Sat. Oct. 12, 2019 – hobby today…

By on October 12th, 2019 in Random Stuff

mid 50s? and moist?

It got down to 54F and windy before I went to bed last night. No idea what it will be like today.

I’ve got my non-prepping hobby monthly meeting today so that will fill my morning.

Afternoon is dedicated to getting a new range over to the rent house and installed, and possibly a new(-ish) dryer. Met with the plumbers yesterday and they cut out some old pipes and replaced them with pex. The first leak was in a plastic fitting where it transitioned to galvanized pipe. While they were working, another fitting popped. Old plastic, poor installation, and movement. It adds up to $$$. Got an estimate to replace the extremely rotten hot water heater and it’s $3200. I really should be proactive with that as a leak will ruin the ceiling that I’ve already fixed once. Still, $3200 on a tear down… it will take a while to recoup $3200. I might just have to do that one myself. Ug.

Of course, none of this running around and plumbing work was on my calendar. So some other stuff will fall behind. I’m seriously falling behind. It feels like further each day…

And with that, I’m out the door…

n

41 Comments and discussion on "Sat. Oct. 12, 2019 – hobby today…"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Got an estimate to replace the extremely rotten hot water heater and it’s $3200. I really should be proactive with that as a leak will ruin the ceiling that I’ve already fixed once. Still, $3200 on a tear down… it will take a while to recoup $3200. I might just have to do that one myself. Ug.

    Yikes! $3200 to do a direct swap of a standard water heater or is it more involved?

    I can’t even imagine Ben Franklin giving that kind of quote with a straight face on a standard swap out.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Didn’t think responding to this yesterday was appropriate after @TV dropped his news.

    “Women’s Rugby Refs Are Quitting Because Transgender Athletes Are Breaking Players’ Bones”

    I cannot tell if this is real or not. The picture says it all though.

    They’re for real. I’ve seen stories on the boxer, Fallon Fox, before. (S)he’s ex … Marine? Paris Island boot camp experience IIRC. Trained killer.

    There’s also Rachel McKinnon, who I think has come up in this space before.

    https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/rachel-mckinnon-becomes-first-transgender-woman-win-track-world-title-397473

    Having absorbed a lot of my wife’s research on this subject through osmosis, I know there is legitimate transgender and then there is autogynephilic. Surgery in Thailand is usually a dead giveaway for that latter since the reassignment programs in the US won’t touch them, considering those patients to be mentally ill.

    My wife had a patient who was borderline autogynephilic. The individual went to Canada for surgery. My wife made very sure that nothing in the paperwork she signed made any statement with regard to the patient’s psychological health since she had her doubts on that and believes a lawsuit is inevitable in that situation. The spouse was beyond p*ssed off.

    The athletes strike me as being in the mentally ill category like my wife’s patient. As does Chloe Preyeglasses color swatchince, who broke the pending strike at AT&T 10 years ago.

    And Jenner.

    I don’t believe for a second Jenner had the final surgery. He could take it all back now and still come out looking less freaky as a male than Kenny Rogers.

  3. nick flandrey says:

    No, it’s a switch to tankless, extending the gas line, moving the supply lines, and getting the old tank out (which might involve saws.) The current tank is too tall for where it is in the attic (too close to combustible materials, ie, the roof deck.) They apparently don’t make short fat tanks in gas anymore, and it wouldn’t fit into the attic hatch anyway. New tank would still include a new pan, overflow drain, additional support under a tank, lots more than just a swap.

    The pipes feeding it have fittings with leaks that closed themselves off with mineral deposits…. big as your fist…

    The venting is different for the tankless too, so probably a roof repair to do it right. I’d leave the existing roof penetration in place if I can.

    My compromise is probably to do 90% of the work, and just bring in the plumber to cut into and connect the pipes.

    $$$$$$$ any way I look at it. (tank being cheapest, but I’d like to get the weight and water out of the attic.)

    n
    added- the tankless needs a new electrical outlet too.

    (I’m going over there later to see if I could put the water heater in the garage, and save a ton of work and hassle)

  4. Greg Norton says:

    Something happened editing to my entry above which I didn’t catch before time expired.

    I blame the beta Fedora Linux I’m testing.

    The line should be:

    “The athletes strike me as being in the mentally ill category like my wife’s patient. As does Chloe Prince, who broke the pending strike at AT&T 10 years ago.”

    Multitasking this morning.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    (I’m going over there later to see if I could put the water heater in the garage, and save a ton of work and hassle)

    I never saw a water heater in the attic before I moved to Texas. Ours is mounted above our master bedroom closet which doesn’t concern me nearly as much as my wife, but we do have some valuable costume items accumulated over the years.

    Another plumbing difference is that your laundry rooms generally don’t have utility sinks. Those seem to be the default install next to washer/dryer space in FL.

  6. MrAtoz says:

    …less freaky as a male than Kenny Rogers.

    LOL! He looks Asian.

  7. Harold Combs says:

    When we lived in the UK, just outside London, each terraced house had a boiler tank in the attic. This is used to supply hot water for heating (radiators) as well as washing up. I was told this design dated back to the around 1800 when everyone was worried about Napoleon invading and wanted a gravity fed water source to put out fires.

  8. Greg Norton says:

    “…less freaky as a male than Kenny Rogers.”

    LOL! He looks Asian.

    Lots of quackery in plastic surgery.

  9. Greg Norton says:

    When we lived in the UK, just outside London, each terraced house had a boiler tank in the attic. This is used to supply hot water for heating (radiators) as well as washing up. I was told this design dated back to the around 1800 when everyone was worried about Napoleon invading and wanted a gravity fed water source to put out fires.

    The typical US water heater isn’t built like what I imagine a boiler tank in London would be like.

    When the water heaters break in this country, they leak. The water heaters I’ve seen in attics typically sit in drain pans, but that assumes the drain pan was installed correctly.

    Our good plumber left an alarm in our drain pan, told me to change the batteries once every year, and call him when the alarm sounds.

  10. paul says:

    The only reason I can see for putting the water heater is the attic is “make pretty”. Leaking in the garage doesn’t ruin anything but boxes of stuff sitting on the floor. And you know better than sitting cardboard boxes on a garage floor.

    A/C air handlers in the attic? Might be great for noise control.

  11. mediumwave says:

    Collapse OS:

    I expect our global supply chain to collapse before we reach 2030. With this collapse, we won’t be able to produce most of our electronics because it depends on a very complex supply chain that we won’t be able to achieve again for decades (ever?).

    The fast rate of progress we’ve seen since the advent of electronics happened in very specific conditions that won’t be there post-collapse, so we can’t hope to be able to bootstrap new electronic technology as fast we did without a good “starter kit” to help us do so.

    Electronics yield enormous power, a power that will give significant advantages to communities that manage to continue mastering it. This will usher a new age of scavenger electronics: parts can’t be manufactured any more, but we have billions of parts lying around. Those who can manage to create new designs from those parts with low-tech tools will be very powerful.

    Among these scavenged parts are microcontrollers, which are especially powerful but need complex tools (often computers) to program them. Computers, after a couple of decades, will break down beyond repair and we won’t be able to program microcontrollers any more.

    To avoid this fate, we need to have a system that can be designed from scavenged parts and program microcontrollers. We also need the generation of engineers that will follow us to be able to create new designs instead of inheriting a legacy of machines that they can’t recreate and barely maintain.

    This is where Collapse OS comes in.

  12. CowboySlim says:

    My hot water heater in my garage, without a drain pan, on an 18″ pedestal. When it leaks, concrete floor has slight grade so water drains out to driveway and then street gutter. Nothing, to worry about.

  13. Greg Norton says:

    A/C air handlers in the attic? Might be great for noise control.

    In FL, it keeps the AC contractors in business. The closer to the coast, the faster the air handler in the attic rusts apart from the salt in the air.

    We were inland enough from the coast to not have to evacuate during hurricanes, but we were still close enough that our AC handler was done shortly after we sold the house — about nine years of service.

    Here at our house in Texas, the upstairs AC is 24 years old. The model is almost identical to what we installed in Florida 18 years ago.

  14. mediumwave says:

    My hot water heater in my garage, without a drain pan, on an 18″ pedestal. When it leaks, concrete floor has slight grade so water drains out to driveway and then street gutter. Nothing, to worry about.

    Growing up, the water heater was originally in a kitchen corner. At my mother’s insistence it was moved out to our detached garage. Considering the potential for disaster, her misgivings were justified.

  15. lynn says:

    (I’m going over there later to see if I could put the water heater in the garage, and save a ton of work and hassle)

    If I ever build a house, putting the water heater(s) or the tankless in the garage is a high priority for me. I have bought four new water heaters in the last 18 months, one of which split on me, and another overheated and was blowing out the safety relief line. All four in the attics of my house, office building, and warehouse. Having water heaters elevated in a facility is just asking for trouble.

  16. JimB says:

    Houses sure vary a lot around the country. I grew up with basements, and utilities were down there. When we came to the Mojave desert, slab on grade was the norm. We designed and built our own house. We incorporated a basement, with the feature of grade level access on one end, easy since the site is a hillside. After 40+ years, it is still one of only about ten basements in the area.

    When the water heater failed about fifteen years ago, I simply bought a new one and wheeled it in using a hand truck. Didn’t need to use the stairs.

    Our water table is 300+ feet down, so the basement is bone dry. We did grade to prevent flash flooding from being an issue. Sure is nice. We doubled our space at a first cost of less than 25% extra. The heating and cooling requirements are almost none. It is quiet. If I had to do it again, I would consider going another level deeper. I have a real sense of security underground. A cave, abandoned mine, or missile silo would be great starting points.

    I’m not bragging. I will point out that many of the people who design houses never live in them. Designing a house for one’s own needs is easy. Getting some hidebound builder to build it can be challenging, but it can be done. It can also be economic. To succeed in most aspects does take some determination, though. Some days it seems as if the whole world is against you.

  17. JimB says:

    OTOH, nothing is perfect. We don’t have an attached garage. Over the years I have thought about an addition to accomplish that, but it is too much of a project. There is a fifteen foot walk between our front door and the garage. I want some kind of breezeway to shelter that walk, but can’t figure out something aesthetic. I’m an engineer, not an artsy fartsy architect, damnit!

    Having a detached garage DOES have one advantage: isolation. Noise, fire, etc. are pretty well isolated. Independent buildings are less likely to fail together if properly isolated. Nothing is perfect, however.

  18. PaultheManc says:

    @Harold

    I can’t comment on the history of loft based water storage in the UK, but can on the older design, which I still have in my current property. The design in gravity fed, so by putting the cold water storage tanks (one for the heating system the other, larger, for domestic hot water, as high as possible, provides best possible pressure in the system (most important for the domestic hot water). Normally only the cold water header tanks are in the loft, stored hot water tanks are generally located somewhere else convenient in the property, not normally the loft. I note the use of trays under the tanks in the USA; this would have been useful when my 30+ year old copper hot water tank leaked about two years ago. Fortunately I caught it before any major damage.

    Paul

  19. lynn says:

    OTOH, nothing is perfect. We don’t have an attached garage. Over the years I have thought about an addition to accomplish that, but it is too much of a project. There is a fifteen foot walk between our front door and the garage. I want some kind of breezeway to shelter that walk, but can’t figure out something aesthetic. I’m an engineer, not an artsy fartsy architect, damnit!

    The new used house has a three car detached garage with a ten foot extension. My ideal house has an oversized two car attached garage and an oversized two car detached garage.

    I have a good house plan should the opportunity present itself.

  20. SteveF says:

    nothing is perfect

    -modest cough-

  21. lynn says:

    Another plumbing difference is that your laundry rooms generally don’t have utility sinks. Those seem to be the default install next to washer/dryer space in FL.

    We have two utility rooms in the present home. There is a full bathroom in there.

    The new used house has a half bath (toilet and sink) in the utility room. Not on the floor plan though.
    https://www.winsim.com/perry_homes_floor_plan_3301.pdf

  22. Greg Norton says:

    I have a good house plan should the opportunity present itself.

    We tried the custom route once in FL but never came close to an acceptable plan with numbers we could afford in order to move forward. The builder’s other client that year ended up in foreclosure when she couldn’t convert her construction loan to a mortgage.

    Numbers gotta work.

  23. lynn says:

    Numbers gotta work.

    That is why we compromised and bought the new used house instead of buying a 1.2 acre lot for $200K and building a $500K new house. The new used house is $200K cheaper even though I am putting $50K into it before we move into it. Putting $700K into a new house did not work right now even though we would have the “perfect” ADA house.

  24. Greg Norton says:

    The new used house is $200K cheaper even though I am putting $50K into it before we move into it.

    The intractable problem for us was water. The site didn’t have any county service, and a certified well put the total cost of the 1/2 acre lot plus utilities at over $100k before a single shovel hit dirt. The well cost didn’t translate into equity, and the most generous appraisal from a bank would have been $50k *with* water on site. We just didn’t have the kind of cash necessary to build something decent, and we would have ended up like the builder’s other client, especially once the taxes hit — FL didn’t have homestead exemption portability until after we left.

    The people who bought the lot from us simply put up what I can only describe as a warehouse for all their relatives escaping from Puerto Rico. Looks like cr*p, but, hey, that solved the numbers problem.

  25. nick flandrey says:

    Home, fed.

    Got the new range picked up and installed. Only a trip to lowes and Home Depot to get everything I needed for today’s work (which included some details to finish yesterday’s stuff). Then picked up a dryer from a Faceboook group. Ran out of time so it’s sitting in the garage. I’ll be home from my Chicago funeral trip Wednesday, and I’ll probably try to get it installed later in the week. I’ve got a ton of school commitments Thursday and Friday, so they’ll come first.

    My flight boards at 7am, so I’ll be up early. I better get my stuff packed and check my black suit. Arriving in Chi is kinda inconvenient. No one can pick me up so I’ll take a charter bus to a suburban depot. That eats up 2 hours of life, but makes it easier for everyone else. My return is 9pm, arriving midnight Tuesday. I’m going to be wiped out. The rest of my family is staying home in Houston.

    I’ve got to stock the kitchen and baths so they can get thru the next couple of days without venturing into the garage and the mess there.

    Yikes, I just checked the weather, gonna be chilly in Chi-town.

    n

  26. TV says:

    Greg, thanks for thinking of me, but as much as I am being whipsawed by flashbacks, you (and everyone else here) need to continue as before. Please. Thank you all for your best wishes, prayers and concern. We are all going to get hit by grief, if we haven’t been already. I will find my way through and participating in places like this is a comfort.

    I will also comment to say that in sports, the entire transgender thing is hopeless nonsense. You should play sports (past puberty) based on your genes. If you are XX you play with one group and if you are XY you play with another group (coed sports, which are generally recreational, are not part of this discussion). I don’t care what you think you are (and gender dysphoria is real) but in sports the advantage gained from testosterone is a very big deal. Wear whatever clothes you want and marry whoever you want (hey, making choices is what being an adult is all about) but if you are participating in sports, especially contact sports, it should be by genetics. If you are XY, you are playing with everyone else that is XY. Please note that in the end, this is not a men’s issue – there are no XX people (genetic females) that are claiming they should play competitive men’s sports – the physical disadvantage of not going through puberty with a lot of testosterone is too great (and yes there will be the extremely rare exception – but you don’t make rules for a fraction of 1%). Women in sports have to crack down on this or they will be run out of their own sports by allowing transgendered men (genetic (XY) men who believe they should be women) in.

  27. nick flandrey says:

    People seem to have forgotten the whole point of sporting competitions, which is to pit yourself against the best LIKE YOU. Pro football teams don’t play high schoolers. Ditto for baseball, or any other sport. This is because we recognize that there is no “sport” in lopsided contests. We codify this in rules all the time. Slaughter rule ending ball games, handicaps, rankings.

    Normal people understand this. Abnormal people don’t.

    n

  28. SteveF says:

    You literallyhitlers just aren’t woke enough to understand that anything a man can do, a virtuous womyn can do better if it weren’t for the patriarchy keeping them down. Every time you open your hate holes and say that men shouldn’t compete with womyn, you’re perpetuating the stereotypes that were invented to keep womyn (who are as good as men in every way, except better) down.

    —–

    Nonsense aside, I’m not a big fan of grown men beating on grown women … but I’m a huge fan of accepting the consequences of your choices. It’s kind of rough on the current teens, who were too young to have expressed an informed opinion when the decisions were made, but the overwhelming majority of women in the US have bought the feminist bill of goods. Time to drink to the dregs the bitter consequences of that decision.

  29. Mark W says:

    Is it just me or is LastPass getting greedy? It was $12/year until a couple of years ago, then $24, and my upcoming renewal is for $36. Same service as when it was $12.

  30. Mark W says:

    This is where Collapse OS comes in.

    I agree with his thinking that Z80 (and 6502) CPU’s are more salvageable and easier to make than an i7 or even a microcontroller. But a Z80 OS? Really? I made a 6502 kinda multitask years ago but OMG.

    There are billions of modern CPU computers out there. It’ll be a long time before they all die.

  31. Greg Norton says:

    I agree with his thinking that Z80 (and 6502) CPU’s are more salvageable and easier to make than an i7 or even a microcontroller. But a Z80 OS? Really? I made a 6502 kinda multitask years ago but OMG.

    The Z80 systems from the 80s like Radio Shack’s computers and various CP/M machines haven’t held up as well as the 6502-based Apple, Atari, and Commodore equipment. The key difference is that the more complex 6502 ran at a lower clock speed than the Z80.

  32. JimB says:

    nothing is perfect
    -modest cough-

    Oops, forgot 😉

  33. JimB says:

    My ideal house has an oversized two car attached garage and an oversized two car detached garage.

    ‘There is no such thing as an oversized garage.’ R. Buckminster Fuller could have said that.

  34. lynn says:

    My ideal house has an oversized two car attached garage and an oversized two car detached garage.

    ‘There is no such thing as an oversized garage.’ R. Buckminster Fuller could have said that.

    But there is such a thing as an undersized garage. In fact, most are.

  35. lynn says:

    I want some kind of breezeway to shelter that walk, but can’t figure out something aesthetic. I’m an engineer, not an artsy fartsy architect, damnit!

    We have about an 7 foot wide, 20 foot long, 10 foot tall breezway from the new used house to the new used garage. See pictures 36 to 40 at:
    https://www.har.com/homedetail/6111-bridlewood-dr-richmond-tx-77469/2405394

  36. nick flandrey says:

    We have an 8 foot covered breezeway between the back door (opens off the kitchen) and the garage. Makes it easy to ‘shop’ from the fridge, freezer, and shelves just inside the door.

    n

  37. Nick Flandrey says:

    I put placeholders for the next 3 days up, and scheduled them. I’m not taking a tablet, only my phone, so if worst comes to worst and I can’t edit, the posts should happen anyway. That will at least get the door open, and the coffee on…

    n

    Now, off to bed for 4 hours.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    But there is such a thing as an undersized garage. In fact, most are.

    In Vantucky, two car garage really meant 1 1/2 cars, even in new houses. Dunno why.

    The only exception was where we lived, the neighborhood immediately around the legacy HP campus. I can’t explain that either.

  39. SteveF says:

    This list is by someone else but I mostly agree with it.

    Ranking the best Halloween candy:

    1. Reese’s
    2. Snickers
    3. Sour patch kids
    4. Twix
    5. Milky Way
    6. Kit Kat
    7. Skittles
    8. Starburst
    9. Butterfinger
    10. Babe Ruth
    .
    .
    56. Licorice
    .
    .
    .
    99. Clorox Bleach
    .
    .
    130. Tide Pods
    .
    176. Candy corn

  40. Ray Thompson says:

    Is it just me or is LastPass getting greedy?

    No, it is not you. I am beginning to look for alternatives. Norton may be my choice as it free with my Comcast account. I have so much in LastPass including emergency access for my son. Having been through the issues of accessing accounts for the wife of my best friend that died I don’t want to put my son through those issues. I guess $3.00 a month is not too bad but any higher and LastPass has priced themselves out of my pocket. A shared not app may be a good alternative.

Comments are closed.