Michael Graves

The World’s Most Expensive Domestic Hot Water Heater

August 18, 2023
Michael Graves
Home

I’m struggling. You see. For about a year now. I’ve been smitten. With what is quite possibly the world’s most expensive domestic hot water heater. Yes, I’m simply entranced by the the SanCO2 heat pump water heater. I want one. Badly. Precious.

We’d like to renovate our kitchen. It’s not a large house. So, not a large kitchen. Part of the available floor/closet space is taken up by a rather dull, traditional, 30 gallon, natural gas-fired water heater. I’d like to use that space to enlarge the pantry.

So the question becomes how to move or eliminate the standing tank water heater. I’ve surveyed alternatives. As is my way, I’ve done research.

Traditional, tankless gas water heater

On-Demand Water Heater

I had a local company quote us on a natural-gas-fired on-demand water heater that would mount on the outside wall of the house. This is quite common here in Houston. The gas meter is at the northeast corner of the house, essentially at the corner of the kitchen. That makes this arrangement eminently practical.

The quote was for $4,900 all-in. It was enough to give me pause.

Gotcha?

Twice in the past few years we’ve had unusually hard freezes. That sort of thing imperils an exterior mounted, on-demand water heater. They must be drained or a hard freeze will literally destroy them. That means there is the potential of not having hot water should we experience the equivalent of another Winter Storm Uri.

Call me crazy, but the possibility of a hot shower on an otherwise freezing day seems like a good thing. Not something that should readily be given up.

Flume Water Monitoring: One Year Later

It just so happens that it’s almost exactly one year since I published the post on the installation of the Flume water meter. Since then, it has continued to help us save water and money. Sometimes in unexpected ways.

At the point of initial installation I found that I had to locate the Flume base station in our living room. I had to move it to the point in the house that was nearest to the Flume sensor, which is in the water meter housing, out on the boulevard.

This is likely because we have bronze metal mesh in our window screens. They tend to block wireless signals. This is also why I installed a supplemental Wi-Fi access point in the attic above the front porch.

Frozen

Over the holiday season of winter 2022 we suffered a couple of very hard freezes. During one of these freezes a fitting under the back of our house cracked. It’s where a metal pipe connects to PVC just before it goes underground to the garage. That metal/PVC interface fitting split. Not entirely unexpected given the different thermal expansion/contraction of metal vs plastic.

When the temperature finally started to rise, and water once again flowed, the Flume system alerted me to the rather dramatic leak resulting from the broken fitting. It’s not like I would have missed it in any case, since water was literally spraying aloud under the back of the house.

Further Adventures Exploring BirdDog NDI TV Monitor for Android

June 7, 2023
Michael Graves
Video

My initial experiment with BirdDog NDI TV Monitor for Android on the Tivo Stream 4K turned in less than stellar results, but it did generate some interest amongst NDI users online. I accept that the Tivo device is a somewhat vintage host platform.

One person mentioned that Birddog had presented the application at NAB 2023 running on a current generation of Chromecast. I haven’t had a Chromecast since it was first introduced. It certainly is the definitive Android TV device. So, I bought a brand new Chromecast with Google TV. The very latest version capable of 4K & HDR.

This latest Chromecast has only two connectors: HDMI for connection to the TV, and USB-C for power.

Exploring BirdDog NDI TV Monitor for Android

May 26, 2023
Michael Graves
Video

Birddog, the Australian purveyor of NDI products, recently introduced an application that allows display of an NDI stream on an Android TV. As along-time fan and user of NDI, I was curious to try this on devices around our home and office.

Google’s Play Store informed me that the application would not load to my Pixel 6a mobile phone. We don’t have an Android powered TV. So, I loaded BirdDog NDI TV Monitor to a Tivo Stream 4K, which is basically a branded Android TV stick.

The free 25 MB application loaded quickly, appearing in the menu of available apps. Selecting the application, it scanned the local network for NDI sources, presenting a list of options. Thinking ahead, I had both vMix and NDI Test Pattern running on my desktop.

Selecting one of those sources, it immediately appeared on the TV. Alas, the image carried a very busy watermark. It was useful enough for confirming presence of picture, but useless for anything serious.

There are precious few details about the app in the Play Store (pictured above.) What little is there describes it as “…free to receive and view direct BirdDog sources, with in-app purchase options for other NDI sources.”

Lights Out, Please! Enlightened Devices Support Darkness

Today, the simple fact is that IoT devices are excessively, unnecessarily, intrusively bright. This is not the first time I’ve addressed this matter. Sadly, the trend does not seem to be improving. All manner of techno-gadgetry has power or status LEDs that typically cannot be disabled. In the hallway of our home, where the network core and IoT hubs reside, there are several devices with status lights that likely made the product designer proud, but they convey no useful information at all. They merely make it impossible to have a dark room.

“You are beginning to damage my calm.” – Jayne, Firefly.

I am recently reminded of this in the course of dealing with our elderly Labrador. She’s had trouble sleeping the past few weeks. This is quite common in very old dogs. We’ve tried many things to help her sleep at night. Anti-anxiety medication only sorta works. Brown noise helps a little to mask the noise of nearby traffic.

Last weekend we installed a couple of calming pheromone dispensers. These are like Glade scented plug-ins, except they dispense a pheromone that is supposed to have a calming effect.

Each pheromone dispenser covers 700 square feet. So, two of them handle our entire home. Further, they last about 30 days under normal circumstances. Pheromone refills are $22 each.

Backup Power: 9kW-ish Portable Invertors

Just a few days before Christmas 2021 we bought a Predator 9500 portable invertor generator. Back then, it was one of the first of a new generation of inverters delivering 7,500 watts continuous power, with 9,500 watts peak.

The Predator brand is sold by Harbor Freight. The 9500 model was introduced in 2020 at $1899. Demand was strong, and they were in short supply for a long while. By the time supply was improved the list price had gone up to $2399. It has since gone to $2499, but you can still get them for less during special promotions. We managed to get ours using a last-minute pre-Christmas coupon good for a discount of 25%!

Over time, similar models have emerged from several other companies like Genmax and DuroMax. It’s quite apparent that these are all made by the same manufacturer. They vary only a little in specific features and the color of the plastics.

Three Inverter Generators

Not long ago, Gavin’s Garage offered an unboxing video of the Pulsar PGD95BISCO Super Quite Dual Fuel 9500W Home Use Backup Portable Inverter Generator.