What home improvement work did you do today?

Living just West of Erie Pa., all I have done is snow blow most of the days. We have gotten 70+ inches since 11-29 and we are supposed get another 20 inches today. As I write this we are in the middle of a blinding blizzard with wind gusts of 60 mph. Erie is paralyzed. No end in sight until sometime next week. Glad I retired from nursing because if I was still working in the hosp. you'd never get home. As a nurse,you don't just get to leave if staffing isn't in place for the next shift. You might be stuck there for days.

 

I'm not anywhere near as knowledgeable as others are concerning HVAC, but even if the issue you're experiencing is not related to insulation levels, I will again recommend verifying that you have sufficient insulation (not sure if you mentioned that anywhere) in your attic.

Once I got the local insulation firm out, they told me that not only had our insulation compressed over time and lost its effectiveness, but there were also some areas where we flat out had *no* insulation. They blew in a ton more insulation; I think we're at like an R-53 level right now.

The difference is SUPER noticeable. For example, last winter, if the outside temp was 20 degrees, the heat pump would run for an hour or two in order to get the temperature from 68 to 70 or so. It'd then drop from 70 to 68 in 5 minutes or so, and the cycle would repeat. Not optimal, to say the very least.

Now? Due to the increased insulation, the heat is retained longer...so not only will it heat up in 30 minutes or so, instead of an hour or two (since it's not fighting against poor insulation, therefore there's nowhere near as much heating/cooling loss), it takes far longer to drop in temp - we're talking 30-40 minutes, instead of 5 minutes.

 

Definitely possible. Thinking it through a bit more, if he was low or overfilled on refrigerant, maybe the compressor is responding to that.

I'd be tempted to look at levels, but again, not enough info on condition to make an educated guess at this point.

 

Let's see some snow carnage pics Don!

Had some friends get re-routed further south last weekend. I miss living in the northeast, sounds like a blast!

 

temp inside is where it should be. so what im saying is the house is cool

 

Love the rough posts... Truly love that look. I will be building one for next year and may try to find something like that for mine.

 

Today was one of the fun projects. My neighbor drove over last week and said, I need these attachments for my tractor. I know you will also need tines for the new building, so can you find some to buy? Then he handed me a wad of cash and said he didnt feel like shopping around. So I got to buy stuff with someone elses money, and even give him money back because I found a better deal with the discount weeks...

So, unboxed these and loaded the trash into my trash runner for tomorrow...

This is a quick attachment adapter that makes using multiple PTO attachments easier:



And then, the new tines:



And then we went to town and bought more distilled water, formula and diapers. Maybe momma a bottle of wine too.

 

Maybe I'm old no I am, since when do mirrneed USB ports?

 

Ditto. Or similar. And we have to close the bathroom door when she is charging it because the ring around it glows red until it’s charged, and switches to green. Annoying as hell! I hadn’t thought about putting one in the barhroom vanities, then I’d need to get cables for them I bet. She wouldn’t understand they just carry over.

 

Those are beautiful. BTW I used to live in SAT and one of my favorite restaurants in the old Fincke Meat Market building on Josephine St. Any relation to E.J Fincke?

 

Goddam 120 for a mirror..?!!?!?!

 

Try this:
Leviton T5636-W 60W (6A) USB Dual Type-C/C Power Delivery In-Wall Charger with 15A Tamper-Resistant Outlet, USB Charger for Smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, White

 

We installed these in the kids bathroom, and in the gym bathroom. But my better-3/4 has one of the portable round ones that charges via cable, and we have a wall mounted 6’x4’ mirror in the master. These have touch sensitive buttons on the glass to defog the mirror and for the outer light ring. Light is on with one to demonstrate. They were less expensive than I expected. Pretty solid quality.

 

Needed a easier way to get water out to the animals this winter.. added a hose bib after the main shutoff in the garage. Threw a gauge in there too for shits and gigs.

 

Have a link for those?

 

Thanks, and yes EJ Fincke was my great grandfather. My wife and I always like going there for dinner when we can.

 

Power is fed to the mirrors from the 2-gang wall outlet, which is a different, non-GFCI circuit than the receptacles you see there. As stupid as it is, the half bath almost directly downstairs feeds those two wall outlets shown. The sparkies who originally wired this house figured, “ah screw it, the half bath only needs one outlet… let’s run from the box, up 5ft to the half bath and drop a GFCI to start the circuit, then feed the master and guest bath 5ft upstairs from there!” Proper wiring for the GFCI at the time, only the 1st outlet in the run needs a physical GFCI outlet w/ buttons. But yeah, it was really fun when we remodeled, tracing back how all the upstairs and bathroom outlets were teeing off. Wiring new circuits is a FPITA having three stories, main panel in the bottom floor.

 

It's upside-down.

 

Your ocd won't be able to handle that

 

Just giving you shit. It's fine either way, but I prefer ground down. You see ground up more in commercial. The NEC even says ground up is recommended, but both ways are fine. Do what makes YOU feel good.