Good morning!!!!

[daugen]

productive morning, glad I had Popgadget with me, he struggled a bit getting batteries out of rv compartment but now
my two deep cycle 27 batteries are home on the charger. First one charged up to green in just two minutes.
Now I'm curious if other battery is bad, soon to find out. Interstate with 2/23 build dates so hope I get another year or
two out of them. I'm pretty sure they were just drained down by parasitic loads, but ability to put the battery
on a smart charger appeals to me, primarily because it has a desulphate process. Once the other battery get to green, which
pretty sure just means it hits target voltage, then will let charger sit on each battery for several days.

need to run downtown to buy yet another powerball ticket and get a Christmas food gift certificate for one of the neighbors.

 

[rswyan]

35F and mostly cloudy @ 12:15, calling for a high of 38F.

Spent a little more time working down in the utility room last night after my last post, knocked off around 03:30.

Some vacuuming/clean up done on debris on the floor.

Bunch more unfaced fiberglass cut.

More caulking done on the bottom of polyiso panels.

Taped/foamed another joint between panels.

Removed some more fiberglass insulation between joists on top of sill plate on the east wall.

Got the measurements from the floor to the bottom of the joists for the east wall, so I can cut the studs to length for the next section of stud wall.

Brought a bag of trash up.

On agenda for today:

Refill hopper feeder, possibly one suet feeder as well.

Haul trash/garage up to the cans at the road since tomorrow is trash day/.

Haul down more 2 x 4's so I can start putting together the next section of stud wall on the east side now that the foam board is all up.

That will be a bit of a trick ... since I unloaded the last 2 sets of metal shelving so I could slide them around out of the way and there is no longer enough clear floor space to nail the studs together before standing the wall up into place ...

Could build the stud wall in 2 shorter sections and then stack them but that's kinda wasteful, both in terms of materials and effort.

Likely just as much work to move the crap that's in the way out of the way to have enough room to work. Can't say I'm looking forward to doing it though.

Vacuum out the areas between the joists on the east wall and get the new (and old) fiberglass insulation put back up.

Beyond that just see what else comes up.

Hope everyone is having a decent Monday ...

 

[rswyan]

This sounds like such an amazing job. I guess I missed what triggered the renovation.

LOL ... not sure how "amazing" it will end up being ... but we'll give it our best shot ...

As far as what triggered it, it seemed like it would be a good exercise ... just to hone the skills a little before I tackle some additional renovations in other areas of the house which are a little more critical, as far as the finished product goes.

The utility room was the last unfinished space in the basement, poorly insulated (walls had none) and probably contributes to the house being colder/warmer when should it should be the reverse.

There is a little economic benefit maybe - at least in terms of cooling - since we have to pay for electric but none as far as heating goes, since our natural gas is free.

Just something to do keep busy and make use of my time.

 

[Looking4new]

rs, how do you get 'free' natural gas?

I've got about 200 gallons left in my 500 gallon oil tank and the house tank is almost 3/4 empty. So that will take approximately 175 gallons. The rest will be for the tractor. About the first week of January I will draw some loot off my Life Income Fund ( a Registered Retirement Savings Plan RRSP converted at age 70 to a LIF) [it is kinda like a 401k] and fill the 500 again. If I don't drain it right down by April AND if I have a incometax refund like I usually do, then I will send that money to the oil supplier and wait until next November to get a top up.
The oil supplier is sitting on $850.oo of my money now. That will make the hit on the fill up easier.

 

[daugen]

I'm guessing RS has a pipeline going through/near his property?

finished quick trip downtown, made up a christmas card with some cash and a gift
certificate to local food store and took it over to neighbor. Who did not open door at doorbell so I left
card on her door.

turns out I have a dead rv house battery. Second battery would not take any charge, never got off first red after half an hour.
Wiggled terminals, tried again, would not charge. 2 year old battery with a one year warranty.
Interstate Deep Cycle. Interstates are built by Exide or Johnson. Think I'm going to replace with a Duracell which is
made by East Penn aka Deka here in PA.

 

[B7510HSD]

Drew if it were me I would replace both together as the "good" one could have issues caused by the bad one.. my $.02

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Loaded up my pellet box

StartedBX to warm up, also the ZT and ranger. Moved trickle charge from ranger to Massey, did not try to start.

Ground crunchy on top, so not going to attempt any post holes yet. That can wait.

 

[rswyan]

rs, how do you get 'free' natural gas?

Long story (fairly) short:

We sit over a formation (big area) that the gas company owns the mineral rights to.

The original gas deposits were extracted back in the 1920’s/1930’s (Rockefeller I believe)

Once the original gas was extracted and that formation was played out, the gas company (East Ohio Gas/Dominion) started using the formation as a storage reservoir … as part of the logistics of getting natural gas to the East/Northeast US.

The gas mostly comes from out of state and is injected into the formation (“Nimisila Tar Sands” IIRC) during periods of low demand (summer) and then extracted during periods of high demand (winter) when the interstate pipelines alone can’t keep up with demand.

Just like our water well, the storage wells have a finite lifetime, after which they become less efficient as far as injecting/extracting gas.

When that happens, they drill a new well and shut the existing unproductive wells down and cap them.

There were at least 3 storage wells that I know of within probably 1000’ of our property. And more fairly close by in our local community.

One of them was within 100’ of our property line, at the other end. That one they decided to shut down and cap … maybe 15 - 20 years ago ?

As part of the original sale of the mineral rights (back around 1910/1920 ?) the gas company had the right to extract the original gas … and place storage wells on the property.

So when they shut down the well above, they needed another location to site the replacement well.

And guess what ?

We were it …

While I would preferred not to have a well on the property, there’s not really any fighting it … they own the rights.

Best you can do is negotiate the best deal you can with their landman.

They will pay some compensation (one time, fixed amount) for the disruption of putting the well in, loss of trees, etc - as well as a yearly storage lease fee ($63, big whoop … ) and provide free gas … up as long as they have the well operating.

Typically, in such an arrangement, they would allow 125,000 - 150,000 mcf of gas annually for the property owners use.

I was able to get them to toss in another 100,000 mcf to sweeten the deal.

So 250,000 mcf per year.

We use less than 150,000 mcf per year to heat our home IIRC … and we keep it pretty warm (73F in winter)

So should have enough to heat the barn and the shop … at least to some degree. Enough to keep things from freezing at any rate.

Have installed a 2” Polyethylene line in the ground over to the barn … but it’s not hooked up. Still need another riser to get that hooked up, as well as extending the piping here in the house.

No gas line run to the shop at the moment …

 

[rswyan]

I'm guessing RS has a pipeline going through/near his property?

We do … 6” high pressure line (around 1500 psi IIRC)

Not something you’d want to hit with a backhoe or excavator.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with our free gas - it was there before they put the well in.

 

[daugen]

Drew if it were me I would replace both together as the "good" one could have issues caused by the bad one.. my $.02

thanks, that's exactly what I'm going to do
I want to go from SLA to AGM anyway and can't mix types.
I did research converter on RV and it will autoadapt to AGM.
The one battery did not charge up at all.
The other battery now isn't full charged, this time no green light.
so I'm thinking time for both to go.
one I want is a Duracell 27M Marine/RV with 100AH, improvement over current 86AH per battery.
It's even a tiny bit smaller than current dimensions which is good.

best solution is lithium but I don't want to have to change out the converter.
I also hardly ever spend any time outside of a full hookup. 200AH total is plenty for me

 

[Thomas]

24F clear sky.

Good day at work even if was 4 1/2 hours.
Got this and that ready for all day into evening tomorrow storm.

Plans for the evening...after dinner keep the recliner warm maybe watch football to half time.

Enjoy your evening all.

 

[daugen]

a little bit of Santa's work seems to be successful
this is wife of crazy guy next door with two 12yo twins and no father
there for Christmas. Actually kids are calmer with father not there since
he was daydrinking and obnoxious. Not the kids fault...

She just wrote to me on FB and said she was in tears.
She got the money from all of us and couldn't believe
that we would do that for her and the kids. She really appreciated it.

ho ho ho

 

[daugen]

seems lots of year end sales, batteries plus in warminster has 15 percent off sitewide, plus
30 bucks per battery Duracell promotion plus. Ordered two batteries, turns out close to same price
for these AGMs as the current SLA, plus getting 2.5 times the replacement warranty.

have to go see oncologist tomorrow morning, hopefully to confirm good news.
Weather is supposed to be icy and miserable but if not terrible will drive to Warminster and pick up the batteries.
Will put them both on my charger when I get them home.

one last Christmas present due in today.
when I saw those magnet kits were super popular
I ordered a Tosy one from Amazon.
have fun with these kids and please don't eat them

something got delivered last night at 8:15pm
someone working a very long day

 

[daugen]

RS's wife must always like to say he is full of gas...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I put Duracell batteries in the golf cart, from Sams Club.
put them on charge again, just to make sure with the cold we have had. I charged them after the last I used the cart, but it's been a little while.

 

[ponytug]

@daugen Can I nudge you into reconsidering and looking into changing your charger and switching to lithium batteries? The lithium batteries are lighter than the lead acid equivalent and they handle deep discharges much better than lead acid batteries, AGM or not. Every RV owner that I know who has switched battery chemistry, loves having lithium, both for the increase in useful capacity, and also for the improvement in charging rates, so you do not have to run a generator for as long.

Christmas lines in the stores wasn't too bad, but between intentional power outages and malfunctioning traffic signals, that chaos did add an hour to the erranding. I was mildly annoyed to get to a gas supplier that I know and they have gutted their building for a top to bottom overall renovation by a friend's company. (Always nice to see; he's a good egg.) The CO2 refill at my usual place was super fast, which was a nice treat. As I drove by a Costco, the line of cars waiting to get into a full parking lot went around the block and then some. Crazy. Last night after having finished a bottle, SWMBO put in an order for good wine. I bought some wine with an amusing label to the effect of the vineyard having invented a new wine aging process in 1967, so I'm guessing that they stopped putting wine in wood casks and now put the wine in stainless steel and add oxygen to speed the aging process. The label gave me and my wife a laugh. I'm not expecting much of the taste, but SWMBO is likely to enjoy it, which is what counts, right?

All the best,

Peter

 

[rswyan]

RS's wife must always like to say he is full of gas...

She would probably say it’s something a little more solid …

 

[daugen]

She would probably say it’s something a little more solid …

and if you are full of both you are truly dangerous!

man, crank up the heat, if it's free...
my electric bill went up 200 bucks last month, course it was pretty cold

 

[rswyan]

and if you are full of both you are truly dangerous!

man, crank up the heat, if it's free...
my electric bill went up 200 bucks last month, course it was pretty cold

Yeah … the only issue with that is … thermostat wars.

She has more temperature regulation issues than I do. She gets too warm fairly easily especially if She is up and moving around … me not so much.

Although sometimes She does get cold …

 

[buckeyefarmer]

and if you are full of both you are truly dangerous!

man, crank up the heat, if it's free...
my electric bill went up 200 bucks last month, course it was pretty cold

Mine just came in at almost $500. THat's crazy, I remember when it was under $100 a month..