Joys of Home Ownership

Fatal Descaling

We had a fairly new Keurig K-Supreme coffee maker.

The first time the descale light illuminated I tried using white vinegar to do the job. It must have done some good, but it didn’t last as long as expected. So this time when the light came on I ordered the 3-Month Maintenance Kit from Amazon. Yesterday I did the descaling.

(Side note, the directions listed on the box on how to do this say to follow the instructions on the bottle, but there are no instructions on the bottle.)

After following the instructions I found on keurig.com I successfully ran the descaling procedure. Only trouble was that the brewer failed to restart afterwards. A search online said that I might have over heated the thermostat and I should wait a couple of hours and try again. After 3 hours the brewer would still not turn.

I then found a YouTube video on how reset it. After spending twenty minutes opening up my relatively new brewer I found the thermostat and no amount poking with a bent paperclip would reset it. I ohmed it out and it read as infinite, so I had no choice but to go out and spend $150 on a newer brewer.

Rest assured that next time the Descale light illuminates I going back to white vinegar. It may not last as long, but at least it won’t fry the thermostat.

I hope…

Washer Heal Thyself Redux

Back in January our 3-year old washer started acting up by leaving the the clothes super wet after the final spin. After trying a couple of fixes unsuccessfully I made an appointment to have it looked at by a repair person, but a couple days before the appointment the thing mysteriously stopped doing it. So I cancelled.

Fast forward to the middle of April and the washer shook itself half way across the laundry room floor on the final spin. The laundry room is on the lower floor, but you can hear the washer walking and bouncing from upstairs just fine. When I opened the lid all the clothes were solidly packed into one half of the tub. Rearranged the wet clothes evenly and ran the Drain & Spin cycle. The next day it worked fine. But, two days later the same thing happened. Then it did it for the next three days in a row.

An Internet search revealed several things that would cause this and the only one that didn’t involve tearing the machine apart was make sure the washer is level not only sideways but front to back as well. Across the front it was fine, but front was slightly lower than the rear. I found a couple of pieces of 1/8″ thick wood in the garage and slipped some under the front legs.

On the next load on Sunday, boom shake thud bump, the washer danced a foot and a half forward with the 1/8″ spacer wood still in place. With the last incidence of a couple months ago and this one, we decided to break down and get a new washer. I went to the Home Depot website and they could have another of the same unit to us by Friday.

On Monday morning we went down to the only real Appliance store and town to see if we get something quicker. The only ones they had in stock that were comparable were more expensive and even then, they couldn’t be delivered until the following week. When we got home I went to HomeDepot.com and bought the washer. That evening during the washing of a load of clothes, it worked just fine. Not fooled, I left the order open.

Well, the next two days the washer acted all normal, so Wednesday night, with the washer still listed as in process, I called the Home Depot customer service and cancelled the order. It has been working just fine ever since.

Ed Note: Check back in a few days for the rest of the story.

Huh!?!

This is a photo of 1/2 of our stair railing between floors. If you scan along the balusters (or pickets or little vertical stick thingies) from right to left, notice the last one on the left. It is upsidedown! We have lived in this house for a little over three years, meaning we have gone up and down the stairs over 2,000 times each and never noticed this. Until yesterday…

Washer Heal ThySelf

Sometime in mid January when I pulled the clothes out of the washer they were exceedingly wet. Figuring that the load was unbalanced I spread the clothes around evenly and ran the “Drain and Spin Cycle.” It didn’t help much. Because we do just one load a day and have the time we just started allotting 75 to 90 minutes for drying instead of the typical 50 to 60.

Was our 3-year old washer broken already?

I looked online for what might be the issue with the machine and there were at least a half dozen reasons. I tried the first two. Rerouting the drain hose to go straight up immediately after exiting the machine instead angled like I had it with no change of clothes wetness. Dumping some liquid plumber down the drain pipe had no effect. The rest of the suggestions involved opening up the machine to check pumps and belts or troubleshooting the electronics.

We could replace it with the same model for just under $600. But did we need to? The extra 20 or 30 minutes really wasn’t a big hardship, except for possibly adding $10 bucks a month to the power bill. Maybe we should have a professional come look at it.

This Tuesday I called a local appliance repair place and set up an appointment to have someone come look at the machine next Monday. It was $95 for the house call, but then at least we could see whether to fix it or buy new or just live with it.

Wednesday morning when I washed the bath towels, the bath mat and our sheets, they came out of the washing machine just like they used to 2 weeks ago. Huh? So we rounded up some more stuff to run another load. Those too came out fine and everything came out of the dryer in the usual hour-ish time frame. The next day’s load, same thing, we were back to the normal wash day timing. I called and cancelled the appointment.

The weather was nice enough today that we drove the Miata to take Donna for her physical therapy appointment. It was even warm enough that we dropped the top for the leg home.

Times Miata Driven since 11/01/22: 8

 

Don’t Forget Step 15

On Monday evening Donna called me into the kitchen to listen to the garbage disposal. It was making a strange noise and she thought that there might be something stuck in there. Cleaning out the disposal, like killing spiders, is man’s work, so I turned it on and it was making a very metallic noise, nothing like something stuck inside, but more like bad bearings.

Tuesday morning we headed off to Home Depot to buy a nice shiny new one. In the afternoon I swapped out the old Badger with the new Badger 100. Because I had swapped out a garbage disposal before back in Aiken I know how to do it, so it took about an hour and the hardest part was holding the unit up straight so I could lock it into place under the sink.

On Wednesday evening I was again summoned to the kitchen. Not garbage disposal this time, but dishwasher. The dishes were clean, but not rinsed and the the bottom of the dishwasher was full of water. Off to the internet to see what I might do about this. Looked at several pages of info and tried the easiest first, rerun the cycle and see if it drains. While it was running we tagged teamed the the dishes, I washed off the rinse agent and she dried and put away. Unfortunately the second cycle still left water in the bottom. Next and most obvious would be hose out connection to the garbage disposal, so I asked my wife if there was water in the bottom of the dishwasher after she washed on Tuesday and she said there wasn’t.

Every other solution I found I could check easily enough and dismiss or didn’t apply, leaving calling a repair person or buying a new dishwasher. You know, I don’t remember popping out the the dishwasher drain plug in the disposal, but Donna said there wasn’t any water in the bottom of the dishwasher after her first run on Tuesday. Did the disposal come with it already knocked out?

This morning, Thursday, I removed the dishwasher drain hose from the disposal and stuck my finger in the pipe and sure enough it was stopped dead. That is why the dishwater wouldn’t drain, it had no where to send the water except 6 feet down a plastic pipe where it got promptly turned around. Luckily there was enough room under the sink that I could get a screwdriver into the drain outlet pipe and whack it hard enough to get the plug out with out to much drama.

I forgot Step 15. I was lulled into a false sense of my own home repair acumen by having done the same job previously that I didn’t even read all the installation instructions, but I didn’t take into account the decrease of fine detail memory brought on by advancing age and the fact that I had done this job only once before a couple of decades ago.

Changing Filters

Today was change filters day.

I have been changing all the filters in the house every 2 months ever since we have been here. This not only includes the two HVAC filters (one upstairs, the other down), but also the Keurig coffee maker and the Brita water pitcher.

When we got the A/C fixed last month the tech mentioned that if we set the fan to ON instead of AUTO it would run all the time, but at a slower speed, which would cause the air to be kept in constant circulation which would help filter it better. And as well, possibly increase the motor’s lifespan because starting up from stopped was harder on it than just increasing and decreasing speeds to match demand, so, this is what we started doing. The ON setting will cost a few bucks more in electricity, but the extra filtering might help Donna’s dust allergy. With the added airflow through the HVAC system we figured that those filters probably should get changed every month starting now.

Although the current HVAC filters have been in there for 2 months they have actually only been in use for a month because in July the A/C was broke and didn’t run at all. Can you guess from the picture below which filter is new and which one is used?

That is the dirtiest filter I have ever seen, and both of them were that color. I don’t think the level of dirt captured has anything to do with running 24/7, but more to do with the air quality here in Klamath Falls.

The first days of the month were the only ones in green, AKA Good, and the A/C was still broke then. So for the rest of the month we got 5 days of Poor, 9 Unhealthy, 10 Very Unhealthy and 4 Dangerous. The skies have been smoke filled from wildfires to the east of us and then when they were finally under control, Northern California started burning.

Maybe I’m going to have to change the HVAC filters every two weeks during Oregon’s 5th season, the months of July to September are called Fire Season.

Making It Ours

We have been slowing putting our stamp on our Oregon home. When we bought it, its style was Plain Jane contractor flipped (we think in 2012), because every ceiling light in the house was a bronze “boob light” and the upstairs walls were sprayed a sickly tan.

The first thing we did was, tear up all the tan carpet in the three bedrooms and replace it with “wood” flooring. We also spruced up the kitchen, the walls got a bright yellow coat of paint, changed out the ratty faucet and updated both the over sink and room light fixtures. Then the two upstairs bedrooms and baths got coats of paint, blue for one set and green for the other.

That was last year, this year we have freshened up the 2 upstairs bathrooms with new size appropriate vanities, brushed nickel fixtures, new mirrors and lights (even a new vinyl tile floor in one.) Next up were changing out all those ugly ceiling light fixtures, a total of twelve of them. Up went 9 LED lights and 3 ceiling fans, almost all in the brushed nickel finish. Recently the living/dining room got a nice coat of light green paint. The original tan paint still adorns the walls of only the stairwell going downstairs and the area right at the top of them. These are still that color only because I can’t figure out how to paint the top of the wall from the bottom of the stairs.

The bottom floor walls are all white and adding some color down there is next on the list. The hallway might get some wall color, the bedroom will probably get a feature wall of color, the bath/laundry room is also a candidate for a bit of paint. The den/family room might stay white, but who knows, but I have a lot of leftover paint in most of the upstairs colors…

Oh, I almost forgot, we had the outside of the house painted as well, from dull gray to a bold blue: