At Home In The Woods

[clemsonfor]

Yesterday my wife called the electrician and told him about the electrical smell in our foyer. Today two of his workers came by to check things out. They replaced a switch, tightened a wire terminal connection, and replaced the light bulbs in one of the light fixtures. The bulbs had some construction debris melted on them.

The smell seems to be gone now and so is $80 of our money. My wife is crying the blues a little because the electricians didn't do anything we couldn't have done. I have not had any time during daylight hours to personally address the issue so we got help.

OK just to get this straight the smell was 2 weeks ago right and you just called! I know you did not use it but did you cut the breaker off? There is till power to all that stuff even with breaker on, well not the fixture but the wires and switch still have power. If you tripped the breaker fine, disregard this.

But i dont think i would have paid him anything except his bulbs if he put his in and not yours. How long ago did you get occupancy permit? Nothing was your fault in this problem. Dust on bulbs, maybe since he could say you need to clean after construction (big guys hire a maid service to do this for owners to move in). But a loose connection and a faulty switch that HE installed on his original job, how is that your fault unless you provided materials? Im just saying i think he charged you for something that should not have paid for.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Yesterday my wife called the electrician and told him about the electrical smell in our foyer. Today two of his workers came by to check things out. They replaced a switch, tightened a wire terminal connection, and replaced the light bulbs in one of the light fixtures. The bulbs had some construction debris melted on them.

The smell seems to be gone now and so is $80 of our money. My wife is crying the blues a little because the electricians didn't do anything we couldn't have done. I have not had any time during daylight hours to personally address the issue so we got help.

$80 for a call out of any type of trade is a good deal. They supplied the parts and did the work. Dont worry about the $80, that is a fair price.

Chris

 

[Obed]

It wasn't cut and dry who should be responsible for the electrical issue. I'm not certain whether the smell was caused by the switch, the loose connection, or the light bulbs. I can't say for sure there was a loose connection; the worker just said he tightened the connection. There appeared to be melted plastic on the light bulbs. The melted plastic on the bulbs was definitely not the electrician's fault.

Since fault could not be definitely assigned, it made little sense to hold back payment. They appear to have fixed the problem. And, I may need them to come back for something else.
Obed

 

[tony Cecil]

Now you`r talking....I value the relationship until I am done wrong maybe twice...The first time I could be too critical..

I also usually wear the same outfit when I am working outside, and a different one usually in the summer......Sometimes my first outfit is in the wash , always the same boots --winter or summer--

Back to the `fireplace`....Have you had further use of it?? and if so how much fuel did you burn approximately?? Tony

 

[Obed]

Back to the `fireplace`....Have you had further use of it?? and if so how much fuel did you burn approximately?? Tony

Tony,
I'm sitting by a warm fireplace as we speak. The fireplace is definitely usable and puts out good heat. We have used our H&A very little so far. We have had a fire going round the clock for most days this month. I'm going to guess we have used at most a 3'x3'x3' pallet of wood, maybe significantly less.

We have mostly been burning the 25' x 15" red oak log that I cut and split 2 1/2 weeks ago and still have another week of burning before that red oak is gone. The red oak log must have been dry enough. It has probably been sitting uncut and unsplit on top of our log pile for 2 years.

The fireplace burns well enough if we baby it some. I wish it would let more air in the firebox when the doors are shut and the air control is wide open. Until the fireplace gets some good hot coals in it, we have been leaving the doors cracked in order to provide enough combustion air to keep the fire going. The drier the wood, the better the fire burns with the doors closed.

Obed

 

[Ranger Rick]

Tony,

The fireplace burns well enough if we baby it some. I wish it would let more air in the firebox when the doors are shut and the air control is wide open. Until the fireplace gets some good hot coals in it, we have been leaving the doors cracked in order to provide enough combustion air to keep the fire going. The drier the wood, the better the fire burns with the doors closed.

Obed

Obed
We have a Jotul freestanding wood stove and there are times when I am starting a fire that I have to open the ash door to give the fire some additional air to get the fire going well. Maybe these stove manufactures have a reason for not wanting a fire to have as much air as we could give it. I know that once the fire is going, it will stay going well with the doors closed and it would be a blast furnace if I give the fire much more air by opening the ash door at all.
Rick

 

[clemsonfor]

Rick, he has some sort or efficient fireplace setup. NOt a stove or an insert.

But to what you said, my High Valley wood stove insert (also can be freestanding with a leg kit) needs to have the door cracked at first to let air in. Its all because the chimney is not hot when u first light up so it dosent draft well and pull air through. With my door closed and hot fire if i leave the air control open i have flames filling the box and the room will approach 90F and will burn the wood up in 4-6 hours most likely. If i damp it way down (catalyst stove) i can get 13-14 hours of heat out of it and still keep the room over 80F and the rest of the hours a few degrees over 61F at the farthest from stove. My first floor is around 2500sqft.

 

[Obed]

Check out these great (and free) pallet boxes I picked up this week! My wife found these when she was looking around for pallets. She got permission from the business that had the pallets to let us have them. I will use these pallet boxes for firewood.

Tuesday I picked up the boxes after work. There are 4 pallets. Three of them were easy to access. However, the 4th pallet was in the dumpster so I went dumpster diving. There was some trash that I had to remove from the pallet before I could lift the pallet out of the dumpster.

While removing the trash I dropped a 40 lb 5 gallon bucket full of old dried out sheetrock mud on my hand. Ouch! I first was afraid I might have broken my hand. It swelled up immediately. The pain lessened in a few minutes so I was able to finish loading the last pallet into my truck. The next morning, my hand felt much better. By then I was certain my had was not broken. My hand still has some slight swelling today but is completely usable.

I am excited about using these pallets for our firewood. I just wish I could get more. My wife is going to call the business where we got the pallets and see if we can get more. I want to know what was delivered in the pallets. If I can find that out, we might try to see if we can find other businesses that have pallets like these. The chances for a source for more of these box pallets will be found seems dubious; these box pallets are too good to be true. However, my hopes are up that we can find a way to more of these pallets.

 

[clemsonfor]

Those 4 should hold close to enough wood for an entire winter for you. If not you can load the first once its unloaded and that should do you, as you do not live in a super cold region.

 

[dstig1]

Looks like 4 of those should get you a full cord or more. That's cool. You could easily make something like that too, but you can't beat free!