What Are You Doing Today?

[John Brunner]

We have a Menards. I think my husband is always at Menards or Home Depot. We use to have a Lowes too, but it closed and moved else where.

There was a Home Depot close to my house before I moved here. This region only has Lowes. I much prefer Home Depot (although I did mourn the loss of Hechinger.) One finally opened up about 25 miles from here...they took over the site of a mall that died when Sears and JC Penney went away. I've not set foot in the place, but have bought some stuff online and got free delivery...always arrives within 48 hours.

 

[Beth Gallagher]

I'm going to try to get some dusting and vacuuming done, then I want to start working on closets again. I don't know how my walk-in closets get so messy but I seriously need to purge a lot of clothing and barely-worn shoes for a trip to Goodwill.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Just the usual for me today. Laundry, making warm breakfast for the kitties and the puppers , and I started a small jar of kimchi and cleaned up the kitchen . I found a couple new books about fermenting, so now I am going to relax and read for a while.

 

[Marie Miller]

We have a Menards. I think my husband is always at Menards or Home Depot. We use to have a Lowes too, but it closed and moved else where.

Between Lowe’s, Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight SO cannot get lost.

 

[Marie Miller]

Does dealing with ATT count as day filling activity?

 

[John Brunner]

Does dealing with ATT count as day filling activity?

We may have a Trophy if you actually got your issue resolved and the cops weren't involved.

 

[John Brunner]

I got tired of angsting about my firewood chores so I burned up a few hours on the tractor loading the racks on my front porch and the rack next to the wood stove. All I gotta do now is clean the flu, maybe shave some cedar to use as starter and preseason the soapstone stove as I do every year. If the forecast is accurate, I won't need to fire it up until next Saturday night, and the first 3 days of the week are supposed to be warm & sunny.

It's insane I won't have used it until the middle of November.

 

[Marie Miller]

We may have a Trophy if you actually got your issue resolved and the cops weren't involved.

Tech called three minutes prior to the appointment window, negotiated a part from another tech and all was well within 45 minutes. He has four cats. That and our sofa lion greeting him may have something to do with it.

 

[Marie Miller]

I got tired of angsting about my firewood chores so I burned up a few hours on the tractor loading the racks on my front porch and the rack next to the wood stove. All I gotta do now is clean the flu, maybe shave some cedar to use as starter and preseason the soapstone stove as I do every year. If the forecast is accurate, I won't need to fire it up until next Saturday night, and the first 3 days of the week are supposed to be warm & sunny.

It's insane I won't have used it until the middle of November.

Have you looked at the flu cleaner packages?

 

[John Brunner]

Have you looked at the flu cleaner packages?

I don't know what they are.

 

[Marie Miller]

I don't know what they are.

Creosote remover. It comes in a variety of options. We heated a 20x20x16 plus the adjoining dining room/kitchen with a fireplace.

 

[Mary Stetler]

I got out the bucket, the ammonia for cleaning the stove hood, went up to try to unclog daughter's shower, came down and answered the door. Forgot to flush the drain cleaner as I ran to pick someone up. Came back to find the drain was still running slow even after drain cleaner. Never did get to the stove hood because my handyman showed up to assess thing but not start on them....
Sort of how my days go.

 

[John Brunner]

Creosote remover. It comes in a variety of options. We heated a 20x20x16 plus the adjoining dining room/kitchen with a fireplace.

My situation is a little tough to explain.

I have a soapstone wood stove. The design is different than a regular cast iron wood stove.

-There is a ceiling in the firebox that slants upwards towards the front of the stove.
-It joins a horizontal plate that leaves a couple of inches of space between it and the top of the stove.
-There is a gap between the front of the stove and where that horizontal plate begins.
-There is also a gap between the back of the stove and the horizontal plate.

So the fire burns, the heat rises with the upward slope of the firebox ceiling, and it gets drawn into the flu through that airspace between the horizontal plate and the top of the stove. That hot air heats the top of the stove, while the firebox ceiling and the horizontal plate protect the soapstone stovetop from direct flames.

The problem isn't creosote...the problem is that soot falls down the flu and deposits on top of that plate and piles up (and I assume some falls down the back inside of the stove.) When enough soot piles up on the plate, airflow is blocked. A couple of years after I started using the stove, enough soot piled up so I could not get enough of a draft to start the thing.

I've gotten the stove to burn more efficiently, and only clean the flu and the horizontal plate every 3 years just to be safe...it really doesn't need it that often. But in order to clean it, I have to break the flu free where it enters the stove. This allows me to put a bag on the end of the flu to capture the soot when I brush the flu from the roof, and it gives me access to run a small hose hooked to a shop vac to suck up the soot that's deposited on that horizontal plate inside the stove.

It's a little frustrating because I think with a normal stove I could just brush the flu from the ceiling and the stuff would deposit in the firebox for me to collect through the door. It's even more frustrating because the manufacturer does not have End User Support and they push you back to the dealer, who is not trained and does not care once the sale is made.

 

[Hedi Mitchell]

I will be preparing for a celebration with a daughter and our niece who almost died recently. It was a very serious on death door step type thing. We all are amazed she is still with us and now back to work as a nurse.From 9/1 to 10/31/26
We will be celebrating that and Thanksgiving on the 12 of this month. The daughter and her pet dove, and her two dogs will be with us, several days longer than usual.
So got cleaning to do, check on bedding, all that stuff. Hubby will be making shrimp gumbo and our ice cream- Sarah a apple pie from scratch, and Em making a dressing. It will be a little chaotic of course, but we will enjoy every single minute!

 

[Marie Miller]

SO is on a play date. He left armed with two bacon sausage burritos wrapped in paper/foil/fleece in a container which fits on of the cab cubbies of his truck. How long will it take for the aroma to get to him
I need to pull done zinnias and cosmos but life has priorities. One being a purring sofa lion curled up over my left arm. And there is more coffee.

 

[Marie Miller]

I will be preparing for a celebration with a daughter and our niece who almost died recently. It was a very serious on death door step type thing. We all are amazed she is still with us and now back to work as a nurse.From 9/1 to 10/31/26
We will be celebrating that and Thanksgiving on the 12 of this month. The daughter and her pet dove, and her two dogs will be with us, several days longer than usual.
So got cleaning to do, check on bedding, all that stuff. Hubby will be making shrimp gumbo and our ice cream- Sarah an apple pie from scratch, and Em making a dressing. It will be a little chaotic of course, but we will enjoy every single minute!

It sounds like a fun time to spend together.