Tag Archives: Consumer’s Energy

2015/09/08 (T) Polyurethane

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I was awakened at 6:30 AM by heavy rain.  I was not sleeping comfortably and had to get up anyway, so I put on my lightweight robe and slippers and took my iPad to the living room.  Naturally the cats wanted to be fed so I took care of that and then settled in to put the finishing touches on yesterday’s blog post.  The rain lasted for about 20 minutes.  I e-mailed the post to myself at 7:15.  Linda got up at 7:30 AM so I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until later.

I was thinking about the house battery voltage issues Butch was having and the role of the Vanner battery equalizer in his (and our) house battery system.  I did another Google search on “battery equalizer …”, and selected “batter equalizer circuit” from the list.  One of the listings was for the original patent application by James D. Sullivan as assigned to Vanner, Inc. ( http://www.google.com/patents/US4479083 ).  (I found it interesting that Google has a special directory for patents.)  As I expected, it is a DC-to-DC converter and in its most common configuration it is designed to take charge from the upper portion of a series battery pack and supply it to the lower part of such a pack or to any loads connected across just the lower bank.

One of its features is that it looks at the voltage across the entire battery pack and uses a voltage divider network (two resistors in series) to generate a reference voltage that is compared to the voltage across the lower bank.  Differences as small as 0.01 volts result in the transfer of charge from the upper to the lower bank when the lower bank has the lower voltage.  As implemented for use with buses and other vehicles that have 24/12 dual voltage DC electrical systems the divider network consists of two equal resistors and the reference voltage is 1/2 the overall battery pack voltage.  The design can “balance” other configurations, in which the “upper” and “lower” banks do not have the same voltage, by changing the divider resistors to have the correct ratio.  I will call Butch again this evening to report what I found and see how things stand with them in general.

When we had consumed a sufficient amount of coffee to be alert enough to work intelligently and safely we went to the garage to finish assembling the left plenum/support box for the built-in sofa.  I forced mating pieces into alignment while Linda drove in the screws.  These parts dry fit perfectly so this should not have been a problem.  I blame the slight misalignment on the corner clamps that I used.  I was reminded, once again, that cheap tools are almost never a bargain.

We had breakfast at 8:30 AM; homemade granola with leftover mixed berries.  We also spilt a banana that was getting past ripe.  As we were finishing our meal I got a call from Steven Weber at Martin Spring with another question on the Webasto system in the Prevost Bus Conversion he is servicing.  He had isolated a cracked fuel pipe and needed to order a replacement.  I suggested Sure Marine Service but also mentioned Lloyd DeGerald and Darin Hathaway.

Linda needed to spend some time at her desk preparing for a 1 PM meeting with the I.T. department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor so I took a shower and got dressed to work.  I gathered up the laundry, started a load, and then spent some time in the garage sanding pieces of the built-in sofa while Linda showered and got dressed for her meeting.  She planned to leave at 11:45 AM.  I left at 11:30 and went to Lowe’s to buy tack cloth.

Tack cloth is like sticky cheesecloth and is probably called that because it is “tacky” to the touch.  It is used to remove sawdust, drywall dust, and other little tiny particles from surfaces such as sanded wood just prior to the application of finishes.  While I was there I looked at inline water separators and inline oilers for use with air compressors supplying air to pneumatic tools.  I also looked at copper fittings to see if they had 90 degree elbows that I could use to modify the Aqua-Hot coolant lines that feed the two front fan-coil hear-exchangers.

Linda left before I got home.  I moved the laundry to the dryer and went back to the garage to work.  I was contemplating what I wanted to do next when Keith pulled up in his truck and trailer.  I chose to skip having the lawn mowed this week which will help Keith get the rest of his clients taken care of in his shortened 4-day workweek.  The grass has grown since last Monday but not that much and is still short and brown in places.  With rain in the forecast today, tomorrow, and Thursday giving it another week should be good for it.  I showed him the floor in the bus before he left.

I returned to the bus project and realized that I needed to stain the underside of the built-in sofa shelf as part of it might be visible through the notch in the vertical front panel at the floor.  As long as I was staining that I also stained the tops of the plenum/support boxes so they would blend with the two stationary pieces at either end of the seat.

With the staining done I came inside to make a few phone calls.  The first one was to Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct to check on the details of the Corian countertop for the custom desk.  Josh said the Corian normally comes bonded to plywood which protects it from cracking in shipment.  I want to go ahead and cut the 3/4″ plywood top that will join the two pedestals together.  I also wanted to know if his Corian vendor could come out on the afternoon of the 14th to measure and possibly install the countertop by the end of the week.  His vendor turns out to be an Amish craftsman who does not “come out and measure” or “come back and install.”  Josh said he would check with the vendor to see if he would use my plywood base and also see if he had the Sandstone product in stock.

My next call was to Pat Lintner to check on dinner plans for the upcoming GLCC Surplus and Salvage rally.  I need to coordinate with Crimp Supply to have them provide catalogs for the attendees and perhaps speak to the group before dinner.  I got his answering machine and left a message.

My third call was to Jim Miteff (N8KUE) returning his call/message from earlier.  We had a long chat about RVing and Prevost bus conversions.  It’s a big topic and I sometimes forget that I have spent the last 10 years learning about it.  When I think back to the beginning of this adventure, however, I recall how exciting yet overwhelming it was initially.  I see Jim in the same place, but he is a very quick study and professional researcher so he will get past the overwhelming part fairly quickly.

While I was talking to Jim I heard a loud bang and then another one.  They sounded like it had come from within the house.  After the second one I got up to investigate.  As I peeked out the front door a Consumer’s Energy truck was backing out of the driveway.  I flagged the driver down and asked what was up.  He said they had detected a leak and that he had just fixed it.  I presumed it was at our meter but he wasn’t any more specific than that.  I thought it was odd that he did not knock on the door first to let me know he was on site, but I guess they have the right to service their infrastructure.  I have smelled gas on that side of the house occasionally ever since they installed it but dismissed it as a “purge valve” doing its thing.  We had the same issue at the old house and they kept telling me it was a “vent” mechanism on the meter.  I never belief that, but whatever.

I wrapped up my call with Jim, put in another load of laundry, and returned to the garage to apply polyurethane to as much of the built-in sofa pieces as I could.  Each piece has to be done in two steps and requires two coats, so that’s four applications that will have to spread out over a couple of days.

There wasn’t much else I could do, and I did not feel like working at my desk, so I hung up the dry laundry and then worked on my iPad in the living room.  Linda had made an appointment with Renee to have her hair cut at 4:30 PM.  She stopped at Meijer’s on the way home and finally arrived at 5:45 PM.  I went back to the garage at 6 PM and applied another coat of polyurethane.

Linda bought an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable pizza for dinner and made a nice salad to go with it.  I had some more of the Leelanau Cellars Apricot wine and we had the last two vegan cupcakes for dessert.  I tried calling Butch twice but his phone was either off or out of range.  I called Pat Lintner again and this time he was home.  Saturday dinner will be at a restaurant so that will not be a good time for Crimp Supply to talk to the rally attendees and pass out catalogs.  I will call them tomorrow and see what I can arrange.

I headed back to the garage yet again, applied polyurethane to all the surfaces that had not yet been coated, put the brush in the soapy water, sealed up the can, and closed up the garage.  I think I have just enough polyurethane left to put one more coat on the top surface of the shelf.  I plan to do that in the morning before I start anything else.

On the drive home Linda heard a weather forecast that thunderstorms were headed our way this evening with up to 1″ of rain, strong wind, and possibly small hail.  Linda headed off to bed at 8 PM to watch NCIS and I caught the last half of the show.  I turned the channel to Create on Detroit PBS and watched A Chef’s Life, a series about a wife and husband who run the Chef & The Farmer restaurant in eastern North Carolina, and then turned the TV off.

I checked the weather with my iPad and it appeared that system had fallen apart although there was still a reduced chance of scattered thunderstorms at 11 PM and again from 2 to 4 AM.  I turned the light out at 10:30 PM.

 

2014/09/22 (M) Hot Water

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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.

 

2014/09/15 (M) Congratulations, You Have Gas

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As I reported in the blog post for this past Saturday a natural gas hookup crew was at our house in the early morning but it was the wrong crew (trench/plow) installing the wrong size gas line (1/2″ id).  The correct crew (directional boring) showed up today around 9 AM and started boring the line for our neighbor’s yard across the street.  I chatted with the crew briefly and they said we were next.  They had placed a large role of the proper size gas line (1″ id) in our yard, so I knew they knew what they were doing.

Ed, who had stopped by on Friday and runs the hookup crew, was not sure whether they would hang the meter and connect the line at both ends today, but if not, tomorrow for sure.  Their presence on site, however, meant that I would need to be in contact with three contractors fairly soon to follow up on arrangements to get them out here ASAP, and in the following order:

  • DCM Heating and Cooling, to disconnect the propane from the house and tie the new 2″ black iron pipe together with the pipe into the house and connect them to the consumer side of the gas meter.  Also, to start up the new library and garage furnaces.
  • TOMTEK HVAC to convert the hot water base-board heating system to natural gas.  Tom was going to check today with Weil-McLain on the parts needed for the conversion and let me know.  Our own research suggested that a natural gas orifice plate was the only part needed, but a number of steps were involved in the installation and I doubt that W-M would sell me the part directly.  (I did find it later online for $31 plus S&H, so I could buy it if I wanted to.)
  • Bratcher Electric; to convert the whole house generator, do the annual maintenance, and run the new service entrance cable for the garage panel.

Mike Bratcher was here a month ago to look at the job but had not gotten a price to us yet for the work.  They have been slammed with repair jobs as a result of late summer storms.  The generator is the least critical component at the moment as it is on its own propane tank, but we want to get it switched in a timely fashion so we can call AmeriGas and have both tanks removed at the same time.

(Ed told me later in the day that Consumer’s Energy requires us to be switched over to natural gas within 30 days of having gas to our meter.  He also said that a recent Michigan law (last year) made it illegal to have multiple fuel sources to a house.  Since the generator is on its own propane tank and that tank is not connected to, or provide propane to, the house or anything in the house, technically we would not have two different fuels going to the house even if we left it hooked up.  Still, we are not looking to create a “situation” with Consumer’s Energy.  Presumably the multi-fuel prohibition does not include electricity and wood.)

Keith showed up around 9 AM to cut the grass.  I chatted with him briefly about cutting the new grass, which had gotten long enough in many spots that I thought it was probably time for the first cutting.  I picked up some small tree branches that were scattered about the yard from recent storms, and warned him about the trench at the southeast corner of the house.  I chatted with him some more as he was finishing up with the string trimmer.  He said the grass was “April grass, not September grass.”  The grass itself (internally) was very moist, not just the soil.

This is how Keith cuts over 4 acres of grass in a few hours.

This is how Keith cuts over 4 acres of grass in a few hours.

Linda had reserved Doc Martin, Season 5, at the Howell Library and had an e-mail that it was available and needed to be picked up by the end of today or we would go to the end of the waiting list.  She needed to be at the bakery by 11 AM so she left around 9:45 AM to be at the library when it opened at 10 AM.  I would have gone to get it but I was “stuck” at the house as long as contractors were, or might be, working here.  I also needed to be here to pay Keith when he finished cutting the grass.

Linda met with the folks at the bakery (where she was the Controller and Treasurer for the 10 years before she retired) on Friday regarding a major software conversion project that she is going to do for them and was finally feeling like we could afford a new range.  She is a very good accountant/CPA and has always worked hard for what she earned, but has always been reluctant to spend money.  We grew up in very different circumstances and that reluctance on her part has provided a good balance over the years as I tend to be less concerned about what things cost and more focused on making sure we have what we need and are getting good functionality and quality for what we spend.  One component of my formal education and work experience was engineering, and that developed a certain way of thinking about things that has stayed with me ever since.  Need is, of course, relative.

We had been deferring a decision about the new kitchen range but decided on Friday evening that, with the natural gas hookup imminent, we would get a new one rather than convert our old one.  We decided on the model we wanted, a G.E. JGB870DEFWW, and knew the price, delivery time, and installation charge from Lowe’s.  I also talked to Curt at D. R. Appliance, a local family owned appliance store, on Saturday and expected to hear back from him today with pricing and availability.  That call came late morning and their price, while a little higher than Lowe’s, was close enough to be worth the possible end-of-week delivery and installation so I told them to go ahead and order it.

By 3:30 PM the gas line to our house was in the ground and the meter was mounted on the side of the house but a crew was still digging out by the street trying to clear access to the main line so the fuser could tie our line and our neighbor’s line into the 2” main line.  My camera battery went dead while they were installing the meter so I grabbed a few shots on my cell phone while the camera battery recharged.  Linda got home around this time and got to see some of the final steps in the process.

I followed the process closely all day and tried to get photos of most of the details, especially as they hung the meter, tied the line in, and pressure tested it.  All was good, so they tapped the main line and we finally had gas in our branch line.  They purged the line, reconnected it to the meter inlet, tested the meter and connections for leaks, and then verified gas availability to the outlet connection.  At 5:30 PM they plugged the outlet, put the hang tags on, and handed me the door knocker tag that said “Congratulations, you have gas.”

We always seem to have interesting things in our yard.

We always seem to have interesting things in our yard.

Linda took a call from Bob at Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting regarding our quick disconnect for the Broil King outdoor grill.  She indicated that I was busy with the gas crew and would call them back tomorrow.

Late last week we received an invitation to a political fund-raiser for Brian Robb, an incumbent councilman in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  We do not live or vote there, but Brian is Kate de Fuccio’s significant other, and Kate is a former co-worker of mine and continues to be a very good friend of ours.  I called DCM Heating & Cooling and left a message for Darryll that we had gas to the meter.  We left around 6 PM and arrived at the Tower Inn Cafe around 7 PM.  We made a donation to Brian’s campaign and Kate ordered a small vegan pizza for us.  We visited for about an hour and then took our leave.

When we got home we relaxed in the living room thinking about how nice it will be to have our natural gas fire logs while we had some fresh strawberries and nectarines for dessert.  I also had a mug of hot apple cider which put me in the mood to go to bed.

 

2014/08/25 (M) AT&T and the MPSC

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I was scheduled to participate in a meeting of the FMCA Education Committee at 4 PM today but it got rescheduled to Monday, September 8, same time.  That was a welcomed change of plans which allowed me to concentrate on our construction project.

Roese Construction, the contractor for Consumer’s Energy, is still working along our street.  The main gas lines are run.  They are now digging the connection trenches, fusing the sections of pipe together, and filling the trenches back in.  We heard them working at the west end of our property and walked down to see what they were doing and take a few photographs.  A large backhoe was just starting to fill a trench at the northwest corner of our yard where two pieces of main line were joined with a branch line going to the cul-du-sac to the west.  There was a lot of water in that trench and it looked like a (muddy) lap pool.  The surface of the water was only about two feet below the surface of the ground.  I asked the backhoe operator if that was ground water and he said it was.  The northwest corner of our property is a low spot that forms small ponds around many of the trees when it rains, and stays wet for a very long time even after the surface water disappears.

We spent the morning and afternoon sanding drywall compound and touching up a few spots.  While the compound was drying I worked on electrical tasks and Linda worked in the kitchen and did some weeding in the beds around the house.  Somewhere in the middle of all that we put all of the sections of the ham radio tower back on the middle deck, had lunch, and made a trip to Lowe’s for a light switch and various cover plates.  I also picked up an 18″ x 28″ sheet of 1/4″ thick Plexiglas to use as a temporary replacement for the fogged window in the bus when I finally get around to removing it to have it repaired.

Our AT&T phone and DSL service is worse than useless at the moment.  After three un-returned phone calls to both the technician (who gave us his number and said to call him directly if the problem re-occurred within 30 days) and the infrastructure manager for this area (whose name and number we got from the technician) we were fed up, so we filed a complaint with the Michigan Public Service Commission.  About four hours later we got a call from a women who claimed to be from the Office of the President of AT&T letting me know that she was in receipt of our commission filing and that she would be coordinating the “investigation and service repair process.”  The audio level was low and the noise on the line was high, so I could barely hear her and said so.  Apparently she heard the noise too, so at least she knew we were not making this up.  She e-mailed us shortly thereafter with her name and contact information.  That’s a start, but what we really want is the clean, reliable signal that we pay for.

There are things I can do, and need to do, at my computer that do not require me to be online, such as editing the rough drafts of blog posts and selecting/post-processing photographs.  The last post I uploaded to our blog was for August 1st, so I am once again almost four weeks behind.  I needed to finish processing the tree photos from last Thursday, put them in a Dropbox folder, and e-mail the link to Paul at Detroit Tree Recycling, but I did not get that done either.  When I wasn’t eating or driving back and forth to Lowe’s I was working in the garage.

Speaking of food, Linda made stuffed mushrooms for dinner and served them with a side of grilled asparagus.  Both were very tasty.  After dinner I gave the east wall of the garage a final sanding and then worked on the utility closet wall while Linda vacuumed up the dust.  I wiped down the wall with a barely damp sponge and applied a coat of Zinzer primer.  It should be dry enough to paint in the morning.

I drove back to Lowe’s to return a couple of incorrect cover plates I had purchased earlier in the day and get the correct ones.  I picked up another gallon of paint while I was there to make sure I had enough on hand for tomorrow.  On the way home I had a nice QSO (ham radio contact or chat) with Mike (W8XH).  Ham radio is fun and we have yet to get involved in making long distance (DX) contacts with folks all over the world on the HF (high frequency) bands.  Getting our tower up with some HF antennas on it will help a lot.

 

2014/08/19 (T) Horizontally Boring

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Yesterday the crew installing the main natural gas line down our street was at the house just east of ours, so we figured they would be at our house today.  Not long after we finished breakfast we heard the sound of trucks and checked to see where they were.  They were set up by the east end of our pull-through driveway pulling 2″ plastic pipe back through the tube they had just bored.  They then relocated their horizontal boring machine down by our third (west most) culvert that will eventually be the driveway for our bus barn.  From there they bored back towards the east following a track that was parallel to the road and about 30 feet to the north of the centerline.

We bought some marker flags at Lowe’s the other day.  I decided that this morning would be a good time to put them in the ground to mark the locations of the 240VAC/50A power lines, the propane line, the septic tank outlet to the drain field, and the drain pipe for the SE corner of the house.

The horizontal boring technology is fascinating and I got to chat with the crew chief while he worked.  He had what looked to be a fairly sophisticated measuring device that told him the current location and direction of travel of the drill head, which has electronics packaged with it that allow it to be tracked.  He relayed instructions via radio back to the operator of the Vermeer drilling rig who could then “steer” the drill head.  We also got to spend a little time by the horizontal boring machine and I tried to capture the essence of this very specialized piece of equipment.

Mel, who is one of the project supervisors, stopped to check on the crew.  I was able to get a few minutes of his time to explain our concern about how they plan to run the gas line to our house.  The diagram sent by Consumer’s Energy was not accurately drawn.  Mel called Phil, who handles the scheduling of the service drops, and had him make a note on the service card to check with us before finalizing their planned approach.  After inquiring about how many gas appliances we have, Mel said to make sure Phil gives us a 425 gas meter.

I spent the rest of the day and evening working at my computer.  I started by updating the online roster in the SLAARC/WP website.  I then selected and post-processed about 70 photos in two groups; one for the front sidewalk/stairs and one for the retaining walls and drain pipes, and created gallery posts for each project.  I will do similar gallery posts for the garage electrical/HVAC project and the natural gas project once they are completed.

 

2014/07/25 (F) Assessing The Situation

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We finally got a letter yesterday from Consumer’s Energy requesting payment of the $200 fee for hanging the natural gas meter.  The letter included a rough drawing showing where the meter will be located (south end of the east side of the house where the propane currently enters).  It also shows the route the gas line will take to get there from the opposite side of the street.  The drawing did not correctly show our pull-through driveway in relation to the house, so the actual path will be different.  This was also the first indication we’ve had that the main line will be run down the opposite side of the street, which we prefer over running down our side of the street.

At 9:15 AM we still did not have any landscape workers on site so I went to my office to continue working on assessment items.  No one from Village Landscape Development showed up today and we never got a phone call.  It’s a way of doing business that I simply do not understand.

I finally got around to making my annual appointment with my dermatologist only to find out he is still on medical leave.  I didn’t know he was on medical leave in the first place.  They scheduled me with someone else in the same clinic.

After lunch I had a nice chat with our financial advisor / stock broker at Stifel-Nicholas even though we just saw him three weeks ago.  We got a post card a few days ago indicating that he and his assistant were moving to a different S-N office.  He had not mentioned this when we met in person so we wanted to see what the reason was for the move, which he gladly explained.  No cause for concern on our part, which left me free to worry about other things instead.

As long as I was making phone calls I called Butch to see how things were coming along following the sale of a large portion of their business assets to a company in Nevada.  They still have a lot of loose ends to tie up and a bus conversion to finish, so they are not sitting on their hands.  When the buyers were there a week ago they loaded up as many parts and as much material as they could transport in the vehicles they had, but by Butch’s estimate it wasn’t 20% of the total.

I also had a series of TXT messages with Joe Cannarozzi, the mobile mechanic who has taken care of our bus the last four years.  Joe is relocating from Chicago, Illinois to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and giving up the mobile aspect of his bus repair business.  Apparently his new place has a garage where he will continue to work on rigs, but they will have to come to him.  I hope that works out for him, but it leaves us having to find a mechanic closer to home or willing to travel here.

I finished writing the assessment items for the three remaining Michigan Assessment Consortium Common Assessment Development modules and got all seven sets of items e-mailed to the team.  With that task checked off, at least until I get some feedback, I was free to go to Lowe’s after dinner and pick up some of the materials I need for the HVAC projects in the garage.  There’s a better than even chance that we will not go to our ham radio club breakfast tomorrow in favor of an early start on the garage work.

 

2104/07/12 (S) Natural Gas

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You might think that this would be a reference to the natural by-product of having breakfast with our ham radio friends in South Lyon this morning at the Senate Coney Island, but that is not the case.  We had a 10:30 AM appointment at the house this morning with Darryll Mech of DCM Heating and Cooling to finalize the work that needs to be done to get the house ready for conversion to natural gas.  The natural gas contractor for Consumer’s Energy (Roese Construction) started installing the main lines in our area a couple of weeks ago and they expect to have the project completed by September 26 (of this year).  That means we will have natural gas to the house sometime between now and then and we need to have everything as ready as we can before they hang the meter so the final conversion will be minimal and quick once the natural gas is turned on.

The work at our house breaks down into three pieces.  The first piece is running black pipe on the outside of the house from the southeast corner down the east side, across the back, under the upper and lower decks, along the back of the garage, and up the west side of the garage.  The gas meter will be installed at the southeast corner of the house where the propane currently enters the house.  The existing house piping will be used to supply natural gas to the house furnace, kitchen range, and outside grill connector.  The whole house generator is by the southwest corner of the garage and is currently on its own propane tank.  After the natural gas is hooked up everything needs to be on a single natural gas service/meter.

As the gas pipe runs along the back side of the garage there will be a T to supply gas into the garage.  That has to do with the second piece of the work.  We are having a ceiling mounted garage heater installed and a small furnace/air-conditioner for the library.  The HVAC unit will allow us to heat the library in the winter without cycling the main hot-water baseboard heating system, which is at the end of a long run through unheated attic space and is not particularly efficient or effective.  More importantly, it will allow us to control the humidity on humid summer days (it’s a library, after all, so it contains a lot of books and other humidity sensitive paper materials).  As part of that work we need to remove a propane space heater that is mounted in the wall abutting the garage and cap the line.  We also need to remove a window mount air-conditioner in that same wall.  Yes, that’s right, the current A-C for that room exhausts into the garage.

The third piece of the puzzle will be disconnecting the propane and converting the appliances that currently run on propane; the kitchen range, the main furnace, and the generator.  We will have Darryll take care of disconnecting the propane from the house and connecting the natural gas to the existing house piping and start up the two new furnaces once the gas is available.  We will then have TOMTEK convert the main furnace since they already service it for us.  Depending on timing we may be without our main furnace and domestic hot water until TOMTEK can complete their work.  I may convert the range, have Darryll do it, or have TOMTEK do it.  Regardless of who does the conversion I will need to get the conversion kit.  Bratcher Electric will connect the gas line and convert the whole house generator and do the annual service at the same time.

While Bratcher Electric is here we are going to have them run a 100 Amp, 4-wire cable from the outlet of the transfer switch in the southwest corner of the garage to the panel in the northeast corner of the garage.  The existing setup has the 200 A main panel in the basement of the house with a 60 A / 240 V breaker supplying the cable that feeds the sub-panel in the garage.  That means the power to the sub-panel goes from the garage all the way to the house and then all the back to the garage.  That’s a lot of unnecessary forth and back.  In part because of that, and in part because of the electrical needs of the new garage furnace and library HVAC unit, I am going to replace the sub-panel in the garage with a 100 Amp main breaker panel in advance of all of this work.

The current sub-panel is a General Electric but the main house panel is a Square D Homeline.  Lowe’s and Home Depot carry both the Homeline and QO product lines from Square D, and Home Depot also carries GE and Siemens.  If I installed a GE main panel in the garage I could potentially reuse the existing breakers and save a little money.  On the other hand, they have been in an unconditioned space for who knows how long, and they are not physically compatible with the Homeline breakers.  Indeed, the four different products are not generally interchangeable.  But the main consideration is selection and availability, and the Square D products win on those criteria.

Once the new furnaces are installed we will still have some work to do.  We will have to repair the walls in the library, insulate the hot air duct in the garage (although Darryll may take care of that), and enclose the library HVAC unit.  Because the library HVAC unit will be installed in the northeast corner of the garage it has to be in its own little sealed room to prevent automotive engine exhaust or other noxious fumes in the garage from being drawn in to the conditioned air or explosive fumes, such as gasoline vapor, from being drawn into the combustion chamber.  The furnace will have its own air intake and exhaust tubes.  The garage heater uses a sealed combustion chamber with a special concentric intake and exhaust tube, so it does not have to be enclosed.

Darryll indicated he could start the last week of July and would need about a week to do all of his initial work.  We have company coming the 20th through the 23rd, so we have the upcoming week to prep (clean out) the garage and library for Darryll.  This is the kind of situation that could give us gas if we weren’t used to it and enjoy it.  There’s nothing like a construction project to get you up and moving first thing in the morning and keep you up late at night.

 

2013_09_28-30 (S,N,M) Gone Fish’in

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No, I have not given up my WFPB way of eating, but one of the things I did on Sunday was to run a new network cable from our main Internet gateway (in the kitchen) to my office (in the basement).  I had to pull the cable above a suspended ceiling and then “fish” it up through the floor boards into a wall cavity.  There is a special tool called a “fish tape” that is made for this purpose.  It’s a thin but stiff piece of metal that is coiled up inside a housing with a small hook on the free end.  Because it is relatively stiff, you can push through holes and into wall cavities and other such places until it emerges somewhere, hopefully where you need it to emerge.  I have a fish tape (of course) but I can’t find it (naturally) because the garage/workshop will be the last part of our move to get organized.  So I improvised, and after several false starts ended using a scrap piece of 3-conductor sheathed electrical cable that was long enough, small enough, and stiff enough to get the job done.  But I have gotten way ahead of myself.

As usual, Linda and I went to our South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) breakfast on Saturday morning.  Well, almost as usual; we took two cars this time as Linda was headed to Ann Arbor to babysit munchkin Madeline after breakfast, and I was headed in the opposite direction to do ham radio stuff.

Madeline’s domestic servants (our son and his wife) wanted to attend a wedding on Sunday in Madison, Wisconsin and thought the three days required to drive there, celebrate, and drive back might work out better for all involved if their daughter did not make the trip.  They also figured that Madeline would do better in their absence if she was in her own home.  Madeline approved of these plans and gave them the requested 3-day pass.  Although Madeline’s aunt (our daughter) provides child care one day a week, a 3-day stint, over the weekend, in a house without television would mean no college or professional football, and would have been heroic beyond necessity.  This was clearly a job for GRANDMA, who doesn’t have functioning television in her new house anyway, so she wouldn’t miss it.  Besides, when sitting the baby, there’s no time to watch TV (or do much of anything else).

Mike (W8XH) and I had plans to work on the new SLAARC website, but first he had to help Bruce (W8RA) set up his new LP-PAN and integrate it into his ham radio station.  Working on Bruce’s ham shack is no small undertaking.  I’ve never been in the Space Shuttle simulator, but I’ve seen pictures, and sitting at Bruce’s ham station is a pretty good facsimile.  It took Mike a couple of hours, but he got it all working.  We then headed to his QTH to do the website stuff.

Mike and I are building the new SLAARC website using WordPress with the help of fellow SLAARC member Larry (K8UT), who is a bonafide expert in such matters.  A couple of weeks ago we decided to create the new website as a subdomain of the existing website, which is hosted by GoDaddy, and that was an experience in itself.  This would make it very easy, however, to later change some DNS entries and have the original domain name point to the new website.  Larry did the WordPress installation manually rather than using the automatic WordPress installer that most web-hosting companies have available (including GoDaddy).  As a result it has taken longer to get the new site functional, but Mike and I now have a much better understanding of subdomains and an appreciation for some of the complexity that is “under the hood” when using WordPress.  One more call to Larry resulted in some magic on his end, and we were finally up and running.  We then spent several hours installing, activating, and exploring themes.  We haven’t made any final decisions, but we are starting to figure out what questions to ask.  While Mike and I are anxious to move this along, we are not under any external pressure to have it ready by a certain date and want to take our time on the front end.  While it is relatively easy to change WordPress themes even after a website is populated with content, there is a point beyond which that is still going to involve a lot of work.  I like projects, but I don’t like doing projects over (and over, and over …).

I was still in WordPress mode when I got home, so I did some work on our personal website.  I created a tab (main menu item) for “Ham Radio” and created a sub-menu item for “SLAARC”.  These are just placeholders for now, but will eventually have content.  I have also fleshed out the WFPB tab as I start to build out the main menu structure.

Mike lent me an AmpedWireless dual-band WiFi repeater that he wasn’t using and I spent some time Saturday evening and Sunday morning playing with it.  It is a very cool device.  In WiFi repeater mode it will pick up a 2.4GHz and/or a 5.0GHz WiFi network and rebroadcast it.  What’s really cool, however, is that it will pick up a 2.4GHz WiFi network and rebroadcast it as 5.0GHz WiFi network.  I have been looking for a device that will do this for quite some time.  Our iPads and smartphones are all 5.0GHz capable, so using them with a 5.0GHz WiFi signal offloads that traffic from the 2.4GHz network, leaving it for 2.4GHz only devices.  The 5.0GHz band also has a lot more bandwidth than the 2.4GHz band with very few devices using it, so there is less interference and more reliable network connections.  Unfortunately, the device did not work well at our house as it appeared to be in conflict with our WiFi thermostat.

Wireless repeaters, access points, bridges, etc. are all designed so that they can be setup and configured wirelessly through a web-browser.  In order to accomplish this they map a specific URL to a specific IP address in the 192.168.xxx.yyy range.  In this case, 192.168.1.240.  Unfortunately, I think the WiFi thermostat also uses that IP address.  There may be a way to work around this, but I did not have time to pursue that today.  The AmpedWireless device is actually configurable in five different modes.  WiFi repeater is the default, but it can be a Wireless Access Point or a Wireless Bridge, or two other things.

As a result of playing with this device, I think I finally understand the difference between various networking technologies.  A Network Switch (NS) is a device that allows multiple devices to be connected together using network cables, with one cable going back to the router (where the IP addresses are controlled through DHCP).  A Wireless Repeater (WR) is just that; it picks up a WiFi signal and rebroadcasts it (repeats it), usually on the same frequency and channel, but with a different SSID; no cables required.  (The Amped Wireless WiFi Repeater can rebroadcast it on a different frequency and/or channel, very nice.)  A Wireless Access Point (WAP) generates a WiFi network and is connected to the main router through a network cable.  We have a Linksys WAP running now.  A Wireless Bridge (WB) is the mirror image of a WAP.  It allows multiple devices to be connected to it using cables (sounds like it’s a NS) and then communicates using WiFi with a wireless router or WAP.  This allows lots of equipment to be located remotely from the main Internet gateway/router without running a cable between the two locations.

While Linda continued her marathon munchkin duty on Sunday, I worked around the house trying to check things off my “to-do” list faster than they got added.  I didn’t succeed, but I did get a lot done.  My main focus was my office, which had become the place where stuff was getting piled so we could feel like we had put other parts of the house in reasonably good order.  I either needed to get it organized or close it off for the open house.  Some of our fellow hams are coming to the open house and will want to see the ham shack (which is also my office), so closing it off from public view wasn’t really an option.

Monday was odds-n-ends day.  I continued to try to clean up and organize my office and the basement, installed two new door closers on the front screen/storm door, and installed new hardware (tracks) for the pair of bi-fold doors on the kitchen pantry.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it takes all day.  I snagged some replacement toilet flappers from Lowe’s, a nice shelving unit for the bedroom from Staples, and a large quantity of ICE Sparkling Water from Walmart.  (It’s not my favorite place to shop, but Meijer’s doesn’t carry this product.)

Mid-afternoon there was a knock at the door.  It was a representative from a company that is subcontracting with Consumer’s Energy to possibly run a natural gas main down our street.  I walked our property with the guy and explained the rather complicated situation that has led to us having two propane tanks and what they implications of that were for us switching to natural gas.  I went ahead and signed up after making sure we could back out if we decided this really wasn’t what we wanted to do.  As of now, however, we are definitely interested in switching to natural gas.  Consumer’s Energy estimates the equivalent cost for a gallon of propane, which is currently $2.00 + or – $0.40, at $0.77.  At that ratio, our infrastructure payback would be about 3 years.  There is also the added benefit of having a constant supply of fuel without a truck having to come and fill a tank.  Value?  Priceless.

In the late afternoon I had a nice chat with Joe from EZ*Connector.  EZ*Connector is a small company in California that has designed, and manufactures, a keyed, magnetically retained, sealed electrical connector.  It comes in 7 and 14 pin configurations for non-military use and is an ideal solution to the problem of connecting a tow vehicle (bus) to a towed vehicle (car).  Our current setup requires two separate electrical cables with mechanical or friction latches.  The EZ*Connector will provide a much easier and yet superior connection.  They are just now bringing a new 14 conductor cable to market and suggested I wait until early November to order.

Linda called to say she would be home around 7 PM.  I put water on to boil to make angel hair pasta with red sauce, and she picked up a salad on the way home.  She made the sauce last week, and it was fabulous.  (I am not normally a fan of marinara sauce, but this sauce has me rethinking that position.)  A glass of 2009 Egri Merlot to wash it down, and fresh plums for dessert made a fine conclusion to a long day.