12 minutes ago, Goods said:

darn that rotation thing...

Uh: Earth's rotation, it's orbit,  Sol on the Orion arm . . . ?

Beautiful photo, what are those green things on the trees? 

Frosty The Lucky.

Two weeks ago and the woods have no green, but a lot of pink from the big magnolia to the left (well, bottom) of the picture. It’s been a good season for blooms.

Going for a "rocking house" brand?

Supposed to be in the 90's degF today and hotter 90's tomorrow. Luckily I should be cleaning and installing the pad and installing the last side of the swamp cooler tonight.  Usually I do the ladder climbing and roof work and my wife does the side cleaning and pad installation; but she hasn't been feeling up to it; so I've been doing one every day when I get home from work. (As well as the scrubbing down and de-lime'ing of the body. Lubrication and motor adjustment, water hose, float, pump, spider work that are my usual tasks. Also holding down my full time job at work.)

but your house has been built sideways , doesnt that make it hard to walk around inside?

For some reason, we seem to spend a lot of time scrubbing the walls, but the floors stay pretty clean

It's to prevent it from being blown over in a tornado.  When we lived in Indiana we actually built a tornado shelter in the basement.

Lol, even tho I'd read this post before, my first thought was someone made a spring for their post vice, and it was too short! Guess I've still got spring fever... 

I"m sure you'll rebound quickly enough.

Frosty The Lucky. 

Only if you're sufficiently flexible.

In other news, it snowed in Ohio yesterday.

I have a sign in my shop: "Work while Bent!"    (Bender from Futurama.)  Funny as my shop rule is "tools down before mugs/glasses/bottles up!"

I really need another one with Frazetta's 'Death Dealer' and captioned "Check Your Blood Sugar!"

Or do a take off on the milk ad. A glass of blood with the caption, "Got sugar?"

Frosty The Lucky.

My wife tells me that "I'm too sweet for my own good!" 

My daughters on the other hand have told me that all their High School boyfriends were terrified of me!  ("Good" was my reply...)   And I didn't even show any of them that I always carried a: hatchet, shovel,  24" hacksaw, rope, duct tape, 55 gallon trash bags and gloves behind the seat of the pickup. (Basic survival/scrounging gear!)

Heh, hh, heh. I think it was Bill Engval(sp?) the comedian who said he made a point of telling his daughter's boyfriends to be good to them, he didn't mind going back to prison. 

It's the only regret I have is not having kids to warp in my own manner.

Frosty The Lucky.

Two of my Grandsons are sending me emails from Okinawa now; my fiendish plots are maturing!

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

And I didn't even show any of them that I always carried a: hatchet, shovel,  24" hacksaw, rope, duct tape, 55 gallon trash bags and gloves behind the seat of the pickup. (Basic survival/scrounging gear!)

The great thing about living in hurricane territory is that a couple of times a year you can go get rope, chain, rolls of plastic and duct tape and no one in the checkout line bats an eye........

It's the rest of the year that's a problem....

John McP; where's the fun in that?

Living here in the Valley someone buying: rope, chain, rolls of plastic and duct tape is probably someone doing home improvement. Now if you're getting a: couple shovels, maybe some lime, and a can of gas folk're likely to think you're a contractor. Most of the Mat Su Valley is free of building codes except fed codes say well and septic system separation and such. 

I don't get all the fuss about hurricanes though if you don't build too close to sea level, 70mph. winds aren't that big a deal in the Valley we get that a few times a year easy. Over 100mph and folk talk. . . some. Actually most of us are pretty pleased to see 70+ winds, it helps clear out some of the stuff built by the plastic& duct tape builders. There are long established homes that sort of grew out or random materials around an old mobile home or even camper. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

When I hired a contractor to build the first part of my smithy; his claim to fame was that all the buildings he had built were still standing.  Odd I thought until that first spring when we had 80 mph straight line winds.   My wife wants me to put a roof over the firewood holder. I don't think she understands what would be required to not have it visit Oz on a regular basis.

A lot of contractors build to a code dictated by banks and insurance companies. Being as neither institution wants to spend money they don't have to they're generally pretty good codes to build by. Unfortunately they're minimum spec and usually don't take into account regional conditions. In the Valley code calls for 70 mph roof or did then. I asked the roofer and he said 1 screw every 12" met code I asked about code and thought YIKES the wind blows harder than that in Anchorage! What happens if you put screws every 6"? "That's a 140mph roof but it's more expensive." How much more? "Twice as much." TWICE?! "For the screws, sorry that sounded bad didn't it." We were talking $5,000 for a steel roof so . . . YEAH 2X sounded B A D! 

How much for 2x the screws? "$120." Oh do it! 

We overbuilt. . . Of course, I designed it and I didn't know what I was doing. Some is good though, The block foundation walls are double rebar grouted solid with seismic ties every 4' instead of every 12' oh and the vertical rebar in the walls extends into the poured foundation. All the joists have hurricane clips on both ends instead of every 4th on one end. ON and on, the place is tight as a tick and the exterior walls and roof are urethaned solid. Yeah it has a hot roof maybe I shouldn't have done that but 8" of urethane covers the top cord completely so there is no frost line for condensation to cause rot. Urethane breaths too so no dry rot.

Anyway, our roof has stayed right where it is in two separate wind storms with 100mph steady winds gusting over 150mph. Talk about shake rattle and roll,  not the house  everything outside. 

Even building above code which is more the norm these days can be undone easily. Lots of folk are concerned with the occasional cat 1 hurricane winds, cat 2 winds every couple years and a cat 3 every 5 years or so. Taking into account the major wind storms are invariably out of the NE they'll build below the SW brow of a hill or ridge for a wind break. Unfortunately hills and ridges act as airfoils causing much higher velocities and very low pressure zones just down wind. On the upwind side or crest no problems for a well build house. On the downwind side sees roofs and whole houses picked up and blown away. 

Poured concrete houses anyone?

Frosty The Lucky.

We looked at an underground house back in Ohio; but I was not impressed by the building of it---or the crack with a constant stream of water flowing from it in the bedroom.

Sounds like you built a house in Blacksmith Mode---I'm not sure so I'll overbuild it terribly!   I used a heck of a lot of SDST metal screws when I did my shop roof, they were one of my major expenses for it.

The folks selling the underground house needed to get a better real estate agent, one that knew how to highlight the water feature in the bathroom. Sheesh, Amateurs!

If it's worth doing it's worth overdoing. I fired two builders and an electrician for telling me they wouldn't build something the way I wanted. I might have agreed if they'd explained why not but they just made the flat statement, "I'm not doing that." One builder and son were surprised when I took the next exit and turned around, they were riding out with Deb and I before we moved into the camper on the property. Anyway, he asks, "did you forget something?" to which I replied, "You just quit." Sputter but but . . . "You quit there's nothing TO talk about."  He started up again and Deb asked, "Do you want out here?"

Frosty The Lucky.

 

On 5/13/2020 at 11:37 AM, ThomasPowers said:

We looked at an underground house back in Ohio; but I was not impressed by the building of it---

I live in just that!  three walls, the back, and two side are eight to nine foot deep with my rear roofline a foot off the ground. The concrete in the back is 18" thick... with a sprayed on rubber sealant. The roof is put together with long span "w" trusses that the po "beefed up" meaning extra supports.

But some things the man did make no sense to me at all.

My garage is offset attached to the house, with an attic space opening between to two... about a foot tall and just big enough to barely crawl through on my belly... right into a truss. Smh.

Septic system seems like an afterthought. I have to pump up, and out to where they raised it over the ground level into a back filled hill.