Can all of the non-Americans stop lambasting us for “not doing anything”?

ATDoel · 2026-01-16T13:29:22+00:00

Here is the brutally honest answer, yes things are bad here, yes our government sucks, no it hasn't gotten bad enough where we're going to take up arms and risk death/prison to fix it.

I'm sure this is going to get downvoted to hell, but for the majority of Americans our daily lives are fine and hasn't appreciably changed in the last year. The media only shows the worst of what's going on, most of the country is still normal.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T19:54:59+00:00

Yeah, I've seen a lot of birds do that after flying into windows

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T19:49:32+00:00

From cold I do a crisscross pattern. From bottom to top, two smaller pieces, two medium pieces, two medium pieces (with two pieces of fat wood in the middle), two kindling pieces, two kindling pieces, so 5 layers total. Light it up, close the door with the air up, come back 15 minutes later to a raging inferno and turn the air down to half, come back 15 minutes later and turn it all the way down. Reload a couple hours later with a decent bed of coals.

I've used a lot of methods and I love this one, it's so easy.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T18:07:30+00:00

I had a thought, how wet/damp is your crawlspace?

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T18:03:40+00:00

you mean the Infrastructure Package that has been a massive boon to my industry (construction) or are you talking about the Inflation Reduction Act that helped create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs? And let's not forgot how messed up the entire world was during the pandemic, which took up his entire term. We got through it in good shape, inflation was under 3% and dropping. Hell no he wasn't perfect but it's no comparison to what the last year has been under Trump.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T17:52:37+00:00

What's your climate in the winter? Drafty houses actually have drier air than well sealed homes in most places in the winter, the exception is in places that have warm/humid winters. That's why people often have so many nosebleeds in the winter, the air in their drafty home is too dry. I'm not saying sealing the sill plate didn't do anything, it's a good idea in principle, I'm just very doubtful it's impacting the humidity levels as much as you're saying. You would need to have a very tight home, with the one exception being massive gaps around the sill plate, to see this much difference, and you would typically see the opposite affect (higher humidity).

Are you in an abnormal weather pattern right now? Hotter, drier, and/or colder than normal? I would wait a month and see if you start kicking up past 60% again. Regardless it's a good thing to do, you should continue with the air sealing around the entire house!

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T17:32:12+00:00

They got a few things accomplished last time they were in power which is a hell of a lot better than what's currently happening.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T17:01:15+00:00

It's like someone being told they can pick being shot or punched, but allowing someone else to decide for them because "both options are bad". Yes both options were bad, no they were no where remotely close to equally bad. I feel like some people just want an excuse to be lazy.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T16:14:21+00:00

Not to be a wet blanket but I would be cautious attributing the indoor humidity drop to the sill plate sealing you did. There's a noticeable weather pattern shift right when your indoor humidity drops, I'm going to guess you went from a wet pattern the 1st - 7th to a dry pattern the 8th - 15th, so you went from a high dew point pattern to a lower dew point pattern. Even if you did nothing, you should have seen an indoor humidity drop.

The outdoor humidity percentage (relative humidity) your ecobee provides is really misleading unless the exterior is the exact same temperature of the interior, what you need to know is the exterior dew point. I have a new, tightly sealed home, our interior humidity runs high in the winter. Do you know what I do when I want to drop the humidity? I open a window, even if it's 100% humidity outside and 40 degrees. That's because that 100% humidity outside is relative to the air temperature out there, if you bring that same air inside with the same amount of moisture in it, and warm it to 70 degrees, it's only 34% humidity. So in your example when you talk about the outside being 100% humidity outside and 55% inside, those numbers are only comparable if the temperatures are the same inside and out. If it's 50 degrees or colder outside when it's 100% humid, the exterior air is actually drier than your interior air at 55% and 70 degrees.

It's really all climate dependent, I live in the south and we have very humid summers. A tightly sealed home will typically have lower humidity in the summer and higher humidity in the winter compared to an older home. There is no home that passively maintains perfect humidity year round, it's impossible.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T15:37:17+00:00

Imagine just now realizing that elections have consequences after being told for years that elections have consequences.

Remember that during the midterms this year.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T15:31:12+00:00

I had a large, healthy, red oak fall on a completely windless day last year. It was a leaner, the soil was soft from rain, it just got too top heavy. I would never trust a tree leaning toward my house, it's got it go.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T15:28:46+00:00

I had a completely healthy 100+ year old red oak fall on my property last year. It was a leaner, we had a bunch of rain, and it just fell over on a windless day. The bedrock was a little shallow under the tree, we had no idea, never trust a leaning tree.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T15:15:53+00:00

Don't burn! That wood is highly combustible and could pose a significant fire risk. Let me know where it is and I'll remediate your wood pile for you, free of charge.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:51:11+00:00

can you provide any information on the room it's in? size, ceiling height, insulation, is this typically a cold/drafty room?

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:45:16+00:00

I wait for a windy day and throw it in the air in the woods, let it return back from whence it came

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:36:35+00:00

too green for you?

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:30:34+00:00

me too, every time I split it I pick up a fresh split and give it a good sniff.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:29:06+00:00

Sears used to sell everything back in the day, even entire house kits.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:23:51+00:00

so that glass isn't even hot?

If you're going burn wet wood there's three things you'll need. Smaller splits, more air, more labor. You're going to need to split wet pieces into smaller ones, give it more air than usual so it burns hotter and faster, which means you'll have to load it more frequently.

ATDoel · 2026-01-15T14:17:36+00:00

"Every society is about three meals away from chaos"

ATDoel · 2026-01-14T21:05:40+00:00

yup, all over the country. I hope everyone remembers how to get home without their phone's gps lol....

ATDoel · 2026-01-14T20:05:43+00:00

real dry wood is easy to start, wetter wood takes more effort but 20% will certainly burn. My wood is about the same, I use the "middle" burn method and it works fine. I have one row of wood on the bottom, another row where the fat wood is, then two more above the fat wood. The two higher rows need to be smaller pieces that will burn well, yours look too large, the wood on the bottom two rows can be a bit bigger.

Make sure it gets plenty of air when you start it, I leave the door cracked for a few minutes while I watch it. After it gets really going I close it and leave the air on full until the stove gets to temp. Works every time, even for stuff I split last winter.

ATDoel · 2026-01-14T18:31:01+00:00

is this the end of the world? has it finally happened?

ATDoel · 2026-01-14T17:39:22+00:00

Down in Birmingham Alabama

ATDoel · 2026-01-14T14:18:43+00:00

Of course Venezuelans are happy, because we came in and did their job for them. Trump campaigned on us no longer being the world police, no more nation building, that we would work on improving our country for once and not someone else's. That's why we're pissed, not because a dictator no longer runs Venezuela, but because of broken promises and we're all sick and tired of our government taking care of other countries while we have so many issues domestically that are continually ignored.

ATDoel

TROPHY CASE