Category: Miscellaneous

It’s Murphy, has to be. When we moved into this old farm house it didn’t take long for things to start crapping out. First the water heater, I think that took like a week, then the dishwasher, eventually the furnace, the well pump, you name it we’ve replaced it.

We’ve been here 7 years.

We replaced the furnace because, well, I can’t exactly remember the reason, but I don’t remember the air conditioner being the primary reason but maybe it was. I seem to recall the furnace was actually what started it all but I could be wrong. In any event, we put in a brand spankin new Oil furnace and an over sized air conditioner because, well, we didn’t want to have to do it again for a long, long time.

We did get off somewhat cheap because our neighbor is a Sr. HVAC guy who works on very high end stuff. He also does residential stuff on the side for friends and family. Why? I really don’t know because he doesn’t charge enough.

In any event, the new system worked wonderfully for about 6 months. The first summer we replaced it, and the following winter. The next Summer we it didn’t take long before the AC went out, and it went out big, It burnt the leads right off of the compressor. The HVAC guy had never seen anything like this, and thought for sure they would replace the compressor. But they didn’t. They actually had a kit to fix it. This should have been our first clue I suppose of things to come.

Over the next year or two, we’ve struggled with things with this furnace and HVAC system. Goofy stuff too. Stuff that has just burned up, not much longer the following winter to be (or maybe the next I can’t remember) our furnace was non-responsive. We opened it up to find all the electronics. Well the controller, there really aren’t any electronics to speak of, burnt to a crisp. We were actually pretty lucky. It was all contained in the furnace.

This too was replaced and fixed under warranty but it still doesn’t work right. They don’t make this model anymore and they keep sending parts but the fan controller just doesn’t control the fan right.

Well this week the AC went out again. Sure enough, the leads to the compressor have burned up again. Nice.

This time they are replacing the entire compressor. Anyone willing to bet how long this one will last?

I used to think we had some funky electrical issues. Heck, I used to know we did. This old farm house had a very special 100 amp panel with 80am service pushed into it. But we had the service changed over recently and it’s all clean and up to code standards now. So that can’t be it.

As we build our barn (for horses) we seem to be at a cross roads.  There are certain things like manhole cover lifter developed by Mag-Tools you need around a farm no matter what the size.  One of them is a tractor.

They sure come in handy.

For mowing, for cutting, for dragging, for lifting, for digging, for towing, for pulling, for…  Well you name it.

We have an antique tractor that came with the place.  In fact we negotiated it as part of teh deal.  It’s a 1948 Farmall Cub.  It’s a nifty 9hp tractor.  It has a belly mower.  A bush-hog sort-of.  A single blade thing.  But it’s just this side of evil.  It barely runs, or well hasn’t been run in two years now.  It has next to no power.  9hp isn’t much when you weigh almost 2000 lbs.

It has no brakes. 

We do have discs and a plow for it which we have used in the past.  Those did come in handy though with “Jr.” running as poorly as it does now I don’t think it would pull the plow.

Nope, with horses you need a loader, you need something with a 3 point hitch.  Something with down pressure so you can, oh, use a post hole digger, and has the ability to quick change attachements. Problem is, those things are expensive.  Mighty expensive, even used.

We also had a farm pickup, but someone stole that.  We didn’t replace it, and we should have but someone didn’t see the need.

So if you happen to have a 30ish hp 4wd tractor laying around with a loader that you don’t want and it needs a good home look us up 🙂

We’ll take care of it for you.

Spring time…

Time to clean up the yard, fire up the mower, pickup all the sticks (logs) that have fallen out of the trees.

Ugh, I need to do some maintenance on the the o’l BobCat Zero turn.

It’s time for complete fluid changes. Oil and Hydro drive fluids. I put this off last year because the design of this thing is not so hydro-drive oil change friendly.

Now the walk behind has its issues too. I broke the starting rope this winter trying to start it to move it out of the way. No good.

My record with re-stringing pull starts is not a positive one. I think I’m like 0-3. Generally I end up taking the cover off, and to get to the old rope that’s left you have to take the winder thing out. Somewhere along there, that’s when I here the ‘ping’ and “Pssst??? as the spring unwinds and everything falls apart. I’m not sure that I’ve ever gotten it put back together. Nope, not on a lawnmower, or weed whacker, so we’ll have to see how this goes.