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!

 

[CurlyDave]

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!

Well, not quite free. Have to count the smashed hand as part off the pallet cost.

 

[dstig1]

Dunno Dave, it sounded like they didn't charge him for the hand...

 

[Obed]

Well, not quite free. Have to count the smashed hand as part off the pallet cost.

The first 3 pallets were free. The 4th pallet was definitely not free.
Obed

 

[Obed]

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!

Dave,
A week ago, I attempted to build some side supports for a pallet out of some saplings. It took much longer than I anticipated and I only got two of the 4 sapling pieces attached to the pallet before darkness made me stop. I was too embarrassed to post pictures of this sad attempt.

The idea of using pallets is to save time, not cost time. It doesn't take much time to "modify" a pallet before the modification takes more time than stacking and unstacking the wood the old-fashioned way takes.

I have seen pictures of pallets people have made by nailing 4 pallets together. That seems to be pretty easy if you have 4 similarly sized and constructed pallets. So far, the pallets we have been getting are not all the same size.

Obed

 

[Coyote machine]

<SNIP>Don't let some jerk poo head bother you or get under your skin. Dean

Really, Dean? This is the best kindergarten level cut you can muster?!

FWIW, I received a PM from Obed and replied, apologizing for seeming to come off as heavy handed when attempting to make my point about ladder and other safety issues.

And BTW, the not so subtle innuendo, quoted above is not allowed on this site, so you might want to dial it back or face the consequences of the administration's enforcing a rule they have no humor about, and which may get you booted from the site.

Back to Obed;, seems the electricians fixed the problem, thought it seems from what you said fault was hard to ascertain. Better to have spent the $ and have it behind you anyway - now it's a done deal.

 

[Obed]

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.

Yes, you are correct base on how much wood we have been using so far. I may not use all 4 box pallets for storing firewood though because I can foresee wanting to use one or two of them for transporting firewood with my tractor.

Obed

 

[Obed]

Yesterday was a fine day. I finished a big project at my regular job this past week so I'm anticipating a good December at work. Our house has grass so we don't have to constantly deal with red clay mud. We have plenty of firewood to burn in the fireplace. And yesterday I got to spend most of the day cutting wood on an absolutely gorgeous day. I have to say I'm in pretty good spirits!

I loaded up the tractor with supplies and headed out. It just seems to take too long for me to "get going" on a lot of the work I do around the house. Gathering and loading tools, making sure I have everything I need, etc. just takes me too much time it seems. I haven't figured out how to streamline this part of the process.

Originally I pulled the log splitter to the log pile thinking I would split my firewood by the log pile. However, when I observed the area by the pile, I recognized that I did not have adequate room for skidding the logs off the pile, cutting and splitting the logs, and maneuvering the tractor. We have a big pile of wood chips close to the log pile that limits the space for working close to the pile.

Thus, I changed my plan and moved the log splitter uphill from the garage end of our house. I then went back to the log pile, dragged three 20 foot long logs off the pile, and cut them up into 9ft or shorter lengths. For most if the logs with which I'm dealing, mostly 12" - 15" in diameter, I can handle a 9ft log by myself. I then loaded the logs on my FEL bucket forks and moved them to my wood splitting area uphill from the garage end of the house.

 

[Obed]

That track loader is becoming a permanent addition to your property. I hope he is letting you use it as it's saving him money storing it there.

Yes, it has been here a long time, about 7 months. I think I'm ready for it to leave. No, I don't get to use it. I sure would love to though. I can easily think of several good uses for it around here.
Obed

While I was cutting firewood Saturday, the grading contractor finally came and got his track loader. It hasn't left our property since the grading job started in April. He told me he is going to sell it. He has had the track loader for 4 years. It is a 2004 model. I can certainly think of some things around here I could do with that machine. I have no intention of buying it.

 

[woodlandfarms]

And you didn't charge storage ;-)

We made a deal with a contractor down the hill. He could park his gear over winter for one winter (a track hoe, dump truck and large skip loader) but he had to pull a dozen stumps and push in and fill in an old foundation. Maybe a half day of work on his part in the end but we were happy with the deal and so was he.

 

[dstig1]

Dave,
A week ago, I attempted to build some side supports for a pallet out of some saplings. It took much longer than I anticipated and I only got two of the 4 sapling pieces attached to the pallet before darkness made me stop. I was too embarrassed to post pictures of this sad attempt.

The idea of using pallets is to save time, not cost time. It doesn't take much time to "modify" a pallet before the modification takes more time than stacking and unstacking the wood the old-fashioned way takes.

I have seen pictures of pallets people have made by nailing 4 pallets together. That seems to be pretty easy if you have 4 similarly sized and constructed pallets. So far, the pallets we have been getting are not all the same size.

Obed

Obed, While I understand where you are coming from, I will present another angle on this. The purpose of building pallets with sides is not to save time, but to save time in the long run. Anything you do like this will cost you time up front, but will improve handling and productivity in the long run, which is why you do it. And with that said, it is best to do it right so they last. I doubt the sapling thing you were trying to do would hold up for long, even sight unseen. Now if you can get more of those free box pallets, that is a deal you can't beat. They look pretty good.

I have also seen people use metal mesh pallet cubes that are designed to hold sack of materials or other stuff for this. If you can find them reasonably they are great for drying airflow and very durable.