Category: Projects

March 4, 2026 – Troubleshooting 201

March 4, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I won’t assume that everyone reading this went to college. We hear the term 101 thrown around all the time, but what does that mean and what is the difference between 101 and 201? Well, 101 is a survey level course. In the case of Chemistry the year long sequence of 101, 102 and 103 attempts to cover three different disciplines of chemistry in a year long, high level series of courses. If you ask me, in many ways the 100 series is the hardest because the student is not given any basis for understanding the disciplines as they are intended for non and unrelated majors.

In contrast to the 100 series, the 200 level courses are intended for students that are going to go forward in the area of study. This means that the topics are harder and deeper with more emphasis on the why and not just the what. Today I am going to cover, why is the bathroom so cold?

From the first picture on the left, I see a bathroom fan with an integrated heater. It is not heating. This means that it could be broken or it is not wired correctly. Those are really the only two options. When I look at the picture to the right, I see two switches. One controls the lights in the bathroom and the other controls the fan. Based on what fan switch does, it should turn on the fan, a heater and a light. Only the fan worked.

That cannot rule out either of my hypotheses yet. It is either miswired or broken. I took the cover off of the fan. Low and behold there was a connector that was not connected. This is missing heater connection. I plug the connector in and turn on the switch, the heater belches and smokes to life. The problem now is that there are three things and only one switch.

This is a permissible mode of operation. What I mean by that is that power to the unit turns on the light and the fan and the heater. But, does that make any sense? I say no. Imagine that this is summer and now the heater is on every time the fan is on. Further to that, you are now blowing heat into the room and then sucking it out with the fan. This seems wrong in my book.

When we installed a similar unit in the ADU a few years ago, I separated the heater and the fan operation. That way you can have heat or the fan or both if it makes sense. In order to do that, you have to look at the wiring. I pulled the switches out to determine if it just wasn’t wired correctly. You probably can’t tell from the picture below but unfortunately it was not wired for separate operation.

Certain devices benefit from a more complicated wiring scheme. Take for example a ceiling fan. Before remote controls and external switches, it was very common to wire two hot wires to the fan. That way you could operate the fan and the light independently. Today you can control most ceiling fans at the device so that makes two hot wires irrelevant.

In electrical vernacular, the cable operating the device is labelled 12/2, 12/3 or 14/x. The first number is the wire diameter and the second number are the number of conductors in the cable. Without getting too deep into theory, 14 gauge wire is for 15A circuits and 12 gauge wire is for 20A circuits. This particular heater is a 1300W heater. If you do the circuit math, the total load is 15A * 120V = 1800W. The means that the heater could be on either a 15A or 20A circuit. I know it is 12 gauge wire because the cable insulation is yellow. But, what I do not see is 12/3 cable. Based on how the switch is wired, it is not possible for independent control.

To fix this situation, a cable would have to be pulled from the fan to the switch containing three conductors instead of the two conductor cable that is currently in use. OK, I don’t like that but it is doable. When I look at the other bathrooms, it gets more complicated. The pictures I am showing is the bathroom with a fan/heater combination already installed. To upgrade the other bathrooms, the overall circuit load has to be considered.

What has been standard was 15A circuits for lights and 20A circuits for outlets. Doing the math again, 1800W/ 60W = 30 permissible bulbs on one circuit. In old houses, you might even have all the lights on one circuit. In these days of LEDs, light bulbs are drawing 10-15W. That is now 120 or more permissible bulbs on one circuit. Not only is this power efficient, but it means that the lights can be on while you work on the outlets or other electrical concerns.

That is one way of wiring, the other is to have all terminations on one circuit. This means the lights and the outlets are all part of the same circuit. According to AI, a hairdryer uses about 2000W of electricity. That means one device is taking the entire circuit load on a 20A circuit. There is simply no way to add a 1300W heater and operate a hairdryer at the same time. This means running a new, dedicated circuit. Not only is the wiring from the fan to the the switch inadequate (but perfectly acceptable for just a fan only) but the power requirements are simply not there.

End Your Programming Routine: As I have stated previously, this new house is in a heating climate and the heat that is available is completely substandard. The good news is that one bathroom has the capacity to be fixed and operate properly, the other two are going to take more effort. It is my opinion that the house was miswired and even poorly designed. While not code to have heat in the bathroom, it is required in certain loans (not ours). More so than any of that, the house is simply uncomfortable. We aim to rectify that.

March 3, 2026 – There Are No Serviceable Parts

March 3, 2026 / / 0 Comments

While training for my half marathon ten years ago, my wife bought me this Garmin Forerunner 10 as a birthday present. As I have stated many times, it really wasn’t my goal to run a half marathon but I committed because it was something that she wanted to do. We could do it together. It couldn’t hurt my health any.

Garmin promised seven days of GPS on runtime and two or three weeks of regular operation. The way it worked is when you pushed the ‘go’ button, it would record a bunch of GPS coordinates as cookies. When you synced the watch, it would put those events into maps and then you would have your runs plotted. Those could be accessed when you log into the Garmin website.

I have to admit, I had no desire to be some sort of athlete. But, I did use the watch each time I ran. I would periodically check the maps to see if my pace was getting better. Honestly, the best part about the watch is that it would track your distance from the time the start button was pushed. That made training much easier because I could run halfway and then turn around to get my intended mileage.

The watch never lived up to it’s advertised runtime. When it was new, I could track one or two 5K length runs and it would be depleted after two days. It started getting to the point where it would die before the end of a half marathon with the GPS on and a full charge. By the time I did my actual race, the watch was unusable for tracking. I had to go back to the old fashioned way of timing my pace. It did work as a basic watch for about a week in between charges. So, that is how I used it.

You know how I hate to throw things away. I inquired about the ability to repair the watch. There are no serviceable parts. Where have I heard that before? My son’s e-Bike. The watch gathered dust form quite a few years until I looked up online and there are plenty of how-tos on how to do this. I never realized that there were rechargeable and non-rechargeable CR2032 batteries. The trick was that I did not want to order 10 of them, just one good one. That is what I did, I ordered one battery.

Why Garmin would say that there are no serviceable parts is beyond me. It actually looks pretty straight forward. You open the case, carefully disassemble the electronics and then swap the battery. It is assembled in the reverse order. This was a lake house project that I did. I took all of the stuff with me and I did it in the afternoon.

I plugged the watch in and it appeared to be charging. That is where I left things until the next day. When I took it off of the charger, all I got was a triangle, the sign that it is off and charging. Pressing the power button yielded not change. I did further research to say that it needed to be synched but I didn’t have my computer with me to do that. I tried to sync it when I got home and the watch was dead.

The battery indicator shows that it has a full charge but the watch does not function. The whole point of this was to see if I could sell it for $10 to some aspiring runner. I have to say that is certainly not going to be the case. I should probably spend some more time troubleshooting this watch. Now that I am home, I could certainly try some multimeter tests and another attempt to disassemble and re-assemble. But is it really worth it?

I have already moved on to a new model watch. I have also invested $6 for a new battery and time to do this battery swap, not to mention a $10 watch band replacement all in the name of keeping this watch out of the landfill. I also hate to be defeated and I cant simply admit that something so seemingly simple does not work.

End Your Programming Routine: It could be that I did not put this together correctly. It could also be that this thing has ran it’s course. I don’t really know the reason. My problem is that I have bigger fish to fry now. The time to wheel and deal cheap electronics has past. I have to get onto the business of moving to the new house. I haven’t fully conceded yet but maybe sometimes no serviceable parts actually means what the phrase implies.

February 4, 2026 – Just Breathe

February 4, 2026 /

Not two stroke fumes but it has been said that a engine is an air pump. The carburetor is equivalent to the lungs in that pump. I thought that getting the leaf blower started was going to be the easiest of my three gasoline powered machines to start. It is only about four years old, I have always ran good gas and I didn’t leave gas in the tank. I figured a shot of ether in the carburetor would get things going in short order. That would not be the case.

As I stated above, I confidently took the air cover off and opened the choke all the way. I sprayed a heavy shot of engine starting fluid and pulled the cord. The machined choked and sputtered and ran for about 20 seconds like it couldn’t quite get going. That would be with the choke on. Then, it immediately died when I opened up the choke on the carburetor.

I tried this again thinking things just hadn’t gotten up to operating temperature. This time I let the machine run two or three minutes under half choke. As soon as I opened the choke again, it died. This should have been my first clue as to what the problem was. However, I didn’t have any parts. It is not like I keep a bunch of small engine parts around anyway but I certainly was not not expecting to have to work on this machine. It has barely ever been used.

From what I could see, the fuel supply line had air gaps in it. I wondered if there was a break or crack in the fuel supply line. The priming bulb was full so in theory, even if the fuel was struggling to load the line, the delivery to the carburetor for running was adequate. I could obtain fuel line locally so I went about changing the feed and discharge lines.

The fuel line itself was hard and brittle. It did not seem to be broken. Nevertheless, while pulling the lines out of the tank, layers of the line sheathed off. In my mind, changing the line doesn’t hurt anything, it optimally shouldn’t be in the condition it was anyway. I crossed my fingers that it was just a line problem even though in my head, I really didn’t think this was going to work.

Guess what? My head was right. I pulled and pulled and I could only get the engine to run as long as there was starter fluid in the carburetor. I tried until I was getting to the point that my arm (neck) was bothering me, which doesn’t take that long. I resigned to having to do a more extensive rebuild. I wasn’t going to get that done while I was at the lake for a day or so I ordered an aftermarket maintenance kit.

It is tricky to plan delivery sometimes. I want to be home when it comes. I also know that we are not within the prime network at the lake. I have yet to try how delivery works, but it seems like I need to add another day to most deliveries. That is to say that I would not be here at the lake for delivery receipt and I may not be home either.

You can see what is included in the picture above. Since my lines were just changed, the carburetor comes with a new primer bulb attached, the air filter seems fine and I am not going to tear the whole thing apart to replace the spark plug, I am just going to swap carburetors. This cost $15 delivered.

Notice in the picture above, the O-ring fell out. I mention that so that you will be careful while doing this. I saw this too, I looked around and I didn’t see it anywhere so I thought my mind was just playing tricks on me and I put everything back together. Then I took the blower off of the bench and there was the O-ring. That cost me five minutes to take everything back apart and put the O-ring back on.

I gassed the blower up and gave it a shot of ether. It started after three pulls. The problem with the blower was something in the carburetor. If were up to me, I would take the old carburetor and rebuild it and then put it on the shelf for the next time I have these problems. What I am finding is that rebuilding small engine carburetors is a dead art. If you can buy an entire machine rebuild for $15, there is no sense in paying $30 for all of the gaskets.

One thing about living at the coast, small engine shops are not dead. We are far, far away from the logging heyday of the 1970s but there is still active logging in second and third generation forest in the Oregon coastal mountains. There is a saw shop only two miles from our lake house. Eventually when we get settled, I will visit and see if I can get a rebuild kit for the original carburetor. I am not going to pay more than $20 but I would be willing to spend more than an aftermarket carburetor just so that I don’t end up throwing the thing away. That being said, every man has a limit.

End Your Programming Routine: It was pouring down rain when I finally got the machine started. That is difficult conditions when trying to blow loose debris off the ground. Wet ground tends to cause sticks and needles to get stuck on the surface but I did what I could. With a giant fir tree in the front yard, I have a feeling that this blower is going to go from rarely used to most used gas tool in the shed.

January 28, 2026 – Gotta Use Your Noggin

January 28, 2026 /

So, the war is on. We were at the lake house last week for our longest stint ever, three days. We were there primarily because we had the house inspection and Radon test. I was willing to come back so that the tester could pick up the Radon module after two days but my wife wanted to stay.

One of the things that the inspector asked was if there were any concerns. I said that the heating is absolutely inadequate. My wife and I actually were discussing about purchasing and replacing one of the wall heaters the previous night. One of the heaters I could put my hand on the metal grate while it was running for as long as I wanted. It was warm, but that was it. The other heater I could hold my hand about an inch from the metal grate for about two seconds before it was too hot.

I was also interested in the electrical panel to see if there was any space if we do want to add a mini split. Maybe we will resize the heaters? I don’t know for sure but I will say that it takes 24 hours before the downstairs living space is comfortable. One of the thoughts we had was to turn on the ceiling fans in reverse. That is supposed to help keep the heat from moving upstairs.

I didn’t have a ladder so I climbed up on one of the few pieces of furniture that we had, a bar stool. I didn’t have enough height to see on top of the fan base but I felt around and I could not find anything. On the list for the next trip was a ladder. Only the cheapest of ceiling fans cannot be reversed. Ask me how I know but these had remotes and different light hues and fan speeds. I found it hard to believe that there was no reverse switch.

On Saturday, we were working on a puzzle and really just killing time until the Radon test was picked up so that we could leave. This was my time to get busy with the ladder. On the first fan, I plopped the ladder down, climbed up and the switch was right in front of me; fan reversed. I was excited that in five minutes I would be back to the puzzle.

I move to the second fan and I don’t see a switch. I checked three different angles on the fan base. Then my wife wanted to see. She said, “here is the hole where it is supposed to be”. I said “what”? I still couldn’t see it. Once I got through the paradigm that the switch wasn’t there, I missed it because I was looking for something raised, not a hole She was underneath the fan and said that it looks different than the other fans. We did some bickering about why I could not see the hole and I reluctantly agreed to take the fan down and see what I could see.

Ceiling fans are job that I don’t like doing. These things are heavy and awkward. More so than this, it really is not my place to be taking down someone else’s fan to see if I could determine what is wrong. But I did it anyway. When I got the fan off the ceiling, I could definitely see the hole. I stuck the flashlight in the hole and I couldn’t see a switch anywhere. I reluctantly agreed that I would take the fan apart further to see if I could determine the problem.

Once I got the upper housing off, I could see that it was installed about 120 degrees from the switch. Hence, the switch was underneath the housing but not visible or accessible. Once I got thing put back together the way they were supposed to be, I begin to wonder how this was possible. This had to have been built incorrectly in the first place.

The escutcheon was painted to the ceiling. It is possible that this was a homeowner installation, but based on the fact that the previous owners only lived in the house three years, there has already been a major remodel and there are some other electrical oddities, I suspect that this is exactly the way it was installed. Before I am too hard on the installer, I can’t say that I would have noticed this problem either. I strongly believe this is how the fan was built as the fan cover is not a typical user installed part.

End Your Programming Routine: Because we had already been at the house for three days with the heat blasting the whole time, it is hard to say if the fans actually helped. It also makes me wonder if I should pull apart the heater that is only kind of working. I will probably do that while we are here this week. I would have never have guessed that something made incorrectly, installed an used but never noticed the problem would be the case.

January 22, 2024 – Small Engine Maintenance

January 22, 2026 /

If you are like me (probably not) then you don’t do your own yard maintenance. I never grew up with a silver spoon and my parents still do all of their own yard work. It was really hard for me to consider paying someone when I had the ability to do the work, and in some cases, desire as well. That being said, I was travelling a lot for work and I simply could not keep up. It was well worth the cost considering how much they can do in the time versus myself.

I have gone through a couple of cycles. I had everything that I needed like lawnmower, trimmer, etc. Then after a couple of years I slowly gave stuff away until I had nothing. But, when I quit my job I needed to take over that task for financial reasons. Fortunately, an uncle gave my son a lawnmower so that he could build his financial empire and he wasn’t using it, so I did. Then, my father-in-law died and I refilled my shed with the things that were missing.

We still have someone doing the yard but at the lake house, not so much. Each trip I have been hauling over yard equipment. I started mowing the grass but I could not get the edges so then I brought over the trimmer. The beach brings a lot of higher wind and now I have a lot of evergreen debris on the driveway and deck so I am bringing over my blower.

If you have ever tried to start a lawnmower after sitting for five years, you might be surprised as how much work is involved. Fortunately for me, I have been in the habit of running gas engines out of fuel when I am uncertain about the future. But, I gassed the mower up and pulled and pulled to no avail. A small engine’s best friend is a can of starter fluid, sometimes called ether. I sprayed a good shot into the carburetor and viola, it started.

Tune up kits can be purchased relatively inexpensively. They typically contain a spark plug, air filter and sometimes a quart of oil or some fuel filters or primer bulbs and tubing depending on what engine it is. What I have heard is that lawnmowers should have the oil changed once a year along with the blade sharpened. Spark plugs and filters are optional if they look plugged or black. You can bet that I haven’t done it in five years, if ever. So, that is on the future agenda for the mower.

I also had to use the starter fluid to get the trimmer going. It had an additional problem that the priming bulb cracked as I was pushing on it. The second picture is the new bulb installed and I also changed the filter and spark plug. I did this because the filter was pretty clogged and those items came with the tune-up kit. Now that is up and going again.

I haven’t been able to get the blower started yet. I think all it probably needs is a shot of starter fluid. However, it seems like my son helped himself to the bottle that I had here and so this will become another unknown project until I get to the beach. Even though it is cheap, I really do not want another thing to move considering I use it very infrequently in the first place. One can will last me for years, two would almost be a lifetime.

Our yard is small. I can mow all the grass in about twenty minutes. I think that when we do move, our days of yard service will be over. That will save a couple of hundred dollars a month. It will be important to get these things going and keep them going. One thing that I do now is only use ethanol free premium. The previous homeowners left a couple of full gas cans for the generator. I suspect that those are not ethanol free. So, it is what I have used for the mower to date but once that is gone, it won’t be.

Side note here. Gasoline should be rotated. So, if we do not run the generator extensively and I have gotten several mows from a partial tank of gas, the gasoline in the the cans will sit for a long time, possibly years. What I do is pour the fuel in my car after a year and then take the can to the filling station for the car and the can. This ensures fresh fuel is always stored.

I learned the ethanol free trick years ago. I had the lower grade gas destroy my gas line in my chain saw. I suspect that it was also the culprit for the primer bulb in the trimmer. Aside from starting the trimmer, I have never used it. Most people won’t go to the cost and effort to get ethanol free gas. It’s not like I can ask my father-in-law. In summary, ethanol damages the rubber or whatever the plastic parts are made of.

Side note two. Ethanol is water soluble. If your gas has ethanol then likely it will also have water if it sits around long enough. Fuel additives called stabilizers help prevent that as well as replace the lightest components that tend to evaporate over time. If you are not going to use ethanol free gas, you should highly consider using a stabilizer product. Regardless of stabilizer, I think the ethanol is going to attack the plastic.

You would think that ethanol is the only problem for small engines but it is not. Sunlight degrades the plastic parts as well. What I mean is that there is no such thing as a small engine that does not require maintenance at some point. This seems like a good opportunity to make some short videos or at least articles so look for more of these as I get things going again.

End Your Programming Routine: You know what else doesn’t help? My bad neck and shoulder. Pulling on those starters leads to pain. The easier I can start things and the better they run makes life a lot better for me. I want to offer some encouragement, I don’t know a lot about these things either. But, you can try some simple things like starter fluid and tune-up kits and probably get things going again.

January 20, 2026 – There Outta Be a Better Way

January 20, 2026 /

I admit it, I am frugal. That is one way of saying that I really despise waste. A standard construction tube of caulking often contains way more material then a typical home owner project will use at one time. So the remainder of the tube becomes waste if it sits around too long.

I have tried every trick in the book to preserve the life of caulk tube remnants. I have put electrical tape over the nozzle. I have tried to embed nails and screws so that there is a channel when I come back to it. I have cut the nozzle shorter to pull the plug of dried caulk out. I have used large, screw on electrical connectors to act as a cap. They all suck.

Caulking is a love hate relationship. You want to believe that it is an ideal solution to a less than ideal situation. That being said, I find about a five year or less life with it in an outdoor application. My personal preference is to use as little as possible because if you are at the point where your hopes are on caulk, you are waiting to fail.

Certain projects typically can use quite a bit of caulk. I am thinking back to siding replacement I did a couple of years ago. In those cases, it seemed like I was going through it as fast as I could blink. But, because I despise waste, I want to make sure that I am purchasing the exact amount I need. Caulk will even dry up in an unopened tube and when you only use a squirt at a time, it doesn’t pay to keep it around.

Recently, I was doing a quick cleaning to get ready for a house showing. I hadn’t really spent any time in the apartment since the tenant moved out. It looked like it was in the need of TLC and when I looked at the vanity, I could see a gap between the top and the tile backsplash. I can’t remember if I ever mentioned this but we had to replace the entire floor a couple of years ago. The shower had leaked and it had rotted the structure. So, the vanity had to be removed and I suspect it shrank.

I thought that I would just quickly put a bead down. The more I can spruce up, the better the chances the buyer will be wowed, or at least not turned off. I had an open tube of kitchen/bath caulk. The best application for this is 100% silicone, that is not wholly important other than to say it is not water based. It requires mineral spirits to clean up.

In fact, I had two tubes. One was clear and the other is white, see picture above. The clear one had clearly given up the ghost. I determine that by forcing a nail into the small opening at the nozzle. If and when I pull the nail out and I get some still wet material, then I consider the tube viable. I would then set about trying to get at the good material.

The clear was clearly dried out, but the white was not. So, I set about poking and squeezing until it was flowing. If I can get away with it, I will cut half the nozzle off but that amount of opening causes a very wide bead. That tactic is not really suitable for a for a bath job unless you are OK with it all over the place. I was not.

Twenty minutes of poking and cleaning my hands and tools off with mineral spirits, I finally got it to flow at an adequate rate. Believe me, more than once I had this thought that I am spending way more money in time than just going to purchase a replacement tube. The nagging problem in my head is that this perpetuates the cycle all over again. I had to get it done quickly because I had 30 minutes before the showing so I persisted. Fortunately, I felt like the smell of bleach that I poured around the shower to try and subdue the mildew significantly overwhelmed the pungent, vinegary smell of silicone caulk or the petroleum smell of ‘Odorless’ Mineral Spirits.

The job got done and I screwed the electrical wire nut back on the nozzle. I know full well that the next time I want to do something like this again that this tube is likely shot at 3/4 full. I was lucky to get a second project out of this one as it is.

End Your Programming Routine: I used to keep a small tube of hand squeezable caulk. However, it also dried up. Just like we are buying half gallons of milk now, these things can almost cost as much as a standard tube. But, at least there is not so much waste. Now that we are moving to a newer house, I am expecting less home improvement projects. Maybe it is time to go back to the smaller tube?

January 6, 2026 – The Oregon Coast is a Heating Climate

January 6, 2026 /

This is one of those gems that gets found when you rent before you buy. As an aspiring coastal dweller, I know that it rarely gets above the mid-seventies in the summer. There are often times that when it is near 100 in the valley where I currently live, it can be in the 60s and sometimes even raining at the coast. I have no qualms about what the cooling capacity is needed for comfort at the coast and I would have expected that the heating question is solved in spades.

After we made our offer and toured a second time, I discovered that our new house really has inadequate heat. The picture above is one of two units in the living space on the main floor. The problem that I have observed is that it takes up to 24 hours to get the living space comfortable and that is because a lot of the heat goes up the stairs (mind you, this is with all of the doors closed).

It has been almost thirty years since I have lived in a unit with electrical resistance heating. They are pretty common in rental units, I put them in my own ADU. In fact, I used a double sized unit in the living area of my 650 square foot space. You can see why I am skeptical that two of these will be enough for 1200 square feet.

It will make a difference when we are living there and not trying to heat a space from 45 to 70 in a couple of hours for a quick overnighter. Our New Years stay was our first multiple night stay and we installed one of those weather stations to try and get a handle on how long it actually takes. I would say a good day to get comfortable.

I won’t say that we cannot live with it, because we can and we will. As long as things keep up, it will be alright. The worst case scenario is I have propane, kerosene and space heaters if needed. My wife won’t like it and those will mess with the Feng Sui of the home but we won’t have to be cold. Adding mass such as furniture will make a difference in the operational duration of the heaters. I have observed that they pretty much run from the time they are turned on until we shut off the lights to leave in an overnight stay in an empty house.

Let’s not get too rash until we move in and see how it goes. While the climate is always cool, fortunately it is rarely severely cold. It will occasionally snow and by that I mean once every couple of years. Temperatures below freezing is a couple of times per year but not extended days on end. I am looking at my temperature while I am writing this and it is 32 degrees here and 40 degrees at the lake.

Electrical resistance heating is cheap to install but very expensive to operate. Hence why it is seen so often in rental units. The landlord never has to reap the consequences of the installation decision. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. I do think it is ideal in small spaces particularly interior ones. Those would be things like bathrooms, laundry rooms and occasional bedrooms. I don’t love them for bedrooms because of the potential fire hazards and they are a poor substitute for a furnace. They just don’t have the power to heat things quickly and have to run a long time, think spinning dollar signs as they operate.

Think about it this way, two of those heaters can be put on one standard 20 amp 110v circuit (yes, there are lots of different models this is one example). That is 2000 watts of of electrical consumption. Our heat pump is on a 60 amp 220 volt circuit. Whether it uses all that power or not it has a potential to consume 13,200 watts of power. Doing that math, that is 13 individual resistance heaters. The unit cost of those heaters are currently $167 each meaning the overall materials cost is roughly $2,200 whereas a full size heat pump furnace is at least $10.000, not counting duct work.

I don’t have time to go into all of the technical details today however heat pumps pull heat out of the air and into a carrier fluid over a coil to be blown throughout the house. Only when the outside temperature is cold (less than 35) does a resistance coil kick in to add supplemental heat. This is why operating a heat pump is significantly more efficient than electrical resistance heating because you are mostly using electricity for a fluid pump and two fans.

Heat pumps are not the only technology choice. The advantage of heat pumps over furnaces is that they offer cooling in the warmer months with the same technology. In our case, an all electric home, it seems like an obvious choice without having to connect gas or find a place to put a wood/pellet stove. To further subdivide the category, a mini-split is a certain type of heat pump that doesn’t use ducts (think hotel room). They also tend to be at least half the cost of a traditional heat pump without the footprint or infrastructure.

End Your Programming Routine: In our future, I actually see two things, one is propane and the other is a mini-split. I will talk about the reasons why in some future post. I know that electricity is going to be expensive but so is retrofitting this house and we are tapping pretty hard on reserves to do all of the inspection items like replacing the sewer line and new porch railings. All told, we are about $15,000 in repairs to date and we haven’t sold the house yet. Wait and see is not just practical, it is also necessary.

December 23, 2025 – When It Rains, It Pours

December 23, 2025 /

When it comes to winter storms, certainly the ones that have snow and ice are the ones that get the most attention. These are the ones that snarl traffic on the ground and the airport, they freeze pipes and generally make life miserable. While it might snow here a time or two a year, there have definitely been years without snow. We also get another type of storm that rides the jet stream in from Hawaii. This is our second ‘atmospheric river’ this month.

When we moved into this house twenty-one years ago, it was in the beginning of January. We lived a whole year without seeing any kind of water in the basement and the previous owners only owned the house for nine months. It was never disclosed that the basement got wet. More than likely because they didn’t know. The second January, I walked down the stairs and then stepped in water up to my ankle. The house inspector mentioned where a good spot to put a sump pump but it had gone in one ear and then out the other. After the mess was cleaned up, it was time to start planning.

I can’t believe that I have never written about this before, but I haven’t. Since I have installed the sump pump, I have not stepped up to my ankles in water. It has made a huge difference but it doesn’t stop it all. If it is wet enough, water will weep through the concrete block foundation and it will start coming through the expansion joints in the floor. Believe it or not, most of the water runs down the outside sidewalk, down the basement stairs and then under the door.

If we were going to stay here forever, I would put a drain at the bottom of the basement stairs to prevent much of this. The reason that I have not is that it would really require rebuilding the entire stairs in concrete. It is probably somthing that I should have done but life have been busy. Let’s call it a long term plan.

I have a submersible pump that will go to the worst areas like the one pictured. When the water gets high, it can take up to ten minutes to pump dry. Additionally, when the water is that high, one pumping is not enough. The sequence goes fill, pump, fill, pump until the ground drains, which can take days. For this most recent storm, there was only one day that I had to pump. By then, the rain event had already passed so I knew that I was in the clear.

The good news is that this is not every time it rains. It happens under two conditions: an atmospheric river or when a heavy snow event starts to melt. The bad news about the second one is that when it snows, it tends to freeze. This makes the pump deadhead against a pipe full of ice. I have had to come up with emergency procedures to pump out with a hose into the yard rather than down the driveway and into the storm sewer system. The other bad news with that is that the water tends to run back into the basement by way of under the door. But it is better than waiting for the pipe to thaw.

Last year, there was a forecasted atmospheric river. I got everything ready by getting stuff off the ground, staging pumps and hoses and all that prerequisite work. The rain came and went and the basement did not flood, not one drop. Consider that dodging a bullet because I would much rather roll up a dry hose than spend time fighting the rising tide. It was the only time I had to go into action last year. So, you see it is not every year.

This is one of those things that is part of the rhythm of life. The first time it happened, it was probably a week of trying things and constant vigilance. At this point, I just make sure anything that can get wet is off the floor and stage pumps and hoses. Since I have been working in my office, there has not been a time where I haven’t found a minute to step away an pump for sixty seconds and I don’t worry about it.

We got three inches of rain in a 24hr period of time. When I look at the local rivers, they are not the highest I have ever seen. I would concur that this was not the wettest my basement has ever been. In 2016, we had record setting rainfall, I did take the day off to keep up with things that year. But, then again, there was river water on Highway 99W. That was the first and only time I have ever seen that. That time, I did take a day off of work so that I could deal with the water.

Snow and ice do a pretty good job of messing up the roads temporarily. This is not that but when the rain causes a landslide that wipes out a half mile of road, this can be a whole lot more costly than snow. There are at least three different road closures for damaged highways that the foundation has been washed away. The label is ‘indefinite closure’. An atmospheric river is nothing to sneeze at.

End Your Programming Routine: I love my basement. It is an extremely valuable space for me and completely worth the effort. But, I will be honest, I will not miss this exercise. It changes plans and sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night. We were going to spend two nights at the beach but I told my wife that I needed to stay and monitor the situation. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad and we are waiting for the next event. Hopefully, this is it for the year and forever for me.

December 10, 2025 – I Can Do Anything, I Am So Smart

December 10, 2025 /

Many people have doorbell cameras these days. My wife is obsessed with them; I am so, so. I like the idea of having a security system including cameras but I don’t like the fact that they are constantly dinging and going off. Our front doorbell camera was our first and it certainly fell into the nuisance category. Not to mention that at least half of the time it would miss the mail man delivering. What good is this thing anyway?

I decided that the solution was to upgrade from the base model to the professional model. I also did away with the battery because we were more frequently discharging the battery then I really thought was reasonable. The heat of the summer would somehow cause it to run on battery instead of the line power. Previously, I never had the doorbell not work because it was summer time.

I had it in my head that I needed to pull the refrigerator out to get to the chime mechanism. Despite the fact I already an a resistor in line (for the base model), the professional model needed another do-dad. I was reading that it had a capacitor to regulate power to the camera. That seems reasonable.

I have not pulled the refrigerator out since we have owned it (three years). The refrigerator is deeper than the original and to actually remove it, the doors have to be taken off. That is both refrigerator and freezer. Needless to say, it is not trivial. You can see from the picture that I did it. I stuck my head behind the refrigerator and all I see is the transformer. What the heck?

Epiphany. The doorbell chime is actually covered by the sign above the refrigerator. This is the largest reason that sign is placed where it is. For many years, there was a clock wired to the chime mechanism. It was put in place in the 1970s when the kitchen was built and my wife thought that it had served its useful life when we bought the refrigerator. The fact that the sign was there meant that the doorbell was out of sight and out of mind.

Fortunately, taking the doors off was the perfect reason to clean things out. It is amazing the amount of crud that builds up inside the freezer. Not only was it far past time but it was also necessary to get ready to sell the house (I did this work in September just so it doesn’t seem like I replaced the doorbell before moving out). We also paid a cleaning crew of three, four hours of kitchen cleaning and I still see things that need to be done. It is kind of amazing and gross but the kitchen has been loved.

The point is that what I thought I knew I didn’t. I did a lot of extra work because I was confident I knew what I was doing. I delayed doing this job for weeks because I was going to have to pull the refrigerator out only to find out that I could have swapped the doorbells in an hour at the most. Talk about humble pie when I had that moment.

Aside from being humbled, what else can we learn from this situation? Well, other than pride no harm, no foul. But seriously, how many other things in our life are we certain about? Pseudo science and politics come to mind. I don’t really want to go there today and so I won’t but anytime the phrase ‘the science is settled’ should send warning bells off. Memories are clearly foulable, mine is no exception.

This wasn’t the first time I had egg on my face from not remembering correctly. My wife says that this is arrogance. I think that I am relatively humble and I would say confidence is the proper word. But, there can be a very fine line between the two. Since I brought it up, it is fair game about what people think of me. But, I would say the difference is confidence is the ability to go into the unknown without fear versus arrogance is forcing your narrative onto others. To bring it home, me stating my opinion is not forcing anyone to agree or even listen, it is putting something out there as a beach head to stand the test of debate.

End Your Programming Routine: I could see this developing into something like a sermon but you don’t want that and it wasn’t my intent. What I am doing is holding that inner mirror up to make sure that we periodically check ourselves so that we don’t get too certain about anything. Even established facts should be periodically challenged or evaluated to make sure that they still hold up. This isn’t about a doorbell installation but being an adjusted human being.

September 23, 2025 – I Owe This Much

September 23, 2025 /

All that work in August and I haven’t even bothered to show it off. This is it. It is not all the pictures that I took but the best ones and it shows the progression of how things went.

I will be honest, my proudest detail is the drain pipe. Everything worked out so perfectly and looks pretty neat too. I have to admit when I was purchasing the pieces, I kept going around in circles about how everything was going to fit together and if I got the right fittings and pieces. I am happy to report that I only missed two 90s and one piece I purchased extra. Not too shabby.

I am happy to have that done and it made me remember how much I enjoy doing productive projects like this. In many ways, that year I spent at home was some of my most enjoyable time ever. Yes, it was sun up to sun down but that was because I couldn’t stop myself.

End Your Programming Routine: My next project is not a project at all but clean-up from this one and all the other stuff I did since the beginning of the year. I am getting ready to button things down for the winter and that means dump runs, donation center runs and breaking down recyclables versus trash. I am going to be a happy man when the eyesore of all the things too big to fit in the garbage can finally go away.