What's up today (bullchiting) thread.

The 4 cyl/5 spd that I owned for a bit had a gear out when I bought it...figured trans would need to be pulled and do a full rebuild...when I went to tear into it I found that there was a side cover on the trans that could be removed while still in the van...I was able to replace a bearing or 2, a couple gears, a shaft, and shift fork without even removing the trans...was pretty stoked about that!
Drove it around for a while then sold it to a family across the street about as soon as I set it out for sale...it was perfect for them as they liked the 4 cyl/5 spd for fuel economy, and didn't mind the single rear bench seat. I thought at first that might make it harder to sell (I'm sure it could have)
I seen them driving that van for the remainder of the time that I lived there.

 

Yup, that stuff works great! I've seen them use it on a couple problematic local roads and it made all the difference in the world!
Just make sure you get actual "road fabric" and not the cheaper filter fabric, or even weed barrier! It seems there is lots of confusion about all that amongst the DIY types out there...

 

Ok. All set with the snowblower tensioner on the auger. Gotta love YouTube so I don't need to pull out the manual.

It blows snow very well now. Like new actually. The belt was fine, it was just that the belt and the adjuster on the auger handle lever needed tightened after there was a little cable stretch.

I got a few apple rounds from a neighbor's tree the other day. I split those all up, and put the trailer and the splitter away. I had Hayden out with me with me while splitting the few pieces of wood I had laying around. He sure loves having a fenced yard. Mowing will suck with the fencing I have now until I spring for that zero turn, so once I get the figure on my fiberglass repair on my boat determined, I'll see what I have to work with on the mower.

 

What you are getting now Horkn is totally missing us. The weather guessers had mentioned we might get some flurries from it but it is all staying just south of us. Hope your Ariens is up to the task. Mine hasn't had much snow to eat this year.

 

I think all of you firewood sellers are doing it wrong. Saw this at home Depot today. I might have to stop giving away much of my wood to the brother in law.

 

It is the original though so there's that...

 

This Ariens, and every Ariens I've had or used has been really good. It again can really chuck the snow. We had like 2" of super wet snow earlier in the week and it was not happy. Fixing the belt tension solved that issue.

This snow isn't getting you at all? I'll need to look a little south of you, because my mom bought a small house in Sparta in the city. She's not very smart about being prepared for snow. She should know better, but she's a bit ignorant and stubborn. Her sisters live close though and there's a lot of family around, so she's usually not in too much trouble. The neighbor is nice apparently as well, and he'll use his snowblower to clear her driveway and sidewalk.


I had Hayden out again while I got another gorilla cart full of wood moved onto the patio. He sure loves the fenced in yard, and it's really nice to watch him play in the snow.

I also cleaned out ashes from the stove, and cleaned the glass too. Ash build up happens, even if the glass stays clear of black gunk. Known dry wood with this wood shed sure helps.

 

I think the real original was burned a while back.

 

Yeah, probably by some Vikings.

 

The furthest north I saw the snow on radar was halfway up Vernon county, which is south of La Crosse county. If your mom got anything in Sparta, it would only have been flurries.

 

Exactly the same scenario here. Concrete pad in front of garage; asphalt parking area from garage to house. Driveway about 1000' also but gravel with a crown on it.

The first layer of gravel is "pit run" meaning it is larger rocks in it. Top coat is washed or crushed....really nice stuff that got compacted.

No fabric needed; thats the way all of them are done around here.

 

Exact same way they do them here; BUT if clay underneath, in mud season, that clay turns to a slop and the fabric stops that.

 

Friends dogs got picked up by the county dog catcher because they were out by the road. They have county tags but no name and address tags. One of the dogs only had three legs.

The dog catcher calls them and describes the dogs. The one matches the description and the other does but my friend asks does it have 3 legs? The dog catcher insists it had 4 legs... Ok I guess you have only one of our dogs. The called my friend back to confirm the second dog does in fact only have 3 legs.

Only in Appalachia...

 

We had a water issue here when we first owned this land. The whole lot was 65 acres and we subdivided and kept 10. We are on the low side of the property and between the road and an old stage coach road behind us. It all slopes to the back but a wooden culvert who knows how old in the old stage road had collapsed so no water would pass. I took in an excavator and dug it all out and left it. Took over a month to drain everything. Same time I was putting my driveway in. Stumped it and payed 4 feet of screener tailings for a base. Laid fabric and 18 inches of bank run gravel. 23 years later I still never put processed gravel down but it’s getting to the point it needs it. Lots of fines coming to the top and will slime up some in the spring.

 

Clay will disappear anything - and by "anything" I mean anything you put on top of it or in the upper layers to help with drainage, or improve garden soil. And then, as you said, become slick slop when wet. Some sort of barrier between the "good stuff" (whatever that is for your purposes) and the clay.

 

Yesterday I chopped ice from the driveway and got it pretty much cleaned off. Some areas I had to do an initial pass, then a couple hours later, when the warm temps (45) had helped reduce the bond between the asphalt and the ice, did the second pass. Front stairs still weren't quite clear after the second pass, but hopefully clear up today without any intervention from me.

Very surprised that I slept in this morning. Didn't wake up until 3:45. I haven't slept that late since sometime around Christmas. Heck, the cats didn't even try to wake me to get fed - and they are used to being fed at 3:30, after I've been up for an hour or two.

 

Tiem for me to eat some crow. I have harped on managing expectations, mainly about solar production during witer (because that is all I have experinece with right now - the system being installed in mid November 2022). however, there is one expectation that I had; I expected the panels to dump the snow, much like mymetal roof. Oh, I didn't expect them to dump as fast since I have a fairly shallow roof, but I did expect them to dump at some point. After all, every resource I've looked at says some version of this:



After the last 2 storms, I had 2' of snow on my roof. The only areas that cleared were where the panels weren't. These pictures were taken on 1/24/2023, but it looked exactly the same for days. These first two pictures show the south and west sides, where the panels were placed at the edge of the roof as they recommend. Every bit of snow was still there on 1/27 (even after the heavy rains the night before), plus the panels are keeping the portion above the panels from dumping.




Now, here is the east side, where I made them redo the panels to place them at the top of the roof (so they are out of shade earlier in the summer). At least the metal roof portion has pretty much cleared so some of the weight is off the roof (that very right side is actually a small piece that came down that night).


Now, here is the north side - it cleared the snow all by itself despite not getting any sun at all. This is what I'm used to.


As I stated, I didn't expect the solar panels to clear as quickly, but I did expect them to dump the snow at some point (remember, pics were taken 1/24). On 1/27/2023, I had to roof rake to get anything to clear (covered the plastic blade with foam pipe insulation that I have laying around). The stuff not touched by the roof rake is still up there - despite it being sunny and 45* yesterday. AND, my attic is not all that well insulated, so they should be getting at least some warmth from the backside.

Now, if you have a steeper roof, the panels will clear (I pass a couple of arrays on my way to the dump and grocery store, so can confirm this). In that case the way solar companies install the panels close to the roof edge makes sense (especially for asphalt roofs).



My biggest worry, was about the weight on my roof, not energy production. With 2' of snow soaking up all the rain we had Thursday night into Friday morning, I didn't want to be a cave-in statistic. This is one area that no resource I had accessed managed to give me decent information on so that I could managed my expectations, or be prepared for so I thought I would share with all the good folks here. If I think to do so, I'll take pictures today to show that despite the roof raking, the upper portions are still heavily covered.

 

And the HWH is out again - arghh