Introducing Bruce

glenn kangiser · December 10, 2006, 02:11:40 AM

Jonesy just spent time underground in Coober Pedy.

Forestiere had a mule to help. He also had a nice old one lunger engine of some kind to run a pump. I tried to deal the grandsons out of the engine - didn't get too far.

There are fruit trees -orchard and grapes - garden area on the area above ground. Trees planted below ground poke up through holes to daylight. Rain water is handled by drywells that were originally dug by hand.

desdawg · December 10, 2006, 10:11:41 AM

Coober Pedy looks like a fascinating place. Being an old rockhound I have seen lots of opal that came from there but I never really looked to see what the place was like. Glenn, I think you need one of those roadhead excavators for your next project. That looks like a high maintenance piece of equipment. The water table must be fairly shallow at Coober Pedy if they can drill below it to dump their septic blackwater. Here typical wells are 600-1000'. Plenty of filtration before the wastewater effluent ever reaches the water table. Anyway, very interesting.

December 10, 2006, 12:05:30 PM

I've already been considering modifying a stump grinder or something -- expensive stuff. :-/

Bruce · December 10, 2006, 01:42:37 PM

Hey yall, I can get crazy too - a little scotch will get me started. But it's a little early in the day for that right now.

Jonsey, that's some good info on the tube performance. It looks like your crawlspace is open to the world. If there's much of a breeze, the temp and humidity will migrate toward the outside ambient - that's likely to affect system efficiency. Air comming into the house from the tubes must displace an equal amount of air from inside. A tube from a warm inside area leading out would encourage the warmest inside air to be exhausted

Heat transfer is a function of surface contact - an additional tube running in parallel would likely be better/cheaper/easier than single larger tubes. Moist soil would also be a better thermal conductor than dry soil.

Looking forward to more performance data as you get the system tuned to your environment and preferences.

sherab · December 11, 2006, 09:49:47 PM

Just hearing Coober Pedy brings to mind my friend Steven Newman. He's a fellow travel writer and 20 years ago he spent 4 years walking around the world....literally. After dealing with the crush of humanity that was India and Southeast Asia he arrived in Australia at Darwin and proceeded to walk down the Great Stuart for the next year.

He spent some time in C.P. and he has a great story about being given an Opal and then losing it, then backtracking several kilometers and finding it again with some help.

It's detailed in his book Worldwalk. Better yet hop on over to http://theworldwalker.com and check out his stories. Been wanting to visit C.P. ever since.

Julian

December 11, 2006, 10:10:34 PM

Jonesy,
I'm somewhat familiar with "Celdek". Use to have their Florida location make special runs of fibreglass media to be used in automobile spray booth airsupplys. Fibreglass media is more resistive to mold, but costs an "air and leg" compared to cellulose media (though less effective, per inch of exposure, in putting water in the air). If you get the spray booth humidity high enough, you have a chance to get a "wet look" paint finish even using low volatile enamels.

Amanda_931 · December 12, 2006, 08:07:10 PM

I worked (most everything except painting) in the paint department of a big truck manufacturer for years. Painters may have had cleaner air. Don't remember Celdek, but there were filters in the sanding booths that had to be disposed of as hazardous waste (N.B., we were not required to wear dust masks). And IIRC water running under the gratings in the paint booths.

Bruce · December 12, 2006, 08:44:17 PM

ok, NOW this is starting to look like thread drift

Anybody done any gunsmithing lately???

glenn kangiser · December 12, 2006, 10:51:11 PM

You're such a friendly guy, Bruce -- they just kinda got carried away.

About the most gunsmithing I did was to put a screw in the end of my 22 where the sight fell off so I could aim and hit something.

My uncle used to load his own bullets for the 30-06. We would sight them in each deer season. I was about 9 when we were working on the old homestead remodel and shooting was a little family side activity at that time of year. After shooting for a bit, I said, "Hey uncle Mandeville, I'm a better shot than you"

He said, "If you don't shut the hell up you won't get to shoot again." He was cool like that.

He expected us to cuss him back out too. He's the one I refer to as my old dead uncle.

Hows that for thread drift, Bruce?

December 12, 2006, 11:40:27 PM

If this thread stayed on topic it would be the only one in the forum. What was the topic anyway? And who in the heck is Bruce? Oh yeah, now I remember. Welcome to the forum Bruce! I think you are going to like it here. There is no doubt in my mind that you are going to fit right in.

benevolance · December 12, 2006, 11:55:38 PM

I don't know how much of this was a sales pitch but,

A paint guy came to my shop with a cutaway from several types of filters showing how the best filters money can buy does not get all of the toxins...That you need fresh air on the guys in the paint booth to make sure they are not breathing in the chemicals.

As for the toxic waste....I believe that....Look on the side of a can for automotive paint....Primer, Thinner etc...

Do a search on the internet and you will see some of the nastiest chemicals on the planet are mixed together to make paint.....They removed the lead....But it one of those "Lesser Evils" kind of victories.

JRR · December 13, 2006, 09:38:39 AM

Many spraybooths have two sets of filters: one set for the fresh air coming in, another set to catch overspray in the exhaust air stream. The exhaust filters prevent overspray build-up on exhaust fans and ducts. The used exhaust filters would certainly be treated as a hazardous material waste. Larger spraybooths also incorporate waterfalls or pools to catch overspray.

Modern high voltage spray systems have eliminated tons of overspray waste by improving transfer efficiency.

Its still a nasty business.

glenn kangiser · December 13, 2006, 12:05:36 PM

Seems since the overspray is the same thing as what is on our vehicles, then we are all driving around in metal boxes encased in hazardous waste.

Sorry Bruce -- had to get us back off track. :-/

JRR · December 13, 2006, 05:35:47 PM

You could look at it that way. But as the paint cures (cross-links) the paint is more difficult to dilute ... by ground water, etc. So the paint is no longer "harzardous" ... unless it swats you doing 70mph or so.

December 14, 2006, 10:44:05 PM

Most of the truly evil stuff leaves the coating in the paint oven--if you have a paint oven.

Those with paint ovens are using very high solids paints--IIRC have to go on hot, plus a trip through the oven. They are the guys who have high enough production to be seriously polluting the air--even though at one stage, they only air they really really had to keep clean was in the paint booths proper, even though the painters were all using air-supply respirators. Not the prep booths, not the outside where the exhaust from the big fans swirled down. (At various stages I worked in prep booths, and outside where if the wind was was from the wrong directiion I ended up in the doctor's office the next day

)

I was suprised to see home-use powder-coat kits, and a heat gun to use them with in the store (Lowes or Home Depot) the other day.

OK after it's cured is true of the foam-type insulations as well.

KirAlet · February 03, 2007, 07:06:15 AM

Just joined from France, so hello all!

This pipe system that you're all talking about on this thread, is this like a 'Canadian Puit' system - it's what it's known as in France ... placing pipes outside at a depth of 2m (sorry no good in inches!)

Sorry the picture is all in French, maybe someone has an English one that they know of ...

KirAlet

glenn kangiser · February 03, 2007, 01:41:50 PM

Welcome to the forum KirAlet. What part of France? Sassy and I made a speedy tour of France in 2001.

Two meters is about 7 feet. Looks like the cool tubes are about 70 feet long with a 1 to 2% slope toward the basement and the condensate drain in the basement - I didn't translate the words but think I got it right.