A Crappier Version

While in Massachusetts the other day I happened to be sitting in on a conversation about homelessness. I certainly hadn’t planned on that. However the conversation happened around me at a cookout and I kept my mouth shut. 

Some of the people were involved in working on solutions. One person had even been homeless some years ago. 

One solution that was put up was to get everyone in tiny homes. The formerly homeless person was against that. Her argument was that tiny homes were a crappier version of the American Dream. They really are not great to live in for long periods of time. 

I bet they could be but the way tiny homes for the homeless are done would have to change. Often they populate a vacant lot with a bunch of shacks that lack a lot of basics -like plumbing. Bathrooms and dish clean up are run campground style with shared facilities. 

Many years ago, before zoning got too onerous, tiny homes were pretty common. A couple would start out building a very small home. However, it was on a big enough city lot to allow for expansion. They also tied into city utilities. As the family grew rooms would be added on over time. Often nobody had to borrow money to make that happen. A great uncle of mine did that very thing. 

So to make tiny homes work they would need a few things. A big one would be owning the land under your tiny home. Too often tiny homes are just stick built trailers. While that often gets around zoning issues it’s a dead end. There’s always the danger of eviction. 

A tiny home would have to have the same access to public utilities as a regular house. Hauling your water or your wastes around gets old over time. Being able to get grid power and high speed fiber Internet makes it a lot less like camping. 

Zoning would have to allow DIY home expansion. Tiny homes could be designed to allow for modular expansion as funds allow and needs change. 

The big one, of course, is cost. That would have to come down a lot. Maybe factory built units would be one of the answers. However what we have like that today is called a trailer park. That’s not exactly the model to use.

One thing the tiny house movement gets right: to end homelessness people need to be in some sort of home.

-Sixbears

That Strange Plumber Guy

That would be me. The plumbing in my basement is very visible. It looks like the History of plumbing down there. New materials have been added over the years. Several types of plumbing have been discontinued. Repairs and additions can be problematic. Sometimes the new stuff doesn’t fit with the old stuff. 

Then there’s stuff that isn’t like any normal house. For example my water heater is no longer in the basement. It’s hidden in a closet on the first floor. Why? That’s so I can hook it up to a water coil on the  kitchen woodstove and get a decent amount of BTUs from burning wood. 

Another odd thing is my pressure tank. In normal houses they’d be found on the basement floor. Mine is suspended just below the basement ceiling. That was to protect it from freezing. Cold sinks. Heat rises. Mounting the tank high keeps it where it’s warm.

Unfortunately my mounting rack suffered some rot over the years. Yesterday I had to drain everything, jack the tank back up and rebuild the rack. It was a pain. I got wet and annoyed but the job got done. 

While down there I noticed one of my water filter housings has developed a leak. Something in the built in shut off is failing. That’s the next project. 

After that I’m going to pop the cover off the well and inspect the pump and everything else down there. 

All part of the joys of being a home owner with a DIY bent. At least everything held together until spring. Playing with water in the winter is no fun at all. 

-Sixbears

Chimney cleaning

Anyone who's ever burned wood for heat knows the value of a clean chimney. There's a lot of money that can be saved by being your own chimney sweep. Chimney brushes along with their fiberglass poles are reasonably priced and last for years.

Of course, that's only the beginning. Most people need a ladder to get up on their roof. This is one place not to skimp. Good heavy duty fiberglass ladders are not cheap, but are a lot more secure than cheap lightweight aluminum ladders.

If the only thing you ever use a ladder for is to clean your chimney, just hire a good chimney sweep. Most DIY homeowners have plenty of opportunity for using good ladders, everything from painting the house to tree surgery. Quality ladders make all the difference. Climbing ladders is dangerous enough so why make it even more hazardous?

Recently I've wised up enough to do one more thing that greatly increased my safety. A friend of mine came over to help me. Being independent I've often cleaned my chimney all by myself. It goes a lot better with two. Having a second person footing the ladder to steady it made all difference in the world. Not only that, if you do something stupid and fall off your roof, there's someone who can call 911 for you.

A clean chimney is a safe chimney. If you are comfortable with heights, it might be worth looking into getting the equipment to clean your own. A person with good equipment is more likely to do the job before it gets too bad. However, don't be afraid to call a chimney sweep if ladders and heights are not your thing. It doesn't matter who cleans the chimney, as long as it gets done.

-Sixbears

Do it yourself

My dad taught me a valuable lesson a long time ago. I could either learn how to do a lot of things for myself, of I’d have to make a lot of money to pay people to do those things. Good thing I like to learn how to do things as the money thing never really worked out for me. Making money for its own sake just never caught my fancy. Once basic needs are taken care of, more money becomes a sort of score card for a game that doesn’t interest me.

Of course, that’s all well and good when things are going well. Some days they don’t. Some days it’s not possible to fix what needs to be fixed. Maybe my skills are not quite up to the task at hand, or tools are lacking, or some key bit of information is missing. Maybe it’s just one of those days. Instead of a bolt coming free it breaks. A ten minute job becomes a two day job. It can be depressing at times.

Then I think of what it would be like if I had money but no skills. I’d never know if a garage mechanic was ripping me off or not. Lots of stuff that could be easily fixed would be replaced instead. I’d be at the mercy at every service provider.

I’ve a brother-in-law who made good money, but lacked practical skills. He puts up with all kinds of crap that would drive me nuts. For months he kept bumping his head on a low hanging ceiling lamp. No handyman was available to fix it. It was a two minute job with basic hand tools to shorten the chain it hung from.

Now he’s retired and doesn’t have quite as much money coming in. Hiring people to fix things isn’t always in the budget, but stuff still needs to be fixed. It’s the worse of both worlds, can’t fix it and can’t hire it out.

Some money is needed. Being able to repair something is only useful if you can afford the parts and tools. Then there is the time issue. One person can’t do everything, even if they know how. There are only so many hours in the day.

Making money is a skill, but to get really good at it takes time, energy and a certain aptitude. Learning how to do things yourself also takes time, energy and a certain aptitude. Good thing I chose the do it yourself lifestyle. It’s a better fit for my personality. Had I concentrated on pursuing money, I’d probably ended up broke and would keep hitting my head on a low hanging light fixture.

-Sixbears

The price of sailing and independence

One of my daughters bought me a subscription to one of those glossy sailing magazines. I’ve enjoyed the gift and have even learned some useful sailing hints from it. Sailing is relatively new to me, so any source of information is greedily consumed.

The exotic locations and expensive boats are fun to read about, but 90% of the articles have little to do with the way I sail. The obvious difference is that most sailing in those magazines are done on a budget orders of magnitude bigger than mine. That’s fine. After all, if it wasn’t for those high priced advertisers none of those magazines could be published. That’s the nature of business, but it’s no wonder some of those articles appear to be little more than advertisements themselves.

I could never afford most of the things advertised, even simple things like anchor chain. My big heavy duty piece of chain (attached to a budget anchor) is something that fell off a logging truck.
Even if I could afford one of those big new boats, I have a lot of problems with them. Too many appear to be nearly impossible to fix or service without the full facilities of a good boatyard. High labor costs, combined with specialized parts make that a high dollar operation.

That bumps against one of the things I love about sailing: freedom. When we headed out from the dock recently, my lovely wife looked at the huge expanse of ocean all around us and said, “We could go anywhere!”

That’s the promise of a sailboat, the potential to go anywhere. Of course, there are practical considerations, but even in my tiny sailboat, many thousands of miles of the watery realm are open to us. Anywhere with water and wind is our domain.

Of course, that only works as long as the boat can be repaired and maintained. Go to any good sized boatyard and gaze upon a multitude of boats not going anywhere soon. Some are waiting for parts. Others are waiting their turn with some specialized equipment or highly trained expert. Some boats may be waiting for their owners to get the money together to do the work.

Is it any wonder that I’m attracted to those who build their own boats? The ones that really impress me are those who build the boat, then load all the tools into the boat. Any leftover fasteners, glues, paints, and materials also come along for the ride. They have the knowledge and equipment to completely rebuild a boat from the keel up. Imagine that level of independence. Imagine that level of freedom.

It’s not necessary to build your own boat, but being able to do most of your own work is a big plus. Having a boat without a lot of specialized parts is useful. Knowing how to repair a damaged hull, torn sail, or sick engine keeps a person on the water. It also keeps them out of the poor house.

Those slick magazines are nice, an enjoyable read, but don’t let them sucker you into buying a boat that won’t deliver on that freedom promise.

-Sixbears

Colder than a well digger's backside

I can’t deny it any longer, the well pump is dying. It’s been gradually getting less and less robust. Today it took a turn for the worse. Why is it these things fail in December? Isn’t it an expensive enough month? The last time a pump failed, was also in the winter. At least the weather is predicted to be in the 30s, which is much better than -20 that it was last time.

I’m using a submersible pump in a shallow hand dug well. Replacing it requires that the well be drained as much as possible with siphon hoses. Then I have to physically climb down the well and swap out the pump. Water will be quickly refilling the well as I attempt to connect wires and water lines. Once a job like this is begun, there’s no stopping until it’s working, because I’m really going to need a hot shower.

A good dose of bleach down the well sterilizes everything. It’s an important part of the process to prevent bacteria growth. It’s possible, likely even, that just working in the well introduces new bacteria into the water supply.

The old pump had lasted for quite a few years. The Chinese knock offs available these days probably won’t last nearly as long, but they certainly are cheaper. As a compromise, I paid for the 3 year guarantee.

Unless some other crisis comes up, I’ll be down the well, freezing my backside off. It’s just one of the joys of being my own water works. On the bright side, I look at the huge water bills my friends in the city pay. I could replace a pump every 6 months and still come out ahead.

-Sixbears

The DIY advantage

One day while sailing out in the Gulf of Mexico, the whole electrical system on my boat went dead. In a powerboat, that can be crisis. On a sunny day on a sailboat, the first temptation was to not even bother with it. The wind was still working. However, I did want to at least listen to the VHF radio, so down into the little cabin I went. It took less than 15 minutes to diagnose and fix the problem.

The boat didn't have an electrical system when I bought it. It's nav lights were those cheap flashlight types that I didn't even bother taking home. Now the little boat has proper navigation lights, a cabin light, radio, and a 12 volt power outlet with a 200 watt inverter. Pretty basic and simple, but easy to fix. Since I am a do it yourself kind of guy, there's a multimeter and a fair assortment of wire, connectors and fuses on the boat.

When I got home and turned the water back on, there were some leaks. Nothing too terrible, but I did have to go to town to get a T connector. Since I did most of the plumbing on the house myself, I knew how to fix any problems. One thing I'd done is put a number of shut off valves to isolate parts of the system. That proved very useful as I have the cold water side up and running fairly quickly. Being able to flush the toilets is a huge plus. The hot water side had to wait until I came back from town with the proper parts.

The point is, one you build something yourself, you pretty much know how to fix it. It's a huge time saver too. For example, a professional plumber could have sorted out the plumbing problems, but it would have taken longer. Much of his time would have been tracing pipes and figuring out how the heck the place was plumbed. Since my hot water system is set up for alternative energy inputs, it would have been a head scratcher for him.

Of course, the downside of being a DIY guy, is that I'm pretty much stuck maintaining the systems I put in.

-Sixbears