Wyoming B.S. Thread

I think we're safe there He's never had that side, haven't you seen the van.

 

Man I'd love a clean gen 2 cummins still. Loved driving the POS one at John Deere for delievers. Had like 320k on it. Was a beast. 5spd, think it was a 98.

Seriously haha

I need to make a badge. 9 Trail days is what it took to right that ship....okay you can't right a boat that big you just let is drift off in the direction it was going. But still.

 

I am curious how you came up with 9 days?

 

I have a 95 5 speed 12 valve regular cab. It's fun to bomb around town with. I was using it for a little while full time when the 19 dodge broke down. Not a fun truck to sit behind the wheel on the highway for hours on end, loud and you can't relax because the front ends in those are terrible

 

9 days on the trail before you finally committed to restoring the Tacoma to bring out in trips again haha

Which btw you had said a bit ago it wasn't ready. What's it need?

Jealous. I wish I could find one just to put a 500 gal tank in for water. Haha but they go for way to much money.

Yeah definitely not the greats trucks. Amazing engine though. I bet it's fun though. I loved the one I got to drive. It was fine on the highway though I thought. But it also didn't have a straight pipe or anything like that. 24v too I think?

 

I think your math is off. Just last year was 3 weeks in the trail...

So I haven't heard back on ADS on rear shocks. I told them I want custom and he seemed on board but haven't heard a peep to my original nor my follow-up conversations. The front is stiff but fine, the rear would be unbearable off-road. So until I sort that out, I am not going to get it aligned, and without an alignment I don't want to buy tires. Plus, the truck was getting setup for solo camp and well, now I need to figure out how to make it work for two people comfortably. So just easier to use what I know works.

 

Fm radio still exists and your cds aren't scratched to shit yet?

 

I take care of the used CDs I buy I was surprised you could still buy the little book to store them all and zip closed.

 

I only use CDs in the truck... no need for a phone, aux cord, or service.

 

Ok I'm perplexed. Maybe it's the harsh reality of electric heat at this apartment, but I keep my apartment about 65* but as high as 70 during the evenings my gf is over. Always back to 63* when night comes. I don't run a lot of lights or appliances really... Yet I'm burning 1300kWh in the last month. I'm absolutely baffled. Any of you guys in electric heat burning that much energy? It seems very high for a second story apartment (getting some heat from below) and less than 900sqft.

 

Yes, I ran into the same (a lot of energy) with electric heat. What's your average outside temp on months where you use that amount?

I was in a 900sqft apt on the 3rd floor (top floor), with great insulation in the walls and ceiling. As I recall, I kept it at 63° when I was home and awake. Turned it off at night and when at work. Avg outdoor temp of 44° in January, used ~800kWh, looking at my old bills.

My guess is that my average outdoor temps were warmer than you're seeing, and I never (ever) had it to 70° (which gf/ex-wife hated, lol). And remember, every degree isn't linear, so with lower outdoor and higher indoor temps by just a few degrees, you could easily double my usage.

Luckily electricity in WA is super cheap, so it didn't really matter for me. Plus, it was WAY cheaper than when I moved into my first house, which had OIL heat. I couldn't dig that oil tank out fast enough and convert to natural gas. As I recall, it was literally two orders of magnitude savings.

 

Yeah electric heat is very taxing. Takes a ton of energy. One of the reasons why the whole "convert everything to electric" is dumb. Our grid can't support it and it's expensive for the user. Unless you have solar like my dad. But even then you have to have 20-30 grand to sink into that so takes a while to offset the cost anyways.

I was adamant about having gas heat, hot water heater, and stove. Gas is just way cheaper. Even in my worse months i'm under $150 for gas when it's bitter cold. Electric, which I'm an electic nazi. I shut off just about everything and kill power to it if it's not needed. Drives devin nuts as she's a leave every light on kind of person. But My electric bill goes up a lot in the winter. Just darker more of the time.

Also I have Peak metering, so between like 6am - 10am and 4 pm - 7pm they look at my highest draw during that time and multiply it by like $2. It's insane. It's their way of "trying to make people use less power during peak draw". But it's really just a price gouge. At least around here. That's where Solar/battery can be cool. Program the house to run on just battery during those times. Ultimate middle finger to the power company. Hopefully do that at some point..

oil! haha wow.

Also jesus dude. I'd have just rented a backhoe haha

 

On a me note..

I bought a simple snow plow which I'm very excited to have. Had to cut a poorly weld frame off of it with a small winch. But got it all back to it's OG state. Was hoping to try it tonight. It just slips into your 2" receiver.


Well. My ball hitch is fused into the truck(little red). Not sure it's ever been removed

Torched really good and pen oil. No movement at all beating the shit out of it with hammer. Will have to try the oxy torch at work to see if that'll help.

Was hoping to postpone getting a front mount receiver but might have to now to use this thing. Snow coming all next week so... fun times.

 

I sorta like digging, at least sometimes, so it wasn't too bad. Plus, you can see my natural gas line there (yellow PEX), so I couldn't have gotten a backhoe in anyway. But the reaction of the people who came in with the hoe to lift out the tank was the same as yours, hahaha!

Melissa also had oil when I moved in here, and it took all of one bill for me to get that swapped out too. Musta just been really common in the greater Seattle area up until the 60's/70's.

Good luck!

 

Outside temps are big swings. Teens at night but 40s during the day. The more I dig I guess it's "right" just painful. It is just eye opening how expensive it is and how dumb it is my apartment is plummed for natural gas for a fire place but not for gas heat. Gonna see if I can hear my place with the gas fireplace the next month and see if that makes a difference, although the ten day forecast shows us kissing 70s in a few days so it'll be hard to tell. Btw Moab is looking like highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s next week

Yeah I mean I'm very conscious about how much heat I use generally, use minimal lights, create minimal trash/waste. Just feels like it's not worth it lol and electric heat is insane. I think the reason I'm like WTF with this is I've owned 2 homes of 50% larger square footage, and one with a garage I kept heated in the winter and it was cheaper than this small apartment. Blows my mind.

I don't miss the snow, no sir. Front mount will be nice, but I bet your front coils will hate it. Today we had snow( doesn't stick), lightning, thunder, sunshine and a small tornado. Sure as hell beats real snow lol

 

There has been a big push to go all electric here by the state of wa. But the use of heat pumps is what is being pushed. Baseboard electric (radiant) heat is very inefficient. I am very glad I have a natural gas forced air heat and water heater. Still gets expensive though in the winter.

 

I'm sure you know this already, but lights these days (which more and more are LED or CFL) make almost no difference at all, even if you leave them on all the time. The only things that will affect electricity are things that are big, 240v, appliances. Heaters, driers (if used a lot), ranges/ovens. Oh, and if you have an electric hot tub like Melissa did, that has to go along with the oil heat, hahaha.

Teens at night - if you keep the temps up - is probably what's making the huge difference for you. Painful for sure.

Get a little/medium fan for your fireplace experiment. You'll get a lot more heat out of it if you blow the heat away/move the air past it.

One other thing - the cost per kWh varies greatly across the country, with the PNW being far and away cheaper than other places, so I bet that's hitting you as well now. Any idea what the price difference between Boise and Albuquerque is? Google tells me it's $0.11 vs. $0.17 - 50% more for the same amount of energy down there!

 

yeah costs could be higher there too in general for some reason.

Nah no load on the coils. Like 50-60lbs maybe. The plow is aluminum and when the blade is down, which is manual btw, just the mount is on the suspension. part of the reason I went with one like this. It's just simple. no electronics. No hydralics. Not heavy. And will work just fine for me. I'm not plowing huge amounts. Just my drive way and parking which is small stuff. Dude I bought it from was doing parking lots with it lol.

It's this plow: https://woodsalesandservice.com/model/dr-power-redi-plow-plus-for-trucks-suvs/

Got it for 700 bucks though. Which is nice.

Crappy promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zT3bKo0Rl8

Decent video show it install and working.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3ld3D4mpbk

Also the Snowspot plow was what I originally found but the Redi Plow is as far as I can tell the exact same thing.

So yeah, no real stress on the truck. I mean, some for sure. But nothing like a real plow. And I don't plan on bashing it into snow drifts or anything. Just need it to push the 3-12" of snow out of the way so Devin can get to the road in the Honda.

And be a lot faster(and warmer) than the mini skid we have on order.

That's true. Heat pumps are better. But still have limits. Can't do that for my bonus room like I'd have liked as they only work down to -20. So have to do radiant floor heat plus heat pumps for AC.

 

For the first 450kWh it's 0.07 per, then it jumps 50% for each 450 kWh if that makes sense. I really didn't pay attention in Boise because I was gas heat and electric was cheap. Combined utilities never got more than $100 for the house.

And yeah lights make little difference, it was meant more as a comment of I'm intentionally not wasteful lol

The fan idea is a good one.