Showing posts with label home improvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home improvement. Show all posts

Sunday, January 21, 2024

“Our heat pump water heater isn’t heating!”

Dear Dad,

Last night, Carol called to me from the bathroom: “Our heat pump water heater isn’t heating!” Yep, we had one of those installed. You know, those things that run like a refrigerator in reverse? I still remember your explaining to me how the freon or whatever gets compressed and heated, then sprays into the part of the system inside the fridge, cooling everything. I also remember your telling me that I didn’t know how lucky I was, and you were right—I didn’t. But what I'm thinking of now is how lucky I was to have you as my father.

Anyway, I ran out to the patio, where the heat-pump water heater is, and opened the door to its closet. It was dark, where usually a LCD display shows what it's set to. H’m. I went to the subpanel in the house. The breaker had been tripped—I wondered why. I switched it to ON and immediately heard arcing. Oh no! I quickly turned it off. Why…?

The cover had one screw mostly off? Oh, the sheetrock guy had to remove the cover in order to put the wallboard on. There was joint compound around the edges, too. Right, the bathroom project still isn’t finished. Yes, we’re using a contractor. Unlike you, I don’t do all this stuff myself any more.

I looked closely at the breaker—was it a little cockeyed? It would be easy to accidentally jostle it while removing or replacing the cover.

I pulled out the (30A 240V) pair of breakers, and the one breaker’s “jaws” looked a little too wide; that was somehow unsurprising; it was the one grabbing the, uh, busbar with the dark deposits (from the arcing, I reckon).

No bueno. It was already late, was I going to have to run out and find…? Wait—didn’t I have a spare 30A 240V pair of breakers? Last summer? (fall?), when I thought our old oven might have been the victim of a flakey circuit breaker, I spent the $20 on a replacement pair, which I never installed. Good thing, too; the old breakers were just fine, as proven by the new oven’s flawless operation from day one.

And an even better thing: I had a brand-new pair of breakers to use on the heat pump! I made my way to the garage, found the breakers where I’d left them, and examined them to make sure I correctly remembered their rating. 30A—yes! The jaws had equal (to my eye) and narrow widths, and each pair of jaws also had a little bit of, ah, conductive toothpaste—at least that’s what it looked like—to promote solid contact with its busbar.

Now all I had to do was get the wires off the old breakers and onto the new ones. Wow, why are these screws so hard to turn? Was it because I was using a common screwdriver when I should have been using a square-drive? Modern technology! Fortunately, I had an S2 bit for the cordless screwdriver, which I bought just a couple weeks ago for another purpose. Out in the garage, I found the package exactly where I’d left it (wow, I should buy a lottery ticket). I pulled one off the card (I’d bought a pair) and grabbed my multi-driver tool with the appropriate hexagonal hole (a freebie from when I worked at hp over 20 years ago).

Screws sure turn more easily when you have the right blade. Got the wires off the old breakers and onto the new ones. I might have liked to clean the black deposits off the busbar, but nah, I didn’t want to try figuring out what to clean it with (something not made of metal) and besides, what harm would that stuff do? The conductive toothpaste would ensure a good bond.

Engaged the outer edge of the breakers, then pressed the inner edge all the way in. Turned the breaker to “ON.” Outside, I was greeted by glowing digits: 121°. I headed back in to button up.

I didn’t fully tighten the cover screws, since the joint compound wasn’t dry everywhere. Then I texted my general contractor, asking him to please tell the sheetrock guy that I had to replace the breaker, and that's why I had to touch that breaker panel. He’d certainly be able to tell that I touched it, and I wanted him to know why.

Dad, I’m so glad you taught me all the stuff you did. I truly am a lucky man. I just wish I could still pick up the phone and tell you about this little adventure. You’d commiserate with me and laugh (“Are you saying your wife called to you from the shower, and she just wanted you to fix the hot water?”). You’d agree it was a lucky thing I had not gotten around to returning the unused circuit breakers last summer or fall. You’d congratulate me on the quick diagnosis. I sure would have enjoyed all that. But mostly I would have just enjoyed telling you about it, knowing you understood my thought process.

Love you and miss you, Dad.

Monday, January 30, 2023

Can't pull Kenmore 790.47892602 builtin oven from its cabinet?

Like the person in this doityourself.com post, I had a problem where the oven stopped heating after being put through a cleaning cycle.

If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, the prevention is: Never let it clean for more than TWO hours. The default 3-hour cleaning cycle always engages the thermal safety device; the oven won't heat at all until you reset it. Which is a real pain.

OK, for the cure. The overall goal is to reset the safety switch, which in our oven, looks like the photo at left; I reset it by pushing on the red button. The body of the switch is about an inch in diameter (your switch might look different). You get at the switch by pulling out the oven (you will need a stepladder or something to hold it up so it doesn't fall on some body part) and removing a big piece of sheet metal.

How do you pull the oven out? The book says (figure 7, page 6) to use a certain tool (which I don't have or can't find) to release the mounting bracket; see the diagram at right. Since I don't have the tool, I inserted a common screwdriver with a 4-inch blade, ⅛” wide. Insert into one hole, keeping the blade horizontal, and pull that side of the oven out ½–1”. Pull the screwdriver out and repeat on the other side. Where exactly is the hole? In the photo below on the left, my index finger shows where to insert the screwdriver; the photo on the right (or maybe below it) shows what that looks like with the oven removed.

The photo at left shows where the mounting bracket (above) engaged with the oven body; that's what keeps the oven from falling out when you open the door (I mean, even before you try to pull it out).

BEFORE YOU PULL THE OVEN OUT MORE THAN AN INCH OR SO, get a step-ladder or some other piece of furniture sturdy and stable enough to support the oven. There is danger of severe personal injury here. The book says the cabinet must be able to support 200 pounds. Avoid a trip to the emergency room and a lot of awkward explanations! I had both a step-ladder and a sturdy wooden patio-chair, to support two corners of the oven.

Once you get the oven pulled out, you remove the sheet-metal panel on the back. There are maybe 6–7 screws that hold it on: one on top, one on the bottom, and two or three on each side. I think I lost one of the screws on an earlier operation. Two of the screws hold on little black, uh, feet, maybe 3mm thick and maybe 1cm in diameter. I don't know how important they are, but they are there.

Once you remove those screws and stow the back cover (hint: with a black magic marker, write on the inside of the cover: "INSIDE"), you'll be able to reach the thermal switch, highlighted in the photo at right in magenta.

Installation is the reverse of removal.

BE SAFE! Remove the supports only after you get the oven pushed in far enough for the mounting brackets to engage the chassis (i.e. far enough that you can't pull the oven out).

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Whirlpool cooktop repair GJC3634RP03

We've had this cooktop since we re-did the kitchen in 2008. A few months back it developed a crack. Recently, the front right burner stopped working.

I ordered a replacement burner, and thought to install it last Saturday. I'd done this before (with a different burner) and was overconfident; I removed the cooktop from its recess in the countertop and, long story short, it experienced sudden deceleration upon impact. Instead of one crack I now had, well…

7:15 AM
Right. I didn't replace the burner last weekend, because I discovered why it was dead: stuff had literally fallen through the crack, which now was a hole, and interacted unfavorably with the burner element. More on this below.

Anyway, the first thing to do is turn off the power:

7:43 AM
After flipping the breaker off, I ensured there was no juice by turning on a burner and verifying that the power indicator didn't illuminate.

Next, I pulled the cooktop from its recess in the countertop. I opened the drawer (knob(s) visible in the picture below) and pushed up on it, then manhandled it out of the hole, placing a piece of scrap wood under it. You can see in the photo that the crack is especially pronounced.

7:47 AM
The glass top is held on with eight (8) "Phillips" head screws, three on the long sides and two on the short sides. The picture below shows two of the screws (well, one hole and one screw) on the rear edge of the cooktop:
7:52 AM
Fortunately, the glass isn't all that heavy. I lifted it off and set it aside. Here's what the range looks like without the top. Note the small dish in the foreground, where I stashed the screws.
7:53 AM
Here are the two damaged burners. "Wait," you may be thinking, "you only mentioned one bad burner!"

You're right; we hadn't noticed the rear burner was bad. Well, it wasn't all bad; you see, the rear burner is a sort of dual burner; you can heat up only the center part, or you can turn on the whole thing. It was the outer, torus-shaped part that was damaged. Details of the damage are shown later on.

7:55 AM
Then I removed the front burner. Notice that no fewer than four wires are connected to this thing! That's because it has a temperature sensor in addition to the heater. When the surface is hot, an indicator lights up to warn you.

Anyway, I took a photo so I could be sure to put the wires on the right place when installing the new burner:

7:55 AM
Once the wires are disconnected, the burner basically lifts out; it's held in place by these, umm, brackets?

Anyway, here's the old one.

7:57 AM
And here's the new one, which doesn't come with its own brackets; I moved the old brackets onto the new one.

Since I moved them one at a time, a photo wasn't strictly necessary (as I thought it was for the wires), but still:

7:58 AM
The next two photos give some detail of the damage to the burners. The damage to the front burner is extensive.
8:00 AM
Damage to the outer part of the rear burner isn't quite so bad, but methinks it's enough to make the outer burner not work:
8:00 AM
The wiring for the rear burner is a little more complicated than for the front burner:
8:01 AM
Undersides of both rear burners. Same deal: the "brackets" need to be moved from the old burner to the new.
8:04 AM
Here's a pic of the two new burners, installed.
8:10 AM
The new glass top is black, for two reasons: first, I could find one in stock at appliance parts pros (I think repairclinic.com also had one), whereas a white one would be back-ordered.

Second, as you might guess, the white glass top is very hard to keep clean-looking. Some stuff just doesn't come off. This one might not be any easier to keep clean, but it won't look as bad when it's not.

Here it is, before I screwed it on. Dad always told me to start all screws before fastening any, but I made an exception for the toughest-to-reach screw on the rear edge. From this picture, you can imagine how annoying it is; I only wanted to put the screwdriver in that position once. (I suppose I could have started the other 7 screws, and done that screw last, but I didn't think of that 'til now.)

8:12 AM
The new glass didn't come with the rubber grommets/washers/bushings/whatever for the control shafts. I transfered them from the old glass:
8:13 AM
It also didn't come with knobs. I could have bought new black knobs, but maybe the white-on-black look won't be so bad.
8:20 AM
Here it is, with knobs on and eased back into its recess in the counter. It doesn't look half bad, if I do say so myself:
8:22 AM
And now, turn the power back on:
8:23 AM

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Dishes weren't getting clean in Kenmore Elite dishwasher 665.13422K701

So I noticed that the flatware wasn't getting clean in the dishwasher, and the cups weren't looking so nice either. Things were wet, mostly, but…

I looked at the dishwasher manual for troubleshooting help; no joy. So I did some web searching, and followed their advice (mainly, check for food junk which might impede water flow). The good news was we didn't have food junk impeding the water flow.

So I did some guerilla diagnostics, by which I determined that water was spraying from where it shouldn't (blech). And that the spinning sprayer arms didn't. After getting the kitchen floor quite wet, I noticed a little lever assembly near the axis of the lower spinning sprayer arm; it's in the photo at left. (There's probably a better word for "lever assembly" but I hope you get the idea.)

I zoomed out a bit to take the image at right, which shows the lever in context.

What I noticed was a lot of water shooting out from the gray plastic thingie directly beneath the lever assembly. A plastic ell enters the "floor" of the dishwasher right near there. The lever ought to keep the ell in the floor. When the lever is out of position, water pressure can force the ell out of its position in the floor, and water sprays from where it shouldn't. This reduces water pressure in the (non)-spinning (non)-sprayer arm, resulting in a poor wash.


The next three photos at left show the lever returning to its proper position. Notice the catch, or bracket, that keeps the lever from moving up (vertically).

With the lever locked in place, it holds the ell in its proper position, and the water seems to go where it should, spinning the sprayer arm and giving us clean dishes once again.

I was going to ask why they didn't put that in the manual, but I suspect this lever doesn't get moved very often. Actually, I don't even know how ours got thrown out of whack, but it definitely was.

Network issues solved: replaced D-link DIR-810L by ASUS RT-N66U

Streaming video to our computers, or even audio, was problematic at our house. It had been some months (don't remember how many months exactly), but we had these other issues too:
  • ssh to my ISP's shell server, and after a few minutes, response would become glacial. I mean, type "ls" and it's literally minutes. If I did it right after login, it was fine; it was only after a few minutes it would act constipated.
  • downloads of any size took "forever". We tried to download a map upgrade so the lovely Carol could update her GPS; eventually I wrote a script to kill the download and restart it (fortunately it could pick up from where it left off). It wasn't as straightforward as "wget -c", because we started the download by clicking on some icon, then hitting some button and… (I hate computers.)

    Fortunately, by saying "ps wwx" or something like this I was able to get the program's parameters. The script I wrote involved monitoring the most recently updated file in the most recently updated directory (many files were getting downloaded, with a new directory getting created every so often), then killing and restarting the download process when it looked like things had paused for more than a minute or two.

We have DSL and are supposed to be able to get something like 5-6 Mbits per second. And we often have; we watch streamed video on netflix without problems. So that puzzled me.

On another occasion, Sheri wanted to download a 200-Mbyte package; it never finished. I thought it was the wireless, so I ran a long cable to her computer—not much better. I got the URL and just said "wget" on my own computer, something like this:

collin@p3:/mnt/home/collin> wget -O frsxprodmg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/blahblah/FRSXpro3.5.6installer.dmg
--2014-08-26 21:58:03--  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/blahblah/FRSXpro3.5.6installer.dmg
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 23.21.100.40, 107.22.226.183, 184.73.171.70, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.21.100.40|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 218103808 (208M) [application/x-apple-diskimage]
Saving to: `frsxprodmg'

21% [=======>                               ] 47,504,787   624K/s  eta 4m 36s  ^C^Cc^C^C^C^Z
It sat there, paused, for quite a while. Then, as you can see, I got frustrated and hit some keys to stop it. I then restarted.
collin@p3:/mnt/home/collin> 
collin@p3:/mnt/home/collin> wget -c -O frsxprodmg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/blahblah/FRSXpro3.5.6installer.dmg
--2014-08-26 22:00:18--  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/blahblah/FRSXpro3.5.6installer.dmg
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 54.225.142.207, 54.221.243.250, 54.225.177.135, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|54.225.142.207|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 206 PARTIAL CONTENT
Length: 218103808 (208M), 170541677 (163M) remaining [application/x-apple-diskimage]
Saving to: `frsxprodmg'

41% [++++++++=======>                       ] 90,094,310   393K/s  eta 4m 37s  ^C
It hung after another, what, 43 million bytes? I restarted it a few more times, getting varying amounts of data in before the download hung. I was very thankful for "wget -c" but even with that, the experience wasn't pleasant. 18MB, 65MB, 2MB, then about 43MB to finish.

Now I will pause here to remember that we live in an astounding age, where in less than half an hour, we can download something like 200 Mbytes of software and be quite confident that the data were not corrupted during transmission. That said, with all this technology it's supposed to be easier.

It was about at this time that I remembered the issues I'd been having with my ssh (login) sessions to my ISP. Could all this be caused by the router? I asked my ISP's support folks.

They confirmed that yes, this behavior could be caused by a flaky router. In my case it was a D-link DIR-810L, which we've had since October.

They suggested I try without the router. Ooooh, OK, so I logged in as root and unmounted all the NFS. Turned off as many services (xinetd, sshd, etc.) as I could figure out easily, changed the network configuration for DHCP, and connected it directly to the DSL modem (disconnecting the rest of the home network).

But I couldn't connect to anything--had to route add default gw with an "educated" (yeah right) guess. I hate computers.

Once I figured that out, I ran wget and… you guessed it—the entire 207MB+ came down in one shot, about five minutes So it was the old router!

After asking some folks at work, I went shopping. The recommended Buffalo item wasn't available locally, but I was looking for the ASUS RT-N66U dual-band wireless-N900 router. Best Buy (near Home Depot!) had an RT-N66R, but I didn't know what the difference was between 'R' and 'U' so was skittish.

I ended up ordering it from amazon and using "amazon locker" for delivery. This worked quite well. The idea is, rather than having to run over to the UPS office ("What are your hours again?"), I can have it delivered to a nearby 7-11 (open 24 hours a day). Amazon.com emails me a secret code, which I key into the locker thingie, and one of the dozens of doors pops open; inside is my item.

So I got it home and hooked it up. Configuration was a breeze, even though I have a somewhat unusual configuration (default gateway is 192.168.1.254, not .1.1). The router automagically downloaded a firmware upgrade (this operation went quite quickly, which made me feel confident in my purchase). I then tried the 207MB download, and it came in under five minutes. Whee!

Icing on the cake: logins to the server don't go all molasses-in-January-in-Minnesota on me after a few minutes.

One more thing: I naïvely set the SSIDs to the same thing on both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz wireless networks. This seemed to confuse the macbook air's wireless. (Was it cycling between the two networks, which btw also shared the same password?) After I separated the SSIDs, the problem went away.

Saturday, January 04, 2014

Atmos Energy? Really? Oh, it's proflowers

The really interesting-looking email appeared in my inbox today. It urges me to click on (some ".nl" link) to find out why natural gas is the best choice for clean and responsible energy use, and urges me to click on (another ".nl" link) to see my latest bill.

At first, I wondered if this might be the natural gas equivalent of telephone slamming, but why would my gas supplier be in Europe? Then I looked at the "To:" address on the email and my doubts were erased.

That's right, I used a uniquified email address when ordering flowers from ProFlowers. The scammers claiming to represent "Atmos Energy" (which may as far as I know could be legit) got my email address from proflowers, who are now on my hate list.

A word to the wise...

Sunday, June 09, 2013

The Aussie Cure For Tired Old… Bathtubs!

Short version: Accident leads to astonishing discovery: Aussie shampoo cleaned up stains on our old bathtub that scrubbing never did. Details follow.
Our bathtub is old—maybe older than I am. On its floor was (I thought) a permanent layer of dirt, maybe some sort of stain. I tried the usual chemical helps (Bon Ami, X-14®, Formula 409®) including a lot of elbow grease, all to no avail. So I gave up years ago on ever seeing the original finish. But one day, we had a happy accident: somebody stood up a bottle of Aussie shampoo, upside-down, without first securing the lid. It was a big spill.

The bottle was mostly empty, but where the pool of shampoo had been, the stains were gone, like the old gospel song: My stains were washed away / And my night was turned to day (or maybe that was "My sins were…").

In any case, I used a lot more shampoo on the bathtub floor, toward the top and right of the photo you see at right. I tried a couple of other brands, which I won't mention here. The Aussie outperformed them.

Yesterday morning I decided to take care of the remaining 40% or so of the tub. The surface was mostly dry (this is important). I squirted liberally from the giant bottle. The stuff sorta piles up, as you can see in the photo below/left.

I kept squirting, and eventually ended up with a layer over the entire stained region. This requires a dry tub surface, lest the shampoo slide off the stain and toward the drain end of the tub. When I said "liberally" I mean I might have used half the bottle. I uploaded a high-resolution photo of the result (click on the photo below/right).

The shampoo sat for maybe eight hours; after that, it was, well, shiny. I shot a photo where you can see the reflection of the camera:

How did it work? Well, I stepped into the shower (ugh! my feet were dirty!) and rinsed the shampoo away. It took a lot of rinsing, but no scrubbing. Here's what it looked like at the end:
The 50-year-old stains are gone, and the tub looks better than it has in years. I should have cleaned up the footprints before taking the picture. Next time.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Posting a Keep Out! sign in the attic

The photo at left was taken from my attic. That's the inside of a 9"-diameter vent; I can't tell what sort of wasp or hornet or bee that slightly-used house belongs to.

Here's another picture (click for larger image); it's not very well focused but you can see a little more. I don't know much about wasps or hornets or other flying things with stings, but I do know this: I don't want them in my attic. I especially don't want them colonizing other nice spots in the attic.

In that second photo you can see that the opening in the top of the vent is rather large. I'll say it's big enough for a small rat to climb through. Now the inside surface of the vent is rather slippery, and I wouldn't fancy trying to climb it myself, if I were a rat's size. But that wouldn't stop a mouse or rat from falling in and looking around. And finding some other places to build a nest.

I had some ½" wire mesh—that would keep mice and rats out. I also had some fine plastic screen; that would keep the insects out. I tracked those supplies down, and also some tin-snips for the wire mesh, an X-acto™ knife for the plastic screen, and a staple gun (with enough ½" staples).

Back in the attic, I held the wire mesh up to the hole to determine the shape and size to cut. The tin-snips worked reasonably well. Then, because I have lots and lots of plastic screen, I folded it over the wire mesh and cut it to size with the knife.

Now I had an assembly of two thicknesses of fine plastic screen around one of ½" wire mesh; it was also less hazardous to carry the assembly, because the sharp ends of the wire were covered. Fortunately there was enough room to squeeze into the spot below the vent. Then I started stapling.

You can see the result at right. If you look carefully you may notice that the hornet's nest is gone. When I drove the first staple in, the nest dropped down onto the screens.

I waited. No buzzing sounds. Or wings. Or stingers.

I reached around an unattached edge and gingerly picked up the abandoned (I hoped) nest. What to do with it? I fed it through one of the gaps in the vent. It fell through the opening and dropped onto the roof.

With that disposed of, I applied a half-dozen more staples.

Posted: Keep out! No trespassing!

Things not to do when installing a water heater: a list

  1. Buy a water heater installation kit, you know, the package with two water hoses (one cold, one hot) and a gas supply hose, and pipe-thread tape (which I heard is not actually “Teflon® tape”)
    • The gas supply hose might have the wrong gender(s).
    • The water hoses might be too short or too long.
    But it's OK to buy the kit if you have determined that all will fit.
  2. Waste “teflon tape” on threads that don't need it
    • the water hoses don't need it because the connection is secured by pressure, not by the threads.
    • most of the gas hoses don't need it either
  3. Put white “teflon tape” on gas-pipe threads that do need it
    • You can find dire warnings on the ’net about doing this. Use pipe dope instead.
  4. Use a drain pan that isn't big enough to catch any possible dripping when your new water heater starts leaking someday.
    • Because it will.
How do I know not to do these things? Three guesses…

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Elevating the head of the bed

This is kinda elementary, but I did it wrong last time; this way is better.

First, I'll show you a picture of the setup: each end has a 2x4 lying edgewise. A 2x6 lies between them, kinda like a bridge. I mis-measured the bed, so the 2x6 is too short; it doesn't reach all the way across. So I put a 2x4 on top of that.

As you can see, this creates a stand, or a prop, about 7½" high, which ought to be high enough. (If you make it too tall, you and everything else on the bed will tend to slide downhill—including the mattress.) How do you keep the 2x4s on the end from just collapsing onto their sides?

I did it wrong the first time; I drove screws through the 2x6 into the 2x4s, but the screws weren't long enough.

You can see the new and improved version at right; that bracket will hold the 2x4 on more securely. I also "toenailed" it in a couple of directions, and added a longer screw, too, through the top of the 2x6 into the edge or each 2x4.

And though the 2x4, lying down atop the 2x6, isn't subject to the same kind of sidewise pressures, I went drove two 2.75" screws through that long 2x4 into the 2x6, so it's a lot more stable than the old version.

The white things on the "foot" are felt pads; I thought they would be kinder to the floor than a 2x4 directly on it.

How about getting the thing under the bed? I used a hydraulic jack, as you can see below. With the bed being right next to the wall, there's not much room for a helper.

That's about it; I slid the stand under the bed, lowered the bed onto it, and pulled the jack out. Then I pushed the bed horizontally toward the headboard; mission accomplished.

If you're wondering why we want to do this... well, let's just say there are lots of reasons why one might want to have the head end of the bed elevated.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Kenmore dishwasher still won't drain: 665.13422k701

Three weeks back, our dishwasher wasn't draining. It looked about like the picture you see at right. I was glad at that time that we had the extended warranty, because it looked like a pain to deal with whatever that valve was that I thought might be the problem.

The repairman came around 6/14 or 6/15 and said we needed a new pump. Really? I thought the pump was quite healthy when I'd looked at it on the fifth, and it seemed to me that the problem was probably downstream from there. But the repair guy had complete diagnostic tools, etc., and he ordered the replacement parts (which apparently cost over $400). The next repair visit was Saturday 6/25, and the sad news is that the picture at right was taken Sunday 6/26. That's right, after the dishwasher had been "fixed" by a professional repair guy.

As you may imagine, we were quite unhappy with the situation, not least because we had a big party here Sunday afternoon. I was incensed and got into online chat with the sears repair crew, who went through their script and eventually offered me an appointment on July 7th. At this point I told him that it's not reasonable to ask us to wait another 11 days to have the problem looked at; I didn't have much confidence that they'd be able to fix it, actually.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and just order the replacement part(s) and fix it myself, since it would be another 11 days before they'd even consider sending someone out, who might not know any more than the first two guys.

Monday morning

Early the next morning, I went to the Sears website to look at the diagram, so I could locate the right part. If the pump was OK, the problem could be in the drain hose (the check valve seemed to be embedded in it), or maybe the air gap, or the hose that led from the air-gap to the garbage disposal. Where was that blockage?

If I disconnected the drain hose from the air gap, I'd find out. So I cleared out the under-sink area and loosened the hose clamp. I eased the drain hose off the air gap and ker-pow! water flew everywhere. Fortunately I had an old towel already spread out, and a big dishpan. I swung the hose over to the dishpan, but by then the pressure had already been relieved.

You guessed it; the air-gap was clogged. Just to be sure, I hit the cancel/drain button on the dishwasher; sure enough, my dishpan filled with milky water.

thereifixedit.com

So, I found an old piece of hose, black-taped it to the dishwasher drain hose, and used some wire-ties to clamp it to the faucet. I also checked the other hose (which runs from the air-gap into the garbage disposal) to make sure it wasn't clogged. (It wasn't.) You can see the result at left.

So with that temporary repair in place, I called over to Plumbing N' Things in Redwood City. Did they have air-gaps in stock? Yes they did. I ran over there, and a very pleasant young lady took care of me. Air-gap, chrome? Polished nickel? Had we ordered things there before? She looked us up. "Oh! I sold you your kitchen!" I told her the old air-gap had clogged up, so she sold me a different brand name this time. $18.10 including tax. Dishwasher's running at the moment; I'll install it maybe tomorrow evening.

The moral of the story

For me, anyway, the lesson learned was: next time I call a warranty repair guy, to take enough time off from work to supervise him. (These guys do not necessarily all know what they're doing.) And if he comes up with a diagnosis I don't understand, to discuss it with him. "Couldn't the problem be after the drain hose?" or whatever.

If the guy knows what he's doing, I might learn something. And if he doesn't, he might learn something.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Kenmore dishwasher won't drain: 665.13422k701

After googling, and particularly after reading this post I decided to take a look at the pump. Here's what I did:
  1. Turned off power at the breaker.
  2. Removed the bottom access panel (two screws).
  3. Undid the drain hose.
  4. Dried the floor (you can stop laughing now).
  5. Turned power on at the breaker.
  6. Pressed the "cancel/drain" button and observed vigorous action from the pump.
  7. Pressed the button again to make it stop.
  8. Turned power off again at the breaker.
  9. Re-attached drain hose.
  10. Noticed troubleshooting documentation in plastic sleeve, attached to interior surface of the access panel mentioned in step [2]; it makes me think the check valve is bad.
  11. Replaced access panel.
  12. Turned power back on at the breaker.
  13. Verified that it still doesn't drain.
Replacing the check valve in the drain-hose loop will probably require pulling the dishwasher out.

The good news is that this machine is still under (extended) warranty. The guy will come next Tuesday. Fortunately, we still know how to wash dishes by hand.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Vent stuck open on GE JVM3670SF08 over-counter microwave oven

We have one of these -- installed in 2008. It's a pretty nice appliance, easy to use. It has a vent fan that blows steam (etc) from the stove to an exhaust vent outside the house, and when the fan (or the microwave oven) is running, a vent above the microwave door angles open to draw steam/fumes/etc that drift up past the front of the microwave. The other day I noticed that the upper vent was stuck open, as seen in the photo on the right. I climbed up and saw the problem -- a broken plastic part (photo below). See the piece my finger's on, with the screw in it? It's supposed to be rotated back 90° or so away from you -- that is, what's nearly horizontal should instead be vertical. It's like the spring just pulled too hard and tore that whole part loose. And a look on top of the appliance showed more cracks -- a screw at upper right looks like maybe it was over-tightened, too.

To take it off, I undid 3 downward-pointing screws, then shoved the grille assembly slightly to the left. It then came straight out, except for one piece that simply fell to the floor, and another that had broken off completely and was still wedged. The whole grille sub-assembly had a thin coating of grease.

Well, I thought, guess I'll go looking for the part. I found the model number -- JVM3670WF08 -- on the inside of the microwave oven, and did a web search on that plus the word "parts".

Some websites offered parts for JVM3670WF06 or something like this, apparently a countertop model. But one site, partselect.com, had the right model number, and this picture gave me enough information to order the grille sub-assembly confidently. Just for kicks, I searched on the part number (WB07X10444) once I had that info. Sure enough, some other websites had it at a lower price. But since the partselect.com guys showed me what the part was, I went ahead and ordered from them. I want that website to be around the next time I need a part.

Meanwhile, I used some spray cleaner to get rid of the grease, and krazy glue™ or similar to put 3 or 4 of the cracks back together. That's probably enough to hold 'til the new part arrives.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Lights out!

Early Thursday morning, the lovely Carol and I drove to the Sequoia "Y" -- taking two cars (boo!) because we had different places to go afterwards. When we arrived, she told me that only my right headlight had been on. "Bad bulb," I thought.

Also this past week, the hall light failed to come on in the morning. Then in the evening, it worked fine. Then it turned off all by itself. "Bad switch," I thought.

So those were on my to-do list for today: find or buy a new switch for the hall light, and visit Kragen or Kohlweiss for a new headlight.

I started with the car: opened the door, turned on the headlights, and popped the hood. Whoa: the bulb wasn't out -- well, it was, sort of. What I mean is: the bulb was lit, and burning brightly. It just wasn't where it was supposed to be! It was illuminating the engine compartment, rather than the outdoors. Hurmpf. Positioned the fixture, and gave the retaining ring a firm twist. Voilà -- the second easiest lighting fix I've ever made!

I should have taken the hint and re-thought my assumption about the hall light, but I wasn't thinking too swiftly. After verifying that the light still wouldn't turn on, I unscrewed the wall-plate and the switch. Undoing the "eye" on the red wire (a formerly white wire from 12-2 Romex, embarrassed by a beet-colored magic marker), I decided on a quick check and touched the black wire to the red. No light!

"Wha...?" I thought, and walked out to the garage for my handy-dandy sniffer. This is a really cool gadget that beeps when it's near an energized wire. Yes, the black wire was "hot". When I reconnected the "red" wire and flipped the switch, the red wire also became hot. I removed the glass from the light fixture and checked the wires leading to the light-bulb sockets. No beep. Curiouser and curiouser! Did I goof up the power connection?

I removed the entire fixture from the ceiling, and found that power was indeed reaching it. Re-checking the sockets, I found that they were indeed energized. Odd that two light bulbs would fail at the same time....

Did you guess it? I didn't have the bulbs in all the way! These are not standard screw-in CFLs; they have bayonet-like mounts, which are apparently too high-tech for me -- at least they were the first time! I pushed a little harder and gave each one a twist, and obediently each bulb lit up. Perfect.

I felt a little sheepish, but it was better than having to go to the store.

And the drip in the washing machine!

Last weekend, I heard an odd sound from the clothes washer. It was off, but there was still a sound -- like a very slow clock ticking. Puzzled, I opened the lid and waited. Sure enough, there was a drip. ... and maybe five seconds later, another.

"Bother!" I thought. I tried draining the water (ran the washer for the last minute of the "spin" cycle); it sprayed some while spinning, and after it was done, there was still the drip. I turned off the water-supply valves and left a note for the lovely Carol.

She washed a couple of loads during the week, and I figured I'd have to look up the model number and the part number for replacement valves (iirc the mixing valve is a single unit). But yesterday or the day before, I listened to the washer, which was... silent. Water supply valves? Open.

I guess the piece of sand -- or whatever was lodged in the valve and caused the drip -- got washed away.

Three electromechanical problems that could have been three headaches became were two easy fixes and a non-problem. Praise God for little blessings!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

The guys at Barron Park Supply rock! Also: Rohl U.1213 kitchen faucet demystified

When we re-did the kitchen in 2008, the lovely Carol chose a fancy faucet with three levers (for hot water, cold tap water, and filtered drinking water) and a sprayer. It's a "Rohl" U.1213 -- the spec sheet is at http://www.rohlhome.com/pdf/U1213LS.pdf ; I found it very handy to refer to the diagram.

Naturally, we had some problems. The first thing, which happened some time last year (but probably more than a year past the purchase date) is that the maximum flow rate dropped. You crank the faucet full-on but after a half-second or so it acted like you'd just turned it back down. The lovely Carol went to the retailer (Plumbing'n'Things in Redwood City), and they told me to wash the valves (9.13247 and 9.13249 in the diagram). "How do you get at them?" I asked. Turns out that you just pull out on the lever. It takes a little doing, but the handles come off.

That didn't do it, so they put me in touch with the manufacturer. I called the number (which escapes me now -- your retailer will have it) and the first thing the guy told me to do was... you guessed it: wash the valves. I told him I did that already, and I also mentioned that I was able to get full flow out of the sprayer (9.27434 or 9.27424). My speculation, which I shared with him, was that the valve that sends water to the sprayer (9.13157) -- that valve was going goofy on us. He concurred, and they shipped a new one at no charge.

I had a really hard time getting it properly installed. It seemed as though the pipe was just a little too narrow for the valve. H'm... maybe I should use some sort of lubricant? But I was out of time; I jammed it in as well as I could and reassembled the faucet. Turned the cold water on full -- yay! The only problem was that the sprayer was sort of half-hearted about doing its job. I mean, it did spray, just not with much enthusiasm. And whereas before the flow from the spigot would all but stop when I pushed the sprayer button, now it continued at about half-strength.

Well, I was mystified but I sure wasn't going to disassemble the thing yet again; I wanted to quit while I was ahead (getting full flow out of the spigot was #1; having the sprayer work 100% was a distant second). Anyway as preparation for "someday," I asked my contractor friend about what kind of grease (or ...?) to use inside the pipe and he suggested waterproof plumbing lube, which the guys at Barron Park Supply, 650-948-7160, might know about.

That was back in September. Fast forward to this week, when the lovely Carol informed me that the faucet was flopping around. I could see it, and knew exactly what the problem was: the mounting hardware, in particular the C-ring (or C-plate? it's part of 9.26400) was busted. Same drill -- visit the retailer, they passed on the manufacturer's number, I called them, they agreed to send me a warranty replacement part. (It's been over 18 months but they were very sweet about it.)

The part came yesterday, and since I was going to work on the faucet anyway, I figured why not see about getting the valve in "right" this time. And since I was going to visit Barron Park Supply anyway, why not try to find a replacement for the missing stopper control knob/rod from the bathroom sink? So off I went.

Now their website says they're in the San Antonio Shopping Center near Sears, so I parked in front of Sears. Our mini-poodle mix, "Popcorn," was in the car, so I left it in the shade. I walked around the back of Sears, and... no joy. Fortunately I had their phone number, and my cell phone. It turns out (I should have looked at a map first) they're a lot closer to the "Milk Pail" than they are to Sears. Anyway, I had the stopper control knob from the matching bathroom sink, and showed it to one of the guys (they're all guys) behind the counter. "I need one of these," I said.

"We don't have any," he replied. "You could order one. That looks like a Price-Pfister." That sounded good to me, and he pulled a book down from the shelf. I entertained myself with the news clippings on the wall, then looked around a bit. Eventually there was an empty spot at the counter so I positioned myself there. The first guy was taking a long time, and I wondered what was up, but fortunately I wasn't in a hurry.

But while I was waiting, another guy freed up, so I asked him about "waterproof plumbing lube." He pulled a package off the wall (I *never* would have found it!) and started describing some alternatives. I then told him what I was trying to do. It turns out that the stuff in the package would work, but it was $10; he found a smaller package, maybe a half-dozen capsules (small ones like Benadryl, not bigger ones like CONTAC) of silicone grease. Perfect.

While he was still talking, I saw the first guy reach up and grab a box of parts. He pulled out a knob/rod combination that looked quite a bit like mine. The rod had a bigger diameter, but I was overjoyed. "You are the man!" I told him. He gave me the original part numbers, in case I had to order them later.

Drove home without incident. Sure enough, the new rod doesn't fit into the hole in the faucet. Harrumpf. Looked for my reamer... where did it go? Oh well, one thing at a time. First, I crawled under the sink and installed the new "C" plate. It's shaped like a large letter "C" and went on like a champ. The original one was made of pot metal (I thought it was plastic but the parts were cold to the touch) but it looks like they're making them out of something stronger now.

Now for the sprayer valve. I undid a small hex screw at the rear of the faucet, and rotated the spout while trying to lift it. It took quite a bit of doing, but off it came. Was it ever full of junk! I had a hard time removing the valve (9.13157); eventually I hit on the idea of passing a common screwdriver blade through slits in the spout and prying the valve out gradually. It's not supposed to be this hard!

Following the advice of the Barron Park guys, I took an old toothbrush and some vinegar and tried to clean out the area the valve went into. After rinsing well several times, I declared victory and put a little of the silicone grease on the part of the valve that seemed to be hanging up. All looked good, so I tried inserting the valve.

No joy! How could this be? It just wasn't supposed to be this hard!

Here's the story: there's a part -- two actually -- that aren't on the diagram. Passing through the spout is a hose for the filtered drinking water. It mates with the aerator thingie at the business end of the spout -- 9.25553. The other end of the hose is connected to a piece of plastic that looks like a tripod. In short, this is how the filtered water gets out into the world. It turns out that this tripod-shaped plastic thingie was what was hanging the valve up as I tried to insert it.

The way around it? Pull the unnamed tripod-shaped piece of plastic part-way out of the spout's tubing, so that its legs can expand. Put the "top" end of the valve (9.13157) between the tripod legs so that when the tripod-thingy goes back into a narrower part of the spout, the valve will be embraced rather than rejected. Does that make sense? The tripod's legs have "toes" that point inward. If the tripod is placed first into the narrow part of the spout, the toes will reject anything bigger than a certain size (7mm? diameter?). Naturally, the top-end of the valve is bigger than that minimum size.

Therefore, what we must do is mate 9.13157 together with the tripod-shaped thingie, and then push the whole shebang into the narrow part of the tubing. And it works! Water full-blast when the hose button isn't depressed; respectable pressure from the hose when the button is depressed.

That was it! I love it when things work as they're supposed to.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Weekend recap

One of the kids' read-aloud books was called something like "Daddy's Busy Day" -- I'm sure that's wrong -- but it was partly sponsored(?) by Johnson&Johnson; I believe it had an actual Band-Aid® in it.

Anyway, the idea was that Daddy did about a dozen things with the kids -- trimmed the hedge, painted the garage door, mowed the lawn -- all in one day. Once when reading the book to the kids, I laughed out loud when Daddy was doing the 4th thing or so. The kids didn't know what was up with that, and I said this story was science fiction. After just *reading* about 3 or 4 of those projects I was ready to go lie down.

Well, last Friday, the lovely Carol was discussing her honey-do list with me and noted that I had four projects scheduled for Saturday. "Too many," she said, but I took that as a challenge. Here's how it turned out.

  1. First up: the easy project -- finding the dog-barrier and installing it in the station wagon. The former denizen of the cargo area was an 80-pound Ridgeback mix. Or Great Dane mix. He had destroyed the suction-cup-mounted dog "barrier", and we replaced it with a wrought-iron Canine Prison Special (I made that name up). It's been gathering dust since 2007, but I found it and used the broom and vacuum cleaner on it before re-installing in our Subaru wagon.

    Success!

  2. The garage window came next. The previous weekend, I tried installing the new pane of glass, but found it was ¼" too wide; apparently we had a miscommunication. I tried leaving off the rubber gasket-like thing that protect the edge (a bad idea) but even then the pane just wouldn't fit.

    With the quarter-inch trimmed off, it went in easily this Saturday morning. Not that I didn't make a few mistakes (I ended up restarting about half-way through), but it wasn't much of an ordeal.

  3. Next up was hanging a vertical mirror. This is about 4' high x 1' wide, and has a plastic frame. The frame is big enough to accommodate a screw, so I located a stud and drilled the appropriate places on the mirror, both the top and bottom. As the mirror wasn't centered around the stud (I drilled about 2.6" from the left-hand edge), I put a wall anchor in about 2.6" from the right-hand edge, along the top of the frame.

    Naturally, I forgot to make sure that I was facing the correct direction when drilling the holes, so I ended up with an extra one. Three down!

  4. The front door had some unsightly holes that the lovely Carol has been complaining about sporadically for some time. I had put wood-dough into most of the holes earlier, but had missed one (boo!). Also, I was sufficiently un-subtle with the wood-dough... repair was beyond the reach of mere sandpaper. I found a small container of spackle, which I thought might be easier to work--not! It was rock-hard. It was impervious to water.

    There was another little Tupperware-like container of spackle -- this one became useful with a little water added. Hooray! I filled the hole I'd forgotten (after scraping some rough paint-edges with a handy scraper) and feathered out some of the mess I'd made earlier with the wood-dough.

    • Somewhere in there, I remembered that I'd lent my electric sander to someone... who was it? Eventually I remembered and gave them a phone call... nobody home.
    • We had been talking about putting some of our valuables into a fire-resistant safe. I called a couple of places -- closed Saturdays, or no models on display. Hurmpf -- did a little online shopping and saw this one. If put into a wall, it would stick about 10" through the other side. I found a place it might go, but wasn't sure how deep the thing could protrude without causing problems (there's an air-duct behind this wall). So I climbed into the attic to eyeball the air-duct and guesstimate whether a 10" intrusion would be a problem.

      While exploring up there, I discovered an astonishing amount of rodent calling-card material. Bleah.

    • Sometime in there, our friends called back. Yes, they had the sander, yes, I could come pick it up. Great. I wanted to go to Blockbuster, return one DVD and pick another one up.

      So off I went. Picked up the sander, then off to OSH to pick up d-Con or similar -- and a couple of outdoor floodlights while I was at it -- then off to Blockbuster, and back home. Whew!

    • By now the spackle was dry and I put primer (oil-based -- しかたがない) over the areas I'd worked -- on both sides of the door. I grabbed an electric fan from the kids' room and pointed it at the door. Yippee!

Now it was about 4:30 and time to start on dinner. I popped open a cold one and preheated the oven to 400°F for "Tandoori style roast chicken." The spices sure smelled good. I basted it with olive oil (they said lemon juice but I have my principles) and about half an hour in, lowered the heat to 350°F. Total cook time: about an hour for a 5½# bird.

The other dinner item was kale with cream. Cardiologists need not panic; there's about a tablespoon of cream for about a pound of kale. Oh, there's a tablespoon of butter, too. And boullion. Salt, pepper, a little nutmeg and that's about it. Boil the kale 20-30 minutes (leaves only, no stems -- the lovely Carol had stripped the leaves off the stems for me), then combine with the other ingredients in a large skillet for a minute or two.

She came home as I was finishing up the dinner prep. Everything was pretty good, if I do say so myself. I got a good start on the dishes (the roasting pan would have to wait though).

At this point, some of you may wondering if I was after something. Nope -- I was just into being productive; I was in "the zone," a rare occurrence.
We watched Kate & Leopold, which we both enjoyed. Definitely unrealistic, but that's where the willing suspension of disbelief comes in -- it's a fantasy for sure!

The door got done the next day (yes it was Sunday). I found the appropriate paint for both sides of the door (both latex -- hooray!) and did the deed. The electric fan came out again to accelerate the drying process, and I put the doorknob back on once the paint was dry.

After that, I ran out of gas. I haven't put the rat-poison into the attic, and I haven't replaced the burned-out floodlight for the patio. But that can wait 'til next weekend.

Monday, September 07, 2009

Diagnosing a Whirlpool GJC3634 smoothtop range

We bought a Whirlpool cooktop for last year's kitchen remodel. Our cooktop, the GJC3634RP03, has a white surface, which means a lot of elbow-grease (usually mine) and baking soda whenever we cook, but there are no drip pans. It's not an induction range, so we can use all kinds of cookware. The heat settings need some getting used to. It's not perfect, but overall we're satisfied.

element layout of whirlpool gjc3634rp03 range At least we were, until the central part of the center-rear element went kaput. Here's the deal: the control can be set to heat up just the inner part ("single" I think it says) vs the entire, larger concentric disk ("dual"). With the inner burner dead, setting the burner to "single" gives you nothing, whereas "dual" gives you doughnut-shaped heating. The latter almost works OK for pancakes, but it's harder to get the heat right.

A look at the wiring diagram convinced me that it could not possibly be the normal-vs-simmer control, which would have affected both elements equally. I immediately suspected the burner, just because, but the control is an equal-opportunity point of failure. The range didn't go into the kitchen 'til October, but we took delivery in June or July, so we're out of warranty already.

Nothing for it but to do a little disassembly. I started by turning off the breaker supplying electricity to the range. I verified that it was indeed off by turning one of the burners "on" and noting that the power indicator didn't light up (it does so, instantly, when power is connected).

Sticking my hand under the range, I levered it part-way out of its cutout and took a look. It turns out that the smooth white top is attached to the guts of the stove with ten screws (three along the front, three on the back[unverified], and two on each side). I supported the front edge with a skillet, as shown in the photo at left, and removed the screws (one position is circled in magenta in the detail).



With 7 screws (3 in front and 2 on each side) removed, you can lift the front edge of the stove and take a peek inside. In the photos, I lifted the surface just enough to see what was going on with the heating elements. The element of interest (the center rear) has three electrodes -- no surprise there -- indicated with magenta arrows in the detail.

At first, when I put the ohmmeter on the, uh, un-common electrodes (with gray/white and gray/black wires), it showed a dead short! Turns out it was an effect of the control; in the "off" position, it ties the un-common electrodes together. I verified this by switching the control to "single"/low and they no longer showed as a short. But just in case, I pulled each wire off when checking for continuity with the common electrode. One showed continuity and the other didn't. That's the smoking gun; it's the element rather than the control. Too bad; the element is about $100 whereas the control is about $40. Next step, ordering the element from Appliance Parts Pros (about $8 less than at Sears).