Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Category: House

  • Bedroom wiring finished

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    Finished up the master bedroom fan switch wiring this weekend. It turns out that after I removed the downstream wiring from the box, I was able to fit the switch in the box just fine. No need to muck around in the attic pulling new wire. Five years ago, when I had more time on my hands, I probably would have pulled that wire. But now, if there’s a shortcut to be taken, I’m taking it.

    I also replaced the rest of the outlets in the room. On the last outlet I replaced (the outlet to the left of the closets, behind Cathy’s dresser) the outlet box was a little screwed up… kind of hard to describe, but it’s one of those boxes that can be expanded by removing the side and ganging it together with another box. And anyhow, the removable side, which was attached to the adjacent stud, was loose, and the rest of the box was a little loose and crooked. I fixed it up the best I could, but in a perfect world, the box should really be replaced. Again though, that’s one to put on the list for some mythical time in the future when I have lots of spare time.

    I also winterized the pressure washer and finished hooking up the unloader line on the air compressor. As of today, I haven’t yet managed to psyche myself up enough to turn it on and see if it works.

    So all in all, not a bad weekend around the house.

  • Wiring: Plan B

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    As is often the case with these things, I hit a snag trying to fish wire from the attic to the basement for my bedroom rewiring project. I encountered some horizontal blocking in the stud cavity which prevented me from running the wire all the way through. That basically left me with three choices:

    1. Press forward and try to run the wire through the cavity as planned, turning most of my hair gray and losing several years from my life expectancy in the process;
    2. Try to find an alternate stud cavity to run my wire; or
    3. Come up with another plan altogether.

    I’ll admit, I briefly considered #1. I’ve fished wire through some tight spots in my day, and if I’m determined enough, I could get the wire through, horizontal blocking and all. But if there’s an easier way, I’d rather not deal with the frustration.

    #2 might work. I fished wire through a different stud cavity for a similar project a couple years back, and had no problems. But it’s really kind of a crap shoot, and I’d rather not drill tons of holes all over the place just to find a clear shot from the attic to the basement.

    All this brings us to #3. After consideration, I decided to tap into some existing wiring in the basement instead. It turns out there’s a nearby circuit that has only a single outlet on it (used to be for a window air conditioner). So I’m going to tie the wiring into this circuit. Simpler and easier than trying to fish through the wall.

    Moral of the story: the first plan you come up with is not necessarily the best or easiest, so don’t get set on it.

  • Not a bad year for the pool

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    We had a pretty good 2007 swimming season.  We opened up on Memorial Day weekend and were swimming soon thereafter.  And we set a new record for latest day in the pool — October 9.  As a matter of fact, the pool got pretty regular use in late September and the first week of October because of unseasonably warm weather.  We finally shut things down on October 13, so we had a swimming season of a little over 4 months.  Contrast that with 2006, when we didn’t open until a week into June, and closed in mid September.

    The never-ending pool repair project drags on, although significant progress was made in 2007.  The coping stones are now mortared down and grouted, and the entire deck has been caulked with Sika self-leveling sealant.  I also resurfaced an area of sunken concrete by the house.  Still left to do: re-grout between the coping stones and the tile, although I’m debating how I want to handle this.  It might make sense to grind the joint square, which would necessitate draining the pool (because of the mess).  If I decide to do that, I’ll probably put this off until a later year, so I can re-tile the deep end and give the pool a fresh coat of paint as well.  I know it’s not happening in 2008.

    One thing that didn’t happen much in 2007 was mowing.  NWS claims this was the “worst drought year since 1999,” although it seems to me that 2002 was worse than either this year or 1999.   The past two days, we’ve finally gotten some relief, so I imagine I’ll be cutting the grass one last time after things dry out.  Last mowing of the season is typically around the first week of November.  Then it’s on to leaf removal.. fun fun.

  • Master bedroom wiring – know what I need

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    Replaced the outlet at the foot of Andrew’s bed this morning, and it confirms the wiring layout:

    1. Master bedroom ceiling fixture  
    2. Master bedroom switch box
    3. Andrew’s room, outlet at foot of bed
    4. Master bedroom, outlet behind bed
    5. Back basement, ceiling fixture

    This is everything I need to know to come up with a plan to redo the wiring. It will be very similar to what I did in Michael’s room:

    1. Disconnect the old wiring between #1 and #2, and replace with a single run of 14/3 which will function as a switch loop.
    2. Disconnect the old wiring between #3 and #4.
    3. Run a new wire from the ceiling box (#1) to the basement.
    4. Mount a new junction box in the basement and splice the new wire into the existing wire between #4 and #5.

    An alternative would be to run the new wire directly from #1 to #5, but #5 already has a lot of wires going into it, and I think mounting a new junction box would keep things neater.

    The basic idea is to splice the ceiling fixture to the closest fixture downstream of the switch box with accessible wiring, then back-feed the two outlets immediately downstream of the switch.

    Anyways, I now know enough about the circuit layout to put it in the wiki.

    Incidentally, the old outlet in Andrew’s room was cracked almost in half.  Check it out:

    The outlet was most likely original to the house, and it was plastic, not porcelain.  So apparently they were using plastic outlets back then, but not thermoplastic-coated wire.

  • End-of-season outdoor work drones on

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    I’m still having no end of fun working on the usual mid-November chores of leaf removal, and winterization of the pool and lawn equipment. Saturday, I finished up with the pool, following my own instructions, and it went smoothly. I did forget to backwash the filter before shutting it down, but it wasn’t too dirty to begin with, so I don’t think it’ll be a huge problem. The bad news is, my air compressor decided to go on the fritz — appears to be a problem with the pressure switch. So, add one more thing to the list of stuff to fix..

    For leaf removal, I’m essentially doing the same thing as last year, although I hope to finish up before Christmas Eve this time around 🙂 I’ve got the basic drill down:

    1. Rake all the grassy areas into 5 or 6 giant piles.
    2. Get up on stepladder, remove leaves from roof valleys and gutters.
    3. Use gas blower to blow leaves in paved areas (deck, pool, driveway) into 2 or 3 giant piles.
    4. Use gas vac/mulcher to suck leaves out of corners and other hard-to-reach areas.
    5. Starting with the area outside the master bedroom and working towards the side street/mulch pile, mulch up all the leaves with the chipper shredder.
    6. Every Sunday or Monday, stuff as many non-mulched leaves into trash cans as possible and put out for yard waste pickup. This reduces the amount of leaves that need to be mulched. Mulching is cool and all, but it’s laborious and time-consuming.

    The main problem with this method is that the chipper/shredder bag doesn’t hold a whole lot of leaves. To reduce trips to the mulch pile, I like to use trash cans and a wheelbarrow as temporary containment devices for the shredded leaves (one trash can will hold two bags full of mulched leaves, providing they are packed down). However, it’s still a big pain to be constantly removing the bag, emptying it, reattaching it, etc. over and over again. It’s kind of hard on my back, too. I’ll be really happy if I can eventually figure out a way to cut the bag out of the equation.

  • Gone Fishing

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    We moved the upstairs computer today, into our library/study. So, I figured I’d fish some Cat 5 and install an ethernet jack there. Nothing I haven’t done before… should take, oh, an hour or so, right? Well, not this time, it turns out..

    The difference between this time and all the other times I’ve fished wire, is that this time I’m fishing the wire in an outside wall. And I learned today that my outside walls apparently have lots of horizontal fire blocking in them. After awhile of fooling around in the attic with a 4′ flex drill bit (the longest one I have), I came to the conclusion that I either need a longer flex bit, or a new strategy. So, I’m going to try fishing down to the basement instead. The hitch with this is, there’s a floor joist blocking most of my access to the area where the wire would come through. However, I think there’s enough space there to get the job done.

    Why don’t I just use wireless, you ask? Well, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

    Followup 11/11… OK. I can say that absolutely without question, that was the hardest I’ve ever worked to fish a wire through a wall.

    After a few attempts, it became clear that wiring through the basement wasn’t going to happen. It basically boiled down to: no drilling access from below, and no way to drill a straight hole downwards through the hole in the wall. I would have had to spend more money on specialized tools, or make more holes in the wall to facilitate drilling. That made it a non-starter.

    So, I went back to my original plan to fish through the attic. To get to the wall opening, I needed to drill down around 5 feet, through a top plate and two pieces of 2×4 fireblocking (the beveled ceiling in the room actually helped me out — otherwise the distance would have been greater than 5 feet). My 4 foot flex bit was not long enough. So, I lengthened it using a 12″ bit extender I had lying around. That did the trick. Here was the winning formula:

    1. Drill a 5/8″ hole through the top plate. The flex bit is only 3/8″, but the initial hole needed to be 5/8″ to accommodate the bit extender.
    2. Attach extender to flex bit, and drill through fire blocking until the drill bottoms out on the top plate.
    3. Go downstairs, locate bit in wall opening, and attach pull wire through hole in bit.
    4. Smear wire pulling lubricant on the bit and the pull wire.
    5. Go back into attic, and carefully back the bit out of the hole.
    6. Detach pull wire from bit. Attach Cat-5 wire to pull wire with electrical tape. Apply wire pulling lubricant.
    7. Go downstairs and pull wire down through wall opening.

    That’s it. Seems simple, but it took several failed attempts, many swear words, and a couple of skinned fingers to get it done. Bottom line, I won’t be fishing wire through outside walls any more unless I absolutely have to…

  • Washing Machine Fun

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    My SIL’s washing machine died the other day. It fills and drains OK, but won’t spin or agitate. It’s a Whirlpool direct drive (badged as a Sears Kenmore). I did a little poking around on the net, trying to identify the symptoms, and it appeared that the problem may be the motor coupling. I’ve always been partial to Whirlpool appliances, particularly washers and dryers, because of their easy serviceability. This one was no exception. Following the instructions I found at the web site, I had the motor out in about 10 minutes, and the coupling was indeed broken. So, tomorrow I’ll pick up a new coupling, put it back together, and see if it fixes the problem.

    This is actually my second washing machine repair. Our house has a similar Whirlpool direct drive washer, and a few years back, some “stuff” found its way into the pump and jammed it up. Fix was a new pump. The disassembly procedure for the two washers was exactly the same, although the Kenmore has a couple of trim pieces covering two of the screws that need to be removed (sneaky sneaky).

    Of course, now that I’m a certified expert at repairing these Whirlpool top-loaders, we’re thinking about going out and buying an LG front-loader. Go figure..

  • Our weird house

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    Just when I thought I’ve seen it all with our house, I find more weirdness.

    I’m working on relocating the clothes dryer circuit, in preparation for our new washer and dryer. In the process, I noticed some disconnected copper tubing hanging down the wall behind the dryer. It’s the standard 3/8″ stuff that you might see supplying a dishwasher or ice maker. I’d noticed it before, but I just kinda ignored it until last night. Last night, I figured I’d trace it to wherever it goes, and take it out, as it’s obviously not doing anything anymore. Well.. it goes up the wall, along the top of the foundation (oh yeah.. I forgot to mention this is all in the basement), then outside through the rim joist and siding, right near ground level. Then it goes into the ground. Except the ground at that spot is a concrete deck. The line actually goes into the concrete. Where it goes after that, is one of life’s great unsolved mysteries.

    WTF?? Well, I know that at one point, the basement of the house was used as an in-law apartment. So it’s not inconceivable that our present-day laundry room used to serve as a kitchen, which would explain why there’s an ice maker line there. But that begs the question: There’s already plumbing right there in the room. Why not just tap the ice maker line off that, rather than running it outside, then underground?? This seems too obvious, so I could be completely wrong. Or it could be that some previous owner (or plumber) was just incredibly boneheaded. We may never know. But in any case, the mystery remains: where does the line go? Stay tuned!

  • 2006 Pool Season: Short but Sweet

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    That about sums it up. Tomorrow we’re putting the winter cover on the pool and officially sticking a fork in the 2006 swimming season. For all intents and purposes, it was really over before the Labor Day holiday, although we did sneak one post-Labor Day swim in, during a warm spell where I was able to briefly nurse the water temperature back up to 80. But it was all downhill from there. Although 2006 certainly ranks as our shortest swim season to date, it was also one of the best. In the peak months of July and August, the pool saw almost daily use, and there were no serious maintenance hassles — in particular, no yellow algae this year. I did have my annual 6-week cloud-up (where the water starts clouding up approximately 6 weeks into swim season), but I believe I narrowed that problem down to inadequate filtration. Increasing the pump run time seemed to clear the water up. Next year will be the real test.

    Regarding the yellow algae, or lack thereof, I credit that to more frequent superchlorination combined with additional pump run time (probably more the former than the latter). The past couple seasons, I just don’t think I was superchlorinating enough. Once a week during really hot periods (water pushing 90), and once every 2-3 weeks otherwise, seemed to do the trick this year. Since everyone seems to have a different definition of what constitutes “superchlorination”, here’s mine: start with a residual of 2-3ppm free chlorine. If the pH is 7.6 or above, first throw in a couple pounds of bisulfate. Then add 2-1/2 gallons of 12.5% sodium hypochlorite.

    Next spring, I get the joy of draining the pool for repairs. Really, I can’t wait.

  • Sump Pump fun

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    So, the float switch on the old FloTec sump pump in our basement office died a while back, and I’m just getting around to doing something about it. This particular sump gets very little water in it, even with a dehumidifier draining into it, so my solution for the summer was to just manually pump it out every couple weeks or so. But now, with vacation looming, I want to get an automatic pump back in there. Rather than getting a new float switch for the old pump (that would cost money, you see), I’m just going to replace the pump with a Zoeller that I’d been keeping around as a hot spare for our other sump pump (the one that sees tons of action from driveway runoff). I figure I can still use it as a hot spare, and as an added bonus it’ll see some occasional action in the office sump, so I’ll know it’s working.

    I went to do the work today, and true to form, it’s proving to be a bit more difficult than expected (nothing in this house is ever easy or straightforward, you see). First, the bottom of the sump is so impossibly uneven that I couldn’t find a level spot for the new pump. And, the original pump’s plumbing is some sort of half-assed Rube Goldberg conglomeration of flex ABS, threaded couplings, band clamps, and what appears to be automobile radiator hose (rule two of this house: all previous-owner retrofit work must be done half-assed). So, I have the fun of sorting all this out. I started by dumping some gravel in the bottom of the pit to level it out. Next I have to pick up some PVC and a Fernco coupling or two (to replace the radiator hose) and redo the plumbing. I’ll start by just doing the piping near the pump, and tying it into the existing stuff where it exits the foundation. But long term, I might reroute the run out the foundation.. we’ll see.