Yesterday I was arguing with a gas fitting that hadn't been loosened in 30 years. Put a couple of drops of Liquid Wrench on it (didn't help TBH), and when I finally got the thing undone, moved onto removing and cleaning the gas orifice from the furnace I've been battling. Mindlessly put it to my mouth to blow it out and a day later I'm still tasting the microdose of Liquid Wrench that I ingested.
I did something similar when I was organising a concert for Toy Love (of Chris Knox fame if anyone is familiar with Kiwi music) at our school. I had a tin of glue in my bag that I used to put up the posters which then leaked onto my lunch sandwiches .. took ages to get rid of the taste.
Yesterday I was arguing with a gas fitting that hadn't been loosened in 30 years. Put a couple of drops of Liquid Wrench on it (didn't help TBH), and when I finally got the thing undone, moved onto removing and cleaning the gas orifice from the furnace I've been battling. Mindlessly put it to my mouth to blow it out and a day later I'm still tasting the microdose of Liquid Wrench that I ingested.
Own your freak flag... I've seen your "liquid wrench" ads on Only Fans.
Yesterday I was arguing with a gas fitting that hadn't been loosened in 30 years. Put a couple of drops of Liquid Wrench on it (didn't help TBH), and when I finally got the thing undone, moved onto removing and cleaning the gas orifice from the furnace I've been battling. Mindlessly put it to my mouth to blow it out and a day later I'm still tasting the microdose of Liquid Wrench that I ingested.
So are you through blaming COVID for your poor choices?
Yesterday I was arguing with a gas fitting that hadn't been loosened in 30 years. Put a couple of drops of Liquid Wrench on it (didn't help TBH), and when I finally got the thing undone, moved onto removing and cleaning the gas orifice from the furnace I've been battling. Mindlessly put it to my mouth to blow it out and a day later I'm still tasting the microdose of Liquid Wrench that I ingested.
Yesterday I was arguing with a gas fitting that hadn't been loosened in 30 years. Put a couple of drops of Liquid Wrench on it (didn't help TBH), and when I finally got the thing undone, moved onto removing and cleaning the gas orifice from the furnace I've been battling. Mindlessly put it to my mouth to blow it out and a day later I'm still tasting the microdose of Liquid Wrench that I ingested.
Was there water in there in the past but you didn't have freezing problems? And were you running the heat in the apartment all winter? If that's the case it sounds like you have too much insulation around the pipes and between the pipes and the apartment. My guess is that if that's what's happening, you need to get rid of the insulation near the pipes. You might be able to keep it on the outside wall side.
The other thing you can try is to keep water flowing slowly in the sink, but that's kind of a stop-gap measure.
Yes; it was a very sketchy system to the kitchen sink and no, for most of the time we've had the apartment, we turned the water off in October. I think I'm going to open the walls with some of these and also see if I can fish some heat tape in there next summer. Insulation is definitely an issue since I used MDF as wallboard so we can hang things from it. The ice is probably also forming every 16" on center.
Leaving water dripping has been mostly effective. But now that Christmas is over and we likely won't have anyone stay out there until Spring, a smart person would drain the system. But that leaves me looking at the 30-year-old water heater in the garage and thinking that's just the sort of thing those things don't like ;-) So maybe a smart person would replace that with a 10-gallon one.
Our garage has a studio apartment tacked onto the back of it. Over the long long saga of remodeling it, I rewired and replumbed most of it, insulated what I could get to, and it's honestly pretty snug overall. However the "kitchen" is on an exterior wall (they're all exterior walls) and now the plumbing freezes very easily. Luckily it's PEX now, so it's survived several freezes but that's a ticking time bomb. If we're good about leaving the tap dripping overnight during the worst of it, we can prevent a freezeup but ... ugh.
So I should open up the walls here and there and try to run heat tape along the water lines but the cold actually is run under the slab for a ways, so this is always going to be a concern. BUT: they make Hot Water Circulators, pumps that are connected to/incorporate a crossover valve. When the water drops below a certain temp, it fires up and pulls hot water in and pumps it back out the cold line. So now I'm lost. Aren't there backflow preventers that would keep water from going that direction? Does it really just pressurize the system? Or does pulling water out of the hot water tank equalize things? If it works, it should solve my problem completely, even putting sort-of warm water into the cold line so both of them stay unfrozen.
Problem 2: the model all the Reddits and retired-plumber forums mention the ReadyTemp ATC-3000 but their site (oh man, check out that vintage 1998 site!) says "not for sale" on that model. Anyone have experience with any of these systems that they'd recommend?
Was there water in there in the past but you didn't have freezing problems? And were you running the heat in the apartment all winter? If that's the case it sounds like you have too much insulation around the pipes and between the pipes and the apartment. My guess is that if that's what's happening, you need to get rid of the insulation near the pipes. You might be able to keep it on the outside wall side.
The other thing you can try is to keep water flowing slowly in the sink, but that's kind of a stop-gap measure.
Our garage has a studio apartment tacked onto the back of it. Over the long long saga of remodeling it, I rewired and replumbed most of it, insulated what I could get to, and it's honestly pretty snug overall. However the "kitchen" is on an exterior wall (they're all exterior walls) and now the plumbing freezes very easily. Luckily it's PEX now, so it's survived several freezes but that's a ticking time bomb. If we're good about leaving the tap dripping overnight during the worst of it, we can prevent a freezeup but ... ugh.
So I should open up the walls here and there and try to run heat tape along the water lines but the cold actually is run under the slab for a ways, so this is always going to be a concern. BUT: they make Hot Water Circulators, pumps that are connected to/incorporate a crossover valve. When the water drops below a certain temp, it fires up and pulls hot water in and pumps it back out the cold line. So now I'm lost. Aren't there backflow preventers that would keep water from going that direction? Does it really just pressurize the system? Or does pulling water out of the hot water tank equalize things? If it works, it should solve my problem completely, even putting sort-of warm water into the cold line so both of them stay unfrozen.
Problem 2: the model all the Reddits and retired-plumber forums mention the ReadyTemp ATC-3000 but their site (oh man, check out that vintage 1998 site!) says "not for sale" on that model. Anyone have experience with any of these systems that they'd recommend?
Our garage has a studio apartment tacked onto the back of it. Over the long long saga of remodeling it, I rewired and replumbed most of it, insulated what I could get to, and it's honestly pretty snug overall. However the "kitchen" is on an exterior wall (they're all exterior walls) and now the plumbing freezes very easily. Luckily it's PEX now, so it's survived several freezes but that's a ticking time bomb. If we're good about leaving the tap dripping overnight during the worst of it, we can prevent a freezeup but ... ugh.
So I should open up the walls here and there and try to run heat tape along the water lines but the cold actually is run under the slab for a ways, so this is always going to be a concern. BUT: they make Hot Water Circulators, pumps that are connected to/incorporate a crossover valve. When the water drops below a certain temp, it fires up and pulls hot water in and pumps it back out the cold line. So now I'm lost. Aren't there backflow preventers that would keep water from going that direction? Does it really just pressurize the system? Or does pulling water out of the hot water tank equalize things? If it works, it should solve my problem completely, even putting sort-of warm water into the cold line so both of them stay unfrozen.
Problem 2: the model all the Reddits and retired-plumber forums mention the ReadyTemp ATC-3000 but their site (oh man, check out that vintage 1998 site!) says "not for sale" on that model. Anyone have experience with any of these systems that they'd recommend?
I just sent this by PM, but in case anyone else cares:
I do this for boats. It's a different audience, but similar challenges. You have a couple of 'bursty' loads - the water heater and the compressor in the heat pump. Everything else is pretty mild. You really have two options, size for peak and run at lower capacity, or size for average and manage your loads accordingly.
In the boat world generators get used a lot more. Typically daily if people are at anchor. Generators don't like to be run at 50% capacity (or less), there are issues with wear when the engine is running and there can be issues with the generation side too with losing residual magnetism and other problems. So in the boat world, people will generally size lower (this also gets you efficiency and space advantages) and then they mange their loads by using the genset when cooking and charging batteries. They also adjust their loads according to the available power and will turn off heat pumps while cooking or take other steps to keep the load in the 75-90% range of the generator capacity.
In the backup world (not emergency), this is less important. You will probably have more test/maintenance run time on your generator than actual use. And since your actual use to power your house is likely to be small an infrequent it won't matter so much if it is unloaded a lot of the time. You also don't have space considerations like a boat, and efficiency isn't a huge deal either. So all that considered I'd say you are probably better off with the 20KW solution where you don't have to manage loads as long as the cost difference isn't that big.
If the cost is big, you are also fine stepping down to a 17 or even 13KW unit as long as you remember to only do one or two things at a time. 13KW will give you 54 Amps, so even when heating water you are fine with other things as long as the heat pump compressor doesn't try to spin up.
I looked up a 90F + day from June of this year and peak usage was just over 5kw. Is that the figure I should use (plus 25%)?
Well yes and no. That's your average load. Your problem is your average is skewed by your efficiency. There is big gap between hot water on and hot water off, so while average is informative you probably need a bit more than 25% reserve for sizing. When your heat pump starts it probably pulls 70 amps by itself, but only for a few milliseconds (look up the LRA - Locked Rotor Amps on your compressor). So if you are cooking and the fridge is spun up and the water heater is on, the compressor won't start. This isn't the end of the world, it probably just won't start, worst case is it will trip a breaker. This is the 'managing your loads' bit above. Your peak usage is really your hot water heat, and a set of appliances, I'm guessing wildly, but I'd put your peak at around 50-55A. I think you would be fine with any of the systems, but it will take more management on your part for each level you step down.
I just sent this by PM, but in case anyone else cares:
I do this for boats. It's a different audience, but similar challenges. You have a couple of 'bursty' loads - the water heater and the compressor in the heat pump. Everything else is pretty mild. You really have two options, size for peak and run at lower capacity, or size for average and manage your loads accordingly.
In the boat world generators get used a lot more. Typically daily if people are at anchor. Generators don't like to be run at 50% capacity (or less), there are issues with wear when the engine is running and there can be issues with the generation side too with losing residual magnetism and other problems. So in the boat world, people will generally size lower (this also gets you efficiency and space advantages) and then they mange their loads by using the genset when cooking and charging batteries. They also adjust their loads according to the available power and will turn off heat pumps while cooking or take other steps to keep the load in the 75-90% range of the generator capacity.
In the backup world (not emergency), this is less important. You will probably have more test/maintenance run time on your generator than actual use. And since your actual use to power your house is likely to be small an infrequent it won't matter so much if it is unloaded a lot of the time. You also don't have space considerations like a boat, and efficiency isn't a huge deal either. So all that considered I'd say you are probably better off with the 20KW solution where you don't have to manage loads as long as the cost difference isn't that big.
If the cost is big, you are also fine stepping down to a 17 or even 13KW unit as long as you remember to only do one or two things at a time. 13KW will give you 54 Amps, so even when heating water you are fine with other things as long as the heat pump compressor doesn't try to spin up.
I looked up a 90F + day from June of this year and peak usage was just over 5kw. Is that the figure I should use (plus 25%)?
most sites that sell or install generators have power calcs
i think kohler has a good one
the way you roll? whole enchilada will be about 20 kw
maybe consider natural gas too
many here have them set up to kick on in a split second
Been looking at our power usage on the utility's website; I'm thinking the 13kw unit will be sufficient. Yes, it will be natural gas-fueled. We'll probably set it up with a 1-2 minute delay before starting; we have a lot of random power blips that last only seconds.
think of it like a great scotch
you want the bigger bottle
if you have a major outage, a neighbor or friend may want to pull his camper up in your driveway
for what i've seen when you have electricity and others don't, you'll have an opportunity to be a life saver
make a lot of friends, sort of like miss twiggley's tree
most sites that sell or install generators have power calcs
i think kohler has a good one
the way you roll? whole enchilada will be about 20 kw
maybe consider natural gas too
many here have them set up to kick on in a split second
Been looking at our power usage on the utility's website; I'm thinking the 13kw unit will be sufficient. Yes, it will be natural gas-fueled. We'll probably set it up with a 1-2 minute delay before starting; we have a lot of random power blips that last only seconds.
I just sent this by PM, but in case anyone else cares:
I do this for boats. It's a different audience, but similar challenges. You have a couple of 'bursty' loads - the water heater and the compressor in the heat pump. Everything else is pretty mild. You really have two options, size for peak and run at lower capacity, or size for average and manage your loads accordingly.
In the boat world generators get used a lot more. Typically daily if people are at anchor. Generators don't like to be run at 50% capacity (or less), there are issues with wear when the engine is running and there can be issues with the generation side too with losing residual magnetism and other problems. So in the boat world, people will generally size lower (this also gets you efficiency and space advantages) and then they mange their loads by using the genset when cooking and charging batteries. They also adjust their loads according to the available power and will turn off heat pumps while cooking or take other steps to keep the load in the 75-90% range of the generator capacity.
In the backup world (not emergency), this is less important. You will probably have more test/maintenance run time on your generator than actual use. And since your actual use to power your house is likely to be small an infrequent it won't matter so much if it is unloaded a lot of the time. You also don't have space considerations like a boat, and efficiency isn't a huge deal either. So all that considered I'd say you are probably better off with the 20KW solution where you don't have to manage loads as long as the cost difference isn't that big.
If the cost is big, you are also fine stepping down to a 17 or even 13KW unit as long as you remember to only do one or two things at a time. 13KW will give you 54 Amps, so even when heating water you are fine with other things as long as the heat pump compressor doesn't try to spin up.
most sites that sell or install generators have power calcs
i think kohler has a good one
the way you roll? whole enchilada will be about 20 kw
maybe consider natural gas too
many here have them set up to kick on in a split second
Been looking at our power usage on the utility's website; I'm thinking the 13kw unit will be sufficient. Yes, it will be natural gas-fueled. We'll probably set it up with a 1-2 minute delay before starting; we have a lot of random power blips that last only seconds.
yeah
