The Great Lakes are for sailing, wussyboating and fishing. NOT surfing.

More odds and ends:

* The new shower head is awesome! I got a Speakman VS(R)-1240. It's regulated at 2.5 GPM but feels like much more. Plenty of pressure - enough to reach the back wall of the shower to warm it up. Inexpensive, too.

* When I was installing curtain rods I was ready to give up on whatever the drywall is they used in this house. It turns out the drywall is just fine - anchors not so much.

My preferred drywall anchors for things that aren't real heavy are "Auger Anchors".



They're pretty simple and I had no idea that there are cheap ones out there that don't work. Turns out that there are, and the ones I got in a kit on Amazon are complete trash. The ones from Home Depot work fine. They weren't expensive but I returned them to Amazon anyway just for payback.

* This house was framed by Amish, which is supposed to be a big deal. I'm not impressed - several of the walls are far enough out of plumb that the doors won't stay fully open and instead hang about halfway closed - just enough to run in to in the middle of the night. I found out about these magnetic door stops and they work perfectly!



* I called out an A/C guy because the furnace blower was making a soft rattling sound. Not loud, but loud enough that I could hear it when the house was quiet. I thought it might be normal but wanted the unit checked on GP anyway.

The problem turned out to be a tiny piece of cellophane stuck to the blower wheel - a piece of cellophane that probably came from the new filter I installed. Doh!

Even so, the service call was worth the $90 it cost. The tech was very good and showed me where the flame sensor is, took it out and showed me how to clean it. He told me that 90% of "no heat" calls on these newer Lennox furnaces are caused by a dirty flame sensor. It's a five minute fix. SK - don't you have a furnace like this? Or is yours a heat pump?

* The toilets in this house were made by Mansfield, right here in Ohio. The quality looks good and they work well, but it turns out that universal parts don't fit them. No big deal, but it took me a while to find a flush lever that matches the faucet finish.

Little by little...

We love our Speakman. My spouse wants pressure washer levels of water to get the soap out of her hair. I like being able to take a shower in a couple of minutes post run.

Our holiday project is trying to figure out the cause of an intermittent outage in two rooms on the second floor of the house. We suspect it may be a short. I suspect it is time to call the electrician though I'm going to go up into the attic and determine if there is anything blatant going on that I can determine to be the cause.

quote:

a dirty flame sensor. It's a five minute fix. SK - don't you have a furnace like this? Or is yours a heat pump?

I think ours is technically a heat pump? I really should know this after all the research I did when we bought it.... I think it's a heat pump...

Also, we don't have gas, since you wrote flame sensor, I'm guessing you have gas heat?

quote:

Originally posted by kluurs:
Our holiday project is trying to figure out the cause of an intermittent outage in two rooms on the second floor of the house. We suspect it may be a short. I suspect it is time to call the electrician though I'm going to go up into the attic and determine if there is anything blatant going on that I can determine to be the cause.

99 times out of 100 the problem is in a junction box - either at a receptacle, switch or light fixture. If you're comfortable working with electricity I can walk you through the procedure if you like.

Step one is easy enough - have you noticed any discoloring on a receptacle or switch plate somewhere - even one that is not affected by the outage? Burning smells? Are any of them warm to the touch?

How old is the house? How is it wired - Romex, conduit, knob and tube? Is the wire plastic or some sort of fiber covering? How many receptacles are affected when the power goes out?

Do you have fuses or circuit breakers? Are any of them warm to the touch?

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:

quote:

a dirty flame sensor. It's a five minute fix. SK - don't you have a furnace like this? Or is yours a heat pump?

I think ours is technically a heat pump? I really should know this after all the research I did when we bought it.... I think it's a heat pump...

Also, we don't have gas, since you wrote flame sensor, I'm guessing you have gas heat?

If you don't have gas then you have a heat pump. We have gas heat.

One other thing he showed me is that the thermostat has a fan setting called "circulate" that runs the indoor fan every so often. It's adjustable as far as time, but I think it runs the fan on low 10 minutes of every hour.

The purpose is to even out the temperature among the various rooms. It works, too - the basement is now the same temperature as the rest of the house, as is my office that has a big window and three exterior walls.

There was a short in the switch in the dining room. I replaced the switch - carefully checking to make sure I used the same kind of dimmer switch and the same wiring as was there.

It is a 100 year old house and some of the wiring goes through old gas lines - some is newer.

AND guess what, I just checked the junction box where the switch was replaced and I think we've got it. THANKS!

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
The Great Lakes are for sailing, wussyboating and fishing. NOT surfing.

"wussyboating" HAHAHa I like that

quote:

Originally posted by kluurs:
It is a 100 year old house and some of the wiring goes through old gas lines - some is newer.

Oh. This could be a good trick. With any luck no one has buried a splice in any of the walls.

If there are no external signs of a loose connection, the next move is pretty much grunt work. Turn off the power, check to make sure it's off with one of these testers. Check the tester on a known live circuit before trusting it. Check all the wires in the box for voltage before proceeding - not just the ones connected to the receptacle or switch. Any brand is probably fine - I use Ideal, Greenlee or Kline:



Figure out which receptacles are affected, make a little list/drawing and then find the circuit breaker that controls them. Your problem is likely in one of the receptacle/switch/fixture controlled by that circuit breaker. This is a good time to update the markings on your panel if they are no longer clear.

Now, starting with the affected receptacles, remove them from the wall one by one and check for a loose connection, burning, discolored wires and/or electrical smell. If they all look OK, start fanning out to receptacles/switches nearby. On a house that old a lot of the wiring probably runs through light fixture boxes - check them, too.

From experience I can tell you four things:

1. The problem is likely a bad connection on a neutral (white or gray) wire.

2. The problem is also likely to be in a light fixture box.

3. If there are a lot of receptacles/etc. affected, start by replacing the circuit breaker.

4. If the wire is old enough the insulation will crumble when you go to remove it from the box. If this happens, (usually in a light fixture box because of the heat) call an electrician.

[edit] I see you found the problem. Yahoo!

quote:

The purpose is to even out the temperature among the various rooms. It works, too - the basement is now the same temperature as the rest of the house, as is my office that has a big window and three exterior walls.

Yep. making sure the air moves around makes a huge difference. For us it's not the heat/temperature so much as the humidity. Having the air circulating in the summer keeps the humidity much more constant (happy piano!) And in the winter, I set up a fan in the hallway where the bathroom is, and turn it on after showers. In terms of keeping it from getting too dry every little bit helps, this way I can avoid needing to artificially increase the humidity and end up with sweating walls and windows!

Steve - Yup found a loose connection with the switch I was alleged to have fixed - apparently - enough of a connection to light the dining room - but only intermittent current to the upstairs.

THANKS - I thought I'd already checked - but apparently, not as well as I had thought.

My thermostat doesn’t have that feature and I think there are only three wires from the thermostat to the furnace, so hard to add features. But when I had the furnace replaced, I had them add a switch to turn on the fan continuously. I guess I could add an in-line timer to that circuit.

These are my go-to drywall anchors these days:



I used to use the spring-loaded wing ones, then some years ago, I bought a package of them and the first time I tried to use one, the threads on the screw literally fell off. I tried a second one... same thing. I grabbed another one out of the package and ran my fingernail down the screw. The threads were shallow and I could just scratch them off. The metal was soft carp and the threads were barely there. It was the first package of anchors I bought that were made in China. The last ones I had were from my dad's garage and all made in USA.

I tried several stores until I found some that were made in Korea and were much better than the Chinese ones. Still I went up a size or two to hedge my bets.

I got some of the auger style ones for a large mirror I hung over the fireplace. I got the biggest ones I could find. They seem to be okay.

But I've been using the Triple Grip ones for a while and as long as you keep the plastic part from turning in the hole, they are great. If it's dicey, I will stick an ice pick into the wallboard next to the anchor and hold the anchor in place while I tighten the screw.

They are a heck of a lot better than the plain bullet-shaped plastic ones that come with just about anything you buy now.

If you are careful you can take the screw out and put it back once or twice. That is the advantage of the auger ones and the good old-fashioned Molly ones. You can take the screw out and put it back several times before it stops working... again if the threads on the screw and on the anchor aren't cheap carp.

20 years ago I was having intermittent brown outs in the house.

At one point I thought I had isolated it to one power strip. I unplugged it and the problem seemed to stop. I took it apart and there were burnt bits.

But a few days later, the problem came back.

I had an electrician out and he tightened all screws in the CB panel. Some were loose and the panel had been installed in the early 1980s to replace the original fuse box from 1952.

A week later it started again.

I called the actual power company. They came out and did some testing then replaced the splices outside of the weatherhead. Fixed. No charge.

It finally dawned on me that the problem occurred when it was windy.

More odds and ends still:

* The mailbox lock seizes when the temp drops in to the 20’s. Is there a fix for this?

* Flannel jammies appear to be a thing - even in grocery stores and Target. They’re general paired with wool caps with big pompoms. Is this common elsewhere? Are they like board shorts in CA?

* Temps have dropped in to the teens and the grass is still green. What is this stuff?

* Locally, landscapes mostly consist of low bushes spaced a few feet apart on a mound of brown mulch. The mulch is replaced every year.

Desert plants grow like that because of scarce water. Water is definitely not an issue here. Is there a reason not to plant things closer together?

* Liquor laws are very different here. Liquor licenses must be really easy to get because every little pizza parlor and deli has a full bar. Not so CA where very few places have a full bar.

Package liquor is different. Beer and wine are everywhere and a lot of CA wine us cheaper than it is in CA. Spirits, though, are only sold in state licensed stores, not at Costco or grocery stores.

The workaround is 42 proof liquor, sold pretty much everywhere. It’s really cheap - less than $5 per fifth. The gin doesn’t taste like much of anything, which is odd because they could easily infuse more botanicals in to it.

I put some juniper berries, a clove and some lemon zest in a bottle to see what happens. If that doesn’t work a little extra olive juice makes a passable dirty martini.