Replacement of an Oil Tank

As many of you know, my house is heated with a combination of an oil run furnace and a wood stove.  The wood stove was installed in January of my first year in the house after an all-day power outage that left the house frigidly cold.  The need for a secondary heat source was totally evident and so I had that dealt with in very short order.

When I bought my house, the inspection noted that they weren’t able to determine the actual age of the oil tank (though the furnace itself was less than two years old as it had just been replaced.  I knew that I would have to have the oil tank dealt with as a high priority item as I had read a few articles about the major problems that occur for home owners when an oil tank ages to the point where it develops a leak.

Mine was still “oil tight” but I was nervous about how long it might actually last and so along with the hot water tank (which was in even more dire need of replacement) and the toilet, it was a consideration for “top three” items to be dealt with.

In June of this year I was finally able to have the tank replaced, so I contacted my oil company and got the ball rolling.

First things first, they drained the old tank and pulled it out and disposed of it.

Old Faithful - drained and ready
to be taken away...

Next, they cleared a new space and then poured a small concrete pad that the new oil tank would sit on.

That looks awfully small for an oil tank!

And finally? Installation and fill of the new tank.

THAT's why the concrete
pad was so small!

The old tank held about 900 litres, whereas the new holds about 600 - so it takes up a LOT less space than the old one. I used the space where the old one was to build a small raised bed in which I will plant next year’s pumpkin crop!

With love across the waters,

My Weekend - Stuff and No Nonsense!

I decided last week that, since Carrie's Mum is in town and I would not be needed for a Nephew Day (OK, I'm sulking a little bit here) that I would like, very much, to go hang with my Mum & Dad for a night.

The weather yesterday when I left here gave me a momentary twinge of guilt - it was warm and sunny and I KNOW I should have been out in the yard doing search and clean-up for the dog-bombs left hidden in the now melted snow - as well as assorted clean-up, pruning back, cutting down and general tidy of the jungle that is my back yard. I put on my sunglasses, turned up the music and drove instead.

On the way down I stopped at a new discovery (for me) - a marvellous land of assorted stuff that has been salvaged from construction and demolition jobs.  Demexx is in between Parksville and Qualicum - on Highway 4A and is TOTALLY worth the trip.  I may have to make more trips there to see the REST of the stuff they have all OVER the place. I bought some plates for the light switches and plug sockets (to replace the scary metal ones) and I also found this amazing gem - its a replica, but none the less, it is a traditional, Victorian Mechanical Doorbell My Great Grandparents had one on their house in Nanaimo and I LOVED ringing it. 

Plus, if the power goes out, the doorbell will always work!

Speaking of losing power, a couple of weeks ago I told you all about the day of bears and power failures… The bears required that I change some of my habits and now the garbage can is inside.  The power outage made me re-think some of my “home renovation" priorities and so I am now on the hunt for a wood stove.

OK – it was actually coming home, in the dark, to a cold house that forced my hand. In any case, I have been scoping out local stores this past week in order to see what my options are.

I totally struck out at the first place I contacted – their hours of business are Tuesday to Saturday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.  My work hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM. I could go over there, three or four times, at lunch, to see what they have and get information, I suppose.

Last night, up at my parents’ house for the night, I was talking with my folks about The Great Wood Stove Challenge of 2011 – and we started talking about wood stoves, what they have, and, well, that led to some Google action.

I love Google Action!

Anyhow, last night I learned that there is a company here on Vancouver Island that manufactures wood stoves (giant check mark from me for buying locally manufactured goods!!) Pacific Energy.

Online, mum and I scoped out a couple of styles (for my space I am looking for a VERY small stove) and then we located a local (Courtenay, BC) vendor.  On my way home this afternoon I stopped in, for information and a price (that didn’t make my eyes well up in agony and my stomach clench in fear) and I left my name and number so I can arrange for someone to come out and look at my place and give me a quote.

In the mean time, here’s a link to the little baby I’m looking at: The Vista. Isn’t it cute?

So... I really need to get more work done on my Feng Shui project.  Luckily, I have a week off starting on December 12th - my plan for that week is to get some stuff done around here in the way of wallpaper removal, get Christmas Shopping (ack) done, and then plug away at some more of the Feng Shui cures I still need to complete around the house.

With love across the waters,

Bears? Really??

You may not know this about me, but sometimes I need to learn things the hard way.

Alright, alright!  I admit it, I USUALLY need to learn things the hard way.  This week’s “key learnings” have been no different – and quite interesting.

At about 2:00 am Wednesday morning Jasmine woke me up by barking – there was some scuffling and banging outside, but I figured it was just kids messing around, told Jasmine to shut up, and went back to sleep.

When I took her out for her morning “constitutional” walk, there was nothing out of the ordinary (that I could see at 6am, in the dark) when we came back home. This in mind, we went inside and I got ready for work & exited the house… Wednesday is garbage day, so I went to get my garbage can and IT WAS MISSING! 

Those Damn Kids stole my garbage can!!!  Mumble mumble, curse curse,

A small side note? I *might* also be turning into a Grumpy Old Person.

I turned to get into my car and there it was, wedged between the car and one of the upright posts holding the overhang up… jammed in between actually… I walked around the car and saw the lid was off and the can was completely empty – the garbage bag vanished.

Hm.  Maybe it was not kids after all?

I picked up the can (which is plastic) and then the lid and THE LID HAS HOLES POKED IN IT – I MEAN HOLY CRAP – ARE THOSE TEETH HOLES???  F-ME – ARE THOSE BEAR TEETH HOLES???????

Wednesday was a Good Day – and around 10 in the morning, one of the ladies told me that it is “snowing like a bugger” out in Cumberland (where I live)

Yippee!!!!!!!!!

I do have to say it though, there was bloody HORRIBLE weather in Courtenay, all day – rain and wind and fricken cold… I sat in my office, hoping the snow would stick around until at least I got home and could let my dog outside to freak out in it and run around…

5:00 PM rolled around, and I headed home… driving along the connector highway I noted that lights were off – and an intersection light was out as well.

Hm.

Closer to home, yup, more lights were out…

Hm.

I pulled into Cumberland and ALL of the lights around were out.

HM.

I have a land line (thank God) – that (and the cell phone) is the only thing that will work when the power goes out.  I called Hydro and the power was hopeful to be back on around 6… apparently there had been an horrific car accident at about 10 in the morning that took out power to about 10 000 homes and businesses…

The power came on at about 20 minutes to 6:00, and the furnace a minute or two after that.

Key learnings from Wednesday?

• Garbage can – MUST keep it in the house until garbage day – there really ARE bears out here and they really DO attack garbage cans for stuff. 
• I need to learn how to put the chains on the tires of my car (you know, just in case)
• I had to change “top priority” items on my “to do” list – the top item now is to have the chimney repaired & make certain the flue is in good shape and then get a wood stove (and a couple of cords of wood) because when the power goes out I have NO heat source in the house.
• Candles won’t cut it when the power goes out – I also need some safety lights and maybe a Coleman stove (or something like that) that run on battery and “mini” propane tank power…
• I have no salt – I NEED to get some salt. ASAP. For my driveway. It’s a sheet of fricken ice out there right now and I used the last of my old Sifto table salt to make the path to my car a little safer to walk on…

With love across the waters,

The Night the Lights Went Out in… Comox?

OK - so not as lyrical sounding as The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, I admit… and also for a totally different reason - to the best of my knowledge, Comox doesn't have an electric chair… It was clear and windy yesterday and the lights here were out due to a tree having come down across a BC Hydro line.

Needing to kill some time, since it was dark and I was missing House, Castle AND Mike & Molly, I figured I would putter around on my Net Book. Here is the result of that:

What to do? Well, first things first - find out how long they were estimating we would be without power. Thanks, in part, to my disaster recovery training and also in part to my having lived through the blackout in Toronto back in 2003, I know to have a telephone somewhere in the house that has a cord & is plugged into a wall socket. Do you have one?

When I got home from work I called BC Hydro and the estimated return to power time was 8:00 PM. That done, dinner became the next great mission. I got changed and loaded Jasmine into the car - Little Caesar's Pizza being the destination. Good thing I had $15 in my wallet!!

Home, light candles, feed dog and have my own dinner. Hm. What now? Only 7:00 PM, WAY too early to consider going to bed, I leashed up Herself and we went out for a walk. Home again, check with BC Hydro again - yup… 8:00 is still their estimated time.

Light bulb! I have a Net book - I can still be productive - likely unable to surf the net (confirmed - I can’t hack into any of my neighbours) but I CAN open it up and play solitaire or type out a blog post until the power comes back on or I give up and go to bed - whichever comes first.

It’s now five minutes to 8:00 and it’s still dark in here, and starting to cool off... and yes, for the record, the power is still off - the fridge and fish tank are still silent and I DID remember to flip on a couple of light switches for when the power comes back on.

It’s now after 8:00 PM… maybe I’ll play a little solitaire…

That was it. I played Solitaire until about 8:45 and then packed it in for bed. Power resumed around quarter to ten last night so I quickly went around the house & shut off the lights I'd missed on the "walk about & shut the lights out" before bed. My stop at the computer to check my email allowed me the opportunity to publish a post I had waiting and I figured (in my tired and bleary way) that this one could wait a little while because I wanted to add more to it... Namely, a discussion about personal “disaster recovery” plans.

In a previous work life I was a Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Planner and spent a LOT of time focusing on making certain business could be maintained if one of the groups I “looked after” was struck by disaster. In the business world disasters come in three main flavours – Technology, Premises and People (or a combination of a couple of these items) and have the general threat of stopping a business in its tracks. Thankfully, the financial services industry is considered a critical service and works hard to ensure it can maintain client service no matter what the issue at hand.

More to this point, though, people don’t generally have personal continuity plans and this is what I’m thinking on at this point. I live on Vancouver Island and, if the so-called experts are right, we’re teetering on the edge of “the big one” (earthquake) and should this happen the island we live on will be radically impacted and we can plan to be without “critical services” for at the very least, three days. Probably more.

So what do we need and what should we have on hand? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the first thing that I realized I would need when I was in Toronto in 2003 during the black-out. Cash. If there is no power, there will be no access to ATM’s, VISA, MasterCard or American Express. A supply of cash, hidden in an easy to access location (that will not be raided for pizza money by hungry teenagers) is an absolute must. Count on the need for at least $100 per day, per person who lives in your home.

Other things to have on hand include, but are not limited to:

• Special need items – meaning, your medications and prescriptions
• Bottled water
• Food – dried and canned for people *and* dried and canned for your pets too.
• A can opener (yes, sounds silly, but have on in your “kit”)
• Camp stove with a couple of mini-propane tanks & pots and pans
• Foil blankets (sleeping bags are bulkier and not everyone has them – foil blankets won’t cushion anything, but they WILL keep you warm.
• First aid kit
• Flashlights
• Radio
• Batteries (for the flashlights and radio)
• Candles and water-proofed matches
• Toothbrushes and tooth paste
• Feminine hygiene products (yes, you read that right)

 

If your home has a fireplace, then a supply of wood laid up is also a good idea. You can also consider cooking in the fireplace, if need be.

This can be a space consuming collection of items, and yes, you may need to store things in a couple of locations, but if they are in those big rubber-maid tubs they will be easy to find in the garage or wherever else you store them.

Now, do I have all of this stuff? No - to be perfectly honest, I don’t, but I DO have most of it, and I can access it easily if I need it. The Government of Canada has a great "Get Prepared" website available – take some time to check it out and start giving thought to your own family’s personal disaster plan.

With love across the waters,