At Home In The Woods

[patrick_g]

My wife claims that her browsing on the web indicates that turkeys don't bother gardens. I'm not sure I believe that. We had a guinea destroy our green bell peppers 3 or 4 years ago. I don't know know why a turkey wouldn't like green bell peppers too. This past week a group of 3 wild turkeys were messing around in the garden. You can see them through the trees in the pictures. I've also seen our mother wild turkey in the garden also.

We have flocks of turkeys hereabouts, some numbering over 50 adults. They never bothered our gardens and I have never heard of them bothering a garden. I have seen numerous geese deployed in large commercial fields for the express purpose of weeding. The geese preferred the tender young grass and weeds over the larger plants. Not sure what all is goose safe. They will eat bugs off of plants, things like caterpillars and other pests.

Pat

 

[Obed]

You must either have way better air flow in your attic than me or your just that much cooler than us. Reason i say this is that we have already had plenty of days that would of stuck shilgles togeather if they were in my attic. Probly atleast 4-5 weeks ago they would of already stuck. Did you check them as you moved them to verify that they were not already stuck?

There were 2 unopened packs and another stack of loose shingles. Most of the loose shingles were unstuck but there were a handful that were stuck together. Since they weren't all stuck together, I'm assuming the handful that were stuck together we already that way, at least that's what I'm hoping. I won't know about the unopened packs until it comes time to use them, if ever.

And yes, we do get good air flow in our attic; my wife made sure of that with the house design and then stayed on top of the subs to make sure the attic was built that way. Plus, we are a little north of clemsonfor and brin so perhaps it did not get as hot here. There were some days when I would call it "warm" up in the attic, but never "hot".

Obed

Obed

 

[Obed]

We have flocks of turkeys hereabouts, some numbering over 50 adults. They never bothered our gardens and I have never heard of them bothering a garden. I have seen numerous geese deployed in large commercial fields for the express purpose of weeding. The geese preferred the tender young grass and weeds over the larger plants. Not sure what all is goose safe. They will eat bugs off of plants, things like caterpillars and other pests.

Pat

Pat, that's good to know. Thanks, Obed

 

[patrick_g]

I went with ridge venting with ventilated soffits on the eave overhangs (12:12 pitch gable roof.) Good ventilation as you seem to have is a priority issue that many contractors fail to address adequately. Expenses of adequate ventilation are repaid by lowered A/C costs, longer life of shingles, etc.

I was given a 26 page listing of roofing materials by State Farm (our insurer) that covered various metal roofs, shingles, tile, slate, and on and on. We were given approximately 20% discount off the top of our total homeowner package (ad infinitum) for choosing shingles from the group we selected from. The installer had to sign a form stipulating they followed the installation instructions which included 6 nails per shingle, NOT 3. We were required to ventilate the nail deck which made some design challenges but got 'er done.

By ventilating your attic space well and not putting insulation in contact with the nail deck you lower the temp of the nail deck and the shingles which extends their life considerably. Folks that put insulation right up against the nail deck or spray it with foam are going to get poor longevity compared to shingles that don't get so hot.

Patrick

 

[Obed]

My wife researched the attic ventilation and took steps to insure good ventilation. I didn't know about the heat issue of the roofing deck under the shingles but that makes sense. Our ventilated soffits are 2 ft in depth which helps. Builders don't tend to build houses with 2 ft soffits these days in order to cut costs. However larger soffits have many benefits that seem to be often overlooked.
Obed

 

[patrick_g]

I did a little custom design work, placing rigid foam with aluminum reflective foil (foil side up a few inches below nail deck) of the sun porch I designed/built for my mother. This let shingle/nail deck heating generate strong convective currents from the ventilated soffits to the top of the shed roof where the air enters the house's attic and vents to the outside. These convective currents sweep the heat off the nail deck so the nail deck temp is much lower. This lowers the delta T between the under side of the nail deck and the insulation.

Under the rigid polyisoanurate with foil I put F/G batting. Lowering the delta T is as good as raising the R-value as regards heat infiltration. I did both. The result is a sun room that is not too hot to use most of the summer and is toasty lots of the time with low winter sun.

Later I found that I had independently invented ventilated insulated nail deck which can be purchased in your choice of R-value, OSB or ply-wood thickness and vertical venting or vertical plus horizontal. It is installed in 4x8 sheets like ply or osb but includes the insulation and air channels. Well du-uh I bought it as assembled product for my house rather than build it from components.

Pat

 

[buckeyefarmer]

did you ever put in the HAI omni pro system? I was looking at them again today and was wondering if you put it in, how it's working out.

 

[Obed]



did you ever put in the HAI omni pro system? I was looking at them again today and was wondering if you put it in, how it's working out.

buckeyefarmer,
No, not yet. Our current priorities are garden and back porch/deck. I'm not sure when I will get to the home automation piece. And I also still need to cut firewood for next winter.

If you put in a system before I do, I'd love to hear about it.
Obed

 

[Obed]

The wild baby turkeys hatched today! I counted 10 babies. I'm guessing that 2 eggs haven't hatched. The baby turkeys have been walking around in our yard with their momma.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

 buckeyefarmer,
No, not yet. Our current priorities are garden and back porch/deck. I'm not sure when I will get to the home automation piece. And I also still need to cut firewood for next winter.

If you put in a system before I do, I'd love to hear about it.
Obed

Here at my house SWMBO has put a stop to any new projects until I finish one I started about 10 yrs ago. That project started a whole dominos path of projects, which I still haven't recovered from. :laughing:

My church is getting ready to build a new building, I thought about putting a
HAI in there. Maybe I'll just run the cables to have it ready for later. Did you put sensors on the windows and doors, or just cable with the sensors later?