Winterize your outdoor pet hourse

I found the perfect material for adding insulation to my outdoor pet house. Fiber glass is unsuitable because they are for filling cavity that you never touch or breath into. Rigid materials are difficult to cut to size, and do not fit my plastic house with odd corners and odd wall angles. Soft materials are too time consuming to fix onto my plastic walls.

This one looks like some packaging material like packing peanuts. It's like Styrofoam but semi rigid. It's like bubble wrap but it is very dense and the bubbles are not visible. It's cheaper than packaging material - 3.5" x 50' for less than $5.

It's not very thick so it's easy to go around non-flat places. After application it's not bulky so my pet house remains portable, and easy to dissemble for cleaning. It's light weight so I can stick it at the roof with tapes and not worrying something heavy falling down crushing my pet.

It goes very well with sticky tapes. I got clear packing tape 2" x 50m for less than $2. You can tape the insulation to plastic or to other pieces of insulation. Nothing absorb moisture so it will last a long time and the thermal property will not degrade. You can even use it to rain proof something.

The insulation will withstand water and likely steam. The tape may withstand water spraying on it but I'm not sure about soaking and steaming. Washing a big pet house is too much of a hassle. I'll scoop away the dirt and wipe wet spots with newspaper. Occasionally I steam clean the really part. So I don't worry about washing and steaming very much.

The insulation is very difficult to break by pulling, but can be easily cut with a scissor. You can also easily pierce holes in it. I don't feel that big and small pets will want to mess with it. Or, you can always use it only on the roof and on the outside.

The insulation will take adhesive well, such as the caulk adhesive that I use. But I want to rip off some of the insulation in summer, and reuse it the next winter. So I used adhesive tape. If I have a wooden house, I will use staple guns or thumb nails. If you take out the staples carefully, I guess the tiny holes will seal itself.

Because of it's semi rigid property, I can use it for sealing the metal grid door. Leave some extra insulation and it will cover the gaps when the door closes.

For the heater, there's simpler things than my broken low power solder iron. 10W is about right for a small heater. For 110V supply, you need 1.1K ohm resister with > 10W rating. The resister is pretty cheap and so is the electricity consumption.

If you have some cavity to fill, the best and free is supermarket plastic bags compacted. They trap air and do not absorb moisture. I have a two inch high void between the platform and the floor. The bags will get dirty given time. I can just wash them and dry them in the sun. Then use them again or recycle.

Multi-flush toilet problems

Previously I discovered that my old 13G toilet can use as little water as new dual flush toilets, and maybe even less, because I have 2nd chances.

The adjustable flappers can reduce the water usage but maintain powerful flush. The problem is the refilling of the toilet bowl. Because less water is used, the tank refills faster, but the toilet bowl do not have enough time to refill, about an inch or less water level. This lead to very poor flush. Because of the poor flush, the toilet bowl will still be full after flush. So the next flush will be perfect. I call this odd-even flush phenomena.

You still save water if you need to flush twice for the even flush. Sadly no conventional valve can be adjusted to refill faster.

My experiment is to siphon water from the tank down the toilet bowl continuously with a driper. My estimate is that about 10 liter of water is wasted per day this way. So it is equivalent to a few flushes. So if the toilet is used a few times a day it will break even. The problem is having enough time in between flushes for the bowl to refill.

Ant blocking materials for house repair

Surprisingly, I have been battling ants most of summer, everyday. It wasn't that bad at all. In the past, I filled a few big holes so the ants cannot come in the house. Now since I have the ammunition, I can't tolerate ants crawling into the space between the house and me, even though they may not bother me at all.

Mostly I use my lime sand mix for filling big holes and for the underside of things, typically around the damp proof course. Lime shrinks a lot so sometimes one application will still leave holes when dry. Also there may be tiny holes and spaces in between applications.

The other main thing is wood stabilizing glue, because it is cheap. Typically around gaps on vertical wood frames and fences, and any holes on the ground. It is quick and easy, but cannot apply on the underside of things and don't stay long that way. So when all the masonry holes are filled, the ants start to come at the door frames and wooden fences. They don't walk into the doors though. They may not last long and they attract dirt, but they can be painted on or removed. It doesn't matter if I can't see the spots.

The other thing I use is clear caulk adhesive. It's just as easy and a little more expensive. It's for the places that I don't want it to look bad. It last but easily removed.