Winter Chores

Throughout the summer, I thought that winters here would require less work since there is so much less daylight and we'd be stuck inside. Well it turns out there is still quite a bit to do even if it is dark outside.

Whenever it snows more than a couple inches, which is more often than I expected, I have to run the snow blower down the driveway and to all the locations I walk regularly--the generator shed, the solar panels, the wood pile, etc. I have the routine down to under an hour if it isn't a blizzard, but when we get a foot of snow all at once it can take twice as long or more, depending on how wet the snow is. I always try to clear as much snow as possible before it rains, because the watered down snow will inevitably freeze in fairly short order making walking up and down our driveway quite treacherous and delaying the day that we can actually drive up it. Since I work during the day, and because the snow blower has a light on it, I usually end up doing this chore at night if it's a work day.


Maintaining clear walkways makes daily chores much easier, especially
when the snow gets deep like it is now. These solar panels were installed
with summer use only in mind. They will probably get raised or even
moved to a less shaded (in winter) location this summer.


I chop wood about every other day. I do it manually, because I didn't want to spend money on a wood splitter this year after all the money we've spent on home improvements, and because I really wanted to make sure I can split wood without power tools if I have to. I've discovered that it only takes a few minutes a day to split wood once you get the hang of it. I spend 15 to 30 minutes to produce about a two day's supply of firewood. Our wood pile contains mostly pine, fir, larch, and birch. The birch is the hardest to split, but even birch rarely takes more than a few good whacks before it splits. I've actually come to enjoy the chore of splitting wood!

I use a six pound maul with a fiberglass handle. A friend back east who has chopped more wood than I had at the beginning of the year told me what to get. He told me an eight pound maul can be more than light skinny guys like us can comfortably control. I'd have to say I agree with him. The six pounder that I have feels like a good match for me.  After the incident last November, I try to split the wood so that logs are no longer than six inches wide. To ease stress on my back, I use a large diameter short log to lift the piece I'm splitting about a foot off of the ground. Next year, I might try putting this setup inside a tire, so that when the log splits, the parts don't fall into the snow. If that turns out to not be very safe, I'll abandon the idea. Feel free to comment on this idea or if you have a better idea for solving this problem.

And of course, there is the never-ending chore of feeding the wood stove. It's necessary to stay warm, and we've gotten used to it. But there are times when we are just so involved with what we are doing that neither of us wants to. We do it anyway because we have to. Such is life.

The one winter chore I really don't enjoy is changing the oil in the generator. The old generator just wasn't designed for maintenance. The Honda generator looks much easier and cleaner, so maybe I can finish changing the oil before my fingers freeze. Time will tell, I guess.

A New Roof

Our home inspector told us before we bought the house, that we should replace the roof as soon as we can. At the time of the inspection, there was no evidence of any leaks, so he thought we could probably get by with the existing roof for a year or two. Well, the roof didn't last but another seven months before I noticed several leaks. By the time we actually moved in, the sheet rock ceiling had begun to sag in one area and every time it rained, there were puddles in the same spots around the house.

The original roof was corrugated steel, and we wanted to replace it with a more modern-looking steel roof. The original roof was owner-installed, and looked it. We wanted to the new roof to look good and last long, so we asked for quotes from three vendors who were members of the Better Business Bureau and had good customer ratings. Two vendors responded with proposals, one bid was more than twice the bid of the other. The proposals didn't differ much with respect to the actual work done or materials used, so we went with the lower bid, but upgraded the roofing material used. The vendor proposed using a 29-gauge steel and we asked for a 26-gauge steel. The vendor offered Loc-Rib which features concealed fasteners and a very beautiful profile in our opinion, and we figured it might dent less when small branches fall from the trees overhanging the roof. We chose a dark brown color which goes well with our cedar siding.

Given that there were significant leaks in the existing roof, we knew there would be additional work. It turned out to be even worse than any of us, including the roofer, expected. Most of the sheathing over half of the house had to be replaced. Furthermore, the insulation had some mold, so we removed it while the roof and sheathing was off. One rafter was rotted completely through and was replaced, and the two neighboring rafters were reinforced. All this extra work doubled the amount of work to about four days instead of two, but the end product looks very nice! It feels good to not have to cover things up inside the house when there is rain in the forecast.

Now we need to remove the ceiling and the remaining insulation, remove any existing mold, and install new insulation and a new sheet rock ceiling.  I'll probably remove the existing ceiling myself as well as install new insulation. But I'll probably hire someone to install the sheet rock on the cathedral ceilings. I just don't like holding heavy objects over my head in precarious positions.

Before: Leaky and ugly

After: Dry and attractive