RE: End of Quarter Goals and Reflections: Fall is Here — What Happens Next?
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I can't complain. This year we moved into the house I built all by myself, after that I hooked up the manifold for the floor heating, which turned out to work excellently, warm floors and since heat rises, warm house. In March I put in our mini split which kept our house cool, did it all by myself, and this week I finally got the water pipe buried and managed to get around to insulating the floors with batting, mostly to get rid of the batting left over since the floor heating has a poly reflective that pretty much seals all the heat in and reflects it up. Our pantry is stocked, have about 100lb of rice, some beans, and our pond is stocked with fish. We're waiting on winter to establish fruit trees, I have about 20 shoots from our pear tree that have started showing new growth. I am waiting on the price of lumber to crash and then I'll get the proches built. If not I'll save the thousands and spend my winter milling a couple pines, got everything I need already.
Sounds like you're pretty set @baah, that's cool. I've been looking at the mini splits... how do you like yours, after going through a summer? We have a conventional heat pump (that's the one that needs replacing) but we're considering ditching it altogether.
This winter will be the final expansion of our growing space; the end of what was lawn when we bought the property; it'll become space for onions and potatoes, instead.
We got the cheapo senvile and it worked good but I would have invested a little more in a pioneer, since I installed it myself we foregone the 5 year warranty. I'm gonna see how good it works as a heat pump this winter but only out of curiosity, nothing beats floor heating, no air pushed around, no dust, just nice cozy warmth. Our water heater was $400 new, I found a expo 4 zone "cross manifold" for about half its original price ($350) and with 4 cheapo thermostats and a $80 taco pump plus the $150 for the pex, another $100 for the handful of fittings and I'd say $300-$400 for the plywood and poly mylar-like roll we have floor heating for about 500sq ft, not more than 1500 total. The mini split is fairly quiet but it doesn't shut off at the temperature you set it at, and I gather from the reviews that the price difference of 200-300$ isn't worth the lower material quality which I'm gonna have to deal with down the road, I anticipate.
I don't have anywhere to grow on my 2 acres, because it likes to flood.. Found out during the historic high with Harvey, then a couple years later with a tropical depression unloading north of us. In Harvey we lost all our chickens and soon after all the ducks, so now I'm going for fruit trees, and a raised greenhouse.