$120, 1,600lb of stone (which I moved 4 times), and some Saturday morning sweat and now we have a legit fire pit spot that isn't next to the stock tank pool to send embers into the cover anymore.
Look, as horribly wrong as this is I have to give credit for getting those cleated nuts on upside-down. Talk about determination, that would not be painless. As funny as this is, simple mechanical inability is so commonplace you’d be shocked the places you’ll run into it. Eventually you’ll run into a guy in bib overalls fixing something and then drops a line like “Gee, I must be using the wrong kind of hammer on this screw!”
I don't think I ever posted this here, but I mentioned it in the post above. My quarantine project in 2020 was putting in a new patio and stock tank pool. Material supply issues were a huge bitch, but I got it done in about 5 weeks. It's 8' round and 2' deep, which is perfect for my 5 year old daughter to play in and for my wife and I to sit and drink in. Maintenance is next to nothing and the pump filter keeps thing nice and clean. The whole project cost only a little over a grand, and we now use a part of our yard that was previously useless so it was a great investment. Some before and after pics.
Water heater flame went out the other night, thought it might be a fluke so I restarted it and it seemed to be ok. Just now went to take a shower and it's out again. When I'm trying to get it going, the pilot light keeps going out and if I keep at it, the pilot light will eventually stay lit and then I can get the burner going. It starts out with normal blue flame but I went to check on it and the flame was larger and orange. Went out again. Got it lit once more and the flame was the normal blue for ~3-5 mins and then suddeningly changed to the orange color. I'm trying to get a little heat in the water for a quick shower so I let it go. Went out a couple minutes later and it's off again. It's too hot to take the access plate off so I'll wait until tomorrow morning. The unit is about 2 years old and installed by an actual plumber, aka, not me. So far, Google has turned up cleaning the thermcouple, making sure the intake vents aren't blocked (they aren't) and the exhaust flue isn't clogged. Any other tips? TIA
Grab a candle or match and light it and see if the flame/smoke is being drawn up the flame hood. Clean up the area as much as you can. Is there a lot of soot? Is the flame yellow or orange?
Yeah, that's why I asked about the colour. A yellow flame means not enough air. Orange usually means it's burning dust or contaminants.
Relit the burner this morning and held a lighter near the vents at the bottom and it draws the flame slightly. Held the lighter near the exhaust vent and it has enough air flow to snuff the lighter flame. The blue flame is when it first lights and the yellow/orange flame is after a little bit and then it will shut off. Once it shuts off, I can't relight it for a bit. As soon as I release the pilot light button, the flame goes out. Might be time to call a professional.
Our furnace is gas and seems to be working fine and I light all the burners on the range (150,000 BTU's combined) and they work fine so I don't think it's a supply issue
My guess (GUESS) is that you have some sort of a blockage in your pilot feed. It may be due to a bad thermocouple, which might be causing some incomplete combustion and therefore lots of soot/carbon/blockage, and it kind of describes the shut off and timing. It almost sounds like the TC is not opening the valve enough, and when it does see heat after a while, it's thinking it's overheating and then killing the gas feed. That's my armchair thinking.... and I fully endorse your "call a pro" stance. I don't like fucking around with furnaces. It should be simple... but it's also easy to fuck things up or die if you get it wrong.
Bought a new TC but that didn't fix it. Started calling some repair places and none of them could make it out there until today and they all said they'll most likely need to order whatever part is needed and then come back to put it in. Fuck that. GTE doesn't do cold water and too damn busy to keep taking time away from the shop so I just bought a new water heater and put it in last night. Problem solved.
Greetings, fellow homeowners! so my new place has a block basement. On one end, there are pipes coming out of the walls. Here’s a pic of one. (pic is sideways, sorry. Bend faces up) There’s four of them and look about the same. All one one wall. Any idea what they are, and could they be cut off at the wall? Actually, I just had a thought. The house was built in the 70’s and we think the garage was added later. These pipes would go under the garage. Perhaps they’re original water lines to where the septic used to be?
That's really weird. If they were septic, you'd think they'd be properly capped off, as you don't want methane and shit (literally) to trickle back into the house. If they were capped off at the other end... why wouldn't you do that here? And why is it so far out from the wall? That's some serious "WTF" material there. I'd try posting it on Reddit or something to get some thoughts.
I’m just guessing, because of the way the pipes look. I haven’t seen any type of issue with them re: backflow - maybe they aren’t septic. They’re just…there. Its three pipes actually, that one, another one that doesn’t stick out so far, and another one with no bend. I mean…they were obviously part of something that isn’t a thing anymore, I’m just wondering what it was. Any subreddit suggestions?
I don't know, really... I tried searching for "home repair" and this came up... seems to have some people hanging around in the sub: https://old.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/
If you blow compressed air in one, does it come out anywhere, like the others? My immediate thoughts are; power conduit for running power lines... water drain from the garage (I know I'd kill to have a proper drain in the floor of my garage)... hot water pipes for DIIY radiant heating... none of them seem right, but I can't think of anything else.