Category: Home Improvement

Yesterday afternoon, things started getting warm at my house.

I thought it might have been an afternoon of baking.  I made a couple of loaves of French bread and a pan of lasagna.  I even used the broiler in my oven to make some of the French bread into garlic bread.  So I thought that maybe the overuse of my oven might have been overpowering the air conditioning a little.  A little later, my wife was doing dishes and noticed that the vent by her feet (the one that usually feels so good on the feet on a hot day) wasn't blowing air that was very cold.

I went out and noticed that the fan on the A/C unit outside wasn't moving.  It was making a bit of a buzzing noise, but there was no movement.  I fiddled about with it a little bit, but didn't really know what to do.

I called the company that fixed our furnace a few months ago and left a message.  This morning, I made an appointment for a technician to come out and fix whatever was wrong.  We needed it fixed quickly because the weather forecast for the next four days predicted temperatures just north of 100 degrees.  Yuck.

I also posted something on Facebook about our air conditioning woes.  Fortunately, one of the guys in my neighborhood had a similar problem and he told me how he fixed it for only the price of a part.

So I decided to check it out.  Air conditioners have a big compressor, heat exchange unit (like a radiator on a car) and a large fan in the outdoors part of the system.  Both the compressor and the fan rely on a capacitor (kind of like a mini battery) to get them started.  I took the capacitor off and realized right away that it was bad.  It had bulges on the top and bottom and a little yellowish oil had leaked out.  I used my multimeter to measure the capacitance across both capacitors (it's a dual capacitor) and both readings were zero.  That was definitely the problem.

It took a little while to track down a part, but once I had the part, I installed it and started up the system and the cold air started pouring out of the vents.  SUCCESS!

It was a little bit of a gamble, because I had already called the HVAC company and told them I didn't need the technician to come out after all.  If I had been wrong, we would have spent a rather warm night tonight.  But the gamble paid off.  For just over $30 and a couple of hours of running around, I was able to fix the problem.  The HVAC company would have charged me a LOT more than that.

It feels good to fix something myself.

My wife called me yesterday afternoon and told me that our radiant heating system in the basement wasn't working.

What??  That system isn't even five years old yet!  Ugh.

I came home and checked it out.  Yes, the basement was colder than the 60 degrees we keep it at when nobody is down there.  Yes, the pumps used to circulate the water through the system were running.  No, the boiler wasn't on, so no water was being heated.  That was obviously the problem.

I remembered the plumbing contractor who installed the system telling me that it was set up so that when water was flowing through the boiler, it would automatically turn on.  When water wasn't flowing through the boiler, it would turn off.  Something was wrong with the boiler.

Ugh.

I took the front plate off of the boiler (after turning the gas off, of course) and took a look at it.  It looked pretty simple.  There was a grey box with a couple of buttons on it: Test and Reset.  I pushed the Test button and a red LED came on.  I pushed reset and the red LED turned off.  The power supply was working just fine.

A quick Internet search led me to the manual for the Takagi T-KJr. "Instantaneous Water Heater" and after looking at the manual for a couple of minutes, I decided to try cleaning the water filter.  I knew, however, that this would depressurize the system and it would let air into the system.  Both didn't seem like very good ideas, but by cleaning the water filter, I could try circulating water, and if the burner in the water heater came on, I would know that the source of the problem was fixed.  And besides, the manual said that "This procedure is highly recommended."

So I decided to give it a shot.  I grabbed a bucket and took out the filter.  There was a fair amount of sediment in the filter.  I rinsed it out thoroughly, reinstalled it, turned the power and gas back on, and turned on the nearest thermostat.  The burner fired up right away.  I had found and solved the problem.  Hooray!

However, by fixing the problem, I had created another problem--one that was really inevitable.  The gallon of water that drained out of the system while I was cleaning the filter let a gallon of air INTO the system and the water pressure in the system had dropped from about 12 PSI to zero.

At this point, I knew that I needed to bleed the air out of the system and I needed to repressurize the system.  Knowing WHAT I needed to do and knowing HOW to do it were two completely separate things.

So I went to the radiant heating panel to see if I could figure out what to do next.

Hmmm.

I saw eight valves, three spigots, three pumps, and quite the array of pipes.

I did some Internet searches.  Google didn't seem to be helping me out.

Hmmm...

I came to the conclusion that I needed to call my friend and former student, Kyle, and pay him to come and fix the air/zero pressure problem.  I left a message, and continued to puzzle over this little problem.

Hmmm...

I came to the new conclusion that if I knew the direction of water flow, I would know which of the three spigots to connect to the water supply and which of the three spigots I should let water drain out of to force the air out of the system.  I figured that the pumps would have some sort of marking on them telling which direction they were pumping the water.  They did...but the markings were back where I couldn't see them.  Google helped me out this time.  I searched for the make and model of pump and quickly found a diagram.

With this bit of knowledge, I quickly figured out how the water flowed through the system.  I headed off to Wal-Mart to get hoses--one long enough to reach from the water supply (cold water supply for the washing machine) to the radiant heating panel, and the other long enough to reach from the radiant heating panel to the drain on the floor.  I also needed a hose with two "female" ends.  They don't sell such a thing, so I bought a regular hose and a "female" end repair kit.  I cut the male end off of the new hose and attached the repair kit and I was ready to get the system working.

I closed all of the valves on the system, attached the hoses, turned on the water, and then, using the valves, I ran fresh water through the system, one section at a time.  I heard the air gurgling through the pipes and saw the bubbles exit the drain hose.  I also saw the little bit of dirty water (from the dirt I had dislodged when I took out the water filter) leave the system and go down the drain.

After running water through each section of the system for a few minutes without hearing or seeing any air bubbles, I was pretty sure that there was no air left anywhere in the system.  I closed the outlet spigot and let the water pressure build up (watching the pressure gauge) until it hit 12 PSI.  I closed the inlet spigot, and I ended up with an air-free, pressurized system.

The final test--I opened all of the valves (for normal operation), powered up the pump system and the boiler, turned on the gas, and then turned on the heat from the thermostats.

And EVERYTHING.  WORKED.  PERFECTLY.

I don't know how much it would have cost to have a repairman come and do the work, but I'm sure I saved a bunch of money.  But more importantly, I have the equipment and the know-how to maintain my radiant heating system!

I have never really liked soft water.  I mostly don't like the slick/slimy feeling that I get in a hotel shower that has water that is too soft.  I like the taste of hard water better than the taste of soft water.

I also understand the benefits of having soft water.  Finally, the needs we have for soft water have outweighed my aversion to the soft water.

This brings up the other thing I hate about soft water:  I hate the whole process of having someone come to my house and test the water to discover its hardness.  I hate having them try to sell me whole home filtering systems, furnace air sanitizers, and other such things to go along with my soft water.  I hate having to make an appointment with a company representative who will show up late, track dirt in on my carpet, complain that I've picked an inconvenient location for the water softener, and stay longer than expected, grumbling and sweating the whole time.  And don't even get me STARTED on the infamous plumber bum.

So I took matters into my own hands.

First, I looked up the hardness of my water online.  Municipal water supplies are tested on a regular basis and the hardness of the water in grains per gallon is a statistic that should be publicly available.  It turns out that the water at our old house in the "Mud Hole" neighborhood has a hardness of 17.5 grains per gallon and the water at our new house has a hardness of 28.7 grains per gallon.  We're dealing with water that is 64% harder than we used to.  Maybe THAT'S why I was finally ready to get a water softener.

With this information, I was able to find a water heater that would meet the needs of my household.  Such a water heater was for sale at Costco!  Neato!

Yesterday, I bought it.  I spent some time researching the parts and tools I would need to install it, and found out that it would take a $150 crimping tool to do the plumbing part of the job.  I figured it would be worth $200 in parts to do it myself rather than paying someone else $200 to do it for me because in the end, I would at least have the crimping tool.

This morning, I went to my friendly neighborhood Home Depot and found out that I could RENT the tool for only about $8.  About 4 hours later, I had the softener installed EXACTLY where I wanted it installed and it was running its first recharge cycle.

The cold water in my house is now soft and the hot water will be soft soon.  I can control the hardness/softness myself anytime I like, and I did it all on MY terms.

Nice.

This afternoon, a truck came along and dumped a load of mulch/bark in the street in front of our house.  Ten cubic yards of bark.

That's a LOT of bark.  It's enough to cover our entire dining room waist deep in bark.  That's enough bark to cover 1080 square feet of ground three inches deep in bark.

It's just over half of the bark that we need.  Wow.

We spread bark over all of the garden spots in front of the house tonight.  It looks really good.  We probably spread about 6 cubic yards.  We still have a pretty good pile sitting out there.  Hopefully, we'll finish up with what we have tomorrow and then we'll have a better idea of how much more we need.  On Saturday, we'll order the rest and have it delivered next week.

It looks REALLY good.  We wanted to get it last year, but we didn't know where to get it until we had already blown our landscaping budget for the year.

I'm sure that one of my next posts will be a complaint about lower back pain.

It worked!

I put a new lamp (Did I mention that I paid $340 for it? I did? Good.) in my projector and it fired right up. So, as the tech from Mitsubishi said, I'm a happy camper...

...except for the fact that I only got about half the use out of the original lamp as I should have. Hopefully this next one will last closer to the 2250 hours it's expected to.

If it lasts the entire time, the light costs about 15 cents per hour to run. (In addition, of course, to the cost of the electricity needed to run enough current through mercury to vaporize it) Watching a movie will consume 30 cents' worth of projector lamp.

But for now, I'm happy to have a working projector again. My sons are even happier than I am because it means that they can play video games (at 15 cents per hour) on the big screen during next week's Spring break from school. I'm taking a couple of days off too, so I'll hopefully be able to track down the ground loop in my Home Theater system. It's helpful to have ALL the components present when tracking such things down, I'm sure.

On Saturday, we did even MORE landscaping. That should be no surprise to anyone that has land to scape, because everyone with land to scape KNOWS that landscaping is a never-ending battle.

We started out by cutting sod away from all of the trees in the yard. Now we have nice circles of dirt around each tree. It's MUCH easier to mow around the trees that way. Additionally, it's easier to see when the tree has been well-watered. The water standing on the dirt is easier to see than water seeping through the grass.

We then moved landscaping rocks around. There were a bunch of rocks left behind when the landscapers built our rock wall. We piled them up next to the garage so that someday, we would be able to put them in various aesthetically-pleasing locations around the house. That "someday" was Saturday.

We also noticed some brown spots in our lawn. Earlier in my life, I would have assumed that the brown spots were due to insufficient watering or something like that, but sad experience has taught me to investigate the brown spots by tugging on them. If the grass stays firm, it means that maybe there IS a problem with watering. If the grass pulls up easily, there are lawn pests at work. I tugged on a brown spot and the grass gave way immediately. Further exploration revealed that we had sod webworms. Those things are EXTREMELY destructive if not killed immediately, so I went and bought a product that specifically mentioned its killing power against sod webworms. I spread that over the lawn and watered it in.

Finally, I went to a sprinkler supply store and bought emitters for our drip system. Now all of the newly-planted trees near our drip irrigation system will be watered twice a week without any additional effort on our part.

Tune in next week for the next exciting installment of "More Landscaping" when I talk about moving dirt around.

From holes in the road...

...to holes in plots...

...to holes in the ground!

I bought a small forest today. We bought 4 crimson sentry maples, 2 flowering pears, 2 flowering plum trees, a peach tree, a redbud tree, a couple of pacific sunset maples, and a pair of very large royal red maples. We got them home and started digging holes in the ground!

The Homeowner's Association whose property backs ours decided that they don't like trees very much. At least, that's how they're behaving. The cut down a bunch of mature, beautiful trees all along the fence line behind us. So we had to purchase our small forest to replace the privacy and beauty that they destroyed. They said it was because they were afraid that the trees might start leaning on or start pushing against the fence. I'd rather have a bent fence than no trees. But apparently, that's not so important to the people that live behind us.

I ended up getting 6 of the trees planted today. I also transplanted a baby blue spruce that was in a bad location. I would have gotten the two biggest trees planted, but unfortunately, a nasty storm blew through just before dark. I'll get them in the ground as first thing in the morning along with the rest of the trees. Then it'll be time to do some tilling and get some garden mix and mulch and get all of the garden areas FINALLY looking nice.

After this week of "vacation," I'll want to get back to work to get some rest!

Back at the end of march as you may recall, we had to buy a new range. It was at the insistence of the friendly folks at Pleasant Grove City who wouldn't issue an occupancy permit for my basement until the range and dishwasher were installed.

I bought the new range from Sears, mostly because this particular model was so highly rated by Consumer Reports. As an added bonus, I bought it online (not having to go to a retail store at all) AND I happened to hit a "free shipping" special. Of course, it's never really free. I had to submit my purchase to the Sears Rebate Center and they would reimburse the $60 shipping charge.

This week, we received a rejection notice from Sears. They said that the "purchase was made outside of the qualifying date range." WHAT??

I looked at everything. I purchased the range on 31 March. The particular rebate was good for items purchased between the 25th and the 31st of March. So I called the Sears rebate center to ask what the problem was.

They pointed out something that I hadn't seen. The "Order Placed" date on my receipt (I bought it online, so the receipt was via email) was 3/31/07. The "Purchase Date" was 3/31/07. But the "Sale Date" was 4/1/07. WHAT??

I tried to reason with the woman at the rebate center. She was immovable. I stayed calm and rational. She got more and more upset at me. She all but swore at me when I asked to speak with her supervisor.

Dave, the supervisor, listened to my story, but then reassured me that they could re-submit the rebate again and again, but it would be rejected again and again. Again, I remained calm and rational. He got flustered with me. I asked how else I could escalate this. He gave me the toll-free number of Sears National Customer Relations.

I called and talked with a very nice and (finally) patient woman, Andrea (pronounced Ahn-DRAY-uh) who went into the sales order and changed the purchase date. FINALLY someone who could help me! The process took almost 40 minutes, but my rebate request has been re-submitted and if they want to reject it, they have to speak with Andrea first. This is good.

Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but sixty bucks is sixty bucks!

I could have gotten angry. I could have ranted a bit. I might have yelled. But the truth is that the person on the other end of the phone (especially in the rebate center) is probably someone that is getting paid $10/hour or less to answer phone calls. They honestly don't care about my problem. They care about getting me off the phone and off their back. But by staying calm and rational, I ended up finding the person who could actually take care of my problem. The fact that Sears actually employs such a person is the reason I will keep doing business with them in the future...

...provided that I get the rebate.

No, they're NOT done with the basement.   No, I'm NOT surprised.

I'll be a bit upset if they're not done by Friday though.

We played table tennis downstairs yesterday.  It was a lot of fun.  But it still doesn't feel like that part of the house is ours yet.  It'll be nice when we don't have to worry about workers showing up every day.  Not that they actually ARE showing up every day, because the last couple of weeks, it's been hit and miss.

So FINISH ALREADY!!!  I want to hook up my home theater and LEAVE IT hooked up.  Yes, I'm VERY impatient.  And to be perfectly honest, I don't have any reason to be.  They're not scheduled to be done until the 27th, and that's still two and a half weeks away.

They SAY that they're going to be done with the basement today or tomorrow.

I don't see it. There's just too much to be done. WAY too much. I'll be happy if it actually happens, but I'm not holding my breath.

The good news is that they will probalby actually be done sometime next week and we'll have our home back. I'll be able to hang the blinds and hook up the home theater system and put the projector mount in. I'm excited!

The bad news is that they COULD HAVE been done by today or tomorrow. They really could have. They haven't done much in the past three days at all.

I guess I just need to have patience.

I'll post pictures of the finished product.