NOTE: This is post does not have any photos.
MONDAY 05 August 2024 — A home health visit, deep-cleaning, and the start of an electrical project
We had a home visit with Signify Health this morning. These visits are provided as a benefit of my Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSERS) Medicare Advantage health care plan, administered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBS-MI). This was only the second such visit we have had since I retired in 2012, and the first one was very cursory, lasting 20 minutes at most. ABWR, the only “testing” done during that visit was to check our blood pressure.
Today’s visit was very different, and much better. The provider was an older, semi-retired, male nurse-practitioner. He was friendly, with a great demeanor, clearly experienced and knowledgeable and genuinely interested in assessing our state of health. The visit lasted two (2) hours, and was very thorough and informative. For each of us, he checked our temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygenation, and peripheral artery blood flow. (He was not able to get the peripheral artery measurements for me, done at the hands and feet, because my resting heart rate is slow compared to “normal” and this confused the measurement device. Rather than submit bad data, he did report any findings for this test. He had a peek at our eyes and inside our mouths, and applied a simple cognitive test while doing a comprehensive review of our medications and supplements. We had an excellent discussion, and even talked about diet and activity.
In the afternoon, Linda started deep-cleaning the kitchen cabinets and installing new bumpers on the drawers and doors. She also identified hinges that were loose and had me tighten them. With the hinges done, I started working on wiring the new dedicated electrical circuit for our new Miele heat-pump dryer. The washer and dryer could be here next week, so I needed to get this done. Following the latest NEC requirements, the dryer needs a dedicated 120VAC / 20A circuit with GFCI protection. GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) is a useful safety feature that is appropriate almost everywhere, but is required by code (NEC) in “wet” locations, including (at least) bathrooms, garages, kitchens, laundry rooms, and outdoors.
The washing machine also requires a dedicated 120VAC / 20A, GFCI protected circuit. The current washing machine is plugged into a 120VAC / 15A duplex receptacle in the laundry room. Analysis of this circuit revealed that it is wired with 12 AWG 2+G wire (12-2+G NM-B aka “Romex”) and protected by a 20A circuit breaker, but shares the circuit with three (3) duplex receptacles in my office, at least one outdoors, and does not have GFCI protection. The good news was that the laundry room receptacle is the end (last) device on the circuit. As a temporary measure, I could simply replace the duplex receptacle in the laundry room with a duplex 20A GFCI receptacle and have power to the new washing machine that was in conformance with the NEC except for the requirement that this be a dedicated circuit. So, that is what I intend to do. My slightly longer-term plan is to run a dedicated circuit for the washing machine, just as I was about to do for the heat-pump dryer.
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