The Dream of Owning a Tree Farm

About three years ago I was inspired to start a tree farm.   Why would I want to do this?  It seemed like a good way to make some money.   It would allow me to have an income other than my full time job.  I have always felt the need to have some form of income other than my job because it will eventually go away.  Whether its through a lay off or retirement, eventually I will not be working as an engineer.

Its a good idea to have some sort of income when retired.  Passive income is the holy grail.   You know the income that just keeps flowing in with out any effort.  With this kind of income there are no worries about out living your savings and there is the extra benefit of having something left to give to your loved ones.

When studying the tree farm idea, the financials seemed interesting.   Here was an investment that appreciated with time.  Every foot that the tree grew meant it was worth more.   What makes a tree have value?  The reason is because people desire mature trees to make their yards look beautiful but do not want to wait the amount of time it takes them to grow. 

Its a good idea to grow trees that grow well in your area.   Since I'm in Florida, palm trees grow well and this is what I started with.   There are so many palm trees in my area that it is fairly easy to take a walk and find a tree to collect seeds from. Here are a few pictures of the palm trees that I collected seeds from to start growing.  From left to right (Alexander, Queen, Bismark, Date)

 

I thought about selling the seeds I found on eBay but I realized there may be some legal issues.  Sending seeds across state lines may be problematic due to the agricultural department regulations.  I know that they don't like citrus to cross state lines due to diseases like canker.   Also in the state of Florida they want you to become a seed dealer and get a license.  Anyway, because the red tape I was discouraged and didn't not pursue this.

I pursued the tree farm idea instead and started looking for larger parcels of land that were inexpensive.   Large parcels nearby were few and far between and cost millions.  However 10 acres could be found in my price range about an hour away.  But the distance made me wonder how often I would have to take this drive.  Really if you have a farm you want to live on the farm to tend to it.

Nevertheless I was still excited about the tree farm idea and decided to start growing the palms on my property.  I purchased some used black plastic pots and filled them with cow manure and top soil and planted the seeds.  Some websites suggest that you take the fruit off the seed but this takes a long time so I just planted the seeds as mother nature provided them to me.  I planted about 15 seeds per pot.  It wasn't long before I had 150 palm trees growing.  I must have had 10 different varieties.  For a video on how to grow palm trees see this one.

I was excited about how much these trees could sell for.  For example consider 10 year old date palm which sells for $650 at this link.  That one tree earned $65 per year.  Imagine having 1500 trees on a farm, the farm would grow in value by 100,000 dollars per year.  In ten years it would be worth 1 million dollars.   Wow! Only 10 years to become a millionaire!  The tree farm of course is a lot of work.  Not only is there tending to the trees but then there is also finding a buyer.  There are risks too.  What if a hurricane comes or a disease strikes and they all die.  I'm no expert on what it takes to operate a tree farm but maybe some day I'll talk to one.

Anyway back to my seedlings, I felt the need to water them even though palm tress seem to do fine with the rain water that god provides.  I realized I may not be available to water them every day so to solve this I added some sprinklers tied to my automatic timer.  I no longer had to perform the watering task.  I also came up with a method to keep the weeds from growing around the plants by putting the pots on top of landscape fabric.  See my setup below:

 

Early on I found I needed to separate the seedlings into their own pots and after a year I found that I needed to replenish the dirt in the pots.  I encountered many night crawlers that had taken up residence in the pots.  Maybe I should have opened up a bait store.

I did have trouble with squirrels.  They dug up the seeds and ate them.  I tried capturing them in a trap I purchased from Lowes.  It was fun trapping these critters and even though I have eaten squirrel before I decided to relocate it to another area.  But then another squirrel took up residence in the yard and I was back to where I started.  Below you can see the troublesome critter in his jail cell.

The task of tending to the seedlings and starting a tree farm, got sidelined by my next new interest, remodeling my house.  I have been remodeling the house now for about 2 years and have finished, converting a single car garage into a two car garage, building a cedar covered porch and a boat house with a lift.  All that is left to finish the permits is to put in a paver driveway which I am working on now.

Because of the construction the automatic sprinklers for the palms were off due to the damage to the sprinkler system when tearing up the drive way.   And so its been two years that those seedling have gone without water except rain water.   Out of the 150 seedlings I had, I ended up with about 40 left.  Some died because they were completely covered over with banana tree leaves and had no light. The 40 seedlings are doing well and have grown despite the very little dirt left in the pot.  See picture below of the Alexander palms.

 

Due to my getting sidelined on the dream of owning a tree farm, I thought that I would never use the seedling palm trees I grew because I had nowhere to plant them.  However, my attention has turned to landscaping my yard and I have realized that there are many places for these trees in my very own yard.  What this amounts to is about $650 worth of palm trees to choose from for the yard.  They were not exactly free since I paid money for the pots, manure, fabric, sprinklers and topsoil but that was probably about $150.  This means that I have enjoyed a savings of 77% just for the plants and additional savings by taking care of the landscaping myself..

Cue the cash register sound.

Happy Building

The Dr.

 

Deciding when your old HVAC unit should be canned.

When hurricane Mathew passed through, my HVAC was fried from surges in electricity as I outlined in a previous blog.  I should have shut off the main breaker to protect my electronics but I didn't.  The fix was simple, it just needed a new switch on the access door which shuts the air handler off when the door is open.

However, this unit was a  12 year old Rheem and the natural gas heater didn't work.  It was really rusty and usually every year it had to be hit with a hammer on the rusty burners to get it to work.  But last year hammering didn't work and I busted a sensor fiddling around with it. But that's ok this is Florida and the heater is only needed once or twice a year anyway and I made it all last winter with out a heater.

But there was another problem, the Freon leaked.  It seemed to get worse with the Hurricane.  I called the insurance company out but then I realized that $5000 deductible would have to be paid by me and they were in no way going to pay because they thought the damage was less then the deductible.

The type of Freon used in the unit was the old Freon known as R-22.  R-22 has been mostly phased out in new equipment in the United States and has been replaced by other refrigerants with lower ozone depletion potential.  For more info on R-22 see this Wikipedia link.  Currently R-22 is about 500 dollars for 30 lb on eBay.  To use that stuff you need a license to handle Freon, which I don't have so I rely on the AC guy to come and add some every two years at a cost of  $300 for 3 lbs.  At $100 per pound if you have 4 ton system that uses R-22 you may have to pay $1200 to put 12 pounds back in.  Since the Freon leaked the AC would get more an more inefficient and the energy bill would sky rocket.

The new Freon which is R-410A costs about $140 for 30 lbs on ebay.  Usually when the whole amount of the R-22 Freon needs to be put back in the system, the AC guys tries to sell you a new $15000  top of the line 20 seer variable compressor HVAC unit.

My HVAC was fixable.  At least it didn't look like the picture below which is the result of a copper thieves:  See link.

 

Before I decided on getting a new system I wanted to know if the indoor coil or the outdoor coil was leaking.  If it was the indoor coil  then I could save some money and not replace the outdoor unit.  To get a leak test you can pay $75 for an AC guy to come out.  However for less than $75 dollars you can buy one of these and do a leak test your self.

I bought one and took the cover off my outdoor unit and pretty quickly found the leak.....keep in mind that there all kind of shock hazards in the outdoor unit and a pretty hefty cap that can shock you even when the breaker is off.  Do it your selfer beware!  The leak was in the main outdoor unit coil.  It is possible to repair the coil but an AC guy usually wants to replace it for 1 to 3 thousand dollars.  That's when they try to sell you a brand new AC unit and introduce you to a new ball and chain to strap on your ankle called a $15000 loan.  There really is no choice is there?  What live without AC in Florida?  That's crazy talk!

Now it is possible to legally put in your own AC unit without a license because they come filled with Freon.  Check out this site for example where you can get some really good prices on a Rheem.  To do so you have to braze the Freon pipes when their empty and then pull a vacuum and test them for leaks.  Once the system has proven to be leak free the valve is opened on the compressor which allows the Freon to get into the rest of the system.  This should be enough Freon to run on but if there is not enough Freon you can get the AC guy to put in the right amount.  Don't forget you have to get the Freon out of the old unit in an environmentally friendly way with a collection system.  Without a license you can call a AC guy to collect it for you.  Other skills include navigating the permit process, electrical skills and duct work skills.

Does it sound hard and like a lot of insurmountable work?  Not really.  My dad actually put in the AC unit that was being replaced in my house and he is not an AC installation professional.  It worked great for many years.

Anyway, I wanted to have AC for my boat house completion party and felt I would not be able to complete it on time.  So I called the pro in..  And he installed it in about three days of part time work.  It is interesting to note that he had such trouble getting the old unit out it caused the AC guy to say, "your dad over engineered it and it would probably survive a cat 5 hurricane" and it also caused him  to rupture the Freon lines causing it to all leak out into the atmosphere.   Since it was an accident it wasn't illegal said the AC guy.

Anyway, the drain on my AC unit was directed into an old washer drain.  The problem with this is that sewer gas could go into the HVAC drain and into the air handler and into house.  There was no trap on the drain.  Then you got stinky sewer gas smell in your house.  I never really noticed a smell.  It was not to code so it had to be fixed.

I knew the perfect way to get the drain from inside the garage to the yard which would fix the drain issue.  The AC guy was not up to the task and a plumber would have to be called.  Instead I took on the task myself.   In a previous blog I had fished some electrical conduit into the garage which held the boat house wiring.  My plan was to fish the drain along the same route as the conduit which was under about 10' of patio slab.  Once again I used the walkway tunnel kit from Lowe's and it worked like a charm.

Below is picture of the drain on the inside of the Garage.  In the picture on the right the drain is not yet connected to air handle.  On the left the drain is visible coming out of  the air handler and is  completed

Notice the big hole I had to tear in the Garage floor with my harbor freight jack hammer.  It is about 2 feet deep so that the pipe that was jetted under the slab could pass under the house footer.  The hole was actually still there from the boat house project....so glad I hadn't filled it up with cement yet.

There was one problem though.  Typically a drain from the AC sits above the ground.  In my case it would be a tripping hazard since it would come out right in a high traffic area.  I decided to make a below ground drain.   To do this I used  the drain grate from home depot at this link and some 6" pvc I found at Lowes.  The 6 inch PVC is not to common in this area as Home Depot didn't have it and Lowes only stocked 2' sections.  But 2' is all I needed.

The 3/4" pvc drain resides in a cavity created by the drain gate and the 6" PVC pipe and comes up vertically and then makes two 90 degree turns so that the water drops directly down to the ground in side the 6" PVC pipe.

Remember once the water comes out of the air handler it relies on gravity to find its way to the outside drain.  So the air handler drain outlet has to be higher than the outside drain.  If for some reason the drain gets clogged then water will back up into the air handler.  Luckily the AC guy but a shut off switch on the drain for the AC similar to this one so that a backup will not cause any problems.

The outside drain is shown below,

In the end the AC guy did a very good job installing the unit and I'm very happy with the installation. 
Funny thing is there was such a nice breeze for the party that I left the doors open and turned the AC off.  I didn't really need it.

I did save money by doing the leak test myself and not calling a plumber for the drain.  But the great savings to be had by installing the AC myself was not had as I let the AC guy do the job.

I did save money by getting more than one estimate.  I had estimates from $14000 to $6000.  Some the high estimates were for AC units with all the bells and whistles but I went with a lower end model.  For the lower end models there was about $3000 variation in installation price.  I went with a Trane 16 seer model which was 2 seer better then my old unit.  Trane units have good reputation of being one of the best HVAC units and I got it for the lowest quoted price.  I have already noticed lower electrical bills.

Some other savings that can be had, is Florida gives a $500 rebate for installing a natural gas appliance (since my heater uses natural gas) and since the unit is an energy star rated a tax credit can be obtained when filing the federal income taxes.

Also worth mentioning,  there is a product used on HVACs that is often used on boats to prevent electrolysis damage.  Its a zinc anode and on the HVAC system it is known as corrosion grenade.  Since I'm near the beach I decided to get the AC guy to put one on.  It can be found at this link.

That's all I got for now. 

Happy Building

The Dr.

Hanging Christmas Tree Lights the Easy Way.

Over the last month I have not done much towards finishing the permits on my house.  I did get the boat house inspected for the electrical.  And it passed!  The blog in which I discuss the electrical installation for the boat house is at this link.

To finish the electrical on the boat house, I deviated from the original electrical drawing.  In the plans which I came up with, I required a GFI outlet at the boat house.   But that's before I realized how GFIs worked.  See my previous blog on how they work.

Instead I put a GFI breaker in the house.   This in effect covered the whole boat house electrical circuit.

When the inspector came, I told him what I had done and he was ok with the changes.   But then he looked at my panel and said, "that's not a GFI breaker" and then claimed it was an arc fault breaker.

In this area arc fault breakers are now required.  They are supposed to prevent fires when there is arcing between wires and what ever else they are arcing with.   Here is a link on what they are and why they are used.  They are much more expensive than the old style breakers at about $40 a piece at at this link.  (Lowe's).

If I had been doing construction under the new building rules (and I wasn't because my plans were grandfathered in)   I would have had to put in a  GFI ARC fault breaker.  In any case I had put in a GFI breaker and I assured the inspector it was GFI.  He was not convinced.  Luckily he had a tester and he plugged it in the boat house receptacle and caused the breaker to trip.  This convinced him that it was indeed a GFI breaker.

One reason there has been so little progress is that I felt that once the boat house was done it was time to party.  I think it is very important to celebrate the accomplishments in ones life and this was no exception.  I invited all my friend's over.  We ate 30 lbs of brisket which I smoked with hickory and apple wood chips and my friends brought over some wonderful dishes of their own.  And of course there was plenty of alcohol.   I do believe I gained 5 pounds in just that day alone.  The party morphed from a boat house completion celebration to a football game watching party and then when it was dark we took boat ride to see the ruins of statue known as Annie the dragon.

Another reason there has been little progress is that it was Thanksgiving and my birthday   I took a trip to Wyoming to visit my sister and parents.  It was a real good time and I got to enjoy cutting down 50' dead trees in the national Forrest (we had a permit).  I had never cut down a tree before and was using this experience to practice since I have two 50' palm trees in the back yard that have died and needed cutting down.  Unfortunately, the two trees I did cut down in the forest didn't fall the right way.  Here are some action shots of a tree that my dad cut down:

 

Since the cedar porch, house, boat house, new AC unit and both my neighbors properties are potential targets for the trees in my backyard to fall on, I have decided that the best way to cut the trees down is to scale it with tree spikes and top it off.

I ain't going to do that.  For $150 I can get a professional to take a tree down.

So here I am back in Florida, and Christmas is right around the corner.  I will be working on installing a paver driveway soon.

Since it is nearing Christmas, I thought I would put a Christmas tip in the blog.   For Christmas I hang lights on the house.   I have used the hooks that use adhesive to stick to the drip edge in the past.   This process takes along time and is expensive.  About $8 dollars for 10 hooks.  It is possible t reuse the hooks for next year but then you have to buy new adhesive strips.  Kind of a subscription plan for 3M.  These hooks are at this link.  After doing this for a couple years, this year I thought to myself there must be an easier way.

Since I had installed the roof on my projects (for example see my previous blogs on roofing at this link and this link) I realized that the drip edge I installed has a lip on it that is spaced out from Fascia about 3/4".  I though to myself this would be an ideal place to hang a hook on for the lights.  The hook just has to grab on the edge of the drip edge somehow.  After searching for hooks that would do the job the nearest I could find is shown at this link.  That's a 500 pack for $17.

However, after a couple days of inaction an idea just popped into my mind out of nowhere.  It is shown below:

 

Yep that's a clothespin. Clothespins are cheap and I bought 100 of them at Walmart for $1.88.  I put up 150' of lights by climbing up on the roof and fastening them with clothespins.  It only took me an hour and I almost used all 100 of them.  Now it is true that clothespins don't look as nice as the other hooks, but it is possible to paint them with Christmas colors or maybe even buy colored clothespins.  I think they are fine the way they are.  Besides who's going to see those clothespins at night anyway.

And that ends this blog,

Merry Christmas,

The Dr.

Lulu said, "Please please build me a boat house." Finale

In the last blog on the boat house I wrote about the savings I enjoyed by wiring the boat house myself.   For this blog I am happy to report that I am finally finished with the boat house project.  The speed at which I finished the boat house is on par with a snail or sloth.  My construction services are kind of like that restaurant I went to in Alaska called Fast Eddies where it took a whole hour to eat a meal there and the service was anything but fast.

The first lumber delivery was on December 5, 2014.

 

What I originally had in the back yard was a nice 20' dock built by dad and I. 

Now it is October 24, 2016, 1 year 10 months  later and now the back yard has this in it.

 

 

 

Of course the boat house will still have to pass inspection.  It will be interesting to see what they say when the inspector looks at the plans and it calls for a hip roof and what I built was a gable roof.  I have also blown a zoning requirement.   The structure is a little bigger than 600 square feet.  However the inspection will have to wait until I finish the driveway which is the last task to do before my two permits are complete.

The last part of construction for the boat house involved putting the planking and the shingles on.   The planking took about 26 hours and the shingling took about 17 hours.   Seeing as I started this effort in July and its now October it seems I didn't accomplish much for 3 to 4 months.  Truth is I did slow down because it was so hot.  I avoided the peak sun hours and worked no more than three hours a day and usually only on weekends

Besides the planking and shingles I also accomplished installing the electrical for the boat house. the swail in the back yard, the sprinklers and the planting of the grass seed. I also decided to take a detour in life and do other things besides construction and work.  So I devoted some of my attention to running and then I switched to comedy.  That's right I took a 6 week stand up comedy class.  It was perhaps the funnest class I have ever taken.  Each class was filled with the teacher and the students cracking jokes and roasting each other.  We attended comedy shows and at the end of the class each student in the class performed a five minute act in front of a live audience.

The comedy I came up with certainly wasn't appropriate for the corporate work environment but definitely would be considered appropriate on a construction site.  In the spirit of having a fun in the middle of a a serious project, I will place a few jokes I know through this blog.

Like this one:
I went to a restaurant on mars and the food was great but there was no atmosphere.

Since I had finished the roof framing, the planking was next.  For this I used 2" x 8" treated lumber.  I could have used plywood sheathing but I figured it would be easier for me haul planks up the ladder rather than large sheets of plywood.  Also with planking the roof nails would not pop through and show like they would with plywood.  Nails popping through the underside of the roof seems unsightly to me.

Unlike the cedar porch planking I decided not to use lap joints.  The cedar porch lumber actually shrunk a lot so that there are quarter inch gaps in the seams.  Lapping is a good idea but since the planking is covered with peel and stick and shingles and there is no chance of day light passing through the joints it is unnecessary.  The only thing I did to the lumber was bevel the edge with a router bit so that a V groove was formed at the seam.

To put the planking on I used 3.25" galvanized ring shank framing nails to attach them to the rafters.   I usually put four nails in per rafter.  The trickiest part of placing the planking is getting the first row straight.  To ensure that I did I clamped short pieces of lumber on the facia so that the first plank could butt up against it.   Once this was done the next rows went on straight.  However, since the wood was not perfectly straight I used pipe clamps to press the plank rows together before I nailed them and I staggered the joints.

Below are some pictures of the process where I put planks on and covered them with peel and stick.

 

 

 

In the above pictures I have shown the top side of the planking.  But the whole reason why I put in planks in the first place was so that nails would pop through when I put shingles on the roof.  It is also a lot prettier to look at then sheathing.  Below is a picture that shows how well the planking idea looks.  This picture is after the shingles were put on.....no nails!

Time for another joke:
Did you hear about the kidnapping at school? 
He's ok now he woke up.

When installing the planks safety was my number one priority.   The first thing I did to help out is I wired the ladder to the boat house with 9 wire.  The ladder sliding to the side and then falling to the ground as a worker gets on and off is a common issue.   The second thing I did is I put on most of the planking from inside the rafter structure instead of standing on the roof.  I was able to do this because I had a good scaffolding system.  In fact all the planks went on this way except the last two rows.

I also put on the peel and stick as I installed the planks.   This I thought would ensure the slippery wood surface would be covered with a material that has good traction.  However, the peel and stick material has a time limit (45 days) for exposure to UV / hot sun and I exceeded it by about 30 days for some it.  So maybe I should have waited until all the planking was done before I placed it on.  Some of it became covered with loose particles that broke away from the material and made it slippery.  Some of it didn't and I think that is because of the different brands that I used during the process.  Finally when working on the roof I use a safety harness.

Time for another joke.
They named a road after Chuck Norris but they had to change the name....Do you know why?
No one would cross Chuck Norris.

The next step was to add the drip edge.  By code the drip edge has to be spaced out 1/2" from the facia so that the water coming off it does not interact with the facia. To speed up the process I cut all my spacers and predrilled the holes for the nails ahead of time.  Drilling the holes was quick because I used my harbor freight drill press.  On the gable end of the roof the spacer is just a 1/2 inch thick by 1.5" thick strip of wood.  However on the eaves the spacer has a 22.5 degree angle in it so that the plumb cut vertical facia would match with it.

One issue I had with the drip edge installation the vertical facia and roof make an angle was 111.5 degrees and  the drip edge I had purchased was 90 degrees.  I had to squash the drip edge.  I tired putting it on  the ground and stepping on it but this creased the drip edge and ruined it.  Instead I came up with a solution that worked very well.

The spacer I had used for the drip edge on the plump cut side of the roof had angle in it and since I had some extra left over. I used it as guide when I spread the drip edge wider with my hands.   See photo below.

I put the drip edge on in about 2 hours.  The nail spacing I used was 4 inches which is code for hurricanes and the over lap for the drip edge is 6 inches.  The corners where the facia transitions form 111.5 degrees to 90 didn't seem quite right but it looks good.  I think that special factory made facia should be made for this transition.

 

Time for another joke:
Two antennas met on the roof.   They got to know each other and really hit it off.  They fell in love and got married.   The ceremony wasn't that great but the reception was excellent.

After the drip edge was installed it was time to install the shingles.  In my previous blog I  have detailed about the shingle installation process.  To summarize, I put roof cement on the drip edge and covered the seems and the nails.  By code the width of the roof cement seam has to be a minimum width.  I forget what the dimension is but I exceeded a 8" wide seam.  Then the starter shingles go on.  Below the picture shows half a row of starter shingles and the roof cement seam.

 

The next step was to put on the shingles.  There are directions on each shingle pack.  It basically says to never have your shingle seems line up.  The first row requires nothing special and the shingles are laid down and nailed to the roof.  The second row starts off with a 6" shingle.  The third a 11" shingle.  The fourth starts off with the left over shingle from the 6" part that was cut off it.  The fifth row starts with the shingle that is left over from the 11" cut off it.  Then repeat the process over again for the remaining rows.

It is important to nail the shingles 6 times.   My neighbors boat house roof shingles were blown off by hurricane Mathew because they used 4 nails.   My house shingles that used 6 did not.   It is also important to make sure the edges are stuck down.  That's why the starter shingle is used and also tar from a caulking gun is placed under the roof perimeter edges with a caulking gun.  What I'm told happens is once the first edge shingle goes from high wind then all the rest of them in that row go.

The professional who looked at the neighbors boat house roof which is the same size as mine said it was done so bad that it needed a whole new roof job at a price of 1900 dollars.   My cost was $800 (57% savings) for materials with a labor time of 34 hours to complete peel and stick, drip edge and shingle job.  The labor rate then is $32 an hour.  Their price includes tear down which I did not have to do since I had a new roof.

However I have to say that I am super envious of the short time it takes these professionals to do the work.  My neighbors entire house roof was removed and the dried in in one day.  However now they are waiting for the inspector to look at it.   Or are they?  Because of hurricane Mathew there are a lot of roof jobs now.  I wonder if they are playing the game of starting as many projects as they can and when the work dies down they will get back to my neighbors.  Because they started the job my neighbor is stuck using them now.

It is important to get the shingles on straight.  I use one chalk line for every two rows to help.   Below is picture when I'm about 1/3 of the way done on the shingle task.

And here is an aerial view of the finished roof.

See my other roofing project at this blog for more information roofing.

In addition to the shingles I installed an owl with rotating head to keep the birds away.  They leave a nasty mess.  And it does not seem to be working.   What shall I try next?

Time for another classic joke:
A woman could never get her husband to do anything around the house. He would come home from work, sit in front of the tv, eat dinner, and sit some more -- would never do those little household repairs that most husbands take care of. This frustrated the woman quite a bit.

One day the toilet stopped up. When her husband got home, she said sweetly, "Honey, the toilet is clogged. Would you look at it?" Her husband snarled, "What do I look like? The tidy-bowl man?" and sat down on the sofa. 

The next day, the garbage disposal wouldn't work. When her husband got home, she said, very nicely, "Honey, the disposal won't work. Would you try to fix it for me?" Once again, he growled, "What do I look like? Mr. Plumber?" 

The next day, the washing machine was on the blink. When her husband got home, she steeled her courage and said, "Honey, the washer isn't running. Would you check on it?" And again was met with a snarl, "What do I look like? The Maytag repairman?" 

Finally, she had had enough. The next morning, the woman called three repairmen to fix the toilet, the garbage disposal, and the washer. When her husband got home, she said, "Honey, I had the repairmen out today." He frowned, "Well, how much is that going to cost?" "Well, honey, they all said I could pay them by baking them a cake or having sex with them." "Well, what kind of cakes did you bake them?" he asked. She smiled. "What do I look like? Betty Crocker?"

An older couple were walking on a beach when the husband tripped over a bottle and a genie came out. “You can each have one wish,” said the genie. The wife made her wish first “I would like to travel around the world, with my husband,”. Suddenly there appeared in her hand two tickets for travel around the world. Now it was the husbands turn, “Well” said the husband, with a naughty look on his face “I wish I can have a younger companion,” . The words were barely out of his mouth when poof, he aged 20 years!

Read more at:

So now that the boat house is complete the question is would it have been cheaper for a contractor to have done the job?

In this case it is an emphatic no.

For a similar boat house that was built in a neighborhood the contractor charged $ 32,000.   In my case I worked on the boat house for 411 hours and my cost in materials and minimal hired help was $14,716.

My savings was a whopping $17,284 or 54%.   Cue the cash register sound.

Happy Building

The Dr.

PS. Still yet another joke:

A man runs into the vet's office carrying his dog, screaming for help. The vet rushes him back to an examination room and has him put his dog down on the examination table. The vet examines the still, limp body and after a few moments tells the man that his dog, regrettably, is dead.

The man, clearly agitated and not willing to accept this, demands a second opinion. The vet goes into the back room and comes out with a cat and puts the cat down next to the dog's body. The cat sniffs the body, walks from head to tail poking and sniffing the dog's body and finally looks at the vet and meows. The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the cat thinks that your dog is dead too."

The man is still unwilling to accept that his dog is dead. The vet brings in a black Labrador. The lab sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, and finally looks at the vet and barks. The vet looks at the man and says, "I'm sorry, but the lab thinks your dog is dead too."

The man, finally resigned to the diagnosis, thanks the vet and asks how much he owes. The vet answers, "$650." "$650 to tell me my dog is dead?" exclaimed the man.... "Well," the vet replies, "I would only have charged you $50 for my initial diagnosis. The additional $600 was for the cat scan and lab tests."

Hurricane Mathew Strikes the House

In the last blog I indicated that there was a cat 5 hurricane down in the Caribbean coming our way and I had hoped that it would not hit here.   Well the eye actually passed by my city only 30 miles away.  Luckily it had down graded itself to a cat 3.   However we did get subjected to 110 Mph winds, rain, power outages and the storm surge.  The question is, how did my construction hold up?  From a previous blog where I discussed the shingles I installed on the roof I said the following:

"the code requires that the shingles be wind rated for 150 Mph on my street.  One street over its 160 Mph....go figure.  The shingles I chose are CetainTeed silver birch shingles which will easily handle these wind speeds according to the manufacturer ratings  ASTM3161 D F......(I'll believe it when I see it and right now I'm skeptical as they are asphalt shingles and this material is pretty weak)" 

And then there is the cedar porch which I talked about in the blog in this link.  I think I mentioned in one of the cedar porch blogs that we had a little argument with the designer.  He felt that the porch needed diagonal bracing and would not stand up to a hurricane if it didn't have it.  Dad on the other hand said based on his experience as a structural engineer that it did not need it.  I chose to ignore the designer and listen to my dad.  Was this the right decision?

This is a picture of the porch before the storm.

 

Don't forget the boat house which I had deviated from what the professional engineer signed off on in the plans.  I had put on a gable roof I designed myself instead of a hip roof in the plans as discussed in this link.  Furthermore,  I had decided to leave the 2 to 3 thousand pound boat in the lift and let it ride out the storm there.   Were these good decisions worthy of withstanding the hurricane force winds?  

See picture below of how the boat was left in the boat house before the storm.  Basically I lifted it higher than I thought the storm surge would be and I tied it off at the four corners to cleats on the pilings.   I also used chain links with nuts on them instead of hooks so that there was no way the boat could get loose from the cables on the lift.

There is also the expanded garage addition, where I had mistakenly left off two major Simpson brackets responsible for holding the roof on.  Luckily, the inspector caught it and it was corrected.  Had I screwed anything else up or did the inspector miss anything else?

Before I show the damage that was incurred by the hurricane to my construction, I will show you the damage in the neighborhood.

Below is a picture of the shingles missing from a neighbors house:

 

As can be seen from the photo many shingles are missing.  The house to the left was newly built a year ago and fared better.  However, it had many shingles missing as well.

Below is a picture of a neighbors dock.  The piling is broken in two.  Probably rotten but the forces were so great that the dock was lifted up.

 

Below is picture of a neighbors tree that fell over.

 

Below the picture shows the huge screened in porch taken down by the hurricane.

 

Fence knocked down in neighborhood.

 

A power line down in the neighborhood.

A community center had this damage,

 

At a  Friendly's restaurant a light pole had been knocked down and the bricks on the corner of the building had fallen.

So the above pictures are some of the worse damage in my local area that I could find.  

And now for the damage that occurred to my construction.  I didn't have any except a little erosion on the dirt that I placed in the back yard.  The dirt placement is discussed in this link.   The grass had not grown yet so there was nothing to hold the dirt in place.  All the additions that I had constructed were still standing and looked as if they took the pounding easily.   What was completely surprising to me though was that not a single shingle came off my roof.  Those are some good shingles! 

The damage I had was the AC got fried due to the power surges.  (I should have flipped the main breaker before I left) and the freon leaked out of the AC.

The erosion is shown below.  In the picture you can see the water had risen above the wall and the floating dock landed itself on top of the fixed dock.

 

I did have damage to the boat.  A cleat ripped off but the wood holding the cleat was rotten.  The boat must have really rocked and rolled in the wind.  I'm glad I removed the hooks from the lift and used 1/2 " links instead so that the boat did not get loose.

 

I would say that although the neighborhood did have damage we fared pretty well and it could of been a lot worse.  We are so lucky.  Other countries in the path of the hurricane did not do as well.  In Haiti the destruction is devastating and the death toll has reached 900  link .  

Let us pray for them.

In the coming weeks I hope to put the shingles on the boat house.  It should not take long.  But then again I thought this whole project would only take 3 months.

Happy Building,

The Dr.

Mowing the Lawn is fun again

As a continuation of improving the landscaping for the house I finally broke down after not mowing the lawn for two years and bought a lawn mower.   This is quite amazing actually because I had developed a hatred of mowing lawns.

My dislike for mowing the lawns stemmed from the time I made a living from mowing lawns.   It was back in 2002 when I was laid off from my job for 2 years.

In order to mow lawns I had to get customers.  This meant that I had to walk around the neighborhood and put flyers on peoples doors.   I ended up with 12 customers doing this but being out in Florida heat walking miles through neighborhoods getting all sweaty discouraged me from getting any more.  I also had a small 21 inch self propelled mower to work with and that meant it would usually take me an hour to mow, edge and weed eat a yard.  Needless to say I ended up tired, hot and thirsty all for $20 a lawn.

My payment structure was all wrong too.   I charged by the cut where most services charge by the month.   This just felt more ethical to me.  So when winter came around or when the grass didn't grow much my income went down.  The customers I had were good although some of them were quite the character.  One customer wanted me to mow the lawn in a particular pattern and always complained about the job I had done.  I quit after the third time he complained and told him to hire someone else.  I admit lawn care was not my forte.   One time I destroyed 4 sprinklers in one mowing.   The owner charged me for fixing them and then docked my pay.  I quit because I figured it would happen again and I wouldn't make much money.

Another reason mowing lawns was its no fun starting and maintaining the engines.   Its such a hassle pulling on that cord to start and engine in 100 degree heat especially if it wont start.  And then there is the weed eater line that runs out or stops spooling.

Anyway,  after the lawn mowing service experience I swore that I would never mow lawns again.  I hired a service for $70 a month and they took care of it.  It was great. Getting someone else to mow my lawn freed me up to do creative things.   I mostly ignored it when they destroyed my plants.  The weed eater guy removed the protection I had around my orange tree and took the bark off the tree and then it died.   The lawn mower guy obliterated my favorite one of kind African Aloe plant.  It always bothered me when I could hear the string of the weed eater bang against my new garage door.  However, no matter how hard he tried the Wayne Dalton garage door finish never showed a mark.

But the time I had for creativity was the lawn service's worst enemy.  I made plans for a cedar covered porch, a garage expansion and a new boat lift. Once construction started the yard became too dangerous for them to mow.  It looked like a mine field as I have outlined in my previous blog.

Anyway after going for 2 years without a lawn service it really began to sink in as to how much I had saved by not having them.  Over two years it would have been about $1700.  It became  obvious to me that if I would buy a lawn mower then saving by not having a lawn service would pay for it.  This also meant that I could justify buying a really nice lawn mower.

Because of my dislike of mowing lawns,  I decided to buy a lawn mower that would enable me to mow the lawn quickly and efficiently.  Because I had a slope in my yard a riding lawn mower was not the best choice because it could tip over and end up on top of me in the canal.  Some really good information on dangers of riding lawn mower roll overs can be found at this link.  In my case the best lawn mower for my sloped yard is a self propelled walk behind.

The lawn mower I bought is the Toro Time master 30" lawn mower with electric start.  It is by far the best lawn mower I have ever used and it took down the tall grass in my yard effortlessly.

 

Since it is 30" wide and has a top speed of 5.2 MPH it easily cuts the lawn way quicker than the 21" mower I used for the lawn service.   Here is a video of some of the features of the lawn mower.  One thing alluded to in the video is the handle folds for easy storage.  However they don't show the other position of the handle which makes it easy to put in a vehicle.  The handle actually folds flat over the engine reducing the lawn mowers height.  Also not mentioned is the lawn mower comes with a charger.

Anyway, I will add to this blog if any problems occur with the lawn mower.

In case your wondering, after two years of being laid off I did land a job.  It paid half the price of what an engineer should make.   However, after mowing lawns I found myself sitting in a cool office not sweating behind a desk using my brain and knowledge.  I remember feeling that this was the way it should be for me.

As for the construction project, the boat house is coming to a close.   I expect to turn my attention to the shingles this week.  There might be about 15 hours of work left on the boat house.  However, there is a category 5 hurricane (Mathew) near Jamaica making its way up the coast of Florida.   I hope it doesn't hit my home.  I know I will get high winds and their will be a large surf.  I really want to get this project done before having it all torn down by a hurricane.  Crossing my fingers.


Happy Building!

The Dr.