1- Most building codes have SCIENCE behind them. Let me share what I dealt with.
The INVERTED GENIUS that built this house put water lines between the house & the detached workshop about 6″ deep underground. On dark cold winters, the “frost line” here in this part of North Carolina is 12″ deep. That means that the top 12″ of dirt can & will freeze during bad, cold winters. I remember several winters that the high temperature during the day did not breach 20 F for several weeks on end. Lows at and below 0 F.
I think that “code” (short for building code) requires that pipes be buried 18″ deep so that they never freeze. The dirt insulates the pipe from freezing.
So, guess what? Yep! The water lines have never worked since I bought the house. They froze years before that. I hand dug up the water lines and replaced them with a new kind of pipe that “is not supposed to freeze.”
Saturday I did most of the plumbing. That should have been the easy part compared to the digging. EXCEPT: most of the plumbing had to be done in the crawl space under the house. So I spent a couple of hours acting like an origami sardine in the crawl space. Bent in half, I could not sit up and work. I could not lay down and work. After (almost) finishing under the house & putting my tools away; I laid down flat on my back and whimpered. Some Advil later I could move again. All because the person that built the house went cheap and lazy when doing the original work.
And I am short 2 fittings to finish the project and to start testing my plumbing expertise. That will have to wait till next week and my body has had some time to repair itself.
A- What happened to the cowboy who spilled glue on himself?
B- He stuck to his guns.
2- Go outside on a good day and sit very still. Very, Very still. Listen to the birds and watch to see if you can find each songbird and know what to call it by it’s song. Log your observations. Learn to move only your eyes so you do not scare them away. Search the foliage for the bird behind the sound. Listen at night for the owls!
3- If the Troop has a Historian; we need to interview all the past Scout Leaders we can. Compile a history and scrapbook of the troop. HINT! I think that we are only on our 5th SM in over 50 years of Troop 25.
C- How does a farmer count the cows?
D- With a cowculator.
4- History trivia question: What in the United States has always been metric? Hint: We were the first country to adopt this system.
5- Do you know the difference between electrical conductors & electrical insulators? Copper, aluminum, steel, and water all conduct electricity. Rubber, plastic, glass are all good insulators. Notice the cords that run from the outlet to an appliance. Copper on the inside & rubber or plastic on the outside. If the insulation is broken, skinned, or cut; discard or repair the cord.
E- What kind of shoes does a frog wear?
F- Open toad shoes.
6- The amount of electrical voltage determines the thickness of the insulation. The amount of current that is to be carried determines the thickness of the conductor. Technically called the “cross-sectional area”.
7- Common wire size is measured by gauge. Why do we use “gauge” instead of a physical measurement? What does gauge mean? Why is it inverted – larger wire uses a smaller number? NOTE: In the US we use AWG for American Wire Gauge. That standard started in 1857.
The term “Gauge” here comes from the origin of making wire. It denotes how many times the original “rod” of wire had to pass through “drawing dies”. Each die made the wire that much smaller.
If you are interested, google American Wire Gauge, Wiki has a complete & complicated description.
G- Help! I need someone to help me build an Ark?
H- I Noah the right guy.
Nursing my body, and moving slowly,
Gaither