Flipped the furnace on for the first time this season and it was a struggle. Friend told me to try to take the air filter out, which made it so the flame finally lit. It seemed to cycle on and off a little bit, but finally got going and heated up from like 62 to 68. I’m hoping there was just some dust or something messing with the fan or sensor and it will burn off. Seemed like it would still cut off early and restart itself. I typically have it serviced annually before I need it, but this year they were booked up until December. Hoping it works itself out. Would prefer to not have to call them out before this tune-up and at least save myself the fee for showing up lol
Fire eye (flame detection) could have just built up some dust. If it's the probe kind, clean it with some sandpaper, that usually does the trick.
Yeah when I was googling it said the most common issues were a dirty fire eye or blower. I believe this usually gets taken care of as part of the service so I’ve never messed with it. How bad will I regret trying it myself? Any chance it will just burn off the dust as it runs a little more?
They're usually pretty accessible. I'd guess you could find a YouTube video for your furnace too. It could burn off, but it also could be a little bit of surface rust as well.
I don’t think my furnace works. When I had the gas turned on the tech said he couldn’t get the pilot light to come on. My house is probably going to blow up.
Sounds good, yeah I saw to use a wire brush or sand paper. Google didnt make it seem too hard. I might give it the day or so to see how it works before I start messing around. Temps are still forecasted to be in the high 60s, but last night it got down to 34 degrees so figured I would turn it on just to see.
Is it an on demand type? I tried to figure out mine when we had the gas shut off and apparently mine is like that, so there isn't one to light
I still use gas powered. Not sure how good the electric blowers are. My wine powered blower stopped working after we got married
I'm on acreage with a gravel driveway and a smallish deck. don't mind raking some leaves if needed so don't have any use for a gas blower.. the amount of string trimming I have around the various buildings and plantings would not be fun with a battery and the small spools that come in the ones I've used.. basically whatever makes sense for your situation, although I always got a kick out guys with backpack blowers in my suburban neighborhood growing up
Performance wise gas Stihl and Echo are on par, I have an Echo and like it a lot, but if you want to pay a little more for a unit that will last longer and require less maintenance get a Stihl.
Go easy if you use sandpaper. You can actually just use a relatively fresh dollar bill and it's a bit more gentle on the probe while still cleaning it.
Discovering a pinhole leak in a copper pipe at 10 pm because there’s a paint bubble in your kitchen ceiling is super awesome. Now I’m a few drinks in and I have to cut out some drywall and put a shark bite on this thing because I have no idea just how big this leak is and I won’t be able to sleep until I know it’s been stopped.
So I actually tried that on a copper pipe leak recently, and it didn’t work. The water just leaked out the side of the flex tape.
Found our culprit. There’s a little bit of mold on the back of the drywall there so I’ll have to spray a bunch of concrobium up there to kill everything off, let it dry out, put the shark bite in tomorrow, and at some point fix the drywall again (no rush on that I guess). Im too tired to do that shit tonight.
Our masterbath is still torn apart for at least 3 weeks until the contractor comes back. We have two others but I was in the basement when my wife was showering and there was a loose piece of insulation. I push it back up and it’s soaked. Turns out the drain was installed poorly in the guest shower we rarely use. Have to replace the drain and rubber seal this week. Down to 1 shower all of a sudden.
My wife likes scaulding hot water that only the mother of dragons would enjoy. No thanks, I’d come out looking like I spent 3 minutes in the brazen bull.
I set the hot water heater at about 115 degrees and said "I don't know what's happened maybe mice ate up the insulation going to the shower"
Our shower shows the temp. I prefer 105-108. Idk how accurate it is, but 112 is way too hot for me. My wife likes it between 112-115.
I think I was just accused of stealing $8.12 worth of items at Home Depot this morning because the receipt paper jammed and didn’t give me one. When I say I suck at DIY stuff I guess I mean I can’t even buy lightbulbs and mailbox stickers from HD without an issue.
And I sit on my shower seat for way too long because it's sweet sweet silence. An 85 gallon water heater was one of the best purchases I've ever made.
I spent the past weekend pressure washing every damn thing. We have a lot of stone and concrete, made sure not to damage it (I think). Now I’m planning to seal it. Any tips or tricks I need to know? Anything I can seriously fuck up? Seems like the hardest part is timing it; it needs to be dry for 24-48 hrs prior then left alone and no rain for 24 hrs after. This is the stuff I got: 5-Gal. SX5000 WB DOT Approved Water Based Silane Siloxane Penetrating Concrete Sealer, Brick Sealer, and Paver Sealer
Some of the fun discoveries that I have found so far in my renovations: - Taking two walls down in kitchen for the kitchen remodel. Just lucky I guess that almost every water line for upstairs is in one of those walls and the other has everything in for my upstairs air handler. So now I'll be replacing that air handler and moving all the refrigerant lines and drain lines to another wall. The water lines might be a blessing as they are polybutylene piping. All the piping in the crawl space has been converted to pex but they left the poly in the walls. Since I'll be tearing everything to shit anyway just going to to go ahead and pull it all out to run pex. -In my water line discovery I found a window that is leaking badly. There was some water damage evidence that I thought might have come from a bathroom upstairs leaking to downstairs but not it's apparent that it's an upstairs window. -Also in that discovery was that the roof above my sunroom has zero insulation in it. -Last night we had our first thunderstorm roll through since being in the new house. I was watching TV and all of a sudden I hear a lot of water, sounds like some water line bust or something. Turns out that the little over hang we have on the front of the house over the front door was basically funneling a water fall into the door. Explains all the wood rot at the front door and why the door is warped to shit. This is a tough one though, it's just a tiny over hang with some copper flashing so not like I can add a gutter or anything. Guess I'll try to do some kind of copper drip edge detail to keep the water from just running back into the house. This is fun, I'm having fun.
Got most of the drywall down last night to open everything up and see what I'm dealing with. Circled is one of the walls we want to take down.
Looking at adding a word burning stove this year. Anyone have any suggestions for stoves or installation?
put one in my place kind of blindly last year that I traded a guy for a few chords of firewood. I'm in a old house and anything too fancy would have looked out of place as much as I wanted to build a sweet rock wall backing. Threw some 3/4" plywood down and tile I had around for the floor, cement board for the backing, cut up some 1" pipe to use as spacers to keep the cement board off the wall. Just cheap piping save the triple wall going through the house which he also gave me. In retrospect I should have went with decent exhaust piping, will be replacing that after this season with something designed to be outside. Painted the cement board and piping with high temp black paint. If you're painting anything use liquid paint not spray and do it before installation obviously. If it's a long term deal and using it as a primary heat source I would say overbuild and cry once
love my stove though the company is no longer in business. Not sure how the newer EPA stoves are, hearth.com is a great resource
Have a Harmon pellet stove, puts out great heat, they size to sq. Three recommendations. If you get a stove with a blower and you spend time in the same room with a television or to work, consider the volume. Mine is loud as hell, when I replace it, that’s priority one. Humidifier with some balls is required. Also depending on your household layout and if it’s a primary heat source, it’s always an experiment regarding how to go about moving the air throughout the house. Fans are required. Good luck.