Step 12b - Math revisited, chickens, and drinking naked...

An addendum to the word problem of last posting...

The boiler used 10 bags in the first week, 10 in the second. By the old mental divider machine I get ~1.428 bags per day - that's 3.427 gallons equivalent per day - that's 47.9 gallons equivalent for the 2 weeks it's been running. If I want to extrapolate a little and take a SWAG at a guess for a month, then it'll be close to 104 gallons equivalent for a month (4.333 weeks). I'll re-SWAG when it gets colder and consumption goes up...

There was ice on the barrel yesterday - Frost on the Pumpkin... And we did the last lap around the yard to get everything up that didn't need to be lost all winter. I have one more (just one, really) item to move - the pallet of maple flooring that was salvaged from the gym... Good thing it's not heavy or anything...



The Banty Shanty is done except for a ventilator and the door latch - the ventilator is going in next weekend - it'll pull warm, clean air from the boiler house and exhaust moist, chicken-flavored air out through the Banty Shanty wall. It will be on a timer so they get an air exchange every 4 hours or so...

The door in...



The main chick door... (There's another behind the man door...)



Cinnamon giving it the 'seal' of approval while doing structural testing of the escape hatch...



The escape hatch - I hope they never learn to read... Actually, it's for cleaning - put the tub under the hole, scoop everything down the hole, done...



Moved in and settling down - this picture doesn't show the 3 roosting poles that hang from the walls. I thought about putting in a smaller chrome one from floor to ceiling, but... nah... Apparently they find it adequate (and I didn't even have to paint it 'Eggshell'...)







So we were at Sam's the other day hunting for some very elusive type of cheese and we saw this in the cooler - apparently healthy... I've been saying for years that you should drink naked...



What? What were you thinking? :)






Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
~H.G. Wells

Herbert, Sorry I missed your birthday yesterday :(

Step 12a - Math lesson for myself...

OK - so let's do some math...

If I filled the hopper with 10 bags on Sunday afternoon and refilled it to almost exactly the same level 4.5 days later - how much equivalent oil did the boiler use?

By the stats I have:
One ton of pellets is the same as 120 gallons of #1 heating oil.
1 Bag (40 pounds) of pellets is therefore 2.4 gallons of oil.

If over 4.5 days there were 7 bags used, then the boiler has used 1.55 bags per day.
Times 2.4 gallons each, it's used 3.73 gallons per day.
Over 4.5 days it's burned the equivalent of 16.8 (+/-) gallons of oil.

By today's prices on the old fuel oil calculator, my cost per million BTU is $15.51 for pellets (at $229 a ton) - compare that to oil which is $43.30 per million BTU (at $4.78 a gallon last time I called to ask prices). About a third of oil... Almost... So far... Hmmm... I'll be doing a long-term average, for sure... Stay tuned.

The kitchen windows have been standing open the last 4 days to get the heat off the boiler by making it heat the house. I think we actually will NEED a hot tub! - bummer... Maybe I could make one for the chickens, too... Throw in a rubber duckie, some veggies, some salt and pepper... j/k

I have not yet had to clean out any real ash, though I did remove about 4 measuring cups of glowing pellets last night to see what was happening with them... They would have made great grilling material :)

Step 12 - Light it up and step back...

OK, I know, it's been almost a month since the last post... I got busy with lots of little details, other work, personal crises, and I had a blister. What? It hurt! ;) j/k

Boiler stuff:

After lots of trips back and forth to visit the great folks at Samson Hardware, I got the plumbing up to the point where I could connect the InsulPEX tubing and connect to the old boiler. One of the guys from work (who has his own HVAC/plumbing business) came out to do those connections (and a couple of other things), give me some pointers, and line me out with a few tasks that I could complete on my own before 'Firing Day'. It all ended up looking like this:



I may or may not get a pic of the old boiler end of the system - but there's not much to see in any case...

Once all the valves were opened the new boiler was filled, flushed, burped and mixing with the old. The pumps were run for a few hours to get things mixed well and to get the new boiler warmed up. (Not necessary, but useful to test for warm pipe joints leaking...)

About 4:00 p.m. on Sunday we tore into the 5.5 ton pile of pellets (Not our own - sadly we have not had time to test our 'formula' for pellets at all this summer - looks like a winter project...)



Dumped the first bag into the hopper...



Added 9 more (that's 400 pounds in there...)



Went through the checklist and startup sequence in the manual - and set fire to the pile of pellets in the burn chamber...



After the initial startup period (about 5 minutes) the controls were set to 'Automatic'. When things started to take off and the boiler worked to reach operating temperature I snuck another peek...



Here's the video - turn up your speakers :)



So far, so good - there will be more later - things like pellet consumption, ash produced, how many hot tubs it can heat - stuff like that ;)


Chicken stuff:

All of the hens are laying - we had our 12th egg show up on Sunday morning, followed immediately by 3 more in the early afternoon. (Here's a clip of Lil' Blackie just before an ovamoment - all the other chickens were loaded down with fat men and iron ;) )



The Banty Shanty has been painted, wired for power (possibly electric heat as well, but I think it won't be necessary being attached to the boiler house), and will have it's window installed next Tuesday by the guys in the door shop at Spenard Builders Supply. Hopes are that the Chooks will have a natural light cycle through the winter days... We'll be building the aviary and nesting boxes next weekend. Now we just need a vent for the room...


Bike / Quad stuff:

Nothing to report. Some pieces parts were collected over the summer, but so far there is not a lot to show for it. There WILL be more news, but it will likely be another winter project... I'll have Tuesday and Thursday nights free after October 21, so we'll see what happens...

Again, I know I took a while to do all this, but...

Delay is preferable to error.
~Thomas Jefferson




Stay warm, all!

Step 11 - Watch it rain...

And rain and rain and rain...

So far these last 2 weeks, during and between drizzles (though now it's not raining) :

Dug a 3 foot deep trench across the yard from building to building.

Laid out the Insulpex pipe and ran wire from building to building and turned on the juice...

I can plug in a radio! Oh yeah, and lights, and power for tools...

Got the water tank and dragged it in. (Greer Tank & Welding, Inc. modified one of their poly tanks for me - it lays on its side with its bottom to the wall...) Built a crib around it to secure it to the wall, built a pump stand at the end to mount the well pump and pressure tank - added in the pickup tube and water filter, water heater, fire suppression pressure tank, make-up water line, and stub-outs to the Studio side... (Pictures to follow)

Hooked together the fire suppression system in the boiler...

And the overheat coil behind those fittings...

Picked up about 80 pounds of pipe and fittings, circulating pump, and zone valves to build the distribution manifolds...

Finally located the last piece of the chimney that I needed and installed it...

Got 2 trailer loads of sawdust for the mill for when I get it running.

Hung out with the peeps...

Remember the two from the first post? (Click)

They're all grown up and doing proper chicken things now...

Pretty soon I expect to be a granpa (granpeep?)

I'm sure I'll have more things done this coming weekend - pipes through the walls, manifolds built, glycol sloshing, water gurgling, messes to clean up... The usual... More pictures as I get them and as I get things done... The witty commentary may be put on hold indefinitely...

Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.

I think it's in my basement... let me go upstairs and check.

~M. C. Escher

Step Ten - move inside where it's dry...

Over the last few days I've pretty much sheetrocked the ceilings, the 'Lab' walls, and the parting wall between the two sides. I've also collected most of the parts for the electrical hookup and some of the boiler plumbing - I plan on taping and mudding the Lab before plumbing and wiring everything so I won't have to go back and move things to mud around them... Also, with the weather, I can get the seams mudded and then start rough plumbing since it may take some time to harden up... I can also get that trench done that I've been grumbling about...

So from what I was murmuring about in the last post, here's the other side - the 'Studio'...

This is what the neighbor to the South would see...

Inside looking East - (some stockpiling going on...)

Looking West at the main house through the kitchen window... (more stockpiling against the bathroom wall and there's still film on the window...)

Looking East in the Lab - parting wall not covered...

Looking West-ish...

Ater a couple of evenings with nothing better to do, the ceilings are covered, insulated, and the parting wall is covered on the Lab side...

Now I need some light to work by - more incentive to get the utilities in... Then I can work on the maze of plumbing that accompanies a boiler installation ;) Oh, and the water tank. And the studio heating. And maybe I'll re-mill the maple flooring I picked up from that old basketball court. And...

The inspector says I need another cup of coffee... Hmm...

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Step Nine - Skip a week and a couple of posts...

So I took two days off from work last week - partly for my birthday, partly for de-stressing, partly so I could get several of the large jobs done on the boiler house/studio... I got one of them done...

Shing-a-ling! (Shingling the roof...)



To clarify a little - this is the view from the driveway - the street is to the left - the open door is the Banty Shanty, the closed door is the boiler house... The end (that you can't see - around to the right) with the windows is the studio - more on that in future posts, prolly...

I drove approximately 2,640 roofing nails into almost 700 shingles in about 14.5 hours. (Yes, drove - as in human powered hammer...) Very relaxing...

In case you ever want to know: Instructions

Now it's getting the last of the sheetrock stockpiled, insulating/rocking the ceiling, power supply, water supply, hook up the boiler and get it ready to fire off... That involves trenching, plumbing, wiring, a few blisters, maybe a high-voltage shock or two... (just kidding about the blisters)

See you next time...

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Step Seven - part deux...

OK, if the Ancient Egyptians had had Jeeps - who knows what they could have done!

I made a skid from some old dunnage I had laying about - cut some curved ends on the bandsaw, pried the boiler up so I could get them underneath, then nailed on some cross pieces so it wouldn't fold up as I pulled it behind the Jeep...



Attach a yoke I made from an old climbing rope to my hitch ball and drag -
I stopped so the boiler was pointing at the door of the boiler house...



More lumber from the yard and more skids - disconnect the airbag - push. This time the skids are longer so they would also be a ramp leading up into the building...




That's about as far as I get like this...



It's in... Technically...



Lots of prying with my 24" pinch bar, a few small wooden blocks, and it's more or less in place. (I reused the original skids to take it across the floor...) It's now sitting on 8 of those 12"square paving blocks you can see at the base of the wall...



And while I'm out here I'll assemble and install the two windows and insulate the rest of the walls...





I also installed one of the doors but neglected to take a photo...

Too much caffeine for one day, maybe?

Nah...



Beans courtesy The Alaska Coffee Roasting Company
(It's only blurry because I was shaking so fast...)

See you next time, unless you're blurry...


I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee. ~Flash Rosenberg