Remember how, when learning Algebra in high school, most people thought that they’d never really need it in day to day life? Well, while I don’t use such things for my job, I need to solve similar problems all the time for brewing beer.
Odd. It seems that my article isn’t going to be in Volume: 04 of Make: either. I’ve been paid the full rate for an accepted article, so I’m wondering when it’ll actually get published?
Ah well. Maybe Make:’s getting better and better articles and the iSight Tripod Adapters just don’t fit the bill any more.
Well, despite my plans to the contrary, I finished up the water line install last night. Now there is a nice tap located behind the fridge, waiting for the new one to arrive. (Note to self: call to confirm delivery date)
After some discussion with
Bah. I’m sleepy. I also need to head over to Moosejaw over in Birmingham (uggh) at lunch in order to pick up a backpack. See, I had ordered the fleece for my new jacket from a place called Paragon Sports on Monday, only to have them cancel the order last night due to not having it in stock. I ran over to the Moosejaw store right by work and picked up the fleece (I think it looks really good on me — the collar is grand.) but they were out of the backpack. Uggh. I don’t like shopping for such things. Hopefully these things will last for years and years so that I won’t have to go through this all any time soon. That’s what I’m planning on, at least.
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.
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. :)
Sweating a brass shut-off valve to copper pipe is no fun at all. I can’t get the solder to wick down into the joint (I’ve had a leak on both tries) so I just tried reflowing it. Hopefully that’ll work.
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!
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?
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.
You heard it here first, kiddies… MS05-044 through MS05-052 have been released. Go patch your computers.
