Category: House

Straight Line Winds

We had huge wind storms today – 85mph up at the airport. It was gusty all day, but it really picked up in the afternoon. I was working and heard wind noise. I looked out the window and saw a wall of brown that I realized was all of the dead needles blowing off the pine trees along the south side of our back yard. Then the trees all started to lay down – the willow first, but then the pines started reaching for the ground. One popped and flopped into the grass as the gust subsided and all of the other trees stood up.

PEX-A

We are installing a new water filtration system, and 1″ PEX-A isn’t easy to get into a bend support. First attempt kinked pretty badly — luckily heating it up seems to restore its shape. It’s hot enough when the material becomes translucent.

Office Whiteboard

One giant whiteboard is now hanging in our office — it’s 10′ long! It took all three of us to hold the board and get it mounted. The brackets are hidden behind the board, making installation more challenging but aesthetically improved over brackets jutting up from the board.

Kahtoola MicroSpikes

I picked up a pair of MicroSpikes and NanoSpikes at the end of last season as retailers were clearing out their winter gear. These are awesome for walking in the snow and ice — I wasn’t sliding around at all.

The negative five degree temps (negative thirty with windchill) taught me that I’m not quite done purchasing winter gear — my balaclava kept most of my face warm, but ski goggles for the little bit of skin around my eyes away from the blowing ice.

Geothermal Energy Use — Multi-Year Analysis

I’m starting to look at some year-long roll-ups of our energy usage – the geothermal is running just around $700 a year to both heat and cool the house to really comfortable levels. Since we had paid $800 to fill up the propane task that lasted maybe a month, this is an incredible saving compared to the propane heater.

2020 Energy Usage

2021 Energy Usage

2022 Energy Usage