Blown Away

So, lots done in the past month. First, I've continued to work on siding the wall above the garage. In order to do this I had to install part of the stove vent system. While most homes have the standard over the range vent hood with built in fan I went a slightly different route. I'm using a exterior mounted blower. This puts the fan outside the house so the only noise to be heard is the actual air movement. Here is a picture of the attractive aluminum housing mounted to the outside of the house. Yes, I plan on building a box to cover it so it doesn't stand out quite so much.

Of course like most of the stuff I do its "industrial sized". The blower is rated at 900 cfm and hooks up using a 10" duct. For you non-engineering types out there here is a little comparison. Most bathroom fans are 50 to 100 cfm (that's cubic feet per minute), and most peoples vent hoods are in the 250 cfm range with a 6" duct attached to it. So, yep, this sucker (ha ha) could pull you right up the exhaust duct if you get too close. Here I demonstrate what that might look like.

Now you probably wondering what the heck I need fan like that for. Well, I've always loved the range top that Mom and Dad built into their house with 4 burners and the griddle in the middle. In fact I had even thought about taking it out and using it. But I figured sense I am putting a propane tank in for the heating system I might as well use it for cooking as well. So I started looking for a good deal on a range top and finally found an awesome deal on Craig's list for a Viking 36" top like this. Mine has a flat griddle not the grill.

Of course this means I had to have a hood to match. I found the best way was to use an exterior blower like above ducted down into a nice hood. So I bought the blower so I could finish the siding. Then just over the weekend I found a matching stainless hood to go over it. Thanks again Craig's list. Yep, should be a nice looking kitchen.

After finishing the siding I pulled all the scaffolding down so now the house is looking like this. Some of you observant people might also notice the big pile of scrap lumber is missing. My neighbor Ken has been needing firewood so I told him if wanted to load the bucket on the tractor I would dump it in his yard. 5 trips up and down the driveway and no more pile of scrap.

Last but not least I went to an auction. Those of you who know my family well can stop rolling your eyes now. The auction was a design and decor company that went bankrupt. Of course I came back with a full pickup truck (those of you that know my family history are now saying "Of course you did!!"). So what did I buy? Besides a few tools, tile, lots of tile. Travertine, ceramic, slate, tumbled marble, pebble stone,accents, etc. I really did not realize how much I got until the truck was loaded. Towards the end I was almost chucking the stuff in the back so I could get out of there before they closed the doors (I didn't want to go back as the auction 100 miles north in Burlington). When I finished the back of the truck looked like a low rider sitting 3 to 4 inches lower than normal. I figure I had about 3000+ pounds of tile in the back. Here is what it looked like before I unloaded it.

And here is what 2 of the 5 pallets looked like after I unloaded it (with help from Steve). There are some odds and ends but also a lot of usable square footage. I should be able to do all of my bathrooms and kitchen with a lot left over. We figured I ended up with $15,000+ of tile for about $300. Pretty good deal, huh! If I had spent twice as much money I could have come home with 4 times more tile but I didn't want make that many trips and have to load and unload it.

Well, that gets you up to date for now.

PS: hi to Karen B and all my New York fans.