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I didn't get to town until 16:00 or so, picked up my pal, and then went to a couple of places. I grabbed another copper union. I decided to put one on both sides of the valve I will be replacing. I compared prices at a number of places and, oddly, a 40 gallon water heater is cheaper than a 30 gallon water heater. Huh? Either size matters, like with electronics, or commonality. Still, it seems strange. I found three 40 gallon water heaters that will fit the bill. Two of them have a six year warranty, one has a nine year warranty. The two shorter warranty heaters come in at $205, the longer warranty adds a hundred. There is a twelve year warranty water heater too, though it wasn't in the store and I didn't see the price. I am thinking the nine year warranty at $305 is probably the one I will go with. I will look over the two tonight. I didn't see them in my previous online research though, odd. The online Lowe's and Home Depot, iirc, didn't even offer a button to look for a 40 gallon water heater. Oh, the brands are Whirlpool and GE. I sort of think those are the same water heaters, built in the same plant, just tagged and bagged under different names.
Now that I have that, mostly, settled, I need to get my rooms cleaned out, and if it is dry enough crawl under the house to look at the flooring. It seems okay. I can walk on it. I just... have to look. I don't want to get the water heater in only to have to yank it out again and then redo the flooring. In any case, I will want to put a drain in and redo the flooring material before I mess with the water heater. Still, it is good to know what prices I am looking at, that they are available locally, and such. I also took my friend around to get regular small pistol primers. I bought the magnum small pistol off him, for .357 loads. He doesn't load that heavy anymore, for his own shooting. Then we went to Maddox. I chickened out regarding the bison steak. I just... I didn't want to pay that price and maybe end up not liking it. We made a deal, in June or July, when we are back that way, we will order a bison steak and a 16 ounce prime rib... and split them. That way if the bison isn't what one of us likes we won't be completely out. Yeah, yeah... Hush it, you.
I am feeling a hundred times better today. With the sun out most of the day to help, the trip, shopping, and all was easy. I kept feeling, though, that feeling so good I should have been home working. But the steak had to be had. It's been on my mind since Monday, when they were closed and I missed. I get a hankering for something I just can't let it go all that easily. I am hoping to get to things tomorrow. I have, as I said, cleared a bit of my bedroom. And, tomorrow, I hope to clear more, or even the rest, of it. That will include the bed, a dresser, taking care of some clean socks and shorts, a standing lamp, and all the other stuff bedrooms have. The floor isn't dry yet, the area that became wet. I worry about mold but am not sure exactly what to do for the moment. Hopefully the carpet cleaning device will take care of anything. Yeah, I'm a guy. I simply have no clue on these things. I might not have sweated pipe, but at least I had half the tools needed, and knew what else to get. Cleaning though? Clueless. Absolutely clueless.
Ah, here is another goth type song I found, and enjoyed a bit. I probably wouldn't like it without the video. The package deal made it interesting. I don't get it fully, woman singer and thinking just... escape me. Something to do with women's drama, melodrama? Still, it's... cute... to me.
Oh, the thing with Blogspot? The whole create and edit screens have completely changed. I seem to have no problems with it, but... it was a bit of a shock to have it completely change without me agreeing to it. With a zero president, I suppose even companies are just... doing whatever the hell they want to do, too. Shooting for the weakest link proves to be a bad thing, again? Whatever, for now. Not good, I can't get paragraphs to separate! Argh! They pulled a beta in and forced it on me. I figured out the paragraph breaks. They used "br /" twice, I figured it should be "br" followed by "/br", surrounded by < and >, of course but that doesn't print in the blog right, and my opinion was the correct one. Bah! So now I have to correct these on every post I create. Idiots. Obominites, alright. It's still not right, my double "periods" up top are not feeding right, I'll... tinker with it, over time. On the good side, I just made up the fix, without researching, and it worked, mostly.
Sweet dreams? Oh yeah! Good night.
They are trying to force us into the "compose" mode versus the "edit HTML" mode. In "compose" mode the line breaks are automatically inserted by a couple of "return/enter" hits.
ReplyDeleteI figure better to default to "compose" mode than to have to go back and manually insert HTML line breaks.
Still, I hate it because I used to be able to do the entire post in HTML mode. Now I have to switch back and forth between the two to get it done.
Just a thought on unions--they *are* a potential source of leaks if the coupling is not wrenched down tight enough. And once the valve is replaced, the likelihood of it needing replacing again for twenty years is pretty low. Your call.
ReplyDeleteRegarding sweating the joints, it is made easier if you use a tinning flux (contains little specs of solder), because in addition to removing surface oxidation it leaves a thin coating of solder to more easily adhere to the solder to be applied. Water-based is easier to clean up.
When soldering, heat the whole joint evenly until solder begins to melt just on contact with the joint, not because the flame is on it. Move the flame to the other side of the joint--molten solder will chase the heat, and that pulls it into the joint effectively. If you get a drip coming out the joint away from where you're applying solder, that almost certainly means the joint is full and you can remove heat and solder.
I tend to err on the side of too much solder rather than too little. Having a leak because I didn't apply enough is a real pain in the posterior. Solder is expensive though, and the real pros know exactly how much to apply without waste.
For cutting the pipes you want to get a pipe cutter that consists of a sharp wheel and some sort of clamping mechanism (there are different styles that accomplish the same thing). Hacksaws are a pain because you have to deburr the cut edge with a file before assembly.
I always use coarse steel wool to polish up the joining surfaces prior to assembly. The less chance of fine surface oxidation, the better the joint.
I also have a bucket and rag on hand to 1) put out minor fires and 2) clean the excess flux off the pipe and fitting while it is still hot and very easy to clean. (Beware of steam burns!) Excess flux left on the pipe can cause surface corrosion in the future, which is, at least, ugly.
It isn't just what they have done with forcing us into compose mode. My whole editing page has completely changed. My 'compose' area (both in compose and html edit forms) used to be a third of my screen and there were only three click-to-format type buttons, plus add- video, pictures. The whole thing is changed, now the write/edit area is nearly the full screen, more click-to-edit buttons have been added, everything is in a different place, and I haven't been able to even find the old dashboard layout as it was. Everything is totally different (if, for the most part, so far, the buttons work as they used to or now-advertised). And editing is a nightmare! Though, jumping from one form of edit to the other... works with some of the kinks.
ReplyDeleteAh, thanks for the notions on soldering. As for the unions, I am torn. I would actually, even, eventually, like to add unions around the two, in-home, shut-off valves. Then again, maybe that would just be work for works sake, now that I know what is what, and where, and how to shut off the water at the meter. That makes changing out a valve much easier. Still, I am hearing that valves, at least more modern ones, have an extremely high rate of failure, even if they mostly go unused (or especially if so?).
From what I have read, I think you have offered the most detail available. Some guys who offer soldering tips seem to either not really know the details (just regurgitating what they read/ heard elsewhere) or are just bragging that they can do it without remembering all the fine detail that really is involved. "Hey, look at me! I can do it, you can't from what I'm showing".
Still, I've always wanted to do more of it. The last time I got a shot at it I was 16. I don't remember anything failing, but I had someone who did it regularly right there showing me and supervising, too.
I have no idea what they were thinking. They have greatly complicated the interface and added little to nothing of value. What used to be a couple of quick clicks to compose or edit a post requires drilling down through a couple screens to get at them.
ReplyDeleteI have to dick around with pictures now to get them the way I want them. The old interface was simple and easy. It remembered my preferences and kept them that way. Now it wants to center everything and use a smaller default size.
But it is still free. So there is that.
I think they were asked to hinder blogging. Most blogging formats have either had problems or simply been dumped because of the complications. Google is probably making too much money to make the process completely impossible. Greed before political alliances it seems, even for cronies. It's good to see socialism doesn't completely triumph yet.
ReplyDelete