I was this close to making it home...

[Furby]

I hear ya CK, I need to buy a 500' roll of that wire for my garage. I started digging the trench in Oct. of 2001, and finally laid the conduit and backfilled last summer. Still don't have the wire run!!!  : :-/

[etat]

Haytrader, STEPPING HIGH TODAY!!!!! ;D


About dinner after a mornings roofing I decided to go see that engineer for Tombigbee Electric  Power.  Decided before I was gonna buy this wire and do this thing I'd meet him face to face and get all the specifics, and options.

As I said on the phone he told me the only way to do it was with 2-0 copper, through conduit, even though if they did it they'd run aluminum wire, no conduit.  Was gonna be 147 times three, times the price of the copper which was over a dollar a foot.  Expensive.

Well I met him, we talked for a spell, and he told me if I'd put a disconnect at the meter, which I was gonna do anyways, I could go to buy the same wire they'd use, and run it underground two foot, coming up into a sweeping ell, and conduit, into the house, and into the cutoff and then the meter  box out by the gate, plus an extra ground rod. Told me I could put the meter on a 6 foot tall pressure treated pole. Told me where to go and what to ask for including 1-0 triplex aluminum wire, disconnect, enough conduit and sweeps for the poles,  the connectors to connect the conduit to the boxes, the ground wire, the ground rods, the clamps, pretty much everything I'd need.  

They was gonna charge me about a dollar a foot to go underground, but wanted the meter on my house.  That's about 140 dollars.  Total cost of materials to do it my way.  Two hundred and forty-nine dollars, plus I'll have to rent a ditch-witch a couple a hours in the morning.   ;D

On top of that he told me  that when they come out next week to hook up real power they'd leave me enough wire to run to my shop.  8) 8) 8)

[Fla._Deadheader]

  I've found them eye to eye discussions are the ONLY way to get what you want. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. : ;D ;D

[SwampDonkey]

 :D :D

Yup, look at all them high step'n smilies tonight I'm glad everything come through for ya cktate So, when ya comin up to wire up my new shop?....erm.....well lets wait till I get it built first. That's what I call a long range plan, think and plan and dwell on it a long time, then do something about it once I got the $$. Oh well, I got a long way 'til retirement yet. :D ;D


cheers

[Jeff]

Still at it. At least i am at the far end. Got the overhangs all done and most of the cedar facia on today. Tomorrow I should have this part of roof finished up and ready for shingles the next time I see a couple of nice days in a row coming.

[Patty]

It looks like you are doing a very fine job, Jeff. Keep up the good work. I really lie those cedar corners, the rest is goinmg to make them look even better.

[SwampDonkey]

 :D

erm.. So when did ya say you was come'n up to help with the new windows and cement work? ;D

Look'n good their boss  8)  erm , ok that's enough from me for now.  :D

[Jeff]

Woo hoo!  We got one "step" completed. Pictured below is Tammy putting the final nails in the last piece of the new cedar facia. We went with a double board facia that really looks better then single. Its full 8 inch with a 3.5 on top.

[SwampDonkey]

Lookin good boss, you'll soon have it all behind ya's. Hmm, I know Tammy loves to help ya and she's doing real good, but I can't help thinkin where that son of yours is. I gots to have a talk with that young feller. ;)

[VK540_1]

What style of siding are you going to put on the walls.

[Jeff]

That son of mine is a long story. :-/  

The siding is t ang g cedar log. It has whats called a german peel. It looks like its all been done with a draw knive. Each piece is done by hand and is different from the other. It should look like real log when its done we hope. :

[Jeff]

Truth is a lot of the time, I'M helping Tammy....  

[SwampDonkey]

Well, that's cool to.  8)

[etat]

Jeff, maybe I ought to be trying to hire Tammy instead of you!!!

I bet it's a pretty good feeling having all them bundles of shingles already on the roof!!! 8)

Mr. Electric Engineer comes to my house this morning.  Yep, he says, you're right, you're gonna need a new pole and transformer.  I had done told him  They'll have to pay for that thank goodness!!!! ;D.  My grandpa bought this place in '54 and it's still the original pole and transformer. Then he halfway looks at the meter base and the 200 amp cutoff I put up and says that'll be fine, they should be out in the morning to hook you up.  And starts to jump back in his truck. No codes or inspectors out here except from the breaker box to the meter base. .

"Oh no you don't says I" but in a nice way, and then I get him to look over the whole setup in just a little more detail so he could tell me what I already knew!!!!  That I done a perfect job and even dug a extra trench for the wire from I had set my meter base to their pole while I was digging!!   ;D 8) 8)

Total cost wire and materials, 249.00, plus I sent for an extra ground rod, a couple of clamps, and a extra ground wire.  Probably less than 20 bucks.  89 dollars for a ditch digger for three hours.  Dug almost 140 feet from the house to the meter base, another 30 feet to their pole, and another 100 feet or so from the meter base to my shop.  Two feet deep.

Wait a minute, forgetting all the labor I and my kids and wife put into it!!!! ???

Oh well, at least I didn't 'roof' this past weekend.

[Jeff]

Todays Picture.  

[chet]

It's a DanG good thing I seen how low yur house is. Otherwise I'd be thinking dat Tammy is one TALL lady.

[Jeff]

Cant tell much here, but we started putting on some siding.

[Stump Jumper]

looks good jeff what kind of stuff you folks painting on that ceader  ???

[Jeff]

Its sikkens natural cedar.

[Patty]

The cedar is beautiful, Jeff. You and Tammy are doing a fine job. We need to do the same thing on our office/house. We sided it when we built it 14 years ago with T&G western red cedar, but now it needs replaced bigtime. So many projects, so little time....

[SwampDonkey]

PAtty:

DId the cedar spoil that quick? I'm surprised. We found cedar layin in the mud from 50 years ago and sound after the first 3 inches of sapwood. Folks were gatherin it for shake blocks with helicopters. I'de like to see a piccy of the siding if you would. ;D

[Buzz-sawyer]

Hi Patty
I was thinkin the same thing about your sidding....maybe you could spray some of the newer wood restorative on instead ..........if it is the color/finish you dont like it will take it back to brand new look!....and a lot easier and cheaper...
Don

[etat]

That sounds about right for Cedar Siding around here.  I don't know why but it splits and cracks and doesn't hold up well.  Then in the winter water gets in the splits and cracks and freezes and makes it worse.  I suspect it is partly from lack of maintenance, partly the climate, and partly the quality of the cedar.  I don't install cedar shake roofs at all.  The few that do get put on around here will look awfull in much less than ten years.


Mostly useless trivia.  I have seen barns and sheds with poplar siding that is pushing a hundred years old, and the wood is still not rotten.  This is largely due to air circulation and the wood being able to dry out rather than retain moisture. .  Put the same wood on the side of a house next to the osb and it will eventually fail..  Moisture gets trapped back there and can linger causing lots of problems.  

A simple solution when applying wood siding to a house is to first install laths so there can be an air space behind the wood, to allow it to dry out rather than retain moisture.  An alternative is to buy a 'rain screen' material and apply behind the siding.  Caulking the seams and joints can actually cause more problems than allowing the joints to somewhat open up so the wood can dry after a rain.

I suspect that the cedar 'in the mud' Swamp Donkey describes was somewhat protected in the same manner that it would have been if found underwater.  The fact that the layer of 'sapwood' was rotten might describe a lot of the sapwood in todays Cedar Siding.

I also believe that Sikkens is one of the better finishes to put on natural siding.  I make my own finish out of mineral spirits, linseed oil, wax, and zinc sulfate and zinc oxide.  How long it will hold up remains to be seen, but it is cheap and I will be keeping an eye on it, and recoat as needed.

I also treated my siding with a borate soulution, front and back before installing.  

One more thing, wood siding should NOT be allowed to touch the ground, if it does that will be the first place rot sets in.

[SwampDonkey]

CK:

I was thinking the same thing about that siding of Patty's, it must be alot of sapwood. Sapwood of red cedar just would not be stable enough for siding for long. Even better would be yellow cypress which in my honest opinion is practiclly indestructable unless ya burn it. But, its price is probably like gold, never seen it sold for siding in Canada, but the asian market demands it. The logs we found in the mud were not submerged, they were in mud because it rains all the DanG time out there. The logs were covered in moss mostly and some had hemlock growing in the sapwood with 8 inch diameters. :D :D They were some logs wasted in the late forties and fifties and huge, on the Queen Charlotte Islands. We  were there measuring juvenile trees, and juvenile out there are pretty big trees. ;D

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Most info about the cedar siding going bad, MAY be correct. I believe that the old growth, stuff cut 100 years or so ago, was a different strain. It had better anti rot-insect control built right in. Todays wood does not hold up like the old wood. We sometimes find old Cypress logs laying on the wet swamp turf, that has stuff growing out of it. Usually, it is just the sapwood. We take it to the mill and get good wood from it.  ;D

  I grew up in white swamp cedar country, and it was used extensively for boat building. There is no worse environment for wood, and I remember many OLD boats that were sound as the day they were built. Our house was built in 1912 with hand split shingle siding. We put stucco over it in 1958 and it was still sound, just weathered brown and not so good looking. Along the Atlantic Coast, there are old houses that still have the original cedar shingle siding, at least 80+ years old. Still holds up well. ;D