My new water heater was installed in 2 hours this morning. That included the time it took to remove the old one. The comment from one of the plumbers when we removed the insulation blanket to reveal the old water heater “Wow, that’s old”. So I’m probably lucky it lasted as long as it did. Now I can take hot showers, run the dishwasher, and wash my clothes in something other than cold water.
Archive for the ‘Home Improvement’ Category
New Water heater
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008When you own the home you’re the landlord,
Sunday, April 6th, 2008so when you walk down to the basement and find water on the floor near the hot water heater you can’t just ring up the landlord and have them fix it. And of course this happens on a Saturday before you’ve invited friends over for dinner.
I’m lucky that it was not a catastrophic failure but merely a small leak. As such I was able to deal with shutting it down and draining it without much trouble. The task of dealing with getting a new one on the weekend was something I decided to forego though. I have an alternate location I can shower fo rteh next day or two and not rushing it will allow me slightly more time to figure out what I want to do. Minimally I will replace the current water heater with the most efficient one I can get. I’m also toying with getting a tankless system. That will largely depend on if my plumber can deal with that and/or overall cost.
And to add to the bad timing I can’t deal with having one installed Monday since I have a meeting I HAVE to be at in the middle of the day. I also can’t ask Danielle to take a day off and help because she has to be at work too. So I probably won’t get a new unit installed until Tuesday (provided the plumber can do it that quickly).
[update]
Oddly enough the hot water heater in Danielle’s apartment has failed in a very similar fashion this weekend (we discovered this tonight). Luckily she rents so a call to the apartment complex will probably result in a new hot water heater installed tomorrow.
Solar Power
Thursday, July 26th, 2007Since BGE’s rates have gone up I have been eyeing the possibility of installing some solar panels on my roof to offset the higher rates. I contacted one solar firm that has a low-end package for approximately $12K that should generate approximately 110kWh. In looking at my current rates That system would save me approximately $14/month on electrical service. At current rates that would mean I would see the system payed off in savings after approximately 69 years…..unless I’m doing my math wrong
Practical benefits of owning cats
Friday, April 7th, 2006Yesterday I was reminded of one of the practical benefits of owning cats. I noticed one of my cats jumped down from the stove and cam trotting into the living room carrying what looked like one of the toy mice they play with. There was one difference though this mouse had a tail (the leather tails are normally the first thing to go on the toy mice). She (Scout) then dropped the mouse on the floor in the living room. It was at that point that it tried to scurry away and I knew it was no toy. Scout continued to play with the mouse until she lost it in the back room. she wasn’t too pleases about this so I tried to give her a hand and moved various pictures and drywall and found the mouse, she cased it a little more before loosing it. I again moved pictures and dry wall for her, in that process I think I moved something that crushed the mouse because when I found the mouse again it was dead. Oh well.
But now I know two things, the mouse we found last summer when we came home from vacation wasn’t a one time fluke and my cats (well Scout at least) is on the job and will deal with any future mice.
Friday, March 24th, 2006
I mentioned in a previous point about the tipping point getting satelitte had brought me to. It took me a little while and I still have a few items to address (e.g. speakers and wiring in the VCR so I can archive from TiVo) but for normal TV and DVD viewing and radio listening is all in place.
I ended up finding my solution to mounting the equipment at IKEA. I bought an OMAR. My only complaint with it is the open wired frame means the bottom TiVo and the A/V receiver don’t sit as well as I would like. I can solve that with something in the future though so I’m not too concerned.
Here’s what the end result looks like:
It currently feeds video to the TV in the living room and to the TV in the bedroom with remote control ability in both places.
Tipping Point
Thursday, March 9th, 2006Apparently switching from cable to satellite has been a tipping point. And an expensive one. (bill to-date for items listed below is: $415.08 and will climb as I add shelving and new speakers)
With the conversion to satellite service from cable I need to add 2 new AV devices to my current collection (receiver, VCR, 2 TiVos and a DVD player). My current entertainment center
can not accommodate these extra devices. Because of this I have decide to do something I have always had in the back of my mind, moving all the AV equipment to the basement. The first thing I will need in doing this is someplace to put all the AV gear. Ideally I’d like a half height computer cabinet. However those cost more than I’m willing to pay. Actually looking at ebay I found one that I would buy (Great Lakes Case & Cabinet Co. “Short” Rack Enclosure) but shipping is via freight which might be pricey and tip it over my threshold for purchase. Too bad I don’t want a full size cabinet since I found some 19″ Server Networking Rack Cabinet Black with Shelves for $85 locally in Baltimore. So since a real cabinet doesn’t look to be an option right now I foresee a trip to IKEA this weekend to purchase something that will work.
The next problem, well item, I need to deal with once the AV gear is in the basement is how to deal with getting IR signals there. This isn’t a hard thing to do, that is provided you are willing to spend some money. In my case I have purchased this IR repeater kit. Unfortunately this won’t arrive before next week since I didn’t plan ahead well enough.
The other item I have spent money on so far is a 500′ spool of RG6 cable. I needed to make 2 new runs from my back bulkhead to where I will be locating all the AV gear in my basement. I choose bulk cable so I could have customer lengths and not have bits of coiled cable at one end or another. Also if I bought say 2 100′ ready made cables those would probably cost me close to $30 from any place locally. With the spool I have more flexibility. Also I have a friend who’s also doing some in house wiring and needs some RG6 for it so this helps him out too.
I still need to spend some more money on new speakers for the surround sound that the new AV receiver provides. I will also be spending som eadditional funds on connectors and termination points for wiring between the living room and basement.
What’s the difference between a townhouse, rowhouse and brownstone
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005I found a link via Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space that pointed me to an article in the Boston Globe (Row house, town house, brownstone) that explains the differences between a townhouse, a row house and a brownstone.
Here is the quick and the dirty explaination:
Town house: A multistory urban house, attached or detached, that is built close to the street and scaled similarly to surrounding houses.
Row house: A multistory urban house built in a style that is consistent with, even replicating, that of adjoining houses; often built by the same architect and developer.
Brownstone: Any of the above structures whose façades are sheathed in brown sandstone.
So town house is an overall term, row house a subset of that, and brownstone a further subset of both.
re: the Home Deppot on Reisterstown Road
Monday, August 29th, 2005All I can say is if you are expecting a speedy check out don’t bother. I have now been there on 4 occasions and not once has there ever been enough cashiers to handle the volume of people checking out. Tonight was by far the worst though. They had two checkouts open with about 10 people in each line. You’d think they might notice and open up a new line? Well they eventually did with one problem. The opened a line and anounced it was opening to one of the current line, so a couple people, including myself, took the opportunity to get out quicker and use the new line. Except that the new line that was announced open wasn’t actually open or ready to accept customers. In fact the gate was closed blocking anyone from getting to the newly ‘opened’ register. Neither the cashier nor the supervisor type person seemed to notice or correct this. At this point I gave up put the items I was going to purchase down and left. I will take my money to to Lowes (or hopefully my local hardware store) when I get around to making another purchase.
My advice unless you desperately need something avoid this Home Depot at all costs.
Over regulation in the UK
Friday, August 26th, 2005So in my normal morning news reading I ran across a comment that referred to new regulations about home electrical repairs in the United Kingdom. Basically to do anything more than change a light bulb you need to notify the local council (City Hall in US parlance). The only exemption to this new bureaucratic red tape is if you are a competent person. What you ask is a competent person? Well basically, it is a licensed electrician. The purpose of these new regulations is of course to protect the public. It has nothing to do with encouraging more employment for electricians, nope.
Now it should be noted that the British seem to be somewhat afraid of electrical items. Take a look at the plug and sockets they use: 
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You might not notice it but the plug itself is much larger than a US style 3 prong plug. Oh and everything is 3 pronged in the UK. That way the item in question is always properly earthed (US: grounded). This plug also has its own fuse in it. Yes that’s right a fuse for every plug. So there is very little chance a faulty appliance will be burning down your house.
As to the home wiring, well having done a bunch of it in my rowhouse I can tell you that it is not hard to do right. The biggest problem I have seen here is the organic growth of electrical wiring in the house. This is most evident in the basement where it is a rats nest of wires in place. I need to address but need a good day to tackle the problem. But all of that is something of a tangent. Back to the UK regulations….
My point is that this regulation is overkill a poor use of finite council resources, and costly to your budding DIY person looking to inveest some time and effort in there home.
Home grown tomatos
Saturday, August 13th, 2005The back of my rowhouse is mostly a concrete pad (which I might eventually convert to a parking pad…but I am 2nd guessing that plan). But it does have 3 little strips of dirt. I was at the Waverly Market back at the begining of summer and on a whim bought some tomato plants. I have been nurturing them since then and they have now yeilded some nice tomatos. I had some in my salad tonight and they were very yummy.
Since this was so sucessful I might try my hand at more home grown veggies next summer.