Ned Harr

A couple things I’m curious about just off the top of my head:

1) how do you handle lintels over exterior doorways and windows?

2) how do you do penetrations e.g. for electric, plumbing, etc.?

I built a guitar, and wrote a long essay about it. I should publish it somewhere and post a link. I'll do that.

Christopher Weeks wrote:Yeah, my first thought was that my 4Runner could just drive up those stairs, but I'd rather have a driveway and place to park around back.

I'm saying, even if you just drive up the grass, taking it at an angle my Honda Fit could do it right after a rain.

I see plenty of room to just drive up to the side of the house.

Incandescent are definitely around, I see them in the store all the time (check a hardware store if your big box grocery store doesn’t have them). For some applications, like inside of ovens, there are no alternatives.

Anne, I skimmed that impressive article on the downsides of LEDs. One thing I didn’t see mentioned is an aspect of incandescent I see a lot as an electrician: the long-term effects of so much wattage on the circuitry feeding the light.

When I go into a house where incandescent bulbs have been used for decades and I’m asked to take a look at the wiring on that circuit, invariably it is crispy-fried and either on the verge of or at the point of failure.

Electric current produces heat, not just in a light bulb but in the wire. A bulb pulling more current through 14 gauge wire will heat that wire more than a bulb pulling less. As the wire goes through these broad heating and cooling cycles, the copper becomes brittle. Just yesterday I was taking a wire nut off a splice between two such wires and one of them basically crumbled. I had to strip it further down and re-twist it back on—twice!

The insulation around the wire fares poorly from these heating and cooling cycles as well. The effects of time are not kind to old insulation to begin with, but 14 gauge wires that have had incandescent lighting loads on them for years and years almost always, in my experience, have insulation that is compromised. That means bare wire is exposed where it shouldn’t be, leading to electrical problems and potentially shock.

I know that time will eventually come for all wire, but you get a lot more life out of that wire if your lights are putting out under a dozen watts than if they’re burning 60. It’s not just about money, it’s about system integrity and safety. You may still have good reasons to go for incandescent bulbs, but that is worth considering in my opinion.

It looks like the world’s most unsuccessful attempt at sinking a steelpan (the musical instrument commonly referred to as a “steel drum”).


My intuition inclines me to say it’s a piece from a large machine, maybe something that went on the end of an piston, and that the dimples were attachment points. But that doesn’t really make sense.

Edit to add later: comment below suggests bottom of a cylinder; yep, that seems likely to me as well.

Came to this thread purely out of curiosity whether anyone would mention the Honda Fit, and it seems a handful did! Cool to see.

I drive a 2013 Fit with a manual transmission, and while I have no opinion on whether it’s a “permie” car (you can *fit* anything in it, but I wouldn’t want to have to drive it around a farm, so maybe it’s perfect for the non-homesteader permie?) I think it’s the greatest car I’ve ever had.

Fit (called Jazz in Europe and maybe some other markets) had 3 or 4 generations. Mine is gen2 and that’s my favorite; optimal in terms of fuel economy, cargo space, and looks.

I'm also curious about your progress Kyle. (Another person in Oh-hah hoping to move to NM one day.)

Sam Alcoff wrote:

John F Dean wrote:
Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but if my frostline is 4-5 feet, can I just stick wood (treated? Cedar?) posts into the ground 4-5 feet down? Everybody keep saying things about rot and recommending these concrete tubes that I'm trying to avoid.

Even treated wood or cedar, in contact with the ground, is going to be more temporary than you want and could lead to other problems.

If you want to avoid concrete, I wonder if you could use carefully stacked flagstones or similar (probably you'd have to buy these so they're flat on both sides) with a few piece of rebar rammed through them? Hauling those up a hill though... anyway, there might be other options like that.

I totally get wanting to avoid concrete. But remember, you're not using a whole lot of it, and yuck factor aside it's kinda perfect for this application.

R Scott wrote:Ned Harr, I will accept your nitpick. I meant to reuse the form for the next pier, not for elsewhere in the house. It isn’t any real money savings, just less hauling up the hill.

Thank you! But I figured that’s what you meant and that’s what I was talking about. Even if you have to make or buy half a dozen forms instead of just one, the relative cost of that is pretty minor compared to other components of the build.

Or, to put it another way, if buying a new pour tube for each footer allows you to use the round holes you dug and not have to spend an extra hour on each one digging corners out so it’s square, well if you have six footers that’s 6 hours of labor you save…is that worth, say, $50? $100? (If I’m working for someone else my rate is higher but even working for myself I think my time is still worth something, especially if I’m not learning anything.) And then how much is each tube? Looks like each one is in the $10 range for 6” to 8” diameters.

Good point about hauling up the hill, that’s worth entering the equation too.