Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Temp rose overnight and it is now 48* so hopefully it will stay warm today and the paths that were cleared will widen up

 

High of 8 tomorrow, but sunny.

 

We are getting hammered with snow. Building up fast.

 

The last day of rain and warm temps took care of most of the snow from last week. It was 54 outside when I left the house this morning. Supposed to go back down to low 30s / high 20s tonight, and predicting a little more snow tomorrow. After this brief warmup, not sure how much will stick.

 

That's funny....I didn't hear that forecast.

 

Love it as the snow is melting quick really quick here at home but for the mental sanity I have left at work especially on the roof its all gone !

Why you say well we have two gigantic cooling towers that are getting replaced which means demo existing rotten Piece of Crap units, erect new support steel then piece by piece build the new towers one at a time so they still have one in operation . Keep one operating you say why who needs cooling when its this cold out ? well they are tied into a number of other utilities including clean steam, WFI (Water for InjectionWhat is WFI (Water for Injection)?)and Glycol which supply operating facilities .

Had it not been an epic meltdown it would have meant bringing in a huge labor force to remove the snow and put down protection as they are on the roof . Time that we don't have so this is a huge stress relief as there is enough with the operation in itself, massive crane swinging over occupied spaces which will have to be evacuated , clients loading docks closed, difficult logistics in general especially in a operating facility . So I'll rejoice with the meltdown , in addition to the hundreds of duct supports that have to be installed to support all the duct work on the roof . Win Win I'll take it .

End of the day Tuesday's suck as its one meeting after another and being sick as heck as well I am glad it's over with ! Time for a cocktail then rinse and repeat and get ready for work tomorrow. Hope all are well and may your snow melt as fast as mine !

Cheers !

 

So this is what I found this morning in my back yard - a 14.5' long limb and some limblets fell overnight (I know for a fact it wasn't there yesterday afternoon).



Fortunately the furniture didn't seem to take a direct hit. I found a hole 9" deep where it looks as if the but of the limg dropped into, then it fell over onto the chair.



Any guesses as to which tree was the culprit?


Now that I think of it, the limb might have already fallen from the heavy snows last week, but been standing up in the deep snow. I wouldn't have noticed that. Then, when the snow started melting overnight, that would have been when it fell.

So that was first thing this morning that I was cleaning that up so that the blower doesn't get caught on any of the smaller limbs. Later in the morning I heard a very loud wood pecker call. Saw a Pterodactyl (Pileated WP) fly overhead and land in a tree right next to that area (trees just to the right of the picture above). While I was taking the best pictures I could (for the distance), I saw another one land in a tree back behind that. My lucky day to see two at the same time!

The first two pictures are cropped from a medium zoomed pictures of the first pilated WP


This is a highly zoomed picture of the first pileated WP

This is the best I could do for the second pileated WP

 

That's a pine Limb Bogie that let loose

ps awesome pics of the Pialeated wood pecker !

 

Pretty sure it's not a pine - there are no pines in the area (the ones in the picture are on the other side of the road that is behind the parking lot that is behind me). I believe it is a black cherry that is the dead tree pictured (although I could be wrong since I am no where near an expert)

 

The saga of my non-working FHW boiler has finally ended! (warning - this is a long, mostly boring story, so you are forgiven if you skip right over it ).

I've been trying for 3 months to get a qualified person out here to look at my 30 y/o Peerless boiler since the pilot light would not stay lit. I don't use the boiler much. But I have to go on short trips for work and this year I'm going back to Kansas to see family for about a week, so the boiler needs to be used at least as back up in case my house sitter has an issue with the pellet stoves.

I kept contacting local companies and when the bothered to reply to messages (or I actually got to talk to them on the phone) they only do installs, only contract to maintain / install other company's equipment, or are not taking new customers. The original installer retired several years ago, and my propane company doesn't do maintenance. Larger companies in this state don't come out this way, regardless of what their service area says on their websites.

So, I finally found a guy in a town 17-20 miles from me that would come out, reviews on Yelp and other sites gave him 5 stars, and he was an authorized Peerless installer - yay. I had told him the year, the brand and even sent him pictures of all the tags on it. He came in and was very condescending, which I was willing to ignore. He then had to go get parts (thermocouple). Hu? you don't have those with you (I thought to myself - after all, even I know that is the first suspect). He called me a while later and said the local hardware store didn't have the part, neither did TSC so he would look elsewhere. After waiting around a couple hours, I called him and he said he had gone to another job, but would call Peerless the next day to see if they could help him find a thermocouple. A couple days later I contacted him for an update. crickets. More attempts, more crickets. Okay, I get the hint.

Got onto Home Advisor and had them hook me up with two 4.5 star companies. Funny, they also wanted to hook me up with a 3rd company - which was the one that had ghosted me after "going for parts". Obviously I declined that one. One emailed me and said he came to my area and worked on Peerless. He would get in touch with me the next week to set a schedule. Yeah, right. I contacted him a couple of times to ask for an update on his schedule. Crickets.

HA actually set up an appointment with the other company they suggested. I tried to contact him a couple of days before the date, but there was no reply. HA contacted me the day before and said they couldn't guarantee the appointment since THEY couldn't get in contact with him. That appointment was supposed to be last Friday, and of course he never showed.

After getting stood up, I started calling around some more. Another guy wasn't taking new customers then I got a hold of a company that had not so stellar ratings (actually, the ratings were all over the place). They set up an appointment for today. The guy came in, replaced the thermocouple (hmm, he had one that fit a 30 y/o boiler, not sure why the 1st guy didn't), cleaned the gas tubes, cleared out the pilot light orifice (he said it was caked almost closed), took apart the exhaust and examined it (nice and clean), and cleaned up the mess. On top of that he was polite.

Happy camper with their service and will leave a good review and have them perform the yearly maintenance. My house/pet sitter is relieved that she doesn't have to worry if somehow a pellet stove malfunctions. Life is good.

 

We have a couple Pileated that come mostly for the suet feeders. They make quick work of them but the groundfeeder birds love all the chunks & pieces of suet that fall.

sam

 

Took advantage of the 57* temp when I got home at 2pm to give the P43 a good cleaning. A month of use and the ash pan was only 3/4 full. Burning mostly Vermonts with some doug fir on the colder days. The doug firs leave almost no ash at all and the Vermonts are very low ash producers.

East Coast delivered the new snowblower today but I'm a little put off as to how they handled it. Told them any day this week after 2 would be OK and I was told they would call a day in advance. I'm just about done cleaning the stove when I happen to look out the window and the new snowblower is just sitting out in our driveway. I never heard my phone ring but when I checked it there was a voicemail from east coast from about 30 min before saying they would be delivering. No one came to the door, neither Lori or I heard any truck, just very odd. I'll be stopping in there on my way home tomorrow as they didn't leave an owners manual. Yeah I can download one but this way I get to speak to someone face to face. Customer service really is a lost art nowadays.

sam

 

For those that did skip over this one from the Bogiemeister..
The editied version!

"The saga of my non-working FHW boiler has finally ended!
I've been trying for 3 months to get a qualified person out here to look at my 30 y/o Peerless boiler
After getting stood up, I got a hold of a company that had not so stellar ratings.
The guy came in, replaced the thermocouple ... he was polite.
Happy camper... Life is good."

Dan

(I was bored tonight.. can you tell??)

 

Momma & Papa

 

Good job on the The Cliff Notes Version

 

Pretty cool!