Tag Archives: Jenn-Air JRSD226L

2015/05/11 (M) Bus Barns Reconsidered

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I took a nap late yesterday afternoon, a rare but sometimes necessary thing.  I went to bed later as a result but still did not sleep well.  We have too many things going on simultaneously with significant dollars attached to them and that has a tendency to disturb our sleep.  I also planned to visit three County agencies today and the anticipation of that no doubt contributed to a less restful night.

I was up at 5 AM and awoke to heavy fog; literally, the air temperature had dropped and it was very foggy outside.  I decided to concentrate on uploading my blog posts for the first 10 days of May but ended up also working on the materials estimate for the new bus floor, checking and responding to e-mails, and making adjustments to the SLAARC website and e-mail forwarding addresses.  Once Linda got up and we had some coffee she spent the first part of the day working on the banking and roster for SLAARC, so it turned out to be a somewhat “slaarcy” day for us.  The fog changed over to rain as the day progressed and intermittent heavy rains moved through the area after lunch accompanied by a tornado watch that continued until dinnertime.  I did, however, get the blog entries for May 1 through 9 edited, tagged, and posted.  I really need to get back to posting each day as it occurs.

Our male cat, Jasper, was having tummy troubles today.  He tends to follow me around the house anyway, but today he stayed very close most of the day.  He climbed up in my lap while I was working at my desk no less than six times and went to sleep for as long as an hour at a stretch.  If not there he was curled up on my desk, on the carpet near my chair, on my lap or next to me on the couch, or alongside me in bed.  He has a loud, resonant purr and I heard (and felt) it a lot today.  It is one of my favorite things.

Linda finally persuaded me over the weekend that, as much as I was trying to contain the cost, the current approach to the bus barn project was just going to be too expensive.  I have not given up on the idea of building a bus barn but I am now rethinking my approach yet again.  Ironically, I am back to the idea of a true pole barn, which eliminates the concrete foundation.  Instead of wood trusses, however, I am looking at an arched steel roof.  That would eliminate the bottom chords of a wood truss which determine the ceiling height.  Downsizing the building would further reduce the cost and not pouring a concrete pad, or perhaps only a partial one, would reduce the cost even more. A 24′ x 48′ building with a 16′ center ceiling may only require 12′ side walls, which would keep the posts and other lumber costs reasonable. The site prep and finish grading cost is there no matter what we do.  The main things we give up with this approach are the 19′ ceiling in the center, which would have allowed me to walk on the roof and work standing up, and an overhead door which would be expensive anyway.  Working on the roof would require moving it outside and the door would have to be a two-piece exterior slider or “barn style” pull open.

Chuck and I have been talking seriously the last couple weeks about trying to agree on a metal arch building design so we can order two buildings and get a quantity and shipping discount.  I called Chuck before dinner to let him know what we had decided we were not going to do that, at least not this year, and explain the reasoning behind the decision.  He is faced with the exact same issues and we had a long bus barn chat, to be continued in the days ahead.

While I was on the phone with Chuck my sister called my cell phone so Linda took the call.  My grand-niece, Lilly, had experienced several more seizures since she returned home from the hospital on Wednesday.  She was at a different hospital where they were going to hook her up to an EEG for 24 hours as none of the one-time EEGs have shown anything abnormal.  Lilly is only 27 months old and this has to be a bit scary for her; it certainly is for the adults around her.

Linda prepared a simple meal of fresh asparagus, white rice with soy sauce, and mock chicken with orange sauce.  We had another piece of the vegan cake for dessert later.  We have also decided that now is the time to replace the refrigerator in the bus so we spent time after dinner continuing to look at units online.

The current fridge, which is a side-by-side Jenn-Air, is a 22.6 cubic foot model.  Newer refrigerators with similar case dimensions tend to be smaller in usable volume but even 17 cubic foot models do not appear to fit in our refrigerator cubby.  The newer ones tend to be more energy efficient, so they may have thicker insulation thus reducing the interior volume.  The problem is that they also tend to be taller as a way to maintain the width and depth dimensions.  The unit that has our attention at the moment is a Fisher & Paykel 13.5 cubic foot model.  That is a lot less refrigerator storage than we have now, and would have to adjust how we shop, but we would be able to take it in and out through the main entrance door of the bus and recover about 11 inches of width for a pantry that would be 67″ tall and 29″ deep.  That is a lot of storage and may be a good trade-off.

We finished the evening watching Season 2, Episode 1 of Sherlock.  I do not generally enjoy watching TV programs a second time, but the BBC Sherlock series holds up very well on repeated viewing.

 

2015/05/06 (W) Old and New

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The morning was devoted to Miss Madeline.  She helped Grandma Linda put the toys away before lunch.  Brendan arrived around noon and began packing up her stuff.  They left at 12:30 PM to get her home in time for her nap.

We unwrapped the box spring mattress foundation and discovered several defects.  We bought this at the Sears Outlet Center in Novi and it wasn’t very expensive.  Most of the appliances at the outlet center were visibly dinged, dented, and scratched so perhaps some defects should have been expected.  The plastic bag, however, was intact.  The defects appeared to be the result of improper handling, but that is not to say that XPO was responsible.  The bottom dust cover fabric, which is very thin and flimsy, was torn but Linda was able to stitch it back together, at least enough to dissuade the cats from climbing in.  There was also a small puncture, about the size of my finger, in the top surface, which again was a very thin material.  Since it will have a mattress on it we did bother fixing it.  There were also smudge marks on two corners.  Again, they will not be visible with the mattress and linens in place so we did not worry about them.

We had e-mails from Kate inquiring about our availability to attend the Thursday evening performance of “Meshuggah Nuns” at the Meadow Brook Theatre.  That worked for us so she suggested we meet at the Rochester Mills Beer Company for dinner first.  Linda checked the menu online and it looked like it would work for us, so we agreed to the plan.

We spent much of the evening doing online research for a new refrigerator for the bus.  The old one is still running and maintaining the temperature fairly well, but it is rather old, not particularly energy efficient, and very loud when running.  It has also been repaired twice by our friend Butch and is very difficult to service because of how/where it is installed.  As often seems to happen, there were almost no new units available with the same dimensions as our current unit. One of the things we are considering is getting a smaller, 24″ wide, model and building a tall, narrow, 29″ deep slide-out pantry in the unused space.

The smaller fridge would still be a compressor based residential unit, just smaller than the current one.  Linda will have to decide if that is a fair trade-off although if I stop drinking Ice brand water it would reduce the need for storage volume.  Our current Jenn-Air is a side-by-side and we mostly keep milk jugs full of frozen water in there for thermal mass to help with temperature stability.  With a better fridge we would not need nearly that much freezer space as our frozen foods on the bus are usually one or two pizzas, a couple of Amy’s frozen entrees (for when Linda really does not feel like cooking or going out), and perhaps a container of non-dairy “ice cream.”

 

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.