Well, I did it. I sprung for the MoistAir 14 Gallon Humidifier. It works pretty nicely.
A few weeks ago, there was a snap in the air. I thought, “Oh no. Here we go again.” I had to light up the pellet stove and with that comes dry air. I woke up a few mornings with a dry head.
I had known that I was going to get this humidifier since last year. I wasn’t looking forward to spending over $100 on it though. As you might remember, I purchased another one last year and it couldn’t cut it. I thought the evaporative route might be better traveled.
MoistAir 14 gallon humidifier
MoistAir evaporative 2,900 square foot humidifier
This humidifier is supposed to cover 2,900 square feet and evaporate 14 gallons a day. Having run this little machine for a few weeks now, I would agree with the manufacturer’s claim. It certainly pulls the water out of the tanks and puts it into the air. We have the unit set up in the basement and we constantly hear the gurgling of water. The only modification we had to make was the slip a few tiles underneath the front of the unit. For some reason, the water wasn’t coming out of one of the tanks. Since I put the tile under there, it has been working great.
By the way, there are three fan speeds and three humidity level settings. I forget what we have the humidity settings on, but when I see moisture on the windows, I turn it down.
One question: Just wondering why the people who made this humidifier thought it was necessary for it resemble a 1978 station wagon. Fake wood grain went out a few years ago.
Who says you can’t buy the least expensive item on the wall and still get good results? Not me. I suppose these lights weren’t the “least” expensive, but pretty darn close.
When it comes to lighting, the price usually starts pretty reasonably, then gets a little higher and finally gets just stupid. I am not sure I have ever purchased an expensive light fixture, but strangely enough, every one I have bought looked great. Go figure. (the same is true with shower heads and door knobs, but I already covered that)
I had a project sitting on my to-do list for a while. The project was to switch out the current lighting fixtures we had on the sides of the front door and replace them with motion detecting lighting fixtures. We had motion sensing wall lights on the old house and I really liked them. They are great for seeing what you are doing when trying to get inside. It’s funny that I waited this long on this project. I guess it slipped me by. The impending darkness reminded me.
A few days ago, we were shopping at the Costco up in Enfield. We were pulling out of the parking lot when I remembered that there was a Home Depot a few stores down. I thought it would be better to visit this Home Depot while we were already out, instead of making a special trip. I made a right and off we went.
When we got inside, we made our way to the lighting aisle. We were confronted with a wall full of blinking lights. The lights were blinking because it was full of the motion sensing fixtures that I was looking for. The scene was pretty funny…as we walked down the aisle, the lights seems to follow us. They were only on “test” mode, so they shut right off. After a while, I think I got a little distracted because every time I would walk over to check something out, a light would blink on right in my eyes.
The two of us went back and forth for a little while discussing which fixtures were our favorites. We ended up getting the ones I liked because as I said towards the top of this post, they were less expensive than most of the other fixtures. Again, there were those teensy weensy little fixtures that were really cheap, but not really what we were looking for.
Hampton Bay Exterior Motion Sensor Wall Lantern Light
Hampton Bay Exterior Motion Sensor Wall Lantern Light box
When we got back, I started getting these things installed. I turned off the breaker and pulled the old fixtures off the wall. I hooked up the new fixtures and turned the breaker on. I set the switches on the fixture to the most sensitive heat and the longest stay on time and waited for dark.
A few hours later when it was nice and dark outside, I went back out to walk in front of the lights. They turned on and made me a happy boy. I went back inside to do some more work. Then, about a half hour later, I took a look outside the window. I noticed that they lights were still on. Not good.
I went back outside and changed the settings. I think the wind was messing with the sensors. The package says something about heat, but I guess motion sets the lights off too…moving heat. Not sure how branches count as heat, but I’m not a lighting engineer.
I changed the switch settings to medium sensitivity and the lowest stay on time. From there on, everything worked great.
So great…I got two more fixtures today to replace the garage fixtures with.
I keep thinking…if people mow their lawns, bag the clippings and rake up all the leaves, where does the lawn soil get any organic material from? It’s an interesting question and one that I haven’t found the answer to yet.
I used to bag the lawn clippings. I was having fun doing it too. Then, I read that I could just mow the lawn and let the clipping stay. Of course the article was written by one of those freaky granola people with a dirt lawn. You know the type, the guy who tries to eat the lawn weeds. I always try to take advice from people I want to be like, not some weirdo who jumped on the “green” train. So, I kept on reading articles from a variety of authors. I came to the conclusion that leaving the grass clippings on the lawn is okay if you mow frequently. If you mow infrequently, you will get big grass clumps that will kill the grass underneath. I think I can handle mowing regularly. About half way through this last Summer, I stopped bagging and the lawn looked the same thereafter.
The whole reason I did that research is because every time I bagged the clippings, I felt like I was taking a little bit of love away from the soil. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how that soil was going to get the organic material back. I mean, was it from the leaves I pick up every Autumn? No, because they obviously aren’t there anymore (I picked them up, duh).
I had a vision in my head…I visualized the lawn in five years. It was horrible. Everything was in black and white and looked barren like the moon’s surface. You can even use Mars as an example. I didn’t like having a lawn with no nutrients and dark soil. I decided to keep reading and to research what would happen if I just mulched up the leaves that fall from the trees every year and kept them right there on the grass. Well, wouldn’t you just know it, other people were having the same thoughts and a group up at Michigan State University did a study on this exact topic.
I am going to jump right to the conclusion of their study. They said that it is okay to mulch your leaves into the grass and it’s actually better for the soil. It helps out all those microbes and the worms as well. I know about the worms because my compost pile is FULL of them. Worms like organic material. If the lawn had more organic material, I could imagine that the worms would find their way there.
I’m going to do it. This year, I am going to mulch the leaves and leave them on the lawn. I am going to have to do a really thorough job though because there are a lot of leaves. That’s good because there are some areas of this lawn where the soil is just stripped of any nutrients. I wouldn’t even call it soil anymore. It’s like dust when it gets dry.
I suppose I could always just spread peat moss or compost over the grass every Autumn. That wouldn’t really be fun. Besides, where would I get my compost? From the big pile of leaves and grass clippings I raked up and bagged the year before?
This year will be the experiment. I will let you know how it goes. If things look good in the Spring, I will tell you. Actually, I will tell you either way. It can’t get any worse than it is now. Although, I am looking at the grass after a three week spell of no rain and a thorough dethatching job. Things ain’t looking so great.
I have always wanted an under sink water filter. I’m not sure why, especially since we have a whole house filter. I guess it’s because the whole house filter is all the way down in the basement and I keep thinking the water gets all screwed up traveling through the pipes. I like the idea of having a filter close to the tap.
I decided that I had the capabilities to install an under sink water filter myself. I mean, I do have the brains and the patience. It’s not really a hard job, just one that you have to psych yourself into doing because you have to clean out under the sink. You know…all those bottles of who knows what and cans of what the heck it this. Throw in a few old sponges and there you have it – the area below a kitchen sink.
There was one little issue that was in the way of me installing a water filter. The faucet we had installed on the kitchen sink was a bit out dated. It was one of those “one handle” ones that sits right in the middle. Some people prefer that style, but I always liked the two handle ones. In this case, the two handles are preferred because the water filter only runs on the cold line. I like knowing that when I turn on the cold water, only the cold water is running. So, I basically needed a water filter and a new kitchen faucet. Not a problem, I’m really cheap when it comes to kitchen faucets and the filter setup was only $34. It even came with the insert.
Off to Lowe’s I went. When I got there, I strolled down the filter aisle and picked out a “Whirlpool Drop in Filtration System – WHKF-DUF.” This is the $34 jobber I just told you about. I knew what to expect because I already picked it out online. I put the filter in the cart and went over to the next aisle that had all the faucets. There they were, all lined up on the wall. I knew I wanted the chrome Peerless for around $44, but I was forced to get the $68 model because we have a four hole sink. That means that we have that extra little sprayer. You know, the one that you can wrap a rubber band around and sit back in its holder. When someone comes by to turn on the sink, they get sprayed. Yeah, that one.
I picked up the model I needed and put it in my cart. Or what I thought was my cart.
Here’s a funny little story. When I rolled my cart into the faucet aisle, I saw a nice family standing there trying to pick out a kitchen faucet. I noticed that they were kind of just randomly picking things out and didn’t know why. There are differentiating factors in faucets such as the one handle or two that I spoke of above. Also, there is the height of the faucet end. Our old faucet was low, so when I tried to get a large pot filled with water, I had to angle it such a way. Anyway, I broke the ice by saying, “Boy, I feel like I’m part of the family.” They laughed and I laughed. The father just looked at me. There were three of them…the mother, the father and the daughter. Okay, on with the story. I told them about the height issue and why and they were just amazed. As far as I was concerned, they thought I was the cat’s meow. I left the aisle to go out to the garden center.
When I got out to the garden center, I picked out two trees and put them into the cart. I stood back and looked at the faucet. Then, I wondered where the filter was. For the first time in my life, I grabbed the wrong cart. I think it was the faucet aisle family’s cart that I had taken. I left the cart outside in the garden area (because I already had the trees in it) and walked back into the faucet aisle. There it was, my cart with the filter in it. I felt bad for the poor family that had to walk away with no cart, carrying the faucet in their hands. They probably thought I was just fluffing them up earlier so I could steal their cart.
Okay, story time is over. Here are some pictures of the kitchen faucet and under sink water filter installation.
Under kitchen sink looking up at botton of old faucet
Under kitchen sink looking at hot and cold plumbing pipes
Top of sink with old faucet removed
Under sink with old faucet removed
New Peerless kitchen faucet installed
Whirlpool under sink water filter installed
Peerless kitchen faucet box
Peerless kitchen faucet model P99587-D
Whirlpool under sink water model WHKF-DUF
Everything works great and the installation took me about an hour and a half.
I have always wondered why there is such a big price difference between faucets, and doorknobs for that matter. Either I have never used a really high quality faucet or doorknob or I am just missing something. Every time I go shopping for either, I always get the cheapest available and find that they work just great. Maybe I am missing something. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
We have this ugly Red Oak tree at the end of the driveway, up near the road. It’s ugly because the branches are all out of shape. I guess the weather has done a number on it over the years.
The majority of the tree is intact, but…well, I’ll just show you with the photos below.
Okay, that last hail storm broke a big branch way up at the top of this ugly Oak tree. I saw it and called a tree service to come over and give me a price on getting that branch out of there and generally cleaning the tree up. They came, gave me a price and left.
I thought about it for a few days and figured that I had time because the big branch was kind of wedged way up there and not really going anywhere. If we were lucky, the wind would knock it down and I could save a couple hundred bucks. I would just cut it up and do my thing.
Well, the last time I was mowing the lawn, I started looking up at that branch. I was cutting the grass directly under the tree when I started wondering exactly how wedged that branch was. I decided to stop wondering and have the tree company come back to prune out the tree.
Arborist pruning an Oak tree
Pruned out ugly Oak tree
Pile of Oak chips
As you can see, there wasn’t much they could do with this tree, besides clean it up a bit and get rid of that branch and the dead wood. They also lifted the branches up to about thirty feet. Trust me, it looks better than before.
The exciting part about the whole thing is that I now have a small pile of chips to spread around. I also told the guy to feel free to dump his extra chips here every now and then. I sure have places to put them.
So, as I mentioned in the last post, we had three tons of wood pellets delivered yesterday. While the delivery isn’t all that exciting by itself, the fact that my mind has now turned to adding a pellet stove insert to the fireplace is.
Three tons of premium wood pellets
I have told you that I am feeling all sorts of guilty for having nice piles of cut and split firewood stacked up in the woods. I can’t just let that sit there and rot. So, I found someone to take it, and any future wood, I’m sure. This all depends on if I get the pellet stove insert for upstairs though. If not, I ain’t givin’ nothin’ away.
The pellet stove insert I am eying is the “Harman Accentra Pellet Fireplace Insert.” I would say this is arguably the best fireplace pellet stove insert in the world. It certainly is the most expensive one I have come across. The expensive part gives me pause.
Regarding the free standing wood burning stove ordeal…I did check with other manufacturers and had no luck. We just don’t have the clearance. I gathered that many stoves have bottom and rear heat shields, but the problem we are having is from the top and sides. The sales guy told me that I can put heat shields along the mantle, but that’s not really the look I am going for. Oh well.
If I do decide to go ahead with the pellet stove insert, I will undoubtedly have to order at least two more tons of pellets. I am not sure how I will be saving any money on this versus burning oil. I doubt I will, unless the price of oil skyrockets again. I suppose I could just do it to feel “green.” The problem is, I don’t really put too much weight on feeling green when the cost is in the thousands. Paying that much makes me feel blue. Hey, that was a good one.
Above and beyond the cost, I just want to feel warm this Winter.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Looking down the driveway to partially cleaned out woods
