A few weeks ago, we somehow put a pinhole in the top of our old faucet. I was out of town last weekend, so for the past two weeks we have gotten by with a faucet that was swaddled in duct tape in order to keep water from getting all over our kitchen.

This weekend, I replaced the faucet with a new one. The first order of business was to remove the old faucet and to measure the holes to make sure that I got one that fit. It turns out that I really did not need to do that, but it was good for peace of mind, anyway. I do not have a basin wrench, but there is enough room behind my sink to get by with regular wrenches and with robogrips. A basin wrench probably would have saved me about a half hour all told between removing the old sink and installing the new one, but I decided against purchasing one.

To remove the old faucet:

1. I shut off the hot and cold water valves leading up to the faucet. I needed the robogrips in order to get them closed enough that no water could pass through.
2. I cut the hose to the hand sprayer as the easiest way of uninstalling it.
3. Next, I needed to unhook the copper water leads between the faucet and the water supply. Unfortunately, the hot water lead had a few connections that I couldn’t bend in such a way that I could pull the faucet out of the hole, so I had to cut it at the base of the faucet. Luckily, I have done work with refridgerant coils in my brewing days and had a tool for just that purpose.
4. I was then able to remove the faucet by pulling the hoses through the hole so that everything was exposed.
5. Last, I had to unscrew the base for the hand sprayer and remove that.

My wife and I then took a trip to purchase a new faucet. I had one that I liked, and she had 3 or 4 that she liked. Since one of those was the one that I liked as well, we decided to go with it. We were a little worried that it would be too tall because of where our window sill sticks over the sink, but after installation we had a good ¹/₈” or so between the faucet and window sill. I also picked up some plumber’s putty and a soap dispenser, since we would not have a need for a hand sprayer and a soap dispenser would remove the need to keep a bottle of soap up on the sink.

Installing the new faucet was much easier than removing the old one:

1. Apply plumber’s putty to the inset on the faucet base. Line it up with the three holes in the sink, press it down, and then use a flat head screwdriver to remove the excess putty.
2. Set the faucet base onto the inset piece.

Ours fit right on top and had a groove to make sure that it was even.

3. Feed the hoses through the center hole and line the faucet up.
4. The next step is to screw the faucet into place from underneath. I had my wife hold the faucet in place up top to make sure that it was straight, since I do not have x-ray vision and could not see through my counter.
5. Our faucet uses stainless steel hoses, which proved much easier than the copper to line up and attach to the hot and cold water pipes.
6. Make sure that the faucet is turned off up top, and then open the water valves.
7. Before hooking the faucet itself up to the mixing hose, we had to run the hot and cold water to flush any gunk from the hoses out. The cold water hose didn’t have anything visible in it, but there was some black gunk in the hot water hose that came out within the first few seconds.
8. The last step for the faucet was to attach the mixing hose and the faucet hose. Everything was basically done at that point.
9. Since we had bought a soap dispense, we had to install that. It was a simple matter of screwing it in place, attaching the bottle, filling it, and putting the pump into place.

The only mishap that we had was that I somehow knocked the nut loose on the hot water valve, so it was leaking a little through the valve stem. Tightening up that nut fixed that problem, though.

So now, we have a brand new faucet! It took a few hours to remove the old one and install the new one, but it looks much better than the old one and so far it seems to work much better as well. I’ll write about that once I have had a chance to really put it through its paces, though.

We got our new Propane Tank delivered, installed, and filled very easily. Our energy company within a few days of our having called them when we ran out of propane, and they not only arrived right when they said that they would but even called ahead to make sure that it still worked for us. My wife was on vacation from school, so she was able to meet them at the house. They were very pleasant, answered (almost) all of her questions, and got our old lines replaced and the new ones run with a minimum of fuss. They tested everything to make sure that the installation was correct and everything was safe, and even offered a few tips about how to improve some other fixtures that they noticed while they were down there. Those tasks were already on my to-do list and just haven’t been crossed off yet.

All in all, it was a great experience. Should we ever decide to utilize the gas in more places in our home, they assured us that we would be able to tap right into our new lines with ease. Unfortunately, the man who installed everything did not know how much it was going to cost, and he did not dispose of our old tank. I will need to find somewhere that will take it off of our hands now, since I do not really see any reason to keep it standing next to the side of my house.

In the picture of the propane tanks, the new tank is the white one on the right. The old tank is the taller one that looks like it has a few years on it that is on the left.

A couple of days ago, our clothes dryer stopped doing its job. I knew that it would at some point in the near future; it was only a matter of time. We ran out of propane. Since the dryer is the only appliance that we have using the propane tank, I am happy that it lasted as long as it did. After all, I have no idea how full it was when we bought the house.

The problem comes with getting the tank refilled. I have no idea which company actually installed the tank, since it has no markings on it. It is a 75 gallon tank that stands about 4 feet high. I have not specifically looked into the laws and regulations, but I doubt that I can legally transport it filled in my pickup truck without some sort of license.

For ease of billing, I called our oil company to come out and replace the tank with one of theirs. Their prices are competitive, and they will deliver. They refuse to deal with another company’s tank, but I will only have to wait for 2 or 3 days before they get over here to swap the tanks out. The woman I spoke with on the phone was planning on swinging by after work this afternoon or before work tomorrow morning to make sure that the pipes we have installed are the correct diameter to fit their tanks. That will give them a better estimate of how long it will take to install and they will be able to let us know ahead of time how much work needs to be done inside the house. They will definately need to come in to test everything and make sure we are up to code and safe, but hopefully that is all that is necessary.

On Saturday, I climbed up into the attic to install the first soffit extender to get a feel for what I was going to need. It quickly became very obvious that I did not have enough in the way of safety equipment. A quick trip to the store and then I was ready to really get started on my work. Here is a quick run down of the safety precautions that I took while I was insulating my attic:
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One of the things that worked out really well for me while doing work up in the attic was buying a 4′ x 8′ sheet of plywood and cutting it into 4 pieces that were 4′ x 2′ in size. I had a bunch of smaller boards that I could balance myself on between the joists, and those were handy and easier to move around than the larger boards. Unfortunately, they do not work very well when you need to lie down safely, because putting too much weight to one side or another could roll you right through your ceiling.

Having the 4′ x 2′ boards let me set up platforms for myself, which especially helped with installing the soffit extensions and the insulations under the edge of the roof. Putting out the insulation in the middle was better served with the smaller boards, though, because I needed to move around a lot quicker than the large boards really allowed.

Another advantage to the large boards was that I could leave them on top of the insulation after I was done. I now have a walkway that reaches all the way to the edge of the house; I will either need to move them or buy another sheet of plywood to easily get to the other end. Since I do not have any need to be at the other end in the near future I am not too worried about that. It did make it easy to do some work on the hose from my bathroom vent.

I have been reading around about how high folks electricity bills have been this summer. Between the rising oil prices, increased delivery charges, and increased consumption based on the heat waves that have rolled across the country it seems that folks are paying anywhere between $100 and $600 for electricity during the month. My last electricity bill was for $29, and the month before that did not have a significantly higher electricity bill.
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