The other day, Rob not so subtly mentioned that it had been several weeks since I updated my blog.
As previously noted, the primary purpose of my blog has been a personal documentation of our many projects and exploits, and in the dead of Minnesota winter those endeavors slow and sometimes grind to a halt. Thus, I’ve not had nearly as much to write about of late.
Additionally as mentioned in my last entry, I’ve gotten a bit burned out on computer work, and frankly writing an entry is enough work for me to not be able to conveniently find other things I’d rather do.
However, it was time to write an update, and we’ve had enough things done that it would merit an entry.
The holidays came and went without much ado; in part because I changed my schedule mid-year and in doing so ended up having to work two shifts on Christmas Day – on the other schedule I only worked a night shift on Christmas.
We’re still working towards a mortgage refinance, but that stalled when the mortgage underwriter wanted us to finish up some work on the house, including the area that had carpeting that we removed after it was damaged when our dishwasher leaked (on two separate occasions).
I had some time off from work and after the holidays Kim and I finally went to select and buy flooring. As I wrote about, we had been inclined to put in sheet vinyl flooring that looked like wood floor. It was affordable and seemed a practical choice given our pets.
But when we got to the home improvement store (Menards), they had some laminate flooring on clearance that Kim and I really liked that was about the same price as the vinyl flooring.
Because of the size of the sheets of the vinyl flooring we realized we were going to need a couple of seams, and putting in the laminate flooring in stages in smaller sections was going to be easier than installing large sheets of vinyl flooring.
That tipped the decision in the favor of the laminate flooring (coupled with the fact that we had wanted to put in laminate flooring all along but initially thought it too expensive). So our pets are simply going to have to deal with the more slippery floor (sorry Basil) and we’ll have to deal with the impracticalities of what (we hope) will be a more attractive floor compared to the vinyl.
In addition, part of our ongoing home remodel involves major layout changes to the main floor and laminate flooring that we can later remove and (hopefully) re-install was also advantageous.
However the store we were at had limited stock left so they called some other stores to check on availability, several of which also had limited quantities.
One store, however (in Dundas), had enough for the bulk of our project and we tried to buy it over the phone, only to find that someone had loaded up most of it onto a cart and had asked the store to hold it for him until the next day (apparently leaving without paying for it or otherwise giving the store any personal information).
But the employees at the store we were at said they weren’t supposed to hold merchandise for customers, so we waited there and eventually spoke to the other store manager who let us buy the flooring over the phone with a credit card.
We also bought the remaining stock of flooring at another store that we frequent, which gave us more than enough for our needs.
It was unfortunate for Menards that they had set aside the flooring for the other guy, because if he did show up the next day he was likely going to be angry to find they had sold the flooring to someone else. We were getting annoyed that they had disregarded store policy and set aside merchandise for someone who hadn’t paid for it. But it definitely made more sense for them to actually sell the flooring to us than hoping the other guy might come back later and buy it.
Considering our own luck with the way Menards has handled some of our business, we figured we had to drive down to pick up that flooring that night to avoid the possibility that they would sell it to someone else before we got there.
But first we stopped at the dog grooming shop as there were a couple of projects there I had to do.
When we arrived at the Dundas Menards hours later it took a while for them to find the cartload of flooring and Kim and I both started thinking that they had sold the flooring we had already paid for to someone else, but they did eventually find it.
I picked up the few other boxes of flooring at the other store a few days later, and it’s all now sitting in the middle of our living room waiting to be installed.
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However, when I started looking at the subfloor, it was clear that I would have to do some preparation work before I could start installing the laminate flooring.
There are some spots where the subfloor expanded some due to the water damage, and some large dowel plugs that aren’t flush with the surface of the floor (that we assume were related to the on-site assembly of our factory built Wausau Home). Those places will have to be sanded down, and there is a heat register in the floor that needs to be relocated before I can start installing the laminate flooring.
Meanwhile, the weather had been cold for weeks with highs in the teens, but the week after we bought the flooring the weather abruptly turned warmer (just above freezing); forecast to be warmer for only a couple of days (fortunately on my weekend too).
One of the projects I had been working on was installing the plastic shake siding in the gable end of the house garage. But the cold weather dissuaded me from continuing that project.
But when it warmed up I took the opportunity to continue work on that project instead of the flooring.
I got the bulk of the garage gable siding done just before it started sprinkling (yes, rain in Minnesota in January!), getting delayed installing the last piece of siding around an electrical box for a floodlight in the peak of the gable.
I had cut a hole in the siding for the electrical box and had hoped to fit it around the box, but the interlocking tabs on the bottom of the siding made it impossible to install properly. I struggled trying to force it around the box while engaging the interlocking tabs for a while, before giving up and mulling over several alternative installation options before deciding on one.
The only way I could get the last piece in around the box was to remove it from the wall, and cut the siding so I could install the box after the siding was on. So the last siding piece went up, and then I installed the electrical box. But in order to do that I had to enlarge the hole in the siding that left some sizable gaps around the electrical box, the largest of which were for the screw tabs that attached the box to the wall.
I made a bit of a mess trying to fill the gaps with caulk and decided I would have to fabricate a trim piece out of some scrap siding to conceal the gaps (and caulk).
Since it had started raining in earnest by then, I cleaned up the worksite and eventually headed into my workshop to make the trim piece. By then it was getting dark anyway.
Unfortunately while fabricating the trim ring I discovered water leaking from the roof of the new building into my shop. Since the roof hadn’t leaked all summer during some torrential rainstorms, it was clear that the leak was caused by snow stuck in the corner of the valley of the north side of one of the dormers that I could see in the waning light (I took the following photo the next day).
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As it was already dark I couldn’t think of any good ideas to stop the leak, so I simply put a bucket under the leak and worked on making my trim ring. But after a while I got tired of listening to the dripping and went upstairs and rapped the underside of the roof sheathing with a mallet in the suspected area. I heard some snow slide off the roof and the leak abruptly stopped.
It rained off and on throughout the night. The next day the roof wasn’t leaking, proving that the “hit it with a hammer” trick does actually work sometimes!
That day I got my trim piece around the light installed and re-installed the floodlight.
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A while ago I wrote how I had to order slightly different color J channel when we ran out and although it’s a bit lighter shade than the original color, it looks fine with the shake siding.
All that’s left is a narrow strip of white siding just below the shake siding, and we’re thinking a decorative louvered vent might look nice in the gable (I like the looks of something like this).
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Between the rain and warmer temperatures there was a lot of standing water, wet snow and mud by midday.
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Although the unseasonably warm weather was appreciated, as the day wore on it became drizzly, then more rainy and generally miserable.
Another one of the projects I worked on during my time off was repairing the snow-blower attachment for my tractor. I was able to move it into my new shop so I could work on it out of the elements.
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Years ago I had welded on some brackets for snowplow mushroom type skid shoes that I hoped would keep the blower from removing so much gravel from our driveway while in use, but came to realize that ultimately with the unevenness of a gravel driveway that the skid shoes didn’t help the problem much.
Eventually the brackets started tearing holes in the back of the blower where they had been welded on (they were attached to sheet metal that was too thin to support them properly), so I had to cut them off, remove the damaged sheet steel and weld plates over the resulting holes.
I also took the opportunity to weld on a bracket over a sizable gap on the blower chute, as well as cut off and repair part of the inner chute of the blower that had been presumably bent when I tried to snow-blow a rock.
Finally I wanted to modify the blower to throw snow further than it did.
The snowblower is powered by our Kubota B2910 tractor’s rear power take-off (PTO) shaft. The tractor tachometer is marked for an RPM that causes the PTO to rotate at the nominal 540 RPMs.
But that seemingly doesn’t make the second stage impeller turn fast enough to throw the snow as far as I would like, and I end up re-blowing the same snow several times in the few passes I have to make down the driveway.
The only way to make the impeller run faster would be to either run the tractor at higher RPMs, or change the gearbox ratio inside the snowblower, neither of which were viable options.
So I thought if I could close the gap between the impeller blades and the sides of the snowblower chute that I might be able to create a more efficient second stage while running it at the same speed.
To that end I removed the impeller blade, drilled two holes in each of the blades and bolted some rubber “flaps” (made out of rubber base trim) to the blades to close the gap between the ends of the blades and the housing.
Not long after starting the welding I managed to blow up my 110 VAC MIG welder. When I removed the cover I could see the PC board traces on the controller board were melted, and it would seem that the circuit board got fried.
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Unfortunately an online search showed that a replacement board costs almost $200 (about half of what I paid for the welder to start with), so I don’t know if it’s even worth fixing.
That meant I had to use my TIG welder for most of the project. Although I prefer using the TIG welder whenever possible, using a TIG welder requires both hands (one for the torch, one for a fill rod) and one foot for the control pedal and is normally used while sitting with the work at bench-top height.
Since I couldn’t raise the snow-blower to benchtop level it was difficult to do much of the welding (the primary difficulty was controlling the welder foot pedal while at times sitting on the floor). The result was some pretty crappy welds, but they’ll do the job.
It took a couple of days of work to finish the repairs and get them painted.
A few days later I tried out the snow-blower and the rubber flaps I had added disintegrated almost immediately after I engaged the snowblower. I don’t know if it’s worth trying to find some more robust rubber for the flaps or if I should just forget the idea completely.
Justin was also in town during the time I had off, helping his fiancé, Caitlin, plan their wedding that they’re planning on having sometime this summer in the area. We were able to go to Kim’s parents’ house to have dinner and spend some time catching up with him.
After our three days of above-freezing temperatures, the weather has headed back to daytime highs in the mid teens which froze all the water from the rain and melting snow. There is a lot less snow on the ground, but the icy ground is a lot more treacherous now.