Another light frost this morning, and then it looks like we’re above freezing for a while.
Archive for the ‘Heating’ Category
More Frost
1 October 2009Barely a Frost
30 September 2009There was frozen dew on the windshield of the car this morning, but none of the garden plants seem to have been touched by frost, so I guess I’d call that a very very light frost.
Yesterday I picked a watermelon from the garden, and we had it for desert after dinner tonight. Yellow flesh, not too juicy, not overly sweet, but good.
Also picked another bunch of red peppers and put them in the drier yesterday.
Also picked all the stevia and put it in a paper bag in the greenhouse.
Wood Stove Maintenance
18 September 2009Today I partially disassembled the wood stove to clean and inspect the catalytic converter.
The good news is that the catalytic converter looks like it’s still in good shape. The bad news is that it was 60-70% blocked by a layer of ash sitting on top of it. Also, one of the retaining clips that holds the plate in the back of the stove was off, which was probably allowing smoke to bypass the cc. ALSO, the channels for smoke exiting the cc were at least half blocked with ash. So put all that together and we were getting very poor results from our stove when directing smoke through the cc, which was pretty clear when we tried to do that and the fire just died.
The longest the cc is supposed to last is 7 years, and we installed the stove in 2002. However, since it’s been blocked, it wasn’t really being used, so I’m reasoning that it might have some life left in it — at least another year.
That was the first time I took the stove apart and looked at the cc, so that was 7 years worth of ash that was built up in there. That’s something I should do every year, and will do so from now on.
Why anyone would make a stove with a cc in it, when designs exist that can meet EPA requirements without one, is beyond me. I suspect the profit motive, and a desire to continue the income stream by selling replacement catalytic converters. I would never buy a stove that used a cc again.
Also, swept the chimney.
Insulating
27 May 2009Added 155 square feet more of 6.5″ fiberglass insulation to the attic. It’s about 80% done.
Doomer Porn
6 March 2009There comes a time when you have to stop looking at the web sites and stop reading the books and blogs. Once you’ve decided that some combination of climate change, peak oil, and financial catastrophe is going to end the world as we know it, all that stuff becomes nothing more than pornography. If you believe it all, what you doing? You’re not going to get some early warning — by the time anything shows up on the net, it’s going to be too late. You’re just getting some cheap doomer thrill.
Once you believe it, it’s time to prepare. Spend your time and energy and creativity preparing, not fantasizing about apocalypse. If you keep your focus on the decline of civilization instead of preparing for the decline of civilization, you won’t be as ready as you could have been.
Your focus needs to be on getting your home and family as self-sufficient as possible, on strengthening your tribe and your tribal connections, on using only your fair share of the world’s resources (which, for us Americans, means cutting consumption by something like 90%), on keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by shutting out lights, living with less or no air conditioning, and driving as little as possible. It’s a huge task that demands all our attention.
Ending and Beginning 