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I'm just gonna start a big catch-all thread for all of my home maintenance questions - and anyone else' questions as well.

Right now, the thorn in my side is an in-freezer ice-maker that's full of ice that has melted and refrozen enough times to become a solid 3" chunk lining the bottom of the ice bin, and completely subsuming the auger mechanism used to push ice out the front and/or break it into small pieces. Every online article I can find about ice-maker maintenance starts the same way; "remove the ice from the ice bin." So, I have the following tools at my disposal - which ones should I use to "remove the ice from the ice bin?"

• Small Butane torch - ostensibly for my wife to make jewelry, but all we've used it for so far is dabbing.
• Unlimited supply of hot water.
• Hammer and chisel set.
• Stainless steel screwdriver.
• Enough salt to change the salinity of the Salton Sea.

The only option for defrosting the thing is to unplug the entire unit, including the fridge, and I'd like to keep that as my option of last resort. Oh, and because it's been so long, and because the ice is piling up against one side, water drips down the side of the freezer and coats the entire inside in ice AND you can't just "lift here and pull out to remove ice bin."

This is a sign that your freezer may need to be defrosted. The coils are not longer able to cool the air effectively.

That said, the ice bin should be removable from the freezer. Can you give me the model and manufacturer of the fridge? It seems strange that you'd have to defrost the entire fridge just to defrost the ice bin.

I strongly suggest you avoid the torch. It'll scorch the plastic faster than you can react.

I'd avoid the mechanical options just to avoid scratches and other damage, but they might be your best option if you really can't defrost it using room air. If the bin is removable then use gentle mechanical tools to remove the ice preventing removal.

If you can't remove the bin for washing, you'll probably want to avoid salt, it'll be hard to completely get rid of, and it'll mess with your ice until it's all gone.

Quickest known safe way I've found for freezer defrosting is unplugging it, opening the doors, and using a fan to blow room air into the unit.

In your situation, I'd suggest a full defrost is your best option. Buy a few bags of ice from the store use a cooler for the food you can't cook and eat, and defrost your fridge for a day or two.

I second that. Bite the bullet and defrost. Otherwise you might make it worse by breaking something else. It's a good excuse to clean the fridge too.

While you're at it, try blowing air over the coils to clean them out. Your freezer isn't getting cold enough to freeze your ice, so they could be dirty.

It's an old GE, either a model TFX20JR or TFT20JR (the actual model number is behind the damn thing and I haven't pulled it forward yet). You're supposed to be able to remove the ice-bin without having to defrost the entire thing, but due to the ice build-up, that's out until I can get some of the ice chipped out from under the ice making apparatus itself. It sounds like a full defrost really is the best bet for this thing, sadly.

Here are some pics of the issue:


Interior shot of ice-machine auger, showing how little is visible above the ice-block.


Inside view from the front. Barely visible to the left is the ice buildup under the apparatus, which seems to be preventing me from "lifting and pulling here" to remove the ice bin.


Front view of the ice-maker inside the freezer. The top portion flips up to show the inside. The bottom portion reads "lift and pull here to remove ice storage container." Right now it neither lifts, nor pulls out.


Front view of the entire unit - I really just wanted to upload a photo called 'Full Frontal.png' to get Gas' hopes up.

Once you can finally get the bin out of the freezer, it's smooth sailing from there to just let that ice melt in the sink.

That looks the same as mine, it's definitely the ice buildup preventing you from pulling it out.
If you want to speed up the process, and not defrost the fridge, you can unplug the fridge and make sure not to open the door for the fridge. Then just take a hair dryer to the ice.

Defrosting would of course be ideal, but failing that, you don't want to use any impact-based method lest you accidentally knock any of the auger works out of line.
My recommendation would be a hose connected to a hairdryer on low or the exhaust side of a vacuum cleaner.

EDIT: Wow a lotta replies came in while I was stuck talking to people.

--Patrick

Hair Dryer.

Excellent, hair dryer it is, once we buy one this weekend.

Gared said:

Excellent, hair dryer it is, once we buy one this weekend.

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At some distance from the ice block and ON LOW.
You're just trying to melt the ice, not deform any surrounding plastic. If it's too hot for your hand, then move further back. Yes, you will have to wait longer, but you won't have to replace any proprietary melted plastic parts.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

At some distance from the ice block and ON LOW.
You're just trying to melt the ice, not deform any surrounding plastic. If it's too hot for your hand, then move further back. Yes, you will have to wait longer, but you won't have to replace any proprietary melted plastic parts.

--Patrick

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not looking to melt anything other than ice - the butane torch bit was a joke/angry exaggeration.

Okay, new year, new questions. Right now we're concentrating on the outdoors - landscaping is a lot easier and cheaper than moving walls, after all. So, to that end, I have a couple of questions, in picture form.

First - What the heck is buried in my yard? It's made of metal, apparently iron or mild steel. It continues further under the ground in the direction of my toes in the second pic.


Maybe some form of chain from a logging or mining operation (there was plenty of mining in the area and there's still plenty of logging)?

My size 11 for scale. Whatever this is, it continues in the direction of my toes. It appears to be about an inch thick. We've been digging around it with sticks and an old arrow shaft we also found buried in our yard.

Chain track from an excavator?
https://www.fridayparts.com/cat-e320-chain

—Patrick

PatrThom said:

Chain track from an excavator?
https://www.fridayparts.com/cat-e320-chain

—Patrick

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That does look remarkably accurate. I hope it's not the whole damn thing.

So our furnace doesn't like to stay working for very long. I've googled but found nothing. I'd really like to figure out how to do this without calling someone. And I apologize for lack of pictures as I'm not at home so I don't have any.

First, it's a gas furnace, not an oil one - that's important because it severely affected my googling.

There's a reset/shutoff switch on the igniter until that keeps tripping. The furnace fails to heat. We click the button and it immediately fires up and starts to regulate the temperatures, but then shuts off again. We can't figure out what is constantly making it trip, but there's got to be a reason.

When I googled it, all I get is about oil furnaces having a reset button trip, but it's not the same thing.

Any ideas or possible links to solutions?

Dave said:

Any ideas or possible links to solutions?

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Time to have your thermocouple replaced?
The thermocouple sticks out into the flame and generates electricity to tell the furnace that there is an active fire present. If it is not generating enough electricity, this will make the furnace "think" that gas is flowing but there is no flame, which will cause it to shut off the gas as a safety precaution. At least, this is what was happening to my water heater, it might apply to you.

--Patrick

Does it fire up and get warm but never blows?

I paid $5 to a site that had HVAC people answering questions. Their response (after charging me a hidden additional fee of $23) was:

"This is known as a flame rollout switch. It can be just a bad switch if the flame is not floating or rolling out of the chamber or it can be a more serious problem such as a dirty of cracked heat exchanger if the flame is actually getting out of the chamber and touching the switch."

So I'm googling that right now and will look more at it when I get home.

I asked if this was something I could look at or if I needed a pro. His response:

"If you do not see any fluctuation in the characteristic of the flame, I would start by re[lacing the rollout. They are about 10 bucks at supply house.If after replacing it still trips I would call a pro in to check for root cause and examine heat exchanger."[DOUBLEPOST=1514910696,1514910628][/DOUBLEPOST]

Shakey said:

Does it fire up and get warm but never blows?

Click to expand...

I'd love to answer that, but it's in the basement and I've never seen what it does. My daughter's boyfriend has always just pushed the reset button so it's been difficult to troubleshoot.

Dave said:

I asked if this was something I could look at or if I needed a pro. His response:

"If you do not see any fluctuation in the characteristic of the flame, I would start by re[lacing the rollout. They are about 10 bucks at supply house.If after replacing it still trips I would call a pro in to check for root cause and examine heat exchanger."[DOUBLEPOST=1514910696,1514910628][/DOUBLEPOST]

I'd love to answer that, but it's in the basement and I've never seen what it does. My daughter's boyfriend has always just pushed the reset button so it's been difficult to troubleshoot.

Click to expand...

Rereading, it sounds like it does run for a while, so it probably isn't what I was thinking.

Go go gadget home warranty! Sounds like it could be something called a heat exchanger, which means it would run anywhere from $600 to $1200. A new furnace would be upwards of $4000. So...welcome to your new house, bitch!

Heat exchangers, I've heard of.

I'm just hoping I'm not in the same boat as you soon, @Dave. The AC unit on our new trailer looks ancient, though it's had the condenser replaced recently (which is kinda important here in AZ, yanno).

A while back - before I replaced the entire unit - I had similar issues with a gas boiler in my apartment. They thought the same - and even replaced the heat exchanger.
Turned out the problem was the fan responsible for evacuation of the exhaust fumes wasn't properly sending a signal that it was turning, so, similar to @PatrThom's case, the thing shut off as a safety measure. Fix was...10 minutes of work to properly reconnect the fan electrics.
Anyway, it's unlikely to be the exact same thing, but...check yourself or have someone check over a bunch of electronic systems that could trip safety measures before doing expensive replacement work.

Almost all furnace controllers have a light that blinks error codes, and the error codes are on a label on the furnace cover. It’s a little work to get to it and read it, but they give you fairly accurate information about which part of the furnace is suffering.

You don’t need this now, but it’s worth knowing for the future.

And it's a cracked heating exchange. We get to replace our furnace less than a month after moving in.

New question category - plumbing. With all of my knowledge about water, waste water, water treatment, etc. - I have no idea how that applies to the pipes inside my house. The issue we've been having is a toilet that frequently seems to top itself off throughout the day, quite loudly. It was an issue, briefly, when we moved in in September. It wasn't an issue all rainy season. Now it's become an issue again, just as summer starts. Does this have to do with seasonal water-table timing, or has my toilet tank seal merely started to wear out with incredibly uneven timing?

I'd check the seals on the flap inside the tank - it could have some sort of leaking there that causes it to want to top off or it's not settling in right with the warmer weather.

A leaking flapper will do what you describe, where the toilet fills a little, then stops. Then later it fills a little more, then stops again, etc. Also it will make your water bill inexplicably higher.

--Patrick

Could this problem also be a result of the level being set to high on the float valve?

evilmike said:

Could this problem also be a result of the level being set to high on the float valve?

Click to expand...

Yes. If the valve is going bad, it could also be this.
But it's hard to tell sometimes whether the float is just set too high (and extra keeps draining down the tube), or the flapper keeps letting some escape unless you take the top off and watch.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

...take the top off and watch.

Click to expand...

PatrThom said:

Yes. If the valve is going bad, it could also be this.
But it's hard to tell sometimes whether the float is just set too high (and extra keeps draining down the tube), or the flapper keeps letting some escape unless you take the top off and watch.

--Patrick

Click to expand...

An entire float and flapper kit is like $10-15 at Walmart. Whenever I have this problem, I just replace the entire works inside the tank. It's easy and inexpensive (far less than the extra dollars on the water bill this problem causes). They make models specific to the brand of toilet, but lately I've been using the "universal" ones without problems.

Tinwhistler said:

An entire float and flapper kit is like $10-15 at Walmart. Whenever I have this problem, I just replace the entire works inside the tank. It's easy and inexpensive (far less than the extra dollars on the water bill this problem causes). They make models specific to the brand of toilet, but lately I've been using the "universal" ones without problems.

Click to expand...

I will swing by a hardware store and get this dealt with, then.

Woohoo! The world's loudest toilet is now fixed! Hopefully my Korky universal replacement kit lasts longer than the one I just pulled out of the tank, which looks like it might be a year or two old. There were significant mineral deposits built up on the rubber flapper though so I may need to up my water softener game.

Gared said:

There were significant mineral deposits built up on the rubber flapper

Click to expand...

I'd bet money that this was the root cause of your problem. Probably kept the flapper from making a good seal, which let water slowly leak out, necessitating a periodic refill.

Tinwhistler said:

I'd bet money that this was the root cause of your problem. Probably kept the flapper from making a good seal, which let water slowly leak out, necessitating a periodic refill.

Click to expand...

With ever-increasing frequency of "periodic."

Home ownership adventures:
When we had the house built, my wife wanted a "premium" shower. It is real tile (not acrylic), with a bench where you can sit and shave your legs.

She never uses the bench. And friends have told us that those kinds of setup tend to leak. Well, we've got a leak. After more than a year of re-caulking, re-grouting, putting waterproof silicone, etc, we've just decided to bite the bullet and remodel the bathroom. We're gonna pull all that stuff out and have it redone.

Since we have a hard water problem up here, we're going to install a water softener about the time the bathroom is completed, so that we can keep the new shower looking as nice as possible.

Goodbye, yearly bonus.

Tinwhistler said:

Home ownership adventures:
When we had the house built, my wife wanted a "premium" shower. It is real tile (not acrylic), with a bench where you can sit and shave your legs.

She never uses the bench. And friends have told us that those kinds of setup tend to leak. Well, we've got a leak. After more than a year of re-caulking, re-grouting, putting waterproof silicone, etc, we've just decided to bite the bullet and remodel the bathroom. We're gonna pull all that stuff out and have it redone.

Since we have a hard water problem up here, we're going to install a water softener about the time the bathroom is completed, so that we can keep the new shower looking as nice as possible.

Goodbye, yearly bonus.

Click to expand...

Bathroom remodels are expensive - and have a nasty habit of holding hidden expenses in reserve just to make things worse. But I can't think of anything I'd like more than to redo our bathrooms so I could put in a good sized tub, and a nice new shower.

Water softener was installed today. the guys did a great and professional job.

Lessons learned:

1. Educate yourself as best you can before starting a project like this. We have very hard water (291mg/l or 17gpg), but we only use 139 gallons a day in the house (considerably less than the average of 80-100 gal/day per person). I estimated that a 24,000 or 30,000 grain peak system would work fine, and shopping around online, I saw that they were about $750-1000 depending on the brand.

The first guy that came out (from Mr. Rooter) looked at my house (largish and fairly expensive) looked at my basement, and quoted me a price of $4400 without asking a single question about our water usage. I knew this was way more than the job should cost, so I told him "I was really looking for something under $2000". He then said he didn't know anything about water softeners, and he was just going to install whatever they put on his truck when they sent him out to quote the job. He took my information, and promised me that someone in the office would call me back.

I didn't wait.

2. Home Advisor is your friend. Every time I've needed to get something done (shower leak fix, bird removal, bathroom renovation, water softener, etc) I've first tried to find the "best local" on the internet via google. Every time, I've been unhappy with the results. Finally, I turn to Home Advisor, and I've been very happy every time. You'd think I'd learn this one already and go to Home Advisor first.

The guy that ended up doing the installation asked me specific questions about my water usage, was knowledgeable, answered all of my questions without dumbing stuff down (once I let him know that I had done some research and was able to understand the technical speak). He told me the brand of system they'd be using, and I was able to google it while I was on the phone with him so I could ask questions about it. I got a 30K grain peak system plus installation for $1500. It's a nice system that monitors usage (demand initiated regeneration) rather than one that is on a timer, which I was hoping for.

Mr. Rooter guy never did call me back, nor did anyone from his office.

Is there a decent brand of drywall anchor out there, or am I pretty much going to be limited to toggle bolts for drywall and mounting everything else to a stud? All I wanted to do was hang a couple brackets to hold up the closet rod that broke off of its end-cap a couple weeks ago, but noooooooooo. I can hang the bracket just fine, but the screws that came with these anchors don't actually cause them to burst open enough to anchor, so even just the weight of the wooden bar causes the brackets to pull back off the wall - screw, anchor, and all.

Gared said:

Is there a decent brand of drywall anchor out there, or am I pretty much going to be limited to toggle bolts for drywall and mounting everything else to a stud? All I wanted to do was hang a couple brackets to hold up the closet rod that broke off of its end-cap a couple weeks ago, but noooooooooo. I can hang the bracket just fine, but the screws that came with these anchors don't actually cause them to burst open enough to anchor, so even just the weight of the wooden bar causes the brackets to pull back off the wall - screw, anchor, and all.

Click to expand...

This product line has never failed on me, though I've never exceeded 50% of the anchor's rating:


I think I got them at Lowe's? Got two bags 5+ years ago, I have 1 left in the first bag (I re-use them between houses if they don't look fatigued/damaged). Looks like they might be called "Snapskru" now.

Yeah we have used some of those. They’re really strong. We mounted a 4-rack bookcase full of books to the wall with 4 or 6 of those.

—Patrick

Anybody have a recommendation for a good portable, indoor air filter device? I usually just go with the Amazon choice, but I'd really like to only have to replace the filters quarterly, not the device, and sometimes Amazon's recommended devices wind up being made of pure Chinesium. Like the chair I'm sitting in, for example. It is extremely dry here, and the amount of dust that the dogs bring in (especially the long-haired one) is truly astounding. Watching Luca shake himself out when he's been lying under the butterfly bushes is like watching a tardy student clap out erasers. There's also a fair amount of smoke indoors all times of the year (and wildfire smoke in the summer). None of the inhabitants of the house have lung diseases, so there's no extraordinary need for the best filtration in the world - just a good device with relatively easily changed filters (which can preferably be sourced from multiple retailers).

Depends. Do want it solely for particulate removal (smoke, dander, dust)? Or does it have to also remove oil?
In other words, just how much cooking/frying/baking do you plan to do, and is that part of what needs to be filtered?

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Depends. Do want it solely for particulate removal (smoke, dander, dust)? Or does it have to also remove oil?
In other words, just how much cooking/frying/baking do you plan to do, and is that part of what needs to be filtered?

--Patrick

Click to expand...

The range hood will handle cooking residue, this is just for dust/dander/smoke.

Well you are going to be rather disappointed. Even the highest-quality air filters (ULPA-rated, even more stringent than HEPA) are only rated for particles down to 0.03micron, but smoke goes all the way down to 0.01micron.
So if you're willing to just settle for "good enough," that'll probably mean getting something HEPA or Semi-HEPA, and that means spending 150-200ish dollars* for something that'll clean about 400-500ft^2, plus the cost of the filters as they need replacing.

That's what I found from about 15min worth of searching.

--Patrick
*Based on a quick check of Home Depot pricing.

PatrThom said:

Well you are going to be rather disappointed. Even the highest-quality air filters (ULPA-rated, even more stringent than HEPA) are only rated for particles down to 0.03micron, but smoke goes all the way down to 0.01micron.
So if you're willing to just settle for "good enough," that'll probably mean getting something HEPA or Semi-HEPA, and that means spending 150-200ish dollars* for something that'll clean about 400-500ft^2, plus the cost of the filters as they need replacing.

That's what I found from about 15min worth of searching.

--Patrick
*Based on a quick check of Home Depot pricing.

Click to expand...

Eh, it's not the smoke that I'm really concerned about so much as it is the dust. Dusting weekly almost keeps up with it. Almost. Though, realistically, what I should be looking at is a whole home HVAC replacement/upgrade with the installation of a heat pump and an A/C system. But that's for the long term and this is for the (preferably) short term.

Consumer Reports' top model is the BlueAir Blue Pure 211+, which is available on Amazon for about $250 new, and which will go through an additional $120-180 (2-3 changes @$60 per) in filters annually. We have one of their Classic 605 units at work, and I can say that it is effective...though its highest setting is noticeably louder than any of the other settings.

--Patrick

About 18 months ago, our upstairs bathroom developed a drip leak somewhere. We first noticed a discoloration in the kitchen ceiling, which eventually became obvious after a few days. So, we cut a hole in the ceiling drywall in order to let the drip come down onto the kitchen counter rather than continuing to spread/ruin the ceiling. We were able to determine then that the dripping was happening while we were showering.

A note about the master bathroom: We sprung extra $ to have a 'deluxe' bathroom: Real tile (not acrylic) with grout with a shaving bench in the shower (also made out of tile). We were really happy with the look of the thing. But everyone told us (after the fact) that those shaving benches tend to leak.

Between then and now, I hired no less than 4 different people to re-seal, re-caulk, investigate and fix. None of them were able to fix it. I brought in a plumber to check the drains and fittings. No deal. I resealed it myself. I ripped out the caulking around the shower pan and filled the space behind it with waterproof silicone before re-caulking. Nothing would fix the damn leak.

Every time we'd think we had it fixed, the leak would return a few days later. It was really driving me and my wife into some deep fits of depression.

Finally, I said "fuck it", and hired a company to come out and completely rip out the shower and replace it. I told them that once they ripped up all the tile, to come get me so I could at least know where the leak WAS, for my own peace of mind. Turns out there was a crack in a tile directly underneath the shower door--a place where nobody had looked. The water was dripping under there and then running down a slight incline to eventually come thru to the ceiling about a foot away, giving the false impression it was coming from somewhere else.

grr

At least the new shower doesn't look half bad. They still gotta come out and put in the glass walls, do some cleanup, and do some drywall repair (esp from where they moved the shower heads over about 6 inches) but I'm not regretting the new look.

A question for me as I house hunt.

I would like my house to have central air, but if I find a house that doesn't have it, it's not a significant project to get it added if the house currently uses forced air heating, right? It'd just be the exact same ducts?

blotsfan said:

A question for me as I house hunt.

I would like my house to have central air, but if I find a house that doesn't have it, it's not a significant project to get it added if the house currently uses forced air heating, right? It'd just be the exact same ducts?

Click to expand...

My understanding is that yes, it is the same ducts. But it will still cost a few thousand dollars and take a couple days. That's still cheaper and easier than having to install ducts, though.

blotsfan said:

It'd just be the exact same ducts?

Click to expand...

Forced air heating fills rooms with warm air via vents located near the ceiling and returns the colder air that drains from the room via cold air returns located somewhere along the bottom. You can piggyback A/C onto this delivery system, but then it will be less efficient because you will dumping cold air from up high where it will just drain right back out the bottom vents again. To do it right there would have to be some way to reverse that polarity airflow when switching back and forth between heating/cooling.

—Patrick

PatrThom said:

reverse that polarity

Click to expand...

Have you tried reconfiguring the main power coupling?

PatrThom said:

To do it right there would have to be some way to reverse that polarity

Click to expand...

Like putting too much air into a balloon!

AC is also much more picky about vent placement and sizing. Ducting and vent placement on older houses isn’t always as big as it should be, so you could run in to the issue of having to redo your venting and duct work.

Also, the AC unit will sit in the plenum on top of your furnace. So make sure there is enough room above it so it will fit. I probably won’t be able to fit an AC unit in mine because after adding an off peak electric heater, I probably won’t have room to make my plenum any taller to fit the AC unit.

GasBandit said:

Have you tried reconfiguring the main power coupling?

Click to expand...

Not yet, but I did already try sounding the alertness horn and decalcifying the calcium ducts.

—Patrick

Keep in mind that if he's buying a house in WNY, they consider 90 to be unbearably hot in the summer.

Dei said:

Keep in mind that if he's buying a house in WNY, they consider 90 to be unbearably hot in the summer.

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"Oh sweet winter child, what do you know of heat?"

90 in AZ in July is called "after 10 PM".

Every time I try to plug the vacuum cleaner into my kid's outlets, the power goes out when I turn it on. (their rooms also share a breaker) Any idea what could be causing this, outside of needing to call a professional? I don't think it's anything being overloaded outlet wise because it just happened in my son's room and nothing is plugged in other than the vacuum, and I think my daughter only has a phone charger plugged in.

Dei said:

Any idea what could be causing this, outside of needing to call a professional?

Click to expand...

A good question to ask is what else goes off when you turn on the vacuum?

Most household circuits (and so the attached breakers) are rated for 15 Amperes, which in the USA is about 1800 Watts. Your vacuum should have its electrical requirements printed on it or in its manual, but if I take a Dyson Ball vac as an example, that needs 12 Amps by itself, so if you have an additional 300-400W anywhere else on the same circuit (which doesn't even have to be in the same room!), then that's gonna be enough to trip the breaker. As an example of a "hidden" draw, a fish tank heater can draw 100W, or a computer can pull 200-300W while under full gaming load.

There's also the possibility you have a breaker that has "arc detection" built into it, in which case it is DEFINITELY time to get a professional involved.

--Patrick

Yeah, I googled it, and it's an arcing problem, but my husband thinks he knows exactly where the problem is. He's going to check in the morning when he can turn off the breaker and still be able to see.