Aaron Pate

As evidenced by all the great responses, parts suppliers are as varied as the items being repaired. It's great to have a long list of places to go looking. Probably smart to write a list and add to ones homestead binder/notebook!

First I have to shoutout local, small businesses. I like being able to look up a part number and do the research online, compare prices, put an order in and be done with it. However, a local appliance shop once replaced a dead heating element for our oven the DAY before Thanksgiving. It was a holiday miracle lol. That type of speed and service will only exist as long as we keep shopping at those places.

Now for my online favorites...*

- Another vote for "ifixit" - and their tool kits are amazing
- Fixez.com for iPhone parts
- Rockywoods Fabrics for heavy duty buckles, zippers, and technical fabrics. (It's surprisingly easy to replace a bit of hardware on a tool bag, backpack, etc. with a decent domestic household sewing machine. Zippers are a little more work.)
- Rockauto.com is well organized
- Ebay. Seriously. If all else fails, there are so many sellers on Ebay with obscure parts.

Most of the time, the hard part for me is figuring out what the 'part' is called.


*If anyone lives around Upstate SC I'll add my local places :)

Jack Edmondson wrote:the old craftsman power tools used a very similar key

Yep. I'm so afraid of losing or breaking the key on my (vintage) craftsman table saw I never remove it. Which defeats the purpose, of course.

I'd genuinely like to have such safety feature. I just unplug the machine when not in use.

To be fair... that's not the most dangerous 'feature' of my table saw LOL

Love it. While "the list" is infinitely long, and growing every day, these are the priorities I actually think can be completed in 2025:

1. Basement door needs an awning to protect it from rain
2. Then the basement door can be replaced!
3. Move all the wood piles to a central location and devise a temporary cover*
4. Build a bigger firewood storage area, lol*
5. Remove fallen tree from front yard*
6. Repair uprooted storm drains*
7. Really want to overhaul the garage to make certain homestead projects more manageable

*Hurricane Helene, September '24, rearranged my plans here in South Carolina  We lost 8+ trees on our little acre. Two of them pulled 4' drain pipes out of the ground and up into the air.

Totally different situation, but in case it's a useful benchmark:
I'm in the upstate of SC; we had 4 big mature trees taken down in 2021. These was a residential job, and the trees were all within 20' of our house, so this was a tricky removal process. We went with a local team we trust, and I consider them to be the best in the area. So this was an $8k project. But we're talking about aerial acrobatics and machines that can lock onto a 10' length of tree trunk and gently set it aside. It was quite a production.

Prices are definitely up, as they've done similar work for my folks in years past for 4-6k.

Regarding Matt's comment about cutting corners, I've seen folks skimp on legal and insurance to cut costs. That might not matter in your situation, whereas a properly insured company was an important consideration with our trees being right next to the house. Some will skimp on safety measures too. In any case, if you get other quotes, make sure to investigate why the cheap ones are cheap.

I'm still working through the wood chip haul from that job lol.

I think  a word's missing from "[set] the thermostat and forget it"

And with things like Operating Cost, I'm craving a little green dot next to $15 and a red dot next to $2,121.
If I'm skimming, that just smacks me with the contrast and encourages me to dive in and see what the rest of the "story" is...

Great work, very thorough!

Hey y'all! I spent the weekend in Charleston, SC filming a group of natural building instructors and I thought my Permies friends would like to know what's happening in SC.

Check out April Magill and her work, especially this somewhat new nonprofit "Root Down Building Collective." They're doing some great work spreading natural building around the Carolinas, getting involved with the local building codes, etc. The workshop this weekend was another Cob Oven workshop, but this group has expertise in Hempcrete projects, Timber Framing, and more.

https://www.rootdownbuildingcollective.org/

Just wanted to share some awesome people doing great work!

John F Dean wrote:the organization I was with volunteered to maintain the spot around the light poles

When I called the power company, I couldn't get anyone on the phone who had even heard of the "vegetation management" described on their website. It was very frustrating.

r ranson wrote:how to stop the signs needing replacing so often

Yeah! Sounds like another reason to switch to bikes. I doubt most cyclists could plow down a stop sign. :)

Are the signs really replaced so frequently that the city is routinely patrolling every single one? Maybe they have additional reasons, like my power company; they don't want to risk vines or tall vegetation obscuring the sign. If the team mowing the area is using those big highway mowers, maybe the dirt patch gives them adequate clearance and keeps them from hopping out with a string trimmer at each signpost. Now I'm thinking the woodchips or rubber pad would get chewed up by passing mowers.

Are you saying there's a blast zone around the base of the signs, where they use herbicide to keep the spot marked and bare? I think I know what you mean. Where I live, the power company does that around their poles; I have one right next to my garden. They sprayed once, so I blanketed a 20' radius with woodchips and they haven't bothered it again (yet).

Imagine if the city (or power company) was doing their annual tree trimming, and spreading the chips at stop signs as they go, instead of taking the whole truckload of resulting chips miles away for disposal. That sounds like stacking functions to me!

Another permie solution: In my region, if I wanted to mark a spot permanently I'd plant comfrey there. Ha! Bocking 14 of course. It would only get stronger each time they dig a hole to replace the sign. A less potent biological marker could be a dense ring of Echinacea, Black Eyed Susan, or similar clumping perennials. Self-regenerating infrastructure.

Some cities are using steam or flame tools to replace herbicide. I think this makes sense along city sidewalks, where the worker is trading one backpack sprayer (herbicide) for another slightly more complicated backpack sprayer (e.g. water+fuel=steam). Not a perfect solution, but feels like an easy transition for bureaucrats to implement.

However, if we're talking about stop signs scattered all over town, these folks might just be driving around with a handheld bottle of herbicide. We'd have to match that for portability.

Pseudo-toxic-gick compromise: A thick ring of recycled rubber is sometimes used to make fake mulch rings around trees. I've seen cities use ones that resemble wood chips. Any city worker can carry a stack in their truck, go wedge them around sign posts, no training required. It's toxic gick, but one application will last years and they can be picked up, moved, reapplied, just like traffic cones.

Hey Reno,
Posting here to follow this thread.

I've been taking charcoal from my firepit and mixing it into my compost pile to "charge" it, so later the resulting biochar is spread on the surface of garden beds with the compost. I usually scratch that new compost into the bed a bit, but at most I'm just disturbing the top 4 inches or so.

On a hot day in the summer I can find bone dry chunks of charcoal on the surface of the garden. This leaves me wondering if that surface char has been desiccated and sterilized by the sun, and if it has any benefit anymore.

Curious to see what others say!