At Home In The Woods

[Tororider]

You will be surprised how quickly the much gets used. We chipped up twenty yards plus and it was gone within a couple months. Especially if you use it for paths through your woods.

 

[brandoro]

I'd hang onto the chips for a while at least. I can only chip up to 4" stuff but have little piles of chips all over. I use them for muddy spots. They disappear quickly enough that I haven't come close to having enough around that I might sell or give away.
Turning the pile will be good clean fun with the FEL:thumbsup:

 

[Obed]

I hadn't thought about using the chips for paths and muddy spots but those ideas sound like great uses. Our path from the driveway/parking pad to the front door is red clay so we ask guests to come in through the garage. A path of wood chips might work until we have a permanent solution. As a final solution, we've considered putting some kind of pavers as a path to the front door but haven't definitely decided. With the ideas you guys are mentioning, I almost wish I had another mountain of wood chips. I haven't actually gone out and closely inspected the texture of the wood chips but from several feet away they chips look pretty fine, not like the wood chips that normally come to my mind. I believe that texture of our wood chips is fine enough that it will eventually turn into mulch that will be a great source of organic material for gardening.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Electric and low voltage sound like great ideas. I asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running two 1" PVC water lines, a 1" conduit for potential low voltage, and an underground rated power cable. I just need to decide whether to put a 10/2 (120V) or 10/3 (240V) cable. A 10 AWG cable should give me about 15 Amps for a 220 foot cable based on the online cable size calculators. I need to check out how much 220 ft of wire will cost. I imagine we may need an electric fence around the garden to keep the deer out.

Thanks for the input,
Obed

I'm now thinking about running the two water pipes and two 1" conduits for low voltage and electric. You guys raise some good points. If I run a conduit for future electrical, then if I never need power to the garden I will not have gone to the expense of running a 200 ft cable. Also, if I did have a problem with the electrical wire, I could pull out the old cable and run a new one without the major headache of digging another trench.

Thanks for the awesome input. You guys have given us some ideas that have on numerous times prevented us from have the "Man, I wish we had done such and such" regrets.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Fireplace Update
A week ago the fireplace guy came out to our house. This is the ongoing question we are having regarding whether or not our QuadraFire high efficiency fireplace is working correctly. I showed him how the operation of our Automatic Combustion Control (ACC) did not appear to correspond to the description in the manual. I showed him how when you slide the control from the fully closed position, the first 1" or more of sliding the control lever does absolutely nothing to open the cumbustion air hole, contrary to what the manual states. The fireplace store guy contacted his engineer guy at QuadraFire who said that the manual has not been updated after a manufacturing change.

When the store rep was out our house, he noticed the baffle located at the top of our fireplace was a couple inches out of position. He repositioned the baffle to where it should be. The engineer told the store rep that half the calls they get about poor fireplace operation results from the baffle being incorrectly positioned. The baffle at the top of the firebox greatly affects the draft of the fireplace and can seriously adversely affect how well the fireplace drafts and burns.

The store rep told us we should burn a fire now that the baffle has been repositioned. He recommends that we do that now rather than in the fall when they commonly are very busy and may have a difficult time getting out to our house if we need help. Our outdoor temperatures are running between the low 60s at night to the upper 80s and sometimes 90 during the day. I can't say that closing our windows and burning a fire in the fireplace enthuses me at this time. It's not like we could build a short burning fire. We would have to burn the fire for several hours so that we have a good bed of coals to verify whether or not the fire is burning well.

I have to say that anything the manufacturer tells us at this point I listen to with a "Buyer Beware" perspective. I still have concerns that our fireplace may have a manufacturing defect. I'll have to talk to my wife and see what we want to do. We do need to build a test fire now that the baffle has been repositioned to see if our fire will now burn better with the doors closed.

 

[dstig1]

Good choice on the conduit. "Future proofing"

For landscaping, I would wait for things like pavers. The ground is disturbed a lot during construction and it takes time to settle back. Use the wood chips for the time being (you will need to replenish every so often as the decay and sink) and give it a couple years to settle down. The longer the better for these things, and by that I mean years. I know nobody wants to wait that long...

 

[eepete]

On your PVC gutter drain pipes with clean-outs, you might want to think about spray painted them to reduce the visual impact. I did that with mine. Put a big piece of cardboard to protect the house and spray the pipe with some color that is close to the background color of the house/brick (cement in my case).

The first pix is a close-up. The gravel settled a bit so you can see the difference between the natural white PVC and the painted on this background. Second pix is a "normal people view" and not having that white blob of pipe there helps a lot.

It looks marginal close up, but from "normal" viewing distance it makes quite a difference. And I suppose if you really hated it, you could spray paint it back to white :laughing:.

Pete

 

[dcyrilc]

On your PVC gutter drain pipes with clean-outs, you might want to think about spray painted them to reduce the visual impact. I did that with mine. Put a big piece of cardboard to protect the house and spray the pipe with some color that is close to the background color of the house/brick (cement in my case).

The first pix is a close-up. The gravel settled a bit so you can see the difference between the natural white PVC and the painted on this background. Second pix is a "normal people view" and not having that white blob of pipe there helps a lot.

It looks marginal close up, but from "normal" viewing distance it makes quite a difference. And I suppose if you really hated it, you could spray paint it back to white :laughing:.

Pete

Is this where we are suppose to tell you that the downspout in the second pic looks crooked?


Nice stairs though. I really like the look of the stone.:thumbsup:

 

[dstig1]

On your PVC gutter drain pipes with clean-outs, you might want to think about spray painted them to reduce the visual impact. I did that with mine. Put a big piece of cardboard to protect the house and spray the pipe with some color that is close to the background color of the house/brick (cement in my case).

The first pix is a close-up. The gravel settled a bit so you can see the difference between the natural white PVC and the painted on this background. Second pix is a "normal people view" and not having that white blob of pipe there helps a lot.

It looks marginal close up, but from "normal" viewing distance it makes quite a difference. And I suppose if you really hated it, you could spray paint it back to white :laughing:.

Pete

Must be an echo? How many TBN'ers does it take until it's a Good Idea? :laughing:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/157965-home-woods-312.html#post2380477

 

[Obed]

On your PVC gutter drain pipes with clean-outs, you might want to think about spray painted them to reduce the visual impact.
Pete

Pete,
That is a good idea. If I painted mine, I'd probably paint them the same beige color as the downspouts.
Obed