Category: around the house

A few days ago when I entered the garage I heard a noticeable 60 Hz buzz. Since this part of the house contains only fluorescent lighting I was a little confused at what it could be. The noise seemed to be coming from one of the incandescent bulbs on the ceiling; one which was giving off a strangely dim and off-color light. Switching the lights off then back on finished off the failing bulb, and it burned out in a typical flash.

I’m not completely sure what was occurring, but with quite a bit of darkening (likely condensed metal vapor) on the inside of the bulb and the odd colored light I strongly suspect that a gap had formed in the filament but was arcing, then on next power cycle the filament blew itself apart.

This bulb is one of two 300W incandescents that I use to illuminate the garage. I’ve considered putting in some bright, all-temperature fluorescent lighting, but doing that would be considerably more expensive than occasionally installing ceramic sockets and spending $5 every couple of years on a bulb.

Would anyone like either this two-drawer plastic filing cabinet or this light brown cloth Lay-Z-Boy recliner? Both are used but in good shape. I no longer have a need for them and would like them gone, but I’d prefer to see them go to a good home where they will get used.

The filing cabinet served me well for a number of years, but has been replaced with an upright metal model. The recliner doesn’t work out with the house setup, and while still comfy has found itself relegated to the basement, sitting idly, and facing the furnace with no one to sit in it. Help give this recliner a purpose again by giving it a place in your home.

During some routine repairs FJF Door Sales of Clinton Township, MI stuck an advertisement on the inside of my residence; something which I feel to be an inappropriate act.

A month back the garage door opener spring broke, and a quick call to the management company for our condo resulted in FJF Door Sales got it fixed the next morning. All of this was good and I was happy with the promptness and service provided. Since the garage had become the domain of Danielle’s new car I’m rarely in there with the door closed, so it wasn’t until yesterday evening I noticed the advertising decal that had been stuck to the inside of the garage door at eye level.

I find it ridiculous that this company feels that it is okay to stick their advertisement on the inside of one’s house after they have performed a repair.

Living in a condo makes this manner of advertising even more asinine, as garage doors (and other exterior elements) in this complex are handled by the condo association and not individual co-owners. Therefore, advertising directly to a co-owner is pointless.

Removing this advertisement has proven to be rather difficult. FJF chose to use a very cheap type of paper decal which tore when peeled and left behind a good deal of adhesive. This won’t be easy to remove since flat paint tends to absorb whatever has been applied to it and most adhesive removers are oil-based and won’t evaporate completely. The best recommendations I’ve found all involve cleaning the area and then repainting, but this’ll be a fair bit of work and have to wait until spring. All because one company chose to stick their ad to the inside of my house.

While cleaning my desk this evening I was startled by a loud banging crash from the garage; a noise which faintly sounded like the garage door collapsing. No, it wasn’t someone sliding on the ice and crashing into the building; the garage door opener spring had broken (photo), dropping the door and unspooling the lift cables (left side, right side).

Living in a condominium means that the association (which is collectively funded by the co-owners) pays for repairs such as this, so I called the property management company’s emergency repair number and set things in motion to get it repaired. Because there’s a significant extra charge to the association (of which I’d indirectly pay for part) to have the work done at night I opted to let them come tomorrow and get Danielle’s car out of the garage myself. This took a bit of lifting, the floor jack to get things started, and then more lifting and propping things up with some spare wood before I could back out Danielle’s car.

Lowering it down was no easy task, as by the time the last panel rotated to vertical I was unable to support it myself, dropping it the remaining twelve inches with a deafening bang that gave me a bit of a headache. Regardless, her car is out, repairs are queued, and all is good. I knew this was going to happen eventually as all garage door opener springs eventually go, I’m just glad that it happened now; a rather convenient time.

Over time and likely due to the dishwasher many of the glasses in the kitchen have developed a residue on them. I’m not completely sure of the cause, and despite the streaking and fingerprint-ish look I can’t seem to wash it off. Thus, I thought it to be a mineral deposit likely caused by a combination of dish detergent and water chemistry. A bit of online research pointed me to a product called Lemi Shine (very detailed chemical info on the product here), so this morning I purchased a container and gave it a try.

Following directions on the container I first ran the dishwasher empty with just a helping of Lemi Shine to remove hard water deposits from the washer, and I then ran a load with just glasses and the product. Per the promises on the container and reviews I’d read online I expected this to clean the residue from the glasses, but it didn’t. I then ran one more cycle with more Lemi Shine and dishwasher detergent, which is the prescribed use, and this too seemed to do nothing^†.

I’m going to have to try some other options and see what works. I may try some CLR, but being another acid-based cleaner I don’t have a ton of hope for it. There’s also BLC Beer Line Cleaner which is a base and might do something.

I guess I could just leave it be, but the glasses are starting to look unpleasantly grungy. The photo above shows the problem quite well, but it’s a little more exaggerated due to the glass sitting on a black background, being somewhat side lit, and a polarizing filter being used. It does a pretty good job of showing the unexpectedly streaked nature of the deposits, though. I hope I can figure out what will remove this.

^† It did do one thing: remove paint from some glasses and mugs. I’d thought that all of my glasses and mugs had their logos glazed on, but after the Lemi Shine treatment I found that many of them were missing some or all of their logos. Whoops. This makes me feel really bad because I don’t like it when I unintentionally ruin things.