I hate wheelbarrows. It's not personal because I hate them all.

While there are plenty of crappy wheelbarrows for sale out there, the principal reason I hate them has nothing to do with them actually. It has to do with the fact that they are built for the average person and I am far from average. At 6' 4" when I grab the handles and straighten up, even with my arms straight at my sides I am lifting the wheelbarrow higher into the air than the design was intended to be.

The net effect is that the load is unbalanced and more prone to tip. Worse, the blunt nose of the wheelbarrow is closer to the ground and tends to hit rocks or other imperfections in the pathway that would normally pass under the nose if the 'average' person was operating this high tech equipment. The result is that the already unbalanced load gets dumped way too many times for my taste.

That said (whew, glad I finally got that off my chest) when Mrs. Cog declared that we needed a PRETTY wheelbarrow at the new place (even before we moved there but after we closed) I was ready with advice and buying tips.

Rule number one....don't go cheap or a few years after the purchase you will be pushing around a rust bucket with holes and broken handles. When I was a contractor many many years ago I learned real quick that you spend good money for good tools that last a good long time.

As it happened, when the itch to purchase struck Mrs. Cog the local Lowe's had wheelbarrows up the wazoo. And nearly all of them were 'homeowner' grade, meaning designed to last 3 years before the poor fool is once again in Lowe's looking for wheelbarrows.

After wading through the first ten rows of 'sale' items I got to the good stuff in the back, the so called 'professional grade' that is often double the price and four times the quality.  It didn't take me long to find what I wanted in a wheelbarrow that I hated. The result can be seen below in all its glory, about to be loaded into the back of the vehicle and given a new home.

Things I look in a wheelbarrow are as follows.

1) Heavy steel in the thingy where you put stuff. If you can dent the metal by rapping it hard, or even flex it by pushing on sections, imagine what rocks will do to it when you throw them in. I find that the heavier gauge steel used on quality wheelbarrows are also higher grade steel and the 'paint' is often a more durable powder coat rather that paint, which tends to chip, scratch and rust away. Also the better wheelbarrows are sometimes deeper with slightly higher sides.

2) Sold wheel. Nothing pisses me off more than to grab the sucker only to find that it has a flat tire. Or worse, grab it and load it up only to find that the tire is very soft and acting like a boat anchor. While we don't live on a construction site where nails can be picked up by the wheel, we do live in heavy thorn country which are just as effective as nails in puncturing tires. I've already repaired the tractor tire once as proof that the thorns around here are killer.

3) The two rear legs need to be sturdy, secured properly and have a larger than normal base to help support the load when resting. How many times have I seen cheap wheelbarrows with stubby legs that wobble side to side with a small foot print that sinks into soft ground? If you look at the image above you can see the proper way  the legs should be constructed. The back piece is actually an extension that clips on at the top and is bolted to the bottom for easy replacement if it is damaged or lost.

4) Sturdy cross brace for the legs. Once again the cheap units often have a thin cross brace that is nearly useless because they are rarely bolted in place. And if bolted, there is usually only one bolt per side which still allows for movement. The professional units usually have two bolts per side as this one does.

5) Heavy duty handles made of hardwood. I prefer wooden handles though the trend for the cheaper units is to go with metal and weld them in place. Sorry...but no. Welding means you can never replace it if you need to. Metal means just another place to rust. The professional models use high quality hard wood with little to no knots. I usually like to take the wheelbarrow apart and treat the wooden handles with a high quality preservative, but this unit came varnished and sealed from the factory.

The only complaint I have with this wheelbarrow, other than that I hate wheelbarrows, is that the handle ends are bare wood. They should have come wrapped with some type of grip tape. It is on my list of things to do this winter.

Did I miss something? Leave your comment below and let me know your thinking.

Cognitive Dissonance

Before we moved to the mountain we were living in a townhouse with a postage stamp back yard of 22 x 20 feet.....and half of that was garden or storage shed. The front yard is maintained by the HOA and not my area to worry about so I was cutting my rear 'lawn' with an electric string trimmer in 13 minutes flat including raking.

The new homestead, however, has around an acre (more or less) to mow, and up here mother nature is very prolific. The grass grows so fast you can hear it if you're real quiet. Obviously we were ill prepared to manage a 'yard' that big. Since we closed in mid March and the grass was scheduled to begin growing a month or so later the first order of business was to get ourselves a lawn mower, we had been looking at getting an electric mower to cut down on the gas expenditure. We soon realized that YardMasterz reviewed battery powered lawn mowers so we started researching for the best one!

Normally I would mosey on down to the local shop and find myself some new cutting wheels. But in this case we were not planning on moving in until mid June and the weekend trips to the new place inevitably involved filling the car or truck to the brim with 'stuff' and driving 7 hours to get here, doing things such as cleaning or repairing, then turning around and driving back 7 hours.

We needed to get a lawn mower fast and have it delivered when we arrived or soon after, no small feat since the new place is out in the sticks a long ways away from anywhere. I wound up pulling a fast one and ordering the machine from Amazon. Since I have Prime shipping I get two day delivery for free and next day delivery for a small additional charge.

I found a lawn mower that would be shipped overnight to me for an additional $3.99. This meant that I could order it Thursday, leave for the new homestead early Friday morning and be there when the UPS truck showed up Friday afternoon. It turned into a game of 'beat the truck' and we timed it near perfectly, arriving with two hours to spare.

The UPS driver could not believe it when I told him the story. It was only when he looked at the delivery ticket and saw that it really was sent via one day shipping that he quickly calculated the shipping to have cost Amazon several hundred dollars, or just about as much as the lawn mower itself. There goes the profit margin and one of the reason Amazon still doesn't make much money.

The machine is a Husqvarna HU600L 22 inch rear wheel drive self propelled lawn mower. It has the 149cc Kohler engine, the first time I have owned any gas fired engine by Kohler. So far so good.

Let's start with the things I like.

1) The "single point height adjustment" which means I push one lever and all four wheels are adjusted up or down. There are at least six height adjustments that can be selected, which is real nice. I can always find the one that works in the area I'm cutting because some areas are much heavier than others.

2) The engine is real strong and I'm very pleased with it overall. As long as the blade is reasonably sharp there is plenty of power both to cut very high grass and to propel the mower forward. It has an automatic throttle that responds very quickly to different loads on the engine. If the mower stalled it was because I hit something or ran over a huge clump of grass and overloaded the engine, something that would happen to any mower this size. Truly a great little engine.

3) The mower is pretty fuel efficient. Not sure how much the tank holds, but it fills up fast and I'm always surprised how little gas it holds and how long it runs on so little gas. The gas cap is large and has a built in filter that can be removed quickly to be cleaned out. The engine air filter is easily accessible from the side and comes off with one large easy-to-turn-with-your-fingers 'bolt'. The oil fill and check stick is right there at the top and easy to use. Only problem is the need to tip the mower on its side to pour the old oil out of the filler tube. No big deal.

4) Dead man switch up at the handle, the automatic kill switch lever you must hold down in order for the machine to run, is placed within easy and comfortable reach when you hands are on the handle. It becomes second nature to grab it and pull the starter cord. Speaking of which, the starter cord is within easy reach and the mower always starts on the first and second pull. No fuss, no muss.

5) The handle can be re-folded down into the shipping/stowed position for easier storage when not in use. This is a real nice feature because many lawnmowers need something removed in order to do this. Not with this mower.

Now for the list of things that I don't like.

1) The mower was listed as a side discharge, but Amazon screwed up because this one is a rear discharge. It comes with a rear bagger or you can leave the bagger off and it becomes a mulcher. No need to change blades to mulch, but in heavy grass this can be problematic. What pissed me off is that they show a rear discharge chute....but it is an extra option you must purchase separately. It took me a month to find a dealer that would order one for me for $25 plus another $9 for shipping to their store. Rip off for a piece of plastic. Even though the rear discharge tries to throw the cuttings to the left they still hit your boots. In the spring resign yourself to wearing green boots.

2) The machine comes with a washout plug, a place where you can attached a garden hose with the supplied adapter to run the mower while water is sprayed on underside of the cutting deck below. For this mower it was worse than useless and after a few times I just gave up and never used it again.

The underside of the cutting deck is cluttered with the self propelled drive belts, gears and protective pan and grass builds up quickly. When you are done for the day unplug the spark plug and clean it out yourself with a long stick and the garden hose. If you don't do so the mower is useless the next time you want to cut the grass and by then the old grass has hardened into concrete.

3) The wheels are too small for my less than perfect lawn. Make that bumpy lawn. I should have purchased a mower with much larger rear wheels to make the going/mowing smoother and easier on the operator. Live and learn the hard way.

4) There is a plastic/rubber shelf at the rear of the mower at the bottom upon which the bagger is supposed to sit while hanging from above. I guess this assures a better seal to prevent grass from blowing out from the bottom. By the third weekend it was hanging half off just from normal use and never using the bagger itself. I removed it by the fourth time I used it. What happens is that each time I pulled the machine backwards the rubber shelf was dragged under the machine. Piss poor design by some egg head who never cuts his or her own lawn.

5) Speaking of pulling the machine backwards.......if the mower is driving itself forward under its own power and you come to a complete stop immediately after disengaging the lever that controls the drive clutch, for example you come to a wall or fence, the drive clutch doesn't fully disengage and you wind up dragging the mower backwards with locked rear wheels. Major pain in the ass, which requires you to let go of the drive clutch about a foot or more before you actually stop the machine. This is not always possible so that even when you are aware of this problem at times you still have to screw with locked wheels. Grrrrrrr

6) After one cutting season the rear wheels, the driven wheels, are squeaking and moaning when I push the mower with the engine off. Which means they are always making those noises and I just can't hear them when the engine is running. I suspect I will have to disassemble them this winter and find out what needs to be replaced.

7) A minor issue, but the grip tape on the handles started to come apart by the second mowing and were in shreds by the third. I wound up using electricians tape to hold it all together for the rest of the mowing season. They must be using real cheap stuff if my real cheap tape is better than their real cheap grip tape.

Considering my selection criteria for this purchase was skewed by the fact that I needed a mower Amazon would deliver overnight for $3.99 it doesn't suck too bad. In all Amazon had four mowers I could have bought and still had it shipped overnight, so I did select one that was self propelled and had a decent engine. The other three were no name mowers.

Half way thru the cutting season I purchased a riding mower so this mower didn't see nearing as tough duty in the second half of the season as it would if I had used it exclusively. I suspect if I had it would have died by September.

Lesson learned and archived.

Cognitive Dissonance

When last I heated my home with wood, well over 30 years ago, water wood stoves or wood stove boilers were in their infancy and just being developed by a few scattered entrepreneurs. While I have not researched their growth or growing pains they seem to have come a long way. We own the Heatmaster 5000 and overall we are delighted with it. There are a few issues with it that I will discuss at the end of this article.

The previous owner of our mountain home installed a wood stove boiler after he built the place. If I remember correctly he said it was installed around 1998 or 1999. A few months before we first saw this place (Jan of 2013) his old wood stove boiler developed a leak and rather than try to fix the leak, a troublesome welding job at best, especially if the stove is old and on its last legs as his was, he decided just to replace it with a brand new unit. The picture above shows the stove as it was this past spring when I first fired it up.

For those who are not familiar with this type of home heating unit I shall try to explain its operation. The idea is simple really. Since many modern homes already have a central heating system with an air duct distribution system, an outside heat pump/air conditioner and an internal air handler, incorporating the wood stove boiler is a relatively easy retrofit. However, many people's air duct systems are often filled with dust and other dirty materials that clog their air distribution system, which would make fitting the wood stove boiler more difficult. However, Duct Cleaning Companies can be hired to clear dirty air ducts and clean air duct distribution systems.

The actual wood stove boiler unit is placed outside of the main home to keep the smoke, ash and noise away from the main living area. Often it is placed on a level concrete pad or just up on concrete blocks if you don't want to go to all the bother and expense of pouring cement.

The boiler itself is a firebox made of steel or stainless steel which in turn is surrounded by a water jacket of anywhere from 100 to 300 or more gallons of water depending upon the BTU output needed, which in turn is determined by the heating needs of the home/garage/business/workshop serviced by the wood stove boiler.

The wood stove boiler unit contains a circulating pump similar to those used in homes that have baseboard hot water heat fired by oil or gas. There is also a blower fan that is controlled by the on-board control unit that is programmed to turn the blower fan on and off at preset water temperatures.

The blower fan forces outside air into the firebox which stokes up the fire inside and heats the water surrounding the firebox. The firebox is usually pretty airtight when the blower is off so when the heating demand is low it is not inconceivable for the fire to go completely out. The control unit settings can be changed to fit your unique situation and each manufacturer has its own particular setup.

The outside wood stove boiler is connected to a previously installed underground (sometimes insulated) 8 to 12 inch flexible conduit which in turn is filled with two 1 inch (insulated) plastic pipes, used as the hot water feed and return piping, a power cable and sometimes a signal/control wire depending upon the manufacturer and setup. The other end of the conduit is routed into the basement either through the basement wall or floor. This varies depending upon the existing home heating unit setup.

Once inside the basement the feed pipe is routed first to your existing hot water heater where the hot water from the wood stove boiler is routed through a heat exchanger before moving on to the heating system. The heat exchanger heats your domestic hot water without mixing with the hot water coming from the wood stove boiler. You simply shut off the electricity (or gas) to your hot water heater and let the boiler take over water heating duties. See the image below.

My experience with this setup has been wonderful. Although it takes about an extra 10-15 seconds to get hot water at the kitchen or bathroom faucets and shower than using the standard hot water tank, once it starts flowing it is endless and even hotter than what was previously produced by the hot water tank.

At one point two showers were going, the dish washer was running and a load of clothes was in the washing machine and we never ran out of hot water. As long as the boiler is running you have hot water. If the boiler is not running, you may have bigger issues on your hands, such as finding out the Installing a boiler cost, as you may need a new boiler altogether.

From this point the boiler hot water feed runs over to your air handler unit. Here it is a bit more tricky because essentially an additional (much larger) heat exchanger must be inserted into the duct work coming out of the existing air handler. Usually there is enough room to do this, but it can be a tight fit.

Below is an image of the house air handler and the feed duct work coming out of the top. The long round flexible silver duct work to the right is the air return. To the extreme left is an electrical sub panel that I discuss on the standby generator page. The thick black insulated piping running from the top of the concrete block wall to the bottom of the air handler is the feed and return coming from the heat pump/air conditioner. The slightly thicker black insulated pipe running from the top left of the image into the square silver duct work is coming from the wood stove boiler via the domestic hot water heater previously discussed.

The wood stove boiler heat exchanger is shoehorned into the duck work above the air handler. In the close up below you can see that they actually bent some of the duct work to accommodate the heat exchanger. I have seen two other installations since moving here and they all look a little iffy, but they work which is all that counts. Sometimes you need to put 10 lbs of potatoes in a 5 pound sack.

You can also see the cast iron feed pipe coming in at the top and the return exiting the bottom which is then routed back outside via the same place it came in. The close up from a different angle shows in better detail the bulging duck work and the main house air duct work feed runs up top.

While it isn't the prettiest installation it works perfectly and that's all that counts. If it were a new installation the air handler would be sized to properly accommodate the additional heat exchanger. In fact there are now name brand factory built air handlers already made to accommodate the additional wood stove heat exchanger. These manufacturers are working directly with major wood stove boiler manufacturers to create an efficient heat exchange system.

But the round trip doesn't end quite yet back at the wood stove boiler, at least not with my setup. The Heatmaster 5000 is located between a 12 x 12 log outbuilding currently used for storage and a 22 x 24 garage/workshop. The previous owner wanted heat in the workshop so he routed the hot water return from the air handler inside the basement out to the workshop and into its own heat exchanger to squeeze out the last bit of heat before finally returning to the boiler.

Here there is no duct work, just the heat exchanger sitting on a little wood shelf with a fan attached to the backside. Presently it is hooked up directly to one of the circuit breakers in the garage sub-panel and is turned on and off by flipping the breaker. I plan on installing a thermostat plus an on-off switch to add some flexibility to the system. It's a bit noisy but I just turn the music up and ignore it. It sure is nice having a heated garage/workshop to putter around in.

If you look closely at the two images below you can see that the vanes in front are adjustable and the side view shows the copper tubing of the heat exchanger. Again, not really pretty but it works great. I have been consistently surprised how much heat is still left in the hot water after going through the domestic hot water heater and the air handler heat exchanger, plus the total round trip of easily 200 feet.

The nice thing about the system is that you now have a one inch pipe running into the house that is connected to an almost unlimited source of 170 degree (plus or minus) hot water. This temperature is oftentimes hotter than what your existing heat pump can produce at the heat exchanger and the only electricity being used with the wood stove boiler is for the blower fan when on and the water circulation pump plus a tiny amount for the control unit.

The best part is that the efficacy of the standard heat pump degrades rapidly once outside temperatures drop into the teens. At that point expensive-to-run supplementary or emergency heating units kick on and take over the heat producing burden that the heat pump can no longer provide.

When that happens think heating you house with a giant hair dryer and you quickly understand how expensive that can get when the outside temps drop. With the wood stove boiler the hot water is constantly circulating so it's just a matter of running the air handler for as long as it takes to maintain inside temperature.

The key to running the system is to never disconnect the power to the air handler system, which also powers the home thermostat. All you do is pull the circuit breaker/disconnect to the heat pump itself. This prevents the heat pump from kicking on when the inside thermostat calls for heat. But the thermostat still signals the air handler to turn on which moves air up through the duct work where the wood stove boiler heat exchanger resides, heating the air before it is distributed throughout the house.

Because the boiler hot water circulating pump out at the boiler is running constantly, regardless of whether the inside air handler is operating or the boiler blower fan is running, there is a constant supply of hot water running through the heating system. When the thermostat calls for heat it is instantly on just like the heat pump provides.

When you wish to run the heating system in heat pump mode you simply shut down the Heatmaster 5000 and flip the circuit breaker for the heat pump back on. Now the heat pump will supply heat for the air handler rather than the Heatmaster.

Some Issues With The System

I have been having creosote buildup issues with the Heatmaster 5000. Some of it comes from burning wood that has not been fully seasoned, though the stove is designed to be very efficient and it is designed to combat creosote.

I think some of it is because the boiler is too large for the system itself. The '5000' in Heatmaster 5000 means it is intended to heat a home of 5000 square feet with a boiler that is designed to produce 250,000 BTU. We have less than half that amount of square footage including the garage.

I suspect that the stove gets the water jacket temperature up to the blower shutdown temperature quickly, shutting down the burn inside the firebox. Thus the firebox never has a chance to linger at full temp and burn off some of the residual creosote. It is similar to a high powered car engine being used for trips down to the mall and back and never being run at the temperatures and speeds it was intended and designed for. Carbon quickly begins to build up and the engine runs rough and inefficient.

In fact the Heatmaster 5000 is designed for a two zone heating system and has two circulating pumps to feed two heat exchangers which allows for independent heating of the first and second floor of a much larger house. I suspect the previous owner felt that if the Heatmaster 3000 (which is more suited for our home) was good than the Heatmaster 5000 must be even better. I never asked him why he bought the 5000 and don't intend to do so.

The second possible cause of the creosote buildup might be simpler to fix, but I might not do so. All Heatmaster units are designed to be placed outdoors in the elements. They can be rained/snowed/sleeted on and work perfectly. Everything vital is enclosed or waterproofed so there is no need for overhead cover. The Heatmaster comes with a zero clearance chimney that sticks out about 18-24 inches from the top and that is all that is needed to exhaust the waste gases.

If you examine the image all the way to the top of this article you can see that the Heatmaster is located under the cover of a roof that spans the distance between the smaller outbuilding and the garage/workshop. This is great because it offer shelter for both the wood and the operator during bad weather. But it required two extensions to be added to the chimney.

My research indicates that doing this can and does cause a faster buildup of clogging creosote in the Heatmaster and the company warns against adding to the chimney if not needed. If I removed the roof over the Heatmaster that just puts the lowered chimney below the roof that remains over the operator and wood. That might make for lots of smoke eating on my part. And I don't want to abandon entirely the cover.

I'm not complaining because we have a great system that is brand new and will last for many years. The work-around for this winter is two fold. I have removed one exhaust baffle from the top of the firebox which allows the smoke more direct access to the chimney. The downside is that the boiler is less efficient this way. But when the chimney is (partially) clogged the stove is even less efficient so I'm doing no worse, and in my opinion much better, with the baffle removed and the stove running well.

The second work around is that every three or four days I leave the firebox door and lower vent open, shut off the blower, and get the fire super hot and let it run past when the blower would normally shut down. This gets all surfaces hotter, including the remaining exhaust baffle and the chimney itself, than it would get if I did not do this and helps burn off the gummy creosote. I'll work on more permanent solutions when after I have shut the system down in the spring.

That's my alternative heating system. If you're interested in getting a new boiler, check out rhi payments to make getting a new boiler, more affordable. Comments, suggestions, feedback? Let me know what's on your mind.

Cognitive Dissonance