Lyndhurst Garden House

Lyndhurst Garden House
Lyndhurst Garden House

Friday, December 27, 2013

254nm germicidal lamps

Had HVAC biannual maintenance on Thursday.  Technician pointed to stained looking rubber moulding inside blower cabinet.  First he asked if I had any bleach to wipe it down.  I said no.  Then he said I needed to get an anti-microbial UV light system.  I asked for and he provided an estimate, $475 plus bulb replacements every two years.  It looked rather high until I looked online to see people quoted as much as 4 times more.

There are a large number of companies making lamps specifically for HVAC blower cabinets.  There is research published by government authorities on the proven (though limited) efficacy of such systems.  There is also word against the use of such systems by the likes of CARB (the California Air Resources Board) as they are said to be ozone generators (and, by a common description, that is how they work).  Ozone generators are probably the last thing you want in your hvac system unless there are high levels of biological activity and no other way to stop them.  Ozone is very toxic.  The common way to stop such things is to reduce humidity, which is said to be high inside blower cabinets.

It turns out that the system I was apparently being quoted for, Fresh-Aire UV AHU, is not an ozone generator because it uses a 254nm light (unless you order the "odor control" option which includes additional 185nm bulb(s).  A 254nm light looks like a good idea to me.  If you look at the CARB list of suspect UV lamps, you will notice the Fresh-Aire UV model they have listed is different, not this one, and probably an older if not discontinued model.  It is apparently possible for UV germicidal lamps not to be ozone generators.  It's funny that Fresh-Aire's manufacturer does not tout the non-ozone-generating character of this system, though they decided do make non-ozone-generating aspect a major feature of their more expensive Purity system.  Some manufacturers tout the ozone generation as a desirable feature.

Now in winter, an HVAC should not be a locus of high humidity.  In fact the typical problem I'm facing is too low humidity, as dry cold winter air is heated inside making it even drier.  So I add humidity with a room humidifier located right next to the main HVAC air intake.  (Aha, ,this could be the thing causing rubber parts inside to stain.)  I use this humidification only when the humidity gets very low, as I've dcciddd to minimize the use of supplemental humidification precisely because of the risk of mold, etc.  But because I do sometimes add humidity, I should probably be adding the germicidal light inside.

In summer, it's different, the HVAC system is removing humidity, and when the blower is not running, indeed water evaporation from the coils can very well make the inside of the air handler high humidity.




Monday, December 9, 2013

Quick fix for air leak and door knob

At first I thought the Queen's Room was much better sealed than the rest of my house, especially compared with the old master bedroom (before remodeling).  But now that cold weather has hit, it's clear that the new King's Room is tighter and warmer than ever before, thanks to the remodeling.  And the Queen's Room has been a bit colder.

It was clear that the issue in the Queens room is the new closet.  Standing in front of the closed closet door is the coldest place in the room (and it's even colder inside the closet).  I measured temperatures as low as 20 degrees below house temperature on the closet floor.

Feeling around the closet itself, the primary source of coldness is the exterior wall side, which is less than two feet.  There might have been air leakage from the garage sides, but the garage itself is under constant depressurization from the new exhaust fan, and it didn't feel cold along those two sides of the closet floor as it did on the exterior wall side.  I could feel a draft from the gap under the shoe mold trim in the closet on the exterior wall side.

After discovering all this, my first plan had been to rip out the baseboard trim (which builder Rob nicely put around the inside of the closet floor) and then seal the drywall to subfloor gap with acoustical caulk (as was done in the King's room, and likely the reason it is so much improved).  But this is "serious" work for an amateur builder like me.  I was thinking of looking for videos and such pertaining to removing baseboard trim.

Then I was also thinking I might wait until I have Tom back to do some other work, and add this little project to that bill.  This could be Jan-Feb.  Meanwhile, I could use mortite or something to seal up the gap under the baseboards (in the close) as they are now.

I started looking at what I had on hand.  Mortite, if I had any left, is out in Lyndhurst and I did not feel like going outside in the 35 degree temperature to get it.  I did have some Blue Tack, but probably not enough to fill the gap and I'd like to see the MSDS for blue tack before using it as a sealant.  I could use regular caulk to seal the gap, but it would be smelly and messy and would make a permanent mark on the closet flooring.  Since the long term plan is to remove the baseboards and caulk behind them, a temporary fix would be better.

I tried using some wood door shims, thinking I could break them off piece by piece under the moulding.  This worked for the first two pieces, but after that the thicker size of the shim required wasn't breaking off easily.  I might well break the shoe mould trim.

THEN I found the solution: using the polyethylene door seals that came with the two acoustical doors.  Those are top quality, ISO, made in Europe to high standards.  I could squeeze pieces of door seal under the trim, and the polyethylene flaps of the sealing strip would push and seal just as if the trim were a door and the floor was the jamb.

So that's what I did, I cut several pieces of the door seal and pushed it under the shoe mold.  I tried to get the pieces as close together as possible.  In most cases, I had to trim the seal back differently in each piece to get it to fit in the gap available.  Doing this, I was able to seal that entire side of the closet floor.  The appearance is OK for a closet floor.  I don't notice it at all when standing up, but when sitting down you can see some white plastic peeking out from underneath the shoe mold in parts.  I did not remove the paper backing on the door seals, so they are not adhesively applied, but they are held in place very strongly by friction.

The difference is considerable.  The feeling of draft on the floor has been eliminated.  The cold floor of the closet is not as cold as it was.  When you open the closet you no longer feel the cold air with your feet.  There is considerably less cold in the corner when the closet door is closed, though that is still the coldest part of the room.  I think the whole room is a bit warmer, though I could be fooling myself.  Still, it was a worthwhile improvement considering the investment in time (about 30 minutes) and material (none).

*****

Still thinking about the Queen's room (and my friends suggestion she will sleep a bit there on Wednesday after work) I'd been bugged by the way the expensive Baldwin passage knobset sometimes sticks as if it were locked.  This happens when the door latch button is pulled as far out as it can go in the strike plate, so the back of the latch is rubbing against the inside of the strike plate.  That's unfortunately where it ends up because the pressure from the door seals pushes the door out as far as it can go.  It also ends up that way when you stop pushing the door closed the instant the latch closes, rather than pushing it all the way into the door jamb (about another 1/8 inch), which is also a natural thing to do.

I examined the latch and the strike plate carefully, and noticed that there was some bent metal inside the strike plate on the top side.  It could be this very metal which was sticking on the latch button.  I pounded the metal up, first using a hammer and a big screwdriver, and ultimately using a big center punch.

Now this could be my imagination even more than the seal fix described above.  But it seemed to me the door was sticking far less as soon as I started bending the excess metal (which probably resulted from a forced installation of the strike plate into the jamb) upwards, and continued to get just a little better with each further bend.  Now one could also go to far with a hack like this.  If I pounded too long or too hard I could break the strike plate off.  Then I'd be in big trouble.  So I didn't push it too far, but clearly the top of the inside of the strike plate is open up to the very edge of the strike plate, when it wasn't that way before.

So I think this is much better now.  Usually I don't notice the knob sticking at all anymore.  Even when I push against the door hard to simulate the problem, even though it does then stick a bit, I can still turn the knob with a reasonable amount of extra force.  Previously it needed a bit more than a little extra force, it seemed as if it were actually locked, and the only way to get the door open was to push the door toward the outside first (which, in a panic, you might not think of doing).

So with these two quick fixes, I think I've made the room much more habitable.

*****

Last week I bought the lowest priced Craftsman 5 drawer tool cabinet ("standard duty") for an incredibly low $85.  I set this up last weekend by clearing the work table in the Laboratory into a big plastic bin I also bought last week, and then moving the cabinet into place.  This is a big practical piece, but not fancy.  The sheet metal feels like thin sheet metal, but it works.  I would not want this piece in a room where I play loud music, for fear of the sheet metal ringing with the music.  Unfortunately it takes up about half of the working area on the table now.  I think it should eventually go on top of a similar or higher grade tool cabinet bottom part in the corner of the room.  But that corner of the room is now filled with "junk" which I'll have to clear out first.  (Some of that junk is just stuff I don't use often, not that I necessarily want to move it out to storage, so there is some thinking to do.)  I am only slowly moving tools from the old box on the floor up into the new cabinet.  Redundant tools will eventually be put in the garage working area.

*****

I finally got around to labeling the switches in the Queen's Bath.  The switches were in an old fashioned (I think it's from the '60's) layout, with a vertical light switch, and two horizontal switches, one for the fan and one for the "heat lamp."  (Though they are falling out of fashion, I *like* heat lights, not the red kind (it makes little difference if heat lamp is red wrt the heat it emits) even a 100W white spot light provides noticeable warmth when you are getting out of the shower, and the extra light is nice too.)

The problem with this switch arrangement is that it's not intuitive.  Even after living in the house for 20 years, I could not tell you whether than fan switch was on top or on bottom.  Almost always I flip the wrong horizontal switch if I want only heat lamp or fan, and then have to switch the other.

So I got out my new Dymo labeler with the clear tapes (most attractive IMO) and made simple labels for all three switches, LIGHT, FAN, and HEAT.  Actually, I first tried making the horizontal switches labeled like this:

"OFF     FAN    ON"

To make it clear which side of the switch is ON (even that is not entirely intuitive, as it tends to be with vertical switches in the country of your birth).  But all that extra lettering looked clumsy.  And the truth is, you can generally intuit which side of the switch is on or off pretty quickly.  (I have never had any trouble with that, at least that I can remember.)  What you really need to know is which switch is for the fan and which is for the heat lamp.

So after trying the more complicated labels I went back to the simpler ones.  If you were very chic, you still might find it tacky.  We'll see what my friend things about the new labels.  While not as elegant as I might like, I still think I prefer the new labels to none.





Friday, December 6, 2013

Moving the City

It's been a good week.  The biggest accomplishment was getting the City to turn off the water that had been flowing down the street for over a week.  It was flowing because of some leak inside a house at the top of the street that looked abandoned.  I called the City on Wednesday.  First I called 311, then they told me to call the water company (SAWS).  SAWS told me that a problem had already been reported and they gave me a case number (after I asked for it).  That night I still saw water running, so I emailed my city councilperson.  I got a call the next morning from someone who had been contacted by councilperson's office.  He told me that SAWS cannot shut off water of a paid-up customer without an order from code compliance, but he would get that done.  Actually, right about then I noticed that my water taps were flowing very slowly.  It turned out that SAWS had put a notice on my door a few hours earlier telling me that water would be off while they did repairs.  Later in the day my household water had come back on in time for me to take a shower, but the water was still flowing in the street.  But by that night, the flowing water in the street had stopped.  I also found out that a neighbor or two had also called SAWS.

In all this, I can't determine whether my email to the city councilperson made any difference.  It was possible my first call the day before, or a neighbor's call, had already set wheels in motion and it was just a matter of time before the fix was made.  But also it could have been that SAWS would have done some repair and still not shut off the water.  Things often go like that.  Anyway, the combination of actions taken by me and neighbors fixed the problem.  I also sent thank you to city councilperson, giving them full credit since I don't know for sure otherwise.

The water flowing down the street actually had a slight tributary that ended contacting my front lawn.  I walked around that area and did not feel any mushy ground, but a friend also did that and she did feel mushy ground and warned that it might damage my foundation (about 35 feet away).  I thought that very unlikely, but when I emailed my city councilperson I said the water was flowing into my yard and could cause damage to my home.  It is probably a good idea to mention such adverse possibilities when trying to get something fixed.

I think I may investigate building up the yard in that spot where the water entered which is a slight depression (though mainly the issue is that the sidewalk drops a bit).  I will get some sand and dirt and fill it in a bit.  My friend suggests putting a decorative boulder there, but my feeling is the water would just flow around the boulder, but the boulder might be nice to cover up the added sand.

*****

I've been getting used to the new adjustable bed.  With the "head" (which is actually the last 30 inches of the mattress) lifted up, the remaining flat portion of the bed is much smaller.  So when I left my down comforter at the foot of the bed as I used to do while watching TV, I simply kicked it to the floor.  I then tried using a fluffy throw instead, and I kicked that to the floor as well.  So finally I got a new relatively thin black coverlet on Monday, washed it on Tuesday and was using it on Wednesday.  The trick is to actually make the bed (well duh, but I previously hadn't usually bothered).  I fold the top sheet and coverlet back at the half way point in the bed.  Then, if I lay on top of it all, I don't kick it to the floor, and when I tire of watching TV I can stick my feet and legs under the covers even without lowering the head.  Though I've also found I like lowering the head to about 20 degrees for sleeping, or about 40 degrees for watching TV.  I don't like to have the bed perfectly flat, even for sleeping, at least that's my feeling so far.  A slight head tilt even seems to help when I'm sleeping on my side, but it especially helps when I'm sleeping on my back.

I no longer need the down comforter at all.  A thin coverlet is sufficient.  The King's Room feels substantially warmer now, probably mostly thanks to the sealing that was done during remodeling.  The room was sealed around the top with mud (there was lots of cracked mudded paper that got replaced with solid mud) and sealed with acoustical caulk at the bottom.  Even Tom didn't much want to do that sealing with acoustical caulk but I got him to (and then, I did some additional sealing on top of his quick pass which had some crucial weak spots).  The Queen's room didn't get that treatment.  When I complained to my previous builder Rob about the gap between floor and drywall, he simply said it would be covered up with baseboard.  He seemed somewhat irritated by my complaint and I decided not to press him further.  But now I notice that the floor near the southern wall, and especially near the new closet (and moreso within the closet itself) gets cold on cold days.  I'm thinking it's precisely the floor sealing which builders hate to do (they just like to cover things up) is what needs to be done.  I may remove the baseboard in the closet and seal it with acoustical caulk myself.

*****

 On Thursday I got a 5 drawer tool cabinet from Sears.  I've always lusted after the big cabinets on wheels and wanted one, but though they were too expensive.  This month they had about 8 different cabinets on display, all the way from "Standard Duty" to super premium heavy duty.  The Premium Heavy Duty and above are quite expensive.  But standard duty was not.  I could have gotten a complete 6 foot high cabinet for $209.  But since I don't have room for the whole thing yet, I just got the 5 drawer top unit, which was a steal at $85  That will go on the worktable in the Laboratory, replacing the plastic bin that's there now.  Currently the entire Laboratory is a huge mess, including the work table, partly because I've had to dig through all my tools in my tool box several times in the past few weeks.  It always seems the tool I need is at the bottom, no matter how many times I try to put the most useful tools on the top.  So it was clear I needed a multi drawer unit.  I was happy that Sears was able to sell me just the top cabinet at the discount price (at first the salesman tried to charge me the full price, but I showed him the display where it showed the discounted prices for each separate piece).  On Friday it seemed like they were trying to hide the Standard Duty storage cabinets behind stuff they were moving around.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Thanksgiving Surge

Quite often my Thanksgiving holiday weekend (and right now I give thanks that I've always had the good fortune to enjoy these, which unfortunately my friend doesn't anymore, she worked two unscheduled double shifts during this 4 day period) hasn't been very productive, except for adding to my middle line.  But this Thanksgiving weekend was very productive, as I measure it, I got lots of things done and crucially, these were finishing-things, finally-getting-around-to-things, as well as exactly the things I had hoped and planned (that is, I thought of them a few times) to do.

First and most important, I got the new Queen size bed for the King's room completely put together, and even slept on for the first times (Saturday and Sunday nights).  When the weekend started, I had barely unpacked the last two boxes of mattress foams, and still needed to carve out the questionable spots with an exacto knife, and attempt to vacuum out the larger spot.  I was beginning to wonder when, as in what week, I'd finally get the new bed together.  I did the spot carving and vacuuming, and even put the mattress completely together twice.  The first time under the incorrect assumption that the base layer's of the king's side were unexpectedly soft, too soft it seemed by a finger test, to be the kind of "firm" mattress I wanted.  So I put the firmest D95 (box labeled as XX Firm, not the X Firm I had ordered) in the middle, hoping it would firm things up a bit.  It did firm things up a bit, and then it was immediately clear the moment I laid on it that it was way too firm.  Well I paused then and decided to put off the final assembly, possibly until Monday, I got right back to it that evening and reassembled the mattress in the "correct" order, with the firmest layer on the bottom, and decreasing firmness up from there.  The result has been a mattress that initially seemed like it was too firm, but working especially great in the tv-watching mode, which is the way I have subsequently decided to keep my mattress all the time, as I sleep nicely that way as well.

I also got the new DVD cabinet secured to the wall.  I certainly intended to get that done before sleeping in the bed, and amazingly enough, I did, though I later figured it was stable enough without the wall brackets so long as there were no DVD's in the upper half.  I skipped the wall anchors provided by the cabinet manufacturer and used 2 1/2 inch screws, which I carefully screwed right into the wall studs.  Because my cabinet is several inches from the wall the included bracket wasn't really long enough, so I attach the much longer screw I used about 1 inch from the actual wall.  To keep the rack from moving backwards, I wrapped electrical tape around the screws.  This sounds hokey but is remarkably effective (I can't see how it could possibly fail) and it allows the cabinet to be slightly decoupled from the wall so that wall vibrations (not uncommon from music played by very effective speakers at 46 inch tall subwoofer) don't transfer to the cabinet.  I also kept the screws sticking out just a tiny bit (1/8 inch or so) of the bracket, and twisted a piece of electrical tape into that gap as well, so providing some acoustic isolation on both sides.  As a result, I have not noticed any vibrations in the cabinet at all, even when playing very loud bass music.

Along with securing the cabinet to the wall, I also covered up all the visible grooves (which shouldn't have been visible) in the cabinet panel, which had been provided folded twice over.  Those grooves had been filled with tiny bits of styrofoam which had broken during shipping.  I had been unable to vacuum or otherwise remove all of the styrofoam debris from the groves still visible when the pieces were unfolded.  So I had planned to use electrical tape to cover the grooves up, but hesitated because it sounded like it would look tacky.  Actually, once I started covering up the grooves with electrical tape, I actually thought it looked nicer.  The black shiny tape actually gave the cabinet a more luxurious custom look, where previously the slightly scruffy looking grooves were looking very tacky.  Anyway, many of the grooves would have been covered up by the shelves anyway, and ultimately by the stored items (dvd's, cd's, sacd's, dvd-audio's, vhs tapes, and even beta tapes).  And just so, the electrical tape is covered up as well, which is fine.  But none of that styrofoam dust will be entering the airstream.

And I also got all the shelves installed in the cabinet as well, which was no small feat considering the number of shelves.  And then, I moved all my dvd's and other items from the two previous racks into the new cabinet.  I could probably move another rack's worth of items into the cabinet now as there is so much room left over.  I put one of the now unneeded racks with a FREE sign on the sidewalk at 5pm on Sunday night (worried that it wasn't the best time to do that) and it disappeared in 2 hours.  I put the other rack into Lyndhurst.  Finally, the King's Room was getting cleared up again (the racks had been hogging all the extra space).

And I installed the new mower blade in the mower, and tested it out (but not much testing...).

And, I got the new iRobot Scooba 390 charged up and had it clean all three new vinyl plank floors (Queen's, King's, and hallway).  After doing the King's room, and the first pass on the Queen's (because it stopped in a kind of non-standard way, I figured it had not actually completed), it needed a 3 hour recharge.  After the recharge, I ran it a second time in the Queen's room (it still stopped with blinking power light rather than empty tank symbol) and then ran it once in the hallway.  I could have run it a second time in the hallway, but I figured not charged enough, so I cleaned it up and set it back to recharging in the King's room on it's pad.  Though another pass on the hallway would be nice, all 3 floors are much much cleaner than they were before, which I can feel with my bare feet.

So all that, and I also had a nice thanksgiving dinner with friends on Thanksgiving Day, and had a very nice meeting with my friend on Saturday night (she tested out the new bed), and I would have had very nice meetings with my friend on Friday and Sunday nights as well, and I had been ready for that, but she got assigned those unplanned second shifts.