• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

My outbuilding burned down!

jason380

jason380

Husqvarna
AA Class
Hey guys I'm posting as a bit of a "heads up". I had a fire in my outbuilding a couple of weeks ago. I'm the type of person that has too many projects and the building was home to my Audi spares, DR350 project bike and parts bike, SV650 parts, and of course the usual things like a power washer, garden tractor, chain saws, etc. Luckily I keep my nice bikes in the garage and the only thing I lost from the WR125 project was the rear wheel. It was about 12x12 and burned completely to the ground in about 45 minutes and that's with the fire dept showing up in about 10 minutes. It got so hot that hubs melted to puddles and the aluminum ladder was nowhere to be found. The moral of the story here is that none of the bikes, bike parts, or car parts were covered by homeowners insurance. They would require separate policies. I'm thankful nobody was hurt and it didn't get our house, but it's a tough lesson to learn. There were rare Audi parts that took me years to gather. The DR project was nearly done; I have a new piston, big bore cylinder, freshened head, FCR carb, and DRZ fork swap all in the garage ready to go on. So please check your policies and insure your expensive parts and bikes!
 
The building also housed a Taylor Waterstove. It's a wood burning stove that heats water which is pumped into the house for heat. The stove doesn't get hot externally--the water inside is heated to 180 but the stove is cool to the touch due to the insulation. It was a very windy day a coal must have got blown somewhere without me seeing it. I didn't like the idea of the stove there but it was there when we bought the house and was the main heat supply and had been there for 10 years prior with no problems. My insurance agent made sure it was covered, but told me they no longer cover any building with a wood stove. I've been planning to build a nice 30x50 shop and I will definitely not be using a wood stove although that is what most people in this area have for heat in their garages and shops.
 
I have heard a few stories of sheds & houses burning down as a result of an overheated trickle charger. For those that don't believe it, checkout youtube and see for yourself.
 
Jason,
I feel your pain, as I read your story I thought about my 16x 24 2 story out back at my home....It houses my fleet and a storehouse off old GS Suzuki prts and my snap on tool set. I've used a propane unit for the last few years and I don't know how expensive it would be for that 30x50 but its ome good heat noe...or even a newer heat pump, some are very efficient....We had a loss some years back and upped the level of coverages,todays replacement coveragesthis does cost more but the difference is in your favor ....
Rod
 
Thanks for the thoughts everyone. It's a tough lesson, but it could have been worse so I am thankful. I am now heating our home with propane which was the backup heat and man, it's expensive. I'm weighing the cost of natural gas (2500' to the nearest meter), geothermal (pays for itself in about 5-10 years), or a more modern outdoor wood boiler (I have acreage with a good wood supply). I'd like to plan on a system that could also be used to heat that big shop I have planned and I think the boiler would be best for that since I could run piping in the slab and have a nice, toasty floor. I'm unsure if I could use the geothermal system to heat the shop as well, but I have a professional coming out this week to assess my current setup and give me an estimate. I know I could also use the gas to heat my home and shop, but that is the only one out of the group that will always have a monthly bill and it's hard to say what the future holds for gas prices. Ahh...decisions, decisions.
 
Sorry to hear about your loss things like that really suck. About the water furnace, couldn't you put a new one away from your home and new shed so that wouldn't happen again? I am a home builder and the geothermal heat systems are great but $$$$$ and by the time you should start to see a return on you investment the units need replacing. Check with people who have had them 10/15 plus years. An alternative to heat pump only would be heat pump with gas backup. Good luck.
 
Sorry for your losses but as you said thankful for no further damage. One thing about it there is an ample supply of natural gas in WV. The prices have dropped some on account of all the drilling. Good luck man.
 
More thanks, everyone. HuskyTaylor, thanks for responding. The geothermal sites don't tell you that part! That definitely makes the natural gas seem like a better option. If I go with another boiler/waterstove I'll likely put it in the same place, but the area I have planned for the new shop is on the opposite side of the house. With 2 Audis, Suzuki Bandit 1200, wife's Suzuki GS500, 02 Suzuki SV 650 project, Husky WR 125, and KTM 380 a little 12x12 building and 2 car garage just won't cut it. So I really need to build this 30x50 shop. The only problem with that is I'd have to run the lines from the stove about 150-200' out to the shop.
WVdag, thanks. I hear you about the natural gas. It angers me somewhat because I can see 3 large wells in the distance from my ridgetop home. They emit a glow at night as they burn off excess which they say would be enough to provide the entire county with free gas for a long time. I think we are really being taken advantage of here in WV as far as exploitation of natural resources goes, but that's another topic. :) The first quote we got from the company to run a new line for gas was $125,000. We were blown away of course--I could move my house closer to the freakin meter for less than that! After talking with a supervisor it turns out it may be more like 10-20k but I think I can do it for less if I dig the ditch and pull the line. We shall see.
 
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