House Update: Insulation (FINALLY!!!)

I am now entering my third year of home-ownership, and FINALLY I have some real insulation in my house!
In review: Since I purchased this house I have overwintered it twice, and in the process burned about 1,600 gallons of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, 1,500 pounds of Anthracite coal and 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity to keep it heated, at an estimated annual cost of over $1,0o0! Considering that my house is only 750 square feet this is utterly ludicrous in my opinion!
So far the addition of a new high-efficiency furnace and Harman Magnafire Mk.1 coal stove have helped immensely in my heating costs, but the fact of the matter is that up until about three weeks ago my house had literally no insulation!
My parents and I agreed that this was unacceptable, so about three weeks ago my father and I spent the morning blowing in shredded fiberglass bedding into my attic. I had expected to get about a foot of bedding in within reasonable costs, however owing to the small size of my house we got close to three! In technical terms we increased my attic insulation by an order of magnitude; in my opinion we went from R-6 to R-60.
Even now the insulation seems to be making a difference; on sunny days I haven't had to run the stove at all, regardless of the nighttime low. And on the colder days so far I have only had to run the stove at the bare minimum to keep the anthracite lit! At least so far my heating time from a single 50lb bag of coal has almost doubled...
All I am certain of is that winter is coming... Hopefully my insulation makes as big of a difference as I am hoping for; last year my furnace only kicked on when it was either rediculously cold (as in 13 below zero, when my stove was running near maximum output and the furnace STILL kicked on!) or when the stove went out... I am half expecting, half hoping that with a little care on my part that the furnace never kicks on this winter, and that I burn between half and two thirds of the coal that I did last year. And considering the improvement in insulation I don't think that this is unreasonable.

Black Jack

Meet Black Jack.

I finally made the decision about three weeks ago to adopt a second cat to keep Chessie company... It is important to realize that on average I am away from home between 9 and 16 hours a day between my work, my hobbies and my volunteer work for the TLEW railroad... I had come to realize that I was not home (and awake) enough for Chessie's benefit, and that there was only one solution to the problem: Adopt another cat.
Both Chessie and Black Jack are from the Friends of Felines Rescue Center near Defiance, OH (and both more or less grew up there together; they are almost exactly the same age). After three days of intense stand-off they began to get along, and are now "close friends." Adopting Black Jack has definately fulfilled my reasons for getting a second cat; Chessie is far less troublesome than she was, and I haven't had a cat scratch since the evening I walked in with the cat carrier... This is a very significant improvement!
The only reason that I havent posted this earlier is because the last time that I had a chance to post (when I got my chickens, see my hobby blog) Black Jack had mysteriously vanished... After an hour of searching I finally discovered that he had found his way into the crawlspace via an insecure vent... He found his way back down there several more times (once for at least six hours) before I was able to blockade the vent. Once I bolt the vent down this will no longer be a problem...
Unlike Chessie, who is outright ornary, if not crazy, Black Jack is a very calm-mannered cat who is perfectly contented to sit back and relax. I think this may already be rubbing off on Chessie (I sure hope so anyways...)

Shop Improvements: Overhead Hoist

To some this may be old news, but this is the first I have to post about this (to me, rather important) shop upgrade. For Christmas my Grandfather gave me money, which I spent on this 3-ton chain hoist; an invaluable tool for any sort of heavy automotive or small engine work, or any work that involves lifting heavy objects.
The hoist itself is a reletavely inexpensive, "Made in China" tool that, despite it's origin, seems to be of comparatively good quality (though it is in no way as good as a name-brand "Made in USA" hoist it was a far more cost-effective tool for my needs). To it I added a chain bag, which as you can see is made from a pair of bread bags! The only other alteration I made to this hoist was to paint the lifting hook safety yellow, which makes it more visable (and therefore less likely to be hit by accident).
The hoist is currently mounted to the rafters by a 7-foot length of 7/8 inch SAE 1040 bar stock, purchased from Innovative Tool and Die. This bar contacts four beams, and by my calculations (judging from seeing a 200 pound man stand on one beam without causing any visable deflection, and having used this hoist to lift a 450-pound locomotive cylinder head whilst supported by a lengh of pipe contacting only two beams)I'd judge it's maximum safe load as-is at 1,000 pounds. This rating more than satisfies my needs; I could use it to lift an entire lawn tractor, or any automotive engine without trouble.
Needless to say this is only a semi-permanant installation. Though I have load-tested it I don't like the idea of using the rafters to support weight, however for the moment I have no choice in the matter. Eventually I plan on mointing an I-beam to the rafters and supporting it on both ends with pillars, and adding a trolley to my hoist arrangement (which allows the load to be moved along the length of the beam). However at the moment what I have will need to make due. I plan at the very minimum to reinforce the rafters and to shim the support bar to help even out the loading before I use the hoist to lift over 400 pounds again...

Tornado Warning!

Now assuming for a moment that this was the STATE of Texas, and not the town, this would be a common occurence... However this is the Village of Tesas, a hamlet located in central Henry County of Ohio... In the early days of the Month of March... Needless to say I was more than a little surprised!
After a rainy day of railroad work I went home to finish washing my laundary, before heading to my parents' house in Napoleon to dry it. After my work uniforms had finished drying I spent easily half an hour idily chatting with my mother about movies before finally deciding to head home... Almost as I pulled out of the driveway I heard an odd wailing sound, which I first attributed to the poor condition of my car, before realizing that it was the all but forgotten sound of the air-raid sirens (and undoubtedly I am probaly the ONLY person in my age group that calls them that!)! Almost immeditely thereafter I reviefed a call from my mother, who informed me that there was a CONFIRMED tornado on the ground near Sherwood, OH....
I probably set a personal record for time getting home (normally if the sign says "speed limit 55 MPH" I drive at 54.9 MPH) I immediately sprinted to one neighbor's house, and then the other, to inform them of the threat and to invite them to my basement...
It is more than notworthy to say this: I am literally the ONLY owner of a real basement in this part of Texas, and that both of my neighbors live in converted house trailers. Needless to say I was more than a little concerned with their safety!
As soon as I had informed them I went into my house and fired up both the Media Center and my laptop. I immediately tuned the Media Centar into Channel 13 (which is host to both of the regions' most experianced meterologists, Stan Stacheck and Bill Spencer), and as soon as my laptop came up I went to the National Weather Service website. The latter took substansially longer than it should''ve. and by the time I got the dopplar radar readout up the supercell was direcltly over my house!!!!!!!!
At about that time my neighbors, the Cooks, walked up to make good on my invitation to use my basement. All but two immediately went down, the rest stayed outside with me as I carefully observed the clouds as I prepared to signal my other neighbors (whose name I can't remember) at the first sign of trouble...
Fortunately that sign never came. Though I observed several scuds (convective downdrafts) I couldn't sight either a wall cloud or funnel cloud as the storm passed overhead. As the storm finished it's passover the Cooks went home, and several minutes later two of the daughters of my other neighbor stopped over to ask me if I thought it was over. I explained to them my interpretation of the situation (that the storm in question had passed directly overhead, but was dying off), and shortly thereafter went home...

In retrospect I am glad both that my neighbors took my message seriously, and that my offer of shelter was totally unnesasary... With both luck and God's grace I hope I won't have to make that offer again...

(P.S. The picture posted at the head of this post is an actual photograph of the tornado that touched down near Sherwood, OH. The image is taken from the NOAA's National Weather Service.)

Shop Improvements: Metal Halide Lamps

About three weeks ago I added a second metal halide lamp to my workshop. For those of you who don't know metal halides are High Intensity Discharge lamps which, in principle of operation, are nearly identical to the ubiquidous Mercury Vapor lamps. The only real difference between MH and MV lamps is the gas that the arc tube is filled with. Mercury Vapor lamps contain only native mercury (and a small amount of argon to aid in arc starting), which when ionized emit a bluish-green ligjt. Metal Halide lamps contain a variety of metal halides (the compounds of various metals and corrosive halogen gases, such as chlorine and bromine), and, when used in combination, emit a white light.
I had previously had a single 400 watt MH lamp for the entire shop which, though satisfactorally bright, made the lighting extremely directional. I purchased this second MH lamp from the Big Buffalo Pawn Shop and, upon installation, both evened out the lighting and made the working light level more natural (and therefore pleasant). I purchased this lamp for $50, they retail (with the reflector assembly) for almost five times that!
Below is a picture of my shop with both lamps operating (I removed the reflector from my new lamp, the celings are too low for me to use it). Though it may seem excessively bright in this picture bear in mind that I make my living in a room (About the same size, if not smaller) with THREE of these lamps, with white-painted walls (unlike the unfinished OSB in my shop) and there I honestly believe that I could use a fourth lamp!
Despite using 800 watts of electricity I think I now have the proper amount of lighting for a shop my size. And despite the cost of both the fixtures and the bulbs (also almost $50 apiece!) I believe that this is a cost-effective approach: For what I have spent on this lighting system I'd be hard pressed to get a half dozen high-quality shoplights and bulbs, which would in no way equal either the quantity of light or it's quality...

The Joys of Running Water!

Finally, on Friday, exactly a week after my water main froze, it miraculously thawed out again! I really don't have a lot more to say, other than it's awfully nice to be able to wash my hands without thawing out snow and to be able to flush the toilet without having to bum water off my neighbor!

The Dead of Winter...

On this perticular winter day, according to the National Weather Service, the high temperature here in the town of Texas was a sultry 2 degrees Ferenheit! Needless to say it's been a rather a cold day!
This morning I woke up to a low temperature of -16 degrees... Owing to this extreme cold my car wouldn't start... As a result I was two hours late to work, however because of my position I was able to make it up at the end of the shift. I thought that was the end of my problems but...
When I got home today at 7:00 I noticed that the stove had gone out. This is not surprising, as last night it blasted it's way through about 40 pounds of coal just to keep the house above 60 degrees. After I got my fire built and lit I went to wash my hands, opened the faucet and... Nothing happened! It turns out that through the course of the day the "Christmas Tree" (the slang term for the head of an Artesian oil well, I call my water head that because it closely resembles one) had frozen, despite the use of heater tape. This, of course, leaves me without water...
After spending close to two hours out in the bitter cold (about -5 at that point) fighting to remove the heater tape from the Christmas Tree, then chasing the plumbing from the bar water outlet to the floor with a propane torch I finally gave up, put a space heater in the plumbing room, sealed it back up and came in the house to get thawed back out. I am hoping that this, combined with the comparatively "warm" high temperature of tommorow (a mere 22 degrees) that the pipes will thaw back out... However it is going to get down to -12 tonight, so I am doubtful if I will get any results before tommorow...