Ceiling Fans: The Hanging Menace

Here in Maryland it was dry, windy and freezing only a few weeks ago, now the mercury has climbed above 90 degrees, the wind stopped, and the humidity hit the point where you only have to inhale if you want a drink of water.

As the local power company knows, Montgomery County, Maryland usually welcomes in the weather with the cacophony of a couple hundred thousand air conditioners turning on at once, converting piles of money into pure Colombian uncut cold air. One of the multitude of roaring air conditioners was attached to my house, it's metal tentacles reaching out and taking money out of my wallet and beating up the occasional kid for his lunch money.

I was alarmed, and not just because my air conditioning unit was mugging people - I was alarmed at the fact that the air conditioner took a very large amount of energy to make the house a bearable temperature, and due to the lousy insulation in my old house, it had to keep using a lot of energy. I calculated it out to an extra $100 to $120 a month to keep our house cool.

I needed a solution, so I turned to the best model I could think of for saving money, an industrial revolution era sweat shop. Looming far over the heads of the hapless and overworked rabble below, powered by their rage and their deep-rooted hatred of humanity, the ceiling fans loom.

The history of the ceiling fan goes back a long way, and with modern fans the concept is the same, move air around. In a modern home, the ceiling fan is usually only noticed when really dirty or unbalanced - or if it is mounted too low and some unsuspecting fool tries to take off their coat and accidentally hits the fan, sending the dust that's been sitting on it for twenty years flying everywhere, but I wouldn't know anything about that. When functioning properly, the fan gets a nice breeze going in the room, just enough to be comfortable without being obnoxious. It makes higher temperatures bearable without actually dropping the temperature.

Unlike an air conditioner, fans take very little energy, usually around 80 watts on their highest setting, around the power use of one of your ancient Edison-era earth-destroying incandescent light-bulbs. That is why they became very popular in the 70's energy crisis. In fact, they liked ceiling fans so much in the 70's that they had to invent platform shoes so everyone could be closer to them.

In the winter you can set the fans on reverse to push the hot air that collects on the ceiling back down to to you. I haven't tried this myself yet.

There is a huge selection of fans to choose from, though the newer fans actually tend to be much lower quality then the older fans (for example, older fans tended to come with solid wood blades instead of particle board). I read a bunch of articles going on about blade pitch and shape and motor quality, but for my price range I just wanted a fan that worked well and was cheap. I got three from Home Depot, made by Hampton Bay. $40, $50, and $60. If you want to spend a lot more, you can get nicer fans, but for me to spend more money on a money saving device, it better deliver more value - such as allowing me to travel through time or get along with my mother-in-law.

Fans come in a lot of different sizes, but almost all of the ones for sale at Home Depot were 52 inches (a measure of the diameter of the whole unit, not just the blade). To find the proper size for your fan, check out the handy chart here. I have low ceilings so I got "flush mount" fans (most fans have a "flush mount" feature). The theory behind the number of blades a fan has is more blades, more air moved at a slower speed, so less noise and bearing wear.

Installation of these fans is pretty easy, despite the massive instruction novel included with them. Installation is made even easier if you have a great friend like Mark helping you install them. For all three of the fans I had to install, I was replacing an existing light fixture, so the wires were already there. Also, they were strong enough that I did not have to reinforce the receptacle. If you do have to reinforce yours, it's not that difficult, and a lot of fans come with kits to help you do just that (not that you really need them, a 2x4 and some screws will do the job nicely)

The first fan I got went over the kitchen table, it's a 52 inch that did 4000 CFM (Cubic feet of air Per Minute) on high. Unless you were sitting directly under it you didnt feel much air at all. In the bedroom I installed a 52 inch fan that featured 5000 CFM on high and it was perfect. Just a warning to you, don't expect hurricane force winds from a regular cheap-o store bought ceiling fan, you don't really want that, you just want the air moving so that you'll feel a lot cooler and the humidity wont drown you. They look nice too.

It's nice falling asleep knowing that you're comfortable and the A/C isn't on all the time, sucking up money and small children, and the breeze is nice too.

If you are considering getting a ceiling fan, Wikipedia, despite it's obvious biases, actually has a really nice article on them.

Working on the basement walls, part 2

Well, it was time to replace the left wall of the house. It's the same as what we did in part 1 except one of the walls had to come really close to the original foundation of the house. Because of that I shall be brief with the comments.

Thanks to all who helped, The Fredericksons, Arcands, Mark, Josh, Conrad, Stephen, and Mark again.

I've taken off the lose dirt and poured mortar over what was left to help hold it in place till we have the new wall in. Also note the smashed up wall to the right, as well as the wooden support that will be removed once the wall has cured.



Another picture of the same, different angle.



Stephen, our very competent mason, standing next to the dirt that the old wall was previously holding up.




The new wall going up



We extended the footer a little under the existing foundation to make it stronger. You can see the lines we drew on the foundation wall here to check for shifting at any point in the construction process - a process that, thanks to the 2 week cure times for the mortar and concrete, took over a month.



Conrad pouring concrete into the new hole



Josh, giving the wall a stern talking-to, and placing rebar




Block going up!




See that happy new corner?





Here is what the basement looks like now . . . bit of a mess, but at least that rear wall is looking better.




The basement IS clean now, I just didn't take that picture yet :)

My Commuter

I have a Honda Nighthawk (CB250) as my daily driver. It is the only vehicle I own that does not have "Historic" tags. I read it would get 70MPG on average., though on the Yahoo Nighthawk group, some guy in GB said he got 90MPG highway, I didn't believe him.


When I drive it, I have fun. Because the engine is so small (Two cylinder 250cc, you know, 0.25 Liters) , I really feel no guilt in just pouring on the throttle. I'd been driving it hard, always topping out gears before shifting, especially to stay away from people driving cars. When I checked at the pump I was getting 50MPG.

After seeing that, I decided to drive conservatively just to see the MPG I could get. I was not driving super conservative, I was just driving like a car, accelerating calmly, turning the engine off at long lights, and still speeding up quickly to avoid people crazy enough to be driving cars.

I checked again at the pump . . . 200 miles . . . 2 gallons of gas . . .

Yay four stroke engines~!

RX-7 Convertible Headrest Modification

All RX-7 convertibles, came with headrests speakers, two to each headrest, with volume controls for the passenger and the driver. I've heard other cars, such as the Miata, also came with these. After upgrading the audio equipment everywhere else, I noticed that the sound from these headrest speakers is pretty bad. The crapiness of the speakers was especially potent because they were right next to my head, and that's not really acceptable.

After disassembling the headrest, you'll get to see this weird oval/rectangle speaker


Yeah, pretty sad. Compare it with these Infinity Reference 3002CF speakers in the picture below. I picked these 3.5" speakers because I liked the high and mid-high range sound. Headrest speakers only need to carry that range, as the lows are for your larger speakers behind you or in the doors.


Here the speakers are side by side so that you can see and compare the backs.


Since I'm not a hardcore audiophile like Dan is, I decided to re-use the stock speaker mounts instead of fabricating a custom box. They are made out of a rather thick hard plastic, and that's a good thing. However, they are prone to cracking because of the way they are fastened to the headrest, and of course their age. Make sure you have some superglue handy.


Here it is! Modded next to un-modded. Make sure the box does not touch the cone of the speaker at any range of its movement.


Here is a picture of the modified unit dissasembled in front of the headrest mounting bracket.



Here you go! All done! You don't need to put Dynamat on the headrest, I just put it there as a joke for Trevor. It's a really thick piece of metal already.

Final results: the sound is awesome! It does not take over the super highs (as those are handled by separate tweeters in front of me) but it handles the high and high middle very well. It's really fantastic for when the top is down and it's really noisy outside, I can still have my music coming in nice and clear.

The Magic is Gone

Picture I took outside of Mustang Magic, after the wall fell.
For the story, click here.

(Click for a larger image)

Tofuball's Reading

I removed all the unrelated stories from the site, because, well, they were unrelated. I moved them over to Tofuball's Reading.

ReadingTofu.Blogspot.Com

How not to remove a tree.

My friend Theo from RX-7Club had a tree problem; in the back of his yard, looming over his tool shed, a dead tree was about to fall on his house. The tree was about about a foot and a half in diameter.

To keep it from falling and breaking things, he wrapped a logging chain around the trunk and used a come-a-long to secure it to a larger tree nearby.


He asked the forum what he should do next:

I have already cut a small wedge out of the tree in the direction of the come-a-long... But not enough to get the tree leaning that way. Once it does start leaning or falling, it'll release the tension on the chain/cable... Then it won't pull anymore. How do I pull it down when the tension is off the cable?

Any other bright ideas before I go killing or breaking something?

He then went out and notched the tree in the direction of the shed:


And the next time he posted, we were graced with the following pictures:



Luckily the shed was crappy and he didn't care much, and the gutters aren't THAT bad ;)

You can read the thread for all the details, and the nom nom shedz tree, here.