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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • It’s an interesting read - a lot of her experiences she’s discussing boil down to feeling she was ignored or her voice minimized because of her perceived gender identity and assumptions about how she was raised and what she would feel.

    I liked her discussion and thought her perspective on purposely not transitioning was an interesting view. This was a really good analogy and drove home the point for me:

    Imagine, dear reader, a cis-woman evenly saying:

    “I wish I looked like that but I don’t and can’t. It sucks and it makes me feel really awful if I brood on it. That’s why I focus on my writing—I’d rather make things. Investing in and building things that aren’t my body helps me cope with the body issues I’ve been saddled with against my will.”

    She doesn’t sound like she needs advice on how makeup will actually fix her core problem, does she? She seems like she’s doing alright. I’m her and I’m trans. That’s all.

    Some big quotes that hit home through this post were

    Do I need to be inspected and dissected by the people who laughed at me in order to receive my credential?

    “I play along,” one of them told me, “because in the queer community the only people who defend cisboys are cisboys. I don’t want to give up finally being read as a girl.”

    Oof.

    I don’t know if it’s just the sections of the internet I frequent these days, but this intense, misandrist views don’t seem to be as common as they once were, and not as accepted.

    I was born into that shitty town, maleness, in the remains of outdated ideals and misplaced machismo and repression and there are some good people stuck living there. They are not in charge. They did not build it. And I don’t feel okay just moving out and saying “fuck y’all — bootstrap your way out or die out, I was never one of you.” I want to make it a better, healthier place—not spend all my time talking about how shitty it is and how anyone who would choose to live there deserves it.


  • Civil engineer with a number of courses in building science (aka this).

    Can’t tell for sure without seeing what kind of insulation it is, but there are a few factors.

    First, as other people have mentioned, having temperature gradients cause moisture issues. Typically, in modern construction in cold weather climates like Canada, we install a single waterproof layer. Cold weather, this goes inside of the insulation (between the insulation and the drywall), and in hot weather places, it’ll be installed outside the insulation.

    Explanation why

    The reason (simplified) for this basically boils down to hot air holds more water. As the air cools, it drops off the extra water it can no longer carry on nearby surfaces. You want to make sure hot air stays hot, and cold air stays cold. If you allow air that is hot to cool down, it will create moisture.

    My understanding of the houses this is being done in, there is no vapour barrier, meaning damp+ moisture can accumulate.

    Second, new houses in NA have a “minimum air exchange”, which is a specific amount of air that needs to move through the house within a given time frame, typically air changes per hour (ACH rating). This is usually accomplished by means of a central heating/ductwork units, and bedrooms are generally somewhere around 4-8, meaning all the air in the bedroom should be refreshed 4 to 8 times per hour. My understanding of many of these houses is that there is not central air system. Before the insulation, it is likely that small gaps or holes in the walls/exterior siding were sufficient to allow enough air to move through, however that air slows down when there is insulation sprayed into the cavities. Any slowdown will exacerbate moisture problems, as still air is bad. More air exchanges also would allow the house to dry out more, as evaporation would help.

    Those are the general situations that would likely be a problem.

    In this case, from reading the article, it seems like she has a hole in her roof, which is either new or was not caught by the installers. ANY source of water ingress would cause mold problems. The issue here is that previously, it is likely that the water trickled down the inside of the cladding (likely brick), and out at the base of the wall. Once you add insulation to that cavity, it’ll hold water and cause mold problems. Seems like a shitty spot to be in.