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Monday Morning: Snakes In A Drain

Snakes in a drain

This week started in a most inauspicious manner. Monday morning, as we were getting ready for the day, we discovered that the kitchen drain was clogged. Thinking that I had to get to work, Stella suggested that I could leave it until the evening. But I thought, there was nothing pressing on my desk, so might as well address the problem straight away.

The bathroom sink was draining freely, so it wasn’t a main line clog. We’ve had some experience with those in the past. The water in the sink smelled faintly of bacon grease, which implied the clog was close to the kitchen sink.

There was a time when we had quite a lot of recurring drain trouble. I had different plumbers out to snake the drain line at several times over a few years.

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Ruminations on a toothbrush

The other day, we were coming back from taking Julio to the vet. Stella wanted me to stop at a pharmacy to pick something up. There was a CVS on the route home, so I pulled in. She waited with Julio in the car while went in to pickup what she needed.

Once in the store I found what she wanted quite easily. Then it occurred to me that I needed something myself, but what? Scanning the store I finally remembered that I needed a new toothbrush.

paw-patrol-kids-toothbrush-03

For many years I’ve used the battery operated “Spin Brush” electric toothbrushes. I’ve had a number of these. The heads are replaceable, but the mechanism itself doesn’t last forever.

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Instrumentation Options for a Portable Generator

In various online forums, people are routinely asking for help when faced with a generator that’s being overloaded. This may be in the context of a food truck, mobile pet salon or delivering whole house backup power.

It’s believed that management guru Peter Drucker once said, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” I have been making a lot of use of that quote when offering answers to such questions. If you are placing a significant load on the generator, you need to monitor the load to know when you are nearing overload. Allowing it to overload is disruptive, time consuming and potentially dangerous. Without hard data to inform your decisions, you’re only guessing about how to address the problem.

Option #1: Built-in Load Monitoring

If you don’t yet have a generator, you might well consider instrumentation in making that choice. For example, my Harbor Freight Predator 9500 was one of the first of a new crop of high-power inverter models that became available in 2021. It does not have any built-in instrumentation. So, it was incumbent upon me to provide such capability externally.

In contrast, a bit over a year or two later a neighbor bought a Pulsar PGD95BISCO from Home Depot. This Pulsar if effectively a cousin to my Predator. They’re both made in China by Chongqing DK power machinery Co.,LTD. The Pulsar model was introduced later in February of 2023. To be competitive it has a few more features that the Predator. One of the nicer features is a built-in load meter.

The built-in LCD shows the output voltage, frequency and aggregate load on the generator in real-time. This is very handy. I wish my Predator had this feature.

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Oh, bother. Where art thou? Base Power

I first wrote about Base Powerback in May 2024. Inspired by Doug Lewin’s Energy Capital podcast, I signed up for the companies mailing list, in the hope of learning when they Austin-based company would be offering service in Houston. In fact, I’ve signed up twice!

We’ve received literally nothing from the company. Putting our address into a page on their web site they report “Great news! Base is coming to Houston soon! We’ll be installing in your area later this year.”

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EVs & Corporate Branding

Back in February of 2019 we bought a new furnace…in a hurry. Our furnace went out during a cold snap. The old furnace died at about 5pm. I called my then favorite HVAC contractor. He hustled over to investigate, delivering a prognosis by 7pm. He rightly noted that the 25 year old Kenmore furnace had given its last gasp. It could be repaired, but getting the parts would take days. The wise choice was to replace it outright.

I was thinking ahead to a new AC unit, so I wanted a top-end American Standard natural gas furnace with a variable speed blower. That would allow us to install a high-efficiency, variable speed air conditioner in the future.

It happened that he had exactly what we wanted on stock. It was sitting in a warehouse, ready to be installed in his own home, which was a new build. His crew installed that furnace in our house the very next morning. By 10am the heat was back on. It all happened so fast. While I doubt we got a bargain, he certainly earned our gratitude.

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Backup Power: Quarterly Testing and Being Neighborly

As we are now well into Hurricane Season 2025, I’m thinking about out backup power arrangement. We’re mostly in good shape.

Quarterly Testing

Last week I exercised the Predator 9500 inverter. It needs to run for about 30 minutes every 90 days, just to keep it limber. I typically put a few ounces of gas in the tank and let it run connected to the garage until it runs dry. While I always add stabilizer to the fuel I intend to use in the generator, I’m very careful to always run it dry. I never want to leave any gas in the tank, or worse in the carburetor.

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