stove run dry and now the back rooms are down to high 40% humidity range. I guess thats good for the house but its drying my wife and I out…

What should I insulate the aluminum siding corner caps with? Im hesitant to use spray foam as its almost permanent but my only other idea is fiberglass.

bruce Fine wrote:generally speaking from my experience burning wood in stove or fireplace dries everything out. propane heat creates all kinds of moisture and condensation unless if it is a system where propane heats boiler and steam or hot water go through radiators or other such devices or in floor piping

our experience is the same. The house is dry as hell unless we add moisture in winter. December was rough so I put a kettle on the stove and started running 2 small humidifiers, one in the dining room and one in our bedroom. Think I overcompensated because the humidity got up to 50-60%…

And our propane does heat a boiler that pumps hot water through radiators. So probably no added moisture there

Alder Burns wrote:Two loose ideas: 1. warm air moves from the stove up to the ceiling and then out to the outside walls, cools and drops and is sucked back toward the stove along the floor.  Just having fans here and there, especially on the floor blowing out, is working against this natural flow. What we have are small fans that mount near the top of doorways or in corners where wall meets ceiling, to push warm air out, and then a box fan on the floor blowing cool air back toward the stove, so as to speed up the natural cycle that's already there.
2. As a stopgap measure while you pursue the mold and moisture issues, remember borax and boric acid are your friends.  Dissolve either or both in boiling water to saturation and then paint onto any moldy or half rotted surface of wood, drywall, etc. and let it dry and crystallize. This will kill and prevent all kinds of mold and rot.  Once it dries you can wipe off the dry crytals and paint over it if you like.  

We put a fan on a shelf near the wood stove aiming down the hallway and another fan on a shelf in the corner of the living room blowing towards the hallway. Its made a noticeable difference in warming up those back rooms. Also, hallway has space above the entrance like a door would have. We have considered opening that up and mounting some sort of fan in there but dont know if its structural or hollow in there or what. Not even sure how to find out besides opening it up.

Didnt know that about borax but thanks for the information, Ill try to remember that!

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Brody,
This might be a bigger step than you want to take, but it is worth serious thought.
Currently, you are burning wood in your metal stove (that you dearly love)
To heat the back bedrooms, you must make the living room stifling hot. This is a classic result of trying to heat with metal.
I also suspect you are burning plenty of wood, perhaps more than you would like.

I suggest using bricks for heating instead.
500-1000-plus bricks heated to several hundred degrees will transform your home!
It will be warm throughout the entire living area, and even the basement will benefit from the upstairs warmth.
You will be floored by how warm your house can be! And how much less wood you will use!
Yes, your floor might need extra support. Although it could be built in the basement, mass heaters are best suited to where you live.
Yes, adding exterior insulation and switching to wood siding rather than aluminum will make a huge difference, but not as much as a batchbox core in a double-skin bell.

I have lived in northern Montana with metal wood stoves my entire adult life.
Temperatures here are not nearly as extreme as those you lucky folks receive, but below-zero and single-digit highs are normal for short bursts.
Fire is lit in the fall and remains lit 24 hrs a day until late spring (May-June)
With your kind of temperatures, wood use is substantial.
There is always the troubling thought in the back of your head about chimney fires...
With a mass heater, even where you live, you will not need any fire at all overnight!  Think about that, no stoking before bed, no stoking at dark thirty.
And the very best part in my mind is strolling to the bathroom at dark thirty with no robe because it is that warm!!!
Your fire will be out quite a bit because you just don't need one.
Your wood use will realistically be cut in half, and your propane baseboard heat will hardly run.

Building yourself, with all new materials, you may spend $1200-$1500.
Locate used brick, and your cost could plummet to $500 or less.

Yep, there is a fair bit of labor needed to build one, while you are laboring, think about the firewood you will not be laboring to get...

Ive wanted a rocket mass heater since Ive learned of them but as far as i know, they arent legal here. But if I were to put a small wood stove in the basement I would certainly add mass around it one way or another. We really dont burn much wood. This is winter #4 and Im keeping track, but the first 3 winters we used 2-3 cords of wood. Really isnt bad at all compared to what most people I know burn in a winter.

Also, we have rigged up a couple fans blowing warm living room air down the hallway and its made quite a difference. The living room is more comfortable, about 65 and the hallway and back bedrooms are noticeably warmer.

Michael Helmersson wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:

Our walls, from inside out are drywall, fiberglass insulation, plywood sheathing, tar paper then aluminum siding with that backer board.

No vapor barrier then?

Not unless the fiberglass insulation backing or tar paper counts. And actually our walls arent just drywall. They seem to be 1” thick made of 2 separate layers. The layer closest to the outside seems like drywall but the layer we can see inside the house seems different. Its harder than regular drywall. Can’t pound a nail in without busting chips out. Its like drywall but harder. And not all uniform thickness. The 2 attached pictures were taken from a single piece I cut out of the wall and theres almost 1/8” different in thickness