NOR'EASTER! Gas up those saws and generators!

[Chris-PA]

Well, the generator is really running darn well. It starts easier than it ever did, and I've had time to get the tuning just right. The air filter got saturated with oil after the overfill incident, so it ran without one for part of a day, but now it has a new filter. It's getting a bit old now though, I'm really tired of cold showers (it can run the water heater, but it works awfully hard so I only do it for the rest of the family). Good old First Energy, it would take maybe 15min to pop the wire back up on the insulator and fire it back up. Maybe next week.

 

[powerking]

W

Woodheatwarrior......There must be some truth in your name....because you sure are having to be a warrior with the week that you just had!! My hope is that your power returns to you very soon, so that you may rest a little bit easier!
Regards
Rich

 

[Chris-PA]

Thanks for the thoughts and support - there really isn't much choice but to just keep on doing. I'm hoping I can get started early make progress on the springhouse roof quickly - then maybe I can take a break and sink a saw into some of that big oak sitting beside the road. I've had a couple people asking about it, but eventually someone won't ask. Of course, they're not gonna just throw it in the truck or anything.

The lady from down the road is staying over tonight, just to get a break in a warm house with light and running water. I think I'll fire up the second stove and make it hot in here.

 

[rmihalek]

Free delivery

We started getting snow about 4 pm last Saturday and by 6:30 pm most of the town was dark and tree limbs were breaking off. Later Saturday night and into Sunday morning, entire trees were blocking roads and taking wires down.

There was enough warning so that I was able to get about 6 days worth of wood stacked in the house, fill the 5500 watt generator and refill the jerry cans with an extra 10 gallons. When it was done snowing Sunday morning around 6 am we had about 8 inches of really heavy snow and everyone's lawn was littered with limbs and trees buried under the snow. My street was partially blocked with limbs. The town plows pushed through to make a single lane and I trimmed some stuff back with my Solo 637 top handle running a new loop of Stihl PS3 chisel chain. It cuts through the red oak like butter.

When I was clearing the driveway at about 10 a.m. I heard a loud crash in the woods behind my house and saw a big plume of snow get thrown up in the air. Turns out two large (~18 inch dbh) red oaks came down, domino style. I'm not sure why they waited 4 hours after the snow stopped to fall down. My daughters were starting to build a snow fort in the back yard when my wife called them in. Maybe she heard some limbs breaking back there that I couldn't hear because I was out front running the snowblower? About 20 minutes after they went inside, the trees fell.

Turns out these two trees fell right on top of one of my wood piles! Free delivery I guess. They were far enough back from the property line that only the tops hit the fence. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I cleaned up most of the tops with my Jonsered 2165. I put a loop of square ground chain on it for MossMan's GTG and so I just ran it with that since the wood wasn't frozen and most of it was in the air.

So, my wood count is: two large red oaks from TS Irene (one took out my shed, the other damaged tree was craned out by the town two days before this snow storm) and now two more large red oaks from the October Nor'easter. My neighbor across the street has two large and one medium red oak down on her yard that she wants gone, so I guess I'll be burning red oak for a few years.

 

[Dalmatian90]

There was enough warning so that I was able to get about 6 days worth of wood stacked in the house, fill the 5500 watt generator and refill the jerry cans with an extra 10 gallons.

Nah, you couldn't possibly have had that warning...

Connecticut Light & Power CEO Jeffrey Butler said at [Wednesday] morning's storm update that the power company didn't know the storm was going to be that catastrophic:

Rumor has it CL&P has been trying to hire Baghdad Bob to rebuild their Public Relations Department.

 

[Chris-PA]

When I was clearing the driveway at about 10 a.m. I heard a loud crash in the woods behind my house and saw a big plume of snow get thrown up in the air. Turns out two large (~18 inch dbh) red oaks came down, domino style. I'm not sure why they waited 4 hours after the snow stopped to fall down. My daughters were starting to build a snow fort in the back yard when my wife called them in. Maybe she heard some limbs breaking back there that I couldn't hear because I was out front running the snowblower? About 20 minutes after they went inside, the trees fell.

It's all chance isn't it? The branch that hit my daughter fell right where my son had been laying in the snow a couple of minutes earlier - he would have got hit by the bigger end.

I was talking with one of the township road crew guys this week when they came by with the plow to scrape off the small stuff. They'd been out on some long shifts through the storm. I asked if maybe they could eventually move that stump because I didn't have anything big enough to move it any further (and of course we had got the road open long before they could have gotten to it, but I did not mention that). On Friday they dragged it across the road and pushed it down the bank. People will help you out if you treat them right. One of the benefits of these events is that they force people to stop their lives running back and forth, focus locally and work with each other.

Anyway, I just ate the last of the season's fresh eggs (well, we might get a couple more), the generator is humming away, the house is warm and the sun is shining. I've got all the lumber and supplies I need to do the job, so I'd better get at it. It's not so bad.

 

[rmihalek]

Here are some pictures of the "free" firewood delivered right to my wood pile by this October snow storm. It's a late foliage year and the oaks were fully leafed out and green. Next year's firewood is on the left under the blue tarp, some big splits are stacked up against that little hickory in the front and the green leaves from the fallen oak are right on top of the wood pile. Accurate delivery my Ma' Nature.

Here's the two oaks trimmed back to about 12" diameter. I think the pile of logs cut from the branches is over a cord already.

I took this picture standing on the uphill oak that started the domino effect and pushed down the downhill oak seen on the left. The stump near the downhill oak was from half of a twin oak that fell during TS Irene.

Here's the damage from TS Irene. The one that fell in my yard crushed my shed, the other half got pushed about 10 degrees off vertical leaning towards the neighbors so the town craned it down.

 

[rmihalek]

Here's the crushed shed.

I helped out an elderly neighbor with a red oak that fell on her property. Here's a piece from the main trunk. I can't understand why this tree fell:biggrin:

 

[Chris-PA]

Just to wrap up my part of this adventure: power came on about 3:00am this morning, much to my relief. I need to modify the oil breather system on the generator - if it gets even a little overfilled it spits oil into the air cleaner. After a bit it clogs the filter, which causes it to pull a vacuum and pull in more oil. Eventually it gets soaked and the engine begins to misfire.

The spring house is coming along:

I'm just going to cut some foam board panels to close it off for the winter. The funky side framing is temporary, except for the corner post - I'll rebuild the stone wall next year.

 

[svon89]

Woodheatwarrior, I have had a little experience with the oil breather issue you talk about. My temporary solution was to take a small piece of the black mesh like ridge vent used when putting a roof on and put it in the breather hose. It was enough to slow the oil down and let it drip back. It was still course enough that the air could flow through. Worked so well it lasted another 10 years before the bearing on the generator end finally failed.

 

[Chris-PA]

Woodheatwarrior, I have had a little experience with the oil breather issue you talk about. My temporary solution was to take a small piece of the black mesh like ridge vent used when putting a roof on and put it in the breather hose. It was enough to slow the oil down and let it drip back. It was still course enough that the air could flow through. Worked so well it lasted another 10 years before the bearing on the generator end finally failed.

I considered that, but it's an updraft carb and and the breather line feeds in at the bottom of the air cleaner. The breather exits the crankcase quite a bit above the air cleaner so it's all downhill once it leaves the crankcase. It's simply a rookie design mistake I need to fix. I'm planning to make a small container with an inlet and outlet and mount it above the engine on the frame. I just have to avoid the muffler.

 

[an?qus]

Recovering from Nor'easter

Just to wrap up my part of this adventure: power came on about 3:00am this morning, much to my relief. I need to modify the oil breather system on the generator - if it gets even a little overfilled it spits oil into the air cleaner. After a bit it clogs the filter, which causes it to pull a vacuum and pull in more oil. Eventually it gets soaked and the engine begins to misfire.

The spring house is coming along:

I'm just going to cut some foam board panels to close it off for the winter. The funky side framing is temporary, except for the corner post - I'll rebuild the stone wall next year.

Been wondering how things have been coming along. How's your daughter doing?

 

[Chris-PA]

Been wondering how things have been coming along. How's your daughter doing?

She's improving, thanks for asking. Still has some post-concussion effects and back pain. She goes in for a follow up evaluation tomorrow. It's going to be hard to catch up in school as one of the effects is trouble concentrating.