Miscellaneous

This is for people who, like me, (a) live in New Orleans, and (b) live in and old wood-frame house raised up on piers. Under your house is all your plumbing. And we?ve got an Arctic express heading our way, due to arrive Friday. If you?re wondering how to keep your pipes from freezing, read on.

You need to put a wind barrier around the bottom of your house. Years ago, my landlord would use roofing tar paper for this purpose. It blocked the wind fine, but it tore easily. I prefer plastic sheeting. You can buy it at Home Depot or probably Lowe?s. Yesterday I picked up 5 rolls of 3'x50' sheeting, 4 mils thick. The idea is to wrap this stuff around the bottom of your house, to prevent the wind from blowing underneath.

Other stuff you?ll need: a heavy-duty staple gun, lots of bricks, and duct tape. The staple gun is to anchor the top part of the sheet to your house. I staple at the second weatherboard. The bricks are to anchor the bottom part of the sheet to the ground.

Why the duct tape? When the wind blows, the plastic sheeting will easily tear through the staple. So before you staple that sucker to the weatherboard, put a square of duct tape on the plastic sheet, and staple through duct tape and plastic sheeting. If you do that, the cold wind may blow, but your plastic sheeting will not tear through the staple.