whowey
07-24-2009, 07:07 PM
Things are EXTREMELY slow in the heavy construction industry this year and we have been taking short day and furloughs as a cost cutting measure.
I have been taking some maintence jobs on some local farms to help keep the bills payed. Overall its been good to be back on farms doing work for local farmers. Alot of the local guys can't afford to have extra hands around to do maintence work, or don't need someone full-time so this works out well.
I have done ALOT of brake work and wheel bearing work.. its almost I can see them in my sleep :D
A local dairy family lost their house to an electrical fire last winter and has had a fairly rough go of things since that point. Well, their air compressor for their milking system let go and they were in DEEP trouble. They attend a church in our area.. and this is how I came to be involved.
Someone at their church lent them a spare air compressor to get them able to milk again and at least generate some kind of income. An electrican/plumber that attended the same church wired and plumbed it in so it was good to go. But he warned them that the electrical system in their barn was woefully inadequite and the plumbing was a mess.
So their church held a secret fund raiser for them and raised $2500 for them. Someone from that church knew me, or knew my wife and said something to the priest at my wife's church.
I was called by the priest asking me if I would be interested in doing some replumbing and rewiring of their barn and some other maintence jobs to get their farm back in shape and help get this family back on the right path. Its hard enough to tell the local priest no, let alone when you don't attend Mass and your wife and kids do....
So I went out to their farm about 5 weeks ago to get a better handle on the situation.... IT WAS THE BIGGEST FREAKING DISASTER I HAVE EVER SEEN... If we had ever let our dairy get in this condition my ancestors would have risen from their graves and beaten us senseless. I was amazed the USDA hadn't pulled their permits to milk.... The condition of the buildings and equipment was deplorable.... Open circuit boxes.. pipes broken off and not capped.. the A/C was totally inadequate for the milk house, etc.,etc.,etc.
I contacted the priest and let him know I would repair as much as I could, but that the money they raised wasn't going to be enough to pay for everything these folks needed.
The wiring was just a mess.. it had been spliced and patched and cut and spliced and patched in so many places I ended up having to re-string the entire barn lighting system. I found alot of spots where the coating had worn off the wire and had made small burns in the beams and boards. Every single one had the potential of burning that barn to the ground.
The fuse box was the same way... almost 200 amps of electricity being pulled through a box orginally intended for 60 amps at most. The fuse that ran to the air compressor had burned out so someone wrapped in tin foil and screwed in back into the box. When that didnt work... they took a chunk of bare copper wire and jumpered past the fuse completely.
So after 3 weeks of 3 evenings a week and three Saturdays.. The electrical is finished.
I started checking the air-system by pressurizing it and looking for leaks.. or I should have said... trying to pressurize it. Seemingly every junction leaked.. And with 2 or 3 hours of pressurizing every day of the week without a line dryer, there were more than a fair number of leaks in the piping. So much of the piping had to be replaced...
So after 2 weeks of 3 evenings a week and 1 Saturday and Sunday. The air system has no leaks I can find... I fired up the air compressor.. it ran about 10 minutes and the unloader pops and the compressor goes into the idle mode. The owner of the farm asks what is wrong with the compressor, cause he has never heard it do that..... :sniper:
I haul his air compressor out of the barn and to his shop. Which is a 36x36 block building with 14 foot high ceilings having 12 foot doors. Which he cannot even get a car into.. because both bays are completely full of dead equipment, piles of parts, tools laying everywhere, etc., etc. This compressor has to sit about four foot inside the door as that is all the room there is.. the workbench I have is a sheet of 3/4 plywood set ontop of some old oil drums that were in there. The electric motor spins fine.. even with a bearing toasted in it. but the compressor itself is locked up so badly I cant even spin it with a 4 foot pipe wrench and my fat old 240lbs. jumping on the handle... I stuck my finger into the crankcase on the compressor and got dust on the end of my finger... there isnt even oil sludge in there...
So I get to spend this weekend tearing down the compressor to see if it can be saved... The churches are rapidly approaching the $2500 this stupid job paid.... Ohh.. and if the female half of the ownership team says one more time "jesus must have sent you to us"..I am going to bash her skull in with a pipe wrench...
I have been taking some maintence jobs on some local farms to help keep the bills payed. Overall its been good to be back on farms doing work for local farmers. Alot of the local guys can't afford to have extra hands around to do maintence work, or don't need someone full-time so this works out well.
I have done ALOT of brake work and wheel bearing work.. its almost I can see them in my sleep :D
A local dairy family lost their house to an electrical fire last winter and has had a fairly rough go of things since that point. Well, their air compressor for their milking system let go and they were in DEEP trouble. They attend a church in our area.. and this is how I came to be involved.
Someone at their church lent them a spare air compressor to get them able to milk again and at least generate some kind of income. An electrican/plumber that attended the same church wired and plumbed it in so it was good to go. But he warned them that the electrical system in their barn was woefully inadequite and the plumbing was a mess.
So their church held a secret fund raiser for them and raised $2500 for them. Someone from that church knew me, or knew my wife and said something to the priest at my wife's church.
I was called by the priest asking me if I would be interested in doing some replumbing and rewiring of their barn and some other maintence jobs to get their farm back in shape and help get this family back on the right path. Its hard enough to tell the local priest no, let alone when you don't attend Mass and your wife and kids do....
So I went out to their farm about 5 weeks ago to get a better handle on the situation.... IT WAS THE BIGGEST FREAKING DISASTER I HAVE EVER SEEN... If we had ever let our dairy get in this condition my ancestors would have risen from their graves and beaten us senseless. I was amazed the USDA hadn't pulled their permits to milk.... The condition of the buildings and equipment was deplorable.... Open circuit boxes.. pipes broken off and not capped.. the A/C was totally inadequate for the milk house, etc.,etc.,etc.
I contacted the priest and let him know I would repair as much as I could, but that the money they raised wasn't going to be enough to pay for everything these folks needed.
The wiring was just a mess.. it had been spliced and patched and cut and spliced and patched in so many places I ended up having to re-string the entire barn lighting system. I found alot of spots where the coating had worn off the wire and had made small burns in the beams and boards. Every single one had the potential of burning that barn to the ground.
The fuse box was the same way... almost 200 amps of electricity being pulled through a box orginally intended for 60 amps at most. The fuse that ran to the air compressor had burned out so someone wrapped in tin foil and screwed in back into the box. When that didnt work... they took a chunk of bare copper wire and jumpered past the fuse completely.
So after 3 weeks of 3 evenings a week and three Saturdays.. The electrical is finished.
I started checking the air-system by pressurizing it and looking for leaks.. or I should have said... trying to pressurize it. Seemingly every junction leaked.. And with 2 or 3 hours of pressurizing every day of the week without a line dryer, there were more than a fair number of leaks in the piping. So much of the piping had to be replaced...
So after 2 weeks of 3 evenings a week and 1 Saturday and Sunday. The air system has no leaks I can find... I fired up the air compressor.. it ran about 10 minutes and the unloader pops and the compressor goes into the idle mode. The owner of the farm asks what is wrong with the compressor, cause he has never heard it do that..... :sniper:
I haul his air compressor out of the barn and to his shop. Which is a 36x36 block building with 14 foot high ceilings having 12 foot doors. Which he cannot even get a car into.. because both bays are completely full of dead equipment, piles of parts, tools laying everywhere, etc., etc. This compressor has to sit about four foot inside the door as that is all the room there is.. the workbench I have is a sheet of 3/4 plywood set ontop of some old oil drums that were in there. The electric motor spins fine.. even with a bearing toasted in it. but the compressor itself is locked up so badly I cant even spin it with a 4 foot pipe wrench and my fat old 240lbs. jumping on the handle... I stuck my finger into the crankcase on the compressor and got dust on the end of my finger... there isnt even oil sludge in there...
So I get to spend this weekend tearing down the compressor to see if it can be saved... The churches are rapidly approaching the $2500 this stupid job paid.... Ohh.. and if the female half of the ownership team says one more time "jesus must have sent you to us"..I am going to bash her skull in with a pipe wrench...