Modern Vespa

Fixed it for you.

I thought it was dodgy when it can't tell the difference between a scooter and a motorcycle.

This ^^^ does not piss me off. These are words to live by.

I taught my kids a similar thing about using curse words. Don't be that person who uses the same four letter word as their primary adjective, adverb, noun, or verb. In fact, almost never curse. That way when you do swear people will know you mean business.

Chris from CLE

Agreed....IMHO there's a time and place. Unfortunately either my previous restrictions have loosened or there's a whole lot more to be upset about these days.....

While I'm here.... I'll name names...FedEx. Decided to finally get a new, shiny laptop, great deal from HP, directly. Off all day yesterday, but had an important outing to get to before 5. Got a text saying I needed to be there to sign, and they were coming before 1:30. Great. Plenty of time. Dragged my feet expecting everything to fit. Then another text "before the end of the day." Went and did my errand midafternoon, got back 10 minutes late. NOTHING on the slip, no boxes checked, or whatever. There were two signature tabs, one was off and on the steps. Got online to see what I could sort out, nothing helpful. As could be expected, by evening there was a follow up text, they're going at it today, at least when my wife is likely to be home, although there's a window of (in) opportunity to come when no one's home. They changed the time slot AGAIN on me, worsening the odds. The tiny signature tab is taped on the door if that does any good.

While I'm on a roll here....I'd contemplated trying to support domestic manufacturing (Dell?) but I was staring at a great deal, and to be practical, so much of electronics manufacturing is outsourced anyway. The company has manufacturing all over the world, so was hoping things would be spread around enough for me to be content, but turns out it's shipping directly from a country with significant and ongoing human rights abuses. Grr. Gotta be pragmatic I guess, but still feel I likely failed as a conscientious consumer.

Arghhh!

So, semi-trusting one of their texts. I waited a bit through 1:30. Nothing. Had to get back to work for a bit, so left, did the essentials and use a break to be home, well, just in case. I did have a signed stub on the front door-the door of yesterday's contact (which we never use).

I'm driving down our street and spy a FedEx truck ahead of me. "Aha! I've caught you!" I park on the road and accost him exiting the truck. He's holding a much bigger box than it should be, turns out to be something else I ordered. There is already a delivery tag on our side door, however. Turns out the Express guy beat me by 10 minutes, never saw my signature, because he went to the other door ( not yesterday's driver) and left another "missed you" tag. .. So, wash, rinse repeat. So, Monday, will have placards on BOTH doors with signatures and instructions.

Wish me luck.

Doesn't Fed Ex deliver on Saturdays?

Woke up this morning to a house with no heat at 55 degrees. I checked the usually stuff - breakers, thermostat - no dice. Called the HVAC company I have patronized for 20 years. Earliest appointment is Monday. They be able to get a tech out tomorrow, but of course, it's an extra $100 for someone to come out on the weekend. I just hope it's a fairly, somewhat, inexpensive fix. And it does get fixed. Too cold for this Florida boy.

If you have oil heat, did you hit the reset button?

nope

I have a tech coming over momentarily. It is natural gas heat, and the furnace is in the attic. Normally I would go thru most of it myself other than what I already did. But 10 weeks post spinal surgery keeps me from getting in the small place where the furnace/air handler resides. Not worth screwing up my recovery. Skids, OR, thanks for your suggestions and concerns.

Wobbly tables at coffee shops.

Induction fan is wonky. The tech had an old one in the truck to get us by for a few days. A new one is $700 to $1200. I may replace the whole furnace as it is going into it's 28th year. I had to ask about it as the tech was not trying to upsell, but I can't see putting that much money in an older system. We might be living here for awhile yet. Thanks for the suggestions, Skids.

28 year old system? Yes time to replace.

OFG

The scoot is a bit muddy so gotta clean it before i can repair it

I took a long ride on the Big Ugly, my 2018 Yamaha Xmax that I have had since new.

For some reason I looked down to the swing arm (exhaust holder) and noticed this bolt-less hole.

It appears to be one that you would rather have in place.

I found a new one on Partzilla, but it will probably take a while to get one in.

That makes three non usable scooters for me at the moment.

At least I still have Ghost to ride until the others get fixed.

Bill

Yeah I'm the kinda guy that will vent about something that is small potatoes when something bigger is what's really bothering me. The conversation could be had at a free zone, "human faraday cage"


Id fix the furnace fan myself, new bearings and clean the motor.

Apparently "that stolen scooter hiding under the corrugated iron? My neighbour asked me to help fix it" and "that stolen scooter I asked my neighbour to fix? I bought it cheap off a bloke because it has no key" are both plausible enough a prosecution for receiving stolen goods probably won't stick.
The plod know the identity and are still chasing down the actual thief though, but are not too hopeful of a prosecution there either.

They be scamming you. Blower motors DO NOT cost 700 dollars or more. Thats him charging $500+ for 1.5 hours labor...You dont need a whole new unit. Get the part number off the motor, I GUARANTEE Amazon will have another one for less than $200, probably closer to $100. There are very few parts that go bad on those gas heaters. The other thing that sometimes fails is the circuit board, but they are replaceable too.... but he already told you its the fan.
I had the same thing happen to me. My heater was 20+ years old. Open the metal panel on the side of your heater, the fan is usually down low. Lay down with a flashlight and get the info off the blower motor data plate. (HP, power rating, direction, part number...also model # of heater). Amazon will have what you need....and buy a multipack of filters- not changing them often enough is what kills those fan blowers. Its an easy job, less than 2 hours. The motor is literally the size of a small alternator and way easier to change. Make sure you pull the circuit breker..dont know which one? Turn the wonky blower on and flip breakers until it powers off. I'll bet you smelled a burning toast type smell the last time it worked.

Teirney mentioned that 10 weeks post spinal surgery keeps him from getting in the small place where the furnace/air handler resides. Not worth screwing up his recovery.

my bad

Hey Plug, no problem, I appreciate the advice. The tech put a temporary induction fan, but the board was iffy too. I was able to go up in the attic without bending and the tech told me he was mistaken about the date on the unit. We looked it up and it is from 1986 when the house was built - 38 years old, not a bad run. I'm like you, I fix things and use them up before replacing. All of the vehicles in the house have close to 200k miles on them or more. I just keep up with them. But throwing money into parts for something this old doesn't seem like it's the way to go. I always use factory parts and avoid Amazon , Jeff has enough money. I always try the local factory part stores first, then the direct sales on the internet second. But thanks again for your reply.

Hope everything works out,

nope

Tierney,

Those old furnaces lasted a long time. Same, same, I had my home built 33 years ago and replaced the furnace about 6 years ago. Here is my take on the subject. The new furnaces will never last as long, but, they are twice as efficient. My heat bill was over 1/2 the amount as all prior years.

The new furnace has already had problems. The condenser for the central air went bad. I have a service plan (billed through my gas company) that covers all my appliances and the furnace. So, it was covered. Again, new units are highly efficient - but do not last.

My service plan covers: disposal, washer dryer, refrigerator, stove, microwave, furnace and air unit in the furnace. Plan costs @ $45 a month.
The plan is for repair not replace.

Bob Copeland

Shortly after we moved into our house - second year, I believe - we had a 22 year old furnace that failed to start up. I had fought furnaces for years, but this was a Lennox Pulse furnace. I had never seen a furnace with a spark plug before. The tech inspected it and had to tag it for a bad part. We did wind up replacing the furnace. Apparently, they were pretty amazing, being up to 99% efficient, even back in the 1980s.

Our "new" Lennox furnace is now 18 years old. When we replaced the furnace we also replaced the A/C unit with a heat pump. All in all I think it was a good purchase.

Furnace replaced, all good now. Once the old one was removed, the tech said you made the right decision and showed me several places that were going south. Also some of the duct work was tidied up to a better standard, so not bad all around. But since this is in the pissed off thread, I guess the bill is going to piss me off in a month when I have to pay it off.

Is a furnace what we would call a boiler?

Anyway, got my latest mid life check up results back today from our wonderful National Health Service and I'm pleased to say I'm in good health with pleasing results for blood pressure and cholesterol.

What I'm a bit peeved about is what they say is the recommended weekly units of alcohol consumption which is the measly amount of 12 units which works out at 6 pints of fairly weak beer or 6 medium glasses of wine.

Now I'm neither proud or ashamed of my alcohol intake but that is a measly amount especially when they say it should be spread evenly across the week with no binge drinking.

1 drink a day and 1 day abstaining completely? Do me favour Doc!

I've worked my average weekly alcohol consumption out at 42 units

When our old furnace crapped out, we found out from the tech that it was massively over-sized for the house. Essentially the burner would light, fan would start, and a few minutes later the safety thermal cutoff would kill the burner… until it reset itself… then the cycle would repeat. It was the thermal breaker that failed, followed shortly by the blower coming apart.

They replaced it with a new heat pump that has a gas furnace for supplemental heat (we see -20F n the winter here). It's been fine since then.

Nope. The equivalent of a boiler in the US is a "water heater" or "hot water heater".

A furnace is generally a natural gas-fired or (occasionally) oil-fired burner that heats the air. A very old "gravity" furnace would be located in a basement and just use convection through large ducts to get hot air up to the upper floors. Modern "forced-air" furnaces will use a blower to push air through the heat exchanger and through ducts located throughout the house.

At my house, the forced-air furnace (installed in 1996, still going strong) is located on the main floor (it's a single story house) and uses a blower to push air up to the ductwork in the attic, which then exit in the ceilings of all the rooms in the house.

I have replaced the starter capacitor once. This is a common failure and most customers who don't know better get overcharged when the starter capacitor dies.

I have also replaced the control board twice -- once with an identical unit, that failed in the same way (it had a weakness in the design) and the second time with a newer model of control board that took a little bit of rewiring but ostensibly does not have the same weakness.

Boilers work with transferring steam or hot water thru the pipes to a radiator of sorts. They can be gas, oil, coal, electric or maybe even, wood fired to boil the water. I have a natural gas furnace.

Count yourself lucky.

My doc doesn't want me drinking any alcohol at all.

In the Valley (Phoenix, AZ metropolitan area) all asphalt roofed homes built after WWII and before y2k, roughly, have what's called a "gas pack" on the roof. Electric for A/C, gas for the furnace, both forced air. When we moved in in '88, the gas pack was original to the house. We're on our third now.
They don't make 'em like they used to.

nope

They go back even farther than that. I lived in a house (when I was a kid) with an old gravity furnace in the basement that had been converted to natural gas. But next to the old furnace was a small-ish room with a coal chute that you could load coal from outside the house.

And that's basically how I got into the house every day after school, since I rarely remembered to carry my house key.

Are Heat Pumps taking off State side yet?

I've had a heat pump since about 2006. It's basically an AC pump with a reversing valve and will run at temps down well into the 40s to keep the furnace from being used. They aren't as popular here in Michigan (its 23º now with a wind chill of -2º - heat pump's not running) but I understand they're more popular in southern states.

Our old farmhouse was converted from fuel oil that was converted from coal. I believe that was the order. The fuel oil tank was still in the basement when we moved in. Seems like it was 150 gallons or something. It was pretty big. The house dated to 1865. Coolest house I ever lived in.

And if you ever say "Hot Water Heater" again I will say absolutely terrible things about you under my breath.

I should clarify that by saying Renewable Air to Water Heat Pumps or Ground Source Heat Pumps.

Oh, like geothermal? I've known a few people that had them and loved them. But as far as popularity, not sure.

We might be odd ones as much of our heat here in Central NY is from two wood burning stoves, just added some to the one down stairs near my office. All the wood is from our property 90percent or more is from dead trees. Back-up heat and bathroom floors are electric resistant heat. Do have a propane heater in the detached garage that is set at about 45ºF.