Before breakfast this morning I tried to start the Aqua-Hot (hydronic heating system) in our converted coach, but the burner would not ignite. We had the same problem back on June 9th when Darin Hathaway of Hydronic Heating Specialists serviced the unit while we were at Elkhart Campground waiting to go to the GLAMARAMA rally in Goshen. Darin suspected a bad coil but managed to jiggle a few wires and got it to work. It started several times in a row, so we decided not to spend the money for a new coil at that time. I hoped then the decision wasn’t a mistake, but it looks like perhaps it was. I will try to find some time over the next few days to jiggle some more wires and see if anything comes of it. I recall Darin saying the ignition coils were expensive, so I don’t want to replace ours if it is not actually broken.
For breakfast we had some of the vegan muffins that Linda made yesterday. They were yummy. We took a little time to revisit our options for a white, free-standing, double oven, 5-burner, gas range with a convection feature in at least one of the ovens but did not come to any decision regarding purchasing a new one. Linda made a grocery list and then went to the Howell library to see what Consumer’s Reports had to say about gas ranges before stopping at Meijer’s.
While Linda was gone I placed follow-up calls to Heights Tower Systems and Bratcher Electric to check on the status of their pending quotes and then e-mailed Darin about the Aqua-Hot. I then got to work in the garage and library working on the drywall. I sanded all the drywall compound (mud) I had applied yesterday and added the next layer to the places that needed it. Patching the library side of the opening where the window A-C was installed has proven to be particularly challenging, or at least tedious. The new piece of drywall is recessed slightly compared to the original wall surface surrounding it, so I have been building up layers of drywall compound to “fill the hole.” It has taken many passes so far and it is going to take quite a few more before it’s done.
I finished up for the day, cleaned up the tools, and changed out of my work clothes. Rather than spend a lot of time at the library, Linda photographed the relevant pages of recent issues of Consumer’s Reports with her iPad so we could study them at home. What we got from the reviews was that LG, GE, Electrolux, and Samsung are making good gas ranges while Kitchen Aide, and Jenn-Air are best avoided. Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Best Buy all carry LG, GE, and Samsung appliances, so we have a choice of local dealers. While we were pondering all of this over lunch a group of wild turkeys came through the back yard several times foraging for food. There were three large adults and three much smaller birds, obviously this year’s brood.
I spent most of the rest of the day working at my desk getting the SLAARC WordPress website to the point where I was comfortable creating user accounts. I had hoped to have user accounts set up by August 13th, but that did not happen. One reason for the delay was that I was trying to find a way to automatically e-mail each user as I created their account. It took me a while, but I figured out how to do this with the WP-Members plug-in. I also found a plug-in that hides the WordPress Toolbar from users based on their WordPress user role. In this case I was only concerned about users with the Subscriber role but the plug-in allows me to control all defined user roles. I did a final edit of the User’s Guide, uploaded it to the private Members Only Area of the website, and e-mailed Mike (W8XH) and Larry (K8UT) that the site was ready to go. Our DSL connection was pretty good most of the day but got flaky for a while during the evening. The phone continued to be unusable with loud noise masking weak audio. So far AT&T’s response to our MPSC complaint has been a phone call and e-mail from someone in the “Office of the President.” Impressed? I’m not.