It was in the 70’s two days ago and even yesterday morning was pleasant. Yesterday afternoon however a storm blew in and for much of the evening it was blizzard conditions here. By the time it all ended at mid day today we had 10-15” of wet, heavy snow on the ground.
How do I know it was “heavy”? Well about 3/4 of the way through snow blowing the driveway the snow blower quit. Not the motor but the wheels and the auger. Seems as if there is a little $0.50 plastic piece that keeps the control cables for the wheel drive and auger in the exact spot it needs to be to have the proper tension to work…..that broke.
That unfortunate breakage meant that I had to do the rest of the job manually. I haven’t done that in a while and the last time I did do it, the snow was our standard Colorado champagne powder which is exceedingly light and easy to move…if it’s not 3 feet deep.
My normal thorough and neat job….wasn’t today. I did the bare minimum to get by and I still think I’ll be a little sore tomorrow morning.
Now back to the snow blower. I pulled out the parts diagram and called Sears to see about ordering a replacement. The good news is that I can. The bad news is I can’t just get the $0.50 part but have to buy $30.00 worth of other parts to get that tiny little plastic part! While I’m pretty peeved about that there was no doubt in my mind that I would spend that much if I had to to get the snow blower back in operation. Before I called the parts center I checked all the miscellaneous junk I have in the basement trying to figure a way to jerry rig a fix and to my disappointment could not come up with a plan. So Sears has now got my $30.
The roads were so bad around here this morning that I decided to drive The Emmer to work. I’m glad I did because it was pretty slick at 5:30 am. Heavy wet snow is a different driving experience than champagne powder and The Emmer doesn’t have experience in the heavy wet stuff. The snow stopped and the sun came out right about noon and as of now (3pm) the main streets are clear and dry. Some of the side streets have a bit of snow left but that’s melting fast.
I mentioned that the weather yesterday morning was fair and pleasant and it was. I decided to go down to the RV storage lot and check the progress on the solar system upgrades I mentioned in my last post. They were just in process of finishing the last part of the job and everything looks great. I’ll report more on that at a later date.
The other reason for going to the RV lot was to replace some of the light bulbs in the trailer. I’ve got quite a few lights in this trailer and while that’s a good thing for being able to see, the light bulbs use a lot of power and put out a lot of heat. I’ve been investigating the possibility of replacing the incandescent and halogen bulbs with LED light sources. LED bulbs use very little power, produce almost no heat and last a very long time.
The picture to the right is one of the LEDs that I used. It goes in a recessed light fixture and produces almost the same amount of light as the halogen bulb that is currently in the fixture. It’s a simple swap out of bulbs so it’s an easy project.
I replaced four bulbs yesterday and if I’m happy with them I will replace all the rest of the bulbs both inside and outside the trailer with LEDs.
Thanks for visiting.
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