Good morning!!!!

[txdon]

Good morning! An unexpected 33.1˚F this morning still dropping, heading to the mid 70s with clear skies and a westerly breeze. No frost dew point is 29˚.
Had to get up in the middle of the night to close windows, House temp down to 72˚. Water temp 58˚.

The Leyland Cypress trees will go in the large Costco pots that the Date trees were in till I fin out exactly where I want them. I'll be able to move them around, they need full sun and I have two large oak trees in the back yard. The date trees are doing good, still no dates. The Meyer Lemon potted tree is full of lemons (30+) that will need to be picked before the first freeze.

Dental visit went well yesterday with no problems.

Looks like we bottomed out at 33.1˚ now heading up, 34˚.

 

[Happy in NC]

Woke to this. Son's calling hours today.
I want to go home!!

 

[daugen]

Drew, I thought the Lariat trim package was a first package ?

it used to be, now two or three levels higher, like Laramie Longhorn, Limited, tungsten, etc
Big Horn and Laramie two most common I think.
unlike GM, Ram doesn't force you to buy most expensive truck to get airbag suspension.
but all of these trucks are fifteen to twenty grand more expensive than when I last looked.
They are losing money on EVs and have to make it up with bloated profit suvs and trucks.

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning
43° and grey outside. Got about an inch of rain overnight,more forecast for today. We sure needed the rain, I am going to go down to the pond after my bowl of cereal and see if it came up at all.

Yesterday’s drive to the vet wasn’t too bad, Zoe travels really well. We did drive through a McDonalds and get her a cheeseburger for lunch on the way home. It was a special treat, as she never gets people food. The visit was good, they can remove her ovaries lapriscopically and do a gastroplexy at the same time. We will make an appointment for after Christmas. Looks like it will cost more than I paid for my first Toyota pickup by a good margin. We do have health insurance for her, so have to investigate if that covers any or all of it.

I’m still tinkering with the hot water recirculation. The Rinnai boiler is set up to control the recirculation pump, but I couldn’t get it to work reliably, so I put it on a timer. But it bothered me that it wouldn’t work as intended. So I narrowed it down to my choice of thermostatic bypass valves. I used a Taco valve which apparently has a lower flow rate in bypass mode than the Grundfos valve that Rinnai sells. Those specs are not listed for either valve, making it just a suspicion, that there wasn’t enough bypass to trigger the flow sensor. My clue was that it didn’t work it all unless I ran the pump at max speed. So I swapped valves last night and reconnected the pump to be controlled by the boiler, all seems well now. I’ll connect the timer to disable it over night and I should be good to go. Another lesson learned the hard way. I picked the Taco valve because it was easily serviced, the grundfos is not.
I did a little caulking on the shed door installation, and cut up the old doors for the trash.

Today I’ll tidy up the boiler now that I think I know what was happening. Then I’ll get into something to be determined.

 

[kenmbz]

Good Morning
43° and grey outside. Got about an inch of rain overnight,more forecast for today. We sure needed the rain, I am going to go down to the pond after my bowl of cereal and see if it came up at all.

Yesterday’s drive to the vet wasn’t too bad, Zoe travels really well. We did drive through a McDonalds and go there a cheeseburger for lunch on the way home. It was a special treat, as she never gets people food. The visit was good, they can remove her ovaries lapriscopically and do a gastroplexy at the same time. We will make an appointment for after Christmas. Looks like it will cost more than I paid for my first Toyota pickup by a good margin. We do have health insurance for her, so have to investigate if that covers any or all of it.

I’m still tinkering with the hot water recirculation. The Rinnai boiler is set up to control the recirculation pump, but I couldn’t get it to work reliably, so I put it on a timer. But it bothered me that it wouldn’t work as intended. So I narrowed it down to my choice of thermostatic bypass valves. I used a Taco valve which apparently has a lower flow rate in bypass mode than the Grundfos valve that Rinnai sells. Those specs are not listed for either valve, making it just a suspicion, that there wasn’t enough bypass to trigger the flow sensor. My clue was that it didn’t work it all unless I ran the pump at max speed. So I swapped valves last night and reconnected the pump to be controlled by the boiler, all seems well now. I’ll connect the timer to disable it over night and I should be good to go. Another lesson learned the hard way. I picked the Taco valve because it was easily serviced, the grundfos is not.
I did a little caulking on the shed door installation, and cut up the old doors for the trash.

Today I’ll tidy up the boiler now that I think I know what was happening. Then I’ll get into something to be determined.

Weird the Tacos flow wasn't enough. I have 2 tacos on the boiler, one for heat and one for the hot water and another for the solar hot water. I like the replaceable cartridge drive on them.
Do the grundfos have that or do you need to break it down to replace the motor/impeller by parts?

 

[LouNY]

good morning all
damp morning but still not much rain
45 going up to 47

need to finish picking up house this morning for landlady visit, then I'm off to a Chevy dealership in Colmar to talk to them about a new Tahoe
or Silverado. I am quite sure, after spending hours online with pricing configurator, they cannot order a truck the way I want.
I don't want a sunroof or leather upholstery, I do want air bag suspension and Super Cruise. But doesn't look like GM will give you the good stuff unless you order a fully loaded 82k truck. I'm not paying that, particularly because I refuse to have 22 inch wheels on a truck. And that's what GM seems to spec with electronic suspension. no no no

so I don't expect to be successful this afternoon, and that's ok. I may spend two grand and put new tech Koni FSD struts on Volvo which I'm told
improves the ride. The Volvo is almost paid off and still looks nice so maybe I just stick with it and keep banging my head on door frame getting in.
Better than banging my wallet for eighty grand...

Ram just started offering some version of hands free driving on their new pickups, and Ram has a powerful straight six engine and full airbag suspension.
and with Lariat trim no requirement for 22s. I've owned 3 rams and they drive nicely.
the only challenge today when you get in one of these high tech vehicles and look over all the screens and myriad buttons and you wonder how you will figure it all out. I don't want to drive a smartphone.

and then there is the lure of owing nothing on car, the lure of less financial stress, versus the perceived advantages of fancy new car.
Take all the money I would have dumped into new vehicle downpay and get a bigger better motorhome instead.
But i had hoped to switch to a travel trailer with new truck, but if I keep the car, will go to diesel pusher motorhome, something old and big.

final consideration is how much discount do I demand as a bottom line off new truck msrp.
Discounts on trucks are increasing as inventories pile up.
have no idea how that translates to ordered vehicle pricing, will sure find out.

When I was browsing pickups I noticed that GMC had offerings that lined up more to mine then Chevy

 

[LouNY]

Morning to all,
An early morning for me up and moving at 4 to go down to one of my daughters to take her to the VA hospital were she works for knee surgery had to be here at 6:30 and now just waiting for them to finish and then run her home, then home for me. Rain started about5:30 this morning here. Going to be a wet cold sour day.
All stat safe

 

[txdon]

I’m still tinkering with the hot water recirculation.

Did you make a loop with your hot water plumbing when you installed the plumbing? In our MB shower, which is the farthest away from the hot water heaters, it takes 7 seconds for the water to be hot. When the circulating pump was broke it never got hot.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Interesting drive down yesterday, besides a screw in the tire. Started sunny, then fog, then sun, then rain around Christiansburg, then very windy and cold down below Bristol.
Nice the Knoxville bypass is newly paved, last time it was very rough. Sun in eyes again.
Stop at Buc-ees for food.
Son not mentioning any pain yet. He didn’t get much sleep, nor did I.
Have to take him back to Dr this morning.
I had my coffee. Still got sinus pain, but little less.

 

[Popgadget]

Weird the Tacos flow wasn't enough. I have 2 tacos on the boiler, one for heat and one for the hot water and another for the solar hot water. I like the replaceable cartridge drive on them.
Do the grundfos have that or do you need to break it down to replace the motor/impeller by parts?

It’s a Taco HLV-1, made to bypass water from the hot to the cold line until the thermostatic element closes it. Very specific application for DHW recirculation. Not a mixing or tempering valve. The flow rate in question is the bypass flow, not the normal flow. I really liked the Taco design because the thermostat element is easily removed to clean.
I am talking about the valve only, not the circulator. I’m using a Resideo stainless ECM circulator.