My Most Expensive Mistake, to date; the Smithton house

An executive decision has been made. We're getting a pellet stove after Xmas. 

We're not getting the one we want, which is a fireplace insert, but there exists a small footprint standalone that holds 50lbs. It's small enough to fit on the brick pedestal the fireplace is built into, and I can (just barely by inches) get away with using 3 inch pellet pipe up the chimney. 

Inserts are just ridiculously expensive. Cheapest one I can find of a known brand is $2700, and they go up from there. The US Stoves standalone we're getting is $1100 delivered. Down the road when we're at a better place financially, we can switch over to an insert and keep the same (expensive as hell) exhaust piping.

I just can't keep up with the wood fired boiler, every 2 hours it needs fed, even with good thick seasoned firewood, so we're still using oil most of the overnights, and with talk of $4+ a gallon pricing, it's cheaper to buy a standalone pellet stove, exhaust, and a ton of pellets than to rely on oil and wood for the rest of the winter when it actually gets cold. 

We love the poop out of our pellet stove.  We live in a converted 4 season camp and is poorly insulated, and the pellet stove just in this short and mild winter has already almost paid for itself in propane and electric cost offsets. 

Bought a stove Thursday, Dec 30. Got it inside and ran into a need for a 45 or a piece of flex pipe. So Monday I get to run out because nobody was open from NYE till then. And for some reason, the big box stores that sell pellet stoves don't sell ANY parts or accessories needed for installation. 

Went with the Ashley 5501S. It's 18x20x30 inches, has a 20lb hopper, but fits perfectly where I need it to. Reviews are mixed, but reviews are mixed almost universally, so I'm going to chalk it up to user error. Is fully automatic though, that's going to take getting used to. 

We'll see how it works, supposed to get cold again next week so it will be a good test. 

this should cut down on the need for oil. 

Ashley 5501S. Smallest footprint pellet stove I could fine. Automatic ignition like my smoker, 20lb hopper like my smoker. $1399. Hopefully it will be a good stop gap on our way to an insert. Hopefully I'll be able to sell it in the future when we upgrade to an insert. 

All told, including pipe I can't return because lost receipt, about $1900, first ton of pellets were $270 delivered. We are going to need at least one more ton this season, most likely 2, but if it's at least as efficient as my last one, I should be pushing 6 weeks to a ton. Oil, last year, I was lucky to get 4 weeks to a tank, and a fill up costs 3 times what a ton of pellets does at today's $3.20/gallon. 

So it was a moderate sized investment, but should break even if not come out ahead this season, let alone any future seasons if we don't upgrade this summer. 

Looks great!  

Second ton is coming next week. This pellet stove is great, doesn't really show off that it's undersized until it gets to single digits outside. Although today, while single digits outside, I finally turned it the whole way up, and found the door doesn't seal against the body when it's running full tilt. I'll keep a closer eye on it at lower temps and see what happens.

An unintended side effect of switching to the pellet stove has appeared though. Without the boiler boiling, the garage is colder. The cold water line going to the laundry room was frozen today, hot water was still good. The cold water line that passes right over the boiler exhaust, that isn't warm anymore. So I had to take the heater out of my bathroom to keep the garage around 50.

I'm also fairly certain there is negative insulation in the laundry room. That whole area of Thing Ones room is cold as hell, but she's happy with the cold. The laundry room is noticeably colder than the bedroom though. 

I see this as a sign I shouldn't ditch the boiler entirely. Maybe just move the thermostat downstairs, and disconnect the upstairs pipes. Then we'll only need to remodel around the pipes on 2 walls instead of all of them. Ill still be going through oil, but to keep the basement at 60 should require far less than keeping the whole house 64. I was thinking of just bringing this pellet stove downstairs and running an exhaust out a wall when we replace it with an insert though. It would be either in the garage or the living room downstairs. In the garage would help the pipes but not much else, in the living room really wouldn't do sit for the pipes, but hot air rises, could warm the kitchen and kid room a bit. 

Even with the house at 70 currently, I had a jar of sauce need warmed up before I could pour it today. The urge to strip this place down to studs and rewire and reinsulate it is overwhelming, good thing I'm broke I guess. 

Again, I'm an idiot. I didn't like the handle on the door pointing down when it was locked and so I berkeleyed with it. Never tightened the latch backup, so that's fixed now.

I need to start thinking about deck replacement. I've got maybe one more winter left in this wood. It's already cracking and popping and pulling off the screws. 

I want to keep the ramp, that's been awesome for appliances and big stuff. Maybe a ramp on the other side to replace the steps too so I can wheel stuff around. 

Pressure treated wood, synthetics, hybrids, pour the thing, metal. So many options to consider and price out. 

Metal grating would be preferred, but it would suck barefoot, and waiting around to get drops the right size and material because buying it new would be a killer look to put that at the bottom of the list. 

Regardless, I want to put down active anti skid of some sort. Whether that's blind people ground bumps, paint with aquarium gravel, epoxy with something, textured concrete, adhesive tape. I don't know yet. I need to narrow that down too, I just want something that either won't freeze period or will help traction if wet or frozen. Unlike it is now where even a little rain makes it a falling hazard. 

 this needs to go, the wallpaper. I need to figure out what to do about it because I'm sick of hearing about it.

Painting over it would look like E36 M3. I'm NOT putting up new, berkeley wall paper. Pull it down and paint? Some kind of nice looking flooring?

I'm open to suggestion.

After that though. She'd like to change the color of the tile. It's ugly, and I agree.

The problem is, the tile goes halfway up the wall all around the bathroom, the whole way to the ceiling and on the ceiling in the tub/showrr.

I've never done tile before. Unfortunately, paying for a bathroom remodel by a professional is just cost prohibitive. So I went searching.at first I found decals, then stickers. Well we've got a he'll of a lot of tile for stickers. Then I found the link. 

According to some places online, you can paint tile. Hit it with 200 grit on a random orbital sander until it's not shiny anymore, primer, oil or epoxy based paint, and lots of clear poly. 

That's mostly just labor. But we have a LOT of tile. And if the paint looks like E36 M3, or runs, or whatever, I'll have a big big problem on my hand. On the other hand, I could put the grid size in some apps and get pixel art versions of pictures. 

 like this. And that would make the women whose bathroom that is very very happy if we could pull it off. 

I want to do some work on my bathroom too, as it's downstairs, not insulated, and running a heater cost me $10 last month. It's just paneling over studs, with the ugly cheap surround, and a very get cold tile floor, that happens to be 2 inches below the doorway. 

I'm having bad ideas of putting in a false floor with a small water heater and pump tucked into the closet. I'd just need to raise the toilet, and I think I've seen flange extensions before. 

Did some pricing the other day when my phone chimed with a home equity update. Tearing down the plaster, updating the wiring, adding new insulation, drywall, paint. 

If I can figure out how to tape drywall better, and don't get closed cell foam insulation, it would almost be affordable. Except I'm hearing 12/2 romex is coming in over $4/ft currently. 

In reply to RevRico :

Love the pixel art idea. As far as painting tile, I don't know anything about it, but if it's already ugly what do you have to lose?

Because I don't have enough on my plate between the kids, axolotls, chickens, and house, we got more birds today at rural king. 

Black austrolorp, 2 easter eggers, 2 dark brahmas and a light brahma. All females. 

This brings us to 13 birds. I already have more eggs than I know what to do with. 

This also means it's new coop time. I'm going to empty out the steel shed and attach a chain link run to it. Line one inside wall with nesting boxes, switch to a 50 gallon drum water tank with nipples all around the bottom, and setup a couple of feeders. 

This will give them more weather protection and more room to roam and destroy, as long as they can play nice once they're put together. We tried moving the chickens from the small coop into the big before winter this year and they fought, a lot. So I'm going to start with the chainlink over both coops and leave the doors open, hopefully they'll play nice until it's time to move the new ones in. 

For the bathroom floor, if you do decide to do false floor anyway, it would probably be less of an issue to just get the electric underlay mats and hook it up to a switch, then you never have to worry about leaks, that's what we are planning when we eventually redo our bathroom as well.  Also thought is in the long run to put an outlet by the toilet in case we want to do a fancy, heated bidet.

Hell if you are anywhere close to any big commercial jobs check there. I've been on some jobs that have thrown away so much material you could wire half a block building. Going to be a bit more labor intensive but saving thousands of dollars in material usually makes up for that.

False spring is for projects!

 new chicken coop, about 80% done. I used all 300 zipties it came with and probably need another 300. You can't see it in the picture, but I bought a nice metal 6 bay nesting box to install in the steel shed. I still need to wrap the face and the door, then cover the holes between the cage and the shed with hardware cloth. Tomorrow when my back isn't so sore. 

I also motor swapped my tiller. From a ~50 year old 5hp Tecumseh to a 6.5hp predator. I lost reverse in the process, but I don't need reverse. I need oil to try it out.

This batch of chicks is getting huge fast.

I've also decided to wait until April 1 to start my garden seeds. I have the guy that tilled it last year coming out, he's going to make the garden wider, so it'll be 30x40 instead of 20x40, then I'm going to have him till a spot for the swimming pool so I can hopefully have a level bottom and fill it up at the way this year. 

 the tiller lives! 

Not sure if the belt is to tight or is just burning off build lube, but it stinks a little bit, no smoke though. 

now I just have to go through and cut off over 500 tags, hang the nesting box, and pick up another pickle barrel for water, and the new coop is good to go. 

RevRico said:

 

According to some places online, you can paint tile. Hit it with 200 grit on a random orbital sander until it's not shiny anymore, primer, oil or epoxy based paint, and lots of clear poly. 

 

Holy E36 M3, don't paint your tile.  I used to live in a rental where the landlord painted the tile in the bathroom and shower and it started flaking off within a week of me moving in.  The shower is a steam cleaner basically, and its the perfect environment for paint to NOT adhere.  It would come off in these ~1/8-1/4" flakes and they ended up all over the house.  I would vacuum the house and the vaccum would be full of tile paint flakes.  I had tile paint flakes in my bed.  I sat down to take a dump once and looked down at my pants around my legs I found a tile flake in my underwear. 

I would get pissed and scrape at it every couple of months, but its some kind of epoxy paint that sticks super hard where it sticks and peels where it doesn't.  I rented a steamer at one point and that was about 75% effective, but some tenacious spots remained.  When I moved out two years later, I'd say that the bathroom was still ~25% covered with the paint.  So was the carpet, and there's probably still tile paint flakes lodged in my brain somewhere and that's why I post on this site.

Don't paint your tile.  You've been warned.  Do a shower insert if you're really on a budget, or just do redo the tile with standard white subway tile.  Its not that hard, you can do it.  

In reply to rothwem :

That's really what I wanted to hear. Painting it seemed too easy, and the cheap bastards I used to work for would have done it if it actually worked. 

In reply to RevRico :

Yeah, they painted tile in some of the bathrooms at work  to brighten them up. Even with professionals doing the work and $$$ paint it looks terrible. 

In the world we live in of Amazon everything, can you measure order and slip in one of those plastic shower inserts? You know a pvc molded shell...might have to knock the existing ceramic soap holder off with a 2 lb maul...

Do those drains going into the ground actually go anywhere that has an outlet where you can see them discharging? When we moved into our house all the gutters were going into a french drain system which I later realized was completely collapsed and not doing anything except either shoving water into my basement from underground or overflowing around the edge of the house and then flowing once again down into my basement.

Replacing the tile with other cheap, large, tile isn't more than a weekend work and pretty cheap, less than $2/sq all in if you aren't picky. 

Harvey said:

Do those drains going into the ground actually go anywhere that has an outlet where you can see them discharging? When we moved into our house all the gutters were going into a french drain system which I later realized was completely collapsed and not doing anything except either shoving water into my basement from underground or overflowing around the edge of the house and then flowing once again down into my basement.

No. Which bothers me. All of the down spout drains around the house go into the ground then disappear. According to the neighbor, they feed into the storm drain by the road, but I've seen no evidence of that. 

I haven't ripped out the basement finished wall yet, but all the water I'm seeing in the basement is on the other side of the house leaking through joints in the block. Luckily that's the garage, and I learned years ago not to store anything susceptible to water in the floor. 

I've been thinking since I'll be replacing the deck, it might be worth my time to bury 4 inch pipe along the back of the house and drill holes on the top half. I cannot safely dig down to the garage floor to put in a new French drain where it should go, but something moving water away from the house has to be better than nothing.  

This year's water stoppage project is the roof leak over the teenagers room. Flashing is bad, caulking or tar or whatever is attaching the flashing to the brick is bad even from the driveway, I'm just afraid of finding a ton of rot under the shingles and needing to fully replace that roof. 

We're looking at a drastic cut in income soon because the wife is going to need to be on disability for 6 months, so major purchases and repairs are taking a back burner to mortgage and electric bill.

In other news, my friends are now trying to contract me to get their gardens started this year. I think I'm going to push this further and just pop a bunch of stuff to sell off then just keep what doesn't move. 

Funny thing about chicken coops (as you seem to know) you just keep adding and adding.

Here's my setup for the big girls (mix of silver and gold appenzellers, rhode island reds and barred rocks)

And the new setup for my seramas

55 Gallon drum is a great idea, Im having to refil the 5 gallon buckets way too often.  I want to put rain collectors on the back of the roof and plumb that into the water tanks too.

The chickens in the house really pissed me off this morning, so I threw them outside.

I forgot how fuzzy Brahma feet are. 

The little tikes arenow living in the old "big coup". They're not amused, but after needing to clean up 3 gallons of water in bedding over the last two days, I don't really care about their feelings. 

The other 7 birds are now in the new big coop. They seem happy and aren't very violent with each other, but they've both (had 4 in one coop and 3 in the other) got a ton more grass and space and a nice shelter full of food, water, and nesting boxes. 2 hanging 7lb feeders, 50 gallon barrel of water with 5 nipples (and soon an "aeration pump"), 6 pack steel nesting box, shelves they can roost on until I build them a roost bar.

I have a 1/2hp sump pump with a threaded output, so I'm going to run a pipe almost to the top to make a mini fountain inside. This should keep the water aerated and prevent it from freezing in the winter. 

Once the little ones are ready for laying pellets they'll get moved into the new coop as well. 

Now I get to rent a steam cleaner and deep clean the house. The new furniture, the carpet, the bookshelf, etc. Well maybe after we shut the pellet stove down for the year. 

Thinking maybe I'll buy a case of red wigglers and a couple plastic barrels and just shovel up the pills of chicken E36 M3 into the barrels and let the works go to town. Im not motivated enough to deal with a hot compost pile, but worm barrels and the resulting compost should be worthwhile. 

I need to do something about this pathway that is developing. It's soggy, so the grass is getting destroyed and it's turning into a mud pit. I  really  don't want to haul gravel in.

Maybe pavers are the only answer?