My wall heater repair!

 Well, as they say, if it ain't one thing it's another!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I was having some friends over for dinner. I went to light my pilot light on my wall heater and it wasn't getting any gas. I shut the pilot off usually in May and turn it back on sometime around the end of November. I can go all that time without needing to heat my house as the temps run from mid 50's to mid 80's for much of the time.

    Having lived in the house for 35 years I knew that it could be my valve and it was obsolete. The next day I did some online kungfu and found a place in Houston, TX which supplied parts for my old heater. https://eastwaysales.com/ . I emailed them and told them all I knew about my dual wall, Dearborn wall heater and asked if there was a plug and play replacement control valve. They said probably and asked for pictures. Which I sent and their reply was I needed such and such a model. By now it was late Wed before Thanksgiving.

    I knew it was useless to try to order before Friday and maybe Monday depending on their holiday schedule. 

    I called Friday and talked to Mike, ordered the replacement model in propane. And waited. It was cold Inside my house got down to 47F one morning and I opened the doors for warmth during the day brining it up to 54-55F. When you are the warmest thing in the room it gets cold! I huddled in my 0° sleeping bag.

 The new valve took it's time getting here on Dec 4th, 6 days.....

   First think I noticed was this had only 1 outlet for pilot lights, my old one has 2.

    An email to Mike about it and a recommendation to put in a 1/4" compression tee in the single pilot line.

    In the mean time I pulled the heater apart and began the process of cleaning burners and found that my main pilot to the thermocouple was plugged. That was why it would not light.

    I took that and the old and new valves to a local supplier some 15 miles away. APED , down in Santa Cruz(no website). I explained my issue and  asked for a new pilot light, The guy behind the counter said they could clean it for free and it will probably work fine. So he did that with a tiny cleaner like a tip cleaner for welding(none of mine fit). When I left I forgot my extended compression fitting which came with the new valve, on the counter. It was late on Friday at this point and they are closed all weekend.

  So I put it together with just one pilot. I knew it would work, it's just a loud bang when the far burner ignites. When I emailed Mike he again told me to do 2 pilots! There is a tube between the 2 burners and the gas, hopefully, goes between the 2 burners to lite.

     I probably did more dismantling the first time than the second. 

    Put it back together with the single pilot and could not get the tube to valve nut tight enough and had a micro leak. I knew I needed that extended fitting down at APED and a 1/4" compression tee.

    Monday morning I called and yep it was still there. I saddled up my motorcycle and went down and got it and the tee. I should have gotten some new tubing also.

In this pic you can see the extended fitting, above the knob where it says pilot.

Here you can see the old close fit fitting, due to the shape of the valve body the wrench will slide off and you can not get it tight enough.

     So Tuesday I set about pulling the valve/burner assembly and fitting the extended compression fitting and installing the second pilot and tee.

     Here's where I wished I had new tubing. The old stuff wasn't bent so good and had small kinks in it. I used a trick I learned with brake tubing to straighten it out. Drilling a 1/4" hole in a piece of 2x4, cutting off the old compression fitting, I wiggled and jiggled the tubing thru it until it was straight enough and I could work with it.

It was time consuming doing both tubes and reinstalling them on the burners and fettling around, Bending this that way and keeping access to the nuts for the gas supply hose open. The inner pilot has to go into the tunnel tube and the pipe drop down thru a slot in the frame.

   If you have longer tubes you can spiral bend them to make it easier to move and fit. Once the routing was done I tightened the  nuts since it should be easier outside rather than once installed.

   When I was satisfied with the tubing it was back in the house to put it back into the wall. There are only 4 sheet metal screws holding it in. The wires to the thermostat were hooked up and the inlet gas hose firmly attached, mine took 7/8" wrenches.  The tee nuts were 13mm and the extended fitting 7/16" while the pilot fittings were 1/2". All my screws are Phillips.

   With all tight(I thought) I turned the gas supply on and sprayed the fittings with Windex. I could smell gas right away and as soon as the tee fittings started bubbling I shut the gas off and went to tightening. I am always afraid of going too hard and stripping something. Eventually I got no bubbles.

 After having no bubbles, I lit the pilot closest to me and lo and behold the gas from the other pilot popped and it lit up too. With both pilots lit I went to the thermostat which was set at the lowest setting and moved the lever higher to ignite the burners. It wasn't coming on!??? What now?, stormed thru my brain.

     Then I remembered the knob was still on pilot...... I turned the thermostat down to lowest setting again and set the knob to ON. Moving the thermostat up again and the gas flowed and swoosh went the burners.

I HAD HEAT ON DEMAND!!!!

The cover was reinstalled and job Done!

Thanks to Mike at Eastways and the guys at APED!!!

Last of the house work is done!

 On Friday the 17th I ordered 100' of 3" flex hose from Home Depot. An hour later they canceled my order. I called and asked why, because they showed 3 in stock and 9 available. Turns out the store I thought I was ordering them from had the order diverted to a different store and they were out of the flex hose.

    My original store showed 3 and I was given the option of phoning and buying and having it delivered or resubmitting and requesting it not be diverted or going in person and buying it. It's 30 miles one way. I waited over the weekend thinking it over and decided I'd just drive the 30 and get it over.

    Sunday around 0930 I took off and had an uneventful drive over. A nice gal showed me where it would be. Lo and behold the rack was MT. She went off in search of someone in the department to search the storeroom. After about 10 min a guy shows up and he's sorry there are none in stock and it's their fault for not having the inventory correct. I tell him my online story and about driving 30 miles. Yep he's sorry I get that. I did get the SKU from him.

    I wander the store a bit and check out stuff then make my way to Customer Service another nice gal listens to my tale of woe, figures that I can buy it there and have it delivered and even waives the delivery charge. Good news, supposed to come the next day!

    Upon getting home via the long way I proceed to dig a ditch for the front downspout.

    Earlier that weekend the downspout to 3" flex hose adapter came so I had put that on.

    The next day at 0830 a guy shows up from a store 60 miles away with my flex hose.

       The radius of the hose was unknown so I had to figure out how high to cut the downspout so it would fit into the ditch. Once figured and cut I held it in place with a sheet metal screw. Held the hose close to the building with plumbers tape.

   Hose was laid in the ditch and I used a 4' level to check for drainage and cut the end to the right length, put on a slotted end cap and covered the whole thing up.

   When the gutters were put on my house I wanted both downspouts on the same side of the house near the ditch. Due to my house sloping we had to put the back downspout on the far side of the house away from the ditch. This was why I needed 100' of hose.

    In the back I kinda ran the hose under the steps and over to the downspout. There I again had to figure out the hose bend and shorten the downspout. You'll see. Each time I shortened them I removed them from the house and cut them shorter.

   Around my house I have 1/4" hardware cloth to keep the critters out. I used zip ties to attach the hose and that 4' level to check for drainage. It was tricky getting it hung around and under the stairs. I think I got it though!

     Finally I got to where the level wasn't needed and just hung the hose about every 18".

   Then I hit dirt where I dug another trench and buried the hose.

    The hose was cut to length and the slotted end cap fitted. I used plastic tent stakes and nylon rope to secure the ends from moving around. (I hope!)

     And that was the last of all the hard work! WHEW!

     I iced my ankle and took 2 Tylenol and frelling rested!

    Yesterday I did grocery shopping and bought screening for my screen door. It was looking a bit tattered and the time it was laying in the yard during painting the redwood duff had stained some red blobs on it.

    Today I removed the old screening and put in new.

    I'm done bring on the Winter!

Painting this old house

      I've lived in this house since 1990, 35 years now. As you might be aware the roof leaked and I had to replace it and the rain gutters. After they were done I decided that a fresh coat of paint was the next project.

    First I needed a colour. When we bought the place it was barn red and our previous place was also barn red. I wasn't enamored of it but raising the family came first. Then that fell apart and everyone moved out but me. It wasn't until somewhere around 2007 I painted it olive drab with a dark brown trim, well I never quite finished all the trim. So basically green and brown.

    This time I wanted to kinda take some colour from Nature and decided on this local plant called Coyote Mint, it has an interesting aroma when the leaves are crushed and can be brewed into a tea.

    I plucked a branch and went to the local paint place and had them match it. I wanted the blossom for the trim and the leaves for the walls. They mixed me up a couple of samples and I tried them out on a corner of the house.

    Most of my neighbors thought it would be nice! Next I had to look for a paint sprayer, Nobody in the neighborhood had an airless so I spent some time looking at rentals and searching craigslist for a deal. I finally decided to buy one. I got a Graco M5 and a 12' wand. Not money I wanted to spend, I felt it was the best way to go.  When it came in I built a stand for it because I wanted the hose to go to the bottom of a 5 gal bucket. 

Whilst looking I bought the trim paint and painted all the trim. It was at this time I realized that NOW would be the time to fix all those nagging things about the exterior which I disliked. Things like the peak of one end had no battens covering the gaps between the boards and those 2 gaping empty knotholes in the other end.

    My first attempt to fill the knotholes was with paintable silicon. You can see it in the above picture, the white stuff. It was too slow curing and too flexible so it was removed forcibly. In its place I let in pieces of extra batten I had. The seams were wood puttied and sanded. 

 After paint I can't hardly see them.

     There was  A LOT of trips up and down the ladder to measure and cut and install each batten. I also made one for next to the front door and kitchen window which were never there. I made another trip to the paint store for the 5 gallons of paint.

   Next was to tape off all the trim which was painted. Using blue tape and 8" paper roll it took a day to get this all done.

And then it rained, more of a drizzle, but too wet to paint. So I waited while the paint sat in my garage. For 2 days it drizzled and on day 3 I let it dry up.

Day 4 I hit the ground running! Set up extension cords, ladders, mixed the paint up, set up the sprayer with the extension wand and followed the instructions for priming.

Again with the ladder, up, down, move repeat. It took around 2 hours for the first coat and I did get a couple of runs, but........

    After a 20 minute break I put on the second coat, This time without the wand extension. I confess it was a mistake to use it. I thought I could get under the eaves easier, which it did, but there wasn't proper room for it elsewhere. Again about 2 hours. Later I pulled off all the paper and tape.

   The next day I started putting things back up like the house numbers and some trim pieces. I sanded off the overspray next to the house on the front porch with my palm sander. I re-hung my string lights only this time I recessed them behind the fascia.

     Next up was to finish sanding the porch and staining it. Again I started with my palm sander and after an hour I could see it was going to take days. So I borrowed my neighbors belt and oscillating sanders. The belt sander was doing good and then I broke 3 belts in 10 minutes and switched to the oscillating, I think it is an 8" disc. I has 2 settings mild and MONSTER! I started on mild it wasn't much faster than my palm sander. So I tried MONSTER! I could barely hang on to it with a virgin disc! I finally figured out how to work it and over the next 3 hours got my ass really tired and the deck sanded. I was sore for some time from this.

   Again rain was in the forecast so the next day I went to the hardware store and picked up a gallon of Penofin, transparent redwood stain. And not wanting to deal with overspray I brushed on 2 light coats with a wipe down in between.

After the front was done I turned my attention to the back porch. I had gotten overspray on the rafter for the roof. I wanted it to look pretty too. But first I wanted to seal the underside of the rear gutter to the porch's corrugated roof. It has been an annoying issue since I put on the roof as duff from the redwoods goes under the gutter and when I sweep or blow off the roof it falls down onto the porch and with all my crap it's hard to sweep it. The blower is especially dirty.

 I had a partly used can of expanda foam and I climbed on the roof to put it in. Damn thing would work! Nada came out...grrrrr! Back to the hardware store and get another can. Supposed to fill 3" gaps. Well, I did get a bead down the 25' the last of it barely expanded.

    Not nearly the seal I wanted, but I needed to get sanding.

Put on my safety gear

     I used my tired ol arms and my palm sander and a whole pack of 80 grit pads and 3 hours to get it done. I rehung my antlers and extension cords. Went in to take a well deserved break.

      Yet that gap kept bugging me. Sooooo back to the hardware store, pick up another can and try to fill the gap. I did fill most of the gap there is still about 5' I need to do, another can......

Then after a day of soaking in of the stain it rained, 1-9/16". And as a bonus the roof on the rear porch used to leak right in front of the slider where a tree branch hit and bent things, now it doesn't! Win!

    The front beaded up nicely and is not slippery when wet. Another Win!

    I am glad that job is done!