nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Category moved from livejournal

Mmm… Heat…

October 20, 2005

This morning when I woke up, my house felt a little cool. I wasn’t sure why, so I took a bit of a look into it while brushing my teeth. It turns out that I believe my furnace is having its same old problem that it’s had for the last few years. This, combined with my failing air conditioner, makes me think that it’s about time to replace the heating / cooling stuff in the house.

See, here’s the furnace problem: For some reason when I have the grated cover installed on my furnace (as seen here), the furnace will occasionally fail to work. As in, it’ll light the pilot, light the burner, then shut the burner off after ~2 minutes. Then the cycle will start over again, and the furnace will short-cycle like that until the house is up to temperature. I’ve found info online saying that the flame sensor could be dirty, but the problem doesn’t happen when the door is removed, so I’m quite confused… The blower also runs and never cuts out, even when the flame is cut off.

So really, I’m just confused.

Coupled with the slow leak in my AC, I think it may just be time to replace things… That’s $2500 I don’t want to be spending, though. :\

UPDATE: Maybe some of the folks around here will be able to help.

around the housemoved from livejournal

;)

October 19, 2005


Click for more…

Nothing like an evening of laying pipe to make one feel like they’ve accomplished something. ;)

Unfortunately it’s not done. Well, not quite…

See, for some reason around 9pm I decided to start poking at running the water line in the wall. Well, a little over two hours later and it’s almost done. I’ve got the full length of water line hooked up, into the wall, into the little box, and everything is pressurized. All leaks are corrected, and I’m letting it go until tomorrow before I mount things for good. This means cutting the pipe to length, fastening the box together (read: gluing / epoxying, since I modified it all to be like a sort-of old work box), doing a final routing on the pipe, and cleaning up. I also need to pick up some of the little metal straps used for nailing such pipe to the joists.

I must say, I think it’ll be pretty nice… Instead of a wee stub of pipe poking up through the tile or out of the wall and hooking on to things, there will be a plastic box mounted in the wall about twelve inches above the floor recessed into the wall behind where the fridge goes with a valve inside of it. Then a flexible jumper hose (I got a six foot stainless steel braided one which won’t get pinched) connects from there to the fridge. Yes, it’s more joints and one more valve, but it really seems like the most elegant solution.

The only thing that I’ve got left to figure out is how to stick the trim ring for the box on to the box itself. I’m thinking I’ll use hot melt glue, because it should hold solidly, shouldn’t soften, works well on plastic, and can (generally) be removed should the need arise. All that is needed to hold the box is the trim ring, because it’ll fall into the wall if pushed, so the ring will hold it nicely. I’m just afraid of leaks so I’m not putting it together yet… Oh, the reason I had to mount it this way as opposed to something easier, is all the ice maker supply boxes seem designed for new construction. I ended up with this one here, the I2K from Oatey and I had to modify it a good bit so that it fit my needs. It should work out well, though.

But anyway, click the picture above and you can see some of the images I grabbed while installing the water line.

Goodnight. :)

around the housemaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Plumbing Update…

October 18, 2005

I don’t like waiting. I’ve cut the cold water line in the basement, and now I’m waiting for all the water in the house (!!!) to drain out through the now-severed pipe before I can solder the new fitting in. Guh!

around the housemoved from livejournal

Ice Maker Hookup

October 17, 2005

Okay, before I make a possible mistake, can anyone give me a good reason why I shouldn’t hook up my new icemaker with a polyethylene supply line? Most directions say to use copper, but there are many, many PEX kits available, and I can find no solid evidence as to why one shouldn’t use them. Just the occasional “they leak” statements.

Help?

around the housemoved from livejournal

iPod in Car

October 14, 2005

So with getting the new car, I’m going to need a way to mount the iPod. In my searching I came across a company called Pro-Fit International who makes a product called the miMount which seems almost ideal. With the description on the page I’m having a hard time telling how thick of an iPod it’ll hold. So, I called the mfg… Well, the person answering the phone didn’t quite have this info, so she gave me the cell phone number of the designer, and said that he takes calls. (!!!) Well, hopefully he’ll be able to get back to me with the maximum iPod thickness for this holder… It seems like a nice design, and I think I could make it mount nicely beneath the dash, just in front of the parking brake.

acquired thingsautomotivemoved from livejournal

Sunday Driving

October 3, 2005


Click for more…

Up until a few minutes ago I had great plans to make some sort of shiny template for my photo-centric posts. Well, likely due to the carbohydrates currently making me feel sluggish, I’m just not up for that. So I’ll offer a quick summary of my day yesterday, and this (photo gallery retired) link to a bunch of photos taken then.

I had initially left my house hoping to visit Bloomer Park in Rochester Hills and wander along the Clinton River to the former crossing of the Huron Clinton Canal, but with the $6 entrance fee, I decided to skip it. I drove Bloomer road west, eventually ending up in downtown Rochester, at which point I decided to head north. I wasn’t sure of where I was going, but I figured I’d end up someplace interesting.

And… I did. While driving north on Rochester Road, after passing through some quite drastic construction I came across a fireman standing in the middle of the road, stopping traffic. As I passed I realized that it was because the Oakland Township fire department was having their yearly open house. I turned around, parked, and went to take a look at what all was being offered. Well, there was quite a bit to see, including a demonstration of various hydraulic tools being used to cut, pry, or otherwise disassemble vehicles in which people have been trapped.

After that I headed over to downtown Lake Orion (don’t ask me how I got there) and found that there is a dam beneath M-24. Then I headed north on M-24, and somehow a while later I found myself at Big Fish Lake in the Ortonville State Recreation Area. I wandered around there taking pictures, then I headed over to Round Lake where I did some more wandering alone in the woods.

Oh, I forgot to mention this, but it seems that yesterday was the start of bow hunting season for deer. Whoops… Probably not the best time to be wandering along in the woods. Ah well, I’m still alive.

After visiting Round Lake, I headed west and came across the Ortonville Bridle / Snowmobile Trails, where I did a bit of wandering on what were clearly marked as horse trails before getting back in the car. Then I headed a bit further west (I think) and stumbled across Eaton Cemetery where I poked around for a bit and took photos of almost every headstone there.

After Eaton Cemetery I headed a bit south, eventually happening upon Bloomer #3, where I did a bit more wandering before I suddenly had pangs of nearly-passing-out-ness from low blood sugar. At that point I turned my car and headed towards home.

Ending up in downtown Ortonville (I think) I stopped off at a place called Frosty Boy and picked up (after a lengthy wait) a medium vanilla ice cream cone in order to tide me over. Needless to say, it was quickly eaten. Feeling a bit re energized, noticing signs for Indian Springs Metropark, and having a Metroparks pass on my car, I decided to pay this new (to me) metropark a visit.

It turns out that this park is located almost right next to NOAA DTX (Detroit / Pontiac) location. This was pretty made pretty obvious by the looming white radar dome in the distance. Oh, and this park seems really promising as well. There is a new Environmental Discovery Center being built there which will even have what appears to be an acrylic dome stretching off the back of the building into a pond of sorts. This could be really cool.

Beyond the Environmental Discovery Center, there is also some rather interesting playground and waterpark equipment, including what, from a distance, looks to be a prison camp. Yes, it is a large maze constructed of cyclone fence, complete with observation platform. It’s a bit foreboding, a bit frightening, and also extremely cool. I can’t wait to see it once it’s done.

After poking around Indian Springs, the waning sunlight told me it was time to head home, so off I went to the Rochester Hills Meijer in order to get some Lazychili ingredients. It’s good, but I think I made it a wee bit too spicy… Ah well, I may just have to make up a pot of rice and eat the chili over rice. < shrug > At least it’s good.

Beyond coming home, making the chili, emailing a (likely overly lenghty) reply to , uploading photos, watching an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and enjoying both a Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale and a Speakeasy Prohibition Ale, that’s all I did with my night. Quite a busy, relaxing, fun, fulfilling day. :)

(Hrm, those looked like much longer, better paragraphs with all the markup in there. Ah well.)

automotivemoved from livejournaloutdoors

Cider…

October 3, 2005

Well, the telltale ring of foam has appeared on the surface of the fermenting cider, indicating the yeast is just about to break the growing vs. eating threshold. I’d expect that when I get home there should be a goodly layer of foam (still not sure if it is called krausen on cider) on the surface. Yay!

Oh, the ring is — I believe — caused by the initial dosing of yeast settling in the lowest point of the carboy, a ring about 2″ in from the outside wall, all along the bottom. Then as it takes just gets going, the most wee bubbles come from this area, producing a ring of foam on the surface of the cider. After that, it’ll become a wholly roiling mass of yeast and CO2 and juice and other things, as described previously.

Unfortunately with the start of the fermentation comes the inevitable sulfur smell. That makes it smell a bit ass-y in the basement. Literally.

At least it’s expected.

beermoved from livejournal

Oakland Township FD Open House

October 3, 2005

Okay, so I was going to hold off until tomorrow (well, later today, I guess) to post any of these, but there is something I really like about this photo. I’m not so sure if I’m happy with the cropping, but I do think that it may be the most wholesome, wholly American (whatever that means) photo that I’ve taken in some time. And for some reason I feel a bit proud of this shot. It’s actually a candid that came out well and such. I wish I could somehow get this photo to the kid’s parents. Maybe I’ll just somehow get a print or digital of it to the fire station.

Oh, this was taken when I stopped by the Oakland Township Fire Department’s open house. I was heading north on Rochester Road and came across this and figured that I’d stop and see what was going on there. In the picture above the fireman is showing the kid how to use a wee fire hose in order to push a ball across a field and between some traffic cones.

There will be other pictures — including those of a Geo Prizm (yes, quite similar to the one I had way back when) being cut up — a bit later. Probably tomorrow, although I’m also wanting to write basic HTML template for all multi-image posts to LJ, which will take some more time.

With regards to the new template, I’m thinking maybe one large image with text below it (similar to what I currently do) but with smaller thumbnail images down a column on the right? It’ll give it more flash… It’d be similar to this ad for the iSight Tripod Adapters but… better.

Anyway, now that it’s a good ways past my bed time, I think I should get to sleep. Goodnight.

moved from livejournaloutdoors