low_delta

The bake element burned out last Saturday. I ordered the replacement on Sunday, they shipped it Monday and it arrived on Tuesday. It was packaged badly and didn't survive some abuse by FedEx. That evening, I emailed the supplier to get a replacement. The company spent Wednesday and Thursday trying to get my model and serial numbers, while I told them to just ship the same as what I had already ordered. They finally verified the part by Thursday evening, shipped it on Friday, and we received it on Saturday.

I installed it today and the oven does not work. Neither the bake element nor the broiler element come on. I assume that the short that involved a minor explosion of metal caused a certain part of the computer to burn out. I did find a discussion on an appliance repair forum that said one of the wires leading to the bake element remains hot, even when the element is off. So that explains why that happened. And yes, they run 240 volts.

I looked up the controller and a new one costs $200. It would cost double that to get a repair person in, but at least I'd know for sure that it was going to be fixed or not. So we'll make some calls tomorrow. The big problem is that we're hosting Christmas dinner on Thursday, and have a ham to cook.

I worked a few extra hours over the week, so I was able to leave work early on Friday, and we went to a movie. Sat next to some friends who we didn't know would be there. It was Peter Hujar's Day. Back in the 70's, a friend of his asked him to describe everything that happened in his day, and she recorded it and made a book of his and several other people's days. This movie was two actors recreating the day where she recorded him talking about his day in great detail.

Then we went out to eat. I noted that the entrees started at $25 but I was still a bit surprised to see how high the bill was. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the receipt that I found the gratuity had already been added.

Not a whole lot happened for the rest of the weekend. Cindy was out both afternoons for get-togethers. I went to the park for a walk, and got a bunch of miscellaneous tasks done. Fed the birds, went for a hike at the park, a bit of vacuuming, things like that. I used the fireplace for the first time this winter. I shoveled an inch of fluffy snow today. We went grocery shopping last night, and made dinner together tonight.

And I finally hooked up the dishwasher right. When it was installed a few years ago, the airgap wasn't hooked up. The drain hose ran directly to the sink drain. It works, but it's not the best protection against wastewater backing up into the dishwasher. I needed a branch tailpiece. I procrastinated a good year to begin with, then when I finally ordered the part, I got the wrong one. Then I procrastinated a while and tried again. Got a different wrong one. Then I waited a while and got a new different wrong one. There are four kinds. There are two different styles of connection on top. And then there are two different sizes of branches. So the fourth time I ordered, I still got a wrong one. The online catalog did not clearly show the style of connection on top. So the next time I sat and studied the listings. Turns out the connection style is described by name. I didn't recognize this because I didn't really know what the names mean. So this time I went to a store. I showed them my phone and what I had copied down, and it turns out it was wrong. But I got it straightened out and got the right part.

Then tonight I got it installed. The only 7/8" tubing I could find was garbage disposal tubing, which is very stiff and thick. It was a pain, but it's all proper now.

Friday night was whisky night. A couple of friends in our regular whisky group haven't been able to make it to the past two or three meetings. John is a big fan of Talisker, which I featured at our last get-together, so I offered to bring them out. A couple others joined us. Small group, but that was fun. They were in Scotland last month, so we talked about touring distilleries there.

Saturday was warm again, and I mowed the lawn. In the evening we went to see the Violent Femmes. I had lost interest in seeing them because their shows were always so short. Like barely an hour when they were headliners. But for this one, they played their first and second albums all the way through, so I knew it would be long enough. Just two hours, including the 20-minute intermission, but it was good. Strange thing, though, was the couple in front of us who were seated and on their phones for at least half the show. And they weren't mindlessly scrolling Instagram or whatever, they were shopping. Like, how are you making up your mind about a product when you're at a concert? Is it really that easy to pick out a bra? Near the end of the show, "Gone Dadddy Gone" started, and the guy was dancing in his seat, and he finally got up. But the next one was a slow one. He remained standing, but was back on his phone, searching Amazon for a temporary heel lift.

After the show, as we drove north, we hit rain. There was lightning overhead. After an hour, when the storms had moved out over the lake, I went over to take photos of the lake. The storms had moved farther out than I expected, and I only got one shot where the lake was lit up by the lightning. I had my raincoat on but my camera was pretty wet. Seems to be fine. We ended up with 1.5" of rain. There was some wind because in the morning we had a lot of leaves in the back yard from the tree in the front yard.

Remember the trouble we had with the dryer last week? Today the washer decided it wasn't going to put any water in the tub. After a couple hours research and investigation, I decided it was probably the computer. That would cost $250 (plus shipping), and I think I could replace it without issues. But I'm not 100% certain that would fix it. The things are so complicated, it could be other issues. But most of those other issues should throw an error code? We believe it is nine years old. That would be likely to keep it going a few more years, but the dryer...

Cindy took the laundry to the laundromat. She brought it home wet because we had hoped that last weekend's efforts would have fixed the dryer, but it seems to be acting the same. It runs for a while, and then stops counting down. We open it up and the laundry is still wet but hot. I have no idea what could be causing this. The dryer is much older than the washer, but it is less complicated, so it ought to last longer, and has. But with both of them out of commission, we might just bite the bullet and buy new ones. Unfortunately, they're very expensive. So we need to think about it. Might call a repair person and figure out what it will take to fix them. They might know how simple or difficult the fix is, and have a guess of how long they'll be expected to last.

I put the drain cleaner in it, and left it overnight. In the morning, it was still clogged. After a while, I got out the snake and rain it through, as far as I could. After that, it was clear. So I guess there was a clog back inside the wall somewhere? But that was a relief.

... I hope. I got it back together, but it was too late in the evening to start it up.

I got the deck off the tractor last night, and removed the... I'm not sure what it's called... arbor assembly? It's the axle and bearings in a housing with a belt pulley on top, and the blade on the bottom. Today I took it to the shop to get replacement parts. I put them together and got them mounted on the mower deck. Later, I got the deck back on the tractor.

I'm not 100% convinced it is good. When I first put it all together, when I bolted the pulley on top of it, the shaft wouldn't spin. I figured out that the bearing wasn't far enough down in the housing, so I got a punch and hammered it down farther. Then it spun OK. Except... there was a light steel-on-steel sound. I thought "oh well. Maybe it will wear smooth." The more I think about it, the more worried I get. I should have at least compared it to the good one (there are two blades on the deck), to see if it made a similar noise. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

I guess I'll turn on the blades for a bit, then shut everything down and see if it is warm to the touch.

I've had to replace several sump pumps since we've been in this house. Once I had to replace one after only three years. It's been three years October, since we had the great flood. And somehow I realized I'd never bought a new pump. This means if it went out in the middle of the night, I wouldn't have a replacement. So it took me a week, but I finally went out and got one late last week.

I had the dehumidifier running in the back of the basement, for a few days. I turned it off late the other night. Tonight, for some reason, I remembered it and went to empty the tank. I had a few choices of where to go with the water, and decided to pour it into the sump. The sump was full! The pump wasn't running.

We have two sump crocks that collect water under the house. It's the pump in the main one that usually fails, which causes water to come up through the floor. This was the second one. I don't know how long it's been like that. It collects a little bit of groundwater, but it also collects the water that drains from the furnace. So, fortunately, this one probably could have gone longer before it caused a problem.

So I took the cover off and looked in. I had no idea how I was going to replace it. I thought I never had, but then I saw the rubber mat I put under it for sound insulation, so I must have. Oh yeah, I just remembered it was when I changed the discharge to lead to the other sump. But I still had no idea how I would get it out. So I took a stick and jiggled the float, and it started running again! Whew!

I'm trying to figure out how I will replace it when the time comes. Seems like when I changed the discharge pipes, I screwed the first one into the pump, and then glued the next fitting into it, and so forth from there. Not real smart. I have two choices. Lift the whole thing up and unscrew the pump from the pipe. Or cut the pipe, and reconnect it with a rubber fitting. That's the way the other one is. It's a rubber tube affixed to both pipes with pipe clamps. Loosen the clamps and slide it down to expose the joint. Then just pick up the pipe with the pump on it. After a few years, the rubber gets pretty stuck, so it can be difficult to disconnect, but otherwise, it is pretty easy. I'll have to look for one of those.

On Wednesday, Cindy put up the new curtain panels, and we moved the brackets outward to make room.

The light fixture was finished and they called me to pick it up on Tuesday. I installed it today.


You can see the edge of the window frame on the right side. I wanted the curtains to be back far enough that they didn't block the view of the thermometer. And I didn't want them to block any of the view. So we had to extend the rod to make room for the curtain panels when they were all the way open. Now we have to move that picture to the right, to center it. :-)




The lamp looks nice, but it's going to take a while to get used to the color. It's very yellow. The glass is a little yellow, so I tried bluish light bulbs, but they made a greenish cast, which was worse. So warm light bulbs behind yellowish glass makes a very yellow light.

All the different colors in there are driving me crazy. The undercabinet lighting seems to have a slight reddish/magenta tinge. The bulb over the stove is a standard incandescent bulb, and the ones shining from the left in the first picture are probably the whitest, most neutral bulbs (the second picture is balanced toward yellow to compensate for the overhead light, to make the curtains look more natural).

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I had meant to post these earlier.

The curtains. We were a little disappointed that the white was grayer than expected, but we can learn to live with them. Cindy is unhappy with the lack of, I'm not sure what they call it, pleating? They're flat when they're drawn together. An by unhappy, I mean embarrassed. But we have no plans to change them, at this point. So.





And here's the countertop. I cannot get a good photo showing the marbling. You have an idea of what it looks like, though. In person, the pattern is more obvious.

Monday night I tried to hook up the exhaust vent over the microwave. Couldn't do it. I was busy Tuesday and Wednesday, lazy on Thursday, and even lazier on Friday night. I think I have to drop the microwave.

Yesterday they came to pick up the old dishwasher, microwave and sink, so today I cleaned out the garage, and my car is back in for the first time in two months.

Then I went up in the attic and redistributed the insulation. I wanted to put another screw in the duct to hold it up, but doing anything is such a pain up there, that I declined. My other task was to put some rope caulk (like plasticene clay) in the gap between the duct and the drywall. It turned out there was hardly any gap, and some of the insulation that was wrapped around the duct was down on the drywall. I stuck a little of the caulk in the part of the gap that I could reach, but that wasn't much. I think it will be OK. The main thing was to prevent mice from coming through, so I guess I'll have to watch it and see if anything makes a hole around it.

I was sweating a bit because the attic was warm, but it was nothing like it was in the summer. The sun was out today, so I was contemplating doing it tomorrow, but I really wanted to get it done today. After all that I mowed the lawn.

Cindy took the curtains and curtain rod down, then washed the wall in preparation for painting. Then she put masking tape on the molding. I patched the holes from the curtain rod bracket, and patched a big crack that ran to the floor from the bottom of the window. It looks like a drywall joint that wasn't taped properly. I patched it with drywall joint compound, so who knows how long that will last. Hopefully I can paint tomorrow.

And I put up a corkboard on the wood next to the fridge (behind the knife block, in the photos).

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The tile has been grouted. I just need to clean it up tomorrow. And caulk.



I asked the guy at the Tile Shop if I could have unsanded grout, after he had sold me the sanded grout. I was mostly worried about the sand scratching the glossy tile, but also most sources said to use unsanded grout on gaps of 1/8". He said sanded is fine for a gap this size. A friend said not to worry that it would scratch, since the stuff is so durable. Also, they were out of premixed grout.

So I had only a little trouble mixing it. Not enough water to start with, then too much. I finally got it OK, after doubling the amount I'd intended to make. It was still thinner than I would have preferred, but it turned out OK in the end. I got just over halfway done, just before suppertime (good timing), when the grout hardened up. It said "rapid set" on the bag, but I think it might not have hardened that quickly if I'd kept stirring it. So I had to mix more. The second batch wasn't quite as wet, and performed slightly better. It was still very messy.

Doing grout is:
Squeegee it on, trying to get it into the gaps.
Squeegee it off, trying to leave it in the gaps.
Let it harden a few minutes then wipe it down with a damp sponge, to take off the excess and smooth it out.
Wipe it down with a damp sponge again to clean up the face of the tile.
Wipe it down with a damp sponge again to clean up the face of the tile.

The more you wipe it down, the easier it will be to clean it up the next day, after everything has dried. But you're picking up a lot of grout, so you need to keep rinsing your sponge and changing the water.

The whole thing took me from 12:30 to 8:30, with the usual amount of procrastinating beforehand, and the usual putziness when getting started and the usual trip to the hardware store somewhere in the middle. So it took slightly less time than putting the tile up, but it was a lot less difficult and stressful.

Cindy got curtains, but we still need curtain rods. And probably to repair the wall when the old ones come down. And paint that wall. We ordered new (expensive) table and chairs. Still a month and a half out for the light fixture. Cindy is figuring out the best way to clean the new "luxury vinyl" floor.

Tomorrow I wipe it down to remove the rest of the haze. And caulk the corners. I update all the switches, outlets and switchplates. And hopefully I can connect that exhaust duct.