Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



links

decay & ruin
Biosphere II
Chernobyl
dead malls
Detroit
Irving housing

got that wrong
Paleofuture.com

appropriate tech
Arduino μcontrollers
Backwoods Home
Fractal antenna

fun social media stuff


Like asecular.com
(nobody does!)

Like my brownhouse:
   generator power in the electric vehicle
Sunday, October 10 2021

location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY

As Eric was building another fire in the fire pit, I took another poop walk, this time northeast of the cabin. There I found yet another interesting rock formation, this one low and long and full of overhangs and nooks, like something that could be incorporated into a hobbit house.
I also took a moment to look at the smallish bulldozer that had been left on site, presumably to complete the septic leach field. Its cockpit had roof but no closeable sides, and a sprig of some sort of plant had started growing in an small accumulation of dirt near the floorboards. Who knew plants could live for a time rooted to a bulldozer?
For breakfast I made myself a sandwich using a cold barbecued portobello cap from last night with lettuce and mustard. It wasn't great, but I've paid $10 for worse sandwiches.
Before I started up the generator for the day, I finished the tough work of forcing the fat eight-gauge cable through the 3/4 inch PVC and then installed the big four-prong outlet in the new electrical box on the outside of the house and a 40 amp dual-breaker in the circuit breaker box. Then, when powered up the generator, I plugged in the 32 amp charger and connected it to the car. On the dashboard, it told me the Bolt would be fully charged by 8:00pm.
I then gathered up some tools with a couple beers and walked down to the dock, where I began the task of constructing the 16-foot-long fixed part of the dock. I soon realized, though, that I didn't really have the equipment I needed. My 14 mm socket, which is great for driving 3/8 inch lag bolts, cannot drive 3/8 inch nuts, which are apparently slightly larger. And I didn't have any other way to turn larger bolts, such as the pole set-screws that were in my way on the dock corner pieces. Another problem was that my dock hardware wasn't designed for the carriage bolts I was using; the rectangular chunk under the round head that is supposed to bite into wood was trapped on the outside of the sheet metal, pushing the heads a quarter inch higher than they should've been, like galvanized steel mushrooms. Still, I managed to frame out most of the dock section and take note of the things I will need to properly finish the job. I should mention that the ten by twelve foot section of dock I'd built first more than a month ago was actually floating in the choppy water of the lake, which was within an inch of the top of the iron pole I'd concreted to the under-water rock reef. I was glad I'd tied that unit to a root on the shoreline to keep it from floating away.
Back at the cabin, I turned my attention to grouting all the tile I'd installed yesterday. First, though, I had to use a tiny nail to clear out the thinset from the grout lines. I'd tried to limit how much of this had blurped up into those lines when I'd been installing the tile, but I hadn't had much success. Cleaning those lines took at least an hour, and was hard on my fingertips, which were already sore from having been exposed to so much caustic portland cement. As for the grouting itself, that went quickly, and I even had some grout leftover, which I used to built a little supporting socket around the new 240 volt electric car outlet. Meanwhile, Eric had finished all his work and was, I was happy to see, cleaning up. I was happy that I didn't have to deal with all the beer cans he'd produced.
I gathered up my things, put away my tools, and hit the road at about 6:30pm. I intended to drink a road beer at some point, but the only beer I ended up consuming on the road was the rest of the second one of the day, which I'd cracked open before beginning the grouting project. When I set out, the car had 172 miles in the battery, most of it from the cabin generator, and that was more than enough to make it all the way home even at speeds averaging about 73 mph. Mind you, charging a car from a generator is much more expensive (in terms of money and perhaps in terms of fuel) than driving a gas-powered car. But the convenience is great, and it's possible that running the generator uses about the same amount of propane whether or not I am charging the car.

Back home in Hurley, I fed the dogs and immediately jumped into the bathtub to relax my sore muscles and sooth my tender fingertips, both consequences of all the hard word I'd done this weekend at the cabin.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?211010

feedback
previous | next