The snow is nearly all gone. Just some remnants where it piled up. It's been in the 40s and raining since last night. We're driving to my sister's near Albany on Thanksgiving day, about three and a half hours. We'll be taking a southern route, and not the Thruway, which gives me some encouragement that the traffic won't be that bad. But the weather is going to suck, near-freezing rain. Because of course.
Next weekend is going to be downright cold. Highs Saturday, Sunday and Monday all projected to be below freezing. But who knows?
Spent much of yesterday doing some home automation additions. Added an Aqara hub to the network so I could add some flooding sensors. They get mixed reviews online, mainly centering on disappearing from the network. It's a roll of the dice these days with these IoT devices.
I bought a package of three, the smallest number you can buy. There's a dim blue LED inside the sensor itself, and that's the light you need to watch for when you're pairing it with the hub. I kept watching for a blue light on the hub itself. Once I figured that out, I got them all paired up. One is in the utility closet with the hot water heater, the well expansion tank, and the radiant heat boiler. One is under the toilet, and one is under the washing machine. (We replaced the rubber hoses with braided steel hoses, which I recommend to everyone. Especially since the shut-off valves are inconveniently located in our case, and the washing machine isn't easy to drag out.)
The toilet and washing machine are in the same room, but depending on how the water flows, which one alerts first should give us an idea of what is leaking.
Our only course of action is to call the neighbors and ask them to come over and shut off the water. We could do that before we leave, I suppose. But then the radiant heat boiler has a make-up feed system in case the water level goes low, and I don't want to lose heat if that happens during the winter. So the water stays on, and we'll hope for the best. I'll have a servo-controlled shutoff valve installed next summer and figure out how to wire that into the network.
I spoke to the original owner and his plumber about the weeping union. The plumber said to just go ahead and snug it up, that I didn't have to worry about hurting anything. I related that every time I try to do something related to plumbing that I think should be within my capabilities, I end up calling a plumber anyway. He laughed.
I don't have a combo wrench large enough to fit the union, and there's not enough space between the adjacent fittings for an adjustable wrench or channel locks. We're going back to Home Depot on Saturday to rent a van to pick up a table Mitzi found online, so I'll buy a few larger sizes, or a set, and try again. It's just a weep. There's no dripping, no water on the floor. It dries on the fitting and the upper part of the tubing. So it's not a potential catastrophe, it's just unsatisfactory.
Last September, I brought up one of two Apple iPod HiFi speakers that I have, and an AirPort Express. I got that added to the network yesterday, and connected them with a TOS optical cable, so now we can AirPlay music. I don't have anything to set the speaker on, so it's on the floor. I stuck some cardboard under the front edge to angle it upwards and it made a significant difference. I'll figure something better out next summer.
I also brought two Eve wifi-controlled 110 outlets that I'd bought for the house in Florida, for which I never found a use. We have two floor lamps here, so they're plugged into those controllers and now Siri can control the East Lamp and the West Lamp. I have to use my watch or my phone, since I don't have a HomePod that can listen for commands. I'll bring my office HomePod up next summer. Of course, then I won't need the iPod HiFi. Maybe it'll migrate to the garage for tunes out there.
Anyway, despite the weather and the power outages, still enjoying rural life. If we have another extended outage due to an ice storm, that assessment may change. We'll see. It's a challenge that can be overcome, but we're not well prepared at the moment.
The beat goes on...
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:59 Tuesday, 26 November 2024