That's the Way It Crumbles, Cookie-Wise

[Axel Slingerland]

The carpet in that room is worse than pathetic.

If you're like me you practice the Rs as a way of life. (Reduce, Reuse, Return, Recycle and Rebuild) If I had my own home, and a room with crappy carpet (like the 1/16th of an inch thick carpet my apartment has and I can't change) I would keep an eye on the local higher end hotels (if there are any) because every year of so they replace carpet that they think looks bad, but all it really needs is a good cleaning. They tear it up and replace it because they think customers like it. They just throw it away and replace it. And while it pays to ask first, anyone who can carry it is usually welcome to take it. I carpeted my entire house in Eureka with hotel reject carpet, and all it cost me was a buck or two for gas and a few bucks to rent a carpet steam cleaner. I like saving money...

 

[Nancy Hart]

If you're like me you practice the Rs as a way of life. (Reduce, Reuse, Return, Recycle and Rebuild) If I had my own home, and a room with crappy carpet (like the 1/16th of an inch thick carpet my apartment has and I can't change) I would keep an eye on the local higher end hotels (if there are any) because every year of so they replace carpet that they think looks bad, but all it really needs is a good cleaning. They tear it up and replace it because they think customers like it. They just throw it away and replace it. And while it pays to ask first, anyone who can carry it is usually welcome to take it. I carpeted my entire house in Eureka with hotel reject carpet, and all it cost me was a buck or two for gas and a few bucks to rent a carpet steam cleaner. I like saving money...

Me too. Especially Reuse. I like it when I've saved something for years and it turns out to be just right for a repurpose later. Often they don't make new things as sturdy as old ones. You have to be in the right place at the right time sometimes.

A girl gave me her kitchen electric mixer in the late 1970s. She was moving to California and wanted everything she took with her to fit in her car. I'm still using it. It's starting to overheat. Hope I don't have to buy a new one. I use it maybe once a month.

 

[Nancy Hart]

Three days of rain with high temps in the upper 60s to low 70s. AC not running and even a thin coat of polyurethane took forever to dry on that threshold board. I had to keep it in a small room with a space heater going and the door closed. Found 11 finishing nails the right size. Put in 6 and sank them with no stray hammer marks, divots, or other mishaps. Should I quit while I'm ahead?

 

[Axel Slingerland]

A girl gave me her kitchen electric mixer in the late 1970s. She was moving to California and wanted everything she took with her to fit in her car. I'm still using it. It's starting to overheat.

If it has vents, it just might need to have the dust blown out. When it isn't running, take a deep breath and blow on the vents, if any dust comes out, that might be one problem. The other one you can't do anything about. If we could, we would all live forever.

I bought a dust blower, after my favorite PC tech recommended it as an alternative to driving across town to his shop and have him blow dust out of our computers. (It may have only been four miles, but still...) The blower was a little on the expensive side at $40, but he told me that it would pay for itself and he was right. Our computers, fans, anything with a motor and cooling vents lived longer and healthier lives.

It's called an A-2 Airrow Pro and I liked it so much that after the original one I bought was one of the things that "mysteriously disappeared" while I was in the hospital, and my daughter was moving us here, I bought another one. I don't need to take my laptop outside, I just go out in the hallway and two short bursts and it's done. The vent is an inch wide and about four inches long, and it blows out quickly, and the normal running temperature drops 20° to 25°, and you can't tell the difference.

Every time I take our fans outside to blow the dust out, it almost never fails that someone will come up to me and ask what kind of blower it is.

I used to use an old Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner to blow dust out of my computer because canned air actually isn't air, it's a bunch of chemicals. Hard Pass on that. Originally, my band converted that vacuum cleaner into a Fogger for our shows. A commercial fogger was very expensive (they still are), but we used to like going to thrift stores and look around. After we looked into commercial foggers and found out how expensive they were (about 1980s) we saw one of these at a thrift store in Alabama for $5.

Our sound tech said he could convert it into a fogger so we bought it. For $5, it was a safe bet that his idea would work. He opened it up and changed the air flow direction somehow. Then he took the canister and cut the top off of it so that dry ice could be put in it. When we did and turned it on I was amazed. It could less to buy that vacuum and convert it that it did to buy dry ice to put in it. And in five minutes there was so much fog you would think you were in walking the Redwood Forest. And you better be careful out there, Bigfoot is always hungry.

Years later, long after that I sold most of my gear and all that goes with it to my friend of nearly 30 years, Gary. But I still had that homemade fogger. So I turned it into a blower. Unfortunately, it quit after a year or so.

 

[Nancy Hart]

@Axel Slingerland

That's almost exactly like the vacuum we had at our house growing up. My mother would dig the dirt out of the little hole in the bags in order to save buying new bags. She was in heaven when they switched to the kind with the open top.

There have been times I could have used a little blower. Seems like a vacuum would be better. I already have a dust problem in the house. The problem is I don't dust often enough.

The hair dryer is also heating up after years. That may be its problem. Why do they make the new dryers like a gun, where you need long arms? Conair still makes the kind that's shaped more like a hairbrush. I should buy one before they quit making them.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

An Electrolux is the vacuum cleaner that my mother had, too. It is the only one I ever remember her having , and it did a great job, as far as i can remember.
The first vacuum I had was an old RexAir (which later made the Rainbow vacuum cleaners). It used water, just like the Rainbow does, and would easily suck up a silver quarter off the floor. It was one I found at a yard sale, very cheap, and i had it for years and years, and it always worked great.
Eventually, I had a Rainbow, and I loved it , too.

 

[Nancy Hart]

After the Electrolux, we went through a series of 3 G.E. and Premier vacuums that were really good. I carried one with me when I left home. They quit making them, of course.

Funny thing, they also would eventually start overheating and then die. Maybe that's why they quit making them.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

That's almost exactly like the vacuum we had at our house growing up. My mother would dig the dirt out of the little hole in the bags in order to save buying new bags. She was in heaven when they switched to the kind with the open top.

That's what ours was. It sure made it easy to put dry ice in the chamber. All we had to do then was when we needed the fog was our sound tech would open it up, drop in a sponge with a couple of ounces of water on it on top of the dry ice, close it up and turn the vacuum on and wave the hose around. That would kick out thick fog about two to three feet deep on the stage in a very short time. The only problem was it made out feet cold. It sure looked good though, as it appeared to flow over the front of the stage like a waterfall. It always reminded me of the Moors in what is now Dartmoor National Park in England, in the Sherlock Holmes film "Hound of the Baskervilles." I love those old movies...

There have been times I could have used a little blower. Seems like a vacuum would be better. I already have a dust problem in the house. The problem is I don't dust often enough.

That's why I needed a blower for my computer. Eureka was the dustiest place I've ever lived. My computer would start running hot after about three months. No matter what we did, we couldn't keep up with it. There was always dust everywhere. And now we live on the western edge of the Mojave Desert and you would think there would be more dust here, but it's nowhere close to Eureka. I think that is rather odd. It's dustier next to the ocean than it is next to one of the country's hottest deserts? Death Valley has the world's highest recorded air temperature, 134.1°F, and that is about 225 miles away by car, and in air miles it's only about 140 miles.

 

[Nancy Hart]

... It always reminded me of the Moors in what is now Dartmoor National Park in England, in the Sherlock Holmes film "Hound of the Baskervilles." I love those old movies...

You're My Best Friend - Queen
(I love this video)

 

[Axel Slingerland]

Nice editing on that video...

I watched that movie twice in the last several months. I have several hundred movies in MP4 files, DVDs and Blu-rays. Yet I seem to watch the classics more often than not...

If I had a Blu-ray burner, I could make backups of all of my files. But I'm waiting for USB Blu-Ray burners made by manufacturers I've heard of to get cheaper. All the good ones cost a small fortune.

 

[Nancy Hart]

Today the high temp was only 70F. Not a good day to test the upstairs AC, but I was in the mood.

The thermostat was originally in the hallway upstairs. After the roof cooled off at night, the bedroom would keep getting hotter and hotter until the sun came out and warmed the roof up again. Moving the thermostat into the bedroom fixed that. But things are no better upstairs during the day. It still gets too hot before the AC kicks in and too cold before it shuts off. My guess was that the system upstairs might be too large for the area, but the first symptom of that is short cycling. It's doing just the opposite. Now I'm thinking it's the thermostat.

So I changed the AC settings from maximum 3 cycles per hour to 6, set the temp at 72F, and tested it for approx 1 hour. This shortened the time running to (approximately )5 minutes on and 7 minutes off, with 5 cycles in the hour. Better, but still not good enough. For the whole hour the room temp on the thermostat never changed once from 72 degrees F.

Most thermostats have a "deadband" or temp range that determines when the AC cuts on and off. The deadband on the Pro1 thermostat downstairs can be set as low as 0.2 degrees F. The downstairs does not short cycle with deadband set at 0.5 degrees F. The deadband on the Honeywell T6 upstairs can't be set. The manufacturer knows what's best for you, and the number is a secret. I suspected it might be 1 degree C or 1.8 degrees F, but I was wrong.

This is what AI found:
"The (Honeywell) T6 thermostat utilizes an advanced algorithm that effectively creates a "zero degree" deadband. This approach is designed to minimize temperature fluctuations and maintain a very consistent indoor temperature. The deadband on the T6 is not user-adjustable; it's fixed at 0°F..."

Some technician probably got a promotion for developing the algorithm but forgot about all the possibilities. It minimizes temperature changes according to the thermostat because the temp doesn't change on the thermostat, but it sure does in the room.

My theory now? The heat pump is slightly oversized for the space upstairs, but the blower is strong enough to circulate the air better than most. This confuses the algorithm which tries to lengthen the AC ON cycle to be more efficient (theoretically), regardless of the room temp. They still make the Pro1 thermostat downstairs. I think I will order one before they quit making them and try to install it myself. Maybe order 2 and keep one as a backup.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

For the whole hour the room temp on the thermostat never changed once from 72 degrees F.

When we lived in Eureka I would been comfortable with 72°F. But after living here for two years, I would feel like I was freezing to death. I have my AC thermostat set to 83°F or 84°F. It was funny, the other day this woman who works for PG&E showed up at my door out of the blue. She starts talking to me about "energy efficiency", and says for optimum efficiency I should set my thermostat to 68°F.

I just smiled and said I can't do that. If I did, I would have to turn the thermostat down from 83°F or 84°F. You should have seen the look on her face. She was shocked I keep it so high. I said that's what I was used to when we lived in Eureka. Even though it was in the high 60°F range outside, inside our house it was closer to 85°F or 90°F. Every day, all year long, even in the winter.

I can't help but inwardly snicker when it starts to cool off for winter here, when gets down to the 80°F range, people start putting on winter coats. I don't even own one. All I have is an orange sweat shirt I used to wear when I was riding my bicycle. That works fine for me. We live in the desert...

 

[Nancy Hart]

When we lived in Eureka I would been comfortable with 72°F. But after living here for two years, I would feel like I was freezing to death. I have my AC thermostat set to 83°F or 84°F. ...

I can tolerate heat pretty well too indoors, except it's got to be cool for sleeping. Try to keep the temp at 78 in the day in summer and lower it at night.

It was so cold upstairs after this hour-long test, I turned the heat on set to 75 to warm it back up. It settled at 75 degrees after one run and never ran again. The heat seems to work just fine. Does the "algorithm" only apply to the AC? Turned the AC back on just to see what it would do. Set the temp to exactly what the temp was in the room (75), and the AC came on and ran for 5 minutes. All the time registering 75. It's a mystery.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

I don't think our heater works. I've never needed it, but I turned it on by accident once trying to turn the AC on when I woke up dripping in the middle of an extremely hot day. But nothing happened. After about 10 minutes I started to wonder why the AC didn't come on, and it was due to my not having my glasses on. The thermostat has three options and you cycle them to turn them on or off, Heat, AC, Off. It was 110°F outside, 94°F inside... So I was happy the heater did not come on. I thought that it just wasn't cold enough for to start.

Later I told our maintenance man about that when he asked me if out AC was working right. He told me that the heat system is an old school boiler and they don't run it in the summer time. But in two winters I never turned it on. Winter here is like Summer in Eureka. So my orange sweatshirt, that is only good down to about 55°F anyway, hangs unused in my closet since we got here.

 

[Joe Riley]

 

[Mary Stetler]

Just for you, Joe Riley...I came in and there was a fly in my COFFEE!!!

 

[Mary Stetler]

Last month, while searching for something else, I ran across 2 double rolls of paper left over from the wallpaper job I did in the downstairs bath over 30 years ago. Insulation was blown into the walls in the house much later. This left up to 3 holes between the studs on 1-1/2 walls in that room. I never got around to fixing the holes because they blended in nicely with the wallpaper pattern.

The unused paper doesn't quite match the old after 30 years of wear and tear, but it's enough to do 3 of the 4 walls, stopping at corners, if I don't make any mistakes. So I added this job to an already quite lengthy to-do list. On a test patch I found semigloss paint underneath, and the old paper came off just soaking with warm water. The project was then moved to the front burner.

This was where things stopped for 2 weeks. More on why later. Maybe.

Old wallpaper

At the beginning of wallpaper removal. I know it looks bad but was fairly easy to do after I got the hang of it.

I restarted the job about a week ago, and I'm working on it right now.

Yum!

 

[Mary Stetler]

Yum!

I actually love to do wallpaper. Haven't done any yet on one leg though .

 

[Nancy Hart]

I actually love to do wallpaper. Haven't done any yet on one leg though .

Speaking of wallpaper, this happened all by itself one day last week, in the room where I fool around with the computer. I think it's trying to tell me something. I was going to redo this room before the bathroom, but nobody goes in this room besides me. Whereas someone beside me might enter the guest bath someday.

I put this paper up some time in the 1980s ( when I still liked earthtones ). Not a bad run.

 

[Joe Riley]

Just for you, Joe Riley...I came in and there was a fly in my COFFEE!!!

Thanks Nancy Mary.....now EVERYONE will want one!