Back-up generator selection questions
kitchendetective
13 years ago
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kaseki
13 years agoRelated Discussions
General Sikorski - first year in ground, cut way back?
Comments (8)Hi Ginny I would cut-em and not look back. The more you prune the more stems in the future you will have. I have 25 or more any where from 2 years to 10 plus years and I am the queen of pruning. I have been know to cut some down to ground level on purpose, and they do nothing but come up with more and more new shoots. I have a polish spirt that is probably 3 or 4 years old and it has been in a pot up until I planted it late October last year.It had done great in its pot and was 10 feet or more tall last year and was covered in blooms. It had about 6 vines on it when I transplanted it last year and I cut those down to about 6" and then I buryed most of those when I planted it deeper during transplanting. Looked at it over the weekend and I has 10 or more new 2" tall dark green health stems coming from the ground now.. It should be gorgeous this year. I have a group #2 some times I will cut 1/2 of it's stems down to the ground just to make it put out more stems and leave the other 1/2. I have a Ramona that is probably 10 years old and she is a group 2 and she has 20 or more vines on her right now. I have an Asao which is group 2 and she always puts out new shoots from the ground wether I prune her of not. I Always try to prune some of the vines and I also try to leave some on the 2's for the early blooms. My Ms bateman is coming on strong right now, I just clean her up a bit, not much pruning required on her and she will have probably close to a 100 blooms on her, she's a early girl for me. My Jackmanni right now probably has 15 to 20 new stems come up as well as Nelly Moser, Ms. Thompson has probably 6 new stems on her....See MoreGeothermal back-up question
Comments (30)I hope you guys are still checking this thread, I discovered today that the three bedrooms built over the garage are not connected to the geothermal system. At least that's what I think. Help me out here, please. I'll start at the beginning. When I first toured the house it was very nice and toasty, verging on too warm, until I got to the door that opens into the wing built over the garage that consists of three bedrooms. It wasn't just noticeably cooler, it was very cold. The realtor said the owner kept that part of the house closed off and didn't need to heat it since there was no plumbing in that wing. Sounded good to me. Fsq4cw asked me a question earlier about the pond and the furnace and I had to look at the sellers disclosure to answer his question, and as I'm looking for what's stated for the pond I see right underneath the description of the geothermal system, it says "2 window ac units, 3 bedrooms over garage electric heat in ceiling". Nowhere does it clearly state the bedrooms are not connected to the system, but why else would those three rooms need both air conditioners and seperate heaters? I've seen the electric bills for the past few years on this house, they are very low. I assumed mine would probably double as I have children and she is a single woman. But her electric bills don't include heating and cooling those three rooms, so the heating and cooling of those three rooms cancels out the savings of the geothermal system, doesn't it? Tell me I'm wrong, please. And what in the world is electric ceiling heat anyway? Is there a reason it's not and/or can't be connected to the heat pump? I know you're going to want specifics on the ac and heating units in those rooms, which I don't have yet. I'll post when I do, but in case you need to know, the house was built in 1972, the geothermal installed in 1998, and the garage was built in 2003. The garage is 35x26 and connects to the main level of the house through a 16x6 covered breezeway, the bedrooms are built over the garage an breezeway and connect directly to an exterior wall. You can see in the picture the lower roofline is the garage with windows from two of the bedrooms. I sure hope I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, and I hope too there's a way to connect those rooms to the heat pump. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to answer my stupid questions and your patience in educating me about all of this....See MoreKitchen Designers/General Contractors not getting back with me
Comments (22)Adrienne, First I wanted to put in a mini-apology because when I reread my post this morning it read as more "attackish" then I wanted it to. My only excuse is that I had a longer day then I had thought and this is a sore point with me. It is SO true that I don't want to deal with annoying people. Lol! I am an independant contractor so in essence I am my own business. I don't sell cabinets, or make a profit off of someone else's time like a GC does. I rent my time on an hourly basis. When we talk about the making money side of things (why don't they want to make the money) it's not that we don't want the money, or even that we won't make the money, it's that we think our time is better spent making the money somewhere else. I only have a certain amount of hours in a day. If my goal is to work/charge for 8 hours in a day and I have two jobs available to me for that same time frame I'll take the job I'm more interested in and people are definitely a deciding factor. With something like an appliance salesmen the question may be why doesn't he want the money because it doesn't require anything more of him to get that second sale while with someone who sells their time it means late nights and working weekends. If I size up a situation and think that for whatever reason the job will end up costing me more than I'd get paid for (or would be frustrating or would take forever or etc) then I'll just take the second project. I can only sell my time once! I don't know if I've ever actually said "you smell" to a client, but I have definitely had things like unsanitary conditions play a role in if I want to move forward with a job. It's helpfull to know that I specialize in working with small budgets and often work giving advice to DIY. That's what I enjoy doing. And that entails spending a lot of time with the clients and often at their home. If I go to the home and they are heavy smokers so the house reeks and they have three big dogs that they can't keep off me and they keep talking about the neighborhood going to hell because of a mexican family moving in next door (true stories) I say things like "I don't feel like we are a good match. I don't particularly like dogs, the lingering smoke smell is bothering my allergies and I don't know what to say about the Mexicans. With these things in mind I would certainly give you a referral to another designer if you like and of course, I won't charge you for this visit." Something like that. I do try and be polite but I also want to be honest. Maybe when the next designer comes over they will put away the dogs and air the house out. I DO work with people I don't particularly like. As long as I feel like we have similar goals and values that's where I am at. But often, the reasons you might not like someone are reasons that seriously affect working together on something as intense as a full kitchen remodel. For instance, someone who is disorganized to a fault but still wants to be their own GC, someone with no construction understanding or background who demonstrates an unwillingness to listen to the GC, someone who complains at the quotation of your pricing (not a bill but the up front quote of amount per hour). None of these things make someone a bad person and if the job is interesting and we agree on other levels we may still move forward. But if you combine them together you get a project that is going to take forever, be painfull to execute, and I'll be stiffed somewhere along the way for my fee. In the same way you don't want your remodel to be a horrible process where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, I don't want that either. I get very invested in the jobs I do. You don't want to start a job with a weirdo designer or a nut job GC and I don't want to start one with a nut job GC and a crazy person for a client. Somewhere a GC is thinking "that dang weirdo designer and crazy person client". A good remodel is a team effort! A bunch of us stuck in a life raft together until the thing is over. In sum, when you panic at 6:15 in the morning because you had second thoughts about your faucet and the guy is unloading the tools to start drilling your counter holes I want to laugh and say good morning! Not think to myself, why did I get into this mess!...See Moregenerator question, probably dumb, but.......
Comments (10)The description says the genset has a 120v recept that can deliver 50 amps (I'll bet its duplex recpt isn't rated for more than 20 amps, but that's another issue). Sounds like the 120/240 switch parallels the armature windings, reversing one, into the 120v output. So you want the 240v position for running the house. I hope you don't have anybody in your house who would die without power, such as a person who needs oxygen from a concentrator. That doesn't look like a very high quality genset, and I'd wonder about its long term reliability. Dunno about the genset and the TV. The safe answer would be just to not use it (the television set, I mean). I can't imagine burning up $expensive$ gasoline just to watch televison on a big screen set anyway. I don't expect to have all the usual comforts when the power goes off; I'm OK with heat, a working fridge, and a few lights. Different priorities, I guess. ;-)...See Moregeo91324
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13 years ago
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