One More Reason

[yogi]

That house I built prior to living here cost around $150k in materials and labor. We had problems getting a loan because the banks in the neighborhood didn't think the house was worth that much. We did get a loan from a bank the building contractor worked with. When we left town they were building homes around the corner that sold for $800K starting price. They were much larger than ours and probably worth the price, but they were only a short walk away from my 1500 sq ft ranch house. We could not believe anyone would move into those mini castles, but they filled up quickly and it didn't take long to add more to the subdivision. I guess that might be part of the reason the county thought it was fitting to double our taxes one year.

I have to comment that I was a little surprised to see you posting here before I got to the board for the first time today. Usually you post later in the day and I hope all is going well with you.

[Kellemora]

There were two subdivisions built by the same contractor using the same floor plan selection for both subdivisions.
The subdivision my dad was in was built first, and then the other subdivision across the old road.
I don't doubt the cost to build the second subdivision was slightly higher than the first, although they were identical houses.
So I could see how dad's house sold for 135k and an identical one to it in other subdivision sold for 140k, that's logical due to inflation. But one year later, new houses still being built in dad's subdivision were going for 150k, but in the other subdivision they were now up to 175k both built and sold new in the same year.
Fast forward 10 years. Now this is illogical as all get out. The homes in dad's subdivision were appraised around 85k, but the ones in the other subdivision all appraised over 100k.
The selling prices in dad's subdivision were 175k and in the other subdivision 225k. They were all identical houses to the ones in dad's subdivision. And honestly, the ones in dad's subdivision were of higher quality, since they were the flagship homes for the contractor.
Fast forward another 10 years, and mom was able to sell her home for 218k, while the exact same house as hers, with the same appointments as hers, across the road sold for over 310k.
What made one subdivision jump so much over the other subdivision?

I had a bad night the other night, had a lot of trouble breathing, and although I got my O2 up OK, I couldn't get my CO2 levels down. It felt like I was drowning all night long. I know I do much better up in my office, so I got up around 5 am and came up to my office. Took a couple of Guafinasen to help clear my lungs out, and did pursed lip breathing for a couple of hours, which makes my whole chest hurt doing it that long. And the constant hacking and coughing don't help with the pain either.
I ran out of cough syrup up here, so went back down to the house around 7ish and got a bottle from down there for night-time use. After about 30cc of the stuff, I finally had enough dextromathorfin in me to quell the hard coughing. And another Guafinasen finally got me loosened up. And all the time I was upright, my nose dripped like a broken faucet filled with Karo syrup, hi hi. I'm allowed on Citrizine per day, but as a backup I can also take Dipenhydramine up to four times a day.
So, by around 8:30 or so, I was able to quit hacking, and my nose stopped leaking, so I pulled the keyboard drawer out and played around for a while before starting my day about an hour or two earlier than usual.

[yogi]

All I can say is that I'm very glad you were able to get your lungs under control and make an early appearance. I guess you have a lot of experience with the disease by now, but it still seems like a huge burden to bear. Hopefully the summer will be easier on your breathing apparatus.

As far as arthritis goes, my wife swears by this stuff: https://www.voltarengel.com/what-is-voltaren She says nothing is more effective.

That truly is an amazing story about the homes where you dad lived. It would be a classic example of how important location is in the real estate world, but, after all, those high priced homes were just across the street. Home appraisers probably have a better understanding of what makes a home valuable, but the appraised value is never what the selling price is. There is a lot of emotion going on when people buy a home and I suspect that has a lot to do with the perceived value. Several factors could play into the price formula and some of them can be subtle. The distance to the nearest shopping mall, for example, could be appealing to some buyers and not to others. The school district always made a difference up near Chicago even if the floor plan was identical in some other district. Also the kind of people living in the homes makes an impression. The identical home in a neighborhood full of yuppies and professionasl would go for less in the subdivision populated by trade workers and non-professionals. It certainly is a personal bias, but it is also a fact of life in the world of real estate. I can't say what was going on in your dad's situation, but it would be something very subtle, I'm sure.

[Kellemora]

Thanks for the Voltarengel. I've seen it on the shelf at Walgreens, but picked up Aspercream instead. I'll have to give it a try!

Yeppers, twice a widower, so I've had a lot of experience, and learned a lot also. This is probably why I've managed to handle my own for so long with no trips to the hospital for it, at least not yet. I get the meds my wife used to only receive if she was in the hospital, but now they are available with a prescription. Plus I've learned a few tricks along the way, one you would probably laugh at.
I don't know if you ever seen any Nebulizers in use or not, but the mouthpieces used with them WASTE TONS of the medicine.
And when those medications are over a thousand bucks for a months supply (200 co-pay), you learn ways not to waste it.
Air under pressure blows through the medication chamber creating a fog of the medication, which then travels up and out of the tube and into the air. Some mouthpieces have a small 4 inch long tube on them. And you are told to breathe in and out normally. Bull Farkle on that most wasteful way of doing it.
I add three or four more tubes to the end of the existing tube. The number depends on how thick the medication is as far as travel time down the longer tube. And instead of breathing out through the mouthpiece, I put my tongue over the end and breathe out by opening my lips and/or breathing out through my nose.
To breathe naturally, at that normal speed, I have the amount of tubes added to the end so that I just barely see the vapor start to come out. Then when I inhale, what little bit got into the air, plus all that was in the tube, ends up in my lungs, not floating around as waste in the air around me.
Doing it this way means I get more medication than normal, so I can cut down on the amount I use each session. Don't want to overdose on it, so I did a little mathwork on my own to determine how long to use the machine to get the recommended dosage, with little to no wasted product.

The odd thing about the one across the road going up in price so much is even those folks like our subdivision better, as far as design and appearance. But getting in and out of the subdivision is different for each. All the roads in dad's subdivision are winding, no straight shots, and no main drag through the middle either. While the other subdivision has two main drags from the main road, and two straight shots from the side road, but then once inside, there are more curves to get to your own house. It may sound like it is a grid style layout, and it is sorta, no houses face the primary straight streets, you have to turn into a winding road to get to your house. Now the backs of some of the houses do face the straight streets in that other subdivision.

[yogi]

Relatively speaking my wife is pretty new to treating arthritis. We both have had it (show up on x-rays) for several years, but hers is starting to act up more than usual. I'm not sure where she heard about Voltarengel, but apparently it has recently been introduced to the OTC market. Previously it was by prescription only. There are some dire warnings on the box about using only a limited amount and only on one part of your body at a time. In other words, it sounds like very powerful stuff compared to most other products. It helps her hands a lot but does not eliminate the need for Advil in all cases.

My mom had lung problems and she used a nebulizer. Thus, I do know what you speak of when you tell me about your experiences. She used that mouthpiece that was about 4" long and always had trouble breathing naturally. How can you breathe naturally with a tube in your mouth? She had two medications that atomized and I don't think she was taking anything else for her breathing problem. I don't recall the prices and I also don't recall them being near the $1000 mark you mention. I believe she had to buy the nebulizer but the drugs were pretty much covered by insurance. Then again, I don't think she was taking as much as you must.

I can imagine the extension you put on the mouthpiece but I can't easily imagine how that reduces waste. The normal routine is to breathe into and suck the air out of the tube. You are only doing the latter and exhaling into free air. That's not the natural breathing they say to do, but dang. If it works there is no reason to do anything else.

Houses on a main thoroughfare would be expected to be less expensive than those facing away from it. I guess that could explain some of the difference in prices at your dad's subdivision, but it hardly seems like enough to make such a big difference as you cite. About the only other subtle factor I can think of is reputation. The subdivision across from where I lived previously was touted as being award winning and advanced architectural design. Well, they did have nice landscaping but the inside of the homes were nothing special as far as I could tell. There were variations of about 4 different styles, but otherwise they all looked alike. Pretty much what I got here in O'Fallon. I have a feeling that being of award winning design added a few thousand to the selling price of those houses. I never did find out who issued the awards by the way.

[Kellemora]

I had some arthritis in my hands way back when I was in my mid-40s.
I thought they had replaced two of my knuckles around that time with nylon ones.
But X-rays show no such event. They did show where there was some filing on my excess bone.
That too is now invisible since the arthritis has grown over those areas again.
This same doctor is the one who shined this blue light on my hands for 15 minute intervals about once a month for two years.
It was working for me, but then he said they are not allowed to use it anymore. FDA withdrew their approval of the device.
I haven't been up to Walgreens since you mentioned the product, but have it on a note in my pocket to pick up some.
I cannot take anything like Advil or Ibrupofin due to other medications I'm on, but I can have Tylenol (Acitominophen).

Hmm, there is no tube in your mouth. The mouthpiece only goes inside your lips, like a flat cigar, hi hi.
There are many types of nebulizer units they call mouthpieces, and each works a little differently, and almost all of them waste medicine big time. There is one I used that didn't seem to waste so much into the air, but it was noisy to use.
What you described about your mom's sounds like the one I use. It has a 4 inch tube stuck on the outbound end. Except I add three more of those 4 inch tubes to make the thing about 16 inches long or longer. I think my tubes are 6 inches each.
If I add a fifth tube, it then causes too much restriction and makes it harder to inhale through it.
My nebulizer unit pushes a bit more than 6 lpm might even be 8 lpm, because if I hood the mouthpiece up to an oxygen tank, I have to crank it up to 8 lpm for the mouthpiece to sound and work the same way.
But that is not the actual flow through the nebulizer's mouthpiece, due to the air having to go through a tiny pinhole.
It works like a venturi, sucking up the medication and blasting it onto a small flat disk so it turns into a fog.
Now if you saw your mom use hers, you may have notice how much mist was coming out of the end of the tube into the air.
And if she used it as directed, by breathing in and out through the device, you saw most of her medication being blown into the air. Only a little bit actually gets into your lungs.
By adding the extra tubing on the outbound side, and making it just long enough that by the time I exhale and get ready for new puff, the tube is full and only a small tad starts to come out the end of the longer tube. And when I inhale, I recapture what little bit came out the end of the tube too. I don't breath out through the tube, as I mentioned earlier. I put my tongue over the end of the mouthpiece so I don't blow the medicine out into the room. I'm a miser with my medicine, but get more than I'm supposed to doing it this way, which I do have to be careful about.

The nebulizer and medications are supposed to be covered under Part B not your drug plan, and classified as durable equipment. But it only pays like 80% after you met your annual deductible. Then if you have a supplemental plan, it will cover that 20% after you met their deductible. But not in all cases. In my case, I still have to pay 10% after supplemental pays their share, and then too that is only after I meet my annual deductible.

FWIW: I don't change my breathing pace the way I do it. In fact, I have added a flapper unit between the mouthpiece intake hole and the mouthpiece part that goes into my mouth. Got it from a manual syphon starter the bulb cracked on. You might know it as a foot valve. It actually has two little flappers in in, one on the exhaust port and one on the intake port.
Hmm. Maybe I should get a manufacturer to make a mouthpiece system like that, so everybody could save money?

The normal cycle of breathing in and back out again is only like five seconds.
The mist is traveling down the tube at about 1 tube length per second, actually a little longer by a fraction of a second.
Using the mouthpiece the way it comes, without any extensions. This means about four seconds of mist is wasted into the air.
Now if you are exhaling through the tube, all the medication is lost during exhale. And you only get a little bit during inhale.
But by adding three more tubes, making a total of four tubes, and blocking the exhaled air from blowing the medication out into the room, the tubes fill up with the medication mist. So when you inhale, you are getting like 3 to 4 times the normal dosage.
To do a 3ml vial of medication takes about 14 minutes, with a normal setup.
With the tubes in place, and blocking the exhaled air from the device, I cut my treatment time down to 5 minutes each session. Due to how bad my COPD is, I can tell about the time I get relief on the SABA medication. When I'm using the LABA medication, it only comes in 2ml tubes, and normally takes about 10 to 12 minutes per treatment. So I only do it for 4 minutes, which seems about right to me. So as you can see, I'm getting the amount of medication I'm supposed to be getting, but not using it up so fast.
I'm supposed to do the SABA 4 times per day, and the LABA 2 times per day.
SABA and LABA mean Short or Long Acting Beta Antagonist.

The home I lived in in Creve Coeur was a Gold Medallion Home. It had many things not found in my dad's home, nor those in the other subdivision. One feature was a whole house intercom and music system, including outside both doors, and in each room of the house. The main control panel was in the kitchen. Another was individual thermostats in each bedroom and the den, plus the main thermostat in the hall. The heating and air conditioning were two totally separate systems but used the same metal ductwork. This was a benefit because your furnace wouldn't rust out so fast. One other feature was the split-system hot water tank. The heat from the furnace in the winter, after it went through the heat exchanger and before going up the chimney went through a second heat exchanger to the hot water tank. This saved us a bundle on our water heating costs. How the thermostats worked was interesting also. They mainly controlled a damper in the vent in each room, to prevent the room from getting to cold during AC season, or too hot during the heating season. They could however cause the furnace or AC to come on when the main thermostat was not calling for heat or cooling, but this was very rare to happen.
The air handling system had an electrostatic air purifier, a royal pain to clean, but worked great. This was over and above the normal filters for the furnace or AC system, each of which had the usual filters in them, which was before the electrostatic filter ever saw the air, hi hi. I could keep going on all the options in this house at the time it was built, like triple-track windows and the like. It was considered the most energy efficient home in its era! The the Gold Medallion rating.

[yogi]

I now have a much clearer understanding of your high efficiency nebulizer system. While mom did in fact use that 4 inch flat cigar type tube for breathing exercises, I did not mean to imply she stuck the whole thing down her throat. It still strikes me as difficult to breathe naturally when you have something like that in your mouth. I also think it would be a grand idea to manufacture a flapper enabled mouthpiece for nebulizers. It certainly would be more efficient, albeit a bit more inconvenient. The only hurdle would be the FDA approval. Not sure what they would think of making anything so well established more efficient.

I marvel every time you tell me things about the Gold Medallion home you lived in. We had a few energy efficient things in our old house but was told by the real estate broker that people are no longer interested in those things. They will not add to the selling price. Could be true, but the house sold in just a few days because it was so well built and had the energy efficient appliances and construction. At least that is what the buyer told me was his reason for making the offer. The Gold Medallion homes took all that efficiency to an extreme. But, I'm guessing it was like in my old house. All those high efficiency accoutrements were expensive to buy and install. I doubt that I ever recovered the higher cost with the lower gas and electric bills, but I felt better for having those things. And, of course, that's the whole point of it.

[Kellemora]

It normally takes MANY YEARS to get the FDA to approve anything.
Making a more efficient unit would cut into the Drug Manufacturers EXCESS PROFITS.
So you know it would NEVER be approved, and blocked by Big Pharma, hi hi.

When I remodeled, I removed the entire intercom system. It was an old vacuum tube type system, and although it worked OK, it looked like the ancient electronics of the period. It looked state of the art when new of course.
The AC unit, had two compressors in it, one large one and one small one. The large compressor only kicked in if the temp outside was 85 degrees or higher, because the small one could handle the house with ease. But if the small compressor was running, and the inside temp rose more than 1 degree above the thermostat setting, then the large unit would kick in and the small unit shut off about 15 seconds later. This set-up saved a lot of money on the electric bill.
When I finally had to replace this unit, we had to buy a package unit, like the ones used on mobile homes. All self-contained. And I managed to get a great deal on an energy efficient unit. Something around 600 bucks if I recall, when the going rate on self-contained of that size was up around 900 to 1000 bucks. And it fit the existing ducts inlet and outlet as they were, with no modifications, which was another plus. We did have to buy some type of converter so the old thermostats could work with this particular unit. I think it was nothing more than a step-down transformer though, only like 30 bucks if I recall.

[yogi]

We had a Lenox furnace that was said to be two stage. Apparently only half the burners were used when the furnace turned on. If things didn't come up to temperature after a certain amount of time, I think it was 20 minutes, then the other burners would kick in. This furnace was also direct vented which meant none of the heat from it went up the chimney. In fact it was not connected to a chimney at all. LOL I can't say the furnace was totally silent, but it was the most quite operating system I ever used in any of my houses. The only real noise was at the vents to the room where the air flow changed direction in order to escape the system.

My neighbor had a 5000 sq ft house and two furnaces and two air conditioners. For some reason the furnace was not located in the basement of his house but up in what could be called the attic. In a way that makes sense for the A/C but not sure why a furnace would work better up there. They needed two units because the house was so large, but as was the case with my Lenox they system was dual stage. Only one unit turned on initially and the second kicked in when needed. The crazy thing about his system is he ended up paying the same as my 1500 sq ft house for electric and gas. I don't know how he did it, but the next house I build will have the heating and cooling coming from the attic.

[Kellemora]

I've seen all kinds of furnaces and AC units during my time as a general contractor and even before then.
I've never seen one with no vent at all, but quite a few that had no heat coming out of the exhaust, so they could use a PVC pipe as the exhaust.
The most efficient gas furnace I ever saw had three or four heat exchangers in it. And a very slow turning blower compared to most, but it was a huge blower too. The main thing I remember about it was the big dial thermometer on the exhaust stack showing the temp of the exhaust at around 78 degrees, and that was when the furnace was on high-fire due to it only being around 3 or 4 degrees outside at the time.
The air-flow through the furnace to the ductwork started at the heat exchanger farthest away from the burners, so the air was warmed a little as it passed though each one.
His gas bill was also about 1/2 of what mine was and his house was much bigger than mine, but not double in size.

The most interesting AC unit I ever saw had an interesting layout. Each room of the house had its own finned pipe and drainage system for condensation. Each room had a small vent in the corner of the room where air went into the housing box. Then from about 1 foot in from the walls was an aluminum strip with a slot in the middle running the width of the room, minus the foot at each end. This is where the cold air came out. And I think that slotted channel was also how the condensation got to the drain pipe. There were no blowers that I remember seeing, but there could have been. At the opposite end of the room from the intake vent, there was a small box with a dial, more like a faucet I should say. This is how you controlled the temp in the room. It was an old house and the AC did not use a thermostat per se. I think the compressor for the AC must have had something associated with outside air temp as a control, but don't know for sure. I was only there doing some wiring work.

My brothers house had two AC Units, both mounted outside, but up above ceiling level. One at each end of the house.
They were not very large units either, about double the size of a window AC unit.
But in the basement, he had a big furnace, with separate ductwork running from it to each end of the house.
His utility bills were high, more than double of what mine were, and his house was not quite double my size house.

[yogi]

I think you better describe than I did the high efficiency furnace we had. The vent to the outside on our furnace was indeed PVC. The intake also was PVC if I recall correctly. The warm air from the heat exchange was recirculated throughout the house and never saw the outside vent. At least that is how I think it worked. It could have been different. The hot water heater was done the same way. It was direct vented to the outside via a PVC pipe that had to be as short as physically possible. All the heat from that unit also stayed inside and never went up a chimney. In fact that house did not have a Chimney. We did have a wood burning stove with a pipe going out to the roof top, but it is not what I would call a chimney. We do have one in this house and it is part of the closet in this room. It makes noises all the time from expansion and contraction.

The A/C unit you describe almost sounds like the hot water radiant heat system my in-laws had in their house in Iowa. I was in that house in the dead of winter and was totally amazed that the heating worked as well as it did. The radiant heat came from pipes with fins along the walls and for reasons I don't quite understand the flooring in the middle of the rooms was not cold. It was interesting to me but I guess the technology has been around for a long time. In fact they have improved upon it so that finned pipes are no longer needed because they can be inlayed with the flooring. To do all this with air conditioning is just so much more Black Magic. LOL

[Kellemora]

Yeppers, now it sounds like a furnace I'm familiar with, hi hi.

For my soapstone stove, standing outside the house was a 23 foot 14 inch diameter steel pipe I acquired used from a sign company. They even delivered it to my house for me, but only dumped it in the front yard. I didn't realize how heavy that sucker was until I went to move it to the back yard. I managed to get it moved back there by myself, but it was a half a days work to do so. Darn thing weighed close to 500 pounds. Probably really around 450 pounds. I used a fence post to roll it, then had to turn it. Did this by jacking it up and placing a brick under it to spin it. Then I used more bricks to slide it to the back yard pulling it with my lawn tractor, hi hi. A block n tackle is how I got it upright onto the concrete slab I poured for it. I lucked out and it dropped right down in the hole I left in the center of the slab. I already had a steel standoff mounted to my rafters to affix the top end of it to the house, but about a foot away from the house. Once it was perfectly level, I dumped about three bags of concrete down inside the pipe. Then a week later my cousin came over with a cutting torch to cut a 6 inch diameter hole in the side for the stovepipe that came out of the side of the house. The hold was about 6 feet above the ground. He also burned three holes 4 inches above the slab, because that's how high the concrete inside the pipe was. I'm glad he did that, because it helped the soot to wash out after a heavy rain.

A lot of radiant heat houses had some of the heating tubes under the floors, especially if it was a slab floor.
I had a house that was heated with hot water rather than steam for a while, 5 years actually.
In a few rooms, I got rid of those big cast iron radiators, and installed the finned tubes inside a decorative housing. They worked better than the old radiators too.

[yogi]

The apartment we lived in use steam heat and room radiators. The furnace was coal fired too, but we didn't have to do any shoveling. They upgraded to gas fired furnaces just before we moved in. The radiators got pretty warm and steam did come out of them, but they were not so hot as to harm the little baby we had just acquired. All I can recall about that situation is that I never felt cold in that apartment. Forced air works well and I've been keeping warm by using it ever since we left the apartment. However, it can be noisy, adds no humidity of it's own, and there are drafts. This house has a 9 foot ceiling and all that lovely hot air from the furnace sits above the 7 foot mark. Thus wife needs a room space heater to watch television. The good news is that the heater looks like a very nice fireplace and electricity is relatively cheap compared to other places I've lived. Forced air heat, unfortunately, isn't very comfortable.

That soapstone stove you had must have been very impressive, but not as impressive as the chimney. How did you decide that 23 feet was the proper length? And, how far into the ground did you sink that behemoth? I can't imagine something that big would stay upright during some of the storms we get around here. I guess being a round pipe helped with the wind resistance, but still. It's amazing it never got blown over.

[Kellemora]

Our greenhouses used steam heat, and you could get burned really bad if you touched one of the steam pipes.
Most houses didn't use steam, they used hot water.
An easy way to tell is in a steam system, each radiator has to have a steam release valve.
They are noisy, but do add humidity to the rooms, sometimes too much.
A hot water radiator has a tiny valve at the top you only have to open to let the air out if it gets vapor locked.
I would do this chore about once a week anyhow to keep the system flowing properly.
Also, you can turn OFF a steam radiator by the inlet valve. But you cannot turn off a hot water radiator.
That being said, it looks like you can turn it off because you can close the valve.
But the valve itself has a hole in it to allow water to keep passing through it at a very slow rate.
You won't get burned touching a hot water radiator.

My stove was a Woodstock Soapstone Stove, with a huge glass window in the front.
It had a lot of amenities associated with it, such as an ash drawer, catalytic converter, bimetal thermostat on the air intake tube, water chamber for humidity, and a flue fire extinguishing system. Cost a fortune too, hi hi.

I placed a 5 gallon plastic bucket in the ground with holes in the bottom and the wire handle removed.
I dug a 3 inch deep 4 foot square hole and placed welded wire fabric up 2 inches from the bottom of the hole.
The top of the bucket was 1 inch above ground level and the wire mesh kept it from moving when we poured the 4 inch thick concrete slab.
So the 14 inch diameter pipe dropped right down into the 5 gallon bucket with little room to spare. And as I said, we filled the bottom of the pipe with enough concrete it ended up fuller than I had planned, so the drain holes had to be 4 inches above the slab, and still it some concrete. That sucker wasn't going anywhere, even if I didn't use a bracket at the eave line tied into the roof rafters.
Code required the top of an exhaust chimney to be at least 6 inches above the roof ridge or higher. We were a good 14 inches above the ridge, which worked out really well. A couple of stainless steel straps were placed around the very top for decoration purposes only, but they did hold a decorative aluminum mesh between them, as part of the decoration.

Where the flue from the stove went into the chimney, it tilted down only about an inch between the stove and the chimney, which turned out to be great. It meant rain into the chimney wouldn't get to the stove, and when I ran a brush through the stovepipes the horizontal pipe would just empty into the chimney, and rain would wash it out of the pipe across the slab.
I could also bypass the catalytic converter, which you are supposed to do when starting a fire. But I bypassed it when I was burning junk wood so I didn't ruin it.
Once I was burning hardwoods and turned the catalytic on, that stove really put out a lot of heat, and a whole lot less went up the chimney.
I might also add. I extended the air intake to the firebox so it drew outside air into the stove. This way it didn't suck room air out from the space you were trying to heat.
I learned this trick way back when I had fireplaces. You build a fire in a fireplace and it sucks all the heat out of the house.
But if you use a closed glass front on the fireplace, and get the intake air from outside, you can heat a whole house with a fireplace easily.

[yogi]

The 23' pipe/chimney probably didn't weigh as much as I imagine. That means there was not a lot of force above ground to bend the chimney in a strong wind. It seems that you sunk the pipe less than three feet into the soil, which left another twenty feet above ground. That makes a pipe with roughly a 7:1 leverage factor at the fulcrum, which would be the point the pipe meets the top of the concrete slab. Obviously you had enough of a foundation to keep the mast in place for a very long time. It just doesn't seem likely in my mind's eye.

We had a wood burning stove in the last house and it was capable of heating the whole place. The most distant room walls were a bit cooler than you would like to have them, but in an emergency we would not freeze should the furnace not be available. We were warned about chimney fires being possible due to creosote building up. I was burning all sorts of wood from that forest we had out back and I'm sure it was not clean burning. Thus we had a chimney sweep come out a few times but probably wasted our money doing so. He told us there was very little creosote. Then again, there were dead birds and a squirrel at one time. Why they decided to take a death leap down our chimney is anybody's guess.

[Kellemora]

Don't forget, I also said it was affixed to a steel A bracket which were bolted directly into the roof rafters.
This is the same setup that held my radio tower up for close to 20 years, and with all the antennas on it, plus the dipoles, it was much more flimsy than this big old steel pipe. The chimney was only into the ground about 2 feet if that. And I understand how a fulcrum works, so yes, without the top mount, it could have toppled over. But the bottom of the pipe was also filled with concrete a little more than 2 feet, so that is a lot of weight down at the bottom end.
Remember the plastic blow up punch clowns with sand in the bottom?
Weebles Wobble, but they don't fall down.

When I lived in the brick house, we built such big fires in that fireplace that flames would sometimes come out the top of the chimney. But not at my new house with the soapstone stove. No matter what we burned, it would never get flames going up the chimney because it has a slow draft, on purpose I suppose. The bimetalic draft control would turn the fire down if the inner stovepipe chimney temp was higher than it should be. I loved that stove, hated to sell it at auction for so cheap.
FWIW, I replaced the stovepipes every other year. They were thin tin to start with, and I wouldn't really care if there was a chimney fire in that steel pipe outside. It wouldn't hurt anything, that's for sure.

[yogi]

Anchoring the steel pipe chimney to the house rafters was likely the saving grace. It really doesn't matter how much weight you put in and around the bottom two feet. In fact the weight would make that bottom 24 inches solid enough not to bend. But, the upper 20 feet, and all its weight, would be rocking side to side in any substantial turbulence. The fact that it was steel, and not a plastic air filled Weebles Wobble, is what helped keep it erect. The attachment to the house stabilized the tower enough to prevent it from bending enough to be dangerous. But then, I really don't know much about such things. Down in Florida they have street lights that can take 120 mph hurricane winds and remain upright. My guess is your chimney was built in similar fashion.

I can imagine flames coming out of your chimney. LOL I could not do that with our wood burner because about half the stove pipe went through the ceiling and through the attic space before it reached the roof top. If the pipe got hot enough there was enough wood surrounding it to create a possibility of scorching or an actual fire. The part of the pipe that was in the house never got hot enough to cause any concern. The only problem we did have was drippings from condensation. They were black and dirty streaks down the length of the stove pipe which formed due to the warm interior of the house meeting the cold exterior up there in the well ventilated attic. It looked ugly but never really caused any damage.

[Kellemora]

The walls of this pipe I used for a chimney were fairly thick, it was once used to hold up a sign post.
Albeit, sign posts are usually 6 feet into the ground or more.
Even before we put the concrete inside the pipe, we had a devil of time getting it perfectly vertical.
We pulled on it with a block n tackle hooked to a neighbors tree, until it showed level all the way around the pipe.
At this time is when we poured about 4 bags of cement inside the pipe, and that was a chore too since it was so high up.
Then we knew how long the A shaped bracket had to be to lock it in place.
I really do think it would have stood just fine without the bracket after the concrete was poured inside.
When we took the block n tackle off, it didn't change at all from where we held it.

My brothers house had one of the pre-built fireplaces with the fancy three layered chimney stack up through the roof.
However, before he used it the first time, he had an additional liner placed inside that could be replaced every few years.
Even so, he only replaced it once or possibly twice in all the years he lived there.

In my case, normal steel thin stovepipe ran up from the stove to a 90 degree bend about 2 feet down from the ceiling, and then out to the chimney. Where it passed through the wall was a three layer pipe with two sets of zig-zag fins. With the pipe cover on it, it stuck about an inch into the room, and about 3 inches outside the house, before a thicker stovepipe went into the chimney. When it rained or snowed, steam would come from that horizontal pipe, but the chimney itself would stay wet.
A few times, when we first started the stove up from cold, we had to block the little vents at the bottom of the chimney to get the draft going. But then we had to uncover them or the draft was too great inside the stove. That chimney was actually about 4 times too large for that little stove, hi hi.

[yogi]

I dunno, Gary. twenty one feet of steel pipe above ground and two feed below ground sounds very precarious due to the leverage factor. I'm sure your installation was stable, but would it remain so in a 35+ mph wind gust? The answer depends on the resistance the pipe shows against the flowing air. At ground level I would expect things to remain stable, but twenty one feet up in the air that small resistance gets multiplied by the mechanical advantage at the fulcrum (ground level). That's all me being paranoid. LOL You are a different animal and have instincts I never developed. Obviously the pipe chimney worked very well and never caused a problem. I admire your skills even when I don't understand why it all works.

[Kellemora]

I understand how fulcrum and/or crowbar works. The longer the shaft, the greater the leverage.
And I do agree with your observation as well. Thus the reason for the iron A-frame clamp directly to the roof rafters, not just the facia board. I should point out that only about 10 feet were above the eave line, and 2 feet above the ridge line.
Now my radio tower did have guy wires, some of which doubled as dipoles, hi hi, but it extended over 50 feet above the roofline also.
I also had a push-up pole that was only anchored to the facia and one roof rafter. It had to be pushed up before the guy wires were taught. And with those big antennae on the top, they caught one heck of a lot of wind.
FWIW: The distance from where the chimney was mounted to the closest property line was over 35 feet.
A tree blocked it from falling in that direction too.
I've seen advertising signs using the same size pipe, and they usually go into the ground over 6 feet, set in only a 3 foot diameter concrete, and they are filled inside up to about 2 feet below ground level. And you know there is a lot of wind pressure on those big signs. But then they are so far into the ground they are not moving anywhere, hi hi.
Honestly, I did want to go deeper into the ground, but I had to be so far above the ridge line for it to pass codes.
Actually, the inspector never asked how deep it was planted. He admired the A-frame standoff which was of substantial sized band iron with a five inch wide strap at the end and welded to the chimney. But I think the main thing he inspected was the type of ducting used through the wall, and commented that it was overkill.

Something on another but similar topic. Oars on a boat.
I'm sure you've seen how long and slender rowboat oars are.
They are usually mounted to the side of the boat with a U-joint and Pin, about in the middle of the oar.
Now my little 12 foot long John Boat I got for free. Originally was a 14 foot, but sat in the water partially sunk for so many years, the transom area had corroded really bad. We sawed the boat off at 14 feet and had a new aluminum transom plate heliarced in place, to which we sandwiched a hardwood plate with an outer piece of aluminum. It held an outboard motor, plus on the back left of the boat we had a trolling motor.
Now up in the center of the boat were oarlock to use oars with this boat.
However, I already owned some short paddles, and one set of humongous blade paddles which usually sat in the garage unused for anything. The paddle end was too big to try to use as paddles. I actually think they might have been stirs for some farmers fertilizer barrels and the ends looked like they clamped to motor anyhow.
In any case, I added a thickwall aluminum pipe to the end of these paddles, and a U-joint at the balance point after the pipe was added to them. They were still only about 1/3 the length of an oar. But from the U-joint down to the water they sat fairly close to the boat, and with the longer part of the handles inside the boat, we had enough leverage, we could get that boat sailing down the river using those oars almost as fast as the gas motor would push it along.
We were out on the Meramec River which we usually didn't go to, preferred the Big River or Bourbeus River for fishing.
But one night while we were on the Meramec River, we got to talking with a couple of guys in 16 foot John Boat and they only had a trolling motor. Since we were fishing, we didn't use the gas motor, and used the oars to move where we wanted to go. We sailed right past them a couple of times while we were out there using only the oars. It was also near the end of the fishing season for us. One of the guys took a look at our oars and said he would give us 50 bucks for the pair of them. No way was I going to turn that down, hi hi, and I also had the long oars in the boat because they had a storage place for them anyhow so they just stayed there all the time.
After I sold them to the guy, instead of fishing, him and his buddy was out there in the river just having a gay old time speeding up and down the river using only oars, hi hi, and I went home 50 bucks richer for something I probably would never use again, so no loss.