Up late last night, lots of sun, and I”m wiped out today. I want to go back to bed more today than any day I can remember in the last year or two.
Our brief but heavy rain didn’t really cool things off very much, as it’s currently 74F and humid, which would put us on course for another typical hot Houston day.
Preps-wise– garden, bought fuel storage tank, listened to the scanner (which was much more eye opening than I expected), and started reading a cookbook. The cookbook is very interesting as it is recipes from the Oregon Trail. 6-8 months living in a wagon as you travel across the country! Lots of little ‘slice of life’ vignettes are included as well as conversions from the original that explain “in a quick oven” or the other measures and techniques of wood stove and open fire cooking.
In other words, I’ve been mostly busy with kids and life. How ’bout you?
n
Reaffirming the death of the traditional family unit. It’s worked for thousands of years, but no matter….
The wife and I have one child – an almost 14 year old son. He still likes to spend time with both my wife and I. He also knows who is in charge. He has respect for his mom, but he will try to get away with more with her than he does with me. I honestly can’t remember a time (even way back) where I had to tell (not ask) him to do something more than once. It still annoys the piss out of me when I see parents telling their kids 10 times to get out of the pool – and the kid is still in.
I attribute most of it to him – he is a great kid. Hopefully the wife and I have had a good overall influence on him. Another example. The average kid today would, when wanting a new game, beg/throw a fit/demand until they got it. My boy? He’ll save up his money and buy it himself. Heck, we’ve been looking for a new game to play together. I asked him if he wanted to try Call of Duty MW2. I like it, and I think he would too. So he said sure. I had him login to his computer and pull it up in steam. As I was buying it, he comes in with the cash to give me. I told him no – it was my suggestion, and I will pay for it, but thanks for offering.
aka – parenting done right. Sounds like you have a fine young man there.
My children like to whine when it’s time to go. Sometimes. Not often, though, because they know that the next time they want something, it will definitely be a “no”.
Not enough that anymore. Lot of spoiled brats, in my area from welfare parents who are also used to getting what they want for no cost to them. Very little respect for authority or sense of responsibility. The cell phone is their connection to everything and everyone. Social skills of demented slug.
The results of “everyone gets a trophy”, games played with no score so no one feels bad, time out with coloring book to color their feelings, don’t yell as it lowers their self esteem, no making kids do chores around the house, life in front of an iPhone or TV watching useless drivel.
These cretins will try to be the leaders of tomorrow. Hopefully kids from families like ITGuy will be able to rise to the top and keep the worthless scum at the bottom.
Add my 2 thumbs up for your parenting skills @ITguy1998.
My Kids’ aren’t perfect except when compared to the vast majority of other kids. Even though they are 32 and 34 they will always be “The Kids” and they know it. In their adult world they are standouts and very fortunate as most of their peers have spawn who are nothing but trouble and lazy. Fortunately/unfortunately life has dealt our Kids’ a hand that means we will not have natural grandchildren. I know I am sounding defeatist, but with today’s world mess we are not overly unhappy. You take the hand you’re dealt and do your best.
Prepping has been a little gardening, organizing, and restocking.
Wife is constantly worried about money so I had to drag out all the accounts and explain how we are alright and how to avoid the gooberment, Big Drug, and Big Medical (gDM) from taking it all (very difficult). My Daughter is very smart and can deal with gDM when I can no longer. Also dug out some of the silver so she could see something tangible.
Personally I get comfort from my stockpile of toilet paper. Related, I came across this on Amazon, the Biffy Bag. On the page there are other similar products, looks like an option for some situations.
Gee, thanks DadCooks! Now Amazon is going to recommend similar items from here on out. 😉
People have been saying “oh, these kids” since uttering was possible. IMNSHO, today’s youngins suffer from lack of fatherly attention. I think “Wait till your father gets home” isn’t said enough.
Dad Cooks wrote:
“Personally I get comfort from my stockpile of toilet paper.”
My stash of dunny paper is so large I can’t remember when I last bought some. Must be over a year.
Today is Fly a Kite Day, so tell someone to “go fly a kite”.
@nightraker said:
Consider that in some ethnic groups up to 80% of kids have no father in their life it is no wonder there is a problem. Another problem is though that you wouldn’t want most of the “missing” fathers to be in the kids lives.
“*Spare the rod and spoil the child.” And the rod does not mean an actual rod, it is an euphemism for the now politically incorrect words of discipline and responsibility.
*Reference – a Bible lesson for today from Proverbs 13:24. Proverbs makes for interesting reading. You should find the linked page above interesting as it has many translations and cross references.
We are a dry house today. The wife came and got me at 2am and said that the carpet is wet in the spare bedroom that the daughter uses for her stuff. I went, looked down and looked up. Yup, the ceiling was bulging and dripping. So I told the wife to go get a bucket and I went up the attic stairs. The %^%*$*^%$&(^$@*^$#&^$%*^#&*^&^%#&^#&^#^%#&^# rigid copper piping next to the water heaters has a pinhole leak. Texted the plumber, showered, and turned the water off. Could have been worse, the rigid copper piping goes under the water heaters platform. The plumber has mandatory continuing education classes today, will be by after 6pm. I could fix the leak temporarily with a clamp but the space is tight.
Shaved and showered at the office this morning. It is nice to have a backup place because we seem to need one. This is the fourth time in six years that we have not had any water (3 times) or hot water (back in January of this year).
My Kids’ aren’t perfect except when compared to the vast majority of other kids. Even though they are 32 and 34 they will always be “The Kids” and they know it. In their adult world they are standouts and very fortunate as most of their peers have spawn who are nothing but trouble and lazy. Fortunately/unfortunately life has dealt our Kids’ a hand that means we will not have natural grandchildren. I know I am sounding defeatist, but with today’s world mess we are not overly unhappy. You take the hand you’re dealt and do your best.
I remember one of Jerry Pournelle’s favorite sayings, “Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough”. Only one person on this planet throughout history was perfect. He provides a pathway for the rest of us and a great example for us to live up to.
My son will be 35 in a couple of weeks and my daughter just turned 31. The son spent eight years in Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children (USMA), four on active duty with half of that in Iraq. He now has a dual degrees in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Houston via the GI Bill and works with me still. He is not perfect by any means but he is good enough. The daughter has been dealt a cruel hand in life with the stage 3 Lyme disease since 15 or 18 years of age (we don’t know). She tries to take care of herself but cannot stand for more than 10 minutes without getting dizzy and nauseated. Still, she tries.
Neither one one of them is inclined to take a mate and produce grandchildren to date. The son saw too many divorces in the Marine Corps and refuses to go down that path. I keep on telling him that he will do better with a young lady raised in the church but he is not listening. Better, not perfect. I married a church girl and she turned out good enough (in fact she is a saint).
The daughter is scared of passing her Lyme disease to a child should she find a guy crazy enough to marry her. They have found instances of Lyme disease passing through the placenta and she refuses to even think about having kids like all of her friends are doing now.
Personally I get comfort from my stockpile of toilet paper. Related, I came across this on Amazon, the Biffy Bag. On the page there are other similar products, looks like an option for some situations.
The former USMC son’s advice from being in the field for weeks at a time that when going #2, always strip off everything below the waist before hand. Always.
And if you are in a somewhat public place, get the rest of your “platoon” to stand around you. His platoon was bodyguard to the Battalion commander on their second tour in Iraq. So they ate at a lot of Sheik’s homes. Sheep brains, all kinds of nasty stuff. Anyway, they left one time and one of the guys had massive diarrhea on the way back to the Humvees. They went behind a house, they all stood around him looking away, and he dropped trousers and proceeded to let fly.
I cannot imagine the average covered wagon cook had much more flavoring to add to their base ingredients outside of salt, sugar, and smoke. 🙂 I would think anything more exotic would have been cost-prohibitive for the average pioneer in the 19th century. I suppose there were some herbs to forage along the trail.
“Brookhaven RHIC”
https://xkcd.com/2007/
The hover text is awful !
The explanation is here if needful.
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2007:_Brookhaven_RHIC
“A.F. Branco Cartoon – Inspector Clueless”
https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-inspector-clueless/
So true. Turns out Comey was using his gmail account for FBI emails, very much a violation of his employment. So there was no way that he was going to indict Hillary.
“Windows 10 version 1803 is “fully available.” God help us all.”
https://www.petri.com/paul-thurrotts-short-takes-june-15
“With rampant reports of instability and unreliability pouring in from all corners, Microsoft this week inexplicably claimed that Windows 10 version 1803—aka the April 2018 Update—is being made “fully available” to all customers. Why, you ask? Because AI tells it that this is the highest-quality and most reliable Windows 10 feature update yet. This reminds me of my favorite story from the Vietnam War: In 1968, the Pentagon built a humongous supercomputer that took up its entire basement to determine when it would win the war. When it was completed, officials fed the machine all the data it needed to calculate the end date and then let in churn and bubble overnight. When they returned in the morning, there was a single card in the tray. It said, “You won the war in 1965.””
This homeboy don’t run Windows 10 on mission critical stuff. Windows 7 is “good enough”.
This homeboy don’t run Windows 10 on mission critical stuff. Windows 7 is “good enough”.
Windows 10 on my new laptop won’t load the driver for our HP 4000N printer, and, unlike Windows 7, credentials for SMB shares on my home server are not cached properly between reboots. Kaby Lake — no alternative 10 Windows 10 other than Linux. I already have a “No Windows None Of The Time” laptop, however.
The real kicker is that refurbs are increasingly unavailable with Windows 7 licenses, even if the machines ran that version originally. Microsoft has been aggressive about providing cheap Windows 10 OEM licenses to the refurb vendors, and part of being a Microsoft certified vendor is removing the Win 7 license sticker under the battery.
Microsoft will eventually get it straightened out. Like a lot of big companies, we were still on Windows 7 at CGI, and that wasn’t due to the company’s typical skimping. For now, Redmond can’t get along without Windows and Office revenue from large customers.
Ironically, my Windows 8 installs run well.
I’m running version 1803 at the office and at home with no issues. Overall, Windows 10 is ok. I like it much better than 8, but really 7 was more than good enough. 10 just feels like change for the sake of change.
@ITguy1998 – I agree. I jumped on 10 very early – as soon as it became a free upgrade to 7. I loved it. Now it seems they’re hiding things for the sake of hiding them. No more “Add or Remove programs” if you go through the start menu. I run appwiz.cpl to get a usable function back.
Why did they do that? Why? I can understand adding tools for Ma Crandall and Aung Bessie, but why take away the tools many of us depend on?
The crazies that I am reading claim that Microsoft is logging all keystrokes and mouse events in Windows 10 and sending them back to the mother ship. They further claim that Microsoft has gotten rid of all of the usability labs where the bring people in to watch them use the software to run through tasks. Instead, they just analyze the keystrokes that are uploaded from people’s PCs and laptops.
I’m running version 1803 at the office and at home with no issues. Overall, Windows 10 is ok.
Bought a new Dell desktop back in January, a model which only came with W10. Immediately removed all the annoying, useless tiles from the desktop, and later installed a couple of registry fixes, one to bring back the image viewer from W7 and the other to allow me to open the command line (not PowerShell!) into a selected directory. IOW, made W10 as W7-ish as possible.
Still, despite selecting “Never” for the “When plugged in, PC goes to sleep after” option, the machine daily goes to sleep around 10 PM., with the option being reset to “1 minute”. Various fixes found online have been unavailing.
Other than this one aggravation, W10 is indeed “ok”–but only just. A parallel Ubuntu 18.04 install is on tap sometime in the late summer.
Other than this one aggravation, W10 is indeed “ok”–but only just. A parallel Ubuntu 18.04 install is on tap sometime in the late summer.
I have 18.04 installed in parallel on my Windows 10 laptop. Installing Linux on Kaby Lake and newer can be challenging.
The crazies that I am reading claim that Microsoft is logging all keystrokes and mouse events in Windows 10 and sending them back to the mother ship. They further claim that Microsoft has gotten rid of all of the usability labs where the bring people in to watch them use the software to run through tasks. Instead, they just analyze the keystrokes that are uploaded from people’s PCs and laptops.
Maybe for WinRT (or whatever they call it now) app usability, but the data would be overwhelming for regular applications.
At the Death Star, when we first embedded Python into our remote access application, Microsoft sent us crash reports for PythonXX.DLL from any machine which had our software installed, regardless of whose software actually triggered the crash. Very few were ever for our application, and most were for game companies who had not learned the black art of compiling the DLL properly for embedding in their ‘ctypes’-dependent software. Microsoft couldn’t even manage that level of filtering.
Installing Linux on Kaby Lake and newer can be challenging.
My desktop has the newer “Coffee Lake” processor.
Do you have war stories, or links thereto?
Friday prepping: I found an Eton FR250 radio at a local estate sale for $5.00. Put in three AA’s from my stash, and it worked OK.
Haven’t figured out what SW bands to try out. But it is a ‘good enough’ unit: AM/FM/SW 5.85 – 18.10, expandable antenna, LED light (not very powerful), flashing red LED light, cell phone charger, and a hand crank. Reviews say that only 90 seconds of cranking will get the internal batteries working (looks like a NiCad pack). Came with a nylon carrying case with strap.
Probably ‘good enough’. Amazon shows it as about $80 (discontinued model) here.
Lynn wrote:
“The son saw too many divorces in the Marine Corps and refuses to go down that path. I keep on telling him that he will do better with a young lady raised in the church but he is not listening.”
I never took one of a number of chances I had, wish I had now. But…
I’ve seen too many divorces, amongst Christians and nominals…
A friend married a woman I disliked from Day 1. A real bitch on wheels. A few years into their marriage she woke up one morning and told my friend “I don’t love you any more. I don’t want to live with you any more.” And that was that.
A second friend married a goddess in 1983 who was really sweet, and drop dead gorgeous. As the years went by she hardened, they took up a posting in London. She was unhappy and dropped a few “hints” to my friend. He didn’t pick up the hints and she eventually initiated divorce proceedings. My friend said he recognised the hints in retrospect but not as she was giving them. She may have realised she’d made a mistake – she contacted him when they returned to Australia, but he wanted nothing to do with her. He told me that divorce is hellishly expensive.
My sister, who doesn’t believe in divorce, was forced to divorce my ex-BIL in 2007 because he was running up extraordinary gambling debts. AU$600,000+ according to my sister.
Her elder son, my nephew, divorced in 2013. His wife was smart and a hard worker but clumsy. She loved bossing him around and wouldn’t take his hints that he didn’t like it. She thought it was funny but soon changed her mind when he asked for a divorce. They have two kids, my nephew has another 1.5 with his new wife.
In the mid Nineties my mum said to my father “isn’t it a pity the boys never got married.” Dad said “they might have got into bad marriages.” I’ve seen plenty of those.
First stab at posting images on the journey. WiFi here sucks so there may be some problems. This was just a day trip from Croatia to Bosnia.
Day Trip From Croatia to Bosnia
They are not programs anymore, they are all apps. Wether they come from the store or you install them the traditional way by exe or msc, they are all apps now.
MS is slooowly but surely transitioning all system tools to Settings. The functionality you are looking for is now in Settings – Apps&Features.
Do you have war stories, or links thereto?
YMMV, but I turned off BitLocker on Windows and SecureBoot in the BIOS so I could boot the GParted ISO and versions of Linux which do not bother with a certificate.
Any Linux I run not supporting EFI goes on a Linux-only laptop (surplus E6400 Dell) with an SSD formatted using an old school partition table.
YMMV, but I turned off BitLocker on Windows and SecureBoot in the BIOS so I could boot the GParted ISO and versions of Linux which do not bother with a certificate.
Thanks!
The regular Oregon Trail, or the branch that the Donner Party took?
(Also, note the similarity between Donner and Dahmer. Coincidence? I think not.)
Murder is cheaper. Tip: don’t go with the lowest bidder.
No nude beach pics? Might one assume that you didn’t wish to cloud the lenses of your camera?
The regular Oregon Trail, or the branch that the Donner Party took?
The Donner Party was California-bound.
My employer, MegaGiant Defense Contractor, Inc., is in the process of replacing all ~ 1500 computers in the building. The new machines, like the ones they’re replacing, are Dells. The new machines run W10 Enterprise, as opposed to Win7; one guy was saying that the flavor of W10 is actually outdated, despite the May 2018 build date shown on the stickers. The new machines, with essentially the same processors but twice the ram, do seem a bit livelier, although we still have the same network / server bottlenecks. Built in key loggers would be an enormous violation of our security protocols, Uncle would have a conniption.
@lynn
Do you know how long the copper lines have been installed, and what type of copper the are (Type K, L, or M)? I am asking this because I had an old steam system wet return line (which was over 100 years old) replaced with copper several months ago. The plumber wanted to use Type M, which is the thinnest and said that it would last longer than I would. But since I had to remove antique pine paneling, I wanted to be sure that I would not need to do it again. So I told him I would pay for an upgrade to Type L, as I had read of copper developing pin hole leaks over time. I have not yet reassembled the wall (due to other priorities as well as making sure that there are no leaks anywhere in the system). As the original iron pipe lasted 100 years, I am still mystified that copper could have a significantly shorter life.
Do you know how long the copper lines have been installed, and what type of copper the are (Type K, L, or M)?
The copper lines were installed when my house was built in 2003 by Perry Homes, the largest home builder in Texas. Red Brass, whatever the crap that is. My plumber came in and fixed the pinhole leak by cutting the pipe and putting in a crimp on nipple, no sweating. His crimper was an electric compression device that he paid $2,000 for. He does not like torches in the attic.
https://www.familyhandyman.com/plumbing/plumbing-repair/copper-pipe-types/view-all/
My plumber hates the Red Brass pipe. He has fixed hundreds of pinhole leaks in our 4,000 home subdivision, all this Red Brass. He advises repiping the house on the third pinhole leak. This is our second pinhole leak. Both pinhole leaks were in the cold water piping.
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20141114/entlife/141119476/
His favorite pipe now is PEX number one. He says you cannot get it at Home Depot, they only carry PEX number 2 and 3.
I also see that PEX pipes are having troubles. Rodents sense the water inside them and chew them open for a drink. Instant leak !
Built in key loggers would be an enormous violation of our security protocols, Uncle would have a conniption.
I am betting that Enterprise passwords turn off the key logging.
I am also betting that Uncle has an enormous firewall with many rules. Random machines talking to anyone will be frowned upon. Severely.
My buddy has had 3 rodent caused floods in his house since re-piping with PEX. I can’t recommend it, based on his experience.
Copper works. Iron works. Galv works. Plastic is easy to work WITH. Labor is the biggest cost component, so that’s where they look for savings. The lower cost in material is just a bonus for them.
No rain on movie night at the pool, but a nice breeze and slightly lower temps. That means something blowing in from the Gulf, maybe.
No repeat of the drive by.
Spent some time today pulling video off someone else’s system. The nest cams were a nice complement to the other “system in a box” that was also installed. Took 8 cameras to get a good look at the guy’s face, due to his pulled low hat, and wrap around sunglasses. His body movement showed a good awareness of the cameras and avoidance, but he F’d up for 30 seconds and we got it. Given that his mental state was clearly altered, the habits must be pretty well ingrained.
WRT local intel, quiet on the scanner last night and tonight. Saw one of our more drunken and disordered homeless beggars passing out in a bus shelter this evening. He’d finished most of a quart or liter of gold colored liquor, and was head bobbing, with a fist full of dollars. Later tonight he was stumbling along the same street, but clutching a fist full of newspaper, and had pissed and probably sh!t himself. This is the same guy I’ve seen sh!ting against a wall in broad daylight, 20ft from the bus stop. Non-compos most of the time, but for some reason can’t be locked up.
And I see an arrest in the MS 13 murder of a 16 yo in Long Island a couple years ago.
Also this guy, raping the kids americans won’t rape…
Build the wall, send them back, shoot the ones who need killing.
n
@ray, those shots sure look pretty. But a bunch of them didn’t get uploaded right, I don’t think. They show up for me with only the top half or third as pix and the rest just white….
n
As I feared. I will try and correct.
My Dad found this where people are putting an epoxy lining inside copper pipe instead of replacing the copper pipe.
https://homeshowradio.com/?s=pipe+lining
“Climate Wackos Want to Control You, Not CO2” by Rush Limbaugh
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/06/13/climate-wackos-want-to-control-you-not-co2/
“I, frankly, think that the greenhouse gas, CO2 thing is no big deal.”
My buddy has had 3 rodent caused floods in his house since re-piping with PEX. I can’t recommend it, based on his experience.
Copper works. Iron works. Galv works. Plastic is easy to work WITH. Labor is the biggest cost component, so that’s where they look for savings. The lower cost in material is just a bonus for them.
Well, that sucks. And I have killed four roof rats in our house over the last five years.
I am just mystified that I have had two pinhole leaks in my 15 year old copper piping. This does not bode well for the future.
Yours or the plumber?
Replumbing a house such as yours would not be a minor undertaking on the labor or the wallet.
I am also betting that Uncle has an enormous firewall with many rules. Random machines talking to anyone will be frowned upon. Severely.
NAT on a decent gateway router limits a lot of mischief, especially with UPnP and “VPN Passthru” turned off.
When IPv6 first started rolling out in a big way about 10 years ago, Uncle did not trust exposing his computers to the “IoT” future, and the NSA was insisting on development of NATv6. Dunno what became of that.
I don’t run IPv6 at home, use NAT, and disable UPnP along with WDS. Currently, the big mischief maker on my home network is the Nexia thermostat, but I can’t do much about that until the end of the labor warranty on the AC system.
I also see that PEX pipes are having troubles. Rodents sense the water inside them and chew them open for a drink. Instant leak !
Our new water softener was installed with PEX. It is really noisy during the cleaning cycle, but fairly quiet otherwise. I’m wary, but the PEX is light years better than the fragile PVC lashup Sears built for the previous owners when installing the old softener.
Blame “This Old House” for PEX. They’ve been pushing that stuff going back 30 years, easy.
It’s much easier to install, you get better flow with smaller pipe, putting it in as retrofit is MUCH easier, and it was the coming thing….
but, like super insulated houses, and very tight construction, they found out the hard way that bad things can happen, and DO happen.
Never had a problem with mold before the movement to build houses with low air exchanges per hour.
n
Never had a problem with mold before the movement to build houses with low air exchanges per hour.
I won’t do variable speed on an HVAC system blower again. The humidity in our house isn’t any better than the 20 year old Trane the new system replaced, and I believe we are locked into a proprietary thermostat.
As usual in these situations, the contractor played to my wife’s concerns about humidity by putting a second vent in our master that blows right at her side of the bed. Realistically, that vent doesn’t do anything, but “divide and conquer” is how the home improvement game works anymore.
I am betting that Enterprise passwords turn off the key logging.
Enterprise users can lock down admin rights and install certificates in Windows which allow them to transparently proxy and monitor the contents of your interactions with the web, even https exchanges. Key logging is too much data to deal with effectively.
My central air is a heat-pump by Goodman with something called Comfort Net. T’stat talks to the variable speed blower and to the two speed compressor. I think the compressor and blower talk to each other, also. Nice little LAN happening. No Internet… that was in the next model up and I don’t want that feature.
On my t’stat, in the Thermostat section, where you can set things like displaying in F or C, there is a setting for De-hum. I think the default was 70 or 80%. I set it to 50%. And by golly, it works. With De-hum at 50% the house is dry and comfortable set at 77 to 80F. I’d rather wear shorts during the summer and not sweat pants and socks. But that’s me.
The system will run the compressor on slow with the blower on whisper. I hear the Freon hissing almost as much as the blower. You can feel the air drying….
The system will run the compressor on slow with the blower on whisper. I hear the Freon hissing almost as much as the blower. You can feel the air drying….
We didn’t opt for variable speed blower *and* compressor. However, with just a variable speed blower, I think I will be able to get away with installing a thermostat using standard wiring that doesn’t involve a proprietary comm protocol.
I’ll know more once my labor warranty expires and I’ll feel free to make changes without getting yelled at by the installer and, later, my wife.
Our fancy thermostat crashed this winter, and we woke up without heat one morning. I’m not going through that again.
The house came with central. Ah, central with a shot compressor. I had the compressor replaced. $650. Just the compressor, not the entire outside unit. Oh, turns out you get a 1 year warranty, not five years like the salesman said. The replacement threw a rod at two years. In July. Wal-Mart here we come for a window unit. And then a few more.
When I bought the system, a 3 speed compressor was available. I think it was an extra $1300 but bumped the SEER to 18 or more. I forget. I removed the old system and installed the new system, other than connecting the freon lines at each end myself.
The crazy part of the whole project was having to show a receipt for the new system at the recycle place. It seems folks steal compressor units for scrap. Wow.
Home Depot quoted $6500 minimum for a 4 ton A/C and no, they don’t go under the house to re-route the freon lines….. to get the damn compressor out from under the bedroom window. “Yeah, we’ll just solder on some copper and run it along the skirting.” Like hell you will. No telling what they would have done in the attic. I think their bid included replacing the air handler. Maybe they were just going to replace the coils. I tossed their bid into the trash years ago.
My 2 stage/speed compressor is SEER 16. I paid $3777 for the entire system, outside unit and air handler and a set of copper tubing, total, delivered March 2012. Plus another $150 or so for a licensed A/C company to connect the lines… for the warranty. I have 10 years on everything plus life on the compressor as long as we own the house. We’ll see how that plays out.
Last month’s bill from PEC was $80.20. That includes water, we’re on a well. A few years ago, with window units, double that bill.
I don’t know what I pay in the summer months here at the house. I know what 7 tons in a metal building costs- about $300-400 per month during the hot part of the year. During the rest of the year, it’s about $20 for juice. And we have pretty cheep electricity here.
In this house the system is getting to be 15-20 years old. We’ve been here 10 years and it wasn’t new. I’ve replaced the blower motor a couple of times, the controller board once (diode failed, fixed it until I could find and order a cheap board), the condenser fan motor and blades once, and the starter capacitor once or possibly twice. If you need to replace the condenser fan motor, it’s not hard, but spend the extra bux and get the new fan too. Getting the old one off without unbalancing it is dang near impossible. Last summer we had to have freon added to our system. That wasn’t cheap as our freon is one they are phasing out. It will get more expensive as time goes on.
At the rent house, I’ve replaced the condenser fan motor and starter cap. Not hard, everything is marked, and they are mostly commodity items. This time I got smart and just bought a new fan along with the motor- oh, I had to spend a couple hours trying to get it off first to reuse the old, but I did eventually get smart….
Like a lot of things, you can do the mechanical stuff pretty easily, with minimal tools. Lots of good youtubes about most home repairs. Watch a couple to see if the first guy was an idiot, and proceed if not…
n
The EcoBee unit will support standard 4 or 5 wire wiring systems. If you have a 4 wire system they provide and adapter that will emulate the 5th wire. Works great. Thermostat can connect to the net and that adds a lot of features.