A Few Quick Notes - 629

-Despite a light dusting of snow late yesterday afternoon/evening, the winter continues to be unseasonably warm.  Again today we're expecting temperatures close to five degrees above freezing and I'm not sure if it's even gone down to -20 at any point this month.  It's just bizarre.

-A few months ago I noticed that our oven didn't seem to be heating evenly.  Of course, because it did eventually heat up it took me a while to identify the problem.  That the element in the oven continued to operate as normal made the problem even more baffling.

Finally, after months of procrastination we finally called an appliance service company last week and arranged for a visit by a repairman.  After quickly describing the problem, the service technician got down to work and began disassembling our oven.

Before long panels were off and he was deep in the gut of the thing, where he found that the oven's second element - which was hidden in the side of the oven away from site - was shot.  Fortunately, he had a replacement element on hand and he was able to have the oven back in proper working order in less than an hour.

While we were more than satisfied with the quality of the service call, it seems like a bit of a design weakness to place a replaceable element in a location that requires the oven to be torn apart to reach.  That the first element lasted about fifteen years will hopefully mean that this won't be a service call we will need to make again.

-With our newly functioning oven we've both already completed baking projects.  Yesterday I made a loaf of bread and Jeannette made a small batch of coconut cookies.

-In addition to regular Sunday cleaning and errands, we'll likely have to make a trip to the grocery store later today.  Hurrah!

Cameron - 10
Neil - 0

Today's projects or a few of the lesser joys of being a home owner

Maybe about two weeks ago now I started to notice that our drier wasn't drying clothes as effectively as it had been.  Obviously, I immediately checked a few of the obvious potential problem points: the outside vent, the lint trap, the hose running from the drier to the vent.  All of these seemed to be working properly.

After some additional trouble shooting over the phone with my father, and a test run with the drier unconnected to the hose, I've come to the not-immediately-obvious conclusion that somehow the textured aluminum hose and two 90 degree turns are enough to slow down the exhaust enough to prevent the clothes from fully drying - a process that I suspect has been further hampered by low temperatures.

The solution, suggested by my father, that I eventually settled on was to replace the drier hose with a solid, smooth metal tube/duct.  

Today, because I didn't have to work, I finally got around to measuring the distance from the drier out to the vent connection above.  Turns out the gap was 60 inches.

Once I made it to the local building supply store I was pleasantly surprised to find that the material I was looking for came in just two sizes - 30 inches or 60 inches.  I was incredibly pleased to learn that I wouldn't have to hack a longer tube down to meet my needs.

Because of the wonderful coincidence that the size of tube I was looking for was exactly the size being sold the installation process was quite quick.  Lets just hope it works

For the time being, at least until I can determine if today's 'fix' worked or not I'll hang on to the old hose.  

While picking up the aluminum tube I happened to see some styrofoam and was reminded that we had an insulating project that we'd been meaning to take care for some number of months (almost a year at this point).  I decided to check out my options and see if I could find appropriate styrofoam.

As I'd long assumed that I'd need to buy a 4x8 sheet, which is much larger than will fit in our car, I was a little hesitant to proceed with the project.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that they sold multi-packs of much smaller sheets.

By also using styrofoam that we received as packing material this past Christmas I was able to fill in the space between the inner and outer balcony doors.  

Though it still seems a little cool in Jeannette's office we're hoping that before long we'll start to feel the benefits of this added insulation.

Cameron - 6

Neil - 0

A Few Quick Notes 607

-Well, as forecast the past few days have been pretty chilly.  While we haven't approached the -52 (with wind chill) we had a few weeks ago, that fact that each morning has been below -35 with wind chill hasn't been great.  Is it bad that I'm quite looking forward to the -10 that is preliminarily in the forecast for next Wednesday?

-Earlier this week Jeannette returned from a brief trip to Kelowna with an overnight jaunt down to Seattle.  While it wasn't exactly hot in either of these locations, I think Jeannette appreciated the break from the consistent -20 that we've been experiencing.  I'm starting to think that making a habit of a break at least a few days long each winter might not be a bad idea.  I'm not sure that it's necessary to go somewhere beachy - just somewhere that's close to the freezing point.

-I've got the day off tomorrow which means that I should probably head to the local building supply store to pick up some supplies to fix our drier.  I'm hoping that I'll only need a single, inexpensive metal tube to make everything right.  Of course, if this fix doesn't work I have no idea what to do except hope that the problem will fix itself.

-A few weeks ago while at work I mentioned that Jeannette and I are thinking about getting a freezer for our basement.  I'm quite glad I did as one of my co-workers immediately offered her truck to transport the freezer from the store to our house an another has been keeping her eye out for freezer options while in appliance stores.  I'm hoping that these actions will mean that we end up with a perfect freezer, rather than the freezer we could get home.

Cameron - 4
Neil - 0

67 steps later

As some of you may recall, yesterday I mentioned that our new fridge's manual outlined a 67 step process to change the side on which the fridge's doors were hinged.  Though I was somewhat discouraged by the large number of steps and poor photos/diagrams, I didn't have much choice but to proceed with the re-hinging today.

As some of you might have expected, I decided to capture the experience though the power of time-lapse video.


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Of course, though the process is pretty much complete there are a few steps that I've neglected to complete.  Notably, the location of the original manufacturer's logo is still pretty gunk covered.  Once I get an appropriate cleaner I'll remove the freezer handle and then clean the gunk.  The other remaining step is to remove a little gunk around where fridge door had been affixed to the fridge door.  In total I think that these final fixes/cleaning jobs shouldn't take more than about ten minutes.

Oh, and the manufacturer has been so kind as to provide us with a replacement logo that we can place on the freezer door if we are so inclined - at the moment I'm not so sure I feel like replacing the logo if I don't have to.

And if you're curious, the process wasn't all that bad and was actually pretty straight forward.  Of course, there was one step when a second body was necessary.  Knowing that going into the process would have been nice, but otherwise it was really much easier than I expected.

A quick 67 step process

So about an hour after I learned that a middle of the night power outage restarted our fridge's cooling capacity our new fridge was delivered.  As much as it was a little disappointing to see that our fridge did have a little bit of life, it's also clear that it was not an entirely reliable piece of equipment.

Fortunately, our new fridge is quite nice (at least as far as I am concerned).  Aside from the absence of an ice maker and a water dispenser, the fridge has basically everything I'm looking for in a fridge (adjustable shelves and a freezer).  Of course, the one feature that the fridge does have that I am not so keen on is a right-side hinged door.

As is the case with many modern fridges, one can at least theoretically change the side on which the door is hinged.  The only problem is that the instructions seem to require the new fridge owner to follow a simple 67 step process that involves completely removing both doors from the rest of the appliance and maybe even further disassembling the doors.

I guess that means that I have an exciting few hours of fridge door re-arranging ahead of me tomorrow. Hurrah!

Big day at the house

So today was definitely a big day in our new house, at least as far as cold hard cash is concerned.

First of all, we finally had an electrician install a few extra electrical outlets.  Having just one outlet in the master bedroom and no outlets in the bathroom wasn't a situation we're really enjoying.  We ended up with five new outlets.  Of course, the downside of this kind of work is that it definitely isn't free.

Then, while I was at home for lunch, I noticed that the frozen corn I was retrieving from the freezer wasn't as cold or as hard as I expected.  I soon learned that everything in the freezer wasn't as cold as I expected.  Then I started to find that the food in the fridge wasn't all that cold either.  So our fridge blew.

Tonight we went fridge shopping and picked up a new fridge (the upside being that this new fridge should be more energy efficient.

Anyway, definitely a memorable day.