Daily Archives: June 23, 2012

Keep the Stimulus Bill Green | Bedford Hills NY Homes

The buzz around the nation is that the Senate may vote on the economic stimulus bill as early as this evening. The legislation currently includes a clean energy financing initiative, which, according to NPR, “would provide loan guarantees and other measures to encourage the private sector to invest billions of dollars in green energy.”

Some senators are trying to cut funding for clean energy investments from the bill, however. President Obama put more pressure on Congress earlier today to pass the bill, so with time running out, it’s imperative that we speak up in support of clean energy technology, which will stimulate the economy by creating green jobs and reduce global warming in the process.

Use the Senate website to find your senators’ phone numbers, and call them now to encourage them to keep the stimulus green.

Testing Creosote-Removing Devices | Bedford NY Homes

Creosote, the unburned material that settles out of wood smoke and accumulates in stoves and chimneys, plagues everyone who heats with wood. Whether you’re worried about the possible danger of a chimney (and, perhaps, house) fire, the detrimental effects that a clogged stovepipe might have on your heater’s performance, corrosion of the metal in the flue, the inconvenience and/or expense of chimney cleaning or simply the bad odor and — when there are leaks in the pipe — the mess caused by such accumulations, you’d no doubt like to know as much as you can about how to minimize creosote buildup.

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Consequently, MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Shelton Energy Research have entered into a cooperative research project to test three devices which, it’s claimed, reduce the rate of accumulation of creosote. In this issue we’ll discuss some of the options open to concerned wood-stove owners and describe the research project that’s now underway.

Creosote Accumulation

The potential for creosote accumulation arises when unburned materials in the flue gases — including vapors, tar mist and soot particles resulting from incomplete combustion — pass through the chimney. As the gases cool, the unburned materials can adhere to the chimney walls. The process is complicated, however, by the fact that creosote has no single chemical composition, appearance, density or ignition temperature. Some of its common forms are tar, flakes, slag, soot and liquid.

The safest and most reliable way to insure that creosote accumulations don’t become thick enough to cause trouble is to inspect the chimney regularly, and then clean it when necessary. After a stove is first installed, the flue should be checked every week. Then, if the accumulation rate proves to be slow, the frequency of inspection can be reduced. The chimney should be swept whenever the deposits exceed 1/4 inch in thickness.

Chemical chimney cleaners have long been touted as quick, easy, inexpensive and reliable reducers or eliminators of creosote. During recent testing, however, it was shown that if chemical chimney cleaners work at all, they work only occasionally. Hence, they can’t be relied on to always keep creosote levels safe.

Another technique that’s commonly suggested for controlling creosote is to burn an intentional short, hot fire every day or two. The result of such a practice is either a small (and therefore supposedly relatively safe) chimney fire or — more often — a drying and flaking of the thin tar-like layer with the particles either falling or being blown out the flue. However, it’s vital that there be only very thin creosote deposits present when this procedure is used, and only frequent inspections can establish that fact.

How to Pick the Right Chicken Coop | Pound Ridge NY Homes

Picture this:  you’ve decided to add chickens to your backyard or homestead.  You’re up to speed on basic healthcare and anatomy, and you think you know what chickens need to be happy.  Now comes the big job – deciding how you’re going to house them.

Once you start down the road of choosing a style of coop for your new flock, you quickly discover there are as many plans and opinions about plans as there are chickens in the world.  OK, I exaggerate, but honestly, it feels like it at first.

There’s the traditional coop and run, chicken tractors, pastured poultry pens, and paddock systems.  And each one of those has countless different styles and systems to choose from.  It’s exhausting work to figure out what’s going to work for your ‘girls’ (and maybe boys too), especially if you’ve never raised chickens before.

So how do you figure out the best plan for your new flock?  It’s actually quite simple when you use a system.  So I thought I’d share with you the process I went through to help me evaluate the best housing choice for our flock of 15.

Questions to Ask

Not every chicken coop plan is going to be suitable for your specific situation, so you’ll need to ask yourself a few questions before you even start looking at plans (trust me – this will save you a ton of time later):

  1. How many birds will I have eventually?  You might start out with only 5 hens, but what if you want to expand your flock in a year or two, or add a rooster?  You don’t want to have to start over or be renovating a coop with a flock living in it.  At the very minimum, the ‘average’ full grown chicken needs 7.5 square feet (each) between outdoor and indoor space its if it’s penned all the time, and 3 square feet each if free ranging regularly.  Larger breeds need a minimum of 10 square feet penned and 4 square feet if normally free ranging, and bantams 5 square feet penned and 2 square feet free range.  They need less space in their secure sleeping area than their ‘day space’, but this would be an average.  Keep in mind this is the minimum.  Overcrowding of birds can cause not only social problems (pecking and fighting, and the resultant injuries you’ll then have to deal with), but creates a situation ripe for disease transmission as well.  Make sure your birds have enough space!
  2. What breed will be living in your coop/run?  Different species do well in different conditions, so birds that require more space for optimum health are not going to do well in more confined spaces.  Be sure to look into the requirements for the birds you’ll be adding to your flock.  Most books and many of the top websites on the topic will have all this information for you.  Try backyardchickens.com for all sorts of info about breeds and coops.
  3. What’s the topography of your property?  Our 6+ acres are hilly and mostly forested – not so good for portable rolling pens.  If you’ve got a flat property, it definitely increases your options.
  4. Do you have room near the house to create your chicken housing?  Well, not right beside your house, but if you live in an area with predators (and many of us do), you’ll want to be within earshot of the chickens so you’ll be awake and aware should something with teeth go marauding in the dead of night.  Some people claim you can leave chickens for days if they have the right housing, but that’s just not something I’d advise if you’re surrounded by big, opportunistic predators (yes, even if you’ve got a livestock dog).
  5. What sorts of predators live in your area?  This will dictate how secure your housing will have to be.  We have weasels, raccoons, fishers, coyotes, bears and cougars to be concerned about, not to mention flying predators like red tailed hawks and ravens.  Lots of coop plans have external doors for accessing the nest boxes – in our case, we decided against that style, as it would have made it easier pickin’s for the resident black bears (they’re weirdly dexterous with their mouths and paws).  You’ll also see a lot of plans with open flooring so the poop falls through into some sort of collection space – apparently this reduces cleaning requirements, but it would not be at all safe in our neck of the woods, as any guage of wire mesh that would be big enough to let feces fall through would also allow the resident weasels an open door to our hens and rooster.  I don’t think so…  Plus the idea of the birds having to walk on wire just seems wrong to me.
  6. What’s your budget?  You can spend $2000 on a fancy coop with all the bells and whistles, or you can convert an existing building for $100 or less.  We built a sturdy, predator-proof coop for around $200, plus another $100 for water founts, feeders and a rubber trough.  But we had our own lumber and shingles and used many re-purposed building materials (concrete board, trailer trusses, roosts, windows).  The only thing we had to buy was some of the hardware cloth and chicken wire, and all the hinges and locks, as well as the linoleum for the floor.  Be sure to make note of all the costs so there are no surprises part way through the project.
  7. Do you have access to reused materials?  This will save you a lot of money, but will potentially add a lot of time to your project.  Plus you’ll want to make sure the re-used materials are clean and that they’ll keep your birds safe from predators.  Free materials aren’t a very good deal if you lose your birds, but they can make your coop unique and will pull some materials out of the waste stream that might otherwise have gone to landfill (or languished in someone’s shed for decades).
  8. Do you want a pre-designed plan, to customize a plan according to your own needs, or buy a pre-built coop?  This will obviously depend on your budget, how much time you have available, and how good your constructions skills are.  The fastest option is to buy a pre-built unit, but that may not suit your specific situation, nor your budget.  If you choose to build your own, be sure to assess (realistically) how much time it will take and if you have that available to build an adquate shelter for your birds.  If not, consider getting some help.  Especially if your birds are on their way… 😉

Answering these questions honestly will provide a solid base for you to evaluate all those funky, stylin’ coop plans you’ve bookmarked.

Evaluate the Plans

Now, grab a cup of your favorite beverage and go through all those websites and chicken-raising books using these worksheets I put together to help you evaluate your favorite plans:

The worksheet will help you evaluate all the various options – a ‘winner’ should become clear pretty quickly.  It may be that you have to tweak as you go.  It may be that you have to substitute some materials for others that you have available.  But if you’ve done the work, you’ll end up with a housing system that will work for your property, your lifestyle, and your birds.  And that means you’ll enjoy your chicken-raising adventure so much more than if you build a coop that’s not right for your specific situation and you spend the next year cursing it.

And remember, you can always come over to the Facebook page and ask questions of all our chicken-raising experts there!  Here are some of our readers’ chicken coops, for inspiration… (click here for the slideshow)

Do you have any advice to share on finding the right chicken coop plan?  Let us know in the comments below.  Your advice may just help someone keep their girls safe and sound – and happy!

Living Without Electricity | Bedford Corners NY Homes

Five years ago my husband (Scott) and I purchased 31 acres in the Ozarks, and immediately started working toward the lifestyle that we had long been fantasizing about and planning for.

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We bought our land with the full knowledge that we would be living without electricity, unable to hook up to a power company’s grid. A national wilderness area borders us on three sides, you see, and the nearest electrical pole on the property’s accessible side is more than a mile away. Furthermore, there are numerous vertical rock ledges and a year-round stream between our home and that lone pole … and we would never consider destroying the beauty of the glades and brook with a big, cleared powerline right-of-way!

Unnecessary Conveniences

One and a half years after our land purchase, Scott and I moved into an octagonal, square-beamed home that we’d built ourselves … with hand tools. And just before that happy event, we had an electrical-appliance garage sale … during which we parted with our television, iron, hair dryer, toaster, blender, and various other gadgets we’ve long since forgotten (and haven’t missed).

Now you probably wonder how we get along without such “conveniences.” Well, it’s not complicated at all: We’ve replaced electricity with kerosene, propane gas, wood, a car battery, and the heating and cooling properties of the thermal mass in our house.

Mantle-type Aladdin kerosene lanterns provide us with illumination for evening reading and work, for instance. Five of these — two in the living room and three in the kitchen — give off plenty of white light (which is also easy on our eyes when we’re doing close work). Throughout the rest of the house, standard kerosene wick lamps produce a soothing yellow glow. Our lighting system probably isn’t any less expensive than electrical lamps would be, but it does create a mellower atmosphere and isn’t subject to the potential brownouts and blackouts (and pricing whims) of a power company.

During the day our many windows and two skylights provide plenty of light, since — when we designed the house — we were careful to base the placement of the openings on the daily and seasonal positions of the sun. The kitchen (which is the most important room for us) stays bright and cheerful all day long as a result of its southwestern exposure. And there isn’t any problem with excessive summer heat buildup, because our home is nestled in the trees, and their leaves filter the sun during the intensely hot months.

Lending Standards Give an Inch with Miles to Go | Chappaqua NY Homes

Lending standards for purchase mortgages have eased slightly since January but not nearly enough to stop renewed criticism that high standards are impairing demand.

Ellie Mae’s May Origination Insight Report confirms that median FICO scores and loan-to-value ratios for purchase loans have loosened up one to four points since last August.  Ratios for refis have risen even more, hitting 80 for the first time in the Ellie Mae tracking data.

However, more progress has been made on refinancings than purchase loans.  “The increase appeared to be driven by an easing of LTVs on conventional refinances (the average LTV was 72% in May compared to 69% in April). Last month, closed conventional refinances with LTVs of 95%-plus jumped to 11%, up from 7.1% in April and 3.6% in March, which may be a sign that HARP 2.0 is helping more borrowers,” said Jonathan Corr, chief operating officer of Ellie Mae.  The Origination Insight Report mines its application data from a sampling of approximately 33 percent of all mortgage applications that were initiated on the Ellie Mae’s Encompass origination platform.

Progress is too slow for critics.  A survey released by Coldwell Banker today found that 45 percent of renters believe they will be forced to wait because they cannot qualify for a mortgage and/or don’t have sufficient funds for a down payment.  In its May Existing Home Sales Report, also released today, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors listed tight credit among the causes contributing to a 1.5 percent decline in sales.

“The recovery is occurring despite excessively tight credit conditions and higher down payment requirements, which are negating the impact of record high affordability conditions,” said Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

However Yun placed most of the blame on tight demand. “The slight pullback in monthly home sales is more likely due to supply constraints rather than softening demand. The normal seasonal upturn in inventory did not occur this spring,” he said. “Even with the monthly decline, home sales have moved markedly higher with 11 consecutive months of gains over the same month a year earlier.”

How Negative Equity Drives up Prices | Armonk NY Homes

Negative equity, which is the result of homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, has always been viewed as a detriment to the housing economy because it freezes owners in their homes and makes them liable to foreclosure.

At a panel today at the National Association of Realtors conference, Zillow’s chief economist put a different spin on negative equity.

Stan Humphries argued that current market conditions, when inventories are at record lows and negative equity afflicts 31.4 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage, negative equity is not only diminishing demand it is also further reducing the available supply of homes for sale by making it impossible for owners to sell without taking a loss.

Lower inventories lead to price increases and at some point values rise sufficiently to move number of owners above water, and making it possible for them to sell, resulting in a temporary increase in inventories.  Prices might plateau temporarily until demand reduces inventories again and prices resume their climb.  The result is a “staircase” rather than a “u-shaped” recovery, Humphries said.  This scenario is most likely in middle to lower tiered priced housing markets.

During the panel on the economic outlook, Lawrence Yun from the National Association of Realtors said due to current conditions he has raised his for forecast and expects median prices to rise ten percent on an annual basis a year from now.

Yun said a reduction in distress sale market share from one-third of the market to 15 percent or less has contributed more to increases in median prices and actual appreciation.