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Maine Bound!

92 Green YJ said:
and for the old one I was just thinking a junkyard Hemi or maybe grab a rebuilt long block. I haven’t really started digging into it yet. It may honestly just sit until spring at this point.
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When I was looking (for a Ford V10), a rebuilt long block was about the same price as a lower mileage used "they pull it" JY motor.

Aaron Z
 
Sorry, didn't read the thread. It's huge.


But you got a lot of house and property for relatively low money. Congrats.
Now that you've been there a while, how hard are the winters? How expensive are the bills to stay warm?
Wood, propane, electric, gas bills stack up bad or what?
 
Grendel said:
I've forgotten, what is the old truck?

I have a 6.4L Hemi here, new in crate.
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old truck is a 2014 Ram 1500 sport with the 5.7 Hemi and the 8 speed


Yota Up said:
Sorry, didn't read the thread. It's huge.


But you got a lot of house and property for relatively low money. Congrats.
Now that you've been there a while, how hard are the winters? How expensive are the bills to stay warm?
Wood, propane, electric, gas bills stack up bad or what?
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Winters Aren’t bad. We are fairly close to the coast so it’s generally a little warmer and a bit less snow here than other parts of the state. Each year I’ve made improvements to lower the bills. All led smart lighting, pellet boiler, rooftop solar, etc. the solar just went online middle of last month and made a sizable dent in my electric bill.

for heat I use my pellet boiler as the primary with the old oil Boiler as a secondary. Also have a wood stove that gets fired up on the really cold days to cut down pellet use. In general, I seem to burn about a ton of pellets per month in the winter. Now that I have solar I’m going to remove the boiler fired water heater for a heat pump style unit to reduce that further. I found it silly to still be burning pellets in the shoulder seasons and summer just to heat my water. Also the current 41 gallon unit just isn’t big enough.
 
You are going to hate the air ride come winter time. I deleted my old Ram. The compressor freezes in the winter. It'll dump all the air and sit on the bump stops. They should not sell them in snow county.
 
TiTRD said:
You are going to hate the air ride come winter time. I deleted my old Ram. The compressor freezes in the winter. It'll dump all the air and sit on the bump stops. They should not sell them in snow county.
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I was doing some reading on that last night actually. Seems a lot of folks have had luck using an air compressor oil made for semi trucks. They add just a little into the air lines and it supposedly prevents this from happening.
 
92 Green YJ said:
I was doing some reading on that last night actually. Seems a lot of folks have had luck using an air compressor oil made for semi trucks. They add just a little into the air lines and it supposedly prevents this from happening.
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Will depend on how humid the air is, it's an open system, so as the compressor pulls in humid air, compresses it and it expands/cools the water is going to drop out of it. The only question is where it ends up and if you put enough oil in to raise the freezing point of the water to above the outside temps.
Parking it in your heated garage will help for sure.

Aaron Z
 
87manche said:
lifetime fix

ain't nobody want to service that shit.
:flipoff2:
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Only issue is it needs an air signal from the governor to purge the water. Not sure how you would do that with an electric pump without a bunch of added complications .
 
Well it was suggested I start updating this again. Fair bit has happened since last October.
On the firefighter front, since then I have taken and completed a Proboard Incident Safety Officer course, a Scott tech level 1 class, and just a few months ago I completed and passed my Fire Instructor 1&2 class.

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Having gotten my instructor certification I’ve been helping out with this years fire academy. Crazy to think last year I was a cadet and now I’m back as an instructor.

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We’ve had plenty of calls. Lots of medical, couple of search and rescue, couple of MVas, and of course a few fires.

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Back in February at the wife’s insistence we took a weeks vacation to the most expensive place on earth with the kids.

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Been doing a lot of community stuff at the kids schools.

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Added yet another branch to my business with vinyl cutting.

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Summer is rolling in which means all of our favorite seasonal restaurants are starting to open for the season so we are hitting them up to welcome them back.

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In house and property news, I finally replaced the 42 gallon boiler fed water heater with an 80 gallon hybrid heat pump water heater a few weeks ago. No more burning pellets all summer long just to heat my water. I had 8 loads of fresh gravel spread on the driveway which I graded out with the tractor. We are well into the process of getting our blueberry fields certified as organic and are planning to hopefully harvest and sell them this fall to one of the local processors. And tomorrow I’m off to Orono to buy a new bush hog since the used one I bought 3 years ago pretty well shit the bed last fall and isn’t worth trying to fix. I’m sure there’s more but these are the highlights for now.
 
Pt_Ranger_v8 said:
When you say Hybrid water heater, do you mean heat pump? Or gas/electric? Or gas/boiler?
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Heat pump but also with standard electric elements for peak demand times. Right now I have it running on efficiency mode most of the day. I scheduled it so at 6 pm it kicks over to high demand mode automatically until 7 while everyone is taking their evening showers.
 
92 Green YJ said:
Heat pump but also with standard electric elements for peak demand times. Right now I have it running on efficiency mode most of the day. I scheduled it so at 6 pm it kicks over to high demand mode automatically until 7 while everyone is taking their evening showers.
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That's awesome. I'm curious how the long term survivability is. Keep us posted.
 
Pt_Ranger_v8 said:
That's awesome. I'm curious how the long term survivability is. Keep us posted.
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Will do. It’s been pretty good so far though I have to get it dialed in to account for heat loss from the heater to the faucets. Been bumping the temps by 5 degrees at a time to get where we want it. It’s got an app for it that gives you full control from your phone. Set schedules, temps, operating modes, shows how much hot water is in the tank and available, daily energy use, etc.
 
92 Green YJ said:
Will do. It’s been pretty good so far though I have to get it dialed in to account for heat loss from the heater to the faucets. Been bumping the temps by 5 degrees at a time to get where we want it. It’s got an app for it that gives you full control from your phone. Set schedules, temps, operating modes, shows how much hot water is in the tank and available, daily energy use, etc.
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That sounds great except for the wifi bullshit. I don't need my home appliances to be 'smart' :emb:
 
Well this monster followed me home today. I was planning to go from a 5’ hog to a 6’. Got there to discover they were sold out of 6’ hogs. And this was the last 7’ they had available. Found it out back in their stock field sitting in the dirt. Got a few rust spots on it and the shroud at the gear box was broken so they knocked a good chunk of change off the price. This is a Titan Attachments (now Ironcraft) 1607 Heavy Duty 7’ rotary cutter. Thing is a beast for sure and it should reduce the time it takes me to hog the fields in the fall. Bonus is one of the neighbors is paying me to clear their field next week so I’m already making back some of the money it cost me.

It has a 7 finagle deck and a 3” cutting capacity with a working range of 84”s.


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KenV said:
LMGood going, Teach 🍻

Any updates to the shop area? And why 343 feet?
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Probably added a few more machines since it was last shown. Definitely added more stock shelving. Few more knock knacks here and there. Nothing major though.
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As for the 343 feet, it’s to honor the 343 firefighters that lost their lives during 9/11. I’ve actually got a full graphics set waiting to go on our forestry trailer that I just haven’t had the time to go install yet.
 
That's one heck of a shop. If you take on much more you'll have to add a building. heh

Thanks for the explanation on the footage.
 
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Today I started on something I’ve wanted to build for a while. A kayak trailer. I’m over loading these things in and out of my truck bed and putting like 5 straps on them every time. Using a harbor freight trailer as a base. Nowhere near long enough for these tandems. Thinking I’m going to extend the tongue by about 4 feet. Probably add to the rear too. PVC pipe for bunks and I’m going to fab up a rack in between them for the paddles and fishing gear. Overall plan is the rack will act as the center of an A frame so I can tarp them when not in use and make a tent over them basically.
 
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