Tag Archives: garage furnace

2014/09/17 (W) Hooked Up

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I figured Darryll would be here on Friday but he called a little after 8 AM this morning to see if he could come today and finish up.  I was going to check around to see what sort of price and delivery I could get on the boiler conversion, but with Darryll coming this morning I decided it was not worth trying to save a hundred bucks and risk an even longer delay in getting the furnace converted.  I called TOMTEK back and left a message with the secretary, Virginia, to let Tom know that we were getting the gas hooked up to the house today and that we needed him to come convert the boiler at his earliest convenience.  I also assured her that we would be fine without the boiler for a few days as we are not yet into freezing temperatures at night.  The biggest inconvenience will be the lack of hot water for bathing and washing dishes.  Linda can use our microwave oven, induction cooker from the bus, and our electric toaster oven to fix a wide range of meals.  We also have a microwave oven on the bus as well as a Gaggenau 2-burner electric cooktop and we have a Jenn-Air electric range/oven/grill/fryer/etc. in the recreation room in the basement.  We checked out the Jenn-Air when we moved in but have never cooked on it.  Once I get the extension hose with quick disconnect for the new gas grill we will also be able to cook on that if we want or need to.  We do most of our laundry with cold water, so that is not an issue.

Darryll must have called us from the road.  We had just finished breakfast (re-heated homemade cinnamon rolls and fresh grapefruit) and I was headed outside to move the cars so he could back his truck up to the garage when he pulled into the other end of the pull-through driveway.  Most of his work today involved completing the connections from the natural gas meter to the new 2″ black iron pipe and the old 1″ pipe that currently feeds propane to the house.  All of that work was on the east end of the house so he parked his van there to be as close that location as possible.  His dad came with him this time to help out.

We let our dishwasher finish its cycle and then turned off the boiler, closed the gas shut off valve, closed the shut off valve for the line feeding gas to the range, grill, and old breezeway heater (since removed).  Darryll they shut off the propane to the house at the tank and disconnected the supply line and pressure regulator from the house. He disconnected the supply line on the other end from the pressure regulator at the tank and installed a plug in the outlet.  I used short lengths of 10AWG electrical wire to secure the covers on both propane tanks.  The wires are just twisted, and while easily undone, the covers cannot just be pulled up without untwisting them first.

The old pipe that carried propane into the house is below the gas meter to the left and the new 2″ pipe is at the level of the meter and to the right.  The consumer connection outlet from the meter is a 1.25″ threaded nipple coming out of a shutoff valve below the right lower corner of the meter.  Darryll came out of that nipple and installed an elbow going back towards the house, a short piece of pipe and then a T with the opposing ends horizontal.  From there he was able to adapt down to 1″ i.d. pipe going to the left behind the meter and gas line and use various fittings to bring it around and connect it to the old pipe sticking out of the wall.  He put a union in there to make it possible to assemble all of this.  He went to the right out of the T and used an adapter to go up in size to 2″ i.d. and then elbowed up and over to line up with the 2″ pipe running along the side of the house.  He extended the 2″ pipe and somewhere in there installed a 2″ union, again, to make it possible to assemble all of these pieces.  The number of fittings and the geometry of their assembly was fairly impressive but it was a very neat installation when he was done.

This was a big project, and although Darryll is done with his part of the work the project is not finished.  Rather than post photos as the work has gone along I will be creating a page on our website just for this project and posting several photo galleries illustrating the major steps.

We had a small bird of prey in the back yard this morning being badgered by four very large Blue jays.  When sitting on the ground with its wings folded in it was about the same size as the Blue jays, definitely too small to be a Red Tailed Hawk, but I could not get a good enough look at its wings, tail, or underside markings to identify it.  The Blue jays kept swooping down at it and then it would suddenly take flight and go after one of them.  It appeared to be fast and very maneuverable, so I think the Blue jays were playing a dangerous game.

I called Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting and talked to Bob.  We agreed on the 12 foot extension hose kit and Bob said he would get in on order today.  Country Squire only gets deliveries from their American Hearth distributor every other Friday and the 26th is their next scheduled delivery date.  If our order does not arrive then it will be another two weeks before it gets here.  Obviously we won’t be heating the living room before the furnace gets converted or cooking on the grill before we get the new range unless something goes very, very wrong with those items.

I got a call back from Valerie at TOMTEK to let us know they would hold a service appointment for us on Monday, assuming the part comes in by then.  By definition, that has to be acceptable as there isn’t anything I can do to change it.  I have been a bit annoyed with myself, however, for not checking on all of this sooner and contacting TOMTEK sooner so they had the part in hand when it was time.

While Darryll was working on the meter tie-in I unscrewed the brass flare fitting that connected the old propane fire logs to the 1/2″ i.d. black iron supply pipe.  I then removed the fire log unit from the fireplace and moved it to the garage.  There was already a plug sitting in the fireplace box for the end of the iron pipe, but I left that for Darryll to connect after he had spliced a shutoff valve into the pipe outside the house just before it enters the side of the brick chimney and goes into the firebox.

I noted that the dials on the gas meter had not moved since it was installed and pressurized on Monday.  Darryll finished the iron pipe connections, opened the outlet valve, and put natural gas to the house and the new 2″ iron pipe.  After the pipe filled with gas we noted the readings on the meter dials.  He checked for leaks with his soapy water solution and did not find any.  Darryll made a light pencil mark on the 1/2 cu. ft. per revolution (rotation) dial.  He then opened the gas valve to the library furnace and checked for leaks downstream of the valve.  He did not find any so he turned it on and set the thermostat up.  It took a couple of tries to purge the remaining air out of the line and get the burner to light, but once it started it ran really nice.  He then opened the gas valve to the garage furnace and checked for leaks downstream of the valve.  Again, he did not find any so he turned the power on at the ceiling switch, turned the thermostat on, and turned the temperature up to start the unit.  There was only a small amount of air left in the 1/2″ i.d. line and the unit lit right up and purred like a kitten.  (OK, roared like a small lion.)

These are not dramatic moments but they are significant ones.  After numerous visits spanning more than six weeks, and a myriad of steps integrating various technologies, you flip a switch and voila, you have a functioning furnace; or two, in our case.  Darryll let both furnaces run long enough to burn off some manufacturing oils which sometimes produce smoke from the supply registers and cause homeowners to freak out.  He shut the units off at the thermostats and waited to make sure they would actually cycle off.  They did, so there wasn’t anything left to do except pack up and head for home, stopping to get some lunch for his dad on the way.  He will mail us the final invoice once he has it figured out.  It’s nice to do business we people that trust us.

I called D. R. Appliance to let them know we had natural gas to the house and to find out what they do with the old units they haul away.  Curt said they would be able to bring the new unit and install it very quickly after they receive it.  There’s a chance that will be on Friday or Saturday, which would be really nice.  As I suspected (feared) they take the old unit to a dump.  I asked if they would drop it at Salvation Army but they were reluctant to do that, even though I did not see where it would be inconvenient for them.

According to Curt the Salvation Army is very picky about what they will take.  I figured they would go right past the donation center on their way back to the appliance store but Curt pointed out that their next delivery and installation might well be in the opposite direction and he clearly did not want his delivery/installer to go even a little bit out of their way to do this.  Fair enough.  What did not occur to me until later is that a company that sells new appliances might want to get old ones out of circulation.  If so, I think that is shortsighted; folks looking for a used (inexpensive) appliance at a Salvation Army Thrift Store were not going to be customers for a new one.

I called the Salvation Army Thrift Store and Donation Center in Brighton, Michigan, which is actually on Grand River Avenue as you go towards Howell from our house.  They said they would accept the old range as long as it was working.  I told them it was in reasonably good shape, looked OK, and worked fine except for the spark igniters for the stove top burners.  That was fine with them.  They just asked that we mention the spark igniters when we drop it off.  They also had a truck that could come get it if we were unable to get it into our personal vehicle and gave me the phone number to schedule a pickup.  Cool.  That means we don’t have to try and convince D. R. Appliance to deal with it and it does not end up in a scrap yard.

Although I did not do anything particularly physical today I was very tired by 4 PM and took a 2-hour nap.  Linda woke me up at 6 PM to have a dinner of green salad, leftover lentil stew with sweet potatoes and apples, and homemade biscuits with honey.

After dinner we opened a bottle of Alpha Rose wine that we bought in August 2013 at Red Trail Vineyard in Buffalo, North Dakota.  They are part of the Harvest Host network and it was the first place we used our membership to spend the night at a winery for free.  I posted about the place at the time.  The Alpha Rose was absolutely delightful with a very floral nose that carried over into the mouth.  Made from King of the North grapes, it was light but crisp and very pleasant in the finish.  I wish we had bought a case.  The King of the North vines were the first ones planted at Red Trail Vineyard back in 2003 and have done well in the North Dakota climate.  The Alpha Rose is only available at the winery and two other locations in the Fargo, North Dakota area, so I guess we will have to plan our travels to take us back that way.

Tonight was Season 5, Episode 6 of Doc Martin; at least it was for us.  I think Season 5 originally aired in 2010.  I really liked watching it on the TV monitor from a DVD compared to watching it on an iPad.

 

2014/09/01 (M) A Day To Labor

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One of the odd things about being “retired” is that holidays, like weekends, do not have the same significance they had when we were employed full time.  We no longer have “3-day weekends.”  We also do not have a tradition in our family of gathering on the summer holidays, so those days tend to blend into the days around them.  If not for our Saturday morning ham radio breakfast and the Sunday morning Howell Farmers Market we probably would not know what day of the week it was.

Knowing that today was Labor Day, Linda prepared vegan cinnamon rolls yesterday and baked them first thing this morning.  This was the first time she has made these and they were a real treat. Vegan, yes; whole plant-based food, not exactly.  These will be a rare treat for us.

As has been my pattern for the last few weeks, I sanded and touched up drywall first thing after breakfast.  Most of the drywall compound was finally smooth enough that I felt it was ready to prime.  I discovered that I was out of primer, so I went to Lowe’s to get some and picked up a few other things while I was there.  It was very humid today, which tends to slow the drying of paint, but primer is thinner than paint and gets absorbed into the paper drywall covering   I was hopeful that I might get a first coat of paint applied this evening.

Mike (W8XH) sent an e-mail Saturday evening to the members of the SLAARC announcing the availability of the new WordPress website and indicating that they would each be receiving a unique username and password from me in the next few days.  I wanted to wait at least 24 hours before I started creating users.  That waiting period had passed, so today I parked myself in front of my computer and registered users.

Part of the registration process required me to create a username.  That was easy for a ham radio club as (almost) everyone has an FCC call sign.  It also required a valid/unique e-mail address.  When I created an account an e-mail, with their username and a randomly generated password, got sent to the e-mail address I entered.  The e-mail also contained instructions on how to get to the website, how to login, and how to change their password.  I finished creating the last user account around 9 PM, but I did not work on this between 5 PM and 8 PM.

The vegan cinnamon rolls made for a filing and somewhat higher calorie breakfast, so we skipped lunch today and had an early dinner.  I had requested a picnic type of meal to celebrate the end of the summer tourist season, and Linda fixed a nice one.  We had vegan potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, and pan-grilled tofu slices with BBQ sauce and caramelized onions served open-faced on some of the Italian bread she made for dinner on Saturday.  Dessert was watermelon balls.  And the wonderful thing is that I am maintaining a good weight.  Eating well and eating healthy are not mutually exclusive.  However, like low-fat and fat-free foods, and then gluten-free foods, the processed food industry has discovered a “market” for foods that are free of animal products.  That, however, does not mean they are free of unpronounceable chemicals or excessive amounts of sugar and salt.  There is a growing amount of vegan junk food available in the marketplace.

We spent a little time after dinner on the back deck watching wildlife as a storm front approached from the west.  As the wind kicked up we lost our AT&T DSL connection and then our phone went out, exhibiting the same behavior we have had throughout most of August.  I shut down my computer and changed back into my work clothes to do some painting.  I put a coat of paint on the east wall of the garage and both the inside and outside of the utility closet.  It started raining really hard so I had to close the garage door, which cut down on my light, but eventually the rain let up and I was able to open the garage doors again.  The inside of the utility closet may need another coat, but I think that most of the outside of the closet, and the east wall of the garage, may be done.  That means I can finally mount the thermostat for the garage furnace and put cover plates back on switches and outlets.

I am still working on the outside of the south wall of the utility closet (with the door).  I am using drywall compound to create a smooth transition at the hinge edge of the door to correct for a carpentry error I made when installing the door much earlier in the project.  The transition will make it possible for me to install trim around the door, but I have to build up the transition in thin, tapered layers, allow it to dry, sand it smooth, and repeat the process over, and over, and over.  Ditto for the west wall of the library, which is the other side of the east wall of the garage, where I am building up a slightly recessed area where the opening was for the old window A-C unit so it will blend in with the surrounding wall surface.

2014/08/20 (W) Like A Well-Oiled Clock

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Darryll and Alec (DCM Heating & Cooling) were back today to continue working on the garage and library HVAC project.  I was talking to them as they unloaded tools and materials when I got a call back from Paul Keech.

Paul has changed the name of his company from Paul’s Tree Service to Detroit Tree Recycling and is also running American Mulch.  As I was told yesterday he is trying to focus on tree removal, especially wood lots with multiple trees, rather than tree trimming.  Among other reasons, the trees he removes provides the raw material for his mulch business.  Also, the guy who did most of his climbing the last ten years has moved on to another job and it’s hard for Paul to run a business when he’s up in a tree, even with a cell phone.  I tried to describe the trimming and removal work we need done but in the end we agreed that I would take some photos, put them in a Dropbox folder, and e-mail him the link.  He also encouraged me to get a couple of quotes from some companies more local to our new location.

While I was talking to Paul, Darryll found a small leak in the reducer at the T-fitting behind the garage and tightened it.  The pipe out of this reducer will bring gas into the garage and was the last piece of pipe they worked on the last time they were here.  Alec reset the pressure to 12 PSI and it appears to be holding better than it has up to this point.

In the course of the day, they…

  • …finished setting the Library furnace/air-conditioner and connected the parts together.
  • …cut the hole for the return air register and installed the return air duct.
  • …ran the supply air ducting from the top of the unit along top of the ceiling, over the top of the utility closet door, and then angled it to run along east wall at the ceiling.  All of the duct outside the closet is insulated.  Two flexible ducts will come off the top and run through the attic to supply air through ceiling registers on the east end of the library.
  • …marked the location for the two registers that will be at the bottom of two rigid ducts running down the east garage wall to supply air to the library just above the baseboard heat radiators.
  • …removed the old library window A-C unit and covered the hole with cardboard.  We will have to patch the opening on both sides with drywall and paint it.
  • …shut off the propane to the old library wall-hung space heater, removed the unit, capped the line (iron pipe), turned the gas back on and checked for leaks.
  • …connected the double-walled flue pipe for the library furnace.
  • …connected the double-walled flue pipe for the garage furnace.
  • …ran the 1/2″ iron pipe for the gas supply to the garage furnace.

They will take care of the air-conditioner condenser/compressor installation on a subsequent visit.  In the meantime I need to install electrical junction boxes for the two furnaces, which must have switches located within three feet of each unit.  I also need to run new 12 AWG 2+g NM cable for old A-C condenser/compressor and repurpose the existing A-C condenser/compressor wiring as an outside 120 VAC / 15 Amp outlet.

We still needed to repair drywall in the library and upper east garage wall and install new drywall on the lower east wall of the garage and on the new utility closet walls.  The lower half of the east garage wall is the next thing I have to do as I need to have it done before he comes back to finish the duct work.

I got a call from Chuck Spera just before noon letting me know that he was headed to his shop to pick up his old VDO bus tachometer and take it to Bob’s Speedometer Service on Bergin Road.  Bergin is an east-west road about one mile north of our house.  Bob’s was over at Old US-23, less than five minutes away.  I met Chuck there at 12:30 PM and we met with Matt who handles their VDO instrument repairs.  He tested Chuck’s tach and pronounced it broken but probably repairable, so Chuck decided to leave it there.

Matt did confirm for us that both the tachometer and the speedometer take a square wave input signal in the 3 – 5 volt range with deflection of the needle proportional to the frequency of the waveform.  Presumably this same signal regulates the speed of a motor that drives the gears of the odometer.  I had discussed this very situation with Mike (W8XH) just last night and he is willing to bring his 100MHz 2-channel storage oscilloscope and help us look for and trace these signals if needed.  Once we have known good gauges installed knowing what waveform to look for will help greatly with troubleshooting should they still fail to indicate the appropriate information.

After we were done at Bob’s I headed over to the Meijer’s northeast of M-59 and US-23 to get a few things for Linda.  By the time I got home, Glen Williams of Tenor Clocks LLC had arrived to service our grandfather clock.  I “broke” it about a month ago by trying to wind it at just the wrong time and it has not chimed since then.  It has also never been oiled in the 11 years since we bought it and Glen told us on Saturday that it should be cleaned and oiled every 5 – 7 years.  (We saw Glen at the GLCC/CCO rally in Clio, Michigan this past Saturday when we were there.)  Glen took the mechanism out and examined it and said that nothing was broken.  Apparently it finally bound up the last time I wound it from lack of proper oiling.  He cleaned it, oiled it, and checked it for wear but did not see any.  He reassembled it, checked the operation and timing, and said it was running smoothly and keeping very accurate time “…like a well-oiled clock.”

Although my time on the computer today was limited, I managed to post my blog entry for August 1st and started selecting photos for other posts.  I updated the Technical page on the SLAARC website with a document on low band antennas for Field Day use, and added a link to an online Smith Chart Tutorial.  I then updated the online roster.  I am at the point where I need to generate WordPress user accounts for the club members so I looked more carefully at the WP-Members plug-in documentation to see if there was a way to have the website e-mail each member as I create their account.  It appears that there is, but it will take a little more work on my part to get that set up and working correctly.  As I was working on this our AT&T DSL line started dropping out; again.

Linda spent part of the day preparing food ahead in advance of having company tomorrow.  She held back some of the crushed red lentil soup for our dinner and served it alongside sandwiches.  While we were eating we noticed that the phone said “Line In Use.”  We knew we were not using it, but I picked up one of the handsets, pushed “Talk”, and got a very loud, very noisy busy signal.  We checked all of the phones to make sure there wasn’t a problem with one of them.  There wasn’t.  When I checked again the message said “Check Tel Line.”  That usually means we won’t have a dial tone when we push “Talk” and that was, indeed, the case.

Ken is the service technician that has been out twice to try to resolve the problem and he left his AT&T cell phone number in case we had recurring problems.  He also left his manager’s name and phone number.  I called and left a message for Ken and then called and left a message for his manager, making it very clear that Ken has been working hard to resolve our problem and we are happy with the service he is providing.  I also tried to convey that the service disruptions are interfering with our ability to do things online, like edit websites.  It’s bad enough that the data rate is so slow, but we depend on our “always on” DSL service to always be on.

We went to Lowe’s after dinner to buy a couple sheets of drywall.  We looked for special cover plates with a switch opening in one half and a round hole in the other, but did not find anything like that.  We stopped at Teeko’s on the way back and had Jeff roast two more pounds of half-caff blends for us; one Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and the other Seattle Blend.  He was still out of the Sweet Dreams decaf blend, which we have him mix 50-50 with the regular Seattle Blend to make Sweet Seattle Dreams, but he is supposed to be getting some in his shipment tomorrow.

Back home we unloaded the drywall, had some fresh strawberries for dessert, and read quietly for a while.  I’ve been reading the PDF version of the 2nd edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook and am done except for the glossary and the appendices.  It is over twice as many pages as the 1st edition and is the definitive resource on connectivity for RVers in particular.

 

2014/08/13 (W) Bad Times

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Linda had a rough night last night.  The tooth on which she just got a new crown two weeks ago started throbbing and even Tylenol did not do much to dull the pain.  She finally got some sleep early this morning and slept in while I had toast with jam and coffee for breakfast.  She called the dentist when she finally got up and they said they could see her at 10:30 AM.  She tried drinking some coffee but the hot liquid immediately aggregated her bad tooth.

Linda has been following a story in the news about Ferguson, the town in Missouri where we grew up.  There was an incident there over the weekend in which a cop ended up shooting an 18-year-old African-American male.  There were limited witnesses, so the truth about what happened is obscure at best.  The town, a northern suburb of St. Louis, is now experiencing “riots” and looting.

It is difficult for me to picture what is happening.  Although Linda’s oldest brother still lives in Ferguson we have not been back there in years.  This is the kind of situation that “happens to other people in other places” not in the Ferguson of my memory from the 1950’s and 60’s.

Darryll and Alec (DCM Heating &Cooling) showed up just after 9 AM and Linda left for the dentist at 9:15 AM.  The stormy weather of the last two days cleared out overnight replaced by cool northwest breezes, abundant sunshine, and blue skies.  When the weather in Michigan is nice it is really nice.  I took a few minutes to get the trash to the curb, made sure Darryll was all set, and then retreated to my desk to work on the membership and financial records for our FMCA Freethinkers associate chapter, of which I am the current vice-president and secretary.

I got a call from Linda around 11:15 AM letting me know she had a 2:15 PM appointment with an endodontist down the street from our dentist.  She was going to go to Fairlane Mall to kill some time but since she did not get much sleep last night I suggested she go to the endodontist’s office and sleep in their waiting room.  Given her discomfort and sensitivity to hot liquids she will likely come home today with a new root canal procedure having been done.

Darryll and Alec finished the 2″ iron pipe installation, connected an air pressure gauge, and pressurized the pipe to 12 psi to check for leaks.  The natural gas pressure in the line will only be ~4 in-WC (inches of water column).  1 PSI = ~27.67 in-WC, so 4 in-WC us is approximately 1/7 PSI, a relatively low pressure.  Still, there cannot be any leaks in the piping connections.

With the pipe done for now they turned their attention to hanging the Reznor garage heater.  To support the unit Darryll installed two U-channels in the attic spanning the top side of the bottom cord of three trusses.  He determined the location of the threaded support rods from the garage ceiling side using a cardboard template and drilled the holes up into the attic.  He and Alec then assembled everything with Darryll doing the attic work.  The Reznor is not that heavy, but he prefers to hang the unit when possible rather than screw it into something.

To position the unit they set it on top of one of our 6′ tall plastic shelving units and blocked it up another six inches with scrap wood.  (We used the same technique to install the pull-down attic ladder a couple of weeks ago as described in a previous post.)  The unit is 12″ high and they set it 6″ below the ceiling near the center of the rear (north) wall.  That location will optimize getting heat to all parts of the garage and put the unit right where Darryll needed it to connect the exhaust flue pipe using the existing flue that was originally used for the wood-burning stove.

Linda usually fixes our meals, but I used to do a lot of the cooking during “tax season” when she was working ridiculously long hours as a C.P.A.  Lucky for me we had chickpea salad in the refrigerator and I remembered how to make a sandwich.  A few almonds and some of this morning’s coffee (Teeko’s Seattle Blend half-caff) made for a tasty, quick, and easy lunch.  I checked the pressure on Darryll’s gauge and it had dropped quite a bit, so there was a leak (or leaks) somewhere that he will have to find and tighten.  That’s unfortunate given the size of this pipe and the number of connections, but “it’s all part of the job” as the saying goes.

I was hopeful that Phil from Precision Grading might come fix our pull-through driveway today, but as of 1 PM I had not seen or heard from him.  There’s still a chance we could see him later today, but it was a long shot at best based on the premise that with all the rain on Monday and Tuesday he might not be able to work anywhere else today.

Linda called around 1:45 PM to let me know the endodontist was able to see her at 12:15 PM.  They did some tests to confirm it was the nerve in the suspect tooth and then did the root canal procedure.  Apparently sensitivity to heat and a lack of sensitivity to cold is indicative of a nerve gone bad.  They gave her an initial dose of antibiotics and some pain killers (Motrin) and sent her on her way with prescriptions for more of the same.

Darryll and Alec wrapped up for the day around 2:15 PM and walked me through what they had done and what was left to do.  While I was eating, talking, and working they had run the gas pipe through the back wall of the garage and installed the flue pipe for both furnaces.  Darryll needed a few more parts to finish the job and needed to get home to deal with a flooded basement situation from the recent rains.  He indicated they should be done by the end of next week, at least with everything they can do until the gas line gets run to the house and hooked up to meter.  The timing may turn out to be tighter than expected.  When Linda turned onto our street she observed that Roese Construction had started running gas line down our road and appeared to be hooking up houses as they went, but that turned out not be the case.

I was questioning Darryll about the exhaust flue for the Reznor garage furnace and discovered that it is not a sealed combustion unit like the one we had at the other house.  He assured me it was approved for use in garages and that he has installed a lot of them over the years, but would double check to make sure.  He can return this one if needed, but said the sealed unit is more expensive.  It would also require completely different fresh air and exhaust ducting that would have to go through the back wall of the garage.  I suspect we will stick with the one that is already installed.

Darryll sprayed every iron pipe connection with soapy water and the only leak he found was the cap they put on the end of the run this morning.  Apparently they did not tighten it fully when they installed it.  He snugged it down and had Alec re-pressurized the pipe to 12 PSI but did not recheck for leaks.  (Hypothetically, if the leak at the end of the pipe was big enough other leaks might not show up anywhere else until that one was fixed.)  If there are no other leaks then the pressure should stay at 12 PSI indefinitely; certainly until they come back on Monday or Tuesday.

For dinner Linda made a nice green salad and a pepper seitan dish served over white rice; simple but delicious.  I checked the pressure in the black iron pipe after dinner, when it was cooler and the sun had dropped lower in the western sky, and it was down to 11 PSI.  That seemed like a lot of pressure loss to me, but the Ideal Gas Law (PV=nRT) says that for a fixed volume (V) the pressure (P) and temperature (T) are directly proportional (by the factor nR).  We know from experience that the pressure in an RV tire changes a little with changes in the ambient air temperature even when sitting still and quite a bit when the tire heats up from driving.  If all the tire pressures are set to the same value first thing in the morning and one side of the RV is facing south on a sunny day the pressures in the tires on the sunny side will be measurably higher than the shady side at mid-afternoon.  Of course there is a lot of air in our bus tires since they run at 100 PSI, more or less.  Most of the black iron pipe is not exposed to direct sun for most of the day so tomorrow I may re-pressurize the pipe at 10 PSI and record the pressure and temperature every 30 minutes until 2 or 3 PM to see how it varies.  Or not.

Phil (Precision Grading) called back this evening and said he could take care of fixing the driveway on Friday afternoon for a very reasonable price.  Sold.  That means we will not be going to the Clio rally on Friday for the 1 PM roundtable discussion.  So be it.  We will probably drive up on Saturday after our ham radio breakfast.  While Phil is here we are going to shoot the grade in the back with his laser level if he has time and see what we really have.  He and I agree that just eyeballing it things do not look quite right.

It’s obvious to me after the heavy rains on Monday and Tuesday that the two plastic drain pipes running out into the back yard should have had a third drain tile line put in the trench with them (perforated with an oversock) and the trench should have been filled with pea gravel to create a French drain that would remove the water flowing into that low lying area and keep it from saturating the ground.  It would also have made the pipes better able to withstand being driven over by a vehicle.  As it stands, anything heavy that drives over that area while it is moist/soft will most likely crush the pipes (again).  I’m annoyed because I did not know enough to specify this as part of the job and because Steve, for whatever reason, did not recommend it.

To fix this correctly we would need to have Phil locate the existing plastic pipe and dig it up back past the Y-connector for the two downspouts and up into the two slopes far enough that it is out of his way.  That would allow him to re-grade the entire area properly, dig a new trench starting from the edge of the lower deck, install the three drain lines, fill the trench with pea gravel, and then finish grade the slopes and valley correctly, all of which Village Landscape should have done, in my opinion, but did not.  It would also give us the opportunity to replace the corrugated plastic drain line with PVC pipe which would better withstand the weight of a vehicle once encased in pea gravel.  The rear retaining walls and front stairs/sidewalk look nice and appear to have been built correctly so we did get something for our money, most, in fact, of what we paid for, just not everything we needed.

 

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.