2005-07-23: A Riveting Experience

I did manage to discover that the vinyl windows in the California room are actually removable. All one has to do is turn the latches and tug on the windows, and they come right out, resulting in clear air flow. This discovery majorly increased the airflow through the house.

Next up, I turned my attention to the numerous windows in the house which I've had to leave closed due to the lack of screen for them. Several of the windows are actually missing screens, which means that opening the glass results in a nice wide path for bees, wasps, or even determined birds to fly through. To say nothing of cats pouncing through, on the lower windows, to terrorize the iguana and turtle in their cages.

The window by my PS2 had a screen, but the crank wasn't very reachable. The window one over, had some of its latches broken off, so I couldn't move the screen from the one window to the other. The main issue with that was that the latches were held in place by rivets, which I've never dealt with before. Nor had Brian, and Craig's memory was fuzzy on them. So, upon talking to the Home Depot dudes for a bit, I was sold on a $20 swivelling-head rivet tool, a plastic box of rivets, and a bag of plastic latches.

I was told I'd have to drill the existing rivets out of the frame, but that proved unnecessary. I was able to use a diagonal cutter to cut through both the remnants of the broken-off latch and the rivet, then push the rivet's stub back through the hole. This avoided the whole drilling process.

So basically, this hand riveting tool just requires that you put the rivet to the hole, squeeze a couple of times, and then listen for the metallic clank as the nail-like part of the rivet is broken off from the head. The end result is that now my screens are securely in their frames, and I can open three of the four windows in the living room without fear of random critters invading the house. As a result, the air flow through the living room at night has improved considerably, and it's no longer so hot and stagnant when there isn't a strong breeze.

In other news, I've used the polymer based carpet cleaning stuff to great effect; it has removed the orange spot under my couch/bed in the living room. I'm going to have to rent a rug doctor again though, to perform another aggressive cleaning on the carpet. Overall, the progress in the carpet area is quite satisfactory.

My progress on obtaining replacement screens, however, is less so. It seems that the design of the screen window frames in this mobile home is either dated back to the 1960s, or entirely proprietary. I'll take a few pictures later of the design of the screen and window frames. It's quite ingenious, and simple in design - but if you can't find replacement frame material, you're stuck with open-air holes into the house any time you open one of the windows for which a screen does not exist. I haven't entirely given up on finding replacement screens, but they do seem even rarer than the window operators were.