Tag Archives: GE JGB870DEFWW

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.

 

2014/09/13 (S) Overnight Guest

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Linda’s sister, Sister Marilyn, called a couple of days ago to let us know she would be in the Detroit area on business this weekend.  She wanted to know if we could fetch her this afternoon and if she could spend the night at our house?  The answer was “of course,” of course.  Her flight out wasn’t until Sunday evening, so Linda put the gears in motion and arranged a brunch with the local family for 10 AM tomorrow.

Being Saturday, we went to our ham radio club breakfast in South Lyon.  Before leaving our neighborhood we drove to the other end of the street (dead end with turn-around) to see where the gas hookup crew left off yesterday.  We knew they were working down there today because we saw the trucks leave sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 PM last night.  There’s a chance they will be back today and we wanted to see how close they were to connecting our house to the main line.  It looked like they had quite a few houses to do ahead of ours, so we went to breakfast.

We got home around 10:30 AM to find a crew working in our yard trenching in the branch line to our house.  I was told yesterday they were going to bore it in, so something obviously did not get communicated.  Not only that, they were running a 5/8″ line, which was way too small for the 425 meter we are supposed to get.  I stopped the crew and the guy in charge pulled out his paperwork.  It had “425” written on it big letters, but the drawing showed a 5/8″ line.  He agreed that the 5/8″ line was way too small for that meter and that we should have 1.25″ line.  They pulled the little bit of line they had already run out of the ground, raked out some of the dirt they had already trenched, and moved their machine across the street to trench our neighbors yard.

We were lucky we got home when we did.  They had already cut through some tree roots that did not need to be disturbed and would have torn up a lot more of our yard unnecessarily if I had not interrupted their work.  They were nice about it, but I still found it troublesome that I had spoken to two different supervisors face-to-face about this, one as recently as yesterday, but this crew showed up and did something different than what I had been told, and agreed, would be done.

I was finally going to try to remove the fogged window from the bus today, but we had a lot of rain overnight and woke to overcast skies, temperatures in the upper 40’s, and a forecast high of 57 degrees F with a strong chance of rain through mid-afternoon.  That was not the sort of weather for removing a window from a vehicle parked outside.  Besides, with Marilyn arriving mid-late afternoon I did not want to work on anything messy and then have to get cleaned up.

Linda looked up the kitchen ranges we had been considering.  The GE 30″ 5-burner double-oven convention model (JGB870DEFWW) was on sale again at Lowe’s for $180 off MSRP and we would get another 5% off the sale price by using our Lowe’s credit card.  If we ordered it today delivery would be September 27, longer than I would like, but it is what it is.  We have to order this range because Linda wants a white one to match all of the other appliances in the kitchen and the appliance stores do not tend to stock white ranges with the features we want.  I called our local Lowe’s store and confirmed the free delivery and take away of our current range.  Installation is $20 plus a new flex gas line for $30.

I called TOMTEK HVAC and got hold of Tom.  He seemed put off by the fact that I have someone else doing HVAC work at the house and will have the natural gas already tied in when he comes to convert the main house furnace from propane to natural gas, but he said he would check with Weil-McLain on Monday about what parts he needs to do the conversion.  While on the phone with Tom he suggested that we try D. R. Electric Appliance Sales and Service in Howell for our new gas range.  We looked them up on the web and got their (incorrect) phone number and hours.  I got the correct number from 411 before I realized that it was also on their website.  They closed at 2 PM on Saturdays, so we didn’t make it there today, but I called and got an answering machine, left my name, number, and the reason for the call.  Curt called me back a short time later.  I gave him the model number and he said he would call G.E. on Monday.  He said he had been holding off ordering G.E. appliances waiting for Columbus Day sale pricing.  He figured he would have the range three days from ordering and could probably install it at the end of the week or early next.  They charge $25 for installation and haul away, and $25 for the new flex gas line if we need one, so it’s the same $50 as Lowe’s.  (Lowe’s assured me that they were REQUIRED to install a new flexible gas line.)  That all sounded good depending on the price of the range.  Getting it sooner has some dollar value to us, we’re just not sure how much.

I stayed home while Linda went to Meijer’s for groceries.  Finding the crew in our yard this morning doing work they were no supposed to be doing spooked me enough to not want to leave the house unattended the rest of the day.  As long as I was stuck at home, I called Bratcher Electric to give them a heads up that the gas connection to the house was imminent.  Being Saturday I got their answering machine and left a message.  I also called Darryll at DCM Heating & Cooling and left a message regarding the gas connection.  Once the meter is hung and connected everything else depends on Darryll getting his piece done first.

We checked the website for Country Squire Fireplace and Lighting in Howell and saw a 10% off coupon, so I printed that.  I wanted to go there today and buy a set of high-efficiency vent-free natural gas fire logs but it will probably be tomorrow afternoon instead.  These logs are more efficient than a typical kitchen range and are designed to be used with the fireplace flue closed, throwing most of the heat they produce into the room instead of up the chimney.  Darryll said he would hook it up for us and add a shutoff valve when he came back to tie in to the gas meter, so we need to have it here before he comes back next week.

Marilyn called and said their flights were running a little behind schedule and that Linda should pick her up around 3 PM rather than 2:30 PM as originally planned.  She called back again and said 3:15 PM would be better.  Linda got back from the grocery store and we had a quick lunch of leftover Sloppy Joe’s.

With overnight lows in the 40’s, highs only in the mid-50’s, and the connection of our natural gas somewhat imminent, we decided we could afford to use propane to heat the house.  We have been conscious of our propane use because we did not want to get in a position where we needed to have either of the tanks filled.  I turned the furnace on and set all the thermostats a few degrees above ambient to take the chill off.

While Linda drove over to Lake Orion, Michigan to fetch Marilyn I decided to work at my desk selecting photos for gallery posts on the garage/HVAC project and natural gas work, and worked a little bit on the websites for the FMCA Great Lakes Converted Coaches and Freethinkers chapters.  I really need to have the GLCC site usable in the next three weeks and the FTH site within a month of that. That sounds ambitious even as I write it down and I suspect it won’t happen.

Linda and Marilyn got to the house around 4:30 PM and after we got Marilyn settled in her bedroom we just sat and relaxed and talked for a while.  We thought she might appreciate a good home-cooked meal but we ended up taking her to LaMarsa for dinner.  She had the Koshary, which we had last night, and we split an order of garlic almond vegetable Ghallaba with green salad and crushed lentil soup.  We all ate way too much pita bread with garlic spread and were uncomfortably full by the time we finished our meal, but it was delicious and we did not have to prepare it or clean up afterwards.

These days twilight now comes around 7 PM and it was dark by the time we got home at 8 PM.  I made a pot of decaf coffee and we settled in the living room for a long chat.  I set the thermostats back before we turned in for the evening as all three of us prefer to sleep in a cool room.