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Thread: natural gas

  1. #21
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
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    Ok, so this thread has caused me to go and spend money, which is probably not the point of this board overall but there it is. When we first bought this townhouse a friend gave as a no longer needed string trimmer because I really wanted a patch of grass in our backyard and a full on lawnmower seemed excessive. (our backyard is roughly 25x25 and the patch of grass we put in is 6x10ish. I just really wanted at least a little bit of green) The free trimmer was 12 years old and came with 2 rechargeable NiMH batteries. The batteries didn't hold charge very well and although new non-OED lithium replacements were available chargers for the lithium replacements weren't. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of charging lithium batteries with chargers not designed for them so we gave the trimmer to Goodwill and bought a new Black & Decker trimmer. Since the new trimmer was awesome I followed up that purchase with a B&D drill that uses the same battery. Now I am in the middle of a couple of projects that require cutting a big piece of plywood into various pieces so today I looked and I can get a fairly small B&D circular saw that uses the same battery. I found a deal on amazon to get the saw, another drill, plus one battery, for $77, a really great price for all that. We don't specifically need the extra drill but it will definitely get used when we have projects that require both a drill and a screw driver at the same time since switching back and forth from a drill bit to a screw driver head takes a lot of time if done repeatedly. I suppose the argument can be made that spending money on a tool that will get used routinely and which saves me time is a reasonable part of simplifying my life...

  2. #22
    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    I got a decent-grade Stihl electric chainsaw a few years back, and love it. It's good for 90% of my daily chainsawing needs. I still have the big beastly gas chainsaws, but they don't get a lot of use.

    When I got it, I was wed to their battery/charger system, and I ended up getting the string-trimmer and the blower for it.

    Recently, I got the larger Stihl Kombi-system head, which takes the same batteries. I've happily been using the pruning saw, scythe, hedge trimmer, and string trimmer attachments for this.

    I love not having to maintain a lot of little gas engines for these sorts of tools. With two batteries and the decent charger, one battery recharges in about the time it takes me to discharge the first battery when working, so if I have access to AC power I don't have to fuss.

  3. #23
    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    I don't have access to natural gas here. I could go with propane, but that would involve installing a tank, and dealing with a supplier, and plumbing the propane lines to useful places.

    I mostly cook with electricity, or on an outside propane grill, or charcoal-fired hibachis. I've been tempted to install a propane cooktop, but haven't gotten over the "I need to deal with getting propane up here" issue for ~25 years, so I suspect I won't overcome that inertia.

    The house is heated with a combination of an electric hot water hydronic heating system, and two fine woodstoves. In the winter time, it is prudent here to have an off-grid heating solution, as we can go for days without power in some of our storms. So I don't imagine giving up my woodstoves anytime soon.

    I investigated, when our local power cooperative was providing some incentives, installing minisplit heat pumps, but the cost was fairly significant. The virtue would be some air conditioning capability, and some energy efficiency, but at a cost of > $20K, and that was pre-Covid.

    My electric power here comes from primarily renewable sources. Cost is ~ 11cents/Kwh. I have 35Kw of solar production capability which reduces my power bill to nothing for ~6 months of the year. If I heat with all-electric in the colder months, I'm looking at $500+/month electric bills. Using the woodstove as the primary heat during those months reduces the cost to about $250 in the winter months.

    I burn almost exclusively wood that I harvest myself, so the cost of the wood is perhaps better viewed as "a cheap gym membership".

  4. #24
    Senior Member Rogar's Avatar
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    My corded electric chain saw is on the replacement list. I have thought the battery powered chain saws were not powerful enough until fairly recently. I have a small collection of hand me down hand tools. A couple of drill braces and bits, a small collection of hand saws, a collection of tin snips. I've wondered when the advent of power tools became common for home construction? Maybe the later 1920's or early 30's? Carpentry in the pre power tool days must have required a more intensive set of building skills.

  5. #25
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Testing…

  6. #26
    Senior Member littlebittybobby's Avatar
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    Fix your nat gas furnace. Consumerism is the American way, unfortunately. So yeah--the cool people have to have the latest thing. Either that, or make purchases in response to scare tactics. So yeah--fix your gas furnace. Save money on utilities by turning off your Tee-Vee. Hope that helps you some. Edited to add: Guess what? I have three(3) reciprocating saws--two are genuine corded sawzalls, and one is a battery-opp HF brand. But yeah---the batt opp is handy, for a brief use where you don't want to drag out an extension cord or in remote areas where it's not feasible. Plus--fer at the wreckin' yard---it's jam handy. Like--I cut a chunk o' floor out of a Suburban & cut the radiator support tie bar outta that van and a couple chunks of good metal off the bed of a trunk. And stuff like that. But--don't be stopped carrying one in your car; it will make a cop very suspicious, due to their usage in convertor theft. But the corded sawzalls, one 20+ years old and the other 35+ and repaired, are what I use for stuff that requires extended usage. See? But yeah--what you utilize should not be an ideological issue; it's just what is most practical for the job at hand. See? If I wanted to make a statement, of COURSE I'd buy a nice, new solar-powered Subbbarroo, sticker it out, and save the world. Yup. Hope that helps you some. Thankk Mee.
    Last edited by littlebittybobby; 6-28-23 at 3:37pm.

  7. #27
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
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    When I was looking into switching to a heat pump I watched a bunch of videos on youtube. This one wasn't especially helpful but it was entertaining. Dude has a nearly 50 year old central A/C unit that he wanted fixed. A new unit would probably pay for itself in reduced electric bills in just a couple of years. This commenter made me laugh though: "New house, new boat and new ac, 74 must have been a great year!"

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsHg5ElD-bQ

  8. #28
    Senior Member Tradd's Avatar
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    I think going all electric would definitely be safer than natural gas. I known a few people who had fires that were natural gas related somehow. The totally preventable ones were the houses where flammable stuff like paint and the like were stored too close to the water heater.

  9. #29
    Senior Member bae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tradd View Post
    I think going all electric would definitely be safer than natural gas. I known a few people who had fires that were natural gas related somehow.
    I have fought house fires that were electric-related, and house fires that were propane-related.

    It's a darned bit easier to cut the power mains of the building than to deal with the propane tank/gas line, once things get "sporty".

  10. #30
    Senior Member Rogar's Avatar
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    Just recently the news has featured a proposal for the Denver metro area to ban the sales of residential gas lawn equipment starting 2025. You can keep what you have or go out of town to buy it. Further, public entities like schools and cities would not be allowed to run gas maintenance equipment in the summer months, and then in 2026 commercial landscape business would have the same restrictions. It still needs some approvals, but that covers a lot. I don't think there is much on the market in the line of commercial sized equipment like all that, but it seems like a growing market.

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