John Weiland

Jay Angler wrote:...........Living in the Pacific wet coast, where we get rain from November through to January as a minimum, the general consensus is fasteners through the peaks for this ecosystem. The winter rain is balanced by very high UV index during our long, dry summer days, which is hard on those special washers that are supposed to keep water out.

I can't recall just now, Jay, if you are planning at this point of going right over your current shingles with a potential metal replacement.  However, if you are having this done by a roofing contractor and using 'standing seam' type panels, the issue of rain and UV will be mitigated by panel engineering.  A quick perusal of the current tech is that either a clip or built-in flange is used the anchor the panel edge to the roof and is then hidden under the adjacent panel that is clipped into place.  Thus, no screw/nail-heads are exposed to water (or minimally so) or UV.  As I look up at our own house roof, I can see no nail or screw heads visible, so this must have been in use even a few decades ago when ours was installed.  We have for sure sustained 60 -70 mph winds with this roof with no visible damage...the mild pock-marks from bad hailstorms are not a bother to us.  Our main water concern which has not reared its head so far would be forced penetration of water *under* the standing seam on account of freeze-thaw snow dams that form on the roof throughout the winter.  Outside of these main points concerning roof integrity, our only other issue has been the fact at we don't have 'snow cleats' on the roof to hold the snow in place:  With a 45 degree angle on the roof slope, snow backs up from the gutters until the load becomes too great....then it all comes sliding off at once, ripping out gutters and clobbering anything below.  That's been a tolerable irritation in an otherwise good decision for us on our home roofing.

Hugo Morvan wrote:......
Maybe people should just meet up more and get a real life vibe instead of scrolling for looks.

The English Victorian author Thomas Hardy beat you to it:

"They spoke very little of their mutual feelings; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship — camaraderie — usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death — that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam."  -- Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)

We moved into our present home (2-story, 1915-build) with ailing asphalt shingles.  A few storms after the move and we qualified by insurance for a new roof.  That was about 2 decades ago and the roof we had installed was a steel, painted roof with interlocking panels.  I can't recall for sure at the moment about whether they added extra insulation before adding the roof panels, but I know they did not remove the shingles.  What I can say from having multiple steel buildings on our property, all with non-insulated roofs, is that a non-insulated roof is REALLY noisy with rain (hail is deafening!).  With that as background, I can honestly say that our home roof is nearly silent in a rain storm and really only moderately audible under hail.  Since you are in the PNW where rainshowers appear with the regularity of the sun rising in the morning, I would recommend finding someone in your area who has a metal-roof-on-insulated-wooden-subroof home and see if you can't schedule a visit during a good shower.  We are nearly certain that we will not have to replace this roof in our lifetime in the house and that it could last a good few decades after we depart.  I highly recommend metal roofs as replacements for asphalt whenever asked.  Good luck on your decision, Jay!

Edit;  Forgive me for copy/paste from AI, but this answers a question for me on why a metal roof on shingles is quieter than metal alone:

"A metal roof installed directly over existing shingles is quieter because the old shingle layer acts as a built-in sound barrier. It absorbs impact energy, prevents the metal from vibrating like a drum, and adds a thick layer of mass that deadens the sound of rain.Why Installing Over Shingles Muffles the SoundVibration Dampening: Metal alone (especially if installed over open-frame rafters) vibrates and amplifies sound like a drum. The underlying shingles press flush against the metal, restricting this vibration.Impact Cushioning: The coarse, granulated texture of asphalt shingles creates a physical cushion that softens the initial strike of raindrops.Mass & Density: The combined mass of the metal, old shingles, underlayment, and roof decking creates a thicker barrier that sound waves must penetrate, making the interior much quieter."

A-ha!....this is all coming clearer now. My first clue that I was not envisioning this properly was when you noted that the MH700 did not have drive wheels.  This was confusing to me ..... since I had only looked at the first few minutes of each linked video and clearly noticed rubber wheel for the MH700 attached to the drive axle.  What I was too impatient to see was that this tiller design is meant to remove the wheels when ready to use as a tiller and replace them on the shaft with the tilling tines.  Kind of a cool design in many ways.  

This brings me to a thought based on the video link here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpQULFaSM5o     in which a BCS tiller....one of a the 'kings' of the walk-behind tractor world.....is shown with a front mower attachment and a rear 'sulky' which allows the operator to either stand or sit as the power and weight of the machine pulls you along.  So with regard to the design concept shown for the MH700 and possibly for the photo you provided, it appears that you might be able to source some drive wheels that would allow you to remove the tines temporarily. *If* you were able to have a machine with tractor wheels and a sulky, you might be able (depending on the terrain of your walking path) to store the tines below the seat on your sulky and 'ride' the machine down the path to your garden plot.  From there and assuming the exchange of the wheels for the tines is not too laborious, you could do so for the tilling job, and then reverse the process to get back to your transportation rig when finished. It appears that your walking distance is about the length of a football/soccer pitch, yes?  This might be doable if the equipment is up to the task, but much would depend on machine weight and engine power.

Anyway, just a thought.  My impression was that the European market was accustomed to rear-tine tillers like the Ferrari (pictured below) and Lombardini, but it appears the latter now are out-dated....they built small farm implements in earlier days before focusing on engines and then were bought by the American company Kohler engines.  Good luck with your decision!

A. Yossarian wrote:

If anyone has any experience with these 2 "modern" tillers, please share.

Edit: The Husqvarna models use a belt for transmitting power to the knives axle. The Yanmar/S.E.P. uses a gear. A bit plust for Yanmar I guess.
thanks

Is there anyway you can post a photo of the Yanmar tiller that you are looking at possibly purchasing?

From the video links that you provided, it looks as though the Stihl M700 is the only rear-tine tiller of the groud, whereas the others are front-tine tillers.  I've had the opportunity to use various tiller models of the years, in both front- and rear-tine configuration.  While I feel that front tine tillers are fine for already-loosened soil and for small areas where they can maneuver more tightly, rear tine tillers are easier on the body for long tilling runs, are better for breaking up hard, un-cultivated soil, and benefit greatly from the powered drive wheels.  I have a fairly simple tiller quite similar to the Troy-Bilt 'Pony' although slightly larger and heavier in weight.  By adjusting the depth pin height, one can regulate the speed over which you are travelling across the terrain since pushing down on the arms of the tiller promotes deeper penetration of the pin into the soil.  At full stop using this approach, the the wheels and tines will still spin.....by rocking the unit from side to side, you can dig up somewhat difficult hard soil fairly successfully.  I'm not sure how difficult this would be with a front tine tiller as I have not used one enough to have tested the technique.  I know of several owners of small gardens who keep their soil well cultivted throughout the year and simply use the 'Mantis'-style hand-held tillers for bed preparation and weeding, but our situation results in too many periods of hard-pan soil from rain/watering followed by baking heat.  

Jay, I have heard of using waste cooking oil as starter for home biodiesel production, for blending with diesel to reduce cost, and using straight as fuel in engines modified to use it, but I have not heard of using waste oil directly unblended in a diesel engine.  If you find an info source on that I would be quite interested in reading up on this.  Right now, I need to start dealing with ~200 gal of 'heating oil'....#2 grade diesel that we were using a few years back for our home furnace....that has been sitting unused in the tanks for over 2 years now.  Plan will be to use a fuel transfer set up to move some of that through a filter and into portable jugs to mix 1:1 with #1 diesel for the tractors.  Fingers crossed anyway...... ;-)

A. Yossarian wrote:.......(I can't believe it's been sitting for 10 years, but it looks "scratch-less").

Yeah, our Yannie tractor is just a champ in the same way.....can sit for months or a long year of storage and then fire right up when needed.  Sounds like you may have a winner there, A.Y.  Side note as well if it's diesel--even if diesel prices are on the rise, most small equipment goes a loooooong way on a liter of fuel.   Even with the somewhat high price of diesel in the US, I find that I seldom need to refill the tank since each liter seems to go much farther than the gasoline in my other power instruments.  Good luck!

Yanmar diesels are great water-cooled engines and I suspect the 6 hp air-cooled unit have the same reputation.  I would confirm for certain by any means necessary that it is diesel or some other fuel type, just so that you know what you might be getting in fuel costs and availability.  I'm a bit out of my element on gettign the engine unstuck, but most recommendations for internal combustion engines are to get some engine oil into the cylinder and let it sit for a fair amount of time to allow for the oil to penetrate around the piston.  [NOTE!  Our older Yanmar tractor has a 'decompression knob' for reducing cylinder compression temporarily...used for cold starts and odd engine shut-downs.  If your engine has this, it may allow for easier pulling of the cord once the oil has had time to lube the cylinder.] For a gasoline engine, this is as simple as removing the spark plug and adding some oil.  For a diesel, which does not have spark plugs, I'm not sure how to get oil into the combustion chamber without removing the fuel injector, but I suspect someone here or in your area could help with that.  If the unit really is new and unused, it may be a gem due to the quality and durability of Yanmar components.  If you can get it running, it sounds like a great find!

PS:   There is a "Support" tab in the following link which may offer some insights or assistance for you in your decision:  https://www.yanmar.com/global/about/technology/technical_review/2016/0427_2.html

Allen Jackson wrote:........

I've got intentions to build a large "pergola" I can mount solar panels to, but my wife keeps trying to plant shade trees there ☹️

Build that scaffolding high enough...and she can *still* plant her shade trees there!.... ;-)

I'm going to assume that your experience(s) with pure sine wave inverters, with decent conversion efficiencies and robust circuitry, are a large part of that approach and I can say I'm encouraged for some of my own less experienced thinking in this realm.  As noted, I'm looking at getting a pond pump up and running, 12V or 24V preferred.  But I'm running into issues of availability and pump diversity here as compared to AC powered units for which there are many!  If I'm looking at a fractional horsepower pump that may draw around 500 - 700W, then a 120VAC pump would, at the high end, be needing ~6 amps, or from the 12V battery side of the inverter, ~60 amps.  If my battery selection revolves around 100Ah units, then at least one more would be needed I feel for watering jobs (continuous pump duty) that typically take from 40 - 50 minutes to complete.  Clearly, I would have to consider safety factors like inverter efficiency and inverter and battery overheating concerns.  But there certainly would be a lot more diversity in pump design and engineering in the 120VAC smorgasbord than what I've seen in the 12/24VDC listings.  Let me know if I'm missing something, but for pumping from a murky river, I'm leaning toward centrifugal-style continuous-duty pumps that can handle some silt and solids, even as I always use a filter screen on the end of the intake hose.  Thanks for responses here and for the insights into the A/C and heat-pump powering options.

PS --  Pergola's are the rage up here.....I'll have to take advantage of that trend (....when I order a next case of bifacial solar panels.... lol).

One word:  Goats.  ;-)

It may be more difficult to find an answer to your question since most have done allelopathic studies on annual plants and crops and less so on woody perennials.  That said, there may be some studies out there looking at the companion/allelopathic phenomenon between different woody species, but that does not really sound like what you are looking for.  It may be worth looking at the plant family level--if I'm not mistaken, apples for instance are in the Roseaceae (Rose family) and it *may* turn out that some weedy annual and perennial members of the community, in sufficient numbers, might prove inhibitory to apple tree growth and/or production.   If you were to find examples then, in ornamental rose production where this has been observed, it might give some validity to the same effect happening in apples.  But worth noting is the companion side of the equation where some weedy species may, in some way, be beneficial to the tree(s) as understory partners in the orchard.  For example, if one or some of those weedy species harbor microbes or insects that prove also beneficial to the apple trees, then those trees may witness reduced insect predation and microbial disease.  So if you can't find information specifically on your fruit trees or shrubs, you might find some answers regarding other woody species to which they are related and for which deeper analysis on allelopathic and companion interactions have been observed and documented.  Good luck!....