I'd go with a commie plot DE - I'm sure that is it.
Pete
Pete
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Real Estate Update
- Thread starter Downeaster
- Start date
Pete, did you ever get your nest in the garage attic squared away?(not meaning to hijack)
Oh yes - it is storing a lot of stuff for my (eventual) shop plus some seasonal stuff like Christmas decorations etc. The useful floor space is about 7 or 8 feet wide and around 25 feet long (the depth of the garage) and I can stand erect and walk from end-to-end without bashing my head on anything. It really isn't suitable to use as a "room" as access is a pain (folding down the ladder etc.) and it isn't insulated at all so it is very cold in the winter and beastly hot in the summer, but it works great as a storage place for things that aren't used very often. A civil engineer buddy had a look at it and told me that it should be fine as long as I distributed the load and kept it near the edges - and didn't put anything really heavy up there like a machine tool or a bike.
I installed three light fixtures and screwed in those "petal" style LED lights (available on Amazon) - and so it is bright as day up there. I also put in a railing made of black pipe screwed together around the hole in the "floor" of the attic so that nobody will fall through as the drop to the garage floor is about 12 feet - so it would be deadly.
The little 110 volt Princess Auto (Canadian analogue of Horrible Fright) electric cable hoist is rated at either 220 lbs or 440 lbs depending on whether you use the pulley block to double-up the cable. It is hung on a heavily built frame that is secured to two of the roof trusses. I have not lifted anything that weighed more than about 50-60 lbs but I used the double-cable set-up since it slows down the speed of the lift and makes it easier to manoeuvre the little platform through the hatch (see photo below). The system works really well for lifting loads up into the attic and lowering them down again safely. I bought a 5-level plastic shelf at Home Despot and used the top level shelf as a platform with a chain at each corner attached with U-bolts. The hoist control switch is on a 7 foot wiring pigtail which is hung on a rafter at the top of the ladder alongside the light switch so that I don't have to fumble around in the dark up there.
I will say that without that electric cable hoist, moving anything up or down from there would be, quite honestly, dangerous and the space would be essentially useless. The whole conversion cost about $300 including the hoist, the wiring and the lights - and so it is a fair bit less than a 200 sq. ft. shed would have cost.
Pete
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Started the process of swapping furnaces today. New furnace is significantly taller than the old one, so my Homey-made plenum ain't gonna work. Fortunately, the new furnace came with it's "cottage base", so I can do a little tinwork on that to adapt it to ducts (just has vent grills now) and it should be fine.
So I thought this morning I'd start making block-off plates and putting duct adapters on it, and ran into a "But First I Gotta" black hole.
It was disGUSTINGly dirty, so first I douched it with 409 and wiped it down. That revealed some completely disintegrated adhesive foam that sealed between the furnace and the base so I scraped that off. That left a bunch of nasty tape residue so I douched it down with mineral spirits and scraped/scrubbed/wiped THAT off. That revealed some pretty extensive surface rust in a number of places so I wirebrushed it all and sprayed some Rustoleum Rust Remover on it (great stuff, BTW) and let it work for a couple of hours while I watered the garden (dryer than a popcorn fart around here...) and then rinsed it off and scrubbed it down with TSP and a rag and rinsed it again. So now it's clean, but it looks like the dog's breakfast, so I let it dry in the Sun while I watered the garden some more (did I mention it's dry here?) and then sprayed a coat of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer (another great product) and let it dry while I took a nap and put the garden watering stuff away.
It's now sitting on the table in the shop waiting for me to make block-off plates and duct adapters. Say...isn't this where I came in?
So I thought this morning I'd start making block-off plates and putting duct adapters on it, and ran into a "But First I Gotta" black hole.
It was disGUSTINGly dirty, so first I douched it with 409 and wiped it down. That revealed some completely disintegrated adhesive foam that sealed between the furnace and the base so I scraped that off. That left a bunch of nasty tape residue so I douched it down with mineral spirits and scraped/scrubbed/wiped THAT off. That revealed some pretty extensive surface rust in a number of places so I wirebrushed it all and sprayed some Rustoleum Rust Remover on it (great stuff, BTW) and let it work for a couple of hours while I watered the garden (dryer than a popcorn fart around here...) and then rinsed it off and scrubbed it down with TSP and a rag and rinsed it again. So now it's clean, but it looks like the dog's breakfast, so I let it dry in the Sun while I watered the garden some more (did I mention it's dry here?) and then sprayed a coat of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer (another great product) and let it dry while I took a nap and put the garden watering stuff away.
It's now sitting on the table in the shop waiting for me to make block-off plates and duct adapters. Say...isn't this where I came in?
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It always sounds simple in the beginning , but then……..
It's easy to forget the original task was just to drain the swamp.... when you're up to your ass in alligators.
Or sumpin' like that......
Or sumpin' like that......
Finished up with the install today.
Had to reconfigure the duct work to accommodate the new base and build a new stack as this one is all 4 inch, the old one was 5 inch.
Hooked up power, fuel and the 'stat this morning and test fired it. All good and MUCH quieter than the old one. I suspect it's going to be more efficient too, if for no other reason than that it has an insulated base (old one blew right on the concrete floor) and I fixed some small issues with leaks in the ducts while reconfiguring.
Won't need it until mid-October at least (I hope...) but it's nice to know it's ready to go.
Had to reconfigure the duct work to accommodate the new base and build a new stack as this one is all 4 inch, the old one was 5 inch.
Hooked up power, fuel and the 'stat this morning and test fired it. All good and MUCH quieter than the old one. I suspect it's going to be more efficient too, if for no other reason than that it has an insulated base (old one blew right on the concrete floor) and I fixed some small issues with leaks in the ducts while reconfiguring.
Won't need it until mid-October at least (I hope...) but it's nice to know it's ready to go.
My construction is slated to commence on Wednesday this week....
Your shop/bike garage?
Yup - woo-hoo!!
We'll need pictures. You know, in case you weren't aware that we like pictures here...
Matt Foley, may he rest in peace.Yeah buddy!
X77S
Let's do this!
You'll have plenty of time to smoke doobies, when you living in a van down by the river!
All of the post holes have been bored, the inspector has come from the Town of Essex and approved them and the crew is getting concrete down there in preparation for setting them this afternoon. They have kindly re-planted the two pine trees that had to be moved.
In the meantime, the lumber has been delivered - and so everything is coming together nicely!
In the meantime, the lumber has been delivered - and so everything is coming together nicely!
The progress in 3 hours is remarkable!
Wow! Things are moving right along Pete! That Bobcat sure doesn’t take long to dig a hole! 
Wow! Things are moving right along Pete! That Bobcat sure doesn’t take long to dig a hole!
Nope - less than 2-3 minutes per hole, I'd say.
These are great people to work with - very obliging. We had about 5 large boulders which needed to be moved plus the big trees to be re-planted, and they did all of that gratis (I will dash each guy some cash at the end). They are all part of the large Mennonite community that lives around here.
