Being Handy
Yesterday was a good day.
After being in the house for a week, I realized why there are no towel racks in the master bathroom. The shower door opens the wrong way. The installer of the shower door made the obvious choice of making the shower door open against the wall, opposite the shower head. This is the recommended direction, and the obvious choice since doors usually open against the wall. However, it means that the closest you can get a towel rack is three feet from the shower. You'd have to have a reach like Charles Barkley to get a towel at that distance, but I don't think he would fit in the tiny coffin of a shower I have.
At first glance, it looks like the shower door is reversible, as most new pivoting shower doors are. However, after getting the door and side plates off, I noticed that the bottom plate isn't reversible. I could have put it back and sealed everything with caulk, but I decided that I really wanted the door opening the other direction, so I would buy a new shower door.
The local Home Depot had one model in the right size in stock, so that's what I got. The install was straight forward, and the band saw really came in handy for cutting the aluminum rails. The only glitch in the whole install was when one of the plastic wall anchors self destructed when I screwed into it. Thankfully, I have a decent collection of plastic wall anchors and was able to swap in a new one and finish the install. It won't be until later today that I can take a shower, as the caulk needs time to cure, but we'll find out if installing the shower door opposite of the recommendation is a problem. (The instructions said that with the size of door I'm using, I can do it, but it's not recommended -- if I had the next size larger door, I couldn't have installed it this way, so time will tell.)
After taking a nap, I decided that I should install the whole house humidifier that I bought earlier in the week. I got it because people complain that it's really dry out here in the winter (when the air drops below 0, like it often does, it just can't hold much moisture), and I was feeling really bad for Lucy. Practically every time I would pet her, I would end up zapping her with static. One morning I was rubbing her under her chin, and was watching a constant blue glow from the static.
I figured that the install would only take a few hours, and it's only going to get colder, so you want the heater out of commission while it's as warm as it's going to be. I ended up mounting the unit on the back of the heater ducting because that's the only place that wasn't obstructed by gas lines, exhaust vents, or AC plumbing. Hopefully when I build a wall to close in the utility area it won't totally obstruct getting to the humidifier, but it will be tight.
In a move that I'm as likely to live down as I am to repeat, I mounted the template for the humidifier sideways and cut out a rather large hole in the ducting that was the wrong orientation. Oops. I put the template on in the correct orientation, cut out the right bits, and realized that the incorrect bits weren't so large that I couldn't cover them with duct tape. Let's hear it for duct tape.
The RotoZip was incredibly handy for cutting out the duct work. It's metal cutting blade made short work of the ducting and left a nice clean cut. I had been using tin-snips as instructed, but after struggling with them I realized that I had the Rotozip. I wish I had remembered that earlier, but it was also a matter of following the directions too literally. I just wish the template had a "this way up" marking on it.
The rest of the install went reasonably smoothly. I had to install a "sail" switch, which works much like it sounds. It has a large plastic sail that you stick in the return duct so that it can tell when the blower fan is moving air. I mounted a tapping spike over the cold water line that punches through the copper pipe to tap into the water supply for the humidifier. Then I had to mount a humidistat in the return air duct to measure the humidity of the air. Wire all of these things together and plug them into a giant wall wart. When the humidity is low, and the blower is on, it opens a solenoid that pumps a large quantity of water over the paper element that I mounted on the back of the heater and connected to the return air duct with a 6" on/off damper valve. I was surprised that so much water drains out of the humidifier, but apparently that's how it's supposed to work. I'm thinking of installing a little fish tank valve in the water supply line to reduce the flow so that I don't waste so much water, but I'm not sure that's a good idea since Honeywell might actually know what they're doing.
I gave it a test run, and water started flowing, air was moving, and in general it looks like it's working. I guess time will tell if the humidity rises. I'm partially worried that the humidifier is mounted in the wrong place since when I cut into the heater duct I noticed that there was another duct inside of the duct. I'm guessing that's for the AC unit. I was worried that the inner duct might be carrying all of the hot air. After I cut the hole, I turned the heater on and noticed that air was blowing out of the hole I made, so I'm hoping it's all good. I'm also worried that not enough air is moving through the humidifier, but when I take the cover off, I definitely feel humid air coming out, so I'm hoping that it's working as intended. I guess time will tell.
After being in the house for a week, I realized why there are no towel racks in the master bathroom. The shower door opens the wrong way. The installer of the shower door made the obvious choice of making the shower door open against the wall, opposite the shower head. This is the recommended direction, and the obvious choice since doors usually open against the wall. However, it means that the closest you can get a towel rack is three feet from the shower. You'd have to have a reach like Charles Barkley to get a towel at that distance, but I don't think he would fit in the tiny coffin of a shower I have.
At first glance, it looks like the shower door is reversible, as most new pivoting shower doors are. However, after getting the door and side plates off, I noticed that the bottom plate isn't reversible. I could have put it back and sealed everything with caulk, but I decided that I really wanted the door opening the other direction, so I would buy a new shower door.
The local Home Depot had one model in the right size in stock, so that's what I got. The install was straight forward, and the band saw really came in handy for cutting the aluminum rails. The only glitch in the whole install was when one of the plastic wall anchors self destructed when I screwed into it. Thankfully, I have a decent collection of plastic wall anchors and was able to swap in a new one and finish the install. It won't be until later today that I can take a shower, as the caulk needs time to cure, but we'll find out if installing the shower door opposite of the recommendation is a problem. (The instructions said that with the size of door I'm using, I can do it, but it's not recommended -- if I had the next size larger door, I couldn't have installed it this way, so time will tell.)
After taking a nap, I decided that I should install the whole house humidifier that I bought earlier in the week. I got it because people complain that it's really dry out here in the winter (when the air drops below 0, like it often does, it just can't hold much moisture), and I was feeling really bad for Lucy. Practically every time I would pet her, I would end up zapping her with static. One morning I was rubbing her under her chin, and was watching a constant blue glow from the static.
I figured that the install would only take a few hours, and it's only going to get colder, so you want the heater out of commission while it's as warm as it's going to be. I ended up mounting the unit on the back of the heater ducting because that's the only place that wasn't obstructed by gas lines, exhaust vents, or AC plumbing. Hopefully when I build a wall to close in the utility area it won't totally obstruct getting to the humidifier, but it will be tight.
In a move that I'm as likely to live down as I am to repeat, I mounted the template for the humidifier sideways and cut out a rather large hole in the ducting that was the wrong orientation. Oops. I put the template on in the correct orientation, cut out the right bits, and realized that the incorrect bits weren't so large that I couldn't cover them with duct tape. Let's hear it for duct tape.
The RotoZip was incredibly handy for cutting out the duct work. It's metal cutting blade made short work of the ducting and left a nice clean cut. I had been using tin-snips as instructed, but after struggling with them I realized that I had the Rotozip. I wish I had remembered that earlier, but it was also a matter of following the directions too literally. I just wish the template had a "this way up" marking on it.
The rest of the install went reasonably smoothly. I had to install a "sail" switch, which works much like it sounds. It has a large plastic sail that you stick in the return duct so that it can tell when the blower fan is moving air. I mounted a tapping spike over the cold water line that punches through the copper pipe to tap into the water supply for the humidifier. Then I had to mount a humidistat in the return air duct to measure the humidity of the air. Wire all of these things together and plug them into a giant wall wart. When the humidity is low, and the blower is on, it opens a solenoid that pumps a large quantity of water over the paper element that I mounted on the back of the heater and connected to the return air duct with a 6" on/off damper valve. I was surprised that so much water drains out of the humidifier, but apparently that's how it's supposed to work. I'm thinking of installing a little fish tank valve in the water supply line to reduce the flow so that I don't waste so much water, but I'm not sure that's a good idea since Honeywell might actually know what they're doing.
I gave it a test run, and water started flowing, air was moving, and in general it looks like it's working. I guess time will tell if the humidity rises. I'm partially worried that the humidifier is mounted in the wrong place since when I cut into the heater duct I noticed that there was another duct inside of the duct. I'm guessing that's for the AC unit. I was worried that the inner duct might be carrying all of the hot air. After I cut the hole, I turned the heater on and noticed that air was blowing out of the hole I made, so I'm hoping it's all good. I'm also worried that not enough air is moving through the humidifier, but when I take the cover off, I definitely feel humid air coming out, so I'm hoping that it's working as intended. I guess time will tell.
posted by Mark at 9:28 AM
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