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Category: around the house

Failing Furnace Blower Motor (A.O. Smith 319P892)

Published August 9, 2009

With last night’s storms and the extra-high humidity today, I turned the air conditioning on before going to bed last night. While working in the basement this morning I heard an intermittant squealing sound coming from the the furnace blower while the air conditioning was running. This wasn’t a good sign, but I figured I could just keep an eye on it and see if it gets worse. Then, sometime around 1pm, the AC was no longer working.

Reaching inside of the furnace and turning the fan by hand (with everything powered down, of course) found it to be rather stiff, and almost stuck, meaning that the bearings in the motor had likely failed. After removing the blower unit and playing with things, I found that the motor was now turning a bit better. With a replacement likely needed in the future I pulled the motor itself, then took the picture above to document the model number.

Looking further, I noticed that the motor has a ‘TOP’ marking, and right below this are two oil inlets. (One of these inlets can be seen above on the bottom part of the motor, sticking out in line with the shaft cover.) Hoping to loosen up and lubricate things a bit, I dripped a bit of Tri-Flow down into the holes, spinning the shaft some more. With the shaft moving better I reassembled the blower unit, put everything in the furnace back together, changed the air filter, and tried it out. It works, with no more (for now) squealing. Yay! Hopefully it’ll keep working. I’d rather not have to buy a replacement.

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Squeaky Hedgehog!

Published July 24, 2009

Today I’m working from home because my car is at the shop getting the brakes sorted out. Danielle’s dog Roxie is here, and every few minutes she arrives with a different toy, wanting to play. It’s a bit distracting, but I can’t say that I mind.

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Tasty, Tasty Breakfast / Brunch

Published July 18, 2009

Since Danielle joined a local CSA we’ve been getting a lot of vegetables and eggs. I wanted to use some up this morning and also have some nice food, so I (mostly) made what’s seen above.

First was small redskin potatoes, onion, garlic scapes, eggs, rosemary, and garlic fried in oil and butter with salt and pepper. Everything but the eggs were fried together until the potatoes were cooked, with occasional scraping of burt bits off the bottom of the pan for extra flavor. The eggs were scrambled, poured over the cooked potatoes and veggies, and allowed to cook. This was then topped with harissa from Zingerman’s 20th Anniversary Tasting.

I also put together some salads using last week’s lettuce and croutons that I’d made a few nights ago, and Danielle sliced some fresh fennel bulb over it. The croutons were cubed stale bread, fried up in a pan with particularly good olive oil, rosemary, oregano, salt, pepper, and crushed garlic. The dressing is Organicville Foods’ Sun Dried Tomato & Garlic Organic Vinaigrette.

As a beverage I had some Meijer-brand with-pulp orange juice mixed 50/50 with carbonated water. I love this as it’s sweet and slightly fizzy, but not as heavy as a full glass of straight juice. The carbonic acid also adds a nice bite. Per usual, Danielle ate her food with a big glass of milk.

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Collapsed Bathroom Rugs

Published July 15, 2009

After cleaning the bathroom this evening I tossed the rugs in the washer to clean them up. Unfortunately, as I went to put them in the dryer I found that the wash cycle had done them in. Ah well. I guess 7.5 years (just about the amount of time since I’d moved in) is a good life for them.

This also meant that I had to remove many, many, many handfuls of shredded rubber backing and nylon thread from the bottom of the washer. There was also a bunch of rubber and nylon in the laundry tub, so I hope that the pump isn’t too clogged. As all the water had drained I’m guessing it’s okay, but it won’t hurt to pay extra attention on the next load.

Now to find a good deal on some new rugs…

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Fruit Of The Neighborhood

Published July 12, 2009

Right next to my condo is a large, empty field, most of which I believe to be owned by a local church. While walking Afie in a remote part of said field this evening I came across a rather large stand of blackberry plants with about 1/3 – 1/4 of the berries ripe.

After taking Afie home, grabbing a bowl, and getting to picking I ended up with just under half a pound of berries. These are really, really wonderful. Sitting here eating them tastes just like summer up north at my grandparents cottage / house after returning from the berry patches at the edge of the woods, just a mile or so down the road.

Oh, and the cost? Some time, ten (or so) mosquito bites, slightly scratched arms and legs, and a few berry stains on my hands. Thankfully no ticks were involved, despite the walk through tall grass and it being a warm July day.

I think I’ll eat maybe half of them now, then save the rest for breakfast tomorrow. I’ll likely leave them unwashed as well, just because.

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Defective Target Gallon Zipper Freezer Bags

Published June 25, 2009

It appears that Target has sold me an entire box of defective zip-closure freezer bags. When I went to use them this past weekend I found that they wouldn’t close, and closer inspection showed that two halves of the zip-closure are misaligned. Thus, the blue part can’t latch into the clear part and it’s not possible to close the bags.

I intend to return them and get another box, but I suspect that the entire run of them is defective.

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Broken Lettuce

Published June 25, 2009

It seems that today’s storm has damaged my lettuce. It is torn, perforated, and generally broken down. The storm also downed a tree at the entrance to my condo complex, and caused me to have a 1:30 drive home. Most of the time was spent within the last four miles of my house.

I was in a windowless conference room having a meeting while the storm rolled through, so I only heard the rain on the building’s roof, but I guess it was pretty bad out this way. Hail, 75 MPH winds, and lots of things falling over.

UPDATE: A portion of my basement floor was wet, and it appears as if the wind was also strong enough to either blow water in that basement window, or back water up against the window so that it could flow in. I wish I had been here to see this storm.

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Lots of Riding in Hot Weather

Published June 25, 2009

I’ve been riding my bike a lot lately. Not particularly far, but every day since Saturday. Here’s where I’ve been:

Saturday: River Bends Park, exploring new (to me) single track.
Sunday: Addison Oaks
Monday: Orion Oaks
Tuesday: Pontiac Lake Recreation Area
Wednesday: Stony Creek

Today’s ride at Stony Creek was one of the hardest things that I’ve done in a long time. The heat really, really got to me and I just couldn’t cool down / feel better. All the other days went rather well.

Now, bed with air conditioning. I finally turned on the AC after finding the inside of the house to be 86°F with even more warm weather on the way.

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IKEA: Food and a Full Car

Published June 15, 2009

As my CD rack is now empty, Danielle and I headed out to the Detroit area (Canton) IKEA and poked around for quite a while looking at book cases for my office. After a bunch of research before and talking while in the store, we came to a conclusion on what would work well.

Unfortunately, it didn’t appear that the boxes would fit in my car, even after I went out to the parking lot and remeasured the inside of the vehicle with various seats repositioned. We first left without buying the book shelves, but decided that if Danielle were to sit in the back, and things were positioned diagonally, we just might be able to fit everything.

Well, it fit so long as Danielle sat in the back seat. That’s three of IKEA’s BILLY book cases (two narrow, one wide, both tall) and doors for them (three tall glass doors, and one short glass/wood door). It’s impressive what my car can hold, if pushed to its limits. (Here’s a rather not good photo of Danielle sitting in the back of the car along with the boxes.)

While at IKEA we also ate some lunch, which is seen above. My meal, as shown above, was a rather good pasta and garlic bread with elderflower drink. Later on, before leaving the store for the first time, we also split a cinnamon roll.

I’ll post photos of the bookshelves and stuff later. They aren’t completely done being assembled, as I still need some binding screws to hold the two side by side cabinets together. After that I’ll begin filling them.

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