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Wood Burning Stove Update

I have some disappointing news for you. There will be no wood burning stove. Not now and probably not ever. Oh well.

I called the fireplace guy yesterday and told him that I wanted to go ahead with the install. We were at the point of having my debit card in hand for the deposit, when I started digging into the necessary clearances. I hadn’t looked all that hard at these because I thought it was very straight forward…pop a free standing wood burning stove into the fireplace. Done deal. Right?

Not so fast. Apparently, the manufacturers of these stoves want huge clearances from any combustibles. We have space, but not the space the stove people want. I decided throw my hands in the air and say that I just don’t care. haha.

My new project is to figure out a way to make the existing fireplace more efficient. My brother and father mentioned to me that there was something called a “Tube Fireplace Heater.” Click here to see what I’m talking about.

Also, I wouldn’t mind getting some ceramic, tighter fitting glass doors. That would be cool. An outside air vent would be the icing on the cake.

So, even though my little project of getting a wood burning stove fell through, I still have some things to think about. And, after all, that’s what keeps me going.

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DutchWest Cast Iron Non-Catalytic Wood Stove

As promised (almost), I drove down to the wood stove store today to check out the scene. I was having a little trouble with the price of the wood stove insert that I wanted and needed to see if there was anything less expensive. I also wanted to see what the free standing wood stoves looked like. We can easily put one of them in the fireplace.

When I got there, I did my typical “guy” stroll around to browse all the stoves and inserts. I see it every time. The guys walk in with their hands in the pockets making grunts and noises, like “hmmm” and “hmmph.” It’s so funny because I do it too. There is kind of a lot to take in. Good thing the sales guy walks out to put things in perspective. I must say, I really love wood stoves and stuff like that.

I saw the “Hampton HI300 Wood Insert” that I wanted. It’s just as nice as I thought it would be. If money wasn’t an issue, I would tell them to pack it up and bring it over. Since I really don’t want to drop that kind of coin, I am becoming more and more interested in a smaller free standing wood stove. Remember, we already have the pellet stove, so we don’t really need that much more heat. Just something to keep my toes warm, something that doesn’t use electricity and something that will burn all the wood I am cutting down so I don’t have to watch it rot in the woods.

The sales guy introduced me to the more “economical” line of DutchWest wood burning stoves. They are pretty good looking and don’t have a lot of frills. Here is a picture I just took from the brochure.

DutchWest free standing wood stove

It’s cute, isn’t it? It’s also about $1000 less than the other one. A large part of the expense comes from the lining of the chimney and the installation. Heck, if all I needed was the stove, I could just run over there with the trailer and pick it up. That’s not the way it works anymore. Now, you need to have a 35 foot piece of insulated lining stuffed down the entire length of the very tall chimney and attached to the stove. All of that extra stuff actually costs more than the stove itself. At least I managed to drop the price somewhat.

I am hoping to have the stove stand on the stone outside the fireplace. The stove is 17 1/2 inches from front to back and the slab of stone is about 20 1/2. If we can do this, I can still access the side door to put longer (up to 19″) pieces of wood. That would be good. Otherwise, I will have to load shorter pieces through the front and cut about two inches off the stove legs so it fits inside the fireplace.

Anyway, I’ll get into all that stuff later if I decide to get this stove. I’ll make my decision by Saturday.

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Hampton HI300 Wood Insert

This is terrible, just terrible. I think I have found myself walking down a very bad path.

Okay, so I already told you that I am taking some trees down in the woods next to the house. This is a good thing and it’s really starting to look nice over there. I actually took two more trees down today. I don’t like to do too many at a time because I would rather get used to the small changes I make and think about what I am doing before I go ahead and take down some more. Either way, I am building up next year’s supply of firewood.

This is where the problem starts. I still have about a cord of wood from the trees I cut down last summer. It’s is seasoning quite nicely and will make for some splendid firewood come this winter.

Now, I am almost positive that I have complained about the miserable (in)efficiency of a regular fireplace. We have one here and it does a really great job of sucking up what ever heat you already have in the house, out the chimney. Sure, the living room is warm, but you have to wear a snow suit in all the other rooms. Really, I don’t even use it much…just on those chilly spring or autumn evening when the pellet stove isn’t running.

So here I am, sitting on a cord of seasoned firewood and building up next year’s supply. What to do?

I am very happy with the pellet stove we got last year. It kicks butt when it comes to heating up about 3/4 of the house. To get that much heat, I need to keep it humming all winter. Last winter, I used four tons of pellets. I wouldn’t mind having a heat supplement helping out the pellet stove.

I am going to make a long whiny story short here. I really want a Hampton HI300 Wood Insert for the fireplace in the living room. Take a look at it:

http://www.hampton-fire.com/Wood/Inserts/HI300/index.php

It’s really nice, isn’t it?

I called the fellas down at the fireplace store today and told them what I wanted. He wrote up a quote and faxed it over to me. The thing is, it’s pricey. I know I’m not going to save any money by getting this little toy, so I’m iffy about the whole thing. To make matters worse, there is a tax credit that’s available called the “The U.S. Biomass Tax Credit.” It gives you back 30% of your purchase and installation price, up to $1500. That is just driving me crazy. You can learn about the tax credit here.

I know I am going to find myself in the car tomorrow or the next day driving down to the fireplace store. It’s bad, but I just want to feel that heat cranking out of that stove this winter. It even has a blower.

I’ll let you know what happens.

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Cleaning Up The Woods

Man, I have been a busy boy these past few weeks. It’s been raining a lot and I seem to get myself into a bunch of work when I sit at the computer. Writing blog posts hasn’t been part of the work, if you haven’t noticed. Believe me, there’s guilt about the blog thing. I think it is going to ease up in a while, but that’s what I always say. Being creative on the internet is good, but let’s just say it doesn’t help the social life. Perhaps some sunshine could get me outside a bit more.

A few days ago, we were walking around outside and a light bulb went off in my head. I really hate it when that happens because I get a weird stare and start walking towards the garage to get some sort of a tool. I am not much of a planner (I think people call it spontaneous), so when I get an idea, I just start doing it. I actually have fun doing things that way.

This time, I got the great idea that the woods would look a heck of a lot better all cleaned up. If you remember back to last summer, I started taking down some of the smaller trees on the left side of the driveway. Well, I am going to finish the job this summer. I already took down a few more trees and need to remove about 6-8 more. It’s really cool because it doesn’t get any more sunny over there, it just gets cleaner looking with a nice “ceiling” provided by the very tall Oak trees.

I started raking part of the area and moved the wood piles over to their (hopefully) permanent home. I am going to have more fresh wood so I’ll have to figure something out for that. The reason I am moving the piles is because one of the trees that the current pile is leaning against is going to come down.

Here are some pictures of what I have done in the past few days. Do you know I would really like? I would like a little plow for the front of the tractor so I could just push all the layers of leaves down the hill instead of raking them all. That would be swell. Oh well. I’m not about to go buy another lawnmower attachment. I already have enough of them. Raking it is.

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Flower Identification

As many of you already know, I have a little trouble with flower identification. Actually, my next post has a few flower photos in it.

I wanted to tell you that I found a pretty good website that has a bunch of flower pictures. I found one of the flowers I was trying to identify and another one that someone else identified for me. If you are looking to figure out what type of flower you have growing in your garden, give this site a try.

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Spring Time In The Northeast

This is just another one of my documentation posts. I thought it would be nice to show the status of flowers budding as well as the grass and how far the leaves on the trees have come.

One thing to note is that we primarily have Oak trees on this road. I have been doing a lot of driving around and have noticed that everywhere else seemingly has more leaves on their trees. It looks pretty much like Summer there. Then, I get back here and it looks like early Spring. Oak trees bloom late, that’s all there is to it.

The grass is coming along nicely. It’s very green and the bald patches are filling in. I already mowed it twice. There is one thing I would like to mention…I have been using the rear bagger when I mow the lawn. I have read all over the place that it’s good to spray the grass clippings back onto the lawn. It probably is, but with my experience, and especially when the existing grass (and crabgrass) is seeding, it’s better to catch the clippings. I don’t want to spread crabgrass seeds back on the lawn. That would pretty much defeat the purpose of what I am trying to do here. I told a friend the other day, “Just take a look at what the good lawn services do and copy that.” Seems logical enough.

Here are some photos from a cloudy, muggy Spring day.

Yesterday, I received my notification call from Scotts Lawn service out of Hartford. They said they will be here within two business days. I gave a quick call back just to see what they will be doing. They told me that they will be spraying the lawn for weeds and putting down fertilizer / crabgrass pre-emergent. Sounds like just what we need.

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New King Size Kingsdown Sleep To Live Mattress Set

This is a humorous little story. Well, it’s humorous now that the whole little shopping ordeal is over, but it wasn’t earlier in the day yesterday.

Okay, my parents are coming up to visit. This is pretty exciting because they haven’t been to the house yet. Also, they are now southerners, so they totally forget what the North looks like…well, maybe not. Anyway, they will be here in just a few weeks and up until yesterday, they had no where to sleep.

We have been meaning to get a bed for the guest bedroom for about a year now. We really need one and every house should have one. We have already had two people stay over and they both had to sleep on the couch (one at a time). I really didn’t care that those two people slept on the couch, but I can’t expect my parents to sleep there. After all, they are very special people. You know, come to think of it…I’m still waiting for my father to come over and turn the lights on and off and on and off and jump on the couch all day. He used to threaten to do that to me when I was a kid. That’s right, he used to tell me that he was going to come over to where I was living and leave the doors wide open and the lights on all day. I guess he was trying to teach me a lesson.

Back to the bed. Buying a bed that you don’t need is probably one of the most annoying things a person can do. Beds are expensive and having an expensive bed sitting in a room that you don’t use is just ridiculous. Trust me, I thought of all different ways to get out of this. I considered getting a futon, considered getting a new bed for us and moving our old one in the guest bedroom and considered putting my parents up in a hotel. I know, I know, we needed the bed anyway. Putting them in a hotel wouldn’t solve the problem of housing future guests.

I put this project off for such a long time. It’s amazing; I am finally going to the dentist every six months, but I can’t find my way into a mattress store for the life of me. Well, yesterday was the day that we dragged ourselves out of the house and drove up to Sleepy’s in Manchester. We were just going to look, because I had a plan.

After college, when I lived in Atlanta, I wanted one thing. I wanted a real bed. I slept in some pretty bad conditions while at college and all I wanted was to sleep in a nice queen size bed with a Simmons Beautyrest mattress, just like my friend had. I liked his mattress. It had those independently pocketed coils and it was really comfortable. When I moved down south, one of the first things I did was to order that mattress. Well, 10 years came and went last year and that mattress began making our backs ache. We ordered a new mattress. Our new mattress is okay, but nothing special. It’s only a year old and is fairly comfortable.

I spent some time doing a little mattress research online before we went up to Sleepy’s. My plan was to go into the store, lay down on a good number of beds and then take off, only to buy one online. I had a hunch that I could get a bed cheaper by ordering it from 1-800-mattress or something like that. After all, I think I got the whole Simmons Beautyrest bed set from them for a little over $400 back eleven years ago. How much can they be now?

We walked into the Sleepy’s store and instantly found the Simmons Beautyrest beds. We layed down on a few of them and Laura picked out two she liked. Then, the sales guy came over. He started talking about the benefits of sleep and all that. I put my hand up to stop him before he even got started. I told him that we were only looking for a queen size bed set for a guest room. It doesn’t have to be all that great, but it does need those independently pocketed coils. I am simply hung up on them.

Oh yeah, I also told him my budget was $650. Yeah, that’s $650 I really did not want to spend.

He showed us a few of the cheaper beds. Actually, the cheapest bed set was $999 and it was pretty cheap. I thought $999 was a lot of money, but I guess it’s really not in the bedding world. Now, $8000 is a lot. If you spent a grand for a bed ten years ago, you were living like a king.

Somehow, my plan of just trying out a few beds and leaving was forgotten. I got all wrapped up in trying to negotiate a cheaper price for a cheap bed. Unfortunately, the lowest this guy would go was $999. There was nothing in the store for less.

As we were laying on all these beds in total comfort, the wheels in my mind started turning. I started picturing myself sleeping on a nice luxurious bed, like there were so many of in this particular store.

As time went on, I get the feeling that the sales guy and I were coming to some sort of an agreement about purchasing a bed set. I know he knew that I really didn’t want to spend much money, but he also saw my face when I was trying out some of the beds. I was very non-committal…I wouldn’t put my feet up. I would sort of lay halfway on the bed while trying to figure out if it was comfortable or not. There was a wide variety of comfort available.

You know, beds have come a long way these past few years. There are all sorts of pillowtop, folding, vibrating, shaking and some even have little arms that come out of the sides to rub your belly if you want. Okay, that last one was a stretch. Seriously though, some of these beds are really, really comfortable.

In Sleepy’s, there is this air mattress that the customer can lay on that is hooked to a computer. It allegedly calibrates something-or-other and spits out a piece of paper that tells you what “color” firmness or softness you are. I was a green and Laura was a blue. We were very close to one another. We probably would have picked those colors anyway because the firm mattresses are really hard and the soft ones are like couch cushions.

As time went on, we found ourselves laying more and more on the “Kingsdown- Sleep to Live” brand of mattress. There was something different about these mattresses. They provided some serious comfort. The sales guy was only too happy to discuss the benefits of the Sleep To Live brand of mattress with us.

As I lay on the queen size, semi-firm Sleep To Live mattress, I envisioned myself setting this exact bed set up in the bedroom…just not the guest bedroom. I mean, since our current mattress is only a year old, what’s the harm of sliding that into the guest bedroom and having us sleep on something new and luxurious? I mean really. The bad part was that the prices kept going higher and higher as I moved on to better mattresses.

I don’t know what came over me, but at some point in the day, I found myself asking the sales guy about the price differences between the king size bed sets and the queen. A few hundred bucks. Hmmm.

Okay guys, I am going to make a long story short and tell you that we now have a new Sleep To Live, king size mattress set, a new king size sheet set and a new bed frame set up in the bedroom…not the guest bedroom.

I always wanted a king size bed. We slept on it last night and I think it was nice. I can’t get past the part of how I feel like I don’t deserve to be laying on something so nice. I probably don’t deserve it; no one does. It’s bedding gluttony, pure and simple.

I will tell you that I did a tremendous amount of negotiating for this bed. I know certainly well that Sleepy’s is not selling too many bed sets these days and I took advantage of that. As I was going through my normal routine of chewing the guy down, he kept asking me if I wanted to finance everything. Finance it? I almost asked him if he was serious. Who in the world finances a bed? Where I come from, if you can’t afford a nice bed, you sleep on a not-so-nice one. What has this world turned into where companies offer financing for mattresses? Remember, I’m the guy who used to use a 5-gallon bucket as a chair and slept on some used mattress on the floor back in college. I mean, c’mon.

I’m back. I would offer up a picture of the new bed, but it is not made right now. Perhaps I will take a picture of it when we get a new headboard.

Over and out.

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Are Lawn Weeds Annuals Or Perennials?

It appears they are both.

If you haven’t noticed, lawn weeds are starting to hit hard. It’s been hot for the past few days and this is prime season for all those ugly critters to take hold in your lawn. I actually just went out yesterday to get a few bottles of Ortho Weed-B-Gone, along with the hand sprayer that hooks up to a garden hose. I sprayed the front yard today and am going to wait to see what that looks like. I’ll let you know.

Since I had the guys at Scotts Lawn Service put down some pre-emergent herbicide, I am sitting here wondering why the lawn is starting to have weeds grow in it. There are some spots with crabgrass, but other weeds are growing as well. The whole thing got me thinking about which lawn weeds are annuals and which ones are perennials.

I found a nice description of the most common lawn weeds over at this website. I’ll put the weeds in a list for you:

Perennial Lawn Weeds

- Dandelion
- Ground ivy
- Clover
- Plantain
- Nutsedge

Annual Lawn Weeds

- Crabgrass
- Annual bluegrass
- Knotweed

I think we pretty much have all of these weeds, so my work is cut out for me.

I know that a lot hinges on how nice and full lawn grass grows. We have a few bare spots that need reseeding, but I can’t do that until Autumn. I am getting a little impatient, but seeding now (with the pre-emergent still active) is a waste of time. Also, seeding in the Summer doesn’t really work out too well. Come September, I am going to de-thatch and aerate the heck out of this place and reseed the whole thing.

Little by little. That’s what they say about lawns and lawn care…little by little and you’ll win the battle.

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Dethatching A Lawn

I know I am probably beating a dead horse here, but I wanted to post a few photos of today’s lawn dethatching.

Yesterday, I showed you some photos of dethatching the front lawn. Today, I am going to show you some photos of the back yard getting dethatched. I know, very exciting.

Actually, I dethatched the entire front area along the road as well as behind the house. That took a lot to do. This dethatcher works wonders. I pulled up so much dead grass, I couldn’t believe it. I am slowly learning about all the goodies the real guys use to make lawns look good. When I was riding the tractor, towing the dethatcher, the lawn looked like it was being rototilled because there was so much of a mess behind me. Believe it or not, this dethatcher really doesn’t mess with the good grass. That grass is really rooted in there. It just pulls up all the dead weeds and everything else that shouldn’t be there.

Here are some photos of dethatching the back yard.

Sorry, I forgot to get the before shots.

If you look closely, you can see all the dead material on top of the grass. One time around the back yard basically filled up both rear bags on the mower. It’s crazy how much stuff came up. Take a look at the last photo. That area was totally covered with dead crabgrass, not it’s all cleaned up and ready for this season.

Come September, I am going to dethatch the lawn once more and then I’m going to aerate the heck out of it. After that, I am going to put down seed where it’s needed. Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said it takes a few years to get a nice lawn.

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Brinly 40 Inch Tow-Behind Dethatcher

I have been beating myself up over this one for a few days.

I have gone back and forth, looking on the internet, trying to determine if I need to have the lawn dethatched. I know, I know…as my father would say, “Just mow the lawn and get on with your life.” Well, unfortunately, I am someone who has been sucked into the art of lawn care and really seem to enjoy it.

Some websites that I browsed said that dethatching really isn’t necessary because the thatch layer should naturally break down if the lawn is in good health. Another website said that dethatching is good, but only in the autumn because you don’t want to disturb the newly sprouting grass. The last website said that you should dethatch in the spring, autumn and everything in between. Go you.

I had a few things to do today, one of them being to start tackling the “after winter” lawn. There are ugly patches all over the place from chopped up leaves and dead crabgrass. There are also twigs like you wouldn’t believe.

This morning, I grabbed a rake from the garage and walked out to the front lawn and started raking. I did an area about fifty feet long by ten feet wide and raked up a good amount of dead grass. Then, I ran my hand through my hair, sniffled a little bit and took a look around at the rest of the lawn. I quickly said, “H*ll no. I ain’t doing all that.” Please pardon me. That’s the street talk in me. I decided that getting an inexpensive dethatcher is the way to go. After all, I do have a nice new John Deere ride-on mower with a rear bagger. I should really use it.

A dethatcher is really only a big rake. I mean, you could dethatch your whole lawn with a hand rake if you wanted to. That’s actually what people used to do in the old days, like ten years ago. Remember when you were a kid and one of your parents yelled at you to get outside and rake the lawn? Yeah, they meant with a rake, not a 40 inch tow behind dethatcher. After a few years of some kid raking the yard by hand, he or she got the bright idea of inventing a better tool.

I picked up a “Brinly 40 Inch Tow-Behind Dethatcher” from Home Depot in Glastonbury this afternoon. It was the cheapest one that had. I would have preferred buying the John Deere front mounted dethatcher because I could d-thatch and bag at the same time, but that unit and mount cost about $400. This old man isn’t paying $400 to rake the lawn. I’ll get the $79 jobber.

I put the dethatcher together when we got back. It took about 45 minutes to finish it up…just enough time to give it a dry run around the front lawn. For this little trial, I didn’t put a weight on the unit; I simply towed it around to see how it worked.

I have to say, it did a pretty good job. The dethatcher scraped along the ground and loosened up all the layered thatch (of which there is more than you realize). While towing it around, I was able to easily see the areas I already covered. When I was finished dethatching, I re-installed the rear bagger and sucked up all the dead grass clippings, dead crab grass and twigs and dumped all that waste into the woods. I got almost four full bags. Not bad for one simple dry run around the front lawn.

Here, take a look at the photos.

PS – If you want to see what a lawn looks like before dethatching, click here.

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