Brake Job...

Now, I am not sure how many of you out there work on your own cars, but I have been doing it for a number of years. A large number of years. There is very little on a car that I can't fix... Well, not counting the newer cars where you need specialized computer equipment to diagnose and figure out what sensor is making your car all wonky. The one thing that really is frustrating to me is doing a brake job on drum brakes.

For those who don't know, there are two types of brakes that go on cars: Disc and Drum. Disc brakes are two pads that squeeze onto a metal rotor and apply pressure that way to slow you down and eventually stop you. Drum brakes have a big metal drum, inside of which is a series of springs and wires and pins and two brake "shoes" that push outward against the drum to stop you. The older the car, the more rust accumulates on the springs and wires that form the braking mechanism of a drum brake, thus making it all that much more FUN (**dripping sarcasm) to try to work on. (See picture of the springs/adjusters/wires/etc.)

Now, I was doing a brake job on my truck because it was making this horrible thumping/thudding/grind as I tried to stop. I checked my front disc brakes to make sure the rotors weren't worn or warped, and sure enough, they were just fine! So I started on the rear brakes. Well, let's just say that I have had the truck for about 2 1/2 - 3 years, I had checked the rear brakes when I got it and they were really meaty and looking good. Well, now they were utter crud! (See picture) The brake material actually fell off of the brake shoe and cracked into three pieces. These pieces kept getting stuck as I tried to get the drum off to look at the brakes, making it an hour to an hour and half for one stinking drum! That doesn't even count the extra half an hour it took to change the brakes once it was off and I knew that was the problem.

Of course, the new brakes are supposed to come with these little pins that you have to smack into the shoe... and mine weren't there. So I had to go to the parts store to ask about them. I love my parts store. They didn't even blink, just took the packet out of another set of brakes and handed it to me and told me to have a good day. Look at the picture. This little pin made me take an extra day and half to do my brakes. Gotta love it... yeah, right!

So all in all, I got the brakes done and everything is working good now. This reminds me of something I figured out many years ago... I love working on cars and houses and projects. But it is so much more fun when you are upgrading or modifying something, and when you are fixing the needed pieces once in a while... but when you have a vehicle (or house) that is always fix this broken thing and then that broken thing... then it kinda sucks. Luckily neither of my vehicles, nor my house are like that, and I am keeping on top of things to make sure it stays that way. Though, it does irk me when what should be an hour-hour and a half long job takes 4 days! (when you take into account going to work, sleep, and all the other things in life that take up time.)

More Power?!

Well, I posted the other day about our new acquisition of a cheap 5.25 kW generator. This was a great deal, and really good for us, but would this be enough of a generator for you? I don't know if this is the generator that I would have chosen for myself if I were buying new, and this leads me into today's post about choosing your generator. I will go through the process for my families power needs and we will see if this is the right size generator for us.


First thing to decide once you have determined that you are going to buy a generator is what type of generator do you want/need? There are two types of generators: portable and stand-by. Portable generators are normally about the size of a cooler and runs on gasoline. Stand-by generators are hard-wired into your house and start at the size of an outdoor air-conditioning unit (and get larger).


Portable generators are an excellent choice for many people that only need to run a few appliances for a short period of time (e.g. you only lose power for a few hours/days each year). To use a portable generator, you have to plug in your appliances to an extension cord instead of the wall outlet. When the power goes out, someone needs to go down and start the generator manually and plug in the urgent appliances. Since these generators tend to use gasoline, you need to store enough gasoline to sustain use for a period of time, and the fuel needs to be cycled to be kept fresh. Also, one of the other main points to remember with portable generators is the notation on it that may say something to the effect of "10 hours @ 1/2 load". This means the generator should run for 10 hours if you are only pulling half of that number on the front (10 hours putting out 2500W on a 5000W generator). This is important in helping guestimate the amount of gas needed on hand.


Stand-by generators are the choice of many who are in hard-hit areas that lose power often/for long periods of time. These generators are hard-wired into your house, so that your appliances can be kept plugged into the wall outlets, and you don't need to muck about with anything. These also have the option of being able to automatically detect when the power to the house is out and they can start themselves with only a few second delay. These normally are directly connected to a Liquid Propane tank or a natural gas line so the fuel is provided for.

So once you have weighed the pros and cons of each type, and you have made your decision, then you need to determine the size of what you need. This part is rather generic for either style. Every appliance you have uses a certain amount of power per hour. Lowe's has a listing of power usages here, and there are more available out there if you look. Now, along with the amount of power it takes to run an appliance, many appliances have a "start-up" power usage. Obviously, this is the amount of power it takes to get this appliance from off to running. When you are calculating your power requirements, you will need to use the start-up Wattage ratings as your guide.

Using some "standard" guides, here's a quick example. I have a freezer in the basement, a fridge upstairs, and a well pump to run. I will say that all lighting will be done by oil lamps and candles for this example. The freezer and the fridge both have startup Wattages at around 3000W, and the well pump is probably around 3200W. What this means is that with the 5.25kW generator that my family has, we can not power all three (or even any two) at the same time, BUT as long as we rotate our usage, we should be just fine.

So at this point, I think I've given you plenty to think about, but I hope this helps you think about your power and what would happen if. Also, I hope if you have been thinking about getting a generator, but didn't know where to start... well, there ya go. (Ok, heck, I'm just glad you read it!)

Gonna Be A Black Out Tonight!

So you've moved to the country to get away from the crush. Got yourself some land, a well, and septic. You've got some food saved up and you are ready, come what may! Oops, there goes the electricity. " Its ok, we don't need that! Oh well, let's all get a drink of water" ... what? No water?! Oh boy, your well is electric, now what will you do?


Does this sound familiar, or is this so cheesy that you don't think it happens? Well, it didn't happen to us, but I was worried a couple times. We do have a bunch of water saved up, but the ever present question was there. Is It Enough? I wasn't really worried about lights or heat, we have heated the house in the past via the fireplace (not fun, but it can be done). No, the water is what worries me. Not only for our drinking and washing, but for the dogs and the chickens, also.


Well, a friend of a relative had bought a house a while back that came with a portable generator. This guy never used it, heck didn't even know if it had any gas in it, but he wanted to get rid of it. SCORE!


We are now the proud owners of a, who knows how old, 5.25 kW DeVilBiss, portable generator. It is badly in need of a tune-up, but at least it runs and puts out electricity.


So, now we have a 1 1/2 gallons or so of gas that is not mixed up for a 2-stroke. So for the next few pays, I think we will be getting a 5 gal gas can and filling it up for a few pays. I was thinking of a few methods of rotating the fuel and making sure that we have fresh stuff all the time, just in case.


On top of this, I now have to re-wire the well pump so that I can plug it in during an emergency. Fun stuff. Hey, you do what you gotta do, but a bit of time now to make things easier later. Works for me.

I think tomorrow, I will go over the basics of how to choose the proper generator for your home and family (assuming that you don't find a cheapie or free one). Don't hold me to that, but that post will be coming.

Tech for the Homestead?

Ok, I guess I should live up to my screen name a bit, huh?

Technology. My field of profession. I went with it because I'm good at it and, heck, it was easier to go with this than to try to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. I remember one time I told my dad that I wanted to be a knucklebuster (auto mechanic), and his response? “Ok, I'll support you but realize that you will spend a lot of time at the bottom of the ladder buying your tools and sweating in the summer and freezing in the winter” Or words to that effect. I thought a lot about becoming a chef... but I hated working nights when everyone else I knew was working one daylight shift or another.

Now, when I say technology, I mean to say that I am a computer programmer. I have worked in most fields of the I.T. trade from pulling wires for networks, to setting up and managing said networks, to designing and maintaining websites, to writing custom programs. I can administer a system and a network, or I can find most anything on the 'net. Sound interesting? Trust me, its not. Well, I guess I can't say that... I'm sure someone out there is working on an interesting project. I, however, am not currently working on any project at the office that is interesting. Notice that I said that I don't have any interesting projects at work. I have a few projects at home in the works, that once they are done or are a little further along, I'll be sharing.

What brought this rambling on, you may ask? (or so you may not...) I was going through one of the newer issues of Mother Earth News that we have lying around the house, and looking at the ads (oh my, aren't there so many to look at!). There are a bunch of ads for solar panels and windmills, etc. Ok, great, I can completely support wanting to use renewable energy for some things around the house, but isn't self-sufficiency part of what we want? How self-sufficient is it to have your energy coming from a kit or from a device that you don't understand? Especially for those living completely off-grid, if something happens to your solar panels, are you going to be able to fix it or make the system work? Obviously we don't have the technology to make solar panels at home to replace broken panels. I understand that, but what if something else breaks, something isn't charging or no power is coming through. Can you fix it?

Now, I understand that many/most of the people interested in homesteading and self-sufficiency are handy and can rig something. I'm not even saying not to use these systems. I am saying think about it and what would you do if something happens? This is a yardstick that I also apply to cars. Hybrid or electric cars? Is enough information known to be able to fix these cars at home? But that's a topic for another day.