Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Power for the masses

Finally! Another part of our Previous Owner Saga has come to a close. Despite my photographic evidence the electrician that our previous home owner hired still claimed that the damage to the breaker box occurred after we purchased the house. I had taken pictures of the house when we looked at the house the first time as well as when we had our inspection. Guess what, nothing was ever fixed. Again though home guard was accommodating. The electrician sent them a letter saying the damage was after he had "fixed" the box so home guard accepted our claim. This time it cost us $300 bucks for the new box and breakers. It's a $100 deductible then and additional $200 to upgrade to a 200 amp service. It looks nice though. I had the electrician leave room at the top if I want to add whole house surge, or a lighting arrester. Perhaps a backfed breaker for a generator in the future.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Desert Spring Furnace Humidifier

Things are a little more moist around the house. I installed a Desert Spring Furnace Humidifier over the weekend. It's designed to go on the cold air return, but my cold air return is round, not square. Off to the hardware store for some sheet metal where I banged out a square duct that would be big enough to accommodate the humidifier. I had it installed in a couple of hours, and it certainly works. It's quiet. It comes with a Honeywell humidistat. I have a couple hygrometers around the house and they now say 50% or so. I have the humidistat set at 45% and it's still running. If I turn it down then I can hear it click off at 37%. So I guess it's just off or the house is expelling a lot of moisture ( and my heat ). We'll see how is goes during the winter and how it cleans up in the spring.

The humidistat only controls the rotation of the disks in the humidifier. It does not stop the water from flowing into the reservoir. Despite the disks not spinning, I would guess that some water still gets into the air. I have not seen any comparison of evaporation vs. moving and non-moving disks.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Drip, Drip

Well, this is getting more annoying all the time. We asked for a couple of things to be done when we purchased the house. Fix the stuck faucet, leaky toilet, gutters and electrical. Except for one new downspout, it's very clear that NOTHING was done. The previous owner now lives in California, she had a former boy friend watch things and handle the closing of the house. George was responsible for getting the repairs done, but it's clear now that he did nothing what so ever. Granted a plumber did come and put a new ring on the toilet, but did he actually look at the problem and diagnose it correctly? Nope!

It turns out that our leaky toilet is actually caused by a crack in the joint that connects the waste from the sink into the waste from the toilet. It appears that the joint had come loose. The bathroom floor is tiled and bedded with about 3 inches of concrete.

I used some epoxy putty to seal the bottom of the pipe and to stabilize it. I used my Dremel to rough up and clean the pipe for good adhesion. After the putty cured I removed the toilet and used marine epoxy to fill and smooth the crack from the top then I even added some fiberglass to help meld the two parts. I hope it works.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

The stairway to, upstairs.

I think it's true in most Cape Cods that our stairs are quite steep. For some strange reason we don't have a railing in all the way up. The pretty railing we do have only goes up about a quarter of the way. I didn't want something that was going to take up a lot of space even if that means they don't match in style, so I opted for the round wood one. I ordered a maple one but it never came in. Maple would match our Birch trim that we have in the house. Now my pregnant wife will not have trouble getting up or down the stairs.