On Monday night after work (actually, Tuesday morning around 3am) I decided to check out the smell level in Lyndhurst. It was a cool foggy night, one of the conditions that used to bring out some of the strongest chemical smells in the building.
Upon opening the door, the main thing I smelled was the antique wood table I moved out a few weeks ago, and the Pledge I polished it with. I could just barely smell the old chemical smell. The smell quickly became undetectable, but I noticed it one more time while traveling to the back of the room. After a couple of minutes in the building, even with doors closed, I couldn't smell anything. I'm counting this as a 90-95% reduction. One could live in the room now, I think, but I wouldn't recommend doing so without a VOC filter. But occasional visits are perfectly fine now, I believe.
I wanted to get the external thermostat off the floor (though it is in a waterproof box), so I rearranged things toward the back of the room so I could set the thermostat on top of a small old piece of electronic equipment. The temp was reading 70 and the setpoint was still 71 but the heater wasn't running probably because of anticipation. I tried to get the heater running again by opening the front door and letting cold air in. After three minutes, I gave up on that. The thermostat is in the back of the room shielded from air movements, which is a good thing IMO.
Not long after that, I heard a big crash and realized that what I had long feared had just happened. The old wood ladder near the NW corner had fallen because I knocked it down by accident. And it had landed where the heater used to be.
I had feared that would happen when nobody was around and that it could smash the heater or even start a fire. So I often had fiddled with the ladder trying to get into a position from which it absolutely could not fall on its own. This was difficult because when not angled almost straight up, it didn't quite reach the back shelf and so would fall backwards. But too far in the other direction and it would nearly fall forwards. I had long fiddled to ensure I had the ladder at the sweet spot where it would keep leaning back on the shelf, even if the building vibrated a little.
So now that the long feared accident had actually happened, what did it do? Well, nothing. The heater had been hit just at the right spot so it got pushed out of the way. There were not dents or even scratches on the heater. It was still working fine. WHEW!!!
I decided not to have this ladder upright. I was thinking of destroying it (as it is actually too wobbly to feel very confident, and it could hurt someone else), donating it, trashing it, or taking it apart to use the pieces for something else. I have a taller new ladder inside Lyndhurst. But for now, the best thing was to put it on the floor toward the back of the room, held in place so it can't even rotate flat onto the floor.
And then I retested the heater by setting external thermostat up to 73. It kicked in and worked fine. I also thought about changing the "1" setting on the heater to "6" (the maximum) on the basis that this might be better for the relay inside the heater. But even at "1" I believe the heater kicks on right away just as it would at "6" so I decided to leave the heater set at 1 and the thermostat set at 71, which seems to hold 70 degrees extremely well, just barely dipping to 69 on 50 degree nights.
Upon opening the door, the main thing I smelled was the antique wood table I moved out a few weeks ago, and the Pledge I polished it with. I could just barely smell the old chemical smell. The smell quickly became undetectable, but I noticed it one more time while traveling to the back of the room. After a couple of minutes in the building, even with doors closed, I couldn't smell anything. I'm counting this as a 90-95% reduction. One could live in the room now, I think, but I wouldn't recommend doing so without a VOC filter. But occasional visits are perfectly fine now, I believe.
I wanted to get the external thermostat off the floor (though it is in a waterproof box), so I rearranged things toward the back of the room so I could set the thermostat on top of a small old piece of electronic equipment. The temp was reading 70 and the setpoint was still 71 but the heater wasn't running probably because of anticipation. I tried to get the heater running again by opening the front door and letting cold air in. After three minutes, I gave up on that. The thermostat is in the back of the room shielded from air movements, which is a good thing IMO.
Not long after that, I heard a big crash and realized that what I had long feared had just happened. The old wood ladder near the NW corner had fallen because I knocked it down by accident. And it had landed where the heater used to be.
I had feared that would happen when nobody was around and that it could smash the heater or even start a fire. So I often had fiddled with the ladder trying to get into a position from which it absolutely could not fall on its own. This was difficult because when not angled almost straight up, it didn't quite reach the back shelf and so would fall backwards. But too far in the other direction and it would nearly fall forwards. I had long fiddled to ensure I had the ladder at the sweet spot where it would keep leaning back on the shelf, even if the building vibrated a little.
So now that the long feared accident had actually happened, what did it do? Well, nothing. The heater had been hit just at the right spot so it got pushed out of the way. There were not dents or even scratches on the heater. It was still working fine. WHEW!!!
I decided not to have this ladder upright. I was thinking of destroying it (as it is actually too wobbly to feel very confident, and it could hurt someone else), donating it, trashing it, or taking it apart to use the pieces for something else. I have a taller new ladder inside Lyndhurst. But for now, the best thing was to put it on the floor toward the back of the room, held in place so it can't even rotate flat onto the floor.
And then I retested the heater by setting external thermostat up to 73. It kicked in and worked fine. I also thought about changing the "1" setting on the heater to "6" (the maximum) on the basis that this might be better for the relay inside the heater. But even at "1" I believe the heater kicks on right away just as it would at "6" so I decided to leave the heater set at 1 and the thermostat set at 71, which seems to hold 70 degrees extremely well, just barely dipping to 69 on 50 degree nights.
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