The Manic Mechanic

As most of you who read my posts know, I have been dealing with serious, debilitating back issues for several years, the latest episode starting last September. As a result, I can't do most of the things I am able to do. This has me falling behind in house repairs and projects, for one. I just can't do these things, or it's now a long, often painful process. Imagine my utter frustration while taking a shower Monday night and finding the water backing up around my feet. Then finding the toilets completely backing up too. The "old" (read: young, able) me would've simply jumped right in, pulling up toilets or cutting pipes in order to get rid of the blockage. No can do, so I called on a plumber (never did that before, unless I was subcontracting them for a job) on Tuesday, which didn't show until today. I was a tad skeeved at this, but as long as he could do the job, I didn't care. Besides, I was holding it in for a couple days now. Imagine my dismay when the plumber dispatches a guy that has similar back issues as I am currently dealing with. The two of us were hobbling like two broken old men (though he was considerably younger than me) surveying the problem and what to do. I even did the work of disconnecting and removing the toilet to help out, he machine-snaked the drain, clearing the blockage and we were done in a little over an hour. He was barely making it back out to his truck with his supplies. Me being me, I felt bad for the scrawny guy, as I was bracing my own broken body against the door as I let him out.

Irony is so much interwoven with my life, I should open up a foundry business.

A couple of youse guys wanted to see what I was up to with the water heater project. I remembered to take some pictures during this project to share. There are a lot more and they will also get uploaded, but in the meantime, I put a select few in my Flickr account.

This should actually be called "Beware The Crazed, Obsessed Engineer When He Gets Started On A Normal Task, For It Will Take On Brobdingnagian Proportions". Or something like that.



More (and more to come) at the Flickr Photo Set page.

The user interface on the water heater is a delight. I call it H2OS X. :)

I figured out the issue with the SDHC cards. The PC refused to read them as long as I had a PCMCIA hard drive inserted in another reader. Yeah, strange.

I've been trying to make some headway into the various upgrades and fixes I had sidelined due to health issues. Trying to do the various stuff according to the weather and available time has been a fun juggling session. For instance, I recently completed work in the attic to relocate some wiring that would be in the way of installing two skylights in the living room. This was done as part of some structural fixes, where I needed to tie two sets of 16-inch beams (!) that settled variably and caused cracking of ceiling drywall which would never stay patched. I added a floor that covered a 12x48 foot area up there as well, along with some shelves for seasonal stuff that is stored in the attic as well. I had a limited timeframe to do this, since that attic gets unbearably hot to work in even during early spring weather. So, that is all taken care of, a task I had wanted to tackle for 20 years. This will give me some working space to add a pair of 2ft by 4ft skylights in the living room as well as a 'sun tunnel' light shaft in the one bathroom in the middle of the house devoid of windows. Now I just need to coordinate with whomever I subcontract to re-shingle the roofs so I can replace some bad roof decking and install the skylights before they do their thing.

Since this is my short working week, I will change hats again from carpenter and electrician to become a plumber and replace my aging, yet still serviceable water heater before it lets go. In the interest of energy savings as well as creative side benefits, I am replacing my 66-gallon A. O. Smith electric heater with a 50-gallon General Electric "GeoSpring" heat-pump water heater.



This high-tech piece should cost a little more than a third to operate compared to the current one. Since the unit uses a heat pump to heat the water, the side benefit is the system throws off cool air, much like an air conditioner, when it's heating water. This will take the place of (or supplement, during peak summertime use) the dehumidifier that I usually run in the basement as well, cutting back on even more energy usage. At least, this is what I am hoping for in the long run. While layin' pipe I will also add a utility sink in the workshop area, as well as replace two outside frostproof sillcocks (stop giggling!). Finally, technology has caught up to something I have wanted to have outside, which is hot and cold water from a freeze-resistant faucet:



This will make washing cars, pets and whatever else a much more pleasurable experience, and can be done year-round. While a means to have hot and cold water from an outside faucet was doable before, I was only able to find a very clumsy (and very expensive) industrial/institutional wall "hydrant" to do the trick. Moen has come up with a simple, single-knob unit that installs easily and does not look out of place on the side of a house. Once I do all of these installations I will give them a workout by washing all the vehicles as well as the house itself. Maybe Kodi and Jeff will get a nice warm shower outside too. I promise I won't use the pressure washer. :o)

For the past few days I've played host to some sort of stomach/intestinal bug. Yesterday it made life miserable for me while at work and I decided to stay in today and allow my body to fight it off. Besides, being horizontal for an extended period does wonders.

This past weekend I finally tackled the major rework of the water supply at Château et Garage du Mécanicien Maniaque. 'Phase 1' is done, I replaced my undersized, leaking well tank with a nice, large, 86 gallon beauty that will allow for increased drawdown between pump cycles, making the pump and the entire system last longer and work more efficiently, and I have quite a bit more reserve water when the power goes out. It's a long time coming. 'Phase 2' will involve replacing the aging but not-yet-leaking water heater and relocating it to a cetral location in the basement under the stairs from it's current spot alongside the water tank and filters. No more waiting forever for hot water in the kitchen.

While testing, purging and calibrating the new setup, I had the unfortunate experience of having the short hose I use for this task coming out of the drain pipe and blasting me face-on with exceptionally cold well water not once but twice at different parts of the day. Completely soaked before I could shut it off. Not fun, but funny looking back on it. Today I was checking for leaks and putting the final touches on the system. A strainer drain valve was leaking, so I tightened it up. As it happens, I overmuscled it, snapping it completely off and, you guessed it, I was greeted with a full body shower once again. A change of clothes and another trip to the hardware store for the part, since I had no extras.

Since I had to be the master plumber this weekend, and Jeff had to work, our weekend was spent apart from one another. These extended periods by myself have been kinda rough on me of late. but I feel I need to have these quiet times to help cope with losing Mom. The silence is crushing at times. Often I wish the phone would ring so I'd have a diversion, but aside from Jeff, no one calls, and I am not the type to call people out of the blue. The fifth anniversary of 9/11 didnt help either, since it brought up it's own fair share of demons for me.

I am fresh from my evening shower. Unlike those three times in the basement, this dousing of water was hot, relaxing and refreshing. Time to hit the hay.