Sally's GF3 thread

[cavemanrich]

The extractor that we got with our set up does 2 at a time.

Is it electric??? post a pix... I'm just curiously interested. Maybe I can make a 4 frame,, and take it on the SHARK TANK and become wealthy

 

[Sally PB]

Is it electric??? post a pix... I'm just curiously interested. Maybe I can make a 4 frame,, and take it on the SHARK TANK and become wealthy

I didn't take pictures of Ed's extractor!

My extractor is hand crank. By the time you get to the size Ed has, it's heavy. I'd guess his is 30" in diameter, and about 48" tall? His is big and heavy. I don't know if I could lift it. Mine is much lighter. I moved it down to the basement easily.

If you are interested, they are also two different designs. Ed's is a "radial" extractor, and mine is "tangential." His is a better design, will handle many times more frames and weight*, and is more effiecient. My extractor will handle two frames; I think they make tangential extractors that will do three. Not sure if they make one to do four. Maybe you could make a better one and get rich!

* If he loaded it up with the max size/weight of frames, that would be over 70 pounds to spin.

 

[Sally PB]

Is it electric??? post a pix... I'm just curiously interested. Maybe I can make a 4 frame,, and take it on the SHARK TANK and become wealthy

Maybe you could make a better one and get rich!

I should have written, "Maybe you could make a better one, and get rich, Caveman!"

 

[Sally PB]

Sweet potato update.

I made some dog chips that turned out ok, but certainly are not crispy. I'll change how I do them, and post a recipe when I like the results better. Freya doesn't care; she thought they were tasty.

I cooked 4 of them in my Instant Pot. They aren't very sweet yet, so I hope they keep converting starch to sugar.

I wrapped the rest of them up in newspaper (remember that stuff?LOL) and put them in the basement. I hope it's not too cold down there...

Other things I want to try in the near future: Baking them (standard preparation), and making sweet potato fries in my air fryer.

 

[Sally PB]

Teaser...

Big happenings here tomorrow! I'll take a lot of pictures.

 

[fuzzi]

Teaser...

Big happenings here tomorrow! I'll take a lot of pictures.

 

[pertnear09]

Teaser...

Big happenings here tomorrow! I'll take a lot of pictures.

Demo?

 

[aart]

Burn the old building?

 

[Sally PB]

WARNING! this post contains pictures of a fully involved house fire. Some people may find this disturbing, if they've lost a home to fire.

NO ONE was injured. This was a training fire for the local Fire Department (and 3 others took part).

The old farm house. We *should have* redone the roof as soon as we bought it (it was in foreclosure), but we didn't have the money. We did this half of the roof with metal roofing, (which we reclaimed) and patched a hole on the other side. This spring we were going to roof the other side with metal, but the hole patch had eroded, and the 5" of rain we got in one day in April had trashed the (already trash panda trashed) interior.

A neighbor suggested we see if the local FD would like it to practice on. Yes, yes they would, thank you very much. The got 10 (!) practice fires out of it. They brought in a bunch of hay bales and pallets to burn inside to make a lot of smoke. The firefighter I spoke with said that they would go in on their hands and knees, search it blind (due to the smoke), and then put out the fire. Repeat, with other guys (and 3 women, yay!) to give as many people real fire experience. Some of them had not yet been on a call like this, so this was EXCELLENT training for the real thing.

Part of the challenge is a garage that is just out of view in that picture, to the right. It's about 15-18 feet from the house, and we really wanted to save it. We got everything thing out of it, of course.

After that, it was time to burn it down. It started small.

And spread. This is the front of the house. The plan was to burn that side first, and the back (where the garage was) last, and have it all fall into the basement.

There was a slight north wind (the best direction I could have hoped for), blowing the smoke out over a farmer's field. We also had some rain, off and on, not too heavy. It wetted down the grass, which was helpful.

One of the fire fighters told me that the black smoke (which doesn't show well in the picture, unfortunately) was actually fuel for the fire. When the roof was breached, man, it got hot.

The wall behind the fire with the peeling beige paint? Yeah, that's the garage we want to save. See how close it is? They kept hosing it down, and steam would roll off it.

Pushing in walls with a pike. Ideally, it would all fall into the basement, which was very deep, about 9'.

Total success. There is almost nothing left of the house, and the garage is wet, but unharmed. It lost some paint from the water pressure, but the paint was peeling before the burn.

Many of the firefighters came up to thank me personally for this opportunity.

 

[Sally PB]

What does it take for the FD to do a practice/training burn on a house? LOTS and LOTS of paperwork! This is using tax dollars, so they have to justify the training. Since we're about 12 miles from the nearest fire hydrant, they have to truck in the water, which is a reason to do the training in and of itself, for pumper truck training.

We got the ball rolling for this last May. We had to have the house inspected for asbestos. Yup, there was some. We had to have that removed. Those two things we had to pay for ourselves, out of pocket. $2650, so not pocket change.

The FD took care of the rest. I think they had to register the demolition with the state (or county? Not sure; the fire chief took care of all that). Then there's the coordination with all the fire departments. Somebody had to stay at the station in case there was another call. That's why they were so glad to be able to get so many fires out of this. The did 5, rotated crew back to the stations, and bring the other people, do another 5 fires. I think there were about 40 fire fighters involved, all told.

In case you think we get a big tax write off for this... nope. It doesn't qualify as a donation to the fire department, even though they may think of it that way. The government doesn't want people using this as a way to get rid of a structure and get a big tax break.