Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

One weird winter (they’re all weird here) I heard a pinging noise in the middle of the night and went out to my condenser and found it shrouded in ice, and the ping was the fan blade ticking the ice occasionally. The entire condenser unit was an ice block, 3” thick, inside and out.

HVAC guy showed up later and switched the system to A/C, and a gigantic plume of steam came off it and the ice melted in a few minutes. I wish I’d videoed it.

My heat pump is old and if the weather is just right (high humidity, temps around 35-40°) it sometimes ices over, but not as bad. I just have to run it like a conventional furnace when it gets below 38°-ish.
 
Found a plastic ball that had made its way almost through the macerator in the washing machine today, I hate disassembling that thing (Kenmore Elite 11045962400, about 15 years old).
 
I imagine the innards of a washing machine being a mass of lint, toenails and other bodily castoffs like beard hair and pubes.

Plastic ball? Not a neutical I hope.
No, it was about the size of a mothball. Apparently it went to one of the childrens' toys. You're not far off with the random hairs, though it's more dog than anything else, given my pack of 3 double coated assholes.

It did give me a chance to log into the Sears parts website to see what was still available for the old thing, and I found that I can still get a macerator motor and drum belt, but not a whole fuckin' lot else. So, I ordered those to keep as spares, since the belt doesn't sound too great either.
 
We actually have a couple appliance parts suppliers here can get all kinds of little oddball parts.
I think 4 of them to service 2+ million population but they do still exist.

Probably resell stuff off Amazon for 3x markup.
 
We actually have a couple appliance parts suppliers here can get all kinds of little oddball parts.
I think 4 of them to service 2+ million population but they do still exist.

Probably resell stuff off Amazon for 3x markup.
Best we've got is an old appliance yard full of broken ones that I sometimes go to scavenge for random weird crap.
 
Best we've got is an old appliance yard full of broken ones that I sometimes go to scavenge for random weird crap.

Can't remember any details but somebody is also doing circuit board rebuilds for like 1/2 - 2/3 new price.
Though some folks on here like yourself or gee could probably figure it out and fix it for $6 worth of chips, diodes, etc.
 
Can't remember any details but somebody is also doing circuit board rebuilds for like 1/2 - 2/3 new price.
Though some folks on here like yourself or gee could probably figure it out and fix it for $6 worth of chips, diodes, etc.
Been there, with the original ECU in the Nissan. Blew up a PWM driver after some jackwagon hosed out my engine bay during one of those "donate $5 a charity" car wash things.

Not my proudest moment, but I bought an ECU from the junkyard (one run by a real dickhead Iranian who thinks that 75% of original price is the best going-in position on parts). He brought it up, I bought it, then when I got home I found out that instead of an ECU from an 8-bit, Federal, Manual, Twin Turbo Z car, he'd sold me the ECU from a 16-bit, California, Automatic, Naturally Aspirated Z car.

I desoldered the PWM driver (it was actually like 3 of them in one package, bolted to the aluminum frame to dissipate heat), soldered it into the original ECU, and then returned the other one ot the junkyard because fuck that guy for wasting my time.
 
The old reel lawnmower proves it's worth once again. I love this thing. Reminds me of some of the old farm equipment that was wheel driven and geared to be worked by horses.
I am the horse.
 
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Want to renovate old kitchen and repaint walls wthite by myself. I've never done it before but it seems to be not so hard task, just need to practice. I've already found ladder from this guide https://abovethefloor.net/ and ordered paint. Do you like classic white kitchen with the white cabinets ?
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