Wednesday, April 6, 2022

YAY! Plumbing All Squared Away

 Well, the plumber was back today to reseal the two downstairs toilets. The one off the laundry room wasn't screwed down to the floor securely, which means it will rock back-and-forth, and eventually break the wax seal. It showed no sign of leakage....yet.

The basement toilet was just sitting on the floor...NO bolts, with the decorative caps just sitting where they're supposed to be covering a bolt. It didn't show any signs of leakage, either, but he said it was an accident waiting to happen. I made a crack about it "Not Even Being A Home-Owner Grade Repair", and agreed with me, saying even a home owner knows enough to go get the missing parts.

The drywall guy came and inspected the garage ceiling, complemented me on ripping the soggy stuff out, and said it would be about $175 to replace the drywall and fiberglass insulation, tape it, and paint it.

I estimate the plumber's bill will be about $600, labor and materials.

Oh, well...save $1k on the flooring install, and give $800 to other contractors to fix the mistakes the "flooring guy" made.

And the Ham Radio bands have been very good this week. While Mike The Plumber was here, I talked to several Japanese stations, some South/Central American stations,  heard some Europeans, and several stations from "Down Under", all on 12 Meters/24MHz, which hasn't had any activity since the peak of the last Solar Cycle.

Nice to see Cycle 25 off to a roaring start.

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Dodged TWO of 'em, one for each downstairs toilet.

      And Pebbles was very happy to see him again.....

      Delete
  2. Good on getting the home repairs under control.

    I saw a solar activity chart on spaceweather dot com that shows the actual sunspot activity to be grater than the forecast curve. 25 should be a good cycle for the low bands.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm hoping we have some decent 6 Meter band openings. I just bought a Hustler 5/8-wavelength commercially rated antenna I'm going to put up soon. I have a homebrew 6M dipole I made a couple of years ago, but I only had it up for the VHF contest. I may get rid of the 88' end-fed wire I have, and get the 6M dipole up there instead. Be interesting to see how a dipole at 25' compares to a vertical at 12'. With 200W from the 101MP, I hope I can be heard!

      Delete
    2. I always was a VHF/UHF weak signal and Sporadic E enthusiast, but I suppose there could be some very good F-layer openings on 6 meters. I will keep in touch with the band openings vicariously through your activities - :)

      Delete
    3. The original plans for the station here included a 35' tower with an M2 9-element 2M beam, and one of my SSB Electronik mast-mounted preamps on it, fed with 1" Heliax.

      Oh, well.....

      Delete
  3. Congrats on getting the homestead squared away. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Congratulations on getting that all done, drjim.
    You all be safe and God bless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Linda. It could have been much, much worse.

      Delete
  5. Well, it could have been worse...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And our new flooring doesn't look as nice as yours!

      Delete

Keep it civil, please....

Gloomy, Gritty, Grey Day

 At 1700 local it's as described in the headline; 30*F, 88% RH, completely overcast, snowing like crazy (small flakes, but lots of them)...