New Water Tank, Gas Lines, Heater

All our snow was just about gone because of warm spring weather, but we got a good little blast of snow the other day. I like it. It will make things nice and slimy and prolong the work life from getting busy for a little longer. Things were actually starting to get pretty dry out there.

I spent $200.00 on fire extinquishers the other day. One for my rental unit, one for the garage, and one for each floor of the house. Thats 5 extinquishers. I guess, just knowing that soon there will be real propane flowing through the gas lines, and also getting closer to playing with electricity, I just thought maybe I should have a fire extinguisher in the area.

I was pretty busy today with all the gas lines. Just getting them all to fit and all that. I still have to take them all apart and apply teflons tape or pipe dope and tighten things up. Just wanted to see what it all looks like before I make it too permanent.

I also hung the north heater. This is the second one I installed. Still gotta install the vent system for this one. These babies are meant to be more of a backup heat system if I am away for longer periods of time in colder weather. They are probably not the most energy efficient heat source that one could be running, but it is nice to have them there in case. I'll be doing alot of experimenting with the heating systems next winter. (I hope). lol.

I bought a new 81 gallon water pressure tank. $450. I have been looking at this tank for quite some time now while trying to find a better deal. It'll work, but now I want to buy another one just like it. The more the pressurized water storage, the less the pump cycles. And this way, I can wait till the sun is shining then hit the water pump switch to stock up for the evenings. I have tanks of different sizes that I want to have in the system and as far as I know it should all work together, but it is possible that it could cause some problems that may need to be ironed out. We'll see, I guess.

So I am still kinda trying to get myself all back into the groove of things again. I'm going to get a bunch more supplies in town tomorrow, and then I just might go to work a little later on at the pay job just to try and get that all over with. Still got a little catching up on truck and trailers.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Hot Water and Heat

It has been a busy winter for the truckin man. That would be me. I hav'nt really had much opportunity for working on the house all winter long, but spring has sprung and I am just trying to get myself all motivated for building again. I still have a little bit of stuff going on at work in the shop and then I'm hoping to go pretty steady on my acerage project for awhile. Time sure seems to fly when you got stuff going on, I find.

Today I was doing a little bit of gas line arranging, and working on my heater vent and I also hung the hot water heater. I'm kinda concentrating on trying to get all the gas appliances plumbed in so I can get it inspected and have some kind of heat source going on. Then I can start the mudding process I guess. I might even get some quotes on that and maybe hire the drywall mudding out, just to help speed up the whole process a bit. They could be doing that while I am doing some other things outside. But it will all depend cost I guess. We'll see. I totally plan to be in this house before winter. I know, how many times have I said that. lol. I know I am slow.

Anyway, there will be two of these space heaters in this same room in the basement. These will be the main heat source for the house while I am away for prolonged periods in the winter time. They should keep all the water lines etc from freezing up. I can run an optional fan with them, but they do not need the fan to operate, so it don't matter if there is a malfunction with the power system, I should still be unfrozen. I do plan to have a forced air furnace also, but being off the grid and making my own power, I don't want to rely on that by itself as there will be a fair bit of power demand for it to operate. The forced air furnace will be more for middle of the night use in the winter time as the wood stove dies down, and it will probably be the main heat source for the spring, summer and fall seasons where the days are warmer and longer and more power being generated. When I am home in the colder weather, the wood stove will be the most utilized heat source.

I purchased the on demand hot water heater on ebay. It is the item to the left hanging on the wall in the above picture. It is new, but still, I sure hope it works. They sell this same unit at Home Depot in Grande Prairie for $999.99 for a natural gas one under a different brand name of course, but it is generally the same unit. And the vent system is roughly $200.00.If I ordered the water heater for propane, it would be about another $200 extra, which sure seems rediculous to me. Would probably be close $1500 when all is said and done. This one I bought on ebay costed me about $800 for everything. It is supposed to be able to supply a house with 3 bathrooms. It won't ever have to work very hard at my house to keep up. It has input of 180,000 btu, but I can hardly see that ever being utilized.

There is the direct vent for the propane space heater hanging on the wall.

And a close up of it. There are two pipes going into the heater from the outside. The 5" pipe supplies the combustion air from the outside, and there is a 3" pipe that runs inside the 5" intake pipe for the exhaust. Soon there will be another vent beside this one for the hot water heater. It will look a little different, but it is direct vent also and works the same as this one. With direct vent appliances, I am not using up air from inside the house, and so I am not creating a negative air pressure inside and don't need to bring in more makeup air. It's something we gotta worry about with the tightly wrapped homes in my area. My wood stove and dryer will be using air from inside though.

So anyway, I'm just slowly getting started with my little house project again, but I am still at work at for a few more days yet before I am really free to giver fulltime on the house again.

Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.