What home improvement work did you do today?

Yikes. Not exactly what you want when things are dry as hell and fires kicking up. Hope non of y'all are being impacted by Palisades. (I realize you're farther north, Chris)

 

ok, real fear here...

any update?

 

Ok. Sorry for the delayed update. It turned out to not be a leak, thankfully, but more our inexperience with propane. We've always had natural gas everywhere we have lived before this house. Apparently, when your propane tank gets low enough you can get a gas smell inside the house. And that's all it was. Which was definitely concerning when you wake up to it and don't know it's a thing. The propane company did apologize to us as we are on a plan where they monitor our tank and it's never supposed to get below 30%. But their customer service and response to our problem has been nothing but outstanding.

Up where we live in Norcal it has been pretty wet and no real concern about fires right now. This week is the first week in a long while where there is no rain.

 

Best case scenario.... good to hear! Glad the family is safe and good to know since we just added propane and didnt know this was a thing.

 

Might be worth it to get one of these to put in a hallway near the bedrooms.

$54 Kidde Carbon Monoxide Detector, Propane, Natural, Methane, & Explosive Gas Alarm, Plug-In Wall with 9-Volt Battery Backup, Digital LED Display

https://www.amazon.com/Nighthawk-Mo...8-3-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

 

We actually have that exact unit but it's on the other side of the house. Maybe one on the bedroom side wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

 

I remember reading your post and thinking "I wonder if his tank's just getting low.....NAAAH it can't be that simple" and forgot to mention it.



My apologies for not saying squat. That's totally a propane thing - only time I noticed it was when the local propane company screwed up and forgot to deliver stuff. In response I just got used to checking the tank gauge every month or so and notifying them whenever it got around 40%.

 

*Quietly goes outside and looks at his gauge because he has never done that and didnt know this was a thing......

 

Got my butt kicked today and about to have several days of it... getting out of shape sucks and getting back in to shape hurts, but I am actually enjoying this... I may or may not make some social media videos.. If i do I will let yall know...

anyway, all the trees have been felled in my yard. Two from the hurricanes that were called a widow maker. The tree came out at its roots and fell into another tree, snapped it and killed it, but they both were suspended in the air... that one was scary...

Three in a bunch blocking the access to my new building, two in a bunch sitting in the corner of the building and then three more in a bunch blocking the back corner of the building. Now I have a massive sand pit which is being organized into sections. Wood for the burn pile, stacked and crushed down by the tractor. Wood for small wood. And wood that will be cut and split into fire wood.

Luckily, I found a guy who is going to take all the split wood in trade of a truckload for me. the rest is his to sell. No splitting in my future, which I just dont have the time or patience for right now anway... but the work to prep it all... fun times...

 

Called that a drip leg all my working life, wonder if it's one of those regional things

 

I’ve heard both. Also mud leg and dirt leg.

 

I happened to check my propane level just the other day, I was at 40%. I do not use much propane as I have heat pumps…unless it gets below 37, the big furnace switches to the propane. I’m getting a connection to my propane tank, so I can use a generator with the big propane supply, for emergency power outages that last more then 12 hours. Anyways, he literally called me while reading this post. I asked him about the low propane level gas thing… he said yes but normally at 15% or lower.. Good to know.

 

58 YO house and the basement ceiling has never been insulated, I have been here for just 5 years and the Nat gas isn't going down in price, just like everything eles.
Soooo tomorrow will be a busy day 35 rolls of un faced R30.

 

Yeah our tank is currently running my grill with a separate valve to hook to our generator for those exact reasons. It will eventually be rigged to a new stove and water heater, but thats another project for another day.

 

We bought our in-laws house about two years ago and they moved into the in-law suite…..slowly but surely we have been “making the house our own” as best we can. The in-laws are great and very easy to be around. They stay to themselves and have their own entry, etc. But the attic and garage have collected almost 40 tears of stuff and it got overwhelming. Not hoarder level at all but a two car garage barely fit one car. So I spent 4 straight days over break laying a floor on the attic to increase storage and took trailer loads to the dump getting rid of stuff that hasn’t been seen or used in decades. I built a bin storage rack, went through every nook and cranny and organized / arranged everything. My tools are accessible, I built a miter saw table that has casters that raise and lower and actually have room to work. I could for my riding mower and motorcycle if I want but I think I want to keep the floor space for working in the garage. My next project is working a heater to the panel there and keep it on a thermostat. I wish I had before and after pictures but it used to cause anxiety going into the garage. Now I actually want to spend time in there!!!!

 

Yeah thanks man. I have about 3” of insulation in the attic. And it’s like a 8’ peak

 

Progress and going pretty smoooth,thank God it's winter because the amount of spider carcasses is amazing and hopefully this will keep them fuckers at bay.
I've hit the entire exterior envelope with expanding foam before laying in the insulation.

Break time stuff down some grub then start the slooooooow cooker for ribs tonight.

 

I'm getting itchy just looking at that!
Good luck

 

Does anyone know how these Taco air vents work? This is on my hot water supply loop. It's labeled 150psi

 

That's a Taco Hy-Vent model 400. It's there to burp air pockets out of the system - don't normally see them in domestic water systems, but I could see why someone would add one to a recirculation loop (to prevent air from causing the pump to cavitate). If your system is build right, the only time it would ever be burping water is if you had to do a drain-down and re-fill of the system.

There's a float inside of them that holds it closed when the system is full of water, but when air gathers in the body the float will drop and burp that air out the little cap. It is possible for them to spit a little water when that happens (not much), but if they are leaking considerable water it's a sign that the unit isn't working right (or you have a shit-ton of air in your water). They do make an adapter to replace that small cap that you can connect to 1/4" NPT pipe threads to route to a drain.

The "150 PSI" marking is the rated pressure it is built for, not the operating pressure of your system. The newer ones now are built for a 250psi rating.

We install thousands of them in industrial and commercial projects, primarily on hydronic systems to allow for draining and filling.

 

Very cool, thanks for the info.
Is there a way to manually burp the vent? Just thinking about it when I pull the circ pump off

 

That style - not really.
But burping it won't really do much (other than spray water) if the air pocket isn't at the spot of the air vent. And that's the purpose of the "automatic air vent" is to burp that stuff out as runs through the system and collects at that point (presumably a high point - at least a local high point).

When you get everything buttoned back up, open up the piping as normal but don't turn the pump on right away.
Run your highest faucet in the house until it stops sputtering air.
Then turn on the circulation pump to run continuously and let it run for a while (maybe an hour?). It should burp anything that loops through the system and makes it back to that point (they collect a bit inside before the float will trip). While it is circulating, you can also open various faucets off and one to confirm they aren't sputtering.

https://youtu.be/Vn4W4Nt7z2E

 

Yep, that is the high point.
Great suggestions, thank you

 

If you've never sweat copper before, it's not difficult to learn but it might be good to make yourself up a "test piece" that you can test to make sure you get a feel for it AND that you can leak check before you go to town on your live systems.

get some extra 1/2" copper tube and a few fittings - I'd suggest a tee, 3 elbows, and a FTG x MPT adapter, as well as a FPT x female Garden Hose adapter.
sweat it up into a square donut like this sketch, then thread the garden hose adapter onto it and thread that onto a garden hose and hit it with some water while sitting over (or in) a bucket. After an hour - see if you have any water in the bottom of the bucket (to confirm you don't have some small pin-hole leak).


You can always re-use the garden hose adapter, but the rest of it you can put on your desk at work to prove to the plumbers that electricians are smarter than they look.

A few other pointers:

• use MAP gas for your torch - it gets hotter and will work better than propane
• I recommend a torch that has a trigger pull for igniting AND gas flow. You'll be on-off-on a bit and you'll want the other hand free for wiping the joint. Like this one
• Put the heat on the fitting - never on the pipe. Just above the tip of the lighter blue flame is what I like to touch to the back of the cup.
• Do all of the joints on a single fitting before moving on - prep the pipe, flux everything, and dry fit all piping going into a single fitting before you start sweating that fitting. Every time you heat a fitting up you have potential for the other joints to weaken so working on one fitting at a time minimizes issues.
• 1/2" and 3/4" elbows and tees are best to put the heat to the "back" of the fitting cup and spot test your solder after a bit - touching the solder to the open edge 180* from where the heat is being applied. As soon as it starts to suck into the joint, turn off the heat and feed in the solder to that joint. Then give it a wipe with a damp rag before moving to the next joint on that fitting. Apply just enough heat to the back of the next cup to start drawing solder into it before turning off the torch again and feeding that joint. If you don't think you got enough in there you can always heat it up (again, just enough) and feed some more in.
• Disassemble the pump body when you sweat it - you don't want to be putting heat into the o-rings or any other parts, just the bronze housing. Same basic principle for sweating the housing except it will take noticeably longer to get it hot enough to draw in solder (it will also hold the heat longer). With the smaller pipe size of these pumps, you shouldn't really need to keep heat on the housing while you feed the solder in (on larger sizes you would need to keep heat on it to fully fill the joint).
• Working flat on a bench is best when pre-assembling - you can keep things straight and avoid mis-alignment. Soldering "uphill" is kind of a pain compared to "downhill" (thinking of your vertical piece of pipe), but these size fittings aren't that much more effort (compared to trying to feed uphill into a 2" elbow).
• emery cloth for cleaning/roughing the outside of the pipe AND the inside of the fitting cup is critical - even on bright shiny new fittings.
• flux is critical.

If it was ME, this is would be my order of operations:

1. 1. cut out the old pipe leaving room for to have a ~3" piece of tube on either side of the new pump housing and a union (and not be too close to the existing valves).
   2. sweat half of the union to the pipe that is still in place (top of water heater and bottom of the pipe coming back from the house). this determines my "end-to-end" spacing between the two.
   3. cut two pieces of tube that when fit into the pump housing end up about 1" longer (on one side - there's a minimum length needed for the tubing cutter) than the space needed between the two union halves. sweat these into the pump housing on the bench.
   4. sweat the UPPER union half onto the upper section on the bench.
   5. get a final dimension needed to make the pump section fit between the two union halves so that it fits cleanly without any stress on the pipe. make that cut, then flux and assemble that union half onto the lower section. do not solder on the bench.
   6. "dry assemble" the pump section into place. hand snug up the upper and lower unions (don't tighten) and then sweat the lower union top half. Then ensures the union faces aren't misaligned at all (there are tolerances in the fitting cups when you are putting things together).
   7. let it cool to where you can touch it with bare hands, then back off the union nuts and confirm that the pump section can be removed smoothly (the whole point of using the unions). assemble the pump components into the pump housing
   8. final reinstall and properly tighten the unions using two wrenches (or channel locks).
   9. give all the joints one more good wipe down with a damp rag so there isn't any flux left on the outside of the pipe (it will oxidize the copper and turn green).

Hope all that makes sense.

 

I'll keep this post handy.

 

Ok question for you all - I am pretty handy but have always been a bit Leary of electrical work. Over the years I have put my nerves aside and accomplished installing recessed lighting, ceiling fans and requiring gfi’s, etc. However this is a bit different and I need some advice.

after cleaning and organizing the garage, I have a pretty nice work space now. I want to install a heater in the garage. My wife gave the go ahead to buy this one:

$153 InoKraft 7500W Electric Garage Heater with Remote, Ceiling Mount Fan Forced Shop Heater with Digital Thermostat, 240V Hardwired Space Heater for Garage&Workshop, 12-hour Timer and Overheat Protection

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0DD4NXJ4C?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image

I went ahead and ordered it on open box at a big discount and installed a joist brace to lag bolt the heater bracket into. I bought the 8/3 romex and double pole 40A breaker. I am going to connect the wiring to the heater (if not done out of the box) and mount the heater to the ceiling joist. I will run the romex down to the sub panel in the garage (close to where the heater is mounted). Here is a picture of the sub panel.




Here is the main breaker panel of the house (in the basement):




My questions are:

1. How hard is it to wire a breaker into the panel. I watched some videos and feel like it’s definitely something I can do, but would be lying if I didn’t admit being a little nervous.

2. I assume I have to shut the power to the sub panel from the main house panel? Or do I have to shut the entire electrical down while wiring the breaker into the sub panel.

3. If I were to tackle this myself, here is what I have gathered.
A. Shut the power to the panel down.
B. Remove panel faceplate.
C. Punch opening at top of panel and run wire through; install wire clamp.
D. Strip ground wire and connect to ground of sub panel.
E. Strip neutral wire and install in panel.
F. Positive hot lead connects to back of double pole 40A breaker.
G. Clip breaker into panel.
H. Reinstall face plate of panel.
I. Turn on power to sub panel.
J. Test the heater.


Is it as easy as that? Or am I oversimplifying things and need to hire an electrician? I wasn’t sure if I had to somehow physically tie into the basement panel and run to the sub…..

 

Not a certified electrician but know this is definitely doable.
Most panels do not require disconnecting the feed to install or remove breakers. It won't hurt anything if you do but not necessary.
I would install the breaker first, before landing the wires. You could test your breaker before landing the wires if wanting to.

Other than that I think you are good to go.

 

Sounds like you've got a good game plan, the panel is a good SqD QO panel too.

You don't have to kill the sub-panel but it doesn't hurt, just to be safe.

I will say just make sure your lugs are good and tight. It wouldn't be a bad idea to kill the power after a couple months and double check the lugs on both ends.

Have fun!

 

Thanks if I don’t check in the next couple of days, send the coroner!!! LOL

 

What these two said, except that if you're a noob working inside of a breaker panel then I would absolutely still turn off the sub panel first. It's pretty hard to fuck up inside of there unless you make contact with the terminal screw on one of the live breakers or one of them on the feed coming in, but it's still a good bit of extra insurance.

Snap the breaker into place and turn the breaker off.
Bring your wires down into the top and lay them nice and tidy along the sides like the other wires in there should be. Connect the ground to an open ground bus terminal spot. Same for the neutral. Then land your two hot legs each on one of the two terminals on the breaker. Snap/twist out the cover pieces to fit over the new breaker and put the cover back on. Turn on the power to the sub-panel, then turn on the new breaker.

And I know this isn't going to calm your nerves, but I couldn't help it...