The"Tech tree".

JRA said:
Good for you. I was referring to the Vt. Castings model that Acme was calling Defender.
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It worked surprisingly well when I became"adapted" to it, I imagine some of these vendors rebadge or even sell the designs to other manufacturers, mine is steel and cast iron, is there any advantage to the much more expensive soapstone stoves? I have seen many "Vogelzang" stoves that look to be other manus "knockoffs" or pirated designs( a word of caution, do not waste your money on those "Laundry stoves" buy something a little better( sometimes called "box stoves")'
The ceramic glass front is very nice lets out a fair amount of light and heat( how come you do not hear much about Jotul stoves these days?)
Woodtech can be good tech these days.
 
My daughter and a few friends use Jotul cast iron wood stoves.

Nice stoves but use more wood than mine. Get hotter faster but cool down quicker than soap stone . I am the only one I know that uses soap stone, so a sample size of only one.

The soap stone stoves work very well when they burn constantly for weeks at a time and someone is around all day to tend it ... just add a log or two several times a day. Even one small enough to fit in a standard sized fireplace heats my whole house (1500 sq ft open plan) very evenly, about 10 degrees difference from warmest to coolest rooms. (Aided by a tiny electric fan blowing from the coldest room towards the fireplace. )

My soap stone stove will hold hot coals overnight and the house will still be warm in the morning. And the soap stone is comfortable to stand or sit just a few feet away from it, where the Jotul is just too hot to get within 10 feet when it's firing.

Where you want cast iron or steel is a weekend cabin or such where you want it to heat up quickly but only occasionally.

The nice thing about wood is it allows me to undersize the heat pump since it doesnt have to do the heavy lifting in winter, so it uses less energy all year.

But there are issues with wood heat pollution especially in urban settings. The modern stoves have an "afterburner" that burns the smoke and cleans up the pollution on startup and high temperature burns very well, but doesn't really have much effect where the stove is running on low burn like mine usually is.
 
PedalUma said:
Regarding boomerangs I make one for kids that does not use airfoils. It is totally flat and has three arms. It works solely on the principles of a gyroscope. These come back perfectly every time. I was thinking that Bolas would entangle drones. For smaller drones you could shoot mini bolas from a slingshot. Like when your daughter is sun bathing and a drone flies over the fence.
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An anti drone shell exists for shotguns...several pieces of buckshot connected by a length of chain that spins on impact.
A similar idea was fired from cannons and used against troops in the American Civil War. It might have been called grape shot ? I really don't remember.
 
@ChezCheese:) said "I just hate seeing those outdoor heaters. "So we're heating up the great outdoors so self-centered diners can eat outside without actually being outside, while simultaneously burning away petroleum which we are sending soldiers to die for in the Middle East?? Like, REALLY??" (This was in the Before Time.)"
I imagine you have all seen this quote ...
"This crisis also presents an opportunity. It's a catalyst," Biden said. "A catalyst that will drive the investments we need to double down on our clean energy goals and accelerate progress towards our net zeroes emissions future."
It seems like it always requires a crisis to consider cutting fossil fuel use. Or a visionary like Musk who intends to create a crisis for the auto industry.
Otherwise convenience trumps everything else, and we end up with patio heaters instead of sweaters, giant SUVs as daily drivers, and non openable windows because we are running either heat or air conditioning anyway.
 
Art Deco said:
@ChezCheese:) said "I just hate seeing those outdoor heaters. "So we're heating up the great outdoors so self-centered diners can eat outside without actually being outside, while simultaneously burning away petroleum which we are "
I imagine you have all seen this quote ...
"This crisis also presents an opportunity. It's a catalyst,"
Otherwise convenience trumps everything else, and we end up with patio heaters instead of sweaters, giant SUVs as daily drivers, and non openable windows because we are running either heat or air conditioning anyway.
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I didn't eat out during the covid epidemic for 2 years.
I rode the bike through the drive-through window of a burger franchise thrice. Which was a pleasure, because riding a bike through the drive-through was prohibited before. I got to ride the bike through the drive through at the bank, too. A real time saver not taking the helmet off, chaining the bike to the pole, the whole 8 count checklist on & off to go inside the bank.
Maybe $4.25 a gal fuel will make a few people use their brains to change their fuelish lives. Our electricity generated with Indiana coal hasn't gone up in price yet. My bike might use 3 pounds of carbon this year.
 
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( retract) I cannot express my dislike for Patio heaters( mostly huge decks which I assume are a form of patio) the huge often unused decks are toxic monsters, whatever happened to pure simple grass that was mowed occasionally( lawn furniture) or even xeriscaping, this energy glutton generation seems to be on the HTH for energy abuse and wasting,I guess there is a lot of Folks in these parts that cannot be accused of " energy piggery" the main lawn ornament these days seems to be a junked ICE vehicle, if you see a bicycle it is used for a lawn ornament along with multi acred estates with junk antique farm equipment at their entrances along with the ever-popular ground-up bark ant food( oh well creates jobs for immigrants" Seriously how much longer can the US sustain this callous lifestyle? I would have cut my mowing down to a small fraction if my wife and others didn't gripe and spaz about letting nature reclaim the formerly grazed land( maybe the "tech tree" needs to revisit animal husbandry and ox power for some things along with more endorsed and improved muscle-powered transportation devices, bicycles etc
 
I have started replanting my yard into clover. I live in what is technically a desert--on the east side of the Cascades. I don't want to zero scape it as having something green helps the house cool down at night. Those rocks, which somebody piled against the house, hold a lot of heat. Anyway, clover is supposed to take less water and mowing. I do have to water it twice a day for a while. I'm doing that now and need to go out and move the sprinkler. Fingers are crossed that it comes up.

Here in Warshington, (at least when I bought one) we have stricter emissions standards for wood stoves. I had a Quadrafire something. It was a small stove, but more than enough for a good insulated house in Western WA. It did not hold a fire, or smolder like the old stoves did. I used a lot more kindling because of having to restart a fire every morning and usually in the evening. If I fed the fire all day, the house would be too hot for me. I figure that there isn't much of a cost difference between wood heat and electric heat. My chainsaw was an expensive model, then pickup, gas to drive with. I was getting alder to burn off of my property, but for Doug-fir, had to drive at least 15 miles to cut. Here, it would be farther to get wood and I sold my saws.
 
ChezCheese:) said:
That's an idea: a rotary mower unit that you tow along behind your ebike 🤔...
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Honestly there are strains of grass that only need an annual mowing, maybe twice a year in rainy Pennsylvania. People just like to mow, instead of doing something useful, like riding a bike. unnamed (1).jpg
@Cowlitz , we planted clover between the raised beds a couple of years ago. With our rain, we still have to mow it occasionally b/c it gets taller than the raised beds.
 
Art Deco said:
Honestly there are strains of grass that only need an annual mowing, maybe twice a year in rainy Pennsylvania. People just like to mow, instead of doing something useful, like riding a bike.View attachment 117873
@Cowlitz , we planted clover between the raised beds a couple of years ago. With our rain, we still have to mow it occasionally b/c it gets taller than the raised beds.
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For some reason some people like to mow that stuff, they say the short green lawn idea came from the wealthier side of town, a symbol of prosperity if you will.
 
Art Deco said:
Honestly there are strains of grass that only need an annual mowing, maybe twice a year in rainy Pennsylvania. People just like to mow, instead of doing something useful, like riding a bike.View attachment 117873
@Cowlitz , we planted clover between the raised beds a couple of years ago. With our rain, we still have to mow it occasionally b/c it gets taller than the raised beds.
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White dutch clover hugs the ground, other types can get fairly tall. And the white dutch clover is a sort of a default lawn plant in these parts, pollinators love it.
 
The lawns were an import from Britain. A big manicured lawn meant you were wealthy enough to waste prime farmland, IIRC.
 
I planted white dutch clover. I am having to water it as we are having warm weather and the yard is on a south exposure area. It has to be watered a bit more until it gets going. Plus, the natural soil is sand here. And yes, it might not make ecological sense, but it makes sense for fire protection and as I said earlier, keeps the area a bit cooler in the summer. Clover is good for bees and also is a nitrogen source for the soil.

Our house on a small farm had a pretty good size yard around it. My dad kept the grass scalped and it was the killing zone for rattlesnakes. If a rattlesnake strayed into the yard, it was killed. When my mom was quite elderly, she let things go and rattlesnakes moved in under the house. On the bright side, the mouse population plummeted.

Lawns have reasons, other than to show off.
 
Cowlitz said:
Lawns have reasons, other than to show off.
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Keeps the trees from scraping the roofing & gutters off your house. I cut down 3 trees damaging this house, but there is one near the garage that is breaking up the foundation & heaving the sidewalk. Will cost me $$$$ to have taken out, it is between the electrical line and the garage. Unless I can find a cheaper way to haul my crane from summer camp into town and back.
A dying tree poked 2 holes in my roof out at the summer camp last year. Grew up next to house through a garbage cart the previous owner abandoned. Had to have a church friend saw it down for me: my armbones aren't big enough to operate a chainsaw. I still have another 80' tall tree next to the trailer & the electric line to remove. No bargain tree men will even come out there to quote. Townsend or diy.
 
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Tiny front yard in this house, and half of it is ivy covered, so I spend more time wacking ivy than mowing the front. Over a third of the back is gardens and trees. I have a neighbor drive his big riding mower through the back 3 or 4 times a year, and I do the rest with a plug in electric walk behind if it gets too seedy looking.
 
Learned my lesson about trees and foundation planting years ago, if I were to build new,the treeline would be around, back 70' from the house foundation on all sides I have seen too many times the lovely little white pine tree with its feathery branches lightly caressing the house turn into a 60-70' monster fouling the gutters and sometimes smashing the house.
On the subject of gutters if you can get along without them do not install them. When I build I try to build a monoplane with enough overhang to keep the rain water away from the foundation and house structure. If circumstances ever allow I would build a low sloped roof( or a solar panel matching pitch with earth-bermed walls. Other than that get a Goat or another type of grass and brush burner.
 
I feel safe in my forest. I would not want to live with trees 70ft away. I built myself a strawbale house, but I would never build another house again, of any sort. It is a never ending project. But I know it from before the site was even cleared for the foundation, exactly how it was built, which is a lot of peace of mind. And I love my kitchen.
 
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