LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Apr 19, 2023 8:30:28 GMT -5
We fully replaced our upstairs A/C unit a couple years ago. Indoor, outdoor, some of the duct work, so very nearly the whole shebang. That was expensive.
Then my grandma died, and my parents gave me a nice chunk of change. We knew we should save it (and we do still have some), but between the frustrations of Covid and the Mrs.' cancer returning, we were like, "Eh, let's have some fun." So we put in a rad patio. That was expensive, but I don't regret it.
We had HVAC inspectors out yesterday to do a little pre-summer checkup. Our upstairs system is fine, thank goodness, but they returned with a litany of problems with the (admittedly old) downstairs system. Bad rust, leaking, just not good at all. Recommended a full replacement and sent over 3 quotes for different SEER levels we could go with. The smallest quote, the cheapest, least efficient system's quote, is more than double what we paid two years ago, and for a higher SEER system from a better brand.
My wife showed it to her mom, who is a property manager, real estate agent, former house flipper, and just generally knows everything about houses. Her mom looked at the quote and said: "Oh wow, that's high, and so is he."
Second opinions and/or favors will be called in.
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Post by nowimnothing on Apr 19, 2023 9:18:41 GMT -5
A little extra fun times with the doorbell. The handyman replaced the button on Monday. Just the outside button, nothing else. It worked Monday night. Yesterday, I got home from work and heard a faint humming/buzzing noise but didn't think much of it. A friend came to hang out for a little while and came in through the front door, where she reported that the doorbell didn't work. Hm. That's weird. And then I noticed the buzzing noise again, and after wandering around the area for a little while, we realized it was coming from the chime box, which is mounted on an inside wall a few feet from the front door. I texted the handyman service, not expecting to hear back - it wasn't an emergency, and you couldn't hear it in the living room or kitchen, just wanted to see if we could get the guy back out to look at it. A little while later I got a call and the owner of the handyman service told me he wanted to come out still that evening (it was around 7:10 by then) and at least disconnect the chime box. So he did, checked the button and no problem there, but said the chime box was busted. Which is either a strange coincidence or something about the new button did it? but he'll be back Friday to replace that. I did appreciate the evening service at no charge! He joked that "it's not a big deal, or it might have burned the house down" heh. Yeah buzzing is never good from electronics. It could just be a bad speaker, but it could also be arcing electricity. Still with a low voltage unit like a doorbell probably not a cause for too much concern. |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Apr 19, 2023 9:22:19 GMT -5
A little extra fun times with the doorbell. The handyman replaced the button on Monday. Just the outside button, nothing else. It worked Monday night. Yesterday, I got home from work and heard a faint humming/buzzing noise but didn't think much of it. A friend came to hang out for a little while and came in through the front door, where she reported that the doorbell didn't work. Hm. That's weird. And then I noticed the buzzing noise again, and after wandering around the area for a little while, we realized it was coming from the chime box, which is mounted on an inside wall a few feet from the front door. I texted the handyman service, not expecting to hear back - it wasn't an emergency, and you couldn't hear it in the living room or kitchen, just wanted to see if we could get the guy back out to look at it. A little while later I got a call and the owner of the handyman service told me he wanted to come out still that evening (it was around 7:10 by then) and at least disconnect the chime box. So he did, checked the button and no problem there, but said the chime box was busted. Which is either a strange coincidence or something about the new button did it? but he'll be back Friday to replace that. I did appreciate the evening service at no charge! He joked that "it's not a big deal, or it might have burned the house down" heh. Yeah buzzing is never good from electronics. It could just be a bad speaker, but it could also be arcing electricity. Still with a low voltage unit like a doorbell probably not a cause for too much concern. I think the speaker was just dead, the house is almost 30 years old. But yeah, he was like "well, I'll sleep better now" and I was grateful he came out. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Apr 19, 2023 10:42:49 GMT -5
I feel you Liz, they are finally close to finishing off the new house on the fire lot next door and that should be the end of being annoyed/woken etc (I work from home 100%) after almost a year and a half of various things. Oh god, a year and a half?! You have my deepest sympathies! When they were remodeling the house next door it was remarkably quiet and, possibly because it was a shoddily-done flip, didn't take very long. I can't imagine the kind of demolition and then rebuild you've been enduring! |
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Baron von Costume
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Post by Baron von Costume on Apr 19, 2023 10:48:44 GMT -5
I feel you Liz, they are finally close to finishing off the new house on the fire lot next door and that should be the end of being annoyed/woken etc (I work from home 100%) after almost a year and a half of various things. Oh god, a year and a half?! You have my deepest sympathies! When they were remodeling the house next door it was remarkably quiet and, possibly because it was a shoddily-done flip, didn't take very long. I can't imagine the kind of demolition and then rebuild you've been enduring! It hasn't been constant at least, but a month hasn't gone by without some sort of annoyance. Sadly we're getting another april snowstorm the rest of this week so guessing they won't be finishing the exterior this week as planned. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Apr 19, 2023 11:02:07 GMT -5
Apparently we're gluttons for punishment, because as the buds started to come in on the last big tree in the backyard we realized that it was really, truly time for it to go. So at the end of the week before last we reached out to the tree-removal guy, who always insists he needs a month or two of lead time before he can get a crew onto one of our jobs, and figured we'd at least get the ball rolling. That was a Friday, the septic install started Monday, septic ended on Friday, and on Saturday we got an email from the tree guy saying they'd be there on Monday. As if the corner-to-corner expanse of grasslessness out there wasn't bad enough, we then immediately took out the last nice feature in the yard. I was kind of hoping they'd take long enough that at least we'd have some grass out there when the tree came down! But no, now the yard looks like it should constantly be accompanied by that hawk-shriek and rattlesnake rattle sound effect that they use in Westerns to emphasize a bleak, desert expanse.
Extremely conveniently, though, we also had the tree-replacement guy coming on Monday afternoon to talk about grinding two stumps from last summer and putting in a couple of dogwood trees. He arrived less than 45 minutes after the tree-removal guys left, and after a cursory hand-wave at the spots he'd actually come to talk about I dragged him to the backyard and was like, "FIX THIS!!!!" Oh, and even more conveniently, he also does hardscape design and installation, so he's going to tackle our plans for Operation: Hide The Hideous Septic Tank Lids. The plan now is to add two red maples to bit of yard that isn't containing septic system features, put a mulch bed around the tank and paint the lids to match the mulch (we want to plant hellebores and daffodils, so it'll have flowers at least part of the year), and then put in a nice patio area and a stepping-stone path around the back of the yard to where the compost bins are. I want the patio to be crushed oyster shells, but he's refusing to consider it because gravel is much cheaper. He was like, "Considering that you just did this [waves hands at evidence of septic situation], I want to save you money." And, like, I appreciate that, but I also really want crushed oyster shell. So we'll see how that goes. It was a bit unclear about what the process and timing of all of this will be, and honestly, I need to slow my roll because we haven't even gotten the final layer of septic-covering soil into the yard yet.
(Poor Boomer thought she'd have a quiet week after the septic guys finished, but instead she had the tree guys cutting down the maple on Monday, and then Tuesday the tree-replacer guy was boring stumps all day and then putting in the wee dogwoods in the front yard. It is actually quiet today, though!)
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GumTurkeyles
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Post by GumTurkeyles on Apr 20, 2023 8:29:58 GMT -5
We're making some progress on our long-postponed house updates. We had cracked plaster in our living room ceiling, which is below the upstairs tub. We had thought we took care of that leak, but the painters we hired found out there was still something. The pipes are fine, but when we re-caulked the tub, some of that had cracked and that small hairline crack was letting drops of water drip down. Anyways, that's taken care of, as well as painting on the stairwell which we couldn't reach.
We're going to use the same people to repaint the screened in porch, which has exposed lead paint chipping everywhere.
Now my wife is motivated to really tackle all the other things we've been dancing around. We're going to wallpaper an accent wall in our bedroom, wallpaper the downstairs bathroom, fully redo (ourselves) the downstairs bathroom (leaving the standing shower alone). And we're getting a contractor to officially look at the possibility of getting a hood over the stove and properly venting that out.
I also replaced all the ceiling fans over winter break. Next I'm going to replace all the non-fan overhead lights, so they don't look like they're $20 fixtures from the early 90's.
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Apr 21, 2023 0:52:10 GMT -5
My kitchen faucet will stutter and also leak around the sprayer when I turn on just one temp, but if I also turn on the other, it comes out smoothly. Why is it doing that?
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Post by nowimnothing on Apr 21, 2023 7:10:33 GMT -5
My kitchen faucet will stutter and also leak around the sprayer when I turn on just one temp, but if I also turn on the other, it comes out smoothly. Why is it doing that? Sounds like air in the line, most of the time it is not too big of a deal, but sometimes it can indicate a larger problem. plumbingsolved.com/why-does-my-faucet-sputter-when-i-turn-it-on/Is it the hot line or cold? Or do you mean that it goes both ways and only with both on does it flow smoothly? If it is the second case, then there might be a clog in the faucet itself or the aerator. When there is not enough pressure it leaks and stutters but when there is more pressure from the two lines then it forces through the clog and runs smooth. You can easily check/clean or replace the aerator yourself. Usually you can screw the end off the faucet by hand or with a towel and wrench. |
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Post by WKRP Jimmy Drop on Apr 21, 2023 11:40:54 GMT -5
My kitchen faucet will stutter and also leak around the sprayer when I turn on just one temp, but if I also turn on the other, it comes out smoothly. Why is it doing that? Sounds like air in the line, most of the time it is not too big of a deal, but sometimes it can indicate a larger problem. plumbingsolved.com/why-does-my-faucet-sputter-when-i-turn-it-on/Is it the hot line or cold? Or do you mean that it goes both ways and only with both on does it flow smoothly? If it is the second case, then there might be a clog in the faucet itself or the aerator. When there is not enough pressure it leaks and stutters but when there is more pressure from the two lines then it forces through the clog and runs smooth. You can easily check/clean or replace the aerator yourself. Usually you can screw the end off the faucet by hand or with a towel and wrench. It is the second, and I will do the thing! Thank you:) |
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Post by nowimnothing on Apr 21, 2023 14:44:59 GMT -5
Sounds like air in the line, most of the time it is not too big of a deal, but sometimes it can indicate a larger problem. plumbingsolved.com/why-does-my-faucet-sputter-when-i-turn-it-on/Is it the hot line or cold? Or do you mean that it goes both ways and only with both on does it flow smoothly? If it is the second case, then there might be a clog in the faucet itself or the aerator. When there is not enough pressure it leaks and stutters but when there is more pressure from the two lines then it forces through the clog and runs smooth. You can easily check/clean or replace the aerator yourself. Usually you can screw the end off the faucet by hand or with a towel and wrench. It is the second, and I will do the thing! Thank you:) The aerator is just a screen, we used to steal them to use as screens in our pipes back in college. I am sure that was not healthy, but it was better than sucking in a hot coal from the buds. That is long way of saying you can remove the aerator completely without it really affecting the faucet much. The water just comes out more like a hose than a spray. |
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GumTurkeyles
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Post by GumTurkeyles on Apr 24, 2023 6:05:23 GMT -5
We're making some progress on our long-postponed house updates. We had cracked plaster in our living room ceiling, which is below the upstairs tub. We had thought we took care of that leak, but the painters we hired found out there was still something. The pipes are fine, but when we re-caulked the tub, some of that had cracked and that small hairline crack was letting drops of water drip down. Anyways, that's taken care of, as well as painting on the stairwell which we couldn't reach. We're going to use the same people to repaint the screened in porch, which has exposed lead paint chipping everywhere. Now my wife is motivated to really tackle all the other things we've been dancing around. We're going to wallpaper an accent wall in our bedroom, wallpaper the downstairs bathroom, fully redo (ourselves) the downstairs bathroom (leaving the standing shower alone). And we're getting a contractor to officially look at the possibility of getting a hood over the stove and properly venting that out. I also replaced all the ceiling fans over winter break. Next I'm going to replace all the non-fan overhead lights, so they don't look like they're $20 fixtures from the early 90's. So we got the living room ceiling patched and painted last week. Now there's a leak coming into the office. At least it's not from a leak in a bathroom. But we'll need someone to look to see that there's not a broken shingle, and to figure out how water is getting in there. It's not pouring in, and it was raining and really windy yesterday. But still something else we need to pay someone to take care of. |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Apr 25, 2023 10:25:55 GMT -5
My Bosch dishwasher, which is not even 2 years old, is developing a habit of not opening the detergent tray during the cycle. But weirdly it comes in waves. It will work without error for 3 months, then it will fail 5 times in 2 days.
It's currently in a bad mood. I've already tried burning offerings and sacrificing small animals to the eldritch lords, but I guess I'll have to do the next worse thing: look up a youtube how-to video.
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Apr 25, 2023 10:29:08 GMT -5
My Bosch dishwasher, which is not even 2 years old, is developing a habit of not opening the detergent tray during the cycle. But weirdly it comes in waves. It will work without error for 3 months, then it will fail 5 times in 2 days.
It's currently in a bad mood. I've already tried burning offerings and sacrificing small animals to the eldritch lords, but I guess I'll have to do the next worse thing: look up a youtube how-to video.
This happened to ours for awhile, I just started tossing the pod in the bottom of the dishwasher to make sure it got clean. And then I realized the door was stuck because of buildup. So if you don't do this already, run a cycle or two with dishwasher cleaner (there are a few brands out there), and then remove the filter screen and make sure that's clean too. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Apr 27, 2023 16:11:52 GMT -5
The state of the backyard beautification project: When we left off, things were dire in the backyard. The big maple came down, the yard was completely grassless and covered with straw, the six lids of the septic lid were all visible aboveground (only three should be). But help was on the way! The landscape designer conveniently came by just as the dust settled on all the wreckage. And the plan was to put in a gravel patio area by the septic lids, some kind of mulched/planted bed next to it to hide the lids, put in a stepping-stone path around the garage to the compost bin, bore the massive maple stump, and put in two new maple trees. The designer and I were on the same page for all of this except the patio material -- he wanted to put in red gravel (UGH!) and I wanted to live my childhood dream* and make it out of oyster shells (BEAUTIFUL!). The guy insisted oyster shell was a terrible idea. "You have to get it cleaned, and bleached, and then delivered in bags. I just want to be mindful of your budget here," he insisted. I was skeptical. I'm pretty sure someone makes an oyster-shell landscaping product that doesn't include starting at full, filthy oyster shells yourself. Also, we hadn't even talked about budget yet, so that was my problem, not his. Anyway, he sent me a quote for all this stuff early this week, including the red (SERIOUSLY, NOT EVEN WHITE TO *PRETEND* IT'S OYSTER SHELL?!?) gravel. The total cost was literally a third what I was expecting to have to pay, so I replied asking him to humor me and just price out the shell. He called me back last night to say it was a miracle, and guess what -- he's found a source of already-bleached-and-cleaned shell! You don't say. He doesn't have a price yet, but we're maybe making headway? In other backyard news, we got only the faintest hints of rain in the first two weeks after the grass seed was put down, so the yard was sere and awful. But finally there was a substantial rain while we were away over the weekend and when we got back on Sunday there was a bit of grass peeking the tiniest bit over the straw. This morning it was still damp and gray from overnight rain and in that kind of gloomy spring light the yard actually looked like there was green starting to break out. Huzzah! We put a cute little birdbath dish out on the deck in a sad effort to apologize to the birds for wrecking the whole yard, and we actually got a bird at it yesterday. (It was an asshole blue jay, of course, but beggars can't be choosers.) And Hugs spotted a pileated woodpecker investigating the area of the maple stump, too. Things are happening around here! *We lived on Long Island, NY when I was a kid, and I have such fond memories of class trips and just fun weekend outings to Old Bethpage Village, which was at the time (and probably still is; I didn't look closely at that link I just included) a living-history museum. Oh, the fun of going into the store there and buying candy sticks! And I loved, loved, loved, loved the paving on the paths in the village -- they were covered with crushed oyster shells! How romantic and fabulous! Since moving away from Long Island I've always been like, "Aw rats. I wish I lived somewhere near the beach, so I can have oyster shell in place of gravel all over my landscaping. I'd have oyster-shell driveway, oyster-shell front walk, oyster-shell between my garden beds..." Then, a few weeks ago while contemplating what our new backyard was going to look like, I was like, "WAIT. Maybe you can BUY oyster shell from places that ARE near the beach, and just have it delivered?" I googled it and sure enough, oyster shell is hardly some profoundly obscure material for landscaping. Whaddaya know! |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on May 3, 2023 10:30:59 GMT -5
It was colossally rainy this past weekend, and we noticed a new-to-the-living-room dripping sound coming from the wall with the fireplace. We checked up in the attic and, sure enough, the side of the chimney was damp. "Oh, it's surely just the flashing," we said, and called a roofing service to get that quick fix.
Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Oh man, why on earth did we think we wouldn't need an entire new roof? I mean, what about the past year at stately Dick n Hisses Manor has suggested anything would be a small or inexpensive repair?
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Baron von Costume
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Post by Baron von Costume on May 3, 2023 15:49:19 GMT -5
I finally got my stumps ground today (giggety) and that may mark the end of all fire related repairs
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GumTurkeyles
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Post by GumTurkeyles on May 4, 2023 13:34:03 GMT -5
The designer and I were on the same page for all of this except the patio material -- he wanted to put in red gravel (UGH!) and I wanted to live my childhood dream* and make it out of oyster shells (BEAUTIFUL!). The guy insisted oyster shell was a terrible idea. "You have to get it cleaned, and bleached, and then delivered in bags. A few years ago, someone in my state skipped those steps and just put down uncleaned clam shells for his driveway. He got into legal issues for it for the stench, maggots and flies, etc. turnto10.com/news/local/tiverton-issues-cease-and-desist-order-to-man-accused-of-dumping-unwashed-clamshells |
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GumTurkeyles
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Post by GumTurkeyles on May 4, 2023 13:37:18 GMT -5
We're making some progress on our long-postponed house updates. We had cracked plaster in our living room ceiling, which is below the upstairs tub. We had thought we took care of that leak, but the painters we hired found out there was still something. The pipes are fine, but when we re-caulked the tub, some of that had cracked and that small hairline crack was letting drops of water drip down. Anyways, that's taken care of, as well as painting on the stairwell which we couldn't reach. We're going to use the same people to repaint the screened in porch, which has exposed lead paint chipping everywhere. Now my wife is motivated to really tackle all the other things we've been dancing around. We're going to wallpaper an accent wall in our bedroom, wallpaper the downstairs bathroom, fully redo (ourselves) the downstairs bathroom (leaving the standing shower alone). And we're getting a contractor to officially look at the possibility of getting a hood over the stove and properly venting that out. I also replaced all the ceiling fans over winter break. Next I'm going to replace all the non-fan overhead lights, so they don't look like they're $20 fixtures from the early 90's. So we got the living room ceiling patched and painted last week. Now there's a leak coming into the office. At least it's not from a leak in a bathroom. But we'll need someone to look to see that there's not a broken shingle, and to figure out how water is getting in there. It's not pouring in, and it was raining and really windy yesterday. But still something else we need to pay someone to take care of. It was a leak, but it was the gasket around a vent. It was $200 for the visit, but no charge for the gasket. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on May 4, 2023 13:41:42 GMT -5
HAHAHA! Wow, I can imagine how wretched that must have smelled! But I appreciate the passive approach that person was taking to using an all-natural paving material... A couple of weeks ago we realized that Boomer's car had a horrible stench in it (naturally this came to our attention as we were packing for a weekend road trip). The consensus was that a small animal must have died in the air filter, but Boomer's solution to the problem was "eventually it'll stop smelling so bad." And, well... she's not wrong! It smells fine again now! Those clamshell complainants just weren't visionaries of laziness like my mother is.  |
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GumTurkeyles
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Post by GumTurkeyles on May 12, 2023 15:06:28 GMT -5
Successfully replaced the porch ceiling fan today. Then I unsuccessfully did not replace a kitchen light fixture. Put the old one back and now the breaker won't reset and I probably shorted something. Electrician can't be here until Monday. Guess I don't need light.
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Post by nowimnothing on May 15, 2023 19:23:39 GMT -5
I asked the kids if they wanted me to put up the inflatable swimming pool in the corner of the yard again this year or go with a hammock instead. They voted for the hammock. I looked around and did not see any stands that I liked, so I figured I would just build a hammock stand.That stand quickly grew into a pergola and eventually morphed into the giant thing you see below. A gazebo maybe? I still have some finishing touches to put on it but it is certainly something that I spent way too much time and money on over the past couple of weeks. The black triangle in the corner is where I naively thought the footprint would be when I started.    update: kid #1 promptly fell out of the hammock and may be too scared to try it again. |
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Post by nowimnothing on May 16, 2023 19:59:23 GMT -5
Update: kid #2 promptly fell out of the hammock, she was laughing though.
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on May 18, 2023 11:45:15 GMT -5
Update: kid #2 promptly fell out of the hammock, she was laughing though. Thank goodness you've built a proper hammock classroom there -- your kids need some lessons! (That looks absolutely amazing.) |
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Post by ganews on May 18, 2023 22:46:50 GMT -5
Last month I got a check in the mail from my electric company, presumably paying me back for the overage generated by my solar panels that I did not spend down over the winter - $175, pretty good!
This month my electric bill (I still have to pay the base fee for being on the grid), noted the dollar amount and labeled it "NEM Credit". I discovered that stands for Net Energy Metering, but all of Google's first page of hits are sourced from California and Hawaii. Mid-Atlantic states don't usually do this sort of thing.
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Post by Powerthirteen on May 21, 2023 9:33:56 GMT -5
I spent yesterday moving roughly 8500 pounds of gravel (sounds more impressive than three yards) from the driveway to the back corner to fill in the patio that I spent the last couple of weekends excavating and putting in wood edging for. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, in tandem with the previously rotten wood deck that I rebuilt next to it using the wood from the deck that used to be where the patio is.   |
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Post by nowimnothing on May 22, 2023 8:02:42 GMT -5
Last year I replaced the hell strip with native plants. This year it is the hillside. I ran out of cardboard so one side is plastic, we will see which kills the grass the fastest. I am a little worried about erosion before the natives are established so I may have to add some kind of terracing but I am trying to avoid that much work/expense. Either way at least I don't have to mow the stupid hill any more. Luckily neither of my neighbors will care. The guy to the left only mows like once a year and the family to the right are hippie artists. Next year I should be able to finish off the last of the front yard and it will be grass-free. I was able to get all the plugs planted this weekend. The side with the cardboard did a lot better in killing all the grass than the side with the plastic. I ended up taking the weedeater to that side to trim everything down to the dirt. I am sure I will be dealing with a lot of weeds on that side so I tried to mark the natives with some bright yellow landscaping paint in addition to their labels. Most of what I planted in the hell strip last year is coming back great so I am optimistic that the hillside will fill out in a few years.  |
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on May 31, 2023 9:12:57 GMT -5
My son has shown an interest in playing chess, which I used to play quite a lot, so I dove into my office closet to find one of my better sets (I own something like 15 chess sets). I was able to find what I wanted, but in the process I had to move and open several tub containers which we put in this closet 9 years ago and haven't looked at since. And I was suddenly overcome with the most powerful feeling of...
There is almost nothing in this world I love better than throwing stuff away, and so much of this stuff can just go. Like I have the box for a video card that was in a PC I don't even have anymore. It's meaningless. It's nothing.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jun 5, 2023 8:48:55 GMT -5
On my back patio I have three grills: a ceramic cooker, a pellet smoker, and a propane griddle. Both the pellet smoker and the griddle require electricity to function, and I use them frequently, so I keep them plugged in all the time. At a glance though, they wouldn't appear to be plugged in. Most grills aren't.
We had some contractors over doing a wide range of home repairs last weekend, including some work on part of the old structure of the house that remained after we installed the new patio last year. I hadn't really thought much about it, but later that week it was visibly obvious to me that they'd moved the grills. They weren't quite in the right spot. Something else that made it obvious? My grills don't fucking work! Likely not realizing they were plugged in - again, I get it, you see a grill and you expect to just move it - I'm sure they strongly yanked the grills out of position so they could get to whatever they needed to get to. But this means they also yanked on the plugs and wiring.
The issue with the pellet smoker is obvious. The plug is completely bent and split. That'll never work again, but at least it's a removable element. It's a specific part, I can't use a generic plug, but it can at least be replaced without having to do any work to the grill itself. Once I get that part, I'm sure the grill will work.
With the griddle I have no idea. There is nothing wrong with it visually: the plug is intact and not bent, the power cable is fine, the port connection seems fine, and as best I can tell the internal wiring seems okay. No obvious issues, but I'm hardly an expert. It just ... doesn't start. It doesn't receive electricity, and it needs electricity to run the temperature gauges. It cannot function without it. Of course I've also tested the outlet, which is working just fine. I've got a support ticket in with the griddle manufacturer to see where to go from here. It's under warranty, thankfully, but I'm really looking for the lowest hassle solution possible.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Jun 12, 2023 9:57:03 GMT -5
On my back patio I have three grills: a ceramic cooker, a pellet smoker, and a propane griddle. Both the pellet smoker and the griddle require electricity to function, and I use them frequently, so I keep them plugged in all the time. At a glance though, they wouldn't appear to be plugged in. Most grills aren't.
We had some contractors over doing a wide range of home repairs last weekend, including some work on part of the old structure of the house that remained after we installed the new patio last year. I hadn't really thought much about it, but later that week it was visibly obvious to me that they'd moved the grills. They weren't quite in the right spot. Something else that made it obvious? My grills don't fucking work! Likely not realizing they were plugged in - again, I get it, you see a grill and you expect to just move it - I'm sure they strongly yanked the grills out of position so they could get to whatever they needed to get to. But this means they also yanked on the plugs and wiring.
The issue with the pellet smoker is obvious. The plug is completely bent and split. That'll never work again, but at least it's a removable element. It's a specific part, I can't use a generic plug, but it can at least be replaced without having to do any work to the grill itself. Once I get that part, I'm sure the grill will work.
With the griddle I have no idea. There is nothing wrong with it visually: the plug is intact and not bent, the power cable is fine, the port connection seems fine, and as best I can tell the internal wiring seems okay. No obvious issues, but I'm hardly an expert. It just ... doesn't start. It doesn't receive electricity, and it needs electricity to run the temperature gauges. It cannot function without it. Of course I've also tested the outlet, which is working just fine. I've got a support ticket in with the griddle manufacturer to see where to go from here. It's under warranty, thankfully, but I'm really looking for the lowest hassle solution possible.
Replaced the pellet smoker's power cable, and sure enough it's working just fine. Whew.
Customer support for the griddle has agreed to send me a new power supply, but they're in the middle of yearly inventory and said they'll ship it out once that's complete. I don't have a timeline on that, but at least I have a free part coming that I really hope will work. My friends on the Food Thread know that this griddle is my baby, and I never shut up about it.
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