Eliminating Staircase Drafts

As with many older homes, the Domicile Ecophile homestead is full of gaps, leaks, and cracks.  Once our first winter arrived we immediately identified some of the worst problem areas where cold air was flooding into the home.  Ever hold your hand by an electrical outlet and feel cold air coming out?  Ever gone into the garage and found it to be as cold out the outdoors?  Ever felt cold air drafting in through an old window?  If you own a home, especially an older one, you probably have.

Poor insulation and other heating and cooling leaks are a major source of energy loss.  Energy efficiency is a huge part of sustainability.  Fuels need to be extracted at great environmental cost, transported, refined, and probably burned to generate electricity or heat in your home.  Not only is heated or cooled air out the window also money out the window, but it is also a waste of natural resources.  The case for energy efficiency is a strong and complex one, but its depth is for another post.

Image courtesy of http://goo.gl/exogy1

This post, rather, is about one simple fix that others may be able to replicate in their own homes, maybe yours.  We identified that gaps had opened up between the top of the risers (vertical part) and the bottom of the treads (horizontal park) on our interior staircase.  This was partly due to loosening of the shims on the back of the stairs that keep the treads and risers tight, and partly due to settling and shrinkage of the wood.  If your stairs squeak you may have the same condition.

And what exactly is the problem with this unassuming gap?  Below the stairs is a crawlspace open to the garage  The garage is poorly insulated and the doors poorly seal.  The air in the garage is typically only a few degrees warmer than outdoor air.  This air was in direct contact with the bottom of the staircase via the crawlspace.  Cold air was pouring in the 1/8 inch gaps between the risers and treads and the wood itself was chilled to near-freezing temperatures.  The staircase, needless to say, was very cold.  No doubt the cold air was pooling in the lower level and causing the furnace to run almost incessantly.

The first step was to use a block of wood and a hammer to force the tightening shims on the underside of the stairs back into place.  Some makeshift shims had to be fabricated because the originals were long gone.  The re-tightening reduced the size of the gaps and dampened the squeaking by pushing the treads back into place and reducing the amount each wooden component of the staircase could move.  Next I was off to buy some good 'ol R-13 fiberglass insulation.  I applied the insulation to the walls forming the inside of the crawlspace to limit the amount of 'garage air' making contact with the interior walls and stairs.  Using my bare feet as a measuring device I could tell this did help quite a bit!  The next step was to cut some strips of insulation to staple to the gaps in the staircase from the crawlspace side. This did a pretty good job of nearly eliminating the airflow through the cracks.  Both of these modifications are visible in the photo above.

The last step was the best part.  I decided I could add an additional blocking layer to the interior side of the stairs by adding some 1/2 inch cove moulding to the understand of the nosing of the treads. Not only did this reduce my heat loss, but it also added an elegant touch to the staircase.  I do have some professional construction experience, but even a novice would be able to handle this job:  The complex angled cuts and coping associated with moulding don't apply here since both ends are straight cuts against the stringers.  Just about any fine toothed saw and a careful hand can cut the wood to length to be added under the stairs.  I hand-nailed them with just a few 3d bright finish nails.  We'd call this 'tacking' them since the nailing is minimized for aesthetics and needs only to hold up just a few ounces of wood.

It was immediately evident how much improvement to the temperature the alterations made.  Before the changes, a person siting on the stairs could actually feel the cold air sloshing down the staircase, especially along the lowest stairs.  The wood was very cold as was the hallway below.  Now the treads themselves are warmer, there is no cold draft and the whole area lacks the bite it had before.  It's just a reminder that sustainability and conservation start at home.  My bare feet are much happier, and hopefully my wallet will be as well.

the Seeds of Spring

It may still be winter and there may be a foot of snow on the ground here at Domicile Ecophile, but it is time to start planning for this spring's plantings. Since I was a child I have planted seeds indoors before the last frost to give the plants a head start. In those early days it was my father mentoring me with his green thumb as he taught me to start beans and tomatoes in our basement windows.

 This will be the first complete growing season for us here and I intend to make the most of it. We have a long, long way to go in covering our typical American xenoscape into the native habitat that I envision. There are physical repairs and improvements for the house that need to take place before we make large-scale changes to the shrubs and trees. (Construction might damage new plantings adjacent to the house.) There is plenty of room, however, for some perennials and garden plants in the outlying areas.

 The live plants and rootstocks won't be delivered until the last frost approaches, but the seeds have already arrived. We'll be planting a handful of garden plants this year; pumpkins, wax beans, and carrots. These domestic annuals are not exactly native species, but garden vegetables are essentially non-invasive and planting a garden is a great asset for household sustainability. Home gardens reduce the need for shipping produce across the country and gardeners can control the pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (or hopefully lack thereof) added to the crops. The benefits of gardening are diverse and abundant, but the full scope of them is food for another post.

 Besides the vegetables we'll be planting some flowers this year. Zinnias are a favorite of mine not just for their appearance, but also for the seeds they provide to birds like goldfinches in the fall. Lupine and Cardinal Flower are two Northeast natives that will be planted in large number this year. Their tall size will help to fill the vertical space that will be left above a terrace where some Japanese Barberry is slated for obliteration. The Cardinal Flower should also be a strong draw for hummingbirds this fall. We'll also be planting some Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) from seed.  This is not Butterfly Bush, the invasive Asian shrub that attracts adult butterflies but provides no food to the caterpillars of those species.  Rather, Butterfly Weed is a native milkweed perennial that provides food for entire life cycles of native butterfly species.  We planted a number of these last summer and I am waiting to see how well they survived the winter and if the seeds they produced last fall will emerge elsewhere.

It's still a bit early to plant most of these seeds, but the Cardinals and Lupine can take over a month to germinate.  They will be going into some potting soil soon enough.  I find thrill in planting something new and observing how the timing of its first emergence, the manner in which it grows, and the forms the leaves and flowers take as they develop.  In short, I can't wait for spring.

Salted Earth Campaign

Legend has it that when Rome sacked Carthage in 146 B.C. the roman general ordered the defeated city to be sowed with salt.  The intent?  That no man would ever again be able to farm or eke out a living from the conquered land.  The tactic seems to have roots going back far into the ancient cultures of the Middle East.  How much is legend and how much historical fact is somewhat unclear, but one things is unquestionable: Salt kills plants.

At least most plants, save those with special adaptations for living in saline environments, are efficiently killed by salt.  This is certainly the case for plants used for farming, gardening, and landscaping.  To be more accurate, sodium chloride (table salt) donates chlorine and sodium ions in soil that deprive plants of the vital macronutrient potassium, interfere with photosynthesis, and result in other damaging effects on roots and plant health.  In short, salt is bad news for plants.

According to an article by Don Talend from the surface water journal Stormwater, Americans use an estimated 15 million tons of salt for roadway de-icing annually and Canadians an estimated 4 to 6 million tons.  According to Smithsonian.com, that's 137 pounds of salt for every American; man, woman, and child.  By spring the salt that whitens our roads and covers our cars has disappeared.  But this disappearing act is not magic by any means.  Twenty million tons of minerals don't simply vanish.  These highly soluble minerals, rather, have been carried by the spring rains down storm drains, into streams and rivers, and even been deposited into the soil itself.  No, this salt it not gone.  It's simply been relocated, and not in the form of the coarse grains laid down by plow trucks but now as a microscopic layer of precipitate blanketing individual grains of sand and silt in the soil.  We are waging a salted earth campaign against ourselves.

What is the consequence of years of burying our land in salt?  An article from Cleveland.com reports that Atlantic Coast salt marsh plants are now taking up residence along highways in Ohio as a result of the change in soil chemistry.  Native plants are poisoned or stressed to the point of failure or susceptibility to other ailments.  Landscaping is browned or killed and synthetic fertilizers with their own host of ecological problems are applied to alleviate the problems.

On the other hand, what other options do we have?  Should we leave our roads untreated and allow cars accidents and damage to person and property?  Should be shut down our schools and businesses for the winter?  Obviously these are not realistic or sustainable options.  There are, however, some principles that can be applied to reduce that 137 pounds per capita to a more manageable and reasonable amount.

The salt selection at a typical grocery store.

The first strategy is choosing the best deicer.  There are a variety of salts available for use as de-icing agents.  All have pros and cons.  Standard "rock salt" actually contains small amounts of several salts, but for the most part it is sodium chloride (NaCl).  This is the same substance most of us put on our french fries and meats.  Sodium chloride has the benefit of being plentiful, cheap, and effective to about 15°F.  (Salt works by lowering the effective freezing temperature of water, so this means sodium chloride makes the freezing point of water something like 15°F instead of 32°F.)  This means that below 15°F the salt has little effect.  The main downside is that this salt donates sodium and chlorine ions in soil, both of which have the detrimental effects already discussed.

Calcium chloride (CaCl₂) is another highly effective melting agent.  In fact, calcium chloride will melt ice as low as -25°F.  It has the enormous advantage of not containing sodium, the worse of the two ions produced by sodium chloride.  Unfortunately it is much more expensive and contains twice the chlorine of sodium chloride (though exactly how much is mobilized in soil needs to be the subject of further research).  My personal preference is potassium chloride (KCl).  Potassium chloride melts ice a few degrees better than standard sodium chloride (12°F).  Like calcium chloride, it lacks sodium but better than calcium chloride it has no more chlorine than sodium chloride.  Potassium is actually a required plant nutrient present is most fertilizers.  Unfortunately this salt is also more expensive.  Last up is magnesium chloride (MgCl₂).  This is the blue-colored "ice melter" seen in some stores.  Like all of the alternative deicers it is more expensive than common rock salt.  I am not an advocate of this salt because despite being rated as effective to 5°F, I have found it to have a very narrow effective melt area.  In other words, it may melt ice at a lower temperature but it doesn't "spread" and instead just melts grain-sized tunnels into the ice.  Like calcium carbonate it contains double the chlorine of sodium chloride.  This information, as well as more concerning lesser-known deicers, can be found in the Purdue University Extension Publication ID-412-W.

While the average homeowner can't on their own change the choice of salt used by local road crews, he or she can make better choices for their own plot of land and that is what Domicile Ecophile is all about.  Calcium chloride and potassium chloride seem like the best options from a chemical standpoint as long as budget allows.  Next it is important to understand that salt only works to a certain temperature.  This week at Domicile Ecophile we have seen high temperatures between 5° and 10°F; lower than the effective temperature of most salts.  A great way to stay in budget and reduce the amount of salt leached into the environment is to be smart about applying salt only when it can be effective.  Sand or gravel can be another option when traction is needed but temperatures are too low for salting.  Lastly, we have all seen piles of salt left on the road or sidewalk.  Let's be judicious about how we apply salts.  Reducing waste is better for the environment and our budgets.  Some walkways around the yard may not need to be cleared in winter.  Likewise some portions of very large driveways may not need to be cleared or deiced either, reducing the total volume of salt applied.  Lastly, consider the relief of your property.  Take a look at where the runoff from your salted surfaces eventually ends up.  Is there a garden directly downstream of a walkway or driveway?  If so you may want to alter your salting practices or add a berm to divert water away from sensitive plants.

So this winter take a look at that bag of ice-melter before you purchase it.  Consider which salt is actually in that bag.  Be smart about when and how much salt you apply.  Let's work to minimize the amount of unnecessary salt we add to our soil: I think the romans would approve.