Little bit of cap work done.

I wasn't as productive as I should have been over the weekend, but still got a few things going.  When I went shopping on Friday, I picked up an outlet splitter, so I can run a fan behind the space heater full time.  It worked fine, and since it got the temperature controlled outlet away from the door a little bit, it doesn't immediately turn on every time I open the front door.  It still frequently does, but not every time now.  

I spent most of Saturday morning playing around on the tractor, trying to clean up the ice in the driveway.  Because the last storm ended with rain, which created a lot of slush (the rain came on top of a few inches of snow), and then I drove through it, creating ruts, and then everything froze, my driveway has been really bad.  Even in 4WD it sometimes struggled if I got caught in the ruts, which I could then not get out of.  I got everything scraped down as far as I could with the tractor though.  

While I had the tractor out, I also went and tried to finish clearing the slab around the cap.  Even the tractor couldn't break through the ice though.  

I had a casualty while I was beating on the ice, the light on my tractor fell off and I ran over it.  Fortunately it appears to be ok, just a little beat up.

So instead of the tractor I decided to use heat.  It melted the snow pretty quick, but also struggled with the ice.  I also found out that the spout on my kerosene can leaks like a strainer, which is annoying since this is only the second or third time I have used the can.

While I was waiting for the heater to not really work, I shoveled out the back of my truck since I use it as a work bench.  I also got the wheel removed from my riding lawn mower that went flat so I can get a tube or something put in.  I had to bend the washer to get the stupid dust cover off, but oh well.

I went to go start installing some gasketing, and realized that I never actually went through and determined where the gasketing is required, so I drew something up real quick, but by that time I was running out of daylight.  

I started off Sunday by getting a new staple gun.  I have looked everywhere for mine and can't find it.  Sigh.  But I got the gasket for above the window cut and installed.  

I also trimmed the piano hinge for the front, but it started to rain on me, so I aborted for a bit.

Once the NFC championship game was pretty much decided, it had stopped raining so I went out and finished getting the hinge installed.  

I also got the gasketing cut for the windows while I was following the AFC championship game.

I haven't gotten anything from any of the people I was supposed to, so I will be poking people as well this week.  I did start putting together a plan for the house though, so I can hopefully figure out when I have to have certain things done, like the cap, the quotes, etc.  

Winter projects:

• Knock down the dead knotweed. 
• Winterize equipment.  Fire up the generator

• Get the building permit.
• Complete detailed house plans.
• Get contractors in place.  
• Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  
• Design future method of travel.  Consider building the prototype.
  
• Shed floor.
• Shed windows.
• Fix generator box.  Decide/do something about power center.
  
• Clear/mark walking trails.

Short space heater update.

No real update, but I did take apart the space heater that failed last night.  It looks like the wire that feeds the heating element literally burned up.  I see a couple of possible root causes: the crimp was bad/defective and the wires fell out, causing arcing.  Alternatively, the design of the unit did not take into account possible power loss and was designed/built too cheaply, meaning every time it lost power, the unit was unable to dissipate the heat from the heating element, it slowly melted away the wire insulation and all that and eventually the cheapo crimp connector broke from the constant heating and cooling.  It is worth noting that it looks like they used pretty typical wire (undersized in my opinion) which is not rated for the temperature that the heating element surface will reach in standard operation.  It is also worth noting that I have this on a temperature controlled outlet, so it effectively suffers a power loss 50 times a day or so.  

While this is repairable, and fairly easily too (just crimp a new end on it) I definitely wouldn't trust it to heat the house at this point.  Since I plan to buy another backup for the house, I am not sure I have need of a space heater I don't trust and wouldn't use in the house.  If anyone wants it, I will happily fix it for them.  

I haven't heard back from anyone yet, so I will start pushing buttons on the house stuff today.

Another space heater fail.

The second storm wasn't nearly as bad as it was supposed to be.  It only dumped a couple of inches of snow before it switched to rain.  I didn't even need to clear anything this morning, which was a breath of fresh air.  When everything freezes it will be a nightmare, but oh well.  

I did however have another space heater fail.  This makes both of the Pelonis ones in one winter.  Since it wasn't cold last night, it only got down to 61 though.  This one the heating element failed.  Since I doubt the resistors broke down I am guessing something just desoldered, so I might take it apart at some point.  Given the seemingly alarmingly high failure rates I have seen though I am not sure I want to run without a backup for too long, I am down to just the one I got from Aunt.  

Ready for spring.

I took the afternoon off yesterday since the electrical guy was coming out to take a look.  I decided to take advantage of the extra time off to do some snow maintenance given that we are about to get yet still more.  I got the house done more or less.  There is still a tiny bit on the ridge, but oh well.  

The snow slid off the house fairly easily.  Even after 5 years, the polycarb still sheds snow quite well.  So well in fact, that when I was raking the other end of the house, the ice buildup came down on the other end of the house and took out one of my garbage bins.  

I also inadvertently knocked down the cover for my heat pump.  Oops.  Since I am not using it, I am not going to care until spring.

I checked out the snowblower since I was intending to use it to blow the snow I just raked off, but it wouldn't cut through it, it just rode on top.  Kind of annoying.  Turns out that doing the entire place burned enough oil to barely register on the dipstick.  I put a half quart in, and that was too much, but oh well.  

I ended up clearing the slab with the tractor, which was nice since it scraped all the way to the concrete.  

I made an unfortunate error when I was clearing the slab.  I push the snow into the back yard normally, but since the last couple of storms I cleared with the snowblower instead, the tractor struggled to push it.  I almost got the tractor stuck and it slid when I was trying to back out.  Unfortunately the back end slid and the grading blade on the back whacked my clothesline.  The tractor naturally won.  I will have to see if I can fix it come spring.

I tried to rake the carport, but that ended in failure.  I only got a small section of it done, the rake isn't long enough, and it didn't slide off like the house did.  This took me over an hour, at which point I gave up.

On the shed I tried a different tactic.  I just fired up my kerosene heater and ran it out of fuel (a couple of hours).  The hope was that since the shed has a much steeper pitch it would melt the bottom layer and it would slide off.  That failed.  Hopefully it is built well enough to withstand the additional weight it is about to get.  

On a side note, the move from the heat pump to the space heaters definitely paid off.  Despite the same average temperature as last month, my power bill was under 300 dollars, and my usage was notably lower.

Here is a sunrise picture I took on my way in today.  

I am definitely ready for spring at this point.  The electrician said most of the FineLine homes he works with only come with 100A service, which I thought was a bit surprising and I will want to double check (especially how many slots in the panel are available).  That isn't a dealbreaker, but it means if I go off-grid, an upgrade will be required (electric stoves are 50A on their own). Until then though it is fine.  Even with 100A, central air and all that should be fine.  That said, 200A has been standard for quite some time now.  It isn't a painful thing to upgrade down the road if I need to though.  The electrician predictably said since my current 100A wire is not buried to code (not surprising considering it isn't buried at all in some spots), the upgrade to 200A service is basically required.  There is no problem with getting 200A service to the lot and just running a 100A circuit to the house though.  He would take care of dealing with the power company, which is nice, but he also said that most likely they would put the second pole over by the creek, meaning it would cross my driveway.  I don't like it, but I like having to pay to deal with the rock shelf even less, and on the other side there is enough dirt that trenching for burying the wire into the house wouldn't be a problem.  

On the plumbing side, he seemed to think that was all easy stuff.  Something interesting he mentioned is that if my current pressure tank doesn't fit, they make ones that go under the house.  That is kind of an interesting idea, as long as there is sufficient heat tapes around it to keep it from freezing.  I will need heat tapes anyways, so that is a very distinct possibility.  

I should have the quote from him hopefully towards the end of the week or early next week.  Still no word from the excavation guy.

So much for 3-5.

So we were only supposed to get 3-5" out of the storm Sunday and Monday, but we got quite a bit more than that.  I measured it at 14".  They had been changing the estimates a lot the last day or two, but they had been generally decreasing the expected amounts.  Oof.

The good news is that despite my snowblower blowing smoke, it worked just fine.  I got everything cleared with it last night.  I will go pick up more oil for it today just to make sure I have enough on hand in case it needs more.  Yes, the bed of my truck was almost completely filled with snow.  

The guy who sets up the house is coming out today (hopefully) so I should get the quote for getting the plumbing and electrical work on the house done, and I hope a separate quote for upgrading the house to 200A.  I haven't heard back from the excavation guy for the slab yet.

Today is actually supposed to be pretty nice, but more snow is coming tomorrow.  They are currently forecasting 4-6 for Sullivan.  Hopefully they are right this time.  Last week they said this second storm was going to be more (it was originally at 8-10).

Winter is back.

Winter came back this weekend with a vengeance.  We got a snowstorm on Friday.  I left work a little early and actually got home before it was completely dark.  Turns out you can pretty clearly tell where the space heater that is heating my home is located.  It is just to the left of the door.  

My truck got its first recall.  Apparently some of the wiper motors can fail when it rains, which kind of defeats the purpose of wipers.  

Saturday was spent clearing snow.  I was pretty wiped afterwards.

 

Since we were supposed to get another big snowstorm on Monday and another one later in the week, I did a pretty thorough clearing, including snowblowing up to the shed. 

The hillside in Keene was glowing when I went to the gym Saturday night.  I thought it looked kind of cool, though my phone camera didn't capture it well.

Sunday was pretty chilly.  The excavation guy was supposed to come out and take a look around to give me a quote for the slab, but he wasn't feeling well.  I prepared for him anyways, and went and marked where the edges of the proposed slab would be.  

 

Turns out 48' is right out if I wanted to push the slab back.  Even at 44' it is really close to the rock shelf, and I am not sure if he can dig down far enough.  I don't know the state regulations well enough to know if concreting it into the rock shelf is acceptable or not.  The dark splotch is rock that has come to the surface.

All those marks are now gone though because we got a lot more snow.  It was originally supposed to hold off and come in during the day, but I woke up to it at the running boards on my truck, so I am working from home today.  At least now I know that the cap can handle 6-8" of snow.  It is also easy to clear, new roofing slides really well.

Normally I would just clear enough to get the truck out and go in, and deal with everything when I get home, but my snowblower really didn't want to cooperate today.  The first thing I noticed is that apparently the reason that the chute direction change didn't work is that the rod fell out.  Not that it was usable before it fell out.

It has also developed some sort of engine problem.  It started blowing smoke when under load.  It does a little bit while it is idling, but it is much worse under load.  My guess would be some sort of seal or gasket cracked.  It still seems to run ok though, so I might just keep the oil full and run it until it blows up and hope it makes spring whereupon I have another season to replace it.  

 

If it does blow up soon, I might just switch to an electric one.  Less moving parts to break down, since the gas ones at least seem to be built like crap these days.  This snowblower is less than 5 years old.  Briggs and Stratton's reputation has been poor for many years now (the ongoing joke with them is it starts first pull and breaks the second pull), but they make most of the engines on stuff these days (just like MTD is confirmed garbage, but they make most of the stuff these days).  I am just concerned about an electric on a ~325' driveway and ending up needing 5 sets of batteries to do my driveway.  Or I could just bite the bullet and get the one for the tractor.  It sucks to spend 2500 dollars on a snowblower right before taking out a mortgage, but that might suck less than have to do a big snowstorm with the tractor bucket.

Housing update

I went back to FineLine homes yesterday and talked to the salesman I had been working with.  The two finalists that remain I am now looking at the customizations that they can do.  For the 24401 (the one with the hook), I am getting it quoted at the full 28' width for example.  I am mostly concerned with wall space in the living room to be honest, though having some extra space in the bedrooms and kitchen/dining area would be nice as well.  Just as a reminder this is the 24401:

They actually had the other finalist (the 24407, the blue one) mostly set up and I got to walk around in it.  The kitchen looks smaller in real life than it did in the floorplan.  The corner cuts out more of it than I thought.  The one they had was the full 48' long, which adds a few thousand to it, but seems worth it, the other two bedrooms didn't feel tiny.  I still need to figure out how exactly I am going to fit 48' long on my property, but I liked the space.  I didn't have a way to open the paneling for the water heater though (my drill has my 1/4 driver in it and was at home not in my toolbox that stays in the truck), so I didn't get a good look at whether or not the water filter would fit. 

The access panel

The second bath.

Their install crew did a poor job with the carpeting (or it wasn't complete yet, not sure which, the house wasn't 100% assembled).  Also of note, the closets for the other two rooms are not extended, but I would have space to either put a closet or something between the two rooms in the extended floorplan.

The master bath.

I thought the optional window (this is in the master bedroom) was an actual full size window.  I was on the fence about it since it would likely mean I have to put something in front of a window because of a lack of wallspace, but this is something I would definitely get.  

Master Bedroom.

This unit had the door in the utility room removed, and they added a sliding glass door in the dining area.  I really like that upgrade, I am not sure how much that costs though.

The kitchen.  I was told it comes with a fridge, but there isn't one there.  I would clarify that.  I like the almost excessive number of outlets too.

This is the corner that is cut out for the water heater and whatnot.  It looks big on this side.

Just as a reminder, this is the floorplan (albeit for the 44' long version, not the 48').  The 48' adds 2' to every BR and the dining area.

The one I looked at wasn't blue though.

I also got a few more answers: their lead time is currently about three months.  The islands and master bath showers come standard (those were options I would have wanted).  Everything is confirmed propane; the furnace and stove come set up for natural gas but everything comes with a propane conversion kit.

Small stuff update

This week has been pretty busy.  Monday I went to Tim's retirement party; he is moving to RI pretty soon.  The other two nights I went and picked up some AC's.  This time of year is great since they were free.  I got a bigger one for the living room and a smaller one for the bedroom.  I still have my old window unit in the shed too, assuming the mice haven't molested it too much.  Even they would have a tough time fitting through the plastic grille though, so hopefully it is fine.  That should hopefully be sufficient for next summer.  I intend to eventually get central air, but that probably won't be this summer.

Over the course of the week, parts have started trickling in for the camper/cap.  The hinges for the windows are here, the big hinge for the front, and the handles for the windows.  I ordered a gasket to use instead of the aluminum flashing tape, which is due in at the end of the week or early next week.  I still need some grommets and spacers, but those I can get at Home Depot.  

I have one of the guys coming out next to look at the power situation, so I should have the quote for that and a quote for the trailer set up early next week.  I still haven't heard back from the excavation company, I might call them to remind them to check their email.  We are getting 6-10" of snow this afternoon and tomorrow and more next week, so he won't be able to see much if he comes to look at the place, just snow.  If their GC fee at FineLine homes isn't too much, I might also just make it their problem.

One nice thing about this time of year is that I am driving in during sunrise.  The sunrise this morning was gorgeous, and I got to drive in watching the sky constantly changing color. 

Winter projects:

• Knock down the dead knotweed. 
• Winterize equipment.  Fire up the generator

• Get the building permit.
• Complete detailed house plans.
• Work with La Valley to get a concrete contractor.  Get the plan/schedule in place. 
  
• Design future method of travel.  Consider building the prototype.
  
• Shed floor.
• Shed windows.
• Fix generator box.  Decide/do something about power center.
  
• Clear/mark walking trails.