Linda was up early to beat the morning traffic heading into Detroit from our part of S. E. Michigan.  On days when she has to go to the bakery she likes to get up and go and does not have breakfast at home.  Not that she doesn’t get something to eat; she’s spending the day working at a bakery after all.

I tend to stay up later at night than she does, so I also tend not to spring out of bed at oh-dark-thirty unless I have someplace I have to be at daybreak.  My job is to hear the alarms (we set several) and make sure Linda wakes up.  I am then free to pursue the rest of my day on my own timeline.  Today, however, I wanted to make sure I was up and dressed not later than 8 AM as there was a possibility that TOMTEK would be here to convert the hot-water base-board heating system boiler from propane to natural gas and/or that D. R. Electric Appliance would deliver and install our new natural gas kitchen range.  I did not, however, know if/when either of those things would happen so I was “stuck” at the house all day either waiting for phone calls.

I was dealing with e-mail when Tom called at 9:15 AM to let me know they had the part for our boiler and that he could be at our house around 10 AM if that was OK.   “Absolutely!”  I decided to bleed out whatever propane might be left in the 1/2″ line that feeds the kitchen and outdoor grill connector.  The pipe into the house was open to the outside for a while so I did not know how much propane, if any, even remained in the line.  I opened the shutoff valve in the laundry room for that line and then opened the outside valve for the gas grill.  Nothing.

It turns out that the quick-disconnect is a self-sealing device.  When the mating part is not plugged in, no gas can get out.  I should have known that, and it’s obvious that it should work that way, but I hadn’t really thought about it until that moment.  I closed the outside valve and then closed the shutoff valve in the basement and figured I (or the installer) would deal with that branch of the piping when the new range shows up.  I did not concern myself with the pipe to the furnace, which has its own shutoff valve, as I figured Tom would bleed the line before he started the unit.

Tom arrived about 10:20 AM.  He had the right part and he knew how to replace it.  The part (an orifice plate) was just a thin piece of metal, probably aluminum, with a hole about the size of a quarter in the center of it (the orifice) and several other holes for screws to pass through or other purposes.  I’m always trying to understand our technology and he let me observe and ask questions while he worked.  Tom disconnected a small vacuum hose, removed three or four screws, lowered the blower housing, slid the old propane orifice plate out, slid the new natural gas orifice plate in, reattached the blower housing, and our boiler was converted to natural gas.  Just like that.

Once he had the new natural gas orifice plate installed and everything reassembled he put gas to the furnace and turned on the electrical power.  It took a few seconds to purge the air and residual propane from the gas pipe but the burner lit and stayed lit on the first try.  He checked for gas leaks as it warmed up.  (He used an electronic sniffer rather than soapy water.)  He did not find any gas leaks but I noticed some condensation dripping from the flue pipe onto the top of the unit.  He shut the furnace off and let it cool down enough to handle the flue pipe and found that a joint between two sections was leaking.  He pulled it apart, applied a sealant, and put it back together nice and tight.  He turned the furnace on again and the leak did not reappear.  We did notice, however, that there was a similar leak at the next joint downstream.  I moved a spare macerator pump from under that joint and put a bucket there to catch any drips, although stains on the underside of the flue pipe indicated that this leak had existed for a while and that condensation leaking at that point had run back downhill towards the boiler along the underside of the pipe.  We may need to eventually have all of the joints resealed all the way to the outside.

I turned all of the thermostats on and set the temperatures a few degrees above ambient so they would call for heat and Tom monitored the temperature and pressure of the coolant as the unit heated up.  At 140 degrees F the pressure was between 35 and 40 PSI.  Tom said it should be closer to 20 PSI at that temperature, so he drained some of the coolant out of the system into a bucket.  As water trickled into the bucket the pressure dropped accordingly. The system eventually heated up to just under 180 degrees F, which is where it normally operates, and the pressure stayed below 25 PSI.  He put the covers back on the unit and gathered up his tools while I wrote a check and paid him for the service call. After he left I took a nice hot shower, the first one since last Wednesday morning.  ;-0

While I was doing chores around the house I got a call from Marilyn in the AT&T billing department.  She called to let me know that they were crediting our bill to compensate for the lack of usable service in August.  I got a call later from Shelley from the Office of the President (of AT&T) following up on our MPSC complaint.  I told her that the POTS and DSL had been working just fine since Bill was here to repair our service.  She had requested the billing credit and said she would report back to the commission that everything was repaired to our satisfaction.  I told her I would confirm that if contacted by the MPSC.

Today was shaping up to be a very good day.  It was sunny outside with light winds, puffy clouds, and afternoon high temperatures in the low 60’s; a little brisk, perhaps, but cheerful and very refreshing.  Earlier in the day I noticed the road grader going up and down our street smoothing out the bumps and filling in the holes.  With a forecast of no rain and high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 70’s for the next week the road should be decent to drive on for a while.

Some of the difficulty we have had this summer getting contractors to show up reminded me of a joke that Steven Wright told years ago on an HBO comedy show.  It went something like this:  “I walked up to the deli entrance and the sign said ‘Open 24 Hours’ so I tried the door but it was locked.  While I was standing there the owner walked up and unlocked the door.  I said to him ‘Your sign says ‘Open 24 Hours’.’  He just looked at me and said ‘We are, but not in a row’.”

I’m starting to wonder if the kitchen range is going to turn out to be another example of “tell the customer whatever you think they need to hear to get them to make the purchase.”  The difference in this case is that we have not given D. R. Electric Appliance a deposit or a credit card number, so if delivery is delayed much longer we can walk away from the deal with nothing to lose except time.  We probably won’t, as that would just further delay getting a new NG range, but it’s nice to know that we at least have that option if this drags on any longer.  We were told “three days” and based our decision to order from them in part on that information.

With respect to the conversion or our generator from propane to natural gas, our new NG fireplace logs, and our new NG outdoor grill, our hands are basically tied.  We either have parts on order, for which we have already paid, don’t have a choice of contractor, or have made the choice not to look for another contractor as that would simply involve more delay and the uncertainty of working with someone we have not worked with before.  Still, it’s a little frustrating that we can’t get this stuff taken care of.  The real issue for me is that I need to take our bus to Butch and Fonda’s place to work on it, and I cannot do that until all of the natural gas related work is done.  The other issue is that we do not want to contact Consumer’s Energy (natural gas) and AmeriGas (propane) until all of our gas appliances are switched over.  Consumer’s Energy “requires” us to accomplish this within 30 days of hanging the meter, which occurred one week ago today, so we do not have an unlimited amount of time to get this stuff taken care of.

Interestingly, I learned at breakfast on Saturday that two of our ham radio club members had contacted Bratcher Electric based on my recommendation.  Mike had already been to one of their houses, quoted them a whole house generator installation, gotten a signed contract and a deposit, and given them an installation date.  The other guy had a scheduled appointment for Mike to come out and give him a quote.  Mike looked at our job five weeks ago and I don’t have a price or a service date scheduled yet.  What’s up with that?!  I did not want to spoil today’s winning streak, however, so I chose not to make follow up phone calls today.  Tomorrow morning, however…

We were both tired and turned in early to watch episode 2 of Ken Burns “The Roosevelts: An Intimate Portrait.”  I was putting the finishing touches on this post afterwards and noted the occurrence of the autumnal equinox at 10:39 PM EDT.