At Home In The Woods

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I've been lurking on this for a while. Really, really good info. Obed, you folks are really "moving on up"!
Awesome house, sorry you had people problems. Hope those stay away.

eepete, you are a wiring Phd. Please remind me to take stock in the wiring company if you ever build again. How do your remotes work to your DVR's installed in your wiring central hub room?

Eddie, you really bring a lot to this board with your building knowledge.

 

[eepete]

I love it. I'll tell you what went wrong, Eddie will tell you how to do it right .

Kyle, there are infrared receivers you can buy that you put in a room. They are wire connected (I use CAT5 cable) to a box that then drives a LED (or you can drive one IR LED with a receiver). So I have a receiver in the TV room and the master bed room, and the LEDs shines on the DVR in the wiring room in the basement. I just hate looking at a stack of equipment and all the displays. We do have a shelf in the TV room that hold the DVD player (would be a pain to have to run to the basement to change media).
If you're looking at getting an IR receiver, it's tricky. There are lots of models and lots of other things to consider. I'm ashamed that the geeks can't make it simpler and suspect the marketing people get some of the blame. Rather than hijack this thread, if anyone ever goes that route, fire up a thread and I'll chime in.

And if I ever decide to build a house again, just shoot me. :laughing:

Pete

 

[valley]

Your guys rolled it over and over and really touched every angle. Good thread!

 

[charlz]

Painting Questions
Are there any specifications we should give them regarding materials and how certain things should be done?

High-quality semi-gloss everywhere in the interior, makes wiping up those little hand prints and crayon marks that much easier :thumbsup:

 

[Obed]

Everybody,
Thanks for all the time you guys took to provide some great answers to my questions. You've given us some things to check on when we hire the drywallers and painters.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Thursday after work I continued prepping for the installation of the electrical pedestal. Pictures of my earlier pedestal prep work are shown here.

I need to set two 6x6 posts 4' on center. After the posts have been set, the electrician will build the pedestal using the 6x6 posts.

I had time to dig one post hole 12" in diameter and 3' deep. I hit a big rock at 2.5' deep. I almost just decided to stop there figuring 2 1/2 feet was deep enough. However, I hope to not to have to rebuild this thing during my lifetime so I got out my digging bars. It took 30 minutes to dig and pry out the rock. I then finished digging the hole to 3 ft. deep. The hole for the second post will have to be dug at later date.

 

[Obed]

Battery Replacement
The wife got a replacement tractory battery yesterday. I installed the new battery this morning.

This task was one of those jobs that should be easy, right? Replacing a battery should not take long. Well it took an hour Wed. night to remove the battery, mostly because the hardware holding the battery was extremely corroded. In addition, the bolts that tighten the battery terminal connectors required a 1/2" socket (English). The corroded bolts that secure the battery took 12mm (metric) sockets. It took a while for me to clean off the bolt head and figure out it was a metric size instead of English. I am never thrilled when one piece of machinery uses both metric and English bolts and nuts.

That thing on the bottom of the bolt is supposed to be a nut.

When attempting to tighten the bolts that hold down the battery, the bolt "nuts" dissentigrated. So off to the True Value Hardware store I go. Fortunately, the hardware store is less than 5 minutes away.

I got some shiny new bolts, nuts, washers, and lock washers and installed the new battery.

It took 75 minutes to install the new battery including the first attempt using the old hardware and the trip to the hardware store.

I used the tractor all day today and the battery seemed to do fine. So I'm assuming that the alternator is working correctly and that the old battery just went bad. I suppose I could use a volt meter to measure the voltage to confirm the alternator is working as Cyril suggested but I'll find out soon enough if the battery looses its charge.

 

[CurlyDave]

Obed:

Two things.

1. In the pix of digging for the posts your clothes are entirely too clean and too nice for this work.

2. On a more serious note when I look at the listing for the 61 Acres you have for sale, one of the descriptions of the property is "recreational".

Out here on the left coast, when a property is described as "recreational" that means it is not possible to build a dwelling on the property, usually for legal reasons.

Most buyers stay as far as possible from recreational property since they usually want a home site.

You might want to check with your realtor on that issue, since I presume you would accept money from a transplanted westerner. If it is possible to build on the property, I would substitute "scenic".

 

[jinman]

Painting Questions
We are getting ready to interview painters. Do you guys have any suggestions as to what questions we should ask the painters? Are there any specifications we should give them regarding materials and how certain things should be done?

Do you have any fiberglass exterior doors? I have Thermatru fiberglass exterior doors on my house. They have special stain/paint kits for those doors from Thermatru that have a very good guarantee on how long the paint will last (5 years if their instructions are followed). My painter "poo-poo'd" all of that and said they have their own method that's just as good. Don't believe that kind of talk for a second. Demand that those doors are finished with the manufacturer's products using their processes. My stain on my doors looked horrible after less than a year. The sun was just brutal and the stain turned to a chalky peeling mess. After sanding the doors down and using Thermatru's stain kit I bought, I'm not really happy with my color selection, but the stain has held up at least three times as long as the paint put on by the painting contractor. If you have any doubts, check your door manufacturer's website for finishing details.

 

[woodlandfarms]

A couple of side notes on my end.

On the paint, the wife is completely AR. We have a folder in the house that has all the paint cards (the little tags put on the can lids) as well as the swatch and test paint strip on cardboard. Paint cans get messed up, and in a year when you need touchup and you can't read the paint can lid, and they have changed the names of the paints, this really helps.

I would buy some small cans to put touchup paint in. You don't want 1 gallon of leftover paint sitting in a 5 gallon bucket.

I would like to give you a pitch for considering home automation (and thus wiring for it). Security, Video Security (I am a big fan of video security), and weather station info is really handy. We have both video security, as well as a weather station. The weather station is hugely handy in monitoring what the temp is inside the house when we are away. If you can afford to get fancy, you can get an internet controlled thermostat and control the house temp while you are gone. You can also get small water alarms that will go off when wet (under a fridge and hotwater heater). Very handy.

Problem is that as said before with TV controls, Things are not very standardized, these companies go out of business all the time, and the technology (all of it including TV) is going to be pretty much wireless in the next 5 years or so.

Oh, and have you thought ahead to how you are getting interenet, TV and phone to the house? Not just in the house but to it? Cable and Sat guys have a tendancy to not really care about how your house looks, and bolt their gear wherever they feel like it.

Anyway. Nothing sucks more than getting your house done and then having a bunch of wires running under the eaves.

Carl