I took it as 15kw to run the well pump on top of everything else in the house.  

Heh, I thought I put that in the OP, but I guess not.

Well pump is a 1.5hp that's hung at 600ft currently on a 675ft drill depth according to the drill card.


RLA on the motor is in the 60 amp range. At 240 volts, that's 14.4kw to get it started, although that quickly drops to 10-11 running amps.

Say what?



Have you seen it actually draw that?





 

I have seen many 4500 watt generators start and run 1hp well pumps with no issues.

If yours is 1.5hp you should be able to easily run it on a 5500 watt generator.

My 8750 genset ran whatever we wanted last winter with strategic flipping of breakers on the high usage items.  I ran the well pump whenever needed, however ours is not as deep as yours.

 
No, that's the RLA stamped on the housing.


I should know, because I pulled that fucker two months ago.

In other news, tonight's project was clearing out the barn insulation. I got the lower half done pretty quickly. My dad will help me wrap up the upper half tomorrow and haul it to the dump.

I discovered the source of a lot of my water ingress problems in the process, as well as the most rat shit I've ever seen in my life.

Insulation... fun!

We had to do that to the shop/2car+space above... then of course finish it out years later and pay to re-insulate it all animal free





Are you going to re-insulate and add interior walls?

Yep. 2" of spray foam on Friday, then framing out the lower half over the winter.

Post pics as it happens!

So, this happened today...




Holy shit, it's a mess. The big pipe needs to be slid back up, but after taking a good look in mud up to my knees, this might be more work than I had originally thought.


Best I've got of the barn. Needs some trim work for the remaining insulation and some press N seal to seal up the bottom against the pad.

Multi part update, part 1:

Upon further investigation, there is a giant sinkhole under the road. I had quotes over the past week, 2-3 of which are at $10k. Basically, the pipe is rusted out the entire way through and needs replacing. Any water is currently eroding the soil under the pipe. None of the quotes thought it was a "must fix now" situation since its likely been like that for some time at this point.


The long term fix is relieving 36" of asphalt, bringing in an Ex to do the digging and get the old pipe out. Put in some rip rap, a new 18" PVC pipe, fill with crush 'n run, then backfill with dry dirt and patch up the asphalt.


Heres the interesting thing... One of the guys is hell bent on having a PE sign off on it. Its a private road. I just dont see then need for paying a PE to the tune of $200/hr to sign off for a private road.


The other issue is funding, since the association currently has about $5800 in the coffers by last count after the excavation. We did decide to raise dues for the 38 homes on the private road to $240/yr in the last association meeting.

Multi part update, part 2:


Barn sprayfoam.


Yeah, its done. Holy shit, what a mess.


Lots of pics follow:
































So, things I learned... spray foam is nasty stuff. The fire retardant ceiling coating is worse.


Dont pressure wash the floor without a way to evacuate water because guess what? 100% building envelope means it doesnt drain.


I dont need to worry about anchoring the walls to the pad anymore. Where I had press and seal along the base, plus the foam, the walls are solid.


The amount of sound proofing is insane. The temperature this weekend was in the 50s on Saturday morning. It was still 75 inside from where we were pressure washing.


It is pricey, but Id do it again in a heartbeat because it is the best of all the options I had, and it creates a full envelope.


Next up is HVAC quotes for a mini split and redoing all the electrical as well as framing out the lower half in 2x4 and drywall.

Multi part update, part 3:

This weekend was my little girls 4th birthday party. More on that in a sec...

I started off Saturday by doing a little chainsawin':



Also, this guy was born this week:



One other heifer the neighbors have is due any day now.

Back to the birthday party... We had about 8-10 families from my daughters school class, plus family here for the party. Figure about 40 people or so.

Interesting part #1, we were in the front yard doing kids games, when I hear yipping from behind the house. Ran inside and grabbed the 300 and went to investigate to find a coyote chasing a rabbit up the walking path I have cut around the back 5 acres. One of the neighbors lost 3 of their chickens and a rooster a few weeks ago to a coyote, as it were. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord, and apparently the Good Lord speaks 300 Blackout on occasion. I turned around to see a few kids and parents peeking around the house, about half horrified and half intrigued at the coyote I had just splattered across the field.

Interesting part #2, our driveway has a turnout that has a solid 12" dropoff. Well, one of the ladies decided to try and drive over it in her Infiniti. Tractor, 6x6 and some spare wood to the rescue, and I got her backed up onto the concrete pad and off to the races. Other than some cosmetic underbody damage, she got lucky. I guess I probably need to see about doing something with that, either a poured concrete slope or gravel in case someone tries it again.

This is the wrap to my weekend:

Hahaha. Dead coyote is a good coyote! Dat view.



 

Been a quiet couple of weeks. Photosuckit is down or Id upload some pics.

Bushhogged the back 5 today. I had forgotten how much that sucks. We have had a TON of deer on the game camera lately, right under where I have my stand. A spike, 6pt and 8pt and a ton of doe. Neighbors set up a game camera next to the chicken coop since they had eggs disappearing, and turns out, its a fox. Ive caught him on my camera too. Fox season opens around Thanksgiving, so he will get his due soon.


More to come when I can host photos again.

Long overdue update


Bushhogging done for the year:


Before:







After:








This week was Thanksgiving, and while most were putting on 10 pounds, I lost about 10 pounds. Everyone in the house had the 48-72 hour stomach bug starting on Monday/Tuesday, so needless to say, I skipped eating Thursday. Friday was the first day I felt like a human being, so I formulated a plan of attack and set it into motion on Saturday...






I now have an RV parking spot! It still needs a little bit of work and some leveling which Ill probably borrow the neighbors Bobcat for, but its 95% done.


The section in red is whats been excavated and/or leveled in prep for gravel:






Ill probably do a railroad tie retaining wall with rebar to reinforce the hillside where its been dug in the next week or two.




Now, questions!

For new construction, whats the average gravel pour? Since its not a driveway and wont be driven on really often, Im contemplating putting the geotex down on at least the RV spot and doing 4" of gravel on top of that. Should I do #57? Crusher run?




I have two drainage culverts on either side of the driveway, and with the heavy rains we had this summer, I had multiple places where the driveway washed into the ditch. In order to stop that, Im considering putting rip rap the entire width of the ditch down the entire driveway. One, it slows the water down as it rushes down the hill, and two, I wont have to mow/weedeat it anymore. Is this a bad idea? I tried to get an aerial image, but Google Maps is too fuzzy, so Ill go snap some pictures this evening.


For those wondering, the spray foam in the barn is easily the best money Ive spent on anything for the house. By far.

Oh fuck me.

I knew when we bought the house that the HVAC was original from '99. I knew that it would need to be replaced at some point.


I did not want this to be that fucking point.


Upstairs heat pump starts out making a solid 22-23* delta on the coil and steadily drops to.... nada. Its also squealing like a stuck pig. No problem, I figure its a reversing valve thats gone bad, as is somewhat common in heat pumps. I go out, do the usual diagnostics. Hmmm, not a reversing valve. That points to a compressor. Call up a work acquaintance and he is kind enough to loan me his gauges for the price of a frosty tall one. Stick the gauges on it anddddddddd... nada.


Ill call the local company I used when we had the house purchase and the checkup this spring, but Im not holding my breath on this being cheap.

 
Maybe you will get lucky and it is just a seal where you connect the gauges.  My heat pump was losing refrigerant.  The tech spent an hour checking every little area and could not find the leak.  Then he noticed the caps for the refrigerant ports had bad/no o-rings.  The ports shouldn't be leaking anyway but in case they did the o-rings would prevent a leak.  He topped off the unit and replaced the o-rings.  I've been going on a year now and the unit has been working fine.  


That is a cheap fix to check first.  They have some type of refrigerant detector probe that they can use to pinpoint the leak.  I would make sure they at least try that first before replacing the unit.  

Looking great so far.  I was actually in NC this weekend.  Family and I are considering relocating there.

So, not 100% sure yet, but it looks like its a bad control board. Problem is, they arent sure if they can find a dual fuel control board for my unit thats now 17ish years old or so.

 

Awesome thread is awesome.  And proves that nothing in life is easy...

 
Thanks!


Funny related story: I relayed the pulling of the 600ft deep well pump, including showing her the pictures to a friend of mine. Her response was "that seems like entirely too much work for somewhere to live". I kinda shrugged and said "if it were easy, everybody would do it".

Time for an update.

Lets start with the heat pump fiasco. After the control board died, the tech and I formulated a plan of attack that involved a couple of relays and a new outdoor controller. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.  The relay setup worked great with the outdoor pot until the temp threshold at which point the pot had 24v going through it, but open contacts on BOTH sides of the relay. So neither the heat pump or the gas pack ran. My 4 year old informed me of this fact by screaming at the top of her lungs "DADDY IM COLD", which definitely got my ass moving. I did a little wiring wizardry (read: I jury rigged the shit out of it) to get the heat pump running until the new outdoor pot showed up today. Testing indicates all is well, we shall see tonight.

This Sunday, I acquired a two bottom plow.


Its a 1947 Dearborn two bottom. Could use a little TLC, but I decided to go ahead and give the old girl a workout and plow the 2017 garden. I should have taken some more time setting up the plow, but Ill get to that in a minute.

The end result is a "plowed" garden, but it will likely need a replow in the spring.


Its shallow in a few spots, only 2-3 inches of turn, because I didnt have the plow set up great, which resulted in this:


I somehow managed to snap one of the 3pt stabilizer arms. Im sure New Holland will only want a firstborn child for one of those. 

Im closing in on a genset purchase, and Ive figured out how to start the well pump on something thats 8.5kw. Involves a little electric work, which is right up my alley, so should be relatively easy. 

So with us forecast to get 6-8" of snow this weekend, Ive been scrambling to make sure we are prepared.

So far, Ive made sure all the vehicles are gassed up. I, actually last week, finally broke down and bought a 4x4 truck. Got a good deal on a year end 2016 F150, so getting out should no longer be an issue in a pinch.

That said, my main priority tonight is getting the sway link on the tractor fixed so I can swipe the neighbors straight blade to plow the road if needed. Its got a tank full of fresh diesel. Ill stop and get gas and kerosene on the way home. Gas for the ATV so I can tow the kiddo around on her sled, kerosene for the heater for the barn. Ive had really good luck with nothing freezing in there up until now, but with the next three days not forecast to break freezing, and the fact we are usually 4-5* below forecast for the nearest town which could potentially mean temperatures of 0 or below for us.

Ill do a cursory check of heat pumps tonight. I need to see how we are doing on propane usage and make sure we arent going to run the tank dry over the next couple of days. Thats become a real concern seeing how cold the forecast temperatures are.

My other concern right now is the water piping from the water heater in the garage that runs under the breezeway of the house back into the crawlspace. That space is open air, but the pipes are insulated. My main concern is having them freeze on the really cold nights. I know conventional wisdom is to drip a faucet, but being that its a cold supply and hot return, it seems to me that I would need to drip the hot water at the kitchen sink (first fixture after it reenters the house), correct?

After action report?

After action report.

Friday night, we had flurries that came down hard enough to dust the grass and stick which is basically what was forecast. I took the dog out around 11 and it was snowing hard and continued to snow hard until about 3am when it lightened up until around 1pm on Saturday.

Parenting done right:


Rode the trusty steed out to the main road about 2 miles away. It had been plowed once Saturday morning and was snowy, but passable.


As the sun came out, I busted out the tractor and cleared my portion of concrete at the house:


My neighbor, whos health is failing him has a cab Kubota and the scrape blade I intended to use, and rode the 4 wheeler over to ask if I would mind helping him hook it up. In retrospect, this was a good idea because, well, cab tractor. We managed to get it hooked up Saturday night and I used it to plow the entire road on Sunday since the state hadnt plowed their part (shocker).

Couple of other pics:


Gratuitous 4 wheeler donut/drift pics


What worked well:
1. Sway link on the tractor wasnt an issue, so Ill take it
2. ATV was hugely useful and a good play toy
3. Propane gas packs worked great, especially considering they ran full tilt with temps below 20 for big portions of the weekend. Our low on Monday morning was -1*. After 11pm, Im not sure the upstairs unit ever shut off, and the downstairs unit was running about 1/2-2/3 of an hour to maintain. I guess it was just that cold and the fact that our winter design temps are in the mid to upper 20s.

What didnt work well:
1. I thought the water pipes were well insulated enough not to cause issues. I was wrong, and spent about an hour lamenting that fact on Sunday morning as I was thawing them out with a hair dryer. Im tempted to put a heat trace on them, BUT, its so rare we see these kinds of temperatures, Im not sure its worth the effort. I dripped the kitchen faucet (first fixture after the hot water pipe comes back into the house) into Monday morning and set the dishwasher on its 4 hour delay before I went to bed around 10pm and didnt have an issue.
2. Ill put this here, but propane usage. Based on my back of the napkin math, we have burned around 60-70 gallons of propane between furnaces and gas logs. My estimate is that is about 25% of our tank capacity (330 gallon). We were ok this time because we had an 80% full tank, but Id be a lot more nervous if we were at 50% or less. Then again, this weekend has been uncharacteristically cold with 90+ hours of sub freezing temperatures. According to my weather station, prior to today, the last time we were above 30 degrees was sometime early Friday. I think this one is a mixed bag.

People ask me why I like living so rural when I have to deal with stuff like this that city slickers dont have to deal with.

Its mainly because I see sunrises/sunsets like this damn near every day.

Alright ARF, settle an argument for me...

I have a bunch of rip rap inbound to line the ditches along my driveway and to line a couple of other areas where the water needs some slowing down and/or Im tired of mowing/weed eating during growing season.

So, my Dad says scoop and dump with the tractor. I say hand place pieces so they are good and locked together. What says you?

Also of interesting note, I have hundreds of tiny holes, say, golf ball size, that have popped up in my yard. Id like to know whats making said holes so I can kill it and/or prevent it from happening again. Ill see if I can snap a pic tonight.

Beautiful.  You are living my dream lol.  Hopefully someday I will get to move to the NC country

Herbicide. I buy the active ingredient in Round Up by the 5 gallon bucket. 

Seriously though, I plan on spraying it regularly. The driveway gets a pretty regular dose to keep the grass from growing on it, and the ditches get sprayed by proxy.

Ok kids, learn from my mistakes...

Over the past few months, some of which Ive talked about here, Ive learned a few lessons the hard way. Today, you get to learn by proxy.

Breaking a sway link on a 3pt arm is an inconvenience, yes. Those are easily acquired with $58 and a week of your time. I have a spare set in the barn now.

Popping a whip hose on the loader means the tractor stops where it sits. Lots of compact and even midsize tractors now have common sumps for transmission and front/rear remotes. What that really means is the tractor pisses itself in hydraulic fluid if one turns loose. IF, and thats a big IF youre lucky, you can have one made by your local NAPA or Oreillys. The first one I tried didnt have the right fittings. Second one did. Needless to say, I now own a complete set of whip hoses and junction block hoses.

Ive come to realize that in a pinch, theres certain things that you cant just "run to the store" to get. Some are showstoppers, some less so. But, in planning for inevitability, I keep more of those things "in stock" now than a normal person would.

Also as a sidenote, reseating the bead on an ATV tire you just patched with parts cleaner is incredibly fun. 

Isn't living out in the country fun 

I'm lucky enough to live within 20 minutes of 2 places that could make me pretty much any hydraulic hose under the sun.  Came in handy a few years ago on the farm when they bought a new Deere 12/24 row planter.  Put Dawn hydraulic row cleaners and downforce cylinders on it.  Had several dozen hoses made because me being the engineer I am got to redesign the entire thing because the farmer didn't like the way it was supposed to be 

Ether is more fun 

So, currently being unemployed, I've been knocking out homestead projects left and right.

Today's effort:




A couple hours earlier, this was all overgrown briars and ivy and crap. Couple of hours with bush hog and chainsaw later, it's 80% cleared. I need to do some garbage disposal since the previous owners dumped crap in a couple of spots. Good news is, 3 sets of mobile home axles should cash in at the recycler. 

Now the question is, what do I do with it? I'd like for it to go back to being mowable grass. There's lots of 1-2" stumps where weeds got bush hogged now, about 3" high. 

Can I take the box scrape and set the tines as low as they'll go and rip that out and grade it smooth? Once it's smooth, I could core aerate and seed, but it needs to be done in the next few weeks. Thoughts?

I pick up my Howse disc on Saturday too. Once I've got that, I'll finish prepping the garden and plant it around the first of April.

Nice.

Maybe a super nice rock fire pit for relaxing? How is the view down towards the house and also towards the house?

Maybe a nice rock step walkway up that slope with landscape lighting?

Frame out w railway ties some soft even mulchy tent camping spots around the fire pit for a place to practice camping or sleep outside?

Stack a cord or two up back there?

Discussed the firepit idea with the wife. Thumbs up of approval.

Bad news is, despite by best efforts, Ive managed to get some patchy poison oak/poison ivy. Ill be so glad when Im done with this shit. 


Went and picked up the disc today:


Got it adjusted, and the sun was out, so I figured why not?



I made a bunch of passes on it, probably 5-6  to get it good and broken up. I need to hang a PVC pipe or something behind to smooth it after. We are going to have a few more nights of freezing temps, so hopefully that will help kill the grass off and bust up the last few clods left. Ill fertilize and disc again prior to planting in April. I have to say, for $1300, I like the disc and I dont have to deal with the soil compaction issues from the rototiller again.

Nice disk!  Need a rolling basket behind it 

Looked it up.

Welp, there goes some more money. 

Actually, on a quick google search, this guy built one.

http://www.mytractorforum.com/119-home-made-tractors-implements-accessories/653441-homemade-cultivator-w-rolling-basket.html

Pretty sure I could emulate that design...

Sounds like a perfect spot for primocane thornless blackberries and raspberries.  With primocane plants they will produce at the end of summer on 1st year branches.  You can mow it flat at the end of the year if you want.  Or trim them up and the older branches will give you a crop early summer and the new branches a later crop.  Two crops, no thorns, and if you get tired of managing them just mow them off in the fall.

We had a drag behind ours.  The rolling basket would be better.  The drag was just that, multiple bars with some spikes on them that would bust up any clumps and it was dragged behind the disc.

Why not solve both problems and just go with a rotary tiller?  http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/countyline-rotary-tiller-5-ft-w?cm_vc=-10005

Cost, first of all. The County Line is cheap, it shows in the gearbox. I had looked at a Land Pride and Mahindra, as well as a couple of others, and for a 6ft I was looking in the $2500+ neighborhood.

Secondly, erosion. I had it last year with my garden because of the orientation of the slope with heavy rain.

Lastly, soil compaction. Soil should have structure, as Ive learned. Its necessary for water penetration, aeration and keeping the microbes alive that make stuff grow. 

That, and Ive never seen my gas gauge move so fast as the one time I used a rototiller. 

So the tiller doesn't aerate the soil?  It seems like it would fluff it up pretty well.  Does the lack of structure cause it compact more?  I had my friend use his 5' tiller on part of my back yard and the results were great so far.  The ground was very hard despite recent rains.  He had to make 4 to 6 passes just to get it tilled about 6 inches deep.  I doubt a disc alone would have been able to get down that deep.  If you used your hand to move the dirt how deep would you say your disc was able to get?  We always used a plow, let the dirt dry a bit, and then came back with the disc and drag to break it down and smooth it out.

We have them on the back of the big one pass tool on the farm.  Work really well.  Only issue we have is an occasional rock getting wedged in them preventing them from turning.  They work better the faster you go 

I don't see a reason why you couldn't do that that guy did.  Would be cheaper than buying one.  Only thing I might do different is have the local shop laser out some of the parts vs making them on the drill press.

Yes and yes. It aerates it, but it beats it into such fine bits, it compacts and has a hard time with aeration/water absorption so Ive learned.

Ive got a solid 6" if not more in some places. I didnt have my plow set up that great when I turned it a few months ago, but the disc still went plenty deep. 

No need to apologize, thats good stuff. I learned something.