Kids, K-9's and Karpet

Those three just don't do too well together around here. Kids, namely little Miss Katie Bug is well...........hell on carpet. She spills everything everywhere all the time. Really she does. And the dogs, well if you have any that spend anytime at all inside, you know what I mean. Well, I guess we can't part with the kids or the K-9's but we can part ways with the nasty carpet that catches everything. No matter has much you clean it's dirty are you know it. So, out with the old and in with the new, wood floor that is. We have pretty much destroyed the house over the last 3 days, it's a mess. That's the reason there are no pictures just yet. Liv said NO WAY when she seen the camera in my hands. She wins. I'd hate for anyone to see this mess. We cut up and took out the carpet in the living room and hall way so far. Pulled about 4 million staples out of the floor from the carpet and padding. Cleaned up the floor with the shop vac, layed down a layer of foam looking padding for the new floor. It's in a roll and I'm not sure what it's called but it is recommended. Liv and I got the floor down in the living room and the hall way today, well maybe this evening would be the best to say and late at that. Tomorrow we will take out the carpet in the dining room and get the floor down in there or at least that's the plan. Then all will be done except the baseboard trim and some new trim around 2 doors. It's been a job for sure but it looks great. In all we are replacing 630 sq ft of carpet with wood floor, not cheap or easy but it's well worth it. We are installing floating floor and the color is Bay Chestnut. It's made in France not Mexico or China believe it or not.

When this project is over and we get everything cleaned up I promise some pictures but not until then. lol I overheard the lady of the house on the phone today saying that we had some other projects to complete after we get finished up with this one, I pretended not to hear that. Anyway, with all the work here on the farm and in the house there's not much time for anything else. I'll get some pics up of the new floor ASAP.

For those who are interested I have made $237.32 so far with my Survival Seed Vault ad. If you have signed up for their program I hope you are selling seeds too. If you are having success please let me know, just leave me a comment.

Auto Repair and Sloopy Joe's

Well, my Jeep and I have been having some issues. The issue being that my charging systems was getting kinda wacky. Once the Jeep was started, the check engine light would come on and my volt meter would hit rock bottom. After referring to my repair manual I came to the conclusion that my alternator was bad. Two hours later I finally was able to get it off, pretty tough job on my Jeep. By that time all the auto parts stores has closed so I had to wait until this morning to go to town and try to locate one. First stop, Auto Zone. I took the alternator inside and ask if they had one in stock that would replace mine. The guy at the counter said he could check it first if I wanted. Hey, you bet man, check it out. Tested 100% Positive, my alternator was in perfect shape after only 212,000 miles. Great news, a new one was gonna set me back $105.00. The gentlemen then advised me to check all my connections at the battery and the alternator to make sure they were clean and tight. Well, I know they were tight but I'm not too sure about how clean the are. After getting back home (with my $105.00 still resting in my wallet) I began to clean all the connections, all of then. Needing it or not, they all got a good cleaning with a piece of sand paper. Now they are all nice and shinny. After I put everything back together I crossed my fingers and gave it a try. It started right up and the charging system was fixed with zero dollars out of pocket. All thanks to the good guys at Auto Zone in London Kentucky, thanks guys.

Well, after that was all over I had to have something to eat. I skipped breakfast to get an early start on the Jeep project. Nothing in the fridge seemed to catch my eye. It was then that I remembered I had bought some Sloppy Joe Sauce for my food storage. This seemed like a great time to try it out, anything sounded pretty good at this point. 1lb of ground beef, OK, maybe 2 lbs, and 1 can of sauce and I was in business. The smell made my mouth water, my eyes too. We had bought a loaf of Italian bread on sale yesterday and it seemed like a good combo, so I toasted the bread. After a long day under the hood all I can say is.......MMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm!!!

A few experiments in alternative energy

Alternative energy is something that is always on my mind. I of course want/need to find ways to do this on the cheap. If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I always try to find the cheapest and most efficient solution to any problem I have. I have been reading a lot of the posts over at Dragon's blog. He has a really nice set up that he has put together on a small budget. He has also coined a new phrase "The Re-Volt". Dragon's system is mostly a 12vdc system. By using 12vdc devices you avoid loosing energy through the use of an inverter. There are many things you can purchase that use 12vdc. 12vdc electric blanket is one that I thought was great! Check Dragon's post and links for more very informative 12vdc systems.

I have a few things that can be used to generate some alternative energy too. One being a small solar panel that I took off of my solar electric fence charger. Here it is while in the sun and hooked up to my new meter. In the sun producing 11.71 amps.

OK, so how can I use this? I just happen to have a lawn mower battery that has a very low charge. Here you can see it's reading 5.52 vdc rather than the 12vdc a fully charged battery should read.

I hooked the solar panel to the battery. Placing the meter between the positive leads.




A reading of 4.50 amps are entering the battery through the solar panel.



This reading is made with the solar panel attached and not much sun at this time. You can see that the power from the battery and the solar panel combined are now 10.13 volts. After charging for a few hours I will take another reading to see what the battery alone reads. Update!! 1 1/2 hours later--no sun, nearly total cloud cover and the battery now reads 7.59 volts. The small solar panel is charging the battery. I have not charge controler so I will have to keep close check on it. That is good news for sure.

Another project that may be of use is the cordless drill motor/generator. This is just a motor taken from a cordless drill. I had a blower wheel that I think I got from an old air conditioner. Attached the blower wheel to the motor shaft with a wooden dowel rod. Not the best set up but it was what I had at the time, so... I then took the rig over the the overflow from my pond. This overflow runs year round. By placing the wheel, which is now the turbine, so that the water passes over the turbine thus turning it, I can produce a small amount of dc power. A very small amount is all I was able to get from this. 0.15 amps. I will be doing a lot more work on this set up. I know that Dragon uses this as a wind turbine and gets good results from it but I don't get much wind. The overflow runs year round though and may be the best for me.

Don't Waste that HEAT !!

Any of you guys and gals been cold lately?? I have. I am sure that most of you probably have electric heat of some kind in your home. If you are a 100% off girder, then maybe not, but if you do have electric heat and you use it, you know how dry that heat can be. Crack the inside of your nose kinda dry, right? OK then, most of us also have an electric dryer too. If you answered yes to these two questions or if you heat with wood, coal or what ever this may be something you would like to try. When using your electric dryer, all the heat that is produced from your heating elements that dry your clothes is exhausted out of the house. Now what's up with that?? I'm using all this electricity (not cheap either) to produce this heat and then I let it blow right out the wall or floor?? Here is a little trick that will let you capture some of that heat and add some much needed moisture to the air in your home too. I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS WITH A GAS/PROPANE DRYER !!!! The exhaust from these can be harmful or possibly fatal if exposed to for long periods of time. If you have a gas or propane clothes dryer *** DO NOT TRY THIS ***. OK, now you're on your own if you do. Sometimes when it's really cold out and it's a little cooler than I'd like it to be in the house, I use the exhaust from my electric clothes dryer to help warm the house. You simply take the vent hose loose from the wall vent or floor vent, which ever you have, place an old towel in the hole in the wall and let the dryer vent into the house. Place a (are you ready for this??) pair of pantyhose over the end of the vent pipe to collect any dryer lint that will get through the pipe. The result, warm air (usually around 140 degrees F) and moisture from your wet clothes that are drying away in the dryer. Now I know most of us have a clothes rack that we use to dry our clothes in front of the fire or near a window or wherever it's warm and out of the way, BUT, if you're are gonna use that dryer to dry clothes...Don't Waste that HEAT !!

I know we are all trying to save in each and every little way that we can, it's just the kinda folks we are. I have used this method many many times and it in NO WAY effects the efficiency of your dryer or harms it in any way. Just make sure you clean out your pantyhose after each load. LOL God, that just sounds too funny....