Homeowner Bliss......

We've been pretty lucky so far. Anything really expensive, say....a new roof....we knew about coming in. Likewise the tree and the fence.

And the new washer and dryer are working fine after leveling both of them (NOTE TO INSTALLERS: Just because it doesn't rock doesn't mean it's level!), removing about 75% of the length of exhaust ducting because the "Installers" used it ALL to save the 10 minutes it would take to trim it, and cleaning several handfuls of wet lint from the "anti-critter screen" a previous owner installed.

So I was a bit distressed that our brand-new, top of the (Home Depot) line GE dishwasher wasn't working very well. The dishes weren't clean, the soap dispenser would sometimes ope, sometimes not, and the soap would never fully dissolve when it did open. It also didn't sound right. Instead of the nice, quiet "swoosh-swoosh" of a normal dishwasher, it made some rather "unusual" sounds. Since it was still under warranty, and we have the receipts, GE was most happy to send a Service Tech out to investigate.

Took him all of five minutes to diagnose, troubleshoot, and correct the fact that the water valve feeding the unit was barely cracked open! He said it looked like it had been opened enough to leak-check it, but they never opened it all the way. Since his service report doesn't have a category for "Botched Installation" he said he'd scratch his head and write something creative on the report.

It still takes two hours to run a full cycle, but the first load of dishes came out spotless!

And the Service Tech from the small, locally owned and operated appliance place was first class all the way.


Or the bathroom fan/light in the basement that I had to get real creative with. But first I had to learn there are several popular electrical "Box Sizes", and I had to get a replacement of the same size to ensure a drop-in replacement, right?

Well......kinda. The replacement fan/light is made by the same company, fits the same 8"x8-1/4" box, and has a model number close to the 1980's model. The problem is that the instructions only cover new installations, where the ceiling isn't there yet, and you can happily pound nails into exposed joists all day long. We have a fully finished basement. With a ceiling. The ceiling was installed after the original fan/light was installed.

IOW......there aint no stinking room up there to pry out the old nails, and drive in new ones.

And I'm NOT ripping up perfectly good, well-painted drywall, overhead, no less, to replace some bathroom fan/light. Nope, aint gonna happen.

I wound up getting the motor mounting plate out of the old fixture, and compared the two motors. Yep....same little shaded-pole motor with a slightly different fan impeller on it.

So, I'm in the process of putting the 2017 motor in the 198x box. When it's done I'll put the old motor plate with the new motor on it back in the old housing, and then finish it off with the new plastic louvers and lamp assembly with a new LED bulb. My wife wanted to know why it was taking several days to swap the fan out, so I had her go up on the ladder to show me how to get the old box out.

She deferred to my experience and left the area.......

And I put up two new solar powered, motion activated, LED security lights. I put one in between the two garage doors to light up the driveway and path to the house, where the front porch light takes over, and the other one over the side door to the garage.

The side door will be replaced Real Soon Now! It's the original from 1977 and is a huge heat loss area even though it's on the South side of the house, and there's an additional outside "Storm Door" to replace the usual, cheesy, falling apart aluminum screen door. There's also an identical storm door for the garage-to-house door where the entrance to the den is. They're both identical to the one I installed on the back door of the Long Beach house, so I know what they cost, and they're top of the (Home Depot) line products.

And I bought and assembled a "temporary" weather station to put in service until spring when the tower goes up, and my Davis weather station will go back into service. For under $120 delivered to my door, I'm astounded by what you get. I'll do a separate post on that later, after I knock a few off the Honeydew list.

So life continues after our escape, and my wife still has some culture shock, but I think she's recovering nicely.......