It can always get worse

 When we last left our hero everything was breaking. Fear not dear reader, things can always get worse!

This is a pressure reducing valve, it goes into the cold water line before the boiler. Our house is heated and our hot water produced by an oil fired boiler and this doo-dad reduces the water pressure going in.

This is the over pressure valve at the other end of the boiler. Its supposed to open if the pressure gets too high. I've replaced that a number of times now. It'll work fine for years but eventually get a little schmoo in it and start to leak. What you must not do when it starts to leak is to flip the little valve thinking you'll clear it. It'll just start to leak worse.

In replacing the over pressure valve this time I happened to consult the university of YouTube and found a video that suggests that every time you replace the overpressure valve you should also replace the pressure reducing valve. It just so happened that the pipe to the pressure reducing valve had a leak so I figured while I was there...

You know how this goes right?

Fortunately it only took one trip to the hardware store AND one trip to Lowes. Lowes had the pressure reducing valve in stock and its pre-calibrated which means I didn't need a gauge to set it properly. Getting all the correct fittings was a bit of a trick and I did need to use one sharkbite fitting to adapt PEX to copper. I'm not the greatest pipe sweat-er (as opposed to a pipe sweater which, I guess, is insulation.) and it was getting late...

So yet another failure but in this one also a repair. In the next couple installments you'll see that we start on the comeback trail...

Washer repair

 Last month I mentioned the demise of our AC and washing machine. I confirmed that the AC was dead and I was waiting on parts.

So the belt for the washing machine came through, $50 for the pair which is about right for two belts these days.

The aggravating thing about washing machines is that the belts live underneath. Here I've propped the washer up on blocks to ease access. You can see where one belt goes to the drum in the middle and another goes to the pump at the top right.

With the belt installed everything seemed to be working okay, the bearing for the drum is a little stiff but I figured we'd get a few months out of it. Right up until we hit the spin cycle and water sloshed over the drum. Pictured is the drum cover, it was nasty with buildup.

This is the seal that the cover rides on, it had a horrible skunge buildup. Fortunately some soapy water and a toothbrush took it right off.

Here its installed, you can just see the cover around the rim.

And with the top off because it still wouldn't seal. About now I was thinking that it was time for a new seal. I rolled up some towels and put them around the base of the washer to absorb the water from this wash. When the wash was done I found that the tub hadn't drained. Somewhere in all of this the pump had failed.

So thats it, I'm done. I was willing to buy belts, I was willing to buy a new seal (another $50) but I'm not willing to buy a new seal AND a new pump AND a new bearing in the transmission. That last one requires the whole drum to come out. My fear being that I'll ruin some 20+ year old plastics that aren't obtainable.

Today, with any luck, I'll pick up a Speed Queen TC5, the workhorse of the commercial washer world. It'll be way bigger than this apartment model and should last a good long time. Speed Queen washers (the TC5 in particular) are known for being repairable. Its about twice the price of a cheap washer but hopefully it'll be a good long term solution.

Sometimes stuff goes wrong

 Whew, what a week, and its only Tuesday.

Last week I taught 5am to 10am for the European market. Of the non-US class schedules we have its my favorite because it leaves the day mostly open. The downside is that I need to go to bed early so I can get up early. Thus I opted to head north and stay in Cushman house.

Work on Cushman house is progressing slowly but there has been progress. Expect an update on that soonish.

Anyway summer arrived while I was gone. We went from typical New England spring to the dog days over summer basically overnight and of course the big old AC unit in the house quit. I knew this was coming, the unit has been in the house the 20 years we've lived here. Further investigation shows that it's from 1983.

So Angie had to suffer through a week with temps in the 90's and no AC.

Then, the day before I came back the washing machine decided it didn't want to go into the spin cycle and instead would stink of burning rubber. Aww geez.

I decided the AC was, obviously, the one to tackle first.

Of course I started by just turning it on, it hums but doesn't do anything. The front plate comes off with just 2 screws. I don't know if this is daring or stupid but I reached in and gave the fan a spin and it came to life. Unfortunately if I turn it off and back on it won't stay running. Its due for replacement, I'm looking at mini-split heat pumps, with Prime day coming up I'm going to see if I can get some kind of a special deal there. The good news I suppose is that I can still use it if I need it.

Okay, well, moving on to the washing machine.

Another piece of equipment that came with the house so 20+ years old. This is actually a stacked washer/dryer but the basement is too short to have them stacked. Anyhow these old washers are pretty simple, there is a motor that drives a pair of belts and the issue is that the belt that spins the drum full of clothes is slipping. The larger question is "Is it just an old belt or is something wrong?" I dunno. I can spin all the pulleys and they seem fine. I can spin the drum but it spins hard. What I don't know is how hard it should be to spin. The belts are $50 so I just ordered them, they'll be here tomorrow and then we'll know more. If it works I'll make a more detailed post...

The Great Northern Estate Update Phase 2

So at the end of the last post we were up to summer 2024 and nearly the end of phase 1. You might think this post would be about ending phase 1 but that would include finishing the downstairs floors. If that happened the floor in the living room would get ruined by the work upstairs so we'll pause phase 1 for now.

Phase 2 begins upstairs. As bought the house had 4 bedrooms upstairs. With the removal of the stairway to nowhere three of those bedrooms are all in a line, which is no fun. That northern bedroom was really small and there was only one bathroom in the house so why not turn that little bedroom into an upstairs bathroom and a walk in closet.

The original plan had it as a half bath but Angie and I pushed for a shower and I'm glad we did. It essentially makes the upstairs a little apartment. Its nice to not have to traipse through the kitchen to take a shower.

Bathroom on the left, walk in closet on the right. Well, it was supposed to be a closet. My parents wanted a little bed in there, so for now we're using it as a bedroom.

With the upstairs bathroom and closet finished the guys moved on to the master bedroom. This didn't require a whole lot, new trim and better paint. Electric and insulation had been done by one of the Cushman brothers at some point in the past.

The floor in the master bedroom has been stripped but not refinished. Unfortunately its had a lot of traffic since the finish was taken off so when we do the rest of the floors this one will need to be sanded too but fortunately it'll just be a quick sand to take off the wear. I'm tentatively planning on refinishing the floor in the little bedroom and the master bedroom last summer but that will depend on replacing the windows in the master bedroom.

Actually the big holdup right now is the fact that we've used the house all summer. The guys really only get access from late November through mid-May. I think they had planned to work into the summer but my parents are much more comfortable in the house than the camp, the indoor bathroom being an important feature.

At some point last winter the roof leaked a little around the chimney into the downstairs bathroom. The guys gooped up the joint which stopped the leak but that meant we needed to shift focus and get a new roof.

This will be a standing seam metal roof but we opted for an inch of foam insulation. There isn't much insulation in the roof of the house. We intend to add more but there is only so much you can do so this will help.

I left before the metal started going on, it should be done by now.

Technically the roof is phase 3 but this is one of those things we didn't feel comfortable putting off. It'd be stupid to spend all that money on the inside to have it ruined by a leaky roof. Fortunately this kind of investment is once in a lifetime, I should never have to mess with the roof again.

The Great Northern Estate Update Phase 1

I realize I've been remiss in updating you on the state of Cushman House

Fall 2020:

Summer 2024:

A pretty good transformation right?

In my head I've broken this project roughly into 3 phases. Right now we've nearly completed phase 1 which is to rebuild the downstairs. Phase 2 takes us upstairs including re-working the stairs themselves which are too narrow and steep.

To that end we've rebuilt the kitchen, bathroom and dining room entirely. Thats new windows, exterior doors, flooring, insulation, electric, plumbing, ceiling, cabinets, lighting, shower, and toilet. The only thing original is the kitchen sink and fridge.

I didn't really want the laminate flooring but the glue on the old flooring would have been very difficult to get off the hardwood underneath. I'm particularly pleased with exposing the chimney, I think it looks great. Our builder was doubtful. There is something about folks around here that makes them want to hide a chimney.

The living room and downstairs bedroom (formerly a parlor) got new insulation, electric, windows and wallboard. The bedroom also got a closet:

These old houses never have any closet space and we were lucky to have somewhere to put this one.

Oh and before I forget the reconfiguration of the bathroom had us saying goodbye to the stairway to nowhere:

Its such a weird stairway that it bears explaining. I'm taking the picture from a very small bedroom on the north end of the house. The stairway Angie is coming up ends at a chimney. So there are 2 little like proto-steps that brought you into the bedrooms. I wouldn't have wanted to negotiate those in the middle of the night. 

The spot where Angie is standing in the picture is now the bathroom vanity down stairs.

Still to come in phase 1 is the ceiling in the living room and bedroom and refinishing the floors in those rooms.

The floor continues

 The difficulty with the great northern estate is really the distance from the great northern estate to, well, anywhere. That of course means I can't be around as much as I would like to and thus everything takes twice as long as I would like.

So, you'll remember a couple weeks ago when I started refinishing the floor in the camp. When I left the floor had been sanded to 80 grit and the first coat of finish put down.

I used an oil based finish with the old-school thinking that it would be a tougher coating for a floor that gets kind of tortured. The satin finish is supposed to not show imperfections so bad as gloss.

The result looked okay but felt terrible. I think that first coat raised the grain of the wood and made it feel really rough and unpleasant.

I'd used the entire gallon on the floor and couldn't locally source any more oil based finish, the stuff I could get was all water based and thus incompatible with what I had already put down.

Fast forward a couple weeks and I'm back with 2.5 gallons of the oil based finish, honestly this is the size can I should have bought in the first place. If I'd looked around a little more at Home Depot I'd have found it.

Because of the delay I needed to sand to 220 grit. I did that with my old Harbor Freight palm sander. This wouldn't have been so bad except that the backs of my knees were still sore from the 5 hour slog getting the floor flat. My knee pad straps had really dug in. I should have taken a few minutes to rig up my sander on a stick so I could do the job standing up. Oh well.

Once again I had to clean, clean, clean all the dust left behind and finally put down some of the new semi-gloss.

Semi-gloss gives a balance between that nice shiny look and hiding any imperfections in the job.

This is the dried 3rd coat just before I put down the 4th.

So with 4 coats down I'd intended to give a couple days for the floor to dry and harden but Independence day intervened and I didn't have a chance to get back to it. This is probably for the best, the longer it can harden without getting walked on much, the better. I'll be back at it soon.

While I was waiting for the floor to dry I took a minute to clean the accumulated cruft off of the pipe that goes under the dam. When I first walked out to the pipe a frog jumped. Later as I was cleaning he came back. Frogs are common around the edge of the pond but I rarely get to see them, they jump away before I get close. This guy hung out for 10 or more minutes just watching me. He was pretty big for a frog in our area, maybe just a bit smaller than my fist.

Well that was weird, again...

 You might remember back in 2023 when the burner element in our stove failed. I was sitting near it and heard the "BZZZT" of the element trying to weld itself to the body of the stove.

At the time I replaced that burner with one from eBay that cost about half of the official replacement. I noted that it was thinner than the original but otherwise seemed to work fine.

That was true until last September. I was up north hunting moose with my dad when Angie texted that it had happened again, only this time it was worse:

Where before the shielding had only melted a little bit Angie wasn't as quick to get the oven shut off and this time it melted but good.

I jumped on the internet but couldn't remember the model of the stove. I ended up ordering the same unit again. Interestingly this time the replacement is thicker.

I have a good feeling about this one, its better built than the last one. I probably ought to buy the proper replacement now, these are easy to change so just keep the right one around until this one fails. I probably won't do that but its what I ought to do...

Well that was weird

 Growing up my family had a gas stove with a wall mount oven. The two were separated but both fired the same way, propane from a tank outside. Since moving out on my own I've only had electric stoves, our apartment had an elderly push button range, our house has a glasstop Whirlpool unit.

Not so long ago I was sitting in my recliner reading while dinner cooked, from the kitchen I heard "BZZZZT" and saw a bright light. Fortunately Angie was sitting by the stove, jumped up and shut it down.

Upon investingation I found:

 I'd never really thought about how an electric stove/oven burner works. Of course I knew that there was a wire that got heated but it had never occurred to me that of course that element has to be insulated or it will arc to the frame of the stove.

So what happened here is a failure of the coating allowing the angry pixies to get out of the element.

Looking online there are lots of options for replacement burners. The official Whirlpool replacement is around $60. Aftermarket get as cheap as $15. 

I went for a $25 unit. These are super easy to replace, two screws and then the two wires above, pull the failed on out and put in a replacement.

The new one is thinner than the original but it's otherwise the same size and hooked up the same.

It works perfectly, there must have been some kind of coating on it but that burned off quickly with just a little smell. As of this writing it's been working fine for 3 months. Chalk another one up for the do it yourselfer, cheap and quick replacement.