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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Birb And Breakfast

Birb And Breakfast

by | 93 Comments

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Had a very busy day. Gerald and I cleaned and organized the basement and threw out a bunch of stuff and put “FREE” signs on them so people will get them out of my life, discovered a couple places on the foundation that need a new coat of drylock, discovered the new furnace is leaking water so we called them up to have them come back and fix that, and so on. Also on the agenda was finalizing the Birb and Breakfast accommodations for my feathered friends on the back deck.

We have secured a heated bird bath to the corner of the deck, and now have a combination bird feeder with suet dispensers to the rail next to it, and now have a nice little bird house, a place to eat, and a spa. I am very excited about this and think I am going to install a camera to the pergola to monitor it and provide a live feed. I just need to find a cheap reliable camera and figure out how to network it.

The news is depressing and I am not looking at it until tomorrow because I am a fucking adult and that is how I deal with things.

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  5. 5.

    TaMara (HFG)

    The news is depressing and I am not looking at it until tomorrow because I am a fucking adult and that is how I deal with things.

    Well, hopefully you saw the puppy photo thread to keep the good vibes going…

  6. 6.

    Spanky

    I need a Gerald too, but I hate people and have no friends.

    Come to think of it, a Gerald would be a fucking pain in the ass.

  9. 9.

    Spanky

    I was wondering if lowtechcyclist had seen this bit of local (to us) news:

    Prince Frederick, MD- Calvert Health Medical Center in Prince Frederick, MD is at capacity.

    County Health Officials tweeted on December 15, 2021, that ten(10) of their medical ward and ICU beds were occupied by individuals with severe COVID infections. Of those ten beds, eight are individuals how were unvaccinated and the other two were vaccinated but had not received booster shots at this time, according to the tweet.

    And the local Confederates here in Southern MD have stopped masking, if indeed they ever did in the first place.

  10. 10.

    Spanky

    @Baud: When hydrocarbons burn, the primary waste product is water.

    And believe me, West Virginia burns hydrocarbons.

    ETA: Watch the movie reel of the Hindenburg disaster. All of that water falling out of the conflagration is the hydrogen combined with atmospheric oxygen. H2O.

    ETA2: Natural gas is primarily methane, CH4. So when burned you get some CO2, some water.

  12. 12.

    Spanky

    @Baud: My propane furnace has a sump pump to pump the waste over to the drain. A lot of furnaces just gravity feed it down below the floor, and you never have to worry about it.

    ETA: That drain line sometimes backs up with CAT HAIR (thanks, Steve), so you have to clean it out.

    ETA2: ETA1 may not be operational in Cole’s case, as the burn chamber in the furnace is isolated from the airstream by the heat exchanger, unlike the AC, where the water condensed out of the air can easily contain cat hair that gets through the filter and clog the AC drain, which is separate.

  14. 14.

    Leto

    @Baud:

    the most common reason for a leaking furnace is a condensation leak. … If the cause of the leaking water is condensation, there are a few possibilities. You might have a clogged condensation drain or tubing, a break in the condensation line, or issues with the condensate pump, if you have one.

    https://theteddercompany.com/furnace-leaking-water/

    Avalune and I had to replace our condensate pump on our HVAC unit two weeks ago.

  15. 15.

    There go two miscreants

    If the heat system is steam or circulating hot water the furnace will normally have water in it, separated from the combustion of course.​

  17. 17.

    Central Planning

    My furnace once stopped because the combustion byproduct (whatever liquid burning natural gas turns into – they told me it was water and something else) drain was clogged. This past fall the furnace didn’t start because the 4” pvc exhaust pipe was totally clogged with a wasp nest. Gave me the heebie jeebies when I saw it.

    On the lighter side: if you have an idea about the severity of the log4j issue, this list of log4j memes is pretty funny.

  19. 19.

    Spanky

    @Spanky: I want to point out that I never saw a notice that our ICU ward was full during the pre-vaccine outbreak or during the Delta outbreak, so this is unprecedented here, as far as I know.

  20. 20.

    FlyingToaster

    Our downstairs furnace (as came with the house, 20 years ago) has a pump; we’ve added the condensate tube from the water heater to it.  However, new code demands that instead of draining outside, it has to go into the sanitary sewer system (which is good, because it needs more water that doesn’t contain weird effluvia).  So besides the intermittent leak from upstairs, we have a “replace the water heater with a wall mount on-demand system with a utility sink below it” requirement before we replace the basement furnace.  The attic unit didn’t have that requirement, thank goodness.

    I just want the current surge to get over quickly (the big jump in Covid cases locally is in ages 0-11 and 20-29; 60% of the 20-29 are un- or only partially vaccinated).  I’m going over to Somerville in the morning for my booster.

  21. 21.

    Leto

    @Spanky: as someone beside you, PA, I’ve tracked our increased cases and just… ugh. Our beds are filling up, our state health official put out the official word to limit holiday gatherings, I’m sure in a week or two we’ll start seeing the Thanksgiving surge, and NY has said that most of their cases are of the Omni variant now, which means that that’s probably us too. So…

  22. 22.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Open thread? Here’s a bit of news that’s not depressing

    blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Reuters: U.S. JUDGE VACATES RULING THAT SHIELDED SACKLER FAMILY FROM LIABILITY IN PURDUE OPIOID CASE</p>&mdash; Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) <a href=”https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1471646333970825218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>December 17, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: In addition to what was said above –

    Very high efficiency furnaces (90+%) are “condensing” furnaces.  They extract as much heat as possible from the combustion by cooling the exhaust (forcing it to give up more heat) and in the process water condenses out.  The exhaust is so cool that PVC pipe can be used. There’s a smaller PVC drain to carry the water away.

    If the PVC flue pipes aren’t sloped correctly, water can condense in the exhaust, causing problems, also too.

    All of these teething issues usually get worked out in the first few weeks of use. But it’s important to keep the drain clear – very bad things can happen (shorted out circuit boards, wet basement) if the drain gets clogged (and it will if it’s not cleaned out periodically). (Don’t) Ask me how I know. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Chris T.

    In Ye Oldene Dayse, a natural gas furnace was sufficiently inefficient that the water produced by burning the gas went up the flue with the CO2.  These are known as “non-condensing”.

    Modern furnaces use more of the heat,* so the water condenses, and the furnaces are known as “condensing furnaces”. The H2O needs somewhere to drain out. If you have an air conditioner heat exchanger in the same air-handling unit as the furnace heat exchanger, you already need a drain line, so you can just use a single line for both purposes.

    *This normally uses a second heat exchanger unit, although I don’t see why they can’t use a mechanized rete mirabile. Probably a matter of cost of production.

  27. 27.

    different-church-lady

    The correct answer is that furnaces are succulents, that like sandy, well-drained soil. Do not over-water a furnace, and allow the soil to dry between waterings.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    Borscht belt humor.

    “I put a bunch of my stuff out on the lawn with a big sign marked “FREE!

    “All anyone took was the sign.”

  29. 29.

    CaseyL

    A heated bird bath?? A heated bird bath!!

    *MY* bathtub isn’t heated, *I* don’t  have a food dispenser right beside it…

    I’m going to cover myself in feathers and move into your deck.

    Seriously, though, that is so sweet, and I cannot wait for your reports on the Birbs: Next Generation.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    Are the heated bath and suet for the crows that Cole was planning to attract, a few months ago? I don’t recall ever seeing the “why” behind that.

  34. 34.

    John Revolta

    I assumed he had a humidifier on/in his furnace. My humidifier runs water down a plastic tube to a drain in the floor but I figured that most folks have a somewhat more modern installation.

  36. 36.

    RSA

    @NotMax: In my parents’ neighborhood, when stuff is put outside to be picked up, it gets taken much more quickly if it has a price listed. :-)

  37. 37.

    Chacal Charles Caltrop

    @NotMax: here’s the thing: as people above have noted, condensing gas furnaces are really efficient & emit basically water, not CO2.
    Requiring people to use electricity that may be generated from coal instead of condensing gas furnaces will generate more CO2, not less.

  41. 41.

    jnfr

    @Another Scott:

    We had a new 96% furnace put in just as the pandemic hit last year. It had to have those extra things: a pipe to the outdoor air, and a drain to the nearby hot water heater drain.

    The pipe occasionally sounds like a flute when it’s windy.

  42. 42.

    Rob

    @Spanky: Until I saw this, I was thinking I’ve been in and around DC for far too long and need to go further away. Maybe not, now. Ugh.

  43. 43.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ramalama: We had squirrels partying in our attic. A mom and her two children.

    They are hard to evict. The varmint catcher we hired moved them out but not before first catching an old man squirrel and a raccoon. A raccoon trapped in a cage on your roof makes a lot of noise trying to get out.

  45. 45.

    raven

    @Spanky: We’re going to central Virginia for one day, the day after Christmas. I’m not sure of the vaxx status of the in-laws, I think they all have at least one. I did a lot of refusing last year but I’m out of gas on that shit and I’ll just have to rely on us being triple vaxxed.

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    @Chacal Charles Caltrop: Eh?  That’s not quite right.

    EnergyInDepth.org:

    One molecule of methane, (the [g] referred to above means it is gaseous form), combined with two oxygen molecules, react to form a carbon dioxide molecule, and two water molecules are usually given off as steam or water vapor during the reaction, energy is developed as well.

    A condensing furnace doesn’t change that chemistry. It just cools the reaction [products] so that the exhaust is colder so that the water condenses out rather than staying hot as “steam”.

    There’s still a lot of CO2 produced in a condensing furnace. (Just a lot less than with coal or oil.)

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  48. 48.

    Dan B

    A judge has dismissed FOX’s suit to stop Dominion’s defamation suit.  The tree must have been an omen.  Yea

    Discovery may be awesome.

  50. 50.

    Nelle

    I took down the birdfeeders and birdbath when winds were forecast to be between 70 and 80 mph yesterday.  Tornado warnings too.  The wind found one birdhouse I forgot and sent it to the neighbors with a smashed roof, but otherwise we’re good here.

    I’ve been invaded by house sparrows, up to 100 at a time in my smallish yard, and they have crowded out cardinals, chickadees, finches, and juncoes.  As well as woodpeckers.  I’m leaving all the bird paraphernalia in the garage until mid-January to see if the sparrows will move on.  We’re about three houses from fields and it used to be that the hawks would come clear the place out.  The sparrows seem willing to lose a few to the hawks now.  Sort of like the RWNJ about the old and those they deem unworthy of life dying of Covid.  Acceptable losses.

  53. 53.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Spanky:

    I was wondering if lowtechcyclist had seen this bit of local (to us) news:

    Sadly, yes.  And of course the only thing surprising about the ratio of unvaxxed to vaxxed was that two of the ICU beds were occupied by vaxxed (though not boosted) people.

    I want to point out that I never saw a notice that our ICU ward was full during the pre-vaccine outbreak or during the Delta outbreak, so this is unprecedented here, as far as I know.

    I’m pretty sure you’re right about that.

    And the local Confederates here in Southern MD have stopped masking, if indeed they ever did in the first place.

    At last night’s HOA meeting (I’m on the board, lucky me, huh?), a dozen people were present, and I was the only one wearing a mask.  Life among the $#@! plague rats.

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: My furnace unit also contains the heat exchanger that connects to the outside air conditioner. So there’s a system for draining and pumping away condensation that operates both when the furnace is running, AND when the A/C is running, but for different reasons.

    We actually replaced the whole thing recently. Before that, the condensation pump was this self-contained unit with a water reservoir inside it that the condensation drained into, and the pump to get rid of it would be switched on by a little float similar in principle to the one in a toilet tank. But the actual float was this cylindrical piece of waterproof foam, and after a while the foam shriveled up so that it wouldn’t float any more. Then the reservoir would overflow into the metal pan that the whole furnace sat in, and a flood sensor on the floor of that pan would shut off the entire furnace (or A/C).

    So I kept fixing it by shoving pieces of styrofoam in where the little piece of foam used to go. It actually worked for a while.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chacal Charles Caltrop: Aside from what Another Scott said, it’s also worth noting some other things:

    1. Coal is down to under 20% of US electricity generation capacity. The notion I used to hear decades ago that anything electric was basically coal-powered is no longer true, except in some specific parts of the country. Overall, coal, nuclear power, and total renewables (including hydro) supply almost equal shares, just under 20% each.
    2. The biggest chunk is now… natural gas. So electric heating is just natural-gas heating (with conversion and transmission losses, etc.), right?
    3. Well, not exactly. The sane way to heat your home with electricity is to use a heat pump, which can actually move much more energy in from the outdoors than it consumes. It’s much more efficient than simply dumping the energy directly into your home as heat, like an electric space heater (or a gas furnace) would.

    So it’s by no means obvious that the carbon emission from an electrical heating system is worse. In most cases it’s probably better.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    (btw, when I looked those numbers up I was surprised to learn that wind has passed hydro power as the biggest renewable in total energy generated.)

  63. 63.

    Matt McIrvin

    (…And I should add that of those various energy sources, coal’s share is plummeting, nuclear’s is dead flat, and natural gas and renewables are both rising. From a carbon emissions perspective, natural gas is not good but it’s a good sight better than coal. Or oil, which for grid electricity generation is now completely marginal, down below 1% except in very unusual places like Hawaii.)

  65. 65.

    marcopolo

    So here’s the latest (1 hour or so old) tweet thread from Trevor Bedford, one of the virologists who consults with the White House on Covid, on what he expects to happen over the next week or two regarding Omicron. There’s a lot of info over the course of 12 tweets, but the final one reads:

    I expect case loads to climb suddenly and rapidly in a large number of well connected cities over the next week. This will take many by surprise but was baked in as soon as we knew Omicron Rt.

    *Omicron Rt = Omicron (R)eplication (t)ime which appears to be a doubling every 2.5-3.5 days.

    I’m thinking I will (since I take care of an 88-year-old) probably be back to very limited outings after this (or next weekend) until the Omicron wave crests and recedes–like a month or two or so. Though for most folks who are 2x vaxxed & boosted (and not really old or immunocompromised or with major co-morbidities) getting Omicron doesn’t sound like the end of the world.

  67. 67.

    Ken

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah, but I still don’t follow his plan.

    1. Strangle democracy
    2. ???
    3. Coal industry makes a comeback!

    I suppose #1 could allow a sufficiently-stupid dictator (and we are not short of candidates) to make non-coal energy illegal and bomb all the wind generators.

  68. 68.

    StringOnAStick

    I’m thoroughly enjoying my new knees, just over two years now.  Each day this week we’ve climbed up the local but not yet open ski area and had 4 screaming good powder runs per day and we’re going to another location tomorrow.  4 days in a row so far, 3,000′ of climbing (skinning up on skis) per day and I’m feeling stronger every day.  Not being in arthritis agony anymore is wonderful!

  69. 69.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: When Trump came in I imagined him building hundreds of giant furnaces just to burn coal without even generating anything, just to trigger the libs. But the thing is, that would be work.

  70. 70.

    Kalakal

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The sane way to heat your home with electricity is to use a heat pump, which can actually move much more energy in from the outdoors than it consumes

    My old professor when I was a callow Chem Eng undergrad was a huge fan of heat pumps. He was brilliant at thermodynamics and if he’d had his way every building built after about 1975 would have have been heated/cooled via ground source systems. He was so far ahead of his time but like any good Chemical Engineer thought hydrocarbons were to valuable to burn

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @StringOnAStick: New knees are great! I was realizing the other day that after about 10 months, my replacement is operating almost without any weirdness I have to think about.

  72. 72.

    Kalakal

    @StringOnAStick: I’m so pleased for you. My wife is due to have a knee replaced in a few weeks and having seen the hell she’s going through you have my sympathy. I’m really glad its gone well for you

  73. 73.

    Ohio Mom

    @mrmoshpotato: The pest control guy put the trap on top of the roof, which didn’t make all that much sense to me because the mom was too busy chewing holes through the eaves to bother with prancing around the roof.

    But obviously raccoons like rooftops and the free snacks inside traps.

    After that, long skinny traps were placed in the gnawed out holes, and that worked. Then the pest control guy drove the squirrels to some woods in the next county because that’s the law on Ohio, set trapped animals free in an uninhabited.

    Every time Cole goes on about wanting squirrels in his yard, I roll my eyes.

  74. 74.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: I spent the day in the big apple, and mask wearing indoors is pretty damn close to 100%. Went to dinner, had to show vax card and photo id. Saw nobody unmasked on the subway.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: …but in reality, the striking thing is that even though Trump liked to bluster to his buddies about zeroing out renewable energy, his presidency hardly slowed down the renewables explosion or the collapse of the coal industry.

  76. 76.

    Leto

    OT: Senate parliamentarian rejects Democrats’ latest immigration plan in spending bill

    Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough said a plan to allow 6.5 million immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status to apply for work permits and protections from deportation could not be passed through the budget reconciliation process. The procedure allows bills to be approved by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most legislation.

    As parliamentarian, MacDonough is tasked with determining whether reconciliation proposals have a direct impact on the federal budget — a requirement for the procedure. She determined Democrats’ latest proposal was not primarily related to the budget.

    “These are substantial policy changes with lasting effects just like those we previously considered and outweigh the budgetary impact,” MacDonough wrote in her opinion Thursday.

    This is the third time MacDonough has ruled against Democrats’ attempts to include an immigration relief provision for some of the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the Build Back Better package that Democratic lawmakers hope to push through the evenly-split Senate in the next few weeks.

  78. 78.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Leto: IIRC, when Republicans we’re in the majority and the parliamentarian ruled against them, they simply ignored the ruling and did what they wanted.

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    @Leto: Not unexpected, but yet another example of how broken the Senate is as a legislative body.

    RollCall:

    MacDonough’s ruling will likely escalate calls from Democrats to overrule her advice when the bill is considered on the Senate floor, a process that would demand widespread consensus among Democrats.

    House lawmakers have already called for senators to disregard MacDonough’s ruling; in November, dozens urged Senate leaders to prioritize immigration protections, even if it requires overruling MacDonough.

    “We cannot let an unelected advisor determine which promises we fulfill and which we do not, especially when the vast majority of Americans — in both parties — want us to provide a pathway to citizenship,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Following reports of MacDonough’s latest decision, Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center and former co-chair of the Biden-Sanders unity taskforce on immigration, called on Senate Democrats to ignore MacDonough’s decision and pass language creating a path to citizenship.

    “The path before us could not be clearer. Senate Democrats must use their power under existing Senate rules to disregard the parliamentarian’s advisory opinion and enact the permanent protections immigrants have fought for and deserve,” she said in a statement.

    Several senators have also signaled openness to the possibility. Padilla has said repeatedly that “all options are on the table” when it comes to enshrining immigrant rights into law.

    (Emphasis added.)

    There are too many barriers to majority action in the Senate and when I’m Benevolent Despot there are going to be some changes!!1

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  83. 83.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ohio Mom: I see.  Roofers had to wrangle a raccoon a few years ago in my parents’ eaves.  Must’ve been fun.

    Every time Cole goes on about wanting squirrels in his yard, I roll my eyes.

    Haha, yeah.

  86. 86.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: The Parliamentarian making advisory rulings when asked is good and fine.  But the Senate must be able to legislate and ultimately the majority has to be able to pass its legislation.

    (I know you’re not arguing otherwise.)

    The office of the Parliamentarian was created in 1935, so we obviously can survive without it.  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  92. 92.

    evodevo

    @Ohio Mom:  Hmmm….long, narrow traps, eh….we are currently suffering from our second invasion of flying squirrels (got rid of the first invasion several years ago)…they were running around in our walls, and the in-house greenhouse the other night. I have looked and looked, but haven’t yet found their entrance hole. It drives me crazy to hear them gnawing away behind the wainscoting, envisioning our wiring shorting out or somesuch…

  93. 93.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin: ​

    The sane way to heat your home with electricity is to use a heat pump

    I know, right? And yet I’ve read that a vanishingly small fraction of American homes, like maybe 1%, have heat pumps.

    Which surprised me, because even before moving into my present home (which already had a heat pump when I moved in) back in 1998, heat pumps were more the norm than the exception IME.

    When a garden apartment complex I lived in 40 years ago was gearing up to go condo, they switched to heat pumps for each unit, and at least two of the apartment complexes I lived in between then and now had heat pumps for each unit. So I’d have assumed that they were fairly normal, but apparently they’re not. Which is unfortunate.

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