Wyoming B.S. Thread

I guess it depends on how much snow but having worked helping plow snow before I can tell you, it is hard on trucks. Surprised you didn't have something sooner. You need like an old today square body with a plow that sits around just for plow duty. I mean you have the space for one

 

I can't get Devin to let me get another Truck lol I want a big flat bed to slap a 500 gal water tank on and then yeah a big plow on front just because.

Want my gen 2 manual cummins haha

God I'd love to be able to haul 500 gal a trip...be sooooo nice.

But I also can't afford that.

This was 700 bucks. Even with a front receiver it'll be in it less than 1100 all in. I've watched enough youtube videos with people using this plow on tacomas and other light duty vechiles for 3-10 years that I'm not worried about it. it doesn't snow THAT much here. Half the time the wind blows it all away anyways. It's really just to make it so Devin doesn't have to drive my truck to work because of one drift in the driveway. And I'm sick of hand shoveling said drift haha

Really a 4wheeler and plow would have been fine but people want way too much money for those too. Plus i'd be outside and cold while doing it vs this.

Overall seems like a good option for someone like me that needs it probably 3-8 times a year. And maybe it will be hard ish on the truck. But nothing that'll ruin it.

 

Build a section of snow fence for said drift

 

Can't. Well not really. It's right where my driveway meets the county road. Theres a big berm that runs down the county road and my drive way cuts through the berm. So it'd be hard to put the fence there with the steep berm. And I think the snow would just end up still filling in from the south side anyways which is the county road.

Plus I did put snow fence up this year in some other places and it's disintegrated already. Wind storms here are just too violent. I'll be picking up pieces of snow fence from the field for years haha

 

Technically resistive heat like baseboard heaters are actually one of the few 100% efficient devices. All of the power that goes into them turns into heat. But I understand what you meant by the sentiment too yes it is costly compared to other heating methods.

 

What in the world did you use for material/hardware to have it destroyed in a year?

 

Hopes and dreams?

 

I realized after posting you meant like the big wood snow fence. I just had that orange plastic shit on T posts.

Still, not sure I could get away with the wood snow fence idea.

 

Ah, that makes better sense. I was thinking even home Depot wood should make it a year, whats going on with lumber in Montana lol

 

A fun project I did last winter was to add power monitoring to all my different "areas". Whole House, Utility room, small garage, big garage. Its been interesting to see what uses what amount of power. Like our house (minus utility room which has the furnace and stuff) is only using 150-200 watts right now with a lot of lights and a tv on. Add in the utility room and it adds a bit...theres an always on Radon fan thats like 150 watts. Then the furnace when its running is surprisingly only around 300 watts (its gas so thats just the blower fan really).

How many days do you get down to that -20 for long periods of time up where you are? We put in a -14F unit and its actually been pretty solid. Itll work down a few degrees lower till it kind of cold soaks. Which for us has only really been a handful of days in the 4 years we've had it. And even then its usually only for a few hours (like 2 or 3am till 7 or 8 am) Its not an issue as those two rooms still have force air going to them but even just a small electric heater would work or an electric baseboard for the really cold days.

I will say though...its quite a hit on the electricity bill. Easily an extra $100 bucks a month and ours is just for two bedrooms. But we sort of make up for it in the summer....main reason for doing them is the ducting is so bad going to the top floor (two bedrooms) that the force air A/C couldnt handle those two rooms. They would get to 80+ and the whole house could never really cool down since it just lost all the cold air to the upstairs. But with the mini split the A/C runs much better...upstairs stays cool and the main A/C isnt running 24/7 while not being able to cool the house lol

 

Nice. I installed a similar system it sounds like for a buddy. Entailed putting a monitor on every breaker, so he's got it by circuit now. Tech is cool sometimes, hahaha. Like you, usage (it's a newer house) is pretty low, except when he plugs in the two Teslas.

 

It's cool for the nerdy side of me lol. I did a DIY setup instead of on of the premade ones but I was more interested in monitoring the whole house and getting more than two 100amp clamps was going to be really expensive. The one I found and got can do the 100amp plus can do regular circuits. I didn't need to monitor each circuit really so this worked well. I have a similar set up but for our water as well. Our well water is terrible and needs a whole house RO so it's nice to monitor water usage from the well and then of the "clean" water.

 

Oooo, I like that with the water!

when I remodeled my house, part of what I wanted to do was swap out all the old galvanized piping with pex. In doing that, I decided to go with a manifold and home runs, to make it easy to turn off each run for service, and to eliminate joints and pressure drops throughout the house. Wish I’d put in monitors!

#datanerd

 

Well I think something is definitely off. Talked to a neighbor who has the same floorplan and said he keeps his temps near mine. Is bills are less than half, so I owe the power company a call. My gf who works with apartment leasing thinks that it's likely I'm getting double billed as it's the highest she has heard. So that's fun.

In other news $5400 later and I have the van back. And I know that's an eye watering amount, but that's the cost of not being able to wrench yourself. I had a lot of PM done and hopefully that means I don't have to worry about several things for another 60k miles. The straight pipes exhaust isn't nearly as obnoxious as I expected, the turbo sounds are so so fun. There is mild drone at my pace of 65-70 on the highway but it was already loud with wind noise, dishes rattling and other noises. Yes it's a bit childish but it sounds good, deep throat and put a smile on my face.

They now have the truck for an alignment and then finally putting tires on it. Gave up on ADS so I'll just suffer through with the current setup.

 

Hope that's right. Hope you are being double billed, though I have no idea how that would happen. Keep us posted for sure!

 

It seems odd but I am paying about double, and my gf who works in apartment leasing here as a leaser for a few years, and her sister who manages an apartment complex were both stunned by the numbers, both price and kWh claimed to have been used. And my gf always complains about how cold I keep my place so she KNOWS I keep it low lol I asked my neighbor if his bill was high and he said "yeah it is but it's electric heat, so it makes sense is almost $100" and I was like.... Bro my temp is less than your claimed one... And my bills $230.... We have the same layout.... He is a fellow engineer and looked shocked. So something isn't adding up, my gut feeling that this isn't right might indeed be right. My gut is almost always right.

 

Varies. Always gets that cold at least 2 days straight. But has done it for up to 2 weeks a go. Just not worth the risk considering it'll be 2 bed rooms and family room.

I still need to put mini splits in for AC for the same reasons, 2nd floor, very hot, ect. But just going to do the radiant floor heat anyways. It'll be cheaper no matter what(gas water heater).

I wish I'd made my plumbers do home runs. Would have been a lot nicer all around. And they put so many 90 degree fittings everywhere. Leaks all around probably in the future.

Hm. I could see you getting double billed. Hell my buddy, doesn't pay for is electricity. No idea how. When he moved in he asked the land lord multiple time how to get the power billing switched over and they never responded. So he just said fuck it. Now he has like multiple of those electric radiator heaters everywhere because he isn't paying for it lol

So billing can get messed up!


And that is more money than I paid for my Tacoma haha

 

Hey Dan hows your 5th gear feeling? @turbodb

 

Which one? Little red? Lol it is a chunk of change but a necessary thing in my book. Like I said I had no records of maintenance when I bought the van, so been rolling the dice for three years. And well at least I got something fun out of it. The turbo makes lots of noise now, before I couldn't hear it.

 

Gutless

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-and-adventures.484602/page-273#post-30421658

Engine noise is definitely nicer at highway speeds and MPGs have improved. Also, 4Lo 5th is really nice now - I can actually stay in 4Lo quite a bit more than I used to be able to.

But really, still gathering data. I think I'll need about a year of data to say whether it was a good idea or not. I think my recent wheel/tire change makes me like it less than I would have with the previous combo, b/c I could feel the extra weight of them even before the swap.