Homesteading

[BIGSCOTT]

Reed Lukens - looks like you got it goin on, sometimes I wished I lived in california, or anyplace that aint so damned hot in the summer.
and closer to some gold panning.

 

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[Reed Lukens]

Up too late watching a movie on Netflix. Undressed and ready for bed. A welt on my side, magnifying glass in hand. Another one of them little B*****Ds buried under my skin. forceps digging flesh 3 times, got it out and burned it. Neosporin on wound, Mom (a retired RN) loves the stuff, and just what do I know but follow her instructions...

Danged!

Good night....

Get some military jungle suits or bug spray pants and then cover them with Deet so it kills them before they get to you. The coveralls are the best then when you know you are working in an area infected with tics, duct tape your pant legs to your boots to keep them out.

On another note on the wood stove, you are leaving at least 3" of ash across the entire bottom to retain the coal bed right? If not then this will solve your wood problem. Never shovel the ashes out, only scrape off the top leaving a few inches to keep the coals. Then when cleaning out the stove because the ash base gets to hard, be sure to save enough fresh ash to recover the bottom of the stove. Never burn any stove without a layer of ash in the bottom, even the ones with a bottom dump.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Never burn any stove without a layer of ash in the bottom, even the ones with a bottom dump.

Thanks Reed, you've given some pretty darned good advice here. I guess a mistake I've made was cleaning all the ashes out once a week. The coming Winter, I'll follow your advice on that. On the really cold nights where I attended the fire all night, I burned hot to heat the house for Mom. At 89 she can't take the cold, and I always had the house warm for her, plus heating 3 floors. The ashes would pile up to 6" deep in the stove. By the end of the season I finally managed a 6 hour burn. This coming year I'll be more educated. I'll put that extra damper in too before the season.

My garden used to be the interstate freeway for the deer herds here, thus the deer tick infestation. What I'm thinking about is dusting the entire area with DE, but then that would kill the beneficial bugs too. Another thing I read was spraying the entire area with citrus to drive them away.

I'm impressed with your little paradise too! Great history there! We have our own little places to hide from the world.

I'm making mistakes here, but those are reasonably called "higher eduction"

Take care new friend!

Roger

 

[DeepseekerADS]

If your mom has stove pipe going through her room

The chimney comes up between the living room and kitchen where granny had her cook stove. They also had a wood stove, then later an oil heater in the in the living room at the time, so there's ports on both sides. I'm hesitant to do anything there, but in the future that may become an option.

My cousin gave me a chimney brush. Need to pick up some more rods to make the 25' or so rise to the top from the base in the basement.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Hey deep I didnt know you had a PHD

No, I'm getting one here now! And you guys are giving me the classroom education

 

[releventchair]

So I thought I would read this after I posted on logging and for next winter put a damper in that stove. On those older style stoves a damper in the pipe makes a huge difference in regulating the heat and up to 25% on the wood usage. Any hardware store with wood stoves will have one. They are cheap and easy to install.

View attachment 1178516

Major catch R.L., I missed it not having one.
Combined with a temp gauge ,a throttle will absolutely make heating much different.
Starting wide open and closing it partway once a fire is up, then closing it more when coals become a factor and tweaking draft, stoves potential can be realized and a longer run time leading to less tending at night. Not running air through it more than needed (any excess air beyond what is needed accelerating consumption) adds up to greater economy multiple ways.
Around twenty five bucks for the two items, and some brief labor.. well worth it.
I ran all stoves with a thermometer after the first use of one.
Helps efficiency and tells me where balance of damper and draft needs to be to run 350 degrees.
Put one on a former elderly neighbors stove after about having a stack fire caused by her running it choked off/throttled down to about nothing for years with old pipe and not cleaning it.
Creosote running down the roof, stack sizzling. I shut her stove down and insisted it stay that way till stack was replaced.
Showing her how the temp gauge worked and how to maintain draft regulation as fire evolved after sticking it on led to stove being used differently saving wood and scares.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

View attachment 1178588

I have a temperature gauge similar to this on the stove pipe, one on the first floor chimney, and one on my chimney in my room. There's always a 10 degree difference between the first floor and my room. I look at that from my room as a way to determine when to play with the fire.

The FD fan I have on the stove for the hot air chamber, I'm running that now as another way to cool the house.

 

[releventchair]

Gauges likely differ.
Most are instructed to be a couple to three feet from the stove itself.

 

[rockhound]

Old timers used a brick on a rope to clean their chimneys. They would drop it down from the top and try to swing it from side to side as they retrieved it . After several attempts, they would just let it scrub the sides as they pulled it out. It is labor intensive dropping and retrieving that brick but seems do a descent job of creosote removal. They would place a pan or flat plate in their stove so they could remove the creosote from the afterwards. Good luck. rockhound

 

[DeepseekerADS]

There's a door at the base of the chimney in the basement. The roof is too steep and I'm afraid of heights, so I'll be cleaning from the basement. I know it needs it, as I can see from the top cap on the chimney stalactites hanging down.

That gopher wood I burned....

 

[Reed Lukens]

I can see the stove pipe is 6" but it goes into that ducting. You won't find any creosote in the pipe because it is the right size, but if it doesn't run at 6" all the way through the roof and if there is an increase in the flu diameter somewhere above the pipe, this will cause creosote. Because the stove requires a 6" flu, the wider it gets, the slower the smoke moves up through the chimney. As the smoke slows and cools before exiting the flu - this is when the creosote is formed. The smoke cools enough to not be able to rise anymore and it then sticks to the walls as tar. Because you run it hot a lot, if it is 6" to the top then it will be really clean. The only thing that causes the creosote is having too large of a flu. But if you have a screen in the cap, this will clog and needs to be cleaned yearly, with no screen, just watch it and clean when needed

 

[joncutt87]

Worked my 8 hours today, and started cutting firewood. Then it was time for a cold shower before dinner, and drawing up miking stand plans after.

Found out a few weeks ago that we will be having a little girl at the beginning of October.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Found out a few weeks ago that we will be having a little girl at the beginning of October.

I think that calls for congratulations!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I can see the stove pipe is 6" but it goes into that ducting.

That pipe on top of the stove up into the ducting is the forced air into the floor grating above. There was an old coal stove centered in the ducting. I trimmed the ducting to enable the Englander to sit there. I plan to rivet some sheet metal to that ducting to fit further down, around the stove in order to capture more heat into the first floor above.

The pipe to the chimney is also 6".

 

[joncutt87]

I think that calls for congratulations!

Thanks deep. I think we we finally decided on a name, Aubrey Opal

 

[releventchair]

That pipe on top of the stove up into the ducting is the forced air into the floor grating above. There was an old coal stove centered in the ducting. I trimmed the ducting to enable the Englander to sit there. I plan to rivet some sheet metal to that ducting to fit further down, around the stove in order to capture more heat into the first floor above.

The pipe to the chimney is also 6".

The feed door and draft controls pose a challenge to creating a full double wall construction.
With an outer wall a few inches from the stove wall, a thermostatic controlled blower could then force heat from created jacket.
Good thing stoves don't make me scheme huh?
One former coal stove converted to gas had a duct from jacket to the only heat register in the house. Before going to thermostatic fan on a steel double wall stove replacing the old iron stove.. I put a fan in the duct with a manual switch. A cool draft through the register resulted when left on overnight.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

With an outer wall a few inches from the stove wall, a thermostatic controlled blower could then force heat from created jacket. :

That's a great idea my very Relevent friend, I'd not thought of that

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I've been looking for some lost paperwork all day, and stumbled into this picture of the farm before my house was built. This view is looking North at the old house (note the chimney!)

To the left you can see the size of the old beech tree. This picture was likely taken in the 1940's

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I cleared 3 of my boxed frames and planted beans. I looked through all my seeds, some 50 or so different, and decided I wanted to plant beans and see what they do. My tomatoes are getting near a color change on many. Squash & cukes are going crazy, may get some melons after all, and the bugs have been horrid accompanied by the heat. So I have some plants which are not looking very good.

I'm resigned to this year's crop. Next years crop is maybe a different future. Gotta bone up on bugs, danged Japanese beetles love my grapes, wild & domestic, and my blackberries too. I've been eating a few blueberries, raspberries, and wineberries - which I view as pretty good for a first year planting.

 

[rockhound]

I have been getting loads of gooseberries of my vines this year. They claim drier weather makes abundant grapes and berries. Good luck. rockhound