The Endeavor Was a Partial Success

Yesterday's post described how our tankless water heater had stopped working because the thermal fuse had been triggered. (The fuse is a single-use wire that had to be replaced and is marked by the red arrow in the picture.)

The heater itself is a marvel of compactness compared to a conventional 50-gallon tank. However the design is not conducive to an easy repair. Replacing the fuse, a $20 part, requires the removal of the entire internal apparatus. Several plumbers quoted over $1,000 for the job.

Even if the fuse was replaced successfully, there was a distinct possibility that the heat exchanger was damaged. That was an $800 part (the brass box in the upper half of the picture), and we were quoted $3,000 to replace both the thermal fuse and heat exchanger.

Some helpful contractors suggested that I simply buy a new heater at a cost of $4,000-$5,000, depending on the model. The life expectancy of a tankless water heater is 15-20 years, and even if we were to repair our 14-year-old appliance we might have to replace it anyway in 3-5 years.

Not liking the choices I was given, and sensing that I was being ripped off by plumbers who view all Peninsula homeowners as rich patsies, I decided to take a shot at fixing the thermal fuse myself. Even if I ended up paying someone $thousands, I could see little harm in trying.

To make a long story short, dear reader, the endeavor was a partial success. I overnighted the part from the manufacturer and took apart the water heater. The work was much more involved than DIY Internet videos and instruction manuals imply. There were dozens of connectors, screws, and subassemblies that had to be marked and sorted as they were taken out. Eventually I was able to remove the old fuse and wrap the new one around the heat exchanger. When I put everything back, the unit wouldn't start; even the error-message panel was blank. It was time to call in a professional.

I contacted a large San Jose contractor recommended by the manufacturer. The technician came the following morning. Before disassembling the unit, he decided to see if what I had done had some value. He rechecked all the connections and tightened some that were loose. He plugged in the heater, and it turned on! Hot water was back.

The technician suggested that the issue was probably a grounding wire that I had not secured properly. I was happy to pay his invoice of $275; his fee for a fuse replacement would have been $1,150. I tipped him and sent him on his way.

Meanwhile, I won't forget to scale the pipes.

Wishful Thinking

2 gals. vinegar recirculated for 1 hour

When the temperature drops below 50°F--yes, we who were born in Hawaii are wimps--the worst appliance to go out may be the hot water heater. (One can get through a furnace failure by adding enough layers and blankets.)

Our 14-year-old tankless water heater flashed an unfamiliar message--error code 14--that meant that the thermal fuse had been triggered due to an overheated heat exchanger (HE). The problem was likely caused by scale build-up in the pipes.

I spent a moment being mad at myself for believing the plumber who told me three years ago that annual flushing with vinegar was unnecessary; Foster City didn't have hard water and we wouldn't have scale. Before I called a repairman to replace the thermal fuse (expensive) and/or the heat exchanger (very expensive), it couldn't hurt to flush the water heater.

Two hours later--et voilà!--there was no error code 14, the water heater fired up, and hot water poured from the spigot. We had lucked out. Maybe the thermal fuse was still intact. Maybe it was merely emitting a warning signal. (This is a textbook example of wishful thinking, dear reader.)

Three days later error code 14 came on and stayed on. No amount of flushing or rebooting would activate the water heater.

To be continued....

Beaten by the Heat

In the process of emptying out.

There must be a corollary to “when it rains, it pours,” for instance “when it’s dry and hot, cooling equipment goes kaput.” It doesn’t have the same pithiness, but you get the idea.

Our 19-year-old Samsung refrigerator failed on Monday night. After spending Tuesday taking out the back panel, looking at the coils and fan, we reluctantly concluded it was the compressor. A search of the Internet revealed that the part was not available anywhere.

While we’re looking for a new refrigerator, we are dumping all the spoiled food and preserving what we can in the garage fridge.

We didn't need much of a push to forego cooking this week because of the 100-degree weather. Now circumstances have made the choice obvious.

"To beat the heat, go out to eat." That's better.

Education is Everywhere, If You Just Look For It

Many of the conveniences of middle-class life are taken for granted, like in-house washers and dryers.

After the old Kenmore dryer failed 10 days ago, I expected to pay $500 for a basic model at Home Depot, Costco, or Best Buy; $700+ would be the all-in replacement cost after delivery, installation, sales tax, and removal of the old dryer.

YouTube showed that repairs were easy--even allowing that it would take me ten times as long as the professionals in the videos--so it couldn't hurt to try to diagnose the problem and attempt a fix (the parts would probably cost less than $50).

I had to promise the household CEO that I wouldn't dither; going to the laundromat was not only inconvenient but in the coronavirus era could be hazardous to one's health because of proximity to others in a warm, humid environment. If the task could not be done in a week, we would buy a new dryer.

Lint obstructed air flow from the clothes drum

After opening the bottom panel and unscrewing the lint cover for the first and only time in 13 years, the likely source of the problem became apparent: lint was jamming the air flow throughout.

Wearing a dustmask, I scooped out handfuls of lint, then used a brush and vacuum cleaner. The dryer had been working harder for at least a year, and the longer drying time finally burnt out one of the circuits.

Pulling out the metal housing for the heating element, I checked for a break on the three devices ("test for continuity" is the technical term) that were most likely to fail: the fuse, thermostat, and heating element.

Testing for continuity

It was the heating element. Ordering a kit for all three parts for $34 from Amazon, I replaced the heating element and kept the thermostat and fuse if either of them blows.

I'll spare you the details of putting everything back together and cleaning out more lint, dear reader. Suffice it to say that the dryer is working again, more efficiently than it has in a long time, and should be good for 2-3 years.

Comments: I did derive satisfaction from:

1) not having to spend $500-$700 on a new dryer;
2) not having to send the old one to the landfill or recycling plant;
3) being able to fix it myself.

But the most satisfaction arose from learning how the dryer worked. It's both simple and ingenious. Discreet writers call it a negative pressure system, but your humble blogger prefers simpler language.

Heating element + small parts

The motor both tumbles the drum and sucks the hot moist air out of the drum and expels it through the exhaust. The drum in turn sucks in outside air that has passed over the heating element. The features (tumbling, drum, timer, moisture sensing, varying the heat, etc.) that we see in current dryers were all invented before 1960.

Frankly, I am in awe of the engineers and inventors that created wonders, both big and small, in 20th century America.

A Lot of Trouble to Replace

Bent out of shape: I did that without help.

The best $150 I ever spent was in 2008.

Our 20-year-old dryer was irredeemably broken, and the new dryers at the time were too wide and cost at least $500, not including tax, installation, and hauling the old one out. On Craigslist the ideal replacement miraculously appeared. It was narrow enough, and the door hinge was at the bottom which was a "try-for" specification from the household CEO.

The seller, a lady in Palo Alto, had bought a new laundry pair and thought she could find a use for her old dryer but had given up trying. Her Kenmore had been sitting on the back patio for a year, covered with a tarpaulin. Before taking it, I asked her to plug it in to prove that it worked. It did.

The dryer easily fit in the 11-year-old Dodge Grand Caravan. (I always use an old car--for different reasons, of course--when I have to negotiate a purchase, do charity work, or go to crime-ridden areas like San Francisco.) The used dryer worked like a champ, and the garbage haulers took the old dryer on one of the two annual bulk-disposal days.

[Note: I forgot that I had blogged about the purchase in 2009. Most of the details are still clear in my memory. I'm not that far gone....yet.]

This week the dryer that had served us for 13 years finally failed. The drum turns but doesn't heat; the problem was likely due to one of three parts, said the Internet, each of which costs less than $50. But first the bottom cover plate has to be opened. It had never been removed by myself, nor likely the original owner, too, so I'm using brute strength and WD-40 against the rusty metal. So I can't even get to step 2: testing the continuity on the three parts to see which of them is busted. So I'll be spending a bit more time, probably through New Year's weekend, working the problem before giving up.

Fortunately for me the household CEO did not act disappointed though I bent the bottom plate out of shape. She knows that the hired help doesn't respond well to criticism and will be a lot of trouble to replace.

Laundry Inequality

(WSJ photo)

When we stretched our finances to buy our first house--it had three bedrooms--over 40 years ago, we had to sit on bare floors in the living room and two of the bedrooms.

Despite the lack of furniture our first major purchase was a Kenmore washing machine and dryer from Sears. The time wasted driving a half-mile to the nearest laundromat and waiting in line for a machine on the weekends (each of us was working more than 40 hours a week and driving at least a half-hour each way) was at least half a day.

Compared to the nearby coin-operated machines in college or the apartment complex, the time-sink was intolerable.

Never had we derived such pleasure from new equipment--and we're talking about a time when we got our first color television and our first microwave oven (both gifts). It's not much of an exaggeration to say that having one's own washer and dryer is a big step to achieving the American dream.

We were reminded of that distant past when we read about a new problem, a coin shortage, that has afflicted the appliance-deprived: [bold added]

Now I need quarters only for San Francisco parking
meters,which currently charge $2.50/hr. minimum
(and I'd rather not give the new meters a credit card).

The scarcity of spare change—brought on as people leaned on digital transactions and fewer coins circulated—has pushed the quarter-dependent to extremes. Many have spent hours trekking across their cities in search of coins they used to easily procure from local bank branches. One couple hauled four loads of laundry across several states where they could use a relative’s machines. And in some buildings, the yearning for clean sweatpants has resulted in neighbors forging closer bonds.

The flow of change first slowed in the spring of 2020. Restaurants and retailers posted signs encouraging digital and credit card payments and even asked people to exchange spare coins. The problem eased toward the end of 2020 but made a comeback in March as businesses were preparing for an influx of cash transactions after vaccination rates ramped up. Around that time, coin requests from banks began to outpace deposits, according to the Federal Reserve, which provides cash to banks through its regional banks.

Now there isn’t enough coin to go around, and the central bank is limiting orders on pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Banks and other financial institutions deposited about 15% fewer coins at their local Fed banks through mid-July compared with the same stretch last year, the central bank said. Coin deposits were 45% below 2019 over the same period.

Some bank branches are saving coveted coin rolls for their customers, according to apartment dwellers who have asked for quarter rolls at banks where they don’t have accounts. Other banks are telling would-be washers that they have no change to spare....

Digital options, such as reloadable payment cards or smartphone apps are gaining ground, but quarters have long been the default payment option, said Matt Miller, president of Coin-O-Matic, which outfits laundry machines with a variety of payment systems.

Demand for machines equipped with digital payment capabilities has roughly doubled since the start of the pandemic, Mr. Miller said. The most popular digital payment method is an app that users load money for laundry and connects to laundry machines via Bluetooth. Washers and dryers that accept credit or debit cards are less common because they require real-time Internet connections, which can be difficult to guarantee in the basements where many laundry rooms are located.

Wealth inequality manifests itself in housing, transportation, health care, and diet, but take it from one who's been there, the washer-dryer gap is more important than everyone thinks.

Timely Move

Calling it a "purification system" makes it $175.

Normally I replace the furnace filter every 12-15 months. However, the ash and soot from the summer wildfires prompted me to change the part last night after an interval of nine months.

That was timely, because the overnight temperatures plummeted to 40 °F, and the heat came on when the house fell to 60°. The old furnace needed $5 air filters, but its 2013 replacement requires a Climate PureAir System Annual Maintenance Kit that runs $175. The latter includes a charcoal catalyst and ultraviolet bulbs in addition to the box-shaped filter.

Though I grouse, I am happy that we had bought the UV-bulb add-on to zap COVID-19 and other nasty pathogens.

Only two months ago Foster City was sweltering in 100° heat, but it didn't stay that way.

One has to be prepared. In all aspects of life, things can turn on a dime.

Long May It Fry

My air fryer's top temperature is 400 F.

The air fryer is a cheap (less than $100) kitchen gadget that punches above its weight. Earlier this month we noted why we liked it:

Lately I've been using an inexpensive air fryer (really, it's a pot-shaped convection oven) for small roasts. It uses less energy than our large convection oven, and the grease is collected in a non-stick black pot.

Cookbook author Ben Mims agrees: [bold added]

I relished the thought of enjoying the functionality of a convection oven at a fraction of the size and price of a conventional oven. No more turning on my hellishly hot range in high summer or forming a queue of dishes waiting to cook at Thanksgiving.

...As I pushed the machine to its limits, I found it to be excellent at roasting meat. Cut down to the appropriate, air-fryer-friendly size, a beef top sirloin roast reached a perfect medium-rare doneness inside at the same time it was rendered brown on the outside. This was largely thanks to the precise temperature control of the smaller air fryer as compared with a conventional oven.

...The biggest surprise, however, was the discovery that an air fryer is the ideal machine for cooking vegetables. For those who like to pre-prep lunches and dinners for the week, this machine makes quick work of cooking virtually any vegetable cut into bite-size pieces and tossed with a couple teaspoons of oil and some salt and pepper.....A fryer in name only, the device can roast, toast, bake or braise.

The writer sounds like a late-night commercial (It tells time! You'll lose weight! In minutes you can prepare delicious, healthy food!)

Currently the air fryer occupies valuable space next to the cooktop. I do share some of Mr. Mims' enthusiasm: my guess is that it will have more staying power than the food processor, the bread maker, and the popcorn popper. Long may it "fry".

Entropy

The people of the world can be divided into two groups: those who find this video funny and those who don't. (Guess which one I'm a part of.)



I wonder what brand of softener he used?

(Hat tip KSFO)

Switch in Time

(Image of GT90 remote from Terapeak)

So I was talking to a couple of software engineers from a very large and well-known company (you probably access its site every day, dear reader), and I brought up the subject of my ancient Genie garage door opener. It's so old that the remote control uses a DIP switch; I tried replacing the beat-up remote, but newer DIP-switch-less ones can't communicate with the garage door opener.

To his credit, BTW, one engineer wasn't afraid to ask, "What's a DIP switch?" (DIP switches could be found in every PC or video game circuit board until the mid-1990's.) Such a basic part of electronics history was unknown to him, and he didn't need it at all to do his job well.

Fitzgerald's words popped into mind, though I know that was not the writer's intended meaning:

And then one fine morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Short Conversation Between a Married Couple

The old filter (bottom) still had life, but
one shouldn't be cheap if one has allergies.

The furnace manufacturer recommends that we change the filter every 12 months. The furnace is hidden behind an access door that is a magnet for boxes.

I changed the furnace filter this morning. I had to move some things around the garage.

"I noticed."

I threw out some stuff we don't use and cleaned up the area.

"That's so unlike you."

Did You Forget to Celebrate?

Illustration from American Greetings

Beyond My Ken

The air purifier (bottom) helps keep
the furnace dust-free.

At the first anniversary of our new furnace I ordered filters for the air purifier but had difficulty opening the filter housing. That was a good excuse to spend $125 for a one-year checkup.

I like to watch the professionals do the initial maintenance to see how much of it I can do myself. In the case of furnace maintenance the answer was disappointing: not much. Filter and UV-light-bulb replacement was simple enough, but testing the gas pressure and the circuit boards required equipment and knowledge that was beyond my ken. Test results, BTW, were fine.

Jay cut a piece of wood that was blocking access to the filter. He was done in an hour. We'll call him again next year, money well spent for peace of mind.

Salvaging That Which Was Lost

John Eaton fixes a toaster oven in Palo Alto (SJMN)

The Bay Area, a center of technological innovation, is also one of the leaders in the nonprofit fix-it-don't-trash-it movement:

a cadre of fix-it fanatics, disgusted with planned obsolescence and our throwaway culture, has embraced "creative caring." Valuing function and respecting the age of household objects, they strive to save them from death row.

They're awaiting your stuff at a Repair Cafe in Palo Alto on Sunday, a Fix It Clinic in Albany in March, a Santa Cruz-based gathering in May and across the nation, from Seattle to Brooklyn, N.Y

The economic incentives are overwhelmingly on the side of the throwaway culture.

We had been enduring a partially working $30 toaster oven and finally were compelled to spring for a $50 replacement. Nevertheless, if the personal effort would have been modest, say one or two hours, and the parts cost $25 or less, we would have gone through the trouble of trying to fix it. Not adding a scrapped toaster to the environment's burden is worth something, as is the psychic pleasure of salvaging something that was lost.

Here's hoping that more people at least think about fixing the devices that have served them so well before throwing them away.

For Want of a $10 Part

I didn't want our hot-waterless weekend to be extended any longer (see post below) and promptly called Noritz early this morning. It turned out that UPS was the culprit; despite the Saturday label the replacement part had sat in UPS' Anaheim distribution center over the weekend. Noritz refunded the surcharge for Saturday delivery, small compensation for the inconvenience of cold-water bathing.

I've heard other people complain about UPS and will use FedEx if there's a choice. Such anecdotal evidence is unscientific to be sure, but isn't word-of-mouth how many of us pick doctors, car repairmen, and other service providers?

The package arrived at 10 a.m., and Kevin was here by noon. It took him ten minutes to replace the igniter. He charged me only for the two hours that he spent diagnosing the problem on Friday. I told him I'll call him again if I need a plumber but I hoped I wouldn't have to. He laughed and was on his way.

City Boy

The igniter is the square black object in the middle

Indoor plumbing is one of modern life's necessities; right behind it in importance is HOT running water. Our four-year-old tankless water heater stopped heating on Friday. An emergency call to a local plumber diagnosed the problem as a faulty igniter. The manufacturer promised to send it overnight so we could be up and running on Saturday. Alas, the package didn't come.

We've made do with showers at the gym and boiling pots of water for lower-volume needs. The dishes and laundry are piling up. Overnight lows are in the 40's, and very cold water greets us in the morning. Monday, and the replacement igniter, can't come soon enough.

Going with My Gut

When making my own personal financial decisions---like the doctor who won’t look after his own health—I find it hard to gain the motivation to apply the same thoroughness that I do on tasks for my clients and employers.

Lately I’ve been buying extended warranties and service contracts on new appliances. These decisions have been based more on gut feel than disciplined quantitative analysis. The purchases have turned out to be right, despite popular advice that one should avoid these agreements.

The Best Buy repairman came by earlier today to finish the work on the refrigerator. Last month he fixed our front-loading washer, also under contract. (Regarding the latter, the latch had broken, and the washing machine wouldn’t operate with the door even slightly ajar. However, I installed an elastic strap to over-ride the safety feature until the repairman fixed it on his second visit. Fortunately, the laundry police weren't called.)

When deciding whether to buy service contracts, doing a decent analysis requires us to ascertain the elements going into the decision, including:

length of the standard warranty;

probability that the equipment will need repair one or more times after the warranty expires;

length of time the equipment will be held;

cost of the repair(s);

cost and length of the extended service contract;

replacement cost of the equipment in the period it is likely to break down (note that the current purchase price is irrelevant, although it may give a clue as to what the future replacement cost may be).

We’ve had to perform analyses like this at work. If the project was a big one, we would also need to analyze the cost of other alternatives, such as leasing-in the equipment or using a less-efficient configuration (for example, two smaller machines in place of a large one) in lieu of repair. Then, after gathering the data to fix the range of probabilities and costs for each scenario, we would run multiple iterations, sometimes cranking out hundreds of Monte Carlo simulations. After all the work was done, senior management would often decide on the opposite of the model recommendation (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Perhaps I don’t do quantitative analysis more frequently in personal situations because I subconsciously (now consciously) know that all that work does not necessarily improve the result. Especially when considering other uses of my time, I can make a decision in a minute, pop a cold one and watch a ballgame.

It's possible that I am getting smarter as I get older.

Better Than Before

The bad news: the icemaker on our 7-year-old Samsung RS257 (superseded by the RS267) refrigerator malfunctioned and leaked all over the floor.

The good news: in 2008 we had renewed the Best Buy extended warranty, which covers parts and labor on the housecall. At $169 for three years it’s turned out to be a bargain.

Also good news: the Best-Buy repairman asked me to defrost the freezer before he returned for his second visit. I dumped nearly half the contents, most of which were unidentifiable.

I don’t welcome problems, but sometimes fixing them makes things better than they were before.

Defrosting one freezer makes the second one look not so hot.

Never in My Wildest Dreams

The heating element on our 20-year-old Kenmore dryer went kaput. The schematic suggested that the problem could be a fuse, but after much prodding, pushing, unbolting, unscrewing, upending, and, yes, cursing (the dryer is wedged in a tight space), I couldn’t access the fuse. Not for the first time I concluded that my father’s electrician’s certificate is of far more practical value than my sheepskin in the social sciences.

Quickly dispensing with the idea of paying for a service call on an ancient appliance, we canvassed Costco, Sears, Best Buy, and Circuit City for a replacement that could fit into the space, yet have sufficient capacity to handle the output from our front-loading washer. The few suitable models were more than $700 and had a wait time of at least two weeks. We didn’t relish the idea of hauling our clothes to the laundromat, even for a brief period.

But this is the 21st century, when people can hook up instantaneously for many purposes, among them the trading of used appliances. On Craigslist I quickly found two dryers that could fill the bill. A couple of back-and-forth e-mails eliminated one candidate, but the one in Palo Alto seemed ideal. The seller was a Stanford Humanities professor who had re-piped her laundry room with natural gas and had no further use for her four-year-old Kenmore electric. Her price was a non-negotiable $150, and I would have to come get it.

After confirming that the dryer worked, I forked over the cash. The dryer slid easily into our van. My elation over an excellent economic transaction was dampened by the thought that never in my wildest dreams did I envision myself trucking to Palo Alto 33 years after earning my MBA to pick up a used dryer. You don’t want to see that in the Class Notes. Oh well, I won't tell if you won't.

It fit, and it works.

© 2009 Stephen Yuen

Resolution #1: Clear the Clutter

We moved the broken clothes dryer to the garage. I called Allied Waste. Every year our garbage company allows each household two special pickups, which includes one large object plus up to 12 boxes or garbage bags.

We scurried through and around the house, scooping up old garden tools, a rusty one-speed bicycle, and clothes too decrepit for Goodwill. It wasn’t difficult filling the 12 boxes and bags. Why hadn’t we done this sooner?

New Year’s Resolution #1: clear the clutter. How to measure progress: if we call Allied Waste twice for special pickups.

No going back: we watched the truck crush everything.