I've been leaving mine out on my covered but not closed in porch at 29 - 30 degrees. The mini's are in a little portable greenhouse out there but the pots and bareroots are just kept near the house but outside. So far so good. The ones I got from the Sacramento Cemetery Sale I am bringing in. Mostly due to the radical difference in nighttime temps between Sacramento and here. I don't want them getting shocked. So I think 39 is just fine. But do you have any overhead coverage? Can you stash them on a porch like mine? It afford some warmth and would help I feel. Kate

Don't accuse the mason of incompetence; that forces you to set standards for the work after the fact and the contractors will simply disagree. Instead, ask the General Contractor what cold weather brick construction standard he has asked his masonry sub to use. If none, ask him to find out what standard the mason did use. The standard referenced by the IRC and the IBC is "TMS 602/ACI 530.1/ASCE 6, Article 1.8 C" and is written by the Masonry Standards Joint Committee (The Masonry Society, the American Concrete Institute, and the American Society of Civil Engineers). This standard requires that new brickwork be covered in the conditions you describe. There are reference standards but they usually based on the above standard so the requirements are essentially the same. A typical architect/engineer written specification would establish TMS 602/ACI 530.1/ASCE 6 as the standard for all brickwork and often it will include a requirement that when the air temperature is expected to go below 40 degrees, before laying brick, the contractor must submit for approval a written description of the precautions to be taken. Even though TMS 602/ACI 530.1/ASCE 6 is the industry consensus and building code standard, I doubt your GC owns a copy of it since it costs $100 but for the masonry contractor it should be his bible. Why owners let home builders write contracts that omit virtually all standards and owner protections is a mystery to me.

You should find a material to fit then entire floor, not just the holes. If you only cover the holes with little pieces of anything you will run into problems with the contact paper later on. Like they said ^. Get a cheap piece of lauan or plywood or MDF cut to the exact size and secure it to the bottom, this will add surprising stability to the cabinet. (you could also glue it with wood glue when you screw in place, if you know how). Any type of oil base paint would work to seal the wood covering, Kilz is good in a pinch, but the paint shop might have a miss match in a quart of oil paint, buy a trow away brush. You should seal the wood with primer first, but in a pinch you can use a coat of wall paint as a primer. If you secure the wood down, there should be no problem at all in attaching an L bracket or what ever, you will want to pre-drill the holes in the facing board but not the original bottom board.

zippity's storm Claudette, may hold the record for rain "measured in 24 hours", but I think Hurricane Camille likely beat it back in 1969, just south of me in central Virginia. The rain gauges in the hardest hit areas either overflowed or washed away with the buildings they were attached to. The largest official measure was 27 inches in 8 hours, but 31 inches were measured in formerly empty oil drum, and even that wasn't in the hardest hit area. Plus most of that rain fell in a three hour period.