Pocket Doors....Not So Sure Now
sandy808
12 years ago
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12 years agosandy808
12 years agoRelated Discussions
The folks in my neighborhood think I've lost it now for sure!
Comments (20)I'm the guy from SC pnbrown was referring to. In 2002, my father and I built a road worthy vacuum from an old 2-horse trailer and an 8HP Agri-Fab vacuum. I attached 6 feet or so of PVC pipe to the end of the flexible hose as a nozzle that I could hold. I soon found that it was easier to lay the nozzle on the ground and rake to it instead of moving it around because it would get jammed pretty easily if it was overwhelmed. I used it for a few years and then moved to another place where they bag their leaves, so I quit using it. I still have it. It should still work with a little tinkering. I'm in the process of upgrading, though. I have found that I have a tendency to bring home plastic bags and dump them whole and then they turn into a mess in the spring that I don't want to clean up. I do dump a lot when I get them home, but when I haul 200 at a time and head back out for more, I can't dump them all on the spot. I got over 1000 one year a few years ago. i still have plastic bag pieces all over the place when I till in certain areas. The upgrade... Same vacuum mounted on the rear of a 16 foot flat bed trailer with 6 foot sides and a conduit top covered with a heavy tarp. That's the plan anyway. I calculated it and with 4 foot sides, capacity would only be double what I had in the horse trailer. Maximum possible, that is. Not that I ever filled it that full, but it did come close on occasion. I have acquired the trailer frame and need service on the electic brakes and other wiring. And safety chains and a jack. And a tray welded on the rear for the vacuum to mount on. Once I get that done, I can add the bed of 2x6's and build the sides. There are stake pockets on the front and sides. I'll use metal roof pieces to make the sides solid. Then I'll cover it and give it a go. I drive a F-450 with an 8x12 dump bed on the back. So it's not great on fuel. Having a larger trailer means more collection per trip. More efficient (yeah, right). I have a couple of sub-divisions close enough that don't bag their leaves that make it worthwhile enough for me to visit. I live in Pendleton (Anderson county) about 2 miles from the county line (Pickens) where they vacuum all leaves in the city of Clemson. They will deliver vacuum truck loads of leaves to folks in the Clemson area if they are in Pickens county. Otherwise, I think they haul them 20 miles to the landfill site where they are composted. They will not deliver them to me even though I have offered to pay something for them. A vacuum truck load of leaves is worth paying for. So if they won't bring them to me, I'll take them. I got the funny looks from folks when I'd pull up with the horse trailer and start sucking. But quite a few folks would come out and talk to me about it. I can't wait to unveil the new and improved version. Probably next fall. I'm already popular with the baggers in Pendleton. They see me coming and some actually help load them. One old guy was complaining about how expensive the bags are, so I brought him a bunch back one time. Nice ones like he was using. What I really want is for some of the folks that are putting out bunches of bags at a time to quit using them altogether and let me suck them up. They'll like not having to bag them and I'll like getting clean leaves. Often pre-shredded and mixed with grass clippings! I love leaves! Here is a link that might be useful: The horse trailer vacuum - 2002...See MoreWere my pocket doors installed correctly?
Comments (10)For painted pocket doors I always add a 2 inch wide strip to the pocket edge. This strip blocks the edge of the pocket and also allows the door to stay engaged on a piece of aluminum angle I place on the floor of the pocket. A groove in the bottom of the door runs almost to the 'show' edge. The aluminum stops the swinging cold, and unlike the plastic guides that come with the doors does not scratch the paint. For stained doors with any decoration (panels, etc.) you can attach a strip and paint it black, or order wider doors and rip some of the 'show' edge off. This keeps the decoration centered when the door is closed. The pocket is of course sized slightly larger to account for the extra door width. I saw some kits for doubles to make them close together somewhere, but I have been making them using steel sliding door pulleys and 1/16 inch steel cable for a long time. A couple simple brackets attach the top of the door to the cable to make everything move together. Stops (single or double) can be added opposite the pocket to block light on that edge. Van Dykes Restorers has a number of pulls available for the face of the door. They also have brass edge pulls. Renovators Supply used to have edge pulls and a few face pulls. I have built the locks the last few times I needed them, since outside of salvage there is just not much available that is anything but clunky modern looking....See MorePocket Gopher - Post Mortem
Comments (0)Hello, As a vegetable gardener I just went through a very difficult period...watching my crops dye off, raised bed by raised bed. I thought I'd share on a couple of garden boards my 3 week ordeal of trying to eradicate a pocket gopher that devastated my garden so that you can learn from my difficulties. First off it started with a couple of my young bean plants disappearing over night. What could it be I thought? Insects/snails couldn't eat that much in a single night. And mice usually left remnants behind. Still I put out the baited mouse traps that night. Next morning several traps were sprung, bait was gone. But then I noticed my beets were wilted. I pulled one up and noticed a tunnel below about the size of a quarter in diameter. The bottom of the beet was gone and small teeth marks were apparent. Hmmm...never had an underground mouse. After reading on the internet I eliminated a mole since they like worms and grubs. This guy was clearly eating vegetables. Lots of them. I was convinced it was a Vole. A small mouse like rodent that likes vegetables. I put more surface traps out, and a couple of rat traps seeing that the bait was gone from the previous mouse traps. This plan continued for about a week. During that time I snared a couple of tree rats but watched as this underground creature ate everything in my raised bed and then moved on to the next one killing the contents of the next. Back to the internet for solutions. I wasn't ready to use poison. I frowned on the idea of putting poison into my organic garden soil. And leaving it out for other animals like birds to accidentally eat seemed like a very bad idea. After all he didn't seem to be eating the apples and peanut butter I put on the surface. He was enjoying gourmet vegetables. By the end of the second week he had cleared out all my beans, my dragon carrots, golden beets, radishes (all three varieties), and had now invaded the first of my tomato boxes killing the first of 3 plants. This was war. In a matter of 14 days he had erased my efforts since October. I built some bait traps made with 2" PVC with poison in it and inserted them into the tunnels I uncovered. This contained the poison and prevented others animals in the environment from reaching it. 3 more days and he hadn't touched the poison. Several of the PVC pipes were filled with soil. Time to call a professional exterminator to see if they had something up their sleeve. During that time he had now cleared out two 3 feet by 8 feet garden beds and was working his way through the 3rd. The exterminator really had nothing to offer but felt my pain. He saw the pride of my garden and the devastation. Strychnine was his only weapon but agreed not a good plan for an organic garden area. He also questioned if it was a vole. He thought it might be a pocket gopher. He also suggested that tunnels were likely between my raised beds. I told him I had saw a product that used carbon monoxide from your car's tail pipe. He said, "yeah, that might be worth a try. Let me know if it works". Although he could not offer a solution reclassifying my enemy proved helpful. 3 consecutive days of CO fumigation with car exhaust did nothing. I again started reading everything I could about pocket gophers. Each day he continued his rampage. Now killing several of the cucumber plants. After researching further I agreed with the exterminator. This was a gopher not a vole. Gophers are solo animals. Plugging and sealing any open tunnels, which I had seen during my probing. Each time I uncovered a tunnel I would find it later plugged with soil. They don't like light coming in and it protects their tunnel system from predators. Voles in contrast seem to leave entry/exit tunnel open for quick get away. They also are a more social animal...several of them living in the same tunnel system. Visions of Bill Murray the grounds keeper in Caddy Shack danced in my head. I could see this war escalating to explosives. I already kept the pellet rifle nearby in case this guy poked his head up. The story ends on a happy note. Good for me at least....not so good for my unwanted guest. I trapped him using a mechanical spring trap. A medieval looking device that is a tube with a guillotine wire connected to a spring actuated by a lever. I watched a Youtube video of a researcher from the university of Nebraska on how to plant the traps. I dug down one of the lateral tunnels I found and partially buried the trap. Sure enough the next day I found the trap sprung with a tail hanging out of it. He had crawled inside trying to seal the light coming in the other end. Victory. I literally raised my arms and danced around. (University of Neb video) All told I spent over $200 on traps, bait, and such. Most did nothing. The key is to identify your pest correctly. And don't give up. I hope this short story enlightens other gardeners. Since it is May I still have some time to recover and get some plants back into the ground. But any gardener can surely feel the pain. Mark...See MoreJust Making Sure I Have This Right (fixed price contract question)
Comments (49)This is what the budget looks like that we were given. As I mentioned before, we are also working with a fund control and they verify all purchases and receipts and will not fund a draw until the work has been verified as complete by the bank inspector and only fund draws according to the budget. Re the high permit fees: we are in southern California. The builders are working on another project right now where the fees were just as high. It's what they cost here in our particular area, so they knew what to expect, they just didn't plan for it. ETA: done if the permit fees were school fees ($8k) TIFF, building permits ($4k), septic permit, grading permit, park fees, etc. Each one is thousands of dollars and that's how they add up so quickly. I have all the receipts, those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. If a professional's help is necessary, we will seek it. For now we have a meeting with them on Friday to discuss this stuff more in depth and we'll see how that goes. We have a good relationship with them so far, and would like to resolve this between us if possible. Also, I don't know why my picture is upside down. Sorry. Also, also: in case it isn't clear, someone else (houses14) posted some issues they are having regarding windows that have nothing to do with my contract/permit fee question. Just to keep people from getting confused....See MoreTxMarti
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