towseyfrench.com

Last Week for Special Price on Bear Bricks

Jeremy Towsey-French — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:08:52 +0000

This is it, kids, the last week to scoop up a full pallet of Bear Bricks from Coastal Farm & Ranch Supply for $199. That’s one full pallet (972 total bricks) of the standard two-pound Bear Bricks –equal to about a cord of mixed (soft and hard), well-seasoned firewood. The deal runs through the end [...]

Bigger Bear Bricks Available Soon

Jeremy Towsey-French — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:12:25 +0000

Great news from the folks at Bear Mountain Forest Products. They have been testing a new, larger Bear Brick that will be introduced soon to their dealers for immediate sale. The new brick is just over three pounds, versus the standard brick, which weighs just under two pounds. All the same performance characteristics apply to the [...]

Cold Weather Energy Update

Jeremy Towsey-French — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:48:56 +0000

The process to upgrade our home for more comfortable, efficient winter living has been many years in development and will continue to develop as we refine the systems and our use of these systems. It has required a good deal of time and financial investment (which we'll be paying for some time), but the efforts have been well worth meeting our goals: Use local, clean energy and far less of it; Increase the comfort of our home...

Bear Bricks Ablaze

Jeremy Towsey-French — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:48:29 +0000

For those who have been considering whether to use Bear Bricks because they are concerned that the look of the fire will not be quite as enjoyable as traditional logs, I am providing a series of photos showing the bricks burning at various stages. You can click on any of the images to see a [...]

New Power, Old Lines, New Problems

Jeremy Towsey-French — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:20:05 +0000

When gas spiked above $4 per gallon in Portland last summer, the city’s already bustling bicycle boulevards clogged with new riders, creating unprecedented bicycle traffic issues. As reported in the Oregonian, it appears the same basic problem has hit the power grid, with Eastern Oregon’s new wind turbines butting up against an antiquated power grid. [...]

Retrofitting for Wood Stove Heat

Jeremy Towsey-French — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:03:01 +0000

If you're seeking to heat your entire home with wood, you would benefit most from a free-standing stove... A fireplace-inserted wood stove --like ours, which sits inside the fireplace, as opposed to in-front of it-- will not effectively heat your whole house unless you have a centrally mounted fireplace and ensure that the insert is extending beyond the hearth...

Leave A Light On For Me

Jeremy Towsey-French — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:57:27 +0000

In 2006, I received a packet of neighborhood watch information from the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (a division of the City of Portland), which included an interesting report on home burglaries and night-time illumination. Essentially, the report indicated that a nationwide survey of police department records showed that in those cases where a break-in was [...]

Food Fight

Jeremy Towsey-French — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:25:07 +0000

The Oregonian’s Nikole Hannah-Jones recently published an article outlining Multnomah County’s new 15-year food initiative. The county seeks to design a program that will enable the region to locally grow a significant amount of the food that county residents eat. Organizers hope to make this food more affordable and accessible, helping residents move away from [...]

Orenco Drives

Jeremy Towsey-French — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:06:01 +0000

In today’s Oregonian, Dylan Rivera reports that professor Bruce Podobnik just completed a study gauging social interaction among residents of urban and suburban areas. In his paper, Podobnik reports that a majority (two of three) of residents at Orenco Station, the award-winning neighborhood touted as an ideal of mass-transit oriented New Urbanism, drive personal automobiles [...]

Use Less, Savor More

Jeremy Towsey-French — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:38:30 +0000

This was a big week for the Towsey-French household as we not only completed the second phase of our heating system upgrade (the first phase occurring in 2007), but we also added a major insulating blanket directly above the majority of our primary living space. We hired a highly recommended firm, Air Tight Insulation, who [...]