As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Today TL and I started on the wonderful journey of cobwebs, spiders, must, dirt and cellars in trying to put an engineering project together in putting a wood stove in our cellar, so to help stop high fuel costs and to not burn the house down, God forbid.
This is not going to be easy, as the cellar is 130 years old, and the old entrance from 130 years ago was boarded up in 1964. Some of it has collapsed and it is a nightmare which TL helped get me straight in my head in I was all turned around in the cellar in directions and I was going to dig North ,when I should have dug east.
East is a problem in a foundation, but with a massive headache and 6 advil, I got some good news in the foundation cement is only 18 inches deep, so the horizontal digging is not as bad as I thought in depth. Length though, I have to .........
Open up the old cellar door. Frame that in. Tear the rotten old steps out. then by measuring and digging and driving a long stake through the collapsed dirt, find my direction to the outside and in cramped quarters like a Welsh miner, shovel by shovel and bucket by bucket remove a volume of dirt.
Poot noticed we were in the cellar and appeared on the steps we use and was shown to the surface again to protect her.
Ok after the digging which I pray to God we are long done with before you read this. then comes the building of a metal tunnel chute to keep that part from caving in, building walls to keep the rest from caving in, and building the concrete part of the chimney which the insulated pipe will feed into, but I have to make it so I can clean the bottom out, as once this is filled in again, there is not any doing it from outside.
The Holy Ghost already helped in the walls, as He said to me, "Just get some rebar, drill holes in the two bys and drive them down through that to anchor the bottom, and in the top just star screw it in place. I hope to God all of this is that easy, as I told TL this was going to be one scoop at a time and one bucket at a time.
This project will involved metal, wood, concrete, digging, fire, duct and my wondering why God has not yet moved rich people to donate to this blog, as this is something I would rather hire done and instead write the blog.
My cousin asked me why I was so handy. I have to be in being poor as you can't hire shit down, and when something comes along, by God you have to figure out how to do it right.
I am figuring with a slight rise that the smoke will hit the chimney and then suck up the top. I do plan on running a tube to the wood stove to use outside air for the fire. The entire plan is to heat the cellar, warmer than winter, so the heat will rise and keep the floors warm, so he expensive fuel will not be used.
God has been good in heating costs, as we used less than wicked uncle who has a smaller and better insulated house, I though am hoping to cut our costs in half as I have enough wood to burn up in project cutting and the fact is, we do not have too many major cold spells in the 20's below, so if I get the house warm, keep it warm and the rest is wood and trash, this auxiliary heat is what I am going for.
I can not tell you the times I have burned trash and watched thousands of BTU's just going up into the sky, in zero degree weather and thought, "If only that was in the house where it could do some good.
The hope is in not being exhausted as I have major projects at uncles and here to do yet before winter, is to build a mason stove, with a metal top, which the rock will absorb the heat and radiate it for days even without a fire.
I hope not to replicate the above featured artwork in the house, but it is the only photo I could find that I liked.
So this one project is going to be like the chimney, building the steps and door, digging the tunnel, building the walls, building the tunnel, running the vent pipe, building the stove. That is like 20,000 dollars worth of work in a quick tally. God did not call me though to that work, but I should be doing it to make money and retire, as blogging has been a chore for God to get people to open that purse. Perhaps by the time this publishes God will have worked it out, as I still am doing all of the above and the blog.
Nuff Said
agtG
