Monday, February 2, 2015
More wretched weather.
After cleaning up last Monday's 33 inch blizzard, we got whacked by another 12 inches of snow on Friday.
Three hours of snow-blowing
and shoveling
Gets us more or less
Cleared out
Then Monday we get another 12 inches
So I get suited up with six layers of clothing. . . .
To do battle with nature
And nature naturally wins. This is what a baseball sized chunk of ice does to quarter inch thick wall PVC pipe at about 5 degrees F. That's about minus 20 Celsius.
So I get the color matching Duck-tape which is about as sticky as wax paper at this temperature and hit it with the heat gun to make it all stick together and hope it holds.
And finish the job trying hard not to pick up any more ice chunks.
I'm done for now . . . . til tomorrow morning when I get to do it all over again.
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You must see the positive side, with all this excercise you're getting stronger.
ReplyDeleteOh how I wish, but I only get more aches and pains.
Deletehahaha...maybe time to move south? we have had ice all winter long. i am a winter freak, i just love it but not ice when you have a ten year old dog!
ReplyDeleteUltimately Jaz, that is the long term plan, but for now we are slaves to the mortgage.
DeleteWe were at our cabin at the base of St. Helens and got snowed in one year. I got dressed and started clearing the snow when the wife asked if I planned on clearing the whole road down off the mountain? I loaded the bin full of firewood and closed the door for the next five days.
DeleteYes Doc, sometimes if you can it is best to ignore it all together, unfortunately we have a mortgage to pay for.
DeleteHey Mike, good work on the temporary fix. The best tape to use is Gorilla tape, it will peel your fingerprints off, lol. Looks like you do a good job removing the snow. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteHey John, even Gorilla tape at this temperature won't stick. Got to heat the plastic and the tape to make it stick. I have some more of that PVC pipe and will make a new chute tomorrow. The original chute was smashed last year so I made this one and it was working well til the machine ate the chunk of ice.
DeleteMove! No way could I put up with it all the time! I moan if we have snow for a couple of days!
ReplyDeleteHi Kev, eventually that's the plan. I know some love the stuff and think it is pretty. For me it just means extra work and body aches so it represents pain. I despise the stuff. This morning it took me over an hour of labor just to cut through a 4 foot frozen solid snow bank left by the plow truck across my driveway just to get the cars out. Thankfully the extra bailing wire I wrapped around the blower chute kept things from breaking again.
DeleteUse the snow to make an igloo tunnel then let the snow happily pile up as high as it likes!
ReplyDeleteEven though we have had about 5 feet accumulation in the last 7 days there is not quite enough snow for that yet and not the right kind either. But at the rate we are going with 12 inches every other day I'll soon be there.
DeleteI am not burning wood this winter except as a backup heat source. Instead, I'm using the propane heaters full time. As a result, I've been spending about $400 a month on propane, as opposed to around $200 a month last year when I primarily used the wood burning stove. Still, I don't have to haul and stack wood, and I don't have to worry about chimney sweeping or chimney fires, so it all evens out. We had sleet here Sunday night, mixed with snow, and it got down to 18 but it wasn't anything like what you are experiencing.
ReplyDeleteHey Harry, I use propane for heat as well. We have one of the direct vent Renai heaters. It burns about a gallon a day going full-tilt-boogie with the thermostat set at 72 deg F, and since I have a 500 gallon tank I can buy the stuff at wholesale prices. This year was 2 $ a gallon. I do have an oil fired furnace in the basement for the hot water baseboards but it is not as efficient so we only use that for domestic hot water. As I only have one single flue chimney in the house I can't run a wood stove with the furnace. In the work shop I do have two wood stoves.
DeleteTime to buy a flame thrower.
ReplyDeleteLOL Mark, oh how I wish . . . we are currently getting snow again for a change and it is forecast to go on for 55 hours.
Delete