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Instant Hot Water Tank Repair
One of the must-have appliances in our kitchen is an instant hot-water tap. Once you’ve gotten used to instant cups of hot tea, you’ll never want to be without one. Unfortunately, while these gadgets are a great luxury, they have a reputation for being unreliable. The most popular brand, In-sink-erator, is well known for lasting…
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Grout Removal Finally Finished
So yesterday, about a year after starting, I finally finished grinding the grout out around the master bathroom tub. This is not a job I’d recommend doing with older tile, unless it is really valuable and/or has historical significance. It’s boring, dusty, tedious, and time consuming. Did I mention that it’s dusty? That cannot be…
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Grout Removal
Nothing much exciting to write about on the biking front lately. I was off work last week, and didn’t do much biking, but this week I’m back at it again. August has brought some slightly more pleasant weather so far, but still not much in the way of rain, other than the occasional torrential downpour. …
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Chlorine Generator Manifold Repair
I’m in the process of installing a salt-water chlorine generator (model DIG-60 from AutoPilot) for my swimming pool. As part of this, I need to plumb the salt cell in downstream of my filter. The cell is part of a big inline manifold which includes a 3lb spring check valve. The valve’s purpose is to…
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More fun with digital TV
The great digital TV antenna project continues. I found out that the cheapie UHF antennas I built are known as “4 bay bowtie dipoles,” and they are very similar to the Model 4221 by Channel Master. Based on my reading, I’ve decided not to try using a combiner to join the antenna signals. Instead I…
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Taxes, painting and stuff
It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, mainly because I have been swamped at work, getting ready for a presentation next week at Educause, my first foray into public speaking since, oh, 1995 or so. That was back in the days of transparencies, so it’s been a while. And I do have to…
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Bedroom wiring finished
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…
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Wiring: Plan B
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: Press…
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Browse NFPA codes online
I just found out that The National Fire Protection Association has a method you can use to browse all of its publications online. This includes the National Electrical Code and its associated offshoots. This is really nice, because printed versions of the NEC (NFPA 70) sell for upwards of $60, and then you still need…