home assistant
I installed 2 minisplits this summer, a 24K BTU Gree Sapphire in the kitchen/main living space and a 12K BTU Gree Sapphire in the master bedroom. They kept the house very comfortable during the hottest days of summer and I'm looking forward to using them to complement
Brittany and I bought a used 2013 Viking 15RB last month. We've been doing quite a bit of remote camping with family this summer and wanted a safer place to stash our dogs primarily, but sleeping off the ground and having less to pack/unpack was a huge
technology
A couple of months ago I replaced my pfsense firewall with a small fortigate. I've also acquired 2 fortinet switches and 3APs. My existing home network looks something like this, a mixture of vendors and gear I've acquired over the past 5 years. I wanted to
home assistant
I haven't touched a switch of any kind in my bathroom for months, it feels like magic, and it's all thanks to the Aqara FP2. I've tried to setup some presence based home assistant automations in the past using PIR motion sensors, but they&
farming
In the midst of rebuilding a couple other 4 wheelers, Brittany and I picked up a used "ready to ride" 2011 Sportsman 850 XP EPS. We got a decent deal on it and it had a few thousand in extras - small lift, 30" tires, upgraded axles,
home assistant
A couple of weekends ago, I installed our home's first mini-split. Our home has two existing forms of conditioning - an oil fired boiler in the basement feeds hydronic baseboard radiators, and a hearthstone wood stove in the living room. The wood stove is great and practically free
farming
Over the past couple of weeks, we've significantly improved both of our bird coops. The first order of business was automatic doors - for the past few years, I've been a big fan of the Omlet automatic chicken door. We first bought it in SC and
farming
Our existing bird setup left something to be desired. I hacked together a 4x8 unfinished coop in the fall the first week we moved. This got us through the winter, but it was sitting in a low spot and often surrounded by water. While I was land clearing later in
farming
Maple syrup was high on our list of things to try in our first year back in Maine. We decided to start small scale and cheap with plastic taps run into 5 gallon buckets. I ordered these taps online and picked up clear tubing from Home Depot. I read that
technology
I've been using every home assistant user's favorite NVR, Frigate, for a couple of years. The majority of my property is covered by hardwired Reolink RLC-520As - these aren't on Frigate's recommended hardware list, but they're frequently on sale in
mechanical
This past weekend (or 4), we made some significant improvements to our kitchen entryway. We were looking to gain storage space, have a place to keep shoes/boots, and move our washer and dryer to a less visible place - having them on the first floor was nice from a