I tend to keep stuff (junk) from work and various projects and have a habit of picking up stuff at the store for a project or two in the back of my head . Which of course time to time I purge the junk so I dont end up on the next episode of horders  . I strip the electronics for useful bits ,trash the usless stuff , recycle what I can , steel never gets thrown away , and some of it (gasp) I use on projects that I organically bought it home for . Anyway about once a month Ive had found a use for something in my junk pile . Normally its fixing the kids toys or on vehicles ect ect ect . Well one of my projects was a 12volt heat exchanger for the heater in the basment to tie it into the old duct work , which is about 70% done . well last week we had a had a cold snap along with every one else minus FL (dang protus wins again ) which in turn activates the chief financial officer of the house hold to inquire about said project since she noticed the basement was a toasty 80 degrees and the first floor was 68 degrees which is the magic temp for her to be cold . So what do I do ?TO THE JUNK PILE , pull out 3 PC power supplies 2 that where dead and one that would run under a light load . Well under 30 minutes I had this






Dont laugh too hard it works a shit load better than I thought it would . I need to clean it up and secure the wiring but it keep the central air from coming on at all and the house comfy for the CFO . But this morning she filed a complaint with it , it keeps running even after the basement cools down ..... so about 10 minutes later

I need to finish it up but playing with the distance from the heater to get the proper on off ratio with 100* thermostats .
So Show off your junk builds because when things get tight or hit the fan lowes or amazon might not be an option .
heres another , tire carrier out of some scrap metal , an old safty gate , a class 4 hitch pin ,class 4 bushing ,and the end of a trailer axle
Only thing I bought for the project was a latch .Notice the welds join pieces





Which my habit started before when I was farming . a 9 narrow rig for planting soybeans all made with stuff that was in my junk pile when I farmed .



 

Judging from that junction box, your next project may need to be "build a fire extinguisher"

haha. possibly true!

OP- I agree with you though- I'm always re-purposing things that are otherwise junk, whether I'm at work or at home. Its a very good and surprisingly rare skill. People usually just think "Oh' thats just trash" while I'm thinking, "hey I bet I could make that into....."

some things i buy
I need to rewire the house I have rewired the bathroom and kitchen and put GIF breakers in I hate the old BX wiring .There is no junction box in that pic Im guessing you are talking about the old power supply sitting on the support beam . That is going to be cleaned up and Ill put the cover back on it and when I do Ill desolder all of the unused wires . the wires are fused from the power supply to the fans with an 5 amp fuse , so no real danger on that end .





 

 

If your basement is that warm and the rest of the house is cold, you may need to address the real problem instead of "fixing" things.  

Either you have some pretty big duct leaks downstairs or big exterior leaks up.

Water heater and freezers in the basement also?

I bought one of those higher end digital thermostats that also has a "refresh" cycle.  Basically just turns the blower fan on once per hour to circulate the house.  Big help in moving the air around since my great room has LOTS of window but the back rooms get cold since they don't have the sun.

The basement is not on the house's central air circuit . when we run just the heat pump the up stairs will stay 70 the basement will be in the upper 50s -lower 60s  when we have avg winter temps here with lows 20s-30 highs 40-lower 50s for a week with the old furnace vents closed . If I open the furnace vents it will close the gap but I normally keep them closed , no need to heat the basement Im the only one that spends any time down there . We have 2 fireplaces one up stairs and one down stairs along with a wood heater that I replaced the wood oven down stairs with after we had a new born since the wife was worried about having an open fire up stairs with a little one roaming .But the upstairs fire place used to do a fair job of warming the main living areas. When I got the wood heater I planed on tieing it into the old furnace heater duct work to provide off the grid heat for the house if needed and to help the heat pump normally but havnt completed the project . During normal winter weather the heater running at a nice slow burn with its out put fan on low does a nice job of  keeping the basement nice and toasty along with keeping the upstairs heat pump usage  down a good bit . But during the cold snap I stoked up the heater and turned its fan to high which out ran the normal draft of the house , hence the hot basement and cool upstairs( which was well in my comfort zone)  .The little fans moved the air just enough to get a nice circulation going via the other vents since the cold air wants to fall and all that jazz . that little bit of flow if I keep the fire going basicly keeps the heat pump from coming on at all , when it comes on I know my fire is dieing down which is every 3-4 hours with the heater set for a moderate-high burn .  



 

Ah!  Makes sense now.

No one has any junk creations to show off ?

No pictures to speak of, but nearly everything on the 550 acres has some patch work from junk.

If it is metal, keep it! You can heat it, pound it, weld it, cut it and bolt it and fix about anything :)

Rip the wiring out of something you're throwing away and repurpose it (assuming it isn't corroded/damaged)

Just need an ounce of creativity and ingenuity!

I am like MacGuyver when it comes to this stuff.  Thanks, OP!

Absolutely OP. I NEVER throw anything away. I learned that if I purged my junk shed - the next day I needed something I tossed. As another poster stated - everything here on the farm has been repaired at one time or another with re=purposed material.

If I posted pics of my "junktiques" I would probably get a visit from the black SUV's.