Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V5 #468

[m c <midgatutordigests at yahoo_com>]

Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 10:28:06 -0500
From: Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>
Subject: Re: 90% water chages and other odd moves

>The front porch is larger than the fishroom, and is
>screened in.  I put a layer of .8mil plastic over
both
>sides of the screened windows.  Then I realized that
I
>dropped a decimal point and added an additional layer
>of 4mil plastic to both sides.

<Trusty old greenhouse winterizing trick: use a
*small* blower to 
*pressurize* the area between your two sheets of
plastic. The idea is 
to 
create a stagnant air layer 1-2" or so thick between
the sheets to aid 
in 
thermal insulation. It's a great way to cheaply
insulate a space that 
would 
not normally retain heat well.>

My space is 4 inches.  The porch is cinderblock and
the screen windows are framed out with 2X4.  This
leaves a nice self for small potted plants.  I have a
layer of .8mil covered with 4mil on both interior and
exterior.  Some of this is multiple layers as I'm not
as good at measuring as I thought when cutting.

<BTW, they make heat exchanger exhaust systems for
fish rooms that 
circulate 
air from outdoors to help with the humidity. The heat
exchanger part 
helps 
to minimize the loss of heat or air conditioning to
the outside. Might 
be 
worth looking into.>

After I set this up my landlord informed me that this
exterior porch has a sheetrock ceiling.

?????

I thought it was wood.  Whatever!
It is covered by several coats of white enamal paint. 
But there is still a danger of mositure damage if
humidity is allowed to build up, so I went looking for
a circulation fan.  I ended up getting the only one at
K-mart. Seems they don't keep very many "cooling" fans
on hand in Winter. Got it on clearence for 7$.  It is
a 2 fan window unit.  You can set either fan to either
blow or suck at varible speeds with a themostat so you
can set it for a "coolness" level.  Now if I cn just
figure out the prober ratio of sucking the warm air
out to blowing the cold air in to properly circulate
the room.

but this it typical of this house.  It has an actual
fuse box.  And it is all 2 wire.  All my things are 3
prong.  I buy a lot of adapters.  I can't even instal
a GFI because there is no groundwire so there wouldn't
be a point.  And in at least one outlet, the polarity
is reversed.  I know because I had my desk top pluged
into one, my laptop plugged into another, and
connected the phoneline between them.  I was lucky. It
only instanly burned out my PCMCIA card controler on
the laptop.  So now there is no way to hook a modem to
the laptop, so it is now a glorified gameboy. (yes I
have an emu).  

i just hope the addition added in the '70s wasn't
wired with aluminum....


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