I am often asked for ceiling fan and light recommendations from my clients since I install quite a few every year. I don't necessarily have one particular brand that I recommend, but rather I suggest features that I would look for and sometimes avoid. One of the features that I try to avoid are fans and lights with integrated LEDs. They sound great, but once the LEDs or the LED driver fail, the fixture needs to be completely replaced if the manufacturer doesn't offer replacement parts. 

A few years ago, I bought a used ceiling fan from ReSource in Boulder which had integrated LEDs. It is a nice Minka-Aire fan that I ended up installing in my kid's room. Its worked great for years, but recently the LEDs started to flicker... usually a sign of a bad LED driver. The fan was manufactured in 2015 and is in great shape otherwise. Instead of removing and replacing the fan I thought that I would look on Amazon and eBay for a replacement LED light assembly. What I found was close, but this is a ceiling fan, not horseshoes or hand grenades. 

What to do? 

I disassembled the light assembly and took a closer look at the LED printed circuit board (PCB). Could that be matched? What I found is that it could be matched, so I ordered a two-pack. Once the replacement LED PCB arrived I removed the connection plug from the old one and transferred it to the new one. Before reassembling the light assembly, I tested it and and it worked! 

During the disassembly process I did drill out some plastic screws that I needed to replace, but that was not a big deal. Replacement, plastic screws were easy to find. Some details to note are that some LED PCBs have color changing LEDs, some have different Kelvin ratings (white color), and some are dimmable. It is important to match the features, voltage, wattage, and physical size. Though I still would steer away from integrated LEDs, at least I know that it is possible to replace the LEDs, if a match can be made. 

Did you know that most TV power cords are not rated for in-wall use? These power cords are not CL rated (Class Rated) and should not be used inside the walls. HDMI, Ethernet, USB, and other data cables can be used inside of a wall; but if you want to hide all of the cords inside of a wall, what can you do? 

There are quite a few kits on the market which allow all of the cords to be routed inside of a wall. Two holes are cut in the wall, one behind the TV and one lower down, behind your furniture. The kit is installed and the data cables can be routed inside the wall. A CL rated cable is used to move power from the outlet below to the new outlet behind the TV (think of it as an in-wall extension cord). 

I installed this kit a few weeks ago on an interior wall, which was pretty straightforward and allowed for the cables to be easily passed between the two openings. It should be noted though if the TV is mounted inside of a home on an exterior wall, it could be tricky to work with the insulation inside of the wall. 

If you have followed my page long enough, you might know that I'm not a huge fan of the Samsung Slim Fit Wall Mount for their TVs. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of the Samsung flush mount TVs when they are installed; but their mount is the most overly engineered mount that I've ever com across with no real adjustability for our U.S. built modern homes. Case in point, this recent installation.

In most of our homes, the stud spacing is either 16" on center or 24" on center, depending on the wall location in our homes. When a TV wall mount installation request comes my way, I will often ask if the stud spacing matches the mount that was purchased. It's a pretty important question because rarely will a TV wall mount manufacturer state that wall anchors are ok to use. When a Samsung flush mount TV installation request comes my way, all bets are off, and this installation is why.

I used Samsung's template for this 65" mount installation, as I always do. The location is determined and the studs are located. Notice something in the photos? I needed four studs for this installation, but only one landed in a location that I could use. Luckily, it was in the critical spot based on how this mount was engineered. The next step was to share with this homeowner what I learned and let them decide how to proceed.

What were the options?
1. Abort the installation
2. Proceed with the installation, but use a backboard to better anchor the TV mount (an ugly approach, defeating the purpose of the mount)
3. Use the stud for the left mount and heavy duty wall anchors for the right mount (knowing that there is a slight possibility that the anchors could fail)
4. Use a completely different mount

The client went with option #3 and assumed responsibility if the TV fell off of the wall. The installation continued. If it was any other mount, I would not have agreed to continue, but the Samsung mount does not have any real adjustability. With no tilt and no ability to extend the TV from the wall, the only real force at play here is sheer load. This is very similar to the heavy mirrors and artwork that I hang, so a similar approach is taken when studs are not available. 

Though I hate using wall anchors for mounting TVs, there anchors are rated to hold 265-pounds each (keep in mind, this is factoring in a sheer load). Probably more anchors were used than needed, but this Samsung mount is not the most rigid, so I wanted to hold it snug to the wall. 

Once the brackets were installed, the TV went up without a hitch. The wires were tucked away and the TV fired up. The result? Another Samsung TV comes to life.  

This was a first, swapping out the lights on a 25-year old golf cart recently for a client. The driver side light was broken and instead of having it glued back together again, they decided to have it replaced. This cart was pimped up a few years ago and the LED lights were not original to this EZ Go cart. Unfortunately, the replacement driver side LED headlight would not match the passenger side LED headlight currently in the cart, so it was decided to have them both replaced.  

It appeared that the replacement headlight assembles were an exact match, but that was not the case. Along with new holes needing to be drilled in the front cowl, the new headlights required some re-wiring to work properly. Once they were re-wired, the front and rear lights worked properly and the cart was ready for use again. 

One detail that the owners were not aware of was that the batteries in their golf cart are lead-acid and not maintenance-free. The company that sold them the golf cart did not mention that fairly important detail. While I was working on the cart, I decided to pop the top off of a couple of the batteries and noticed that quite a few cells needed to be topped-off. They had a little bit of distilled water on-hand, so we were able to topped-off a few cells; but they would need more distilled water to finish the job. If your golf cart or low speed vehicle (LSV) utilizes lead acid batteries as the power source, make it a habit of checking the water level in the batteries. These batteries can be costly to replace and maintaining them can help extend their life.  

Every once in a while, a request comes my way to find the source of a water leak in a home. This year, there were at least three different requests that received. This is certainly not a task that I enjoy because the result often leads to having to inform a homeowner that they need some costly repairs to fix the source of the leak and resulting damage. In most cases, I'm not the one to make the repairs, but it is still no fun to have to deliver the news.

Recently, the search was for a leak in a rental property in Niwot. I rarely leave Erie, but the owner of this property has been a client since I started my company. The house is quirky, but I have become fairly with the oddities in this home. The leak was in the laundry room and it was easy to determine which area of the house was the source of the leak based on some measurements and reference points inside and outside. 

In the past, I have found that in most cases the grout in a shower has failed, causing a leak similar to the way that this one appeared. Though the shower above was a bit dirty, the grout did not appear to be compromised, nor did the tile walls feel like they had failed. Another area where a shower can develop a leak is around the drain. Upon opening up the ceiling, those two areas did not appear to be the source of the leak. The next move was to remove the trim around the shower valve handle.

The trim around the shower valve handle was removed and sure enough, it was leaking. The manufacturer was Pegasus, a name that I was not familiar with. After a little research, I found that it was supposedly a higher end manufacturer that Home Depot purchased, but let the name fade away. Luckily, the cartridges were still being manufactured under their more popular Glacier Bay line and were available in-store. 

Once the cartridge was replaced, the leak stopped. The area in the ceiling that was wet had started to show signs of drying out. All of the wet drywall was cut out and disposed, leaving the area for another company to mitigate. My job was done. Fix the leak, walk the tenant through the process of making the area whole again, and ease their concerns... all while minimizing the mess left behind.

The one nice feature of this Pegasus valve were the built-in water shutoffs or 'stops'. If I was not able to find the replacement cartridge, the water to the house would need to be 'off' until another way to manage the leak could be found. If I was going to remodel any one of my showers, I would absolutely want valves with stops or another way to isolate the shower valves from the rest of the house.   

"Buy it for looks. Buy it for life." That used to be the slogan that Moen had, but was it true? It has been my experience that name brand faucet manufacturers actually stick behind the products. Moen, Delta, Hans Grohe, Kohler, and most recently Kraus have sent my clients parts at no charge. Yesterday, I installed the replacement parts that were sent to my client at no charge from Kraus for a five year old faucet. As long as you are the original owner, there are good chances that these name brand manufacturers will stand behind their products, if there is an issue. 

That's all I got on this one... just another example of a name brand faucet manufacturer standing behind their products.

Here's a little walk down memory lane:
https://youtu.be/-AFNUsVNfkI?si=JHAunam9ffzYwph0 

Miley Cyrus, Milli Vanilli, Millivolt. What's the difference? 

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything about our homes and I have not seen everything in our homes; but after my recent experience with the radiant floor heating thermostat, it had me wondering about my gas fire place and the use of a thermostat. In theory, the thermostat for that radiant floor heating system was just an on/off switch, controlled by the temperature settings. When the room temperature dropped below a preset limit, the radiant floor system would turn 'on'; and when the temperature reached a preset upper limit, the system would turn 'off. The same should apply to our 23-year old fireplace, which utilizes a thermocouple/thermopile millivolt system to control the gas valve.

The millivolt gas valve is named after the amount of voltage the valve needs to open. Usually a manual knob is used to control a gas valve, but in a millivolt gas valve utilizes a continuously burning vertical pilot to heat a device (ie. a thermopile), which then generates a small amount of electricity. This small amount of electricity provides enough current to control a solenoid, which overcomes a spring to open the valve to control gas flow. 

My wife and I recently cleaned our gas fireplace, polished the glass, added new embers, and added black glass around the perimeter to freshen up our nearly 25-year old fireplace. I also cleaned the thermocouple and thermopile, after having to address the issue at our 24-year old rental property. Our fireplace works fine and few years ago I had installed a bluetooth switch to control the fireplace switch. The issue? Well, with bluetooth devices, usually multiple users cannot control the device. I liked the idea of a generic remote so that it was not tied to a phone and the radiant floor job had me thinking... 

I looked into a few different options and selected one that worked with a millivolt system, and had a remote that would act as a thermostat. Wherever the remote would sit, it could also control the fireplace based on a preset desired temperature. When looking a millivolt switches, there were choices. They all required either batteries or an AC outlet close to operate. For our setup, batteries were the only option, but every battery option had a fugly looking battery door. I chose the best looking option, but it still was pretty unattractive. So what did I do? I screwed the remote wall clip over the battery door. 

So what do I think? I love it! It's simple, it removes the 'smart'/frustrating as 'F' feature and brings simplicity back to this appliance. It warms my heart and office without trying to figure out which device controls the fireplace.

Occasionally, I install and/or troubleshoot thermostats for homeowners, but in every one of those previous cases they were for forced air natural gas systems. Since I started my business, I had a HVAC rider added to my insurance policy and kept it since a request that I receive every so often is to install smart thermostats. A request that I received yesterday was to troubleshoot a thermostat for a radiant floor heating system (along with replacing sink drains and hanging some large, fine art pieces). This was a first.

The issue with this thermostat is that when the up and down buttons were pressed, the temperature would not change without pressing them really hard. Even then, the temperature might change or it might not. The thermostat was installed in 2007, and this model is no longer manufactured. The homeowner did not want to have a newer model installed. Why? With the radiant floor heating system, there are at least four thermostats around the house and he did not want to mix makes and models of thermostats. New, old stock ones are available on eBay, and he purchased one, but it would take two weeks to arrive. The request was to see if I could fix the current one.

The batteries were taken out and the thermostat was removed from the wall. Luckily the manufacturer utilized screws to attach the circuit board to the face plate/front plate instead of plastic welding. Once the unit was separated, the contact points of the buttons were revealed. The contact points were cleaned, the thermostat was reassembled, and the thermostat was installed back on the wall. Guess what? It worked! It worked so well that the homeowner wants me to clean them all during my next visit since it is now the best functioning thermostat in the house.

One detail that should be noted when working on aging plastic products, like this one, is to take extra care when reassembling. The plastic was slightly yellowed, indicating that it is probably more brittle than when it was manufactured. When reinstalling the screws in an item like this one, I will spin the screws backwards and feel for them to drop into the original threads cut into the plastic. Then I will tighten the screws. If that is not done, there is a chance that the plastic will crack if new threads are cut, creating another problem.