Dogtrot at Hightop

[old_guy]

Did Generac stand behind the generator?

[Redoverfarm]

Did Generac stand behind the generator?

In short yes they did.  I was persistent and once I reached the resolution department they agreed to replace the motor.  Long process once that occurred ( 2 months) before my local dealer received it.  There was concessions that I had to comply with regarding the location.  They require at least 3' of clearance on each end and 18" to the rear.  My original location wasn't sufficient according to them on the distances as well as being too close to the propane tank ( 10 feet is minimum) .  The generator had ran at that location for 3 years and never once heated up.  There generator has multiple shutdown features one of which is overheating.  Never once had this occurred.     Well a long story short I moved it to the opposite retaining wall to gain those distances.  Was no easy task in that relocating the gas line and electrical conduit.  I had to rent a jackhammer to dig the trench through the shale. Yesterday the local dealer swapped out the motor on site and after 4 month process I am now back in business.   

Sand base trench.  The copper was in conduit which was buried and another layer of sand then covering with dirt and gravel to finish.



Opposite wall



I was fortunate in that a friend was pouring a basement nearby and had some excess concrete which I used for the pad



All in all with the equipment rental, material to reroute the electrical and gas line and the gas service retailer to run the new copper and relocate the regulator I probably had $225 in the move. 

[MountainDon]

Great news on the replacement.

[ChuckinVa]

When you said you had to move it to the other side I was thinking the other side of the same wall. Didn't think about the other side of the drive. 

[Redoverfarm]

When you said you had to move it to the other side I was thinking the other side of the same wall. Didn't think about the other side of the drive. 

Should have said the other retaining wall.       Not sure Chuck how this will effect the music as the exhaust is now toward the cabin rather than away from it.  I guess we will see.   

[ChuckinVa]

I can bring my amp....

[Redoverfarm]

I can bring my amp....

  Maybe just have to be a little harder on the strings.  I guess we will find out Saturday.   

[ChuckinVa]

I'll bring my heavy picks!

[Redoverfarm]

This is not how I wanted to spend nearly a week with everything else I was trying to accomplish before bad weather.  But it was a "necessary evil" as they say.

The basement retaining wall at the house was leaning some 6" and appeared to get worse each year.  The wall was 7-1/2' at one end and 18" and ran for a distance of 30 feet.  I had already repaired the other opposing wall some years ago.  The repair was similar.



I used salvage guard rail components.  Soil bearing plates 2'X2' were bolted to the wall with bolts extending through to a set of double guard rail post.  From that a 3/4" galvanized cable was bolted.



I used 2 cables for a total length of 12' which were attached to double guardrail panels 26' in length which trenched parallel to the wall.





New drain tile was installed with a fabric soil sock.  I used road fabric up the dirt side to eliminate additional silt wash.  The cavity was then back filled with 18 tons of # 57 stone.



All that remains is to grade it back, sew new grass seed, mulch and let nature take it from there. Notice the position of the wall top before in the first picture and position the last picture in relation to where it was actually when poured.   Who says I need glasses.  Nothing wrong with my hindsight it is a perfect 20/20 vision.

Now to the cabin for the weekend for a little R & R for the semi- annual music gathering.

[MountainDon]

Too bad about all the extra work. Enjoy the music!!

[rick91351]

The stuff I learn on here never had heard of #57 stone.... and I worked in a gravel pit once upon a time...    Had to do some research  -   

http://fldirt.com/fdot_57_stone.html

Great choice!    Love the way you protected your drain as well.  You should never ever have to redo that.....

[pmichelsen]

I'm getting ready to do a wall and have been on the fence about doing a few deadmen, but I think seeing this reminds me that I only want to dig for this wall once. Yours looks great!

[Redoverfarm]

The stuff I learn on here never had heard of #57 stone.... and I worked in a gravel pit once upon a time...    Had to do some research  -   

http://fldirt.com/fdot_57_stone.html

Great choice!    Love the way you protected your drain as well.  You should never ever have to redo that.....

Rick I pretty well stick with it for various applications.  I was told that it has a better natural compaction rate than other size stone. 

Now if I can just get mother natures # 57 raked off so I can plant some grass I will be set.  Where in the world does all this rock in dirt come from.  From the shape ( looks like river rock)I would say back in the stone age this land must have been covered by water.   

[Redoverfarm]

I'm getting ready to do a wall and have been on the fence about doing a few deadmen, but I think seeing this reminds me that I only want to dig for this wall once. Yours looks great!

As they say "when in doubt build it stout".

[Don_P]

Good looking repair 
I've been told 57's are 93% compacted when they fall off the truck and a pass with anything will get it up to 98%. Which is good... but remember 98% compaction in a 8' lift still leaves about 2" of potential settlement over time. The perimeter backfill almost always needs a little grading touch up in a year or two.

Have fun this weekend... one of our fiddlin mailmen dropped by the job yesterday.

[Redoverfarm]

Spent the last weekend at the cabin after Christmas.  Unusual that there wasn't snow as the previous years.  Needless to say I didn't want the season to end as it did.  Round 3 with Generac and the generator.  If you have followed my post the replacement engine was installed on October 1st and has ran flawlessly up until now.    After getting up Monday morning this is what occurred.  They definitely have a design problem with the Ecogen 6KW.  As I read other stories on various forums I am not the only person experiencing this.  Although they may be working to fix the problem it does little to ease the frustration.  Thank goodness the motor was within it's warranty period ( Just by days). 



This is the air cleaner housing and air cleaner saturated with oil.





We walked through the property something that I hadn't done in quite some time.  Here is the wife standing in front of a large tree.  One that wasn't harvested some 30-40 years ago.



Never ceases to amaze me of the crooked trees.  I had once read that the Native Americans would manipulate the limbs to mark trails and property lines.  There are several scattered about the ridge line.  Here is another one.  The top is the major portion that is odd.



Here is another one that I had posted some time ago near the cabin.

[rick91351]

Thanks for the photos....  Bummer about the generator..... Hope they have a fix for it!

[MountainDon]

Best of luck with the Generac.

I've read that about bent trees and Indians before, too.

[Don_P]

Wouldn't it be cheaper for Generac to buy you out? I guess they're hoping to get it just over the warranty line on one of the fixes  . The first reefer truck we got for the co-op, unknown to us, had a newer diesel engine design. Finally warranty + 30k of repairs in, they abandoned that whole engine program. We finally had to take the box off and scrap the truck, very frustrating to be the guinea pig.

A logger friend told me he remembers selling a straight chestnut oak for good money one time  . We had one up on the top line we called the Z tree. It kind of defied gravity, for awhile. Gums are another one that naturally crooks all over the place. Somewhere I have a pic of what was identified as a Cherokee trail tree... I put them in the category of, ya never know. I've read somewhere that trees at forks in the underground railroad would have a nail driven in the backside facing the correct path, reach around the tree, even in the dark, and feel for a nailhead. It's another one, who knows.

[rick91351]

The desert Indians of the Great Basin - would pile stones or monuments beside the trail. If you knew how to read them, they would tell the travelers and sojourners in the desert how far and where the next water or favorable place to lay up was.  When the first trappers and explorers came through the tribes freely told how to read the monuments.  They pretty well left the system alone.  Then came the miners and the settlers who were just traveling through.  Sadly they destroyed those markers rather than using them.  Not so much to the detriment of the native people - who knew well the country.  But very hard for those who came into this vast region.  The great basin is not an easy place to travel even today if you can't read the roadmap....   

[Redoverfarm]

This should shed some light into the bent tree theory. 

http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2013/12/indian-trail-trees.html

[MountainDon]

    thanks  John

[Redoverfarm]

Dogtrot & Redoverfarm gained a new mascot. " Zoey " After loosing a blue heeler this summer this is her replacement. 

[MountainDon]

   good looking pup

[rick91351]

John can't find the like button.....  So