On the agenda today is replacing all of the waterlines in the store/kitchen that froze and cracked last night when the electric went out and the electric heaters didnt come back on when the power did. This reminds me of a post I was going to make but never got around to about basic skill set that are almost a must if you are going to live in a very rural area and things you should keep stashed away. Basic plumbing skills are up at the top of the list. One should also have a intimate knowledge of their water lines and how to shut the water off at the meter. I am a fan of ball valves that divide the water system into sections so if the is a problem in onc section, that section can simply be shut off without shutting off the water to the entire farm via the meter shut off valve. Followed by ball valves at every location where water lines come out of the ground or into an out building. Its a little extra expense and work putting all those shut off valves into a water system but well worth it when there is a break. I only use pvc and cpvc as do most folks now days. If you dont want to aquire the skill of building functional water systems, at a minimum you should learn how to locate under ground breaks, and how to cut the broken pipe below cracks and cap it off. Every farm should keep a can of wetset pipe glue, a hand pipe cutter, and at least two caps for every size of pipe on the farm. If nothing else you can dig up a ground break cut it an cap it, or cap off a broken inside line and still have water to the rest of the house (Unless its a main line break) Wetset glue is the stoopid person glue and I always keep it on hand. I have filled a cap with it and crammed it down on a pipe gushing water, held it in place a few minutes and sealed the pipe. It really does set that fast in even when its on a wet pipe. But caps, cutter and glue will give you the basic kit to turn a gushing emergency into a problem that can be fully repaired once it warms up or the sun comes up :) Basic electrical skills and a working knowledge of your breaker and disconnect boxes. Like the shut off valves for the water. The breakers and disconnect boxes are there to shut off the flow of electric, without electrocuting yourself. A disconnect box at every meter is required and shuts the power off to everything on that meter, very simple open box flip breaker and the electric is off to everything. The next point is the main breaker box. It also has a big switch that can be flipped to shut off all power to the other breakers in the box. Each individual breaker can shut off electric to whatever is on that individual breakers circuit. This is important stuff because in the event of a fire, the first thing you do is get out, the second thing should be flip the disconnect breaker at the meter. And then determine if you can put the fire out. DO NOT start hosing a fire while the electric is still on :) Fire extinguishers are great if they put the fire out before they lose pressure. I can tell you from personal experience when it comes to putting a fire out, you are on your own in a very rural area. Nothing against fire departments but they arrive in time to cool off the charred remains and fill out the paperwork. DO NOT try to fight a fire that there is no hope of extinguishing or put yourself at risk. There is not any material possesion worth being severly burned or dying for. Let it burn and rebuild and reaquire the things lost. I mention fire because a good % of fires are electrical in nature. Which brings me to installing new electric lines, switches, outlets, etc. If you are not 120% sure of what you are doing DO NOT install your own electric systems. Basic electric is not hard to learn but not something you want to learn by trial and error. Personally I put a disconnect box on every electric line that runs to outbuilding in addition to the individual breaker in the main breaker box. If there is a problem and you are outside its much faster to flip the disconnect outside than to run inside and figure out which breaker that line is on. Basic mechanical skills. Most farms will have equipment that uses small engines, chainsaws, weed eaters, lawn mowers, generators etc. Basic maintenance of those engines is very simple and knowing how to keep them up to speed will save you a lot of money at the small engine/lawnmower shop. Changing oil, fuel filters, spark plugs, solenoids, air filters and in my case disabling those annoying safety features..... like the riding mower shutting off when you get off of it, or dying when you have the blades engaged and try to mow in reverse. The shops btw will not disable the idiot features for you and if you cant figure out how to disable them you probably should leave them intact :) Bigger equipment like tractors and implements, you should again know how to change the oil, filters, hydrailic fluid, and repair the basic moving parts. One of the good things about the old tractors is they are very simple and straight forward to work on and the number of problems they can have is very few in comparison to the new tractors and implements with a host of sensors and computers. A grease gun, a funnel, a 1/2 and 9/16ths wrench and the basic knowledge to use them will save you a lot of money in maintaining older equipment. It does not take to many mechanic farm calls at $70 per hour + Milage to create motivation to learn these things. Whe it get more complex or requires special tools most of us are not equipped to break a tractor in half or get into the guts and it would not be feasible to be so equiped. But even basic repairs and maint. will save the small farm countless dollars that can be better used in other areas. Keep atleast one generator on hand and a barrel of gasoline on hand. Be sure to treat the gas with stabilizer for long term storage and change it out every 3 months. The gas nearing the end of its storage life is fine to use in vehicles, mowers etc. and it does not take that long to burn through 55 gallons of gas. refill the barrel and add more stablizer. In the spring of 2009 we had that ice storm that left many folks without power for up to 3 weeks. There was a big run on generators most places sold out of them. That was the year when no one could pump gas beause the gas pumps at the stations did not have electricty :) It was nice to have 2 weeks worth of gas 2 generators and the solar panels and watch all of this on the tc without having to go out into the madness and chip 5 inches of ice off the truck to even open the door. If you have a tractor a PTO generator is very nice and does not require gas storage, A diesel engine generator is also nice and the fuel can be stored for much longer periods of time (As long as you are not using that bio diesel garbage) Good old straight diesel has a very long shelf life. Diesel generators are also more efficient and will give many thousands of hours of service more than a cheap gas generator. The longest I have gotten out of a gas generator is 3800 running hours, the longest I have gotten on a diesel generator is 14,000 running hours. Again maintain any generator engine and it will live up to its potential. Wood burning stoves are a must out here. Most farms have ample dead and downed trees to have virtually free heat for years if not forever. It is renewable heat. There are always old trees that die or get blown over and new trees growing to replace them. Efficient stoves produce very little pollution and the ashes are valuable for amending soil. Learning how to safely operate big chainsaws and how to safely bring down a tree and cut up a downed tree is important. They call certain situations while cutting trees Widow Makers with good reason. Properly installing a efficient wood stove is critical but if done properly provides warmth and a cooking surface just as safe as any electric or gas furnace, with probably less environmental pollution. Many folks believe wood stoves create more pollution for the simple fact that they can see the smoke when new wood is added to the stove. The smoke is solid particulate matter that settles to the ground very quickly and in efficient stoves with heat exchangers and recirculators the gases released are burned in the box. I am guessing when every factor is put in place propane use overall is far more polluting than oak and hickory fire ever were. Another factor is the dependence on the propane truck and the very high cost of filling your tank. A propane truck cant get down a mud road or a road that is butt deep in snow and ice. Puts you up the proverbial creek without the paddle when you run out of propane and the truck cant get to you :) I would not recommend fire wood for those that dont own a wooded property with steady supply of basically free wood. And if everyone in a town stoked the fire every morning it would create a wall of smoke that would be unhealthy and unpleasant. But things dont work out here like they do in town. A part of why rural folks are getting very annoyed with town folks creating regulations for things they have no understanding of or at best a very limited understanding of. LOL If we wanted all of the regulations and ordinances we would move to town :) But thats another rant for another post :)
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:40:11 +0000
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