Joys of Home Ownership

Changing Filters

Today was change filters day.

I have been changing all the filters in the house every 2 months ever since we have been here. This not only includes the two HVAC filters (one upstairs, the other down), but also the Keurig coffee maker and the Brita water pitcher.

When we got the A/C fixed last month the tech mentioned that if we set the fan to ON instead of AUTO it would run all the time, but at a slower speed, which would cause the air to be kept in constant circulation which would help filter it better. And as well, possibly increase the motor’s lifespan because starting up from stopped was harder on it than just increasing and decreasing speeds to match demand, so, this is what we started doing. The ON setting will cost a few bucks more in electricity, but the extra filtering might help Donna’s dust allergy. With the added airflow through the HVAC system we figured that those filters probably should get changed every month starting now.

Although the current HVAC filters have been in there for 2 months they have actually only been in use for a month because in July the A/C was broke and didn’t run at all. Can you guess from the picture below which filter is new and which one is used?

That is the dirtiest filter I have ever seen, and both of them were that color. I don’t think the level of dirt captured has anything to do with running 24/7, but more to do with the air quality here in Klamath Falls.

The first days of the month were the only ones in green, AKA Good, and the A/C was still broke then. So for the rest of the month we got 5 days of Poor, 9 Unhealthy, 10 Very Unhealthy and 4 Dangerous. The skies have been smoke filled from wildfires to the east of us and then when they were finally under control, Northern California started burning.

Maybe I’m going to have to change the HVAC filters every two weeks during Oregon’s 5th season, the months of July to September are called Fire Season.

Making It Ours

We have been slowing putting our stamp on our Oregon home. When we bought it, its style was Plain Jane contractor flipped (we think in 2012), because every ceiling light in the house was a bronze “boob light” and the upstairs walls were sprayed a sickly tan.

The first thing we did was, tear up all the tan carpet in the three bedrooms and replace it with “wood” flooring. We also spruced up the kitchen, the walls got a bright yellow coat of paint, changed out the ratty faucet and updated both the over sink and room light fixtures. Then the two upstairs bedrooms and baths got coats of paint, blue for one set and green for the other.

That was last year, this year we have freshened up the 2 upstairs bathrooms with new size appropriate vanities, brushed nickel fixtures, new mirrors and lights (even a new vinyl tile floor in one.) Next up were changing out all those ugly ceiling light fixtures, a total of twelve of them. Up went 9 LED lights and 3 ceiling fans, almost all in the brushed nickel finish. Recently the living/dining room got a nice coat of light green paint. The original tan paint still adorns the walls of only the stairwell going downstairs and the area right at the top of them. These are still that color only because I can’t figure out how to paint the top of the wall from the bottom of the stairs.

The bottom floor walls are all white and adding some color down there is next on the list. The hallway might get some wall color, the bedroom will probably get a feature wall of color, the bath/laundry room is also a candidate for a bit of paint. The den/family room might stay white, but who knows, but I have a lot of leftover paint in most of the upstairs colors…

Oh, I almost forgot, we had the outside of the house painted as well, from dull gray to a bold blue:

Switching Switches

My latest home improvement project is changing out all the old style electrical toggle switches and putting in the more modern flat ones. All told there are 24 switches and switch plates in this plastic bag that is sitting on a shelf in the work shop area of the garage. Eighteen are single pole and 6 are of the 3-way variety.

Two of those 3-way switches, one upstairs by the front door and another downstairs in the garage, are a total mystery because they controlled nothing at all as far as we can tell. I hate to tell you just how many trips to Home Depot it took to complete this project, it seemed like a half dozen, but was probably less. The first time we went we bought a 10 pack of the flat switches, four 3-way switches (2 each for the garage light and the downstairs hallway and several varieties of switch plates. Of course I had miscounted (in my head) how many switches I needed. Not only was I unable to count straight, I was surprised by the mystery 3-way switch in the set of four by the front door.

Even with the help of my lovely bride and a tour of the house, when we got back from a second trip to HD we still missed a couple places that needed switches. Then after installing a remote controlled ceiling fan I needed a blanking plate because I removed the light switch entirely. This necessitated another trip to the big box home store. There may have been another trip in there somewhere too, I’m not sure So when I was surprised by the second mystery 3-way switch in the garage, that did nothing, I just put a single pole switch in its place (taping off the extra wire.)

Just in Time

On the afternoon of the 28th of June in the middle of the afternoon our home A/C just quit. The outside condenser fan was still spinning, but the blower motor was as quiet as a church mouse. I checked for tripped breakers and found none. I flipped the furnace breaker on then off with not luck. On the afternoon of the 3rd of August it was finally repaired.

June 28 June 29 June 30 July 1 July 2 July 3
103° 100° 94° 93° 94° 96°
July 4 July 5 July 6 July 7 July 8 July 9 July 10
91° 94° 96° 96° 91° 98° 99°
July 11 July 12 July 13 July 14 July 15 July 16 July 17
96° 96° 94° 93° 90° 86° 90°
July 18 July 19 July 20 July 21 July 22 July 23 July 24
94° 92° 91° 86° 89° 91° 92°
July 25 July 26 July 27 July 28 July 29 July 30 July 31
95° 94° 70° 88° 95° 86° 87°
August 1 August 2 August 3
91° 93° 92°

I searched the net for some local heating and air conditioning contractors with some decent ratings, there were only a couple that stood out. I called Contractor #1 and was told they were were scheduling 2 weeks out, I said thanks, but no thanks. Second place said they could be here in a week, I took it.

Contractor #2 arrived and troubleshot it down to a bad controller board. Right there on the back of the board was a large blackened spot. They had to order one and said it would take a week for the new one to arrive. Eight days later the same tech arrived with the new board. After he installed it and came upstairs to turn the unit back on the result was the same as when it quit in the first place, no blower running. I followed him back downstairs and before we even got to the furnace we could smell toasted electronics. Yep, the board was burnt in the same spot.

He called his boss and was talked through finding out what was causing the problem. Turns out that the blower motor was shorted to ground and all that current made it’s way right through that spot on the control board. The tech left us with what his boss told him, they weren’t sure whether they could warranty the board, they would have to eat the cost or it would be on us. We were going to need to have a new board and a motor to get back up and running. We should get a call back from the boss on what was what in a few days.

After a week of radio silence I decided to call them up. No one answered the phone and the lead in to leaving a message didn’t sound promising. It went a little like, “Due to a lack of technicians we will only be servicing our existing customers and will no longer be taking new customers. If you are an existing customer leave your name and phone number and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” When we hadn’t heard back by the following day I called again and left name and number. I then took a chance and called the tech direct (I had his number because he called me before showing up the first time.) He didn’t return my call.

The next day, we tried a second tack, Donna emailed their contact number with our displeasure at the lack of communications. Within the hour the tech called us back. His sole statement was that the boss is handling it and we should hear back from him in a day or two. The next day I called the main number again and left one more message, “Sorry about your technician troubles, but thanks for nothing, we are going to go with another contractor. Don’t contact us again.”

So, I called back contractor #1 and got on their 2 week waiting list. Sure enough 2 weeks to the date, a technician arrives outside our door. I gave him the rundown on what had transpired so far and he said, I’ll look into everything to make sure the original diagnosis from Contractor #2 was correct. After about 45 minutes he told us that sure enough that was our problem. He thought that for sure we could warranty out the burnt board and all we would need is a new blower motor.

Four days later he was back with a new board and motor. They did get the board under warranty, so all it would cost us was the service call fee, the motor and labor for the installation.

A little over five weeks later and five hundred dollars poorer, we are once again enjoying a cool house.

Bathroom Refresh

While we are avid consumers of HGTV and its bevy of remodeling shows, neither of us are enamored with an open concept. Nor are we lusting after a lot of the newer “high end” finished drooled over by many. The current House of Bogardi is 57 years old and somewhere in its the past, some updating has been done. The kitchen and bathrooms were done sometime in their lifespan, from the looks, sometime near the turn of the century time frame.

And while we are pretty happy with the way most things look, there are a few small items that we would like to address. The first thing we want to improve on are the bathroom vanities in both the on suite and the other main floor bath. They are dull pale yellow color with dark tops and oil rubbed bronze fixtures and while they looked OK when the walls were beige, they don’t really go that well with the green and blue we have painted the rooms. Plus they are a might too big for the smaller mid century sized rooms.

Another thig we want to do is change out 2 of the 3 toilets. The main flor bath has a newer chair height unit while the on suite and lower floor bath’s have older lower seats. Considering that when we redid the bathroom back in Aiken we put the taller chair toilets in, whenever either of us uses the lower toilets those couple of inches feel like a steep drop.

Today we took step one, drove over to Home Depot bought a vanity, facet set and wall light fixture for the blue main floor bath. The vanity is gray with a white top and because the cabinet handles are brushed nickel we also bought a faucet set and wall light in the same finish.

I was careful to measure the depth and width of the vanity to make sure it would fit in the back hatch of the Mini with the seats down. It looked like as long as there was was not too much packing material around it we would be fine. When we got to the store and dragged the vanity box out from the shelf it was under, it looked awfully big, especially in the height department. So I went up front to the Customer Service Desk to ask if they had a tape measure I could borrow. Went back and measured the box, depth 21″, width 33″ and height 38″. Strolled out to the car and had plenty for the depth, pretty close to enough for the width and height.

I returned the tape measure and we put the three items on a cart and headed for the check out. when I got to the car and stuffed our vanity in the back of the Ladybug it went right in width and depth-wise, but the height was fine at the bottom, but 21″ straight up the box was hitting the slanted hatch. I sort of forgot that the box was three dimensional. The hatch would come down and almost close, but even moving the front seats forward slightly, it wouldn’t close. So I moved the seats all the way back again and bungee corded the hatch almost shut. Because the vanity consumed nearly all the hatch area, Donna had to ride home sharing her half of front seat with the boxes of the faucet and wall light.

Some time a couple three weeks from now I’ll see how hard it is to remove the old vanity and backsplash and put the new one in.

Giant Penguins Rule

I can not explain it, but out of all the Christmas decorations around my neighborhood (big, small, gaudy, tasteful) this, for some unknown reason is my favorite.

When I voiced this sentiment to my bride a couple weeks ago, she said, “See how much they cost.” I replied, ” I bet those folks have had that for awhile and you probably can’t find it anymore.”

She did a quick search and didn’t find, so I tried “10 foot tall inflatable penguin”, and found it at Home Depot for $79. We both agreed that that was too much.

I told her I’d check for after Christmas deals and see if it is half price. I looked on Sunday morning and sure enough it was marked down to $35, but it was sold out online and no store around had them either.

This not a disappoinment at all, as while I really like it, I don’t want one of my own for a few reasons.
1) Our front yard is just a small sloping patch and this thing would overwhelm it.
2) Can’t go in the driveway because there wouldn’t be any way to anchor it down.
3) If we put it on the front deck you wouldn’t see the bottom half of it because of the railing.
And most importantly
4) The house this one stands in front of is only 4 blocks up the street and it would violate the neighborhood IPDA (Inflatable Penguin Density Allowance.)

New Garage Door

Over on Instagram I posted “after nearly a half century of service it is time to replace the garage door on our house”, but now I’m not so sure. Last year when I blew up the garage door opener and had it replaced, the fellow looked at the old opener and said it appeared to be from 1995, maybe the door was new than too. This would make it only a quarter of a century old.

Either way, it really is time to replace it. It is an old wooden one that has sagged in the middle over the years and now at each end the door does not hit the concrete garage floor, allowing copious amounts of cold air and leaves in. The sagging is so bad that it does all this in spite of the angled shims that cover the 1/3 of each side that had been added somewhere previously in its life.

Today we went down to the local Overhead Door place to pick up some catalogs and look at some sample doors. We have opted for a nice insulated steel door, but the question became, what style and what color.

We both agreed that we would like to keep it as similar as the current style, so that meant the long panel with the long clear windows. But what color, they offer a gray that is close to our present house color, but I was intrigued by maybe trying the brown color which is almost the same shade as the window trim and the gable fascia is painted.

So I came home, snapped a photo of the front of the house and “photoshopped” a new door in both colors. After looking at it, we both think the brown is a more interesting choice. See for your self, below on the left is the original, in the middle the new in brown and on the right the new in gray.