All this talk of garage springs and such... Doesn't anyone grill/bbq/smoke/cook anymore?


 
Steve Hoch said:
Ugh, your water heater went out on you too? Did you replace that yourself? If you're brave enough to tackle that garage door spring, a water heater should be a piece of cake. My last water heater sprung a leak too. Luckily there is a drain in the floor of my basement so the water mess wasn't too bad.
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Oh yeah, total DIY.

I sealed the leaking tank with JB Weld. Using it as a holding tank for solar preheat. Main heating is the natural gas burners and manifold from the E330 i stopped using this summer. Backup heat source is copper tubing in a three stage kettle stack using KBB controlled by a thermoworks X4 driving a billows.
 
DanHoo said:
Oh yeah, total DIY.

I sealed the leaking tank with JB Weld. Using it as a holding tank for solar preheat. Main heating is the natural gas burners and manifold from the E330 i stopped using this summer. Backup heat source is copper tubing in a three stage kettle stack using KBB controlled by a thermoworks X4 driving a billows.
Click to expand...
What? You're using a grill to heat the water for your house?
 
Steve Hoch said:
Ugh, your water heater went out on you too? Did you replace that yourself? If you're brave enough to tackle that garage door spring, a water heater should be a piece of cake. My last water heater sprung a leak too. Luckily there is a drain in the floor of my basement so the water mess wasn't too bad.
Click to expand...
Basement? Basement? We don't have no freakin' basements in California? The last house I lived in with a basement in CA was over 50 years ago, a ranch house in a tract of orange groves that was built in the early 1900s. The house was bulldozed to make way for an apartment complex. The house had the last laugh, though...the bulldozer ended up in the basement and got stuck there. Poetic justice.
 
And that basement was home to a family of possums, and I caught one, young and dumb me thinking I was going to make a pet out of it. I quickly found out...possums don't make good pets. Almost tore me a new you-know-what.
 
Ed P said:
Basement? Basement? We don't have no freakin' basements in California? The last house I lived in with a basement in CA was over 50 years ago, a ranch house in a tract of orange groves that was built in the early 1900s. The house was bulldozed to make way for an apartment complex. The house had the last laugh, though...the bulldozer ended up in the basement and got stuck there. Poetic justice.
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Yeah, I never understood the no basement thing there. I know you can have earthquakes, but you still have skyscrapers, so what's the difference?
 
Ed P said:
And that basement was home to a family of possums, and I caught one, young and dumb me thinking I was going to make a pet out of it. I quickly found out...possums don't make good pets. Almost tore me a new you-know-what.
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Ha, I have a possum now that thinks he's my pet. He keeps coming in the garage to eat the food I put out for my stray cats!
 
That house had a sprinkler system installed on the roof during WWII in case of enemy attack. Galvanized pipe that dripped water. It's where I met my wife. I crashed her party and she was makin' out with a guy I knew.
 
Steve Hoch said:
Yeah, I never understood the no basement thing there. I know you can have earthquakes, but you still have skyscrapers, so what's the difference?
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Too much cost to engineer a home and then build it. Cheaper to do slab with shear walls and no flexing of the floor to drop the roof down onto the home. Homes are wood. Sky scrapers are steel drilled deep into rock.

Except this gem in SF

sfist.com

New Millennium Tower Fix Approved by San Francisco Will (Hopefully) Stop and Reverse Tilt

Scaled down from the original plan, the revised fix relies on 18 piles — instead of the initially proposed 52 — to anchor the 645-foot high-rise to bedrock on the two sides where it's leaned and tilted the most, helping both prevent future tilt and straighten the building.
sfist.com sfist.com
 
DanHoo said:
Navien tankless natural gas.
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I'm still rocking an old fashioned 50 gallon natural gas water heater. It's just easier to replace what's already there with the same thing. I do run out of hot water after my teen age daughter takes a shower though, I don't understand it, but it's true.
 
Steve Hoch said:
I'm still rocking an old fashioned 50 gallon natural gas water heater. It's just easier to replace what's already there with the same thing. I do run out of hot water after my teen age daughter takes a shower though, I don't understand it, but it's true.
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NG tank heaters in CA are problematic right now.

Details will step on the third rail do I'll not go there.
 
Steve Hoch said:
There's plenty of water in that ocean next to you!
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They just decided to do a desalination project for Orange County. Problem is, desalination plants consume a lot of electricity and there is the issue of what to do with the goopy discharge without affecting the marine life or our beaches. 5 million gallons per day output is what I think I read somewhere.

www.latimes.com

California Coastal Commission OKs desalination plant in Orange County

Unlike the rejected Poseidon desalination plant, Doheny will tie into a municipal system and feature a better environmental design, officials said.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
 
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