Saving an Old Fence

When we lived in town, I always felt the pressure not to have the worst fence on the block. Now I don't worry about that at my home, but I sure do at our rental.

My tenants are fine folks. One of them used to work for me, so he knows I'm a fuss-budget about fiddly things. When their neighbors got a new fence, part of ours was so rotten (the ground there stays wet) that posts snapped off. The fencing company put up a 4' picket fence but I wanted all the fence to match the 6' privacy fence that we inherited when we bought the place a decade ago.

Treated wood ages like other wood, and soon enough, that fence looked like the set of a horror film. While I don't place advertising on this site or endorse products, I cannot speak highly enough about Behr Solid Deck Stain. We'd used it to preserve the house's deck, and it's a tough product. The company makes lighter-duty stains for siding, but the deck stain seemed a good, if slightly more expensive, option. I'd found that it made old wood look as good as the new replacement boards next to them.

So this post is short but clear: if you need to renew old wood, try this or its competitors. I found Valspar a little more expensive. But to hide the old dark weathered wood, go solid, not transparent.

Keep in mind that you cannot put stains over paint. They will peel. I never use paint on decking or fences, anyhow: I've found that on new or old unfinished wood, these heavy stains last a decade and best of all, clean up with water.

Happy repairs!

One Little Fix Made All the Difference

 I've written here before about diagnosing equipment problems, boiling matters down to a question of "Fire and Fuel," and I've discussed how critical our Kawasaki Mule 610 UTV is to our farm business.

The business goes well, with some income on a steady basis for egg sales from nearly 100 hens, but the poor Mule continued to give trouble until recently. I'd been haunting motorcycle and ATV forums for ideas, and after a long time pondering and replacing parts, at long last I hit on a solution for slow drain to our battery.

For you non-gearheads, apologies if I get a little wonky here. For you REAL wonks, I commend you to "History of the Humble Automotive Fuse," here.

Many Mule owners winge about the battery-drain issue. I did many things they too tried: replacing the ignition switch, putting in a new voltage regulator. I bought a new battery, but that drained after a while, too. It was maddening. I figured that rough usage or a mouse had led to a short in the wiring. Taking the Mule apart one panel at a time, I verified the integrity of every wire I could see.

Then I did the non-cheapass thing: I bought an original Kawasaki Mule Voltage Regulator, not a dubious Chinese-made aftermarket part (for 100 bucks versus 20). Suddenly the Mule ran like the proverbial scalded dog of Southern simile.  I also installed a battery shut-off switch, marking the "on" position with a yellow paint-pen. With it off, no current would trickle in the circuit after we ran the vehicle (thus avoiding any load on the battery from a short I could not see).

Oh, how I basked in my gearhead pride until the Mule would NOT start at all. 

At least I knew that came from the incredibly flimsy, easily jostled 30-amp glass fuse near the battery. You do need a fuse of that amperage, to avoid damage to the electrical system in the event of a power surge. Yet Kawasaki chose something so badly designed that I'd have figured they pulled 1980s General Motors accountants out of retirement to advise them on how to save 30 cents on each Mule.

Fuses come in two varieties these days, as shown here. A "bladed" fuse to me is much less prone to breakage from jostling, and it's less likely to slip loose from its holder.  

The price differences between the two types are negligible, but the fitting to hold the fuses probably costs more for the bladed design. Thanks to Amazon, I got an entire bag of bladed-fuse holders for 10 dollars, putting one holding a bladed fuse in place of the crappy glass fuse.

And yes, it worked. No pride this time, just a wary, sideways look at the Mule now and then to see if anything else breaks. At least I now feel that I can fix it, when (not if) that happens.

Asleep yet? A blog can work better than Valium. But seriously, if you own a UTV and have intermittent problems with your battery going down, try that I tried.