After the second round getting 8 or so inches of snow, I spent the last couple of evenings snowblowing. It is all done though, (sorry, my camera was left at home). I even got a path to the electric panel and the creek cleared as well. Tomorrow's snow has been downgraded to 1-3, so I may not even bother clearing it.
I have been feeding the snowblower a lot of carburetor cleaner, but I have noticed that the various cleaners behave very differently. The mechanic in a bottle stuff worked the best (as I mentioned in the previous entry) but I am noticing that the STP cleaner is inducing some very strange behavior. With the mechanic in a bottle, the snowblower ran best with 1 click of choke, and sputtered a bit with 2 clicks. It ran with no choke, but you lost some RPMs and power. With the STP cleaner, the machine runs noticeably poorly at first when it is cold, but once warmed up, it runs like a brand new machine with 2 clicks of choke. One click runs, but with significantly less power, and no choke is worse still (and borderline unusable, it stalls nearly immediately whenever the engine bogs). It produces the most power and throws the best with the STP and 2 clicks of choke, but that was not the desired outcome. I will admit that despite running with extra choke, it was nice to be able to use 2nd gear for pretty close the whole driveway though... Something I will have to ponder going forward, since I am not sure which is better for the snowblower (and minimizing the amount of time it takes me to clear).
While I was talking to Tim today, he brought up something I hadn't thought of. I have a nice metal roof on my shed that sheds the snow quite well (no leaks yet) with its 6/12 pitch. However, on the side of the shed that is facing uphill, I am having a lot of build up that is now pushing against the side of the shed. A very crude paint special illustration (right side is the problem):
I am not sure what I can do about it, and as long as it doesn't push the shed downhill off the pilings I am not sure it is an issue. It does mean that the siding is absorbing a lot more moisture than I would like it to, especially since it is unfinished T1-11 (I never got to urethaning/sealing or painting it), but I am admittedly mostly concerned about it pushing the shed since it isn't attached to the ground and is only held on the blocks by gravity. So far there have been no problems though. I guess time will tell. I will certainly keep an eye on it.
If you have enough topsoil, you could put in the screw-in ground anchors... if it's rock, drill holes for a lag bolt to anchor it with.
ReplyDeleteThe snow will shift the building if it gets deep enough.
I am monitoring how the shed sits on the blocks and will do something (maybe find a way to melt it with my camp stove?) if it starts to shift, but will definitely look into anchors next year (good luck driving in an anchor now...).
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