The rain garden proved its worth today… (to me, anyway — I think Karen’s requirements have been met already) We’re in the middle of a moderate / severe drought, and it’s been super hot with alternating levels of humidity. Apparently today the jetstream is moving somewhere and it’s causing some ridiculous storms, like the one we had this afternoon. The rain garden, at left, was literally full to the brim with water!! And it looks like we guessed just right with the area and depth because it wasn’t overflowing that I could see, and I really can’t imagine ever getting any more rain over such a short period of time. If it can handle that, it can handle anything.

Why does that make me so happy? Because a few short months ago that water would have been lapping at our foundation and starting to work its way into the basement. As you can see at left – taken at the same time as the above shot – it’s wet but not even halfway up the sidewalk!! I can’t even begin to tell you what a big deal this is.

See, Karen’s all about filtering the runoff and getting it back into the groundwater system cleanly, etc, etc, and I’m very much in support of that, too. But it’s such a cost / benefit winner when it also happens to save so much potential water damage to your house. Sweet.

I should have bought stock in Ikea and Home Depot. Years ago.

Instead I just get to increase the wealth of their existing stockholders, but it still seems like a good deal when the results turn out this nice: (ignore Karen showing you how well she brushed her teeth)

Two smaller things of note in the bigger picture: in the very back is a new steel wire shelf with a wood top, a perfect space for our toaster, coffee maker, and various stuff underneath. This lets us clean up our main counter space for day-to-day use. Also, left of the sink (detail at left) is a new separate filtered water faucet! It’s so great to have a built-in faucet finally instead of the stupid ones that attach to the end of the existing faucet and always have a bad seal anyway. Total. Crap. This one feels nice and looks nice – it even matches the faucet I put in a while back!

So… I think that about wraps up the kitchen! (for now)

New motor: $85

Run capacitor and mounting hardware: $65

Learning enough about air conditioners that you can fix your own (up to a point): Priceless. Or, as the nice guy at Dey Appliance put it, "a new fan will get you through the heat, since nobody’s going to be able to come install a new unit until after you don’t need it." True that. And on the other hand, a new fan plus rock solid 1976 parts could last another 5 years easy. I do wonder about getting the system charged up and making a few other efficiency updates, but we’ll see…

Whew. Currently 90 degrees outside, 64% humidity, and it’s 8:30 – when you get up at 5:30, that’s almost bedtime. And it’s way too hot to sleep like that, at least without fans. Or, better yet, air conditioning. Yeah, that would be nice. I can hear our neighbor’s unit kicking on as I write this, pumping delicious cool air into his house…

Not in the cards for us, it seems. Last night, Sierra and Karen and I were sitting on the new deck bench enjoying the breeze when there was a squealing sound from the external AC unit as it tried to turn on. That can’t be good, I said, rising to check on it – yeah, agreed Karen, I heard that before but I thought it was our neighbor’s. Uh oh…

Sure enough the fan wasn’t running. I put my hand on the frame over the fan and it was hot, way too hot to be good. Crap. Went inside and shut the thing down. It was approaching 90 in the house last night as we went to bed but some well placed fans (ceiling fans are amazing, too) and everyone made it through the night.

This morning we woke up to rain – a saving grace, I suppose, since it kept our garden and lawn alive, and probably lowered the temperature for the rest of the day, but we’re currently paying the price in terms of humidity. (Yesterday never got too bad since it was only 30-40% humidity.) The rain also kept me from exploring the AC unit (after of course flipping the breakers both to the unit and the internal blower)… Which in turn kept me from discovering the delightful picture to the left: a blown capacitor. Damn.

The downside to finding the capacitor was now I wanted to replace it – while shut in by the rain I’d been searching for the manual for the unit, no go, and finally spending all my time on this incredibly useful site. I’m fairly confident (barring the actual motor being blown by the strain of trying to run last night) that replacing this capacitor will restore the unit to its cooling glory. But what the hell was the rating on that capacitor?? The oil and gunk inside had fused to the paint on the side when it blew, and unfortunately even carefully cleaning it removed the all-important stamp like you can see on it’s pair above left.

Still, by comparing stamps between the two I’m confident it’s a 3mfd 370 VAC capacitor, probably readily available from a local motor repair shop – I’ll call around tomorrow and see. I also found the schematic at left on the inside of the unit – we are dealing with a 100% rock steady 1976 air conditioner. Whoa. (check the bottom right of the drawing).

Anyway, I figure since the cap is probably only 8 or 9 bucks it’s worth a go. The motor at left is probably a bit under $100, so hopefully that’s not blown too. Once again, having a bit of trouble reading the vital stats, but I guess that’s what you get from an AC unit older than me…

The last bit of bad news is the motor "suspension". It sits upside down, hauling air in through the sides of the box, through the heat exchanger, and blasting it up and out, so it needs to hang level and be supported from above. For whatever reason it’s not bolted to the top of the unit, but instead attached with twisted steel cable – and two of the four are rusted through. My theory / hope is that the motor is ok, the sound we heard was the blades scraping on the housing after the support cable broke, and the resulting current draw blew the capacitor after which everything fell back into place but stopped working. Replacing the cap will cure everything.

At least that’s the hope. For now I’m only investing in a capacitor and some hardware to re-secure the motor… If that fails and it looks like the motor itself is bad, well, maybe time to shop around for a new unit. But in the meantime, if we can get a few more years out of this one, why not? I’ll probably get someone in to test the pressure on the system, make sure it’s as efficient as it can be on that end, but really if an $8 part, some research, and sweat can fix this I’m not going to replace the whole unit yet.

(plus, if you haven’t figured it out, every time something breaks it’s not only a hassle, it’s a freaking personal challenge. :)

Day two of the bench construction, first thing was to cut the angles for the corner and finish driving the 8 million screws attaching the seat boards. Power screw gun essential. The screws that came with the brackets are all galvanized for use in pressure-treated wood, overkill for me, but at least they’ll hold up outdoors. I ended up buying some new deck screws while getting the lumber so I could match the color of the wood a little better.

Done! Next on the list is to get something to treat the lumber – I’m not going to seal it yet, but there are a few different products intended for new lumber like this, just to help get it "off on the right foot". Not sure what exactly that means but it sounds important from the reviews I’ve read… Also might replace the two seat boards on the smaller side – one of them is "cupping" a bit (curling up at the edges) and the other has two badly placed knots. I think I have enough left over lumber for those two short pieces, we’ll see.

…and here it is in action! I think they’re both making the sign for "delicious", since they’re eating Princess Torte from Wuollette Bakery. Whoa. Good times. I’m actually writing this on Karen’s laptop while sitting on the bench right now. It’s sweet, but it’s getting dark enough to make me realize we’ll need another lighting solution out here since it’s so darn appealing to hang out on during these hot summer nights… Yay.

So about a month ago Karen and I were almost on this reality TV show where they do a bunch of work on your backyard. It sounded really cool and we were excited until she asked us what our budget was… Um, budget? So we respectfully declined – I thought those TV shows did the work for free! Anyway, during the interview in our backyard the producer asked us what sort of work we might want to do, and even suggested a bench on the deck. Say no more!

Karen and I had the same idea for where it should go, on the South side of the deck, and we were both keen on maybe making a nice corner out of it. Only trouble was, a bench from scratch was looking like a fairly complicated project, let alone all the hassle of a corner..

Luckily my internet searching lead me to the promised land – cool plastic bench brackets made just for the edge of a deck: "Just add lumber!" (see the lumber above, the brackets installed left)

Since they’re going to be well off the ground and mostly angled, I opted to not get pressure treated lumber — lots and lots of chemicals, even if they’ve cut out the arsenic since ’04. I also looked briefly at some of the composite wood/plastic blends they have preshaped for decks, and while they ‘re super cool and never need maintenance, they’re also way expensive and didn’t really match our existing deck at all. In the end I went with nice cedar, and it looks great so far.

Of course the "quick afternoon project" started to extend into the evening, pushed further back as I realized I didn’t have the socket I needed to put in the million hex screws and bolts. (On the list of "required tools" they only list a crescent wrench, but I would have shot myself in the head after one bracket if that’s all I had. Much nicer with the socket wrench.)

Alas, night has fallen on an unfished deck bench, but enough is completed to start to convince me it’s going to look super sweet. The deck always seemed a bit "unfinished" to me — nice, and I wouldn’t trade it, but missing something on the edges. I think this might be it.

The rain garden has more blooms! This awesome red "something" flower (Karen knows the name) has been rocking out for a few days, and yesterday I snapped a few pictures. We’re pleasantly surprised to see so much growth and blooming out of these brand new plants, hopefully that means they’re established and healthy for years to come…

Brown Dog found a big stick on his walk yesterday and has been enjoying some quality time with it.

The garden continues its rampage. (compare to this) I took that picture this morning, and unfortunately by this afternoon the combined heat and lack of water (I was trying to hold out for the forecasted rain) wreaked a bit of havoc on the tomatoes – now that their fruit is so big it’s getting really heavy and a few of the taller stems collapsed. I noticed it sagging as soon as I got home and gave it some veggie first aid, I’m confident most of them will pull through.

Sick and tired of the cluttered destructo-zone in our kitchen closet, I rigged up a tiered bag holder for our recycling. It looks super ghetto but I justify it by looking at you, sneering, and saying "It’s for recycling. It’s made out of things I had lying around — and cardboard. Get it??" Then you feel embarrassed for pointing it out and I go get a drink from the kegerator. Best of all, the vacuum fits under the rack, much nicer than hanging out in the office.

I helped nature do its dirty work on this female blossom this morning. I don’t care what you say, we’re getting a pumpkin out of this mess.

Finally, today was the last day on the job for my super awesome co-worker, Eric, who’s off to bigger and better things in NY, NY. Wah. The Walker won’t be the same without him.