What home repairs are you working on?

Shellhead wrote:

Disgustipater wrote:

Shellhead wrote: I have an electrical problem, probably a short circuit. Sometimes when my A/C kicks in, an entire circuit temporarily shuts down, affecting 2 outlets in my living room and 2 light fixtures in my basement. The breaker in the fuse box doesn't trip (they never trip for some reason),

Two questions to satisfy my own curiosity:

1) Is your A/C a window unit plugged into the wall?
2) Is your breaker panel a Federal Pacific (Stab-Lok)?

1) Central air. I have a window unit on the second floor, but have only used it twice so far this year, since nobody is currently using the upstairs bedroom.
2) Cutler-Hammer.

How many amps is your board?

Old breakers that aren’t exercised can fail to throw when they need to. You should turn your breakers off and on when there’s a power failure to prevent this. Once a year, don’t forget the main.

But I don’t think that’s the problem. Figure out if those outlets are on the same circuit as the AC unit. Shouldn’t be, but it happens. If they are, and especially if they are LED bulbs, the circuit may be falling below their minimum voltage to function.

That means your AC is really hauling down on that circuit. The unit may need a new capacitor (which is cheap). If it does it for a short enough period of time the breaker may not overheat (i.e., need to trip).

Sagrilarus wrote: Old breakers that aren’t exercised can fail to throw when they need to. You should turn your breakers off and on when there’s a power failure to prevent this. Once a year, don’t forget the main.

So is this something that should be done when the power goes out or is it just convenient to do it when the power is out because everything in the house is off already?

Sagrilarus wrote: Figure out if those outlets are on the same circuit as the AC unit. Shouldn’t be, but it happens. If they are, and especially if they are LED bulbs, the circuit may be falling below their minimum voltage to function.

That means your AC is really hauling down on that circuit. The unit may need a new capacitor (which is cheap). If it does it for a short enough period of time the breaker may not overheat (i.e., need to trip).

I wonder if this is the root cause of our blinking pantry LED and fan issues. We had the home inspector use an IR camera on the power boxes when we bought the house and it showed no hot spots, but that was in the winter. Maybe now there is some combo of AC/fridge/etc that is temporarily overloading those circuits.

jason10mm wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: Old breakers that aren’t exercised can fail to throw when they need to. You should turn your breakers off and on when there’s a power failure to prevent this. Once a year, don’t forget the main.

So is this something that should be done when the power goes out or is it just convenient to do it when the power is out because everything in the house is off already?

It's just convenient. It doesn't reset any clocks that aren't reset already. It's also an easy way to remember to do it, assuming you occasionally lose power.

You should figure out if something else is on your AC's circuit. Just shut down a circuit at a time and see what turns off. Sometimes when someone does an addition or adds an outlet they just grab whatever wire happens to be nearby and tap into it. It's likely not a crisis, but if the AC is having trouble kicking on it will hit that circuit hard and drop its voltage. That could blow out computer gear or TVs. It's not hard on your light bulbs but they're the ones that let you know there's a problem.

But a hard AC start is bad for your AC unit, and they're expensive. It may just be a dead capacitor in your AC which is a cheap, easy replacement.

If you're handy at all you can do it yourself, just watch a youtube video for it and replace the one you currently have in the unit with a duplicate. It will hook up the exact same way, making the job easy. Now fair warning, a lit capacitor can bite you. Shut off the power to the unit and then short out the three prongs on the top of the capacitor with a screwdriver or pliers. It's easy easy easy to do, just make sure you do it. If you look at a youtube video you can see them do it. Mine cost $16.64 and made a big difference in how the unit started up.

If you're not handy, find that guy in your neighborhood and throw him $50.

Well, I'm replacing both of my units tomorrow so it is a moot issue for me.

An electrician came by today. One fan (spins, but lights blink) had a bad remote controller and we had no remote. So he removed that part and now it works. Another fan (lights, but no spin) was considered dead and was replaced. The blinking pantry light had the entire fixture replaced with a dedicated LED one, so we'll see.

I'll do the breaker thing next outage. Power here is pretty reliable long term so it may just have to be a voluntary outage next time we get a flicker that goofs the clocks.

God damn spammers are annoying these days.

Gary Sax wrote: God damn spammers are annoying these days.

So you're saying that guy is NOT enjoying his new toilet seat? Well my day is now ruined, and I am terminally depressed.

They do the clumsy sleeper agent thing too which is just fucking annoying.

ubarose wrote:
I had to replace the tools I lost I lost in the fire, including a pneumatic upholstery stapler, webbing stretcher, upholstery regulator and some work gloves. Stapler was rationalized as "useful tool with many uses." Although I am pretty much kidding myself with that rationalization since it is a 22 gauge stapler, so it isn't like I can use it on anything other than upholstery.

I bet that stapler would be good for home defense. If you have a band, your next album could be called "tools we lost in the fire."

I rented a concrete cutter from Home Depot last week to take out a 12' x 3' poured cement slab that is 3.5" deep. The HD cutter had bad gas and smoked like crazy. The replacement unit wouldn't start, but it may have flooded when we carried it out of the van. I went to a local business this week and they rented me something that worked and sold me a new diamond blade and it has made a real difference. I just ran out of gas, however, so time for a greek yogurt dessert bar. When you are renting a tool for $150, you realize that you really shouldn't be online, posting things.

Update: it turns out that running a concrete cutter in an uncooled room for five hours and not drinking a lot of water leads to heat exhaustion. I was barely able to walk around afters, shuffling like my elderly neighbor in his 90s.

Ten years ago, I wanted to paint the exterior of my house. I didn't want to change the color, but I could tell that the previous paint job was fading and maybe ready to start peeling. It's a 1.5 story house, and my girlfriend didn't like the idea of me going up high on a ladder to paint the second story. So we compromised and I painted just one-story north and south sides of the house and paid professionals to do the two-story east and west sides of the house.

Last year, I painted the garage, which likely hadn't been painted since 2011. Like the house, two sides of the garage are the equivalent of two stories high. But my girlfriend was gone by then, so I took my chances with the ladder and did the whole job myself.

This year, I know that I need to paint the exterior of the house again. I am definitely still capable of painting the north and south sides myself, but the east and west sides somehow seem taller than ever. I should hire professionals to do those two sides again, but I don't want my flowers getting trampled right now. Maybe I will postpone until September, or even next spring.

Shellhead wrote: Like the house, two sides of the garage are the equivalent of two stories high. But my girlfriend was gone by then, so I took my chances with the ladder and did the whole job myself.

I don't *like* reading about the losses that members of this site experience, but I appreciate the sharing of those life events, and seeing your many lives unfold over many years in these forums. It's unlike any other place I visit on the internet.

After years of putting it off, I bought an impact driver and more significantly a chain saw, also electric/battery powered.

Both were driven partially by home needs but also due to my growing involvement with local hiking trail maintenance - I just accepted a volunteer position as manager for my towns trail networks. I also do work on trails in nearby towns. Trimming back brush, clearing blowdowns etc. I had relied on a handsaw and loppers for years but after a large tree came down on my property I bit the bullet and am glad I finally did.

The Milwaukee battery powered impact driver was the first buy and came away very impressed with its performance after an afternoon of mounting new trail signs into trees in the main trail system I oversee. My old Makita, probably 20 years old at this point, held a charge for about 2 minutes, if that. I am not kidding. And a new battery for that....might as well buy a whole new tool.



One issue was still not resolved however and it was downed trees blocking some trails on the system ; too big for a handsaw. The other guy who helps maintain them is always busy and I had contemplated getting a chainsaw. When I saw recently a large downed tree across the trail I had built on my own property I finally broke down and got an EGO 18" battery chain saw.



In short it goes through downed trees like BUTTER. What is equally impressive is how quiet it is. They of course warn that you need ear protection but honestly you could hold a conversation while cutting with this without yelling, whereas a gas chainsaw you can hear the next county over. And the battery is of course compatible with other EGo tools; I may get a modular stick thingy for a pole saw and hedge/brush cutter. About the only downside is the weight. Its a little over 14 lbs, about 4 lbs heavier than a comparible gas saw. I'll probably carry it in a pack for when I hike longer distances for trail work. Being battery powered, there is no yanking on a cord, leaking gasoline in the backpack or the back of your car. Unless you are cutting a LOT of wood battery is the way to go.

Fer reals. We've fallen hard for Lowe's Kobalt line. We put a staircase into a hillside down to the river last summer and we also have large trees all over the property, so a pole saw was just this side of a necessity. That thing has been great and, like you said, it incredibly quiet. Almost equally so is the lawnmower that I'm using on our almost-an-acre lawn (because, at my age, that's really something I NEED to be doing every fucking weekend...) But we also picked up a hedge trimmer and a snowblower, which actually worked fine in Michigan winters, on their system, as well. No gas needed for any of it. Just swap out batteries for longer jobs and it's fine.

I've had battery-powered set of Craftsman tools for almost 20 years, but we've been updating those, as well. The old ones still work, but they're also quite large and heavy, which makes it more difficult for my rather small GF to handle them. We have almost a half-dozen batteries sitting on chargers in the basement for all kinds of things. The latest is a multi-tool to cut through drywall so we could get at a leaking pipe which had also created mold all over said drywall which we had to spray and dry for a week or two. Yay.

Yeah I think a pole saw is in my future soon; I routinely have to trim branches hanging over my driveway and a polesaw is a lot easier than getting up on a step ladder with loppers, not to mention having a farther reach.

Doubt a battery operated snowblower will cut it in my situation; a 600 foot long driveway along with a rather large paved area in front of the garage would defeat any battery operated model I've seen so far; plus my gas operated snowblower is well cared for and just got tuned up; my mechanic says it should last a long time given its been well cared for.

A battery operated mower may be in my future once my current gas one kicks the bucket, but I don't think that's gonna happen for awhile.

Besides less noise, the other upside for the battery stuff is practically zero maintenance vs gas models, plus gauranteed push button reliability . The saw just needs a bit of chain oil; the chain comes off and can be replaced w/o tools.

I think EVs/cars are still far off for many people like myself, but battery operated tools/light equipment, bring it on.

Our driveway is also around that length, with a large paved area in front of the garage and I was still able to clear a few inches of snowfall between the two large batteries we have (one came with the snowblower and one with the mower.) I was kinda surprised, too, and it does struggle a bit in thicker stuff, such that you have to go slower than you probably have to with your gas model. But, man, just the ability to not have to screw around with gas and oil and the maintenance of same, like you say. The saw is the same with the Kobalt model. Just a little bit of chain oil and it's good to go. Oh, I forgot about the leaf blower, too. With all of our trees, I have to get up on the roof a few times a year to clear the gutters (we're in the process of screening them) and that thing is super useful in that respect. And, of course, since it's all plastic, is really easy to carry up there, too.