Better Cleaning Through Robotics

I just got a used Roborock S7 robot vacuum cleaner and mop. 

For $100 used, how could I refuse?

Overall the setup took a bit of time.  I downloaded the app, managed to have it find the wifi, and get configured. No manual came with it, so I had to puzzle through a few things.

Once I got it through its initial setup, it then went off and immediately commenced mapping the floor and then returned to its dock all by itself.

It did ok with the initial mapping, identifying tables, couches, etc., and it also avoided falling down the stairs, which was good. 

But, I then needed to go into the app and figure out how to edit the map it made as it thought the kitchen, hallway, and living room were all one room. 

Once I edited it to make it understand these were separate rooms it worked much better.

After starting it after it had completed mapping, it immediately fired off a bunch of errors, namely due to the prior owner not changing the vacuum rollers and filter. 

So, I ordered a maintenance kit from Amazon and replaced the parts and it was quite clear the prior filter had not been replaced in quite some time, if at all. 

It now really hums along. Replacing the wearable parts that had clearly worn out fixed all the issues and error messages, and replacing the parts was very easy.  

The vacuuming it does is impressive and pretty thorough.  It even cleverly figures out how to avoid chairs to be able to vacuum under tables even when the chairs are moved about.

It happily goes around vacuuming and it is doing quite a decent job of it saving me from having to do it.

 

So far I haven't tried the mop function, but will soon. 

It is quite an enjoyable and happy-making watching this little robot going through the house steadfastly doing its cleaning thing, and it now deserves a name.

So Dear Readers, what shall I name my new robot?

Choices so far include:

1.  Vaccy Yoda

2.  Obi Wan Cleanobi

3. The Vaculorian

4. VAFO (Vac Around and Find Out) 

Let me know your thoughts on what you think it should be named.

Some Outside Home Wiring Repair

We had an "invisible" fence installed last winter for the dogs. Partially due to my surgery talking me off the dog walking roster. It works pretty well at keeping the dogs in the yard.

Unfortunately it was installed by an idiot.

The wires were buried after it thawed this year, but the burying was pretty crappy. The wires coming out of the garage where they were plugged in had been cut and connected with the standard orange non-waterproof connectors and not buried too deep with two of them not buried at all.  On top of that one of the wires had uninsulated wire poking out of the cap.

Either the dogs or other creatures dug near the wires, and the wires would then short out basically whenever it rained or snowed, which was not good. It would then set off a loud alarm in the garage that the loop was broken. Once it dried outside the alarm stopped and it worked again.

So, I decided to take a shot at fixing it.  I used waterproof connectors, covered then in electrical tape and then put silicon tape for more waterproofing on top of the electrical tape and wrapped it around tightly.

Two of the connectors live in a hole in the ground under a rock that keeps them sheltered from dogs or other predators that might like to rip them up.  The other two don't have a rock above them and are just standing up not buried in the dirt, so I need to figure out how best to rebury them.

So far all four repairs are holding up well, without shorting out even through a snowfall here and a major rainstorm since the repair was done.  I will  need to rebury them soon, unlike how the fellow left them, once I'm sure the fix is still holding up.

Cleaning Around The House Under Pressure

So This Weekend we did some exterior clean-up, weeding and replanting.

I had purchased a pressure washer at Aldi, a Ferrex Compact electrically powered pressure washer.  For $100 it was practically a no-brainer purchase.

Assembly was pretty easy, I got it plugged in, added the water hose, and got pressure spraying.

Much fun was had, and that thing seriously blasted off dirt and grime with ease.

I cleaned off the outdoor patio set and it gleams like new.  The washer blasted off the caked-on dirt and green algae that was on the chairs and table and they now look almost like new.

I was pretty impressed with how well it cleaned them.

The pressure washed the deck and the only problem was that along with the green algae it would tend to pull off the paint but I figured out some adjustments and it all looks much more presentable now.  (yes we need to repaint the deck at some point and needed to even before I started pressure washing. For whatever reason, paint doesn't last very long on the deck).

Do need to buy some pressure washer soap and really go to town on the windows etc, without soap the washer blasted off all the Piper dirt, but I expect with some soap/window cleaner it will work a lot better.

Got a lot done and the outside of the house most especially the front porch looks a heckuva lot better.  Still more to do but it was a good start.

Piper And The China Olympic Games

Piper, in addition to being 75% Airedale and 25% Poodle, seems to have some mountain goat in her.  She does like to take the high ground.

 

Well, she decided to switch things up a bit and go low for a change 

Possibly one day she was contemplating the nature of things on her perch and decided that she wanted to view the Olympic games - live. Or, perhaps, she wanted to go try and free Uygurs from concentration camps, one or the other.

Either way, she launched her cunning plan in-house and started digging her way to China.

Shoe and chew toy for scale on the two main attempted Michigan-China tunnel connections.

Both holes, sadly for her but good for us, stopped far short of her intended destination. But, she did make it right through the carpet and under pad to the base netting of the under pad itself.

Ah well, the carpet had lasted 12 years, and other (smaller) holes from Jett's own carpet digging stage have been cunningly hidden by furniture.  No way to hide these though, she had to put them in very prominent spots.

It's now time to think about replacing the carpet with some wood or laminate flooring and spruce the place up a bit and make tunneling through just a bit tougher.

Bail! Bail! Man The Pumps!

But sadly there were no pumps to be manned so we had to get the water out manually.

We happened to get a rain storm in earlier this week that took out power in ours and a lot of other neighborhoods.

The storm was intense and as you may have guessed, that meant water rushing into the sump pump pit. With the power out the sump pump decided to take the night off.

That left Leah and I bailing it out for more than three hours until it finally stopped coming in.

That was not pleasant, especially when it looked like it might overflow as were were not keeping up with it.  We filled two different 5 gallon buckets and I would carry the full one to the drain and then come back for the other once Leah had filled it up.  Over 60 buckets - 300 gallons - was dumped out of that pit which is a helluva lot.  I really got a workout in as a result. My aching everything.

I've now ordered a Raybend Primary Sump Pump Backup Power System and while waiting for it to arrive, I've purchased the appropriate Deep-Cycle battery so it will be ready when it gets here.  This should hopefully stop future bailouts from needing to occur.

Of Smokers And Smoke Alarms

It's a do-stuff-around-the-house-day today.

First, I'm smoking a brisket for a party with friends tomorrow.

Its going to be a 12-hour cook, using pecan and hickory wood.

Tomorrow morning, I'm getting up early to smoke ribs to add to the party as well.

As for smoke alarms, did you now they don't last forever?  A couple of ours, both in the kids' bedrooms, died just about simultaneously, both with a weak electronic shriek and then nothing, and no change of batteries did a thing.

Turns out they were manufactured in 2007, and the average detector is good for 10 years, so we're a bit over life expectancy, and definitely got some decent use out of them. 

I switched them out today for combo carbon monoxide/smoke detectors with sealed 10-year batteries.  I then replaced the remaining battery change ones with a couple more sealed detectors.  No more biannual fire alarm battery changes now.

 

Of course, they had different mounting systems because no fire alarm manufacturer can coordinate on a standard mount. This gets annoying. 

Then, finding out the prior owners of the house, who installed the battery ones just before they sold the house to us did not use drywall anchors, but just screws added to the fun.   Well its done now, and these are now properly installed and anchored.

So that's done,  and its time to check on the smoker again and then to do a little work and some IFR studying for the written test as there's an absolute to understand, know how to apply, and retain.

A Little Hosta And Chill Action

This morning we had some visitors to the backyard.

 Mommy and fawn strolled right in, nibbled on some hostas and then headed into the treeline.

The momma deer then came back to the backyard after hiding the fawn and is just lying down chilling about a dozen feet away from the house, without a worry in the world.  She's been lying there for a couple hours taking a break from all her fawncare responsibilities.

She clearly sees us looking at her from the windows, and reacts to our movement, but doesn't seem to mind at all.

Tired But Lots More Organized

Well today was a clean-up and reorganizing day.  Since there was scattered thunderstorms and rain coming through we stayed home and got to cleaning.

I moved my office to the basement so the kids will have the family room turned into a 1-room schoolhouse for school.  It's already been announced, mainly due to the hysteric parents loosing their you know what at the thought that schools might reopen, that the first two weeks of school will be virtual. 

That's just a great way for Leah to start high school.

So we did that and I've been moving stuff accordingly.  We also cleaned pout the basement storage area and went over things that have been on boxes for about 10 years now. 

The rule adopted in going through the boxes was that unless it was some important docuemnt or memorabilia, if you haven't looked at it or needed it in 10 years, it went.  This led to multiple trips with garbage bags down the Driveway of Doom™.  I got in over 11,000 steps going up and down the stairs and up and down the driveway today, along with a decent bicep workout from hauling the junk to and fro.

In short we really don't need the maintenance and insurance records for a car we haven't owned for five years, among many other things, and if I haven't read those gun magazines from 2000 recently I'm not likely going to peruse them anytime soon - although looking at one with a Glock 30  being newly introduced, and another proclaiming the Ruger Mini-14 was just the thing for the police rifle was kinda interesting - we've certainly come a long way.

The garbagemen due to pickup the trash tomorrow are really going to hate us.

On the upside, it looks pretty good.  I've got a nice office spot in the basement and the kids have two desks all set to go until they finally get back to school.  Need to by a platform to raise my computer up as I figure its going to be mainly a standing desk setup for when I'm home.

Still a lot to rearrange and reorganize but much less junk and clutter.

Overall a good and productive day.

The House: All Your Weekend Belong To Us

So yesterday I had more of a workout with the crushed granite.

Lining the side of the house:

This took quite a lot to get it done, but it now looks rather nice.

Then I lined the area off the porch where the hose and gas meter is with the crushed granite. It doesn't look like much but now the ground is level at the base, sloping away form the house and a lot safer to stand in when turnign the valve to use the garden hose as before that are was a complete mess.

Then the mulch arrived, all 5 cubic yards of it.

That's a lot of mulch and that's what we've been doing today - weeding the yard and mulching the flowerbeds. Quite the workout these past two days.

Much time spent loading the mulch into the wheelbarrow and taking it to where it is needed, and repeating ad infinitum.

Of course its beginning to look like we have too much mulch now as just about everything covered but a small mountain of about half a cubic yard remains. Ugh.

Sometime this summer I need to repaint the deck and replace a few deck pieces off wood that have warped. That should be fun.

Home & Personal Improvement: I'll Feel That In The Morning

Today provided plenty of exercise.

A friend has a landscape supply company and we've want to do some landscape improvements, and it's always good to buy from your friends, especially when they're pros.

He even came out to our house to check my estimates of material needed and gave some great advice. Since the grass area is marshy as heck it would take more crushed granite as its going to sink a lot.

Project #1 - extend the parking pad so it actually touches the driveway instead of a 11x9 feet of wasted space, turning it into a 2 car pad at the base of the Driveway of Doom™. This makes it easier for Abby to park. Also then to spread a layer of the crushed granite and cover up the crappy crushed concrete the driveway company used to make it the pad last year.

Project #2 - a lining of rocks along the side of the house to make it look better.

So I got a call today that the crushed granite would be arriving this afternoon, all 4.5 cubic yards of it.

Good thing I was working from home. I hurriedly laid down the weed should over the marshy grass between the existing parking pad and the driveway, and prepared for the arrival of the truck bearing the crushed gravel.

4.5 cubic yards turns out to be a lot of rocks. A lot of rocks. Did I mention a lot of rocks?

Just finished hauling a ton of rocks to the side of the house and spreading the rocks over the existing parking pad and creating the parking pad extension, and now I'm beat. Complete with a wicked blister on the palm of my hand, which is just great.

On the upside,the parking pad looks darn good if I say so myself.

The parking pad used to only extend to the large rock to the left level with the driver's side door in the picture, with a large strip of always wet grass before the driveway edge. Now it meets and looks good. I expect it to still settle some.

The remaining part of the pad is now covered in the crushed granite over the half-assed crushed concrete that had been put there before and looks much more appealing.

Between that and hauling rocks to the side of the house, I'm beat. Unfortunately, I still have a pile of crushed gravel left over and someone has a cunning plan to do something with it starting tomorrow.

Oh yeah, a truckload of mulch arrives this weekend.

On the upside, I've been making a habit of doing dry-fire practice drawing from concealment each night for at least 20 minutes a night. I can feel the improvement already and assuming I keep this up as a regular habit I should see better times at the range. Yes, after walking the dog tonight its down to downstairs to do some dry fire and then pass out.

Success: Smoked Brisket For Dinner

Total Cook Time: 10 hours, 4 minutes, including an annoying stall that required the use of the Texas Crutch (ye olde aluminum foil) to get through. Thence, 1 hour to rest.

After the rest, some slices were made and served and it came out great.

Pronounced perfectly tender, flavorful with excellent but not overwhelming smokiness, and served with some asparagus, and mac & cheese.

Did not require any BBQ sauce but it could be added if desired.

Now, I may need to make some social-distancing-approved meat-packs for some friends and neighbors.

Working From Home, So Might As Well Getting My Smoking On For Dinner

Since I'm working from home, I might as well do some food smoking since I can be here to give it the attention that it requires.

This one will require quite a bit of attention. Luckily, I can see the smoker from my home office.

Today's smoking item: Brisket. Or as they called it in Texas - BBQ.

I got a nice packer brisket from Costco yesterday and seasoned it last night with my homemade brisket rub.

It then sat out this morning for a couple hours to come up to temperature before having it ready to be placed in the smoker.

I then got the fire built and placed some locally sourced apple and hickory wood in the smoker.

And she's off and the cook has begun. We will see how this goes.

Home Upgrades: The Impressive Orbi

I had setup our home wifi about 7years ago. It has been running rather slowly, especially now that the kids have discovered Netflix on their devices, and coverage has always been rather lackluster. I had a router and then a wireless repeater to get coverage to the side of the house opposite where the Modem was and to provide coverage into the basement. Basement coverage was less than great, typically at most 2 bars and Netflix on the TV downstairs could be slow and coverage at the other side of the house was often not great either.

She who must be obeyed requested I fix this problem as it was becoming rather annoying, especially when she needed a strong connection for work while the kids would play.

So this weekend, I picked up a Netgear Orbi RBK to replace my prior system.

Setup was very easy.

I unplugged the old router and had the router plugged into the cable modem and the satellite setup where the old repeater had been. Withing a few minutes I was fully up and had all the devices around the house (printer, computers, everyone's idevice), reconnected to the Orbi and the Orbi network ID renamed to something the kids chose which was to them rather whimsical and clever but suitably edgy, and the default username and passwords changed.

Testing it out, the performance was impressively improved.

There was full reception in the basement and in the far reaches of the house, and the speed and smoothness was markedly increased throughout the house.

Two Netflix movies playing and computers could still connect and do work without issue.

Seven years worth of improvements in home wireless technology certainly has paid off in this device.

A definite recommendation if you're finding your home internet wifi slow and in need of an upgrade.

So. Much. Hair.

Today at the House was plumbing drain cleaning day.

Yes, the kids' bathroom sink and shower had a slow drain as did our shower.

There had been much complaining of slow drains and something had to be done. Time for something.

It went kinda like this.

We bought a Drain Rooter Drain Snake and went to work on the drains.

So. Much. Hair.

Let me tell you, that drain snake stick works.

Lots of hair was retrieved from the drains. I mean lots, and lots more. The smell accompanying the retrieval of the hair was rather less than enjoyable to say the least.

We then put a sink mushroom in the kids bathroom drain to try to prevent future hair intrusion. We'll see how long that lasts.

I followed this up with chemical warfare in our shower drain to get the excess that could not be retrieved with the stick.

The drains all work so much better now. Home and plumbing maintenance, while necessary, can be rather gross.

When 10-Year Batteries Aren't

The battery on the First Alert smoke detector advertises itself as having a 10-year life from date of activation.

This is handy as you can install it and not have to bother changing the batteries every time change twice a year as you do with your other smoke alarms and primary defensive weapon lights (you do do that, don't you?).

Well advertised 10 year lithium battery life didn't quite match real-life experience.

With the alarm having a manufacturing date of 2014 Sep 17 and it was installed in January 2015, it began to chirp with a low battery warning this month, for an in use life of almost four years. The chirp was pretty darn annoying, rather hard to track down as it was intermittent, and was puzzling as again, not 10 years.

On the plus side, First Alert stepped up and is replacing it for free with no shipping cost so they do stand by their product and offer great customer service. We'll see how long the replacement lasts.

A Sinking Feeling - Fun With Faucets

Tash had commented that the faucets in the bathroom were looking kinda past their prime.

Indeed they were, the plating had rubbed off and they didn't look particularly good, not to mention the handles were rather loose and the stoppers in the sink were less than shiny.

Her wish being my command it was time to venture into yet more home repair adventures and vocabulary enhancement.

I purchased two Moen Hamden Faucets as they looked nice and offered a neat push button stopper for the sink and got to work.

Of course space was at a premium under the sinks. Adventures began under Tash's sink.

Lying on my back I was soon cursing the prior people who had installed the sinks. Those plastic nuts securing the water lines were not just tight, it took a ridiculous amount of torque and a set of vise gripes and much verbal abuse to get them to move. The larger plastic nuts keeping the sink itself in place came off relatively easily, which would not be the case with Sink #2.

Then I was able to remove the faucet and on to the drain pipe and the fun really began.

Taking the trap apart led to a rather terrible stench and the trap was literally so full of hair you could have made a shoulder length braid with it. Yep, that's the sink the kids style their hair by. That explained the slow drain problem with that sink all right. Stench aside, the trap removal wasn't bad. But getting the drain pipe off, not so much. It did not want to leave. Sadly I couldn't find my large adjustable wrench and no wrench I had was large enough to fit that shinny large nut holding the pipe in place that you see in the picture to the right side.

Off to Lowe's, and now I own a pipe wrench and a nice large set of vise grips.

With those tools in hand and torque and magic words applied, the drain pipe came loose. Then the fun of getting the top of the drain separated from the drain pipe so it could be removed was also a battle of wits and torque.

Then I installed the new drain pipe, reattached the trap, connected the water lines and mirabile dictu, all worked on the first try. Only one trip to Lowe's was required and it was a success.

Then on to Sink #2. Since I had just installed a sink it should be easy right?

The install wasn't the problem, it was the uninstall that caused lots of issues.

Yes, the water supply nuts were on tighter than hell. But they came off with proper technique learned on Sink #1.

One of the two large plastic nuts securing the faucet came off easily. The other one not so much. It stuck, hard. Nothing would move it, Vise grips just ripped the plastic tabs off, grabbing it full on and it still wouldn't turn. It had been cross-threaded on the install and did not want to move. At all. Curses followed.

I thought of sawing it off as both it and the threads it was attached to were plastic, but there was no room to get a saw under the sink and the threads on top of the sink that were visible were metal so no go there.

Unwilling to declare defeat, and with much vocabulary, I gave it yet another mighty twist with the vise grips and while the large nut stayed firmly attached to the plastic, the plastic threaded pipe came loose from the metal threaded pipe it was attached to above, and the faucet was free at last. That took some effort to say the least.

After that the rest of it worked pretty well and the drain pipe was removed easily and the install was completed without any problems. The Moen installation instructions were actually quite decent and the simple tool they included for tightening the mounting screw for the faucet is worth its weight in gold.

They look a lot nicer now, both sinks drain easily, and the push button drains work like a charm.

About three hours spent in total including the trip to Lowe's and all was done.

Well, If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.

How Much Is That Doggie-Broken Window?

Came home from work to this:

\>

Jett, you see, is rather affronted by squirrels who think they can just go gallivant about his backyard.

This leads to him barking furiously and leaping at them with his paws hitting the glass, repeatedly.

Or in this case paws pushing the glass right through the frame.

This is the second time in two years that he broke this particular pane of glass.

I'm thinking we're going to replace it with a couple layers of poly-carbonate instead of glass this time.

I'm sorry I broke the glass, but you shoulda seen that flippin' squirrel jump when I busted the window!

Well, the hole is now boarded up, as we'd rather not air condition the backyard and it's going to be sweltering tomorrow. Now to go shop for some poly-carbonate.

NEST, Now With Plugin Power

While all internalized attempts at adding a C-wire failed miserably, the wall plug in 24v adapter did work.

Of course it wasn't as simple as plugging it in and the thermostat then playing nice. Of course not.

First, I had to go to the furnace and rewire the G wire back to the G from the C connector on the furnace. Then I had to remove the thermostat base from the wall yet again, which is getting harder as one of the self tapping screws that attaches the mount to the wall is starting to have a stripped screw head from all the times I've had to adjust it wit these many attempts.

Then, of course the contacts on the wires on the plug in unit were too short to actually plug into and lock into the NEST contacts, and I had to strip the wires for more leads. I didn't have a proper wire stripper for this, but had a wire cutter and had to figure out the exact amount of pressure to cut the sheathing without sipping the wire inside. This took some time, some broken wire, and led to some enhanced vocabulary. But, I finally got sufficient length of open wire to plug into the NEST Then I loosely reattached the base to the wall, added the NEST unit and . . . .

It finally worked. Air conditioner worked without a problem, the NEST shows good power and all is well.

Next, I will have to take it apart yet again, drill a hole near the baseboard and feed the wire up behind the drywall to make it all look nicer as there's now a wire coming out horizontally from the mount that then runs along the wall and then hides behind the bookcase and then gets to a plug. Might as well fix it to make it look nice now that it works.

Backyard Visitors

There's lot's of wildlife to be found hanging around the yard today:

Chipmunks:

A black squirrel:

a red squirrel:

A black squirrel with a red tail, likely the result of a romance between a red squirrel and a black squirrel:

There are just tons of squirrels around recently. They seem to be clearing out all the remaining fallen black walnuts and having a serious party in the backyard.

We also have a new family in residence: A Groundhog mom and two baby Groundhogs have come by recently.

The little baby groundhogs are so very cute indeed.

Jett is getting lots of exercise leaping at the window and sternly barking at all these backyard interlopers. He really detests the squirrels.

Smart Theromastats Aren't

After the joy of Saturday there had to be a balancing act on Sunday.

Our thermostat had gone T.U. over the winter - that's Thermostat Unresponsive, of course.

So I went ahead a bought a NEST thermostat - checking their website for compatibility and even got a nice energy saving rebate.

Per their website, with the 4 wire setup I had, it should work.

Well, not so much.

Overall the install was pretty easy. Between the instructions and YouTube videos it's pretty hard to mess up installing a NEST.

When I first installed it in the winter it started constantly cycling the furnace fan on and off.

It turns out I needed a fifth wire, a C wire. While NEST says it's thermostats doesn't require a C Wire, they typically do. Unfortunately, most of these "Smart" thermostats whose manufacturers were dumb enough not to think that most houses do not have a C wire and wouldn't an onboard replaceable battery (just like the thermostats they're replacing) be a smart idea? Thse thoughts apparently never crossed their minds.

And therein lies the problem.

The thermostat is located over the slab. the wiring to it may very well go up to the attic and then down to the furnace but we can't seem to trace it as it doesn't immediately go up from the thermostat but down and then around somewhere.

Even better, at the furnace the wire bundle has a fifth unattached wire that doesn't make it up to the thermostat - oh, and did I mention the wire colors are completely different and the ones at the furnace don't even match standard coloring schemes? Someone clearly spliced and connected the thermostat wires somewhere, likely behind the drywall and I'd rather not rip apart the house to find it just to try and run a C wire to have a thermostat.

So one solution proposed was to disconnect the G wire on the furnace and move it to the C wire terminal on both furnace and thermostat.

This worked well through the winter but guess what we found out the first day it got hot out?

The A/C will not run without a G wire.

I've tried both the Venster Add a Wire and the Lux Products Power Bridge add a wire solutions which are supposed to fix this issue, and both failed in weird ways. Venstar would not provide consistent power to the NEST and the A/C would not respond at all, but the fan would run - constantly when the NEST was plugged in, and the Power Bridge would provide lots of power but the NEST reported the G wire had a problem and would not work.

I've spent more time running up and down stairs, flipping breakers, and adding and removing wires to the furnace and testing the thermostat more times than I can count, and it took abut 4 hours plus yesterday trying without success to make the to make the add a wire solutions work, complete with the fun of some old furnace wires breaking, requiring me to strip new ends and expand my vocabulary, a lot.

I now have a plug-in 24 Volt adapter on order and we'll see if adding that as an external power source and moving the G wire back to G lets this thing finally run right.

So yes, if you don't have a C wire, I'd have to recommend holding off on getting a smart thermostat as they're not smart enough to handle the lack of a C wire.

Yeah, it's an annoying first world problem all right.