Got my 3 broken household items out of the way

[RearAdmiral]

Since all things come in 3 I figured it was appropriate to chat about my latest household broken crap.

1.) Touch operated faucet has temperature activated LEDs in the base, the cold/blue one is on the fritz.
I spoke to Delta and they sent me out a new solenoid unit, which I figured wasn't the problem but I installed it anyway. It is a newer design and I don't mind having a backup for a common failure point. It didn't fix the problem so they sent out a new faucet base that contains the LEDs.

2.) Oil furnace was having issues. It was resetting.
I haven't had the furnace serviced in a couple years so I figured it was getting gross. I bleed some oil from the furnace via the bleed valve, plenty of bits / grit came out. I then changed the filter near the tank. Wow there was a ton of crap in the filter / housing. I go out of my way to find quality fuel oil...supposedly. I would not have expected that amount of crud after only 2 years, I was basically scraping it out with my towel. I got the housing as clean as I could. After a couple more bleeds the furnace has been fine. It is a nightmare to get a cleaning service scheduled in my area, hence why I haven't had it cleaned in a couple years.

I'd rather freeze to death than pay for an emergency service call though.

3.) While cleaning my furnace up I noticed some water below my water heater. I checked the fittings and noticed some small leaks but nothing that would lead me to believe they were the problem. So I figured the tank has met it's end. While pulling out the old tank the insulation on the bottom was soaked. I also did some research into the serial # and found that it was made 16 years ago, so it served a respectable life. Thankfully the timing was good in regards to black friday sales, on Thanksgiving Lowes had the 15% MIR on all purchases. That combined with a 10% coupon and 7% clickthrough worked out pretty well.

I actually just bought sharkbite water heater connectors to give them a shot. They are working pretty well but apparently they may have issues with the rubber hose inside the braided stainless deteriorating with chlorinated water. I have city water that runs through a whole house filter so we will see if that ever becomes an issue. Half of the reason I bought them was so if I ever had leaking issues I could just replace the connectors instead of dealing with annoying copper.

Now hopefully nothing else breaks for a little while!

 

[Paperdoc]

Regarding the oil tank filter, yes, they need to be cleaned periodically. And the crud you removed may NOT have come with the oil. It may be slow deterioration of the inside of the tank itself which has built up enough over the years to finally make its way to the filter. That's one good reason for having the filter at the tank.

Having found that item and fixed it, you should be aware of a related item. It's been a while since I had a oil funace (it was a conversion gun installed in an old "octopus" gravity airflow coal furnace) but all the actual oil spray nozzles used inside at the end of the oil piping had another fine filter screen built into them. To get at it you had to partially disassemble the system to reach the nozzle, unscrew it from its fitting on the end of the oil pipe, and examine the back end of the nozzle assembly. On the ones I worked with, the screen was just a small cup-shaped thing screwed into the back of the nozzle. You could unscrew it and clean it, then re-assemble. I don't think you could buy a replacement screen. but you could buy a replacement complete nozzle - you must check the old one and get one of exactly the same design and nozzle hole size. So IF you have any further problems develop, you could re-check the tank filter for new accumulations and check the nozzle, too.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Regarding the oil tank filter, yes, they need to be cleaned periodically. And the crud you removed may NOT have come with the oil. It may be slow deterioration of the inside of the tank itself which has built up enough over the years to finally make its way to the filter. That's one good reason for having the filter at the tank.

Having found that item and fixed it, you should be aware of a related item. It's been a while since I had a oil funace (it was a conversion gun installed in an old "octopus" gravity airflow coal furnace) but all the actual oil spray nozzles used inside at the end of the oil piping had another fine filter screen built into them. To get at it you had to partially disassemble the system to reach the nozzle, unscrew it from its fitting on the end of the oil pipe, and examine the back end of the nozzle assembly. On the ones I worked with, the screen was just a small cup-shaped thing screwed into the back of the nozzle. You could unscrew it and clean it, then re-assemble. I don't think you could buy a replacement screen. but you could buy a replacement complete nozzle - you must check the old one and get one of exactly the same design and nozzle hole size. So IF you have any further problems develop, you could re-check the tank filter for new accumulations and check the nozzle, too.

Nice, thanks for the info. Good point about the tank itself shedding some junk. I was hoping I didn't have to dive into the nozzle and all that, although from looking at youtube videos it doesn't seem super hard to replace. I thankfully have a furnace appt. tomorrow so they will replace the nozzle anyhow.

 

[Paperdoc]

Yep, it's that time of year. Just this week I did the fall servicing of our high-efficiency furnace. It is over 25 years old but still working well. Over the years I have had to replace a few items on it. But the major thing before winter hits is cleaning old dust from the heat exchanger system. On ours, the third-stage heat exchanger is a set of parallel finned tubes. The fins are spaced less than 1/8" apart, so dust caught between them restricts air flow and ultimately reduces it so much that the fan can't push air though fast enough to move all the heat generated up to the house, and the furnace overheats and trips out a high temperature limit switch. As it cools down, the system resets and starts up again, but that's not a good routine - relying on a limit switch to keep it safe. So a fall thorough cleaning solves that issue. Also do other checks at the same time. This fall it had a worn and cracked fan drive belt, a leaking float valve and a dirty old foam pad in the power drum humidifier add-on, so all those got replaced. Now you and I can relax on that front. My next worry is a problem with the electrical cord for the block heater on the engine of my car.

 

[Amit Ahuja]

Replacing this much of biggie things gives a sigh. I am a lazy guy to do this much of replacement within a few days or even a month. Good to know you are done and now free for maintenance in these for a couple of years.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Replacing this much of biggie things gives a sigh. I am a lazy guy to do this much of replacement within a few days or even a month. Good to know you are done and now free for maintenance in these for a couple of years.

I am definitely glad to get a new water heater in there. I always hated that the copper valve fittings above the heater showed a very very small leak, so I was glad to be rid of all that at least. The furnace issue turned out to most likely be a CAD sensor issue, which is a little sensor / eye that detects if there is a flame or not. That came up in my research but I did not feel like fiddling to that degree without a pro taking a closer look.

My house was a foreclosure which I purchased in 2013, so I've been steadily replacing and fixing lots of issues / neglect since. It is almost a proper home at this point, especially with a totally remodeled kitchen!

 

[spacejamz]

My water heater just turn 15 years old last month...I used to flush once a year for the first 5 years I had it, but haven't done it since...guess I should I look into replacing it but for me, Dec is property tax month (my loan is non-escrow), home insurance renewal (again, non-escrow) and alarm (I pay the full year to get one month free but at least it is only $17/month)...

 

[RearAdmiral]

My water heater just turn 15 years old last month...I used to flush once a year for the first 5 years I had it, but haven't done it since...guess I should I look into replacing it but for me, Dec is property tax month (my loan is non-escrow), home insurance renewal (again, non-escrow) and alarm (I pay the full year to get one month free but at least it is only $17/month)...

It does seems like a bit of of pain to flush them out. It took quite a while for my old tank to drain. I see you can even remove the bottom element to stick a pressurized water squirter thing in the tank to really spray crap off the lining.