Month: June 2008

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Alternative heat part II (There is no free lunch)

This weekend we visited Charles Family Hearth and got an education in options.

After careful research we thought for sure we wanted a pellet furnace. Not a stove but an actual furnace that we could tie into our existing duct work.

Our biggest issue is we have an old farm house, it’s leaky, not well insulated and not easy to insulate.  It’s chopped up, not open so it doesn’t lend itself to a stove.  We’d never get the heat distributed.

We currently have oil heat, and last winter we burned through 750 gallons of fuel oil.  We ran out twice.  For the last month we limped along and wore sweatshirts, etc.

Basically our options break out like this:

Technology Pros Cons
Oil Heat Do nothing Go broke.
Wood (whole logs) None that I can see.  Might save some money. We have to buy wood or go get it.  We don’t have woods to cut our own.  Cutting/splitting/stacking wood sucks.  Then transport wood to the basement or where ever the wood furnace is sounds like a real joy.
Wood needs more attention, you can’t leave all day and expect to come home to a warm house.
Corn it’s just like wood pellets It’s as expensive as oil and is apparently very inconsistent.
Propane Easy conversion from oil. Just as costly.
Natural Gas Would Save money It’s not available to us.
Electric (Heat Pump) Should save money Not sure a heat pump could keep up with our drafty old house.  I suspect we’d be on electric auxiliary heat a lot and that’s not economical.  Heat pumps are not ‘warm’ and we like warm.
Wood Pellets Should be cheaper, is a warm heat, but isn’t instant on like oil. We’re already seeing prices of $300/ton (before delivery).  Pellets have been in short supply in recent years.  Stoves/Furnaces are in high demand, allocation is an issue.  Some of the bigger producers are in iowa and were just flooded out.
They are not maintenance free, you can automate pellet deliver, but you still have to maintain the burner and heat exchanger. You have to man handled 7 tons of pellets to get the same BTU’s as 750 gallons of Oil.
Coal Cheapest of all options Dirty as hell, smelly, and you have to handle it which isn’t attractive.
Geo Thermal none for us Far too expensive to install at this stage of the game.  This works best with tight efficient houses, our is the opposite of that.  If I were building new I’d certainly consider this.
External/Outside Furnaces. None to me… If I’m already bitchin about loading a wood/pellet furnace that’s in my house, why in the world would I want to do that in cold and snow.

So right now our run away leading candidate is a wood pellet furnace.

There are a couple brands/models.  Some auto start, some don’t.  Some have large hoppers some don’t.  All require me or someone in our family to be the fuel delivery mechanism at some level.

Some are available, some are constrained.   None are fast heating.  You don’t get the blast of heat we’re used to with Oil out of anything but Oil (or gas).  But they work well if you keep them at a constant temperature and keep them burning (so we’re told).

What are we missing?

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The new car…

So here’s the break down.  We are a family of 7 with 3 drivers now.  Each one of us drives a fair amount, and with gas prices heading north of $4 a gallon we had to do something.

Vehicle Average MPG Mileage $ Status
2000 Ford Excursion 11 130,000 Paid For
1999 Chrysler Cirrus 24 138,000 Paid For
1993 Ford Club Wagon 14 132,000 Paid For

 

Before anyone complains about the Excursion, let’s do a little math.

We have a family of (7), one in a car seat.  To go anywhere as a family you need something this size.  In fact your options are somewhat limited.

Taking two cars that get 25mpg each, nets you 12.5 mpg in the end so there’s no savings.   It’s worth the premium to take one vehicle.

Since everything is paid for, every time we look at new vehicles and do the math…  The cost/payment on something new that would hold us or almost hold us would buy a lot of gas and a lot of repairs.  (We also have to pull a horse trailer and other stuff from time to time).

In any event, having Michael commute to Kings Island for work and down to UC for the summer for his college class and eventually to CCM at 12-14MPG didn’t have me very excited.   The van does have advantages; it’s paid for, is fairly reliable, and is pretty safe as well.

We’ve been keeping our eye out for a good deal on something and finally landed it last week.

2CO

Vehicle Average MPG Mileage $ Status
1998 Ford Escort ZX2 30 88,000 Paid For

 

We now have a 1998 Ford Escort ZX2…  Yeah, the sport model.  It was literally driven by a little old lady to work each day and church on Sunday.  It’s 10 years old and only has 88,000 miles.    (OK, so Melody isn’t that old).

It’s in really good shape for it’s age.  It’s got 10 years worth of scratches and dings but overall was a great buy for us.  With estimated mileage at 30MPG it will pay for itself in 10,000 miles vs driving the van.  So that’s all good.  It is by far the highest MPG car we own, as well as the lowest overall mileage. 

It’s a stick though, and Michael didn’t know how to drive a stick.  We worked with him this weekend and while he did well, we’re not sure he’s ready to take this to the hills of Clifton just yet.  Perhaps next week.

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Losing Weight, for real.

OK, it’s time.   I’ve slowly grown over the past 20 years to a weight that I’m no longer comfortable with.  3 weeks ago I weighed myself and it wasn’t pretty.  I’m wearing 38-40 inch pants…  Which is 12-14 inches large then when we got married.  (Yes my Tux had a 26 inch waist). 

It’s not that bad, I can still walk, even jog, but it’s just bothering me.  I also don’t fit into a good portion of my clothes.  I’ll need to be in a suit for a wedding in a couple months and I really don’t want to buy another suit.  I have a couple good ones.  I just need to fit them.

So it started.   ‘The diet’, although it’s more of a lifestyle change than a diet.

About 2 years ago we joined the YMCA near us in an attempt to ‘work out more’ and eat better, etc, etc.   About 3 weeks of that netted exactly 0 lbs of weight loss.  I did feel a little better though, but just wasn’t convenient.  Needless to say it didn’t last long.

So I was a bit skeptical when Claudine decided to take over my menu.  I didn’t eat large proportions to begin with.  My caloric intake, at least from my perspective, wasn’t all that high.   But what I wasn’t doing was eating all the time.

I often skipped breakfast.  Well actually I never ate breakfast, apparently a pot of coffee is not equal to breakfast, and I often skipped lunch.   When I did eat lunch it wasn’t healthy about 70% of the time.  Then came dinner, which because of our lifestyle with 5 kids and someone always doing something means we generally eat late.  Like 8-9pm.  Of course I’d like to snack a lot too when watching TV and playing PS3.

Well no more.

I’m eating breakfast everyday.  Cheerio’s no less, and Claudine has been packing my lunch.  Has it always been tasty?  Uh No, but it hasn’t been that bad either.

So with a decent breakfast, if that’s what Cheerios is, and a reasonable lunch and snacking throughout the day on somewhat healthy stuff (a banana here, an orange there, a reasonable portion of pretzels, etc.) followed up with a reasonable dinner.  (mostly salad, and some decent meat and a good portion of veggies).   It’s working.

It didn’t work right away, in fact the first two weeks saw a lb gained, but then like magic over night 3-4 lbs have vanished.  This is good.

I think the rule of thumb is for every 10lbs lost it will feel like a 5 horse power gain on my motorcycle.  Given my goal of 30-40 lbs that’s a 15-20 hp gain.   (I might even get better gas mileage as well).

So that will be huge.  🙂

I’ll keep track of what’s happening.  I do feel better, although I still have a cold that’s lingering and starting to piss-me-off enough that I might actually go to the Dr.

But so far, all is good.

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Yep, the deer is still around

IMG_0030

Only this time it was my turn to get up close…

She was just hanging out eating mulberries.

I approached her slowly and as I got the the tree a bunch of birds took off and scared the crap out of me.  Didn’t phase her though.

IMG_0026 IMG_0027

No I wasn’t choking it, though I probably should.  I hope she doesn’t jump out in front of a motorcycle some day.

-MD

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When we left earth…

OK, so I’m a ‘real life’ extreme documentary junkie.  Yes, I enjoyed Axe Men, watched the entire series, I also enjoy Ice Road Truckers and The Deadliest Catch, though the latter is somewhat redundant.

I’ve been looking forward to When We Left Earth, the NASA Missions since it was announced.  For some reason or another Time Warner has upgraded our HD DVR and I can’t find Discovery in HD, so that’s aggravating me somewhat.

I watched the first couple shows yesterday and late into last night in complete awe of the work those men accomplished in the lat 60’s

They got shit done (sorry, there’s no other way to say that).  I would give anything to be able to go back in time and be a fly on the wall during their management meetings.  Something between now and then has left us.  Corporations today can’t get it done with the same fervor that they did back then.  I’m sure it wasn’t all fun and games, but they got it done.  Nobody, including NASA could pull of the the things they did back then, today.  It’s not possible with modern management techniques, rules, guidelines and red tape.

I would also like to state for the record that anyone that thinks we didn’t go to the moon is an idiot. 

I so wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.  I was a toddler during the space race, and I’m looking forward to rest of the series.

In fact I’m probably going to buy the DVD, it’s that cool to me and I’m not a DVD junkie.  I don’t own that many.

If you haven’t watched it, I would encourage you to do so.