So, I have been meaning to write this for about a week now but I have been extremely busy.
The furnace has now been in and running for about two weeks. Good thing to because the fireplace was just eating wood like crazy, we have already gone through a bushcord, when we had the WETT inspector in he noticed the wood stove and mentioned that if we lined the chimney and did insulated pipe inside the house that we would use about a third less wood in it and get more heat out of it. Well thats great but now that the furnace is in who cares the stove is just for show now and will hardly be used. I did have a chance to see how hot it gets using the wood stove using the digital thermostat (it is stuck in F it won't read in C) before we could use the furnace and I am not lying it was 89 F in the living room in the evening before we went to bed.
WOOD: while because we went through so much wood with the stove, my efforts have turned back to get ting wood into the house. At the end of summer I had finished cutting the trees and had piled rounds in the back barn leaving chopping for a nice sunny winters day. While that was today. Did I mention that there is a little bit of snow here. There is about a foot and a half on most of my property, driving the ATV is beyond frustrating. I have to do this odd stance on the ATV were I lean over the front handle bars, feet still on the pegs in order to give traction to the front wheels other wise I can't steer the thing.
ICE: I am determined to build an ice rink for Christmas and not spend anything for it. I want to be able to wake up Christmas morning with the kids get dressed and then take them for a skate. And it has to be a huge surface!!! So I have put in about 10hrs already making slush and then spreading it out over the front lawn and then adding water to build it up and then all over again. I have changed my method three times as I learn more about how things are reacting to what I'm doing and I only have about half of the base done. That being said I am going to try to use a garden watering tomorrow and I think it will speed things up greatly. I won't have it all done for Christmas morning, But I will have enough to take the kids skating.
The goat farm guy did get back to me and we had a few exchanges, I'm just waiting to hear back from him as to when we can go see his farm over the Christmas Holidays. We will be able to see the goat we are going to get, because it will be one that is preggers right now. FUN FUN!
The goat pen building stop the minute it started to snow. But I have been using the barn well for the ice rink so it works I just need to get it wired properly, right now I have an extension cord running 30ft from the first barn to it.
I am waiting on some skids to start building chicken tractors and top bar bee hives. I have the plans all laid out and ready to go, I just need the free materials.
I have been looking to no avail for a free old water heater. I have designed a water heater that will run through the wood furnace in the winter and through a panel on the roof in the summer leaving only spring and fall for the electric water heater we have to do the trick.
This will save a fortune, try this on. when we had our first electric bill they did it based on an estimate based on what would be normal usage for the average family. They had estimated some where just over 50Kwh per day. ( to give you an idea that would be like 20-100W bulbs running 24hrs a day) when I called and gave them the meter reading our actual usage was 21Kwh per day and a large part of that is the water heater given that we have to heat our water with electricity.
So the new set-up that I want to do will have a solar panel that will power a little 12V pump to circulate the water through the phethum on the furnace into a tank prior to our current water tank during the day.
When Our tank calls for water, instead of it bringing in new cold water from the well it will bring in water from this tank that will have an average temp. of about 160 C. Meaning it will increase the temp in our current water tank (currently set at 110 C). We will set our dish washer for the middle of the night so that the new tank doesn't get to hot over night, given that there will be no other calls for hot water. I might get a small 12V plug converter from an electronics store that I will plug into a timer to have the water circulate a few times throughout the night just so the solder doesn't melt over night.
I will start posting picture with each post I just don't have the camera handy right now. I have a cute one of Hailey standing in from of the back door with the snow outside the almost as tall as her, the foreground is a little dark because I couldn't get the flash to go on give the snow in the back ground, but it is still cute.
All the best,
Till next time
Justin
