BWW Project 25-14: Third and Final Attempt on Freeze Leak

 BWW Project 25-14: Third and Final Attempt on Freeze Leak

The freeze leak in the basement on the cold feed to the downstairs guest room shower caused me great perplexity, mainly because I was trying to solder in a large brass valve and could never get it hot enough to make a good seal.  I kept getting pinhole leaks.

I got mad, tore the whole thing out for the second time and threw it all in the trash.  Using compression fittings on both copper pipes, I went to copper nipples that I soldered to male fittings that had the FIP thread, so I could put one simple steel braided, flexible link between them,  

It was still difficult to tighten down the compression fitting up between the floor joists and when I got all done and put the water on, I still had a little drip up there.  But guess what.  Getting two wrenches up there was a lot easier without all that other stuff in the way.  One good movement of the compression fitting and Voila!  No more drip.  

Now I just have to unscrew the flexible line at the bottom and let it hang down until I re-open in spring.  

Very happy to clean up down there and move on to other stuff.

BWW Project 25-13: Plastic Bag Dispenser

 BWW Project 25-13:  Plastic Bag Dispenser

An easy one today.  Cathy bought this plastic bag dispenser.  You stuff the bags (WalMart bags, plastic grocery bags, etc) in the top to store them and when you need one you pull it out the bottom.  A little neater than hanging one bag on a nail or hook and stuffing all the other bags into it.

Just some measuring and setting three screws, leaving enough headspace for the device to go over them and then down.  She sited it in the broom closet.  

April 2025 Weight, Blood Pressure, Meds

 April 2025 Weight, Blood Pressure, Meds

Date        Weight            . BP            Meds            p.m. BP            Energy Level        Exercise

4/1            196                              L-Ca-D3-T-Pr-AB                                    3

4/2            196        115-82-76    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            131-87-76                5                                    *

4/3            195        140-87-63    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            128-92-76                4                                    *

4/4            195        147-90-72    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            131-93-67                5                                    *

4/5            196        144-92-62    Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB                                            5                                    *

4/6            198        136-98-66    AL-Ca-D3-Pr-AB        144-92-73                4                                    *

4/7            197.5    138-96-62      Ca-D3-Pr-AB            128-91-75                5                                    *

4/8            197        139-91-64    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            135-86-73                   4                                *.

4/9            198        151-99-64    Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB        140-90-70                5                                    *

4/10        197        152-89-65    Ca-D3-Pr-AB                132-90-78                5                                    *

4/11        196.5        148-93-66  Ca-D3-Pr-AB                127-84-83                5                                **

4/12        198.5        156-72-66    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            116-79-91                5                                    *

4/13        199            140-94-61    AL-Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB    164-97-62                5                                *

4/14        198.5        137-96-68    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            134-85-87                    5                                *

4/15        198.5        156-94-63    Ca-D3-Pr-AB                                                5                                *

4/16        197.5                            Ca-D3-Pr-AB                                                4                                   *

4/17                                            Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB                                                5

4/18                                            Ca-D3-Pr-AB                                                    5                            **

4/19                                            Ca-D3-Pr-AB                                                6 Biked 90-min        *

4/20                                             AL-Ca-D3-Pr-AB                                            4                            *.

4/21        199                                Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB                                            5                                **

4/22        197.5    143-95-74    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            122-91-76                        4 Biked 40-min    

4/23        196.5    156-93-72    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            140-94-87                        5                          *

4/24        197        124-94-66    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            141-95-74                        4                            **

4/25        197.5    134-87-69    Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB        140-88-68                            4

4/26        196.5    133-89-65    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            143-85-75                        5                            **

4/27        196.5    160-97-65    AL-Ca-D3-Pr-AB                                                4                            *

4/28        197        143-95-61    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            152-93-66                        5                            *

4/29        198        142-95-60    Ca-D3-Pr-T-AB        132-85-75                        4                            *

4/30        198.5    142-83-69    Ca-D3-Pr-AB            108-75-85                    5 60-min shoveling    *

Average weight 197.2

Average Blood Pressure & Pulse  142-92-66   These are all high.  The pulse just shows that I'm out of

]            shape as can be seen by my aerobic exercise.  I brought the BP readings to the attention of my

            oncologist and he wasn't overly concerned.  He said slight elevations are expected with the

            medications I am on.  He said I could share the numbers with my regular doctor, which I said

            I'd do since I have an appointment for annual physical coming up.  He must have shared them

            because I got a call from her and she suggested going on a low dose of BP meds (she's been 

            suggesting that for ten years). I will go on 2.5 mg daily and will start May 1st.

Of my prescribed meds, I have yet to miss a dose of Abiraterone or Prednisone or my calcium and 

            vitamin D3.  Tamsulosin goes back to my urologist before the prostate cancer diagnosis and

            since treatment, I feel I need it only every 3 or 4 days.  In April I took one every 4th day.

I biked 14.5 miles in April (horrible) and I counted  1 hour of shoveling and hauling hod (wood chips)

            for the community garden as a 3-mi hike.  Believe me, it was.

I have been estimating my energy level each day.  5 is kind of normal and stands for 1/2 of what I

            typically would be without all these meds and low testosterone.  A 4 is a bit lower, lethargic

            but able to do something.  A 3 means I'd really rather just stay in bed all day.  A 2 means I

            have to stay in bed.  A 1 would mean hospitalized or under care.  A 6 means that I felt some

            energy and could do a vigorous project or aerobic exercise.  My average for April was 4.6

Alcohol beverage was 1.1 per day.

          

BWW Project 25-12: Shelves and Hooks in Closets

 BWW Project 25-12: Shelves and Hooks in Closets

There were several closet projects in which Cathy wanted additional shelves and some hooks on the sides to hang various things on.  We had cut boards and runners last fall for a few so she could paint them.  

We started with adding one shelf in the broom closet so she could better organize the stuff that's kept in there.  We put in hooks on both sides.

The foyer coat closet got a couple more shelves, too and hooks for hats and scarves on the sides.

Then we moved the operation upstairs.  In the master bedroom we added one long shelf up above the existing one and three hooks on each side as well as a center support.

In the guest bedroom there are two large closets with wood box-type organizers.  We put hooks along the sides of each for her to hang her necklaces and other stuff.  All in all, it got to be an assembly line kind of task, measuring, pre-drilling, putting screws into studs at the right places, and leveling everything properly.  

A fairly mundane, easy series of tasks which made a real big difference and improvement of the usefulness of each of these closets.

BWW Project 25-11 2nd Attempt on basement freeze-leak

 BWW Project 25-11  2nd Attempt on basement freeze leak

Because I had one drip on a soldered connection between copper pipe and a brass valve, I had to tear out the whole fix and start over.  I turned the brass valve around and used the other side.  I did that connection on the ground before putting the whole thing back up and soldering it in place.  

Guess what!  Another drip on the brass valve.  A slow one, about 1 drip a second.  I put a tub under it and let the whole project rest.  I was hoping the drip would silt up with minerals from the water, and it did, but not enough.  I left the tub under it for a week and a half while I stewed.  The torch just doesn't quite get the valve, which is pretty massive, hot enough for the solder to flow quickly and fill up the cavity.

BWW Project 25-10: Sticks and Leaves Winter Cleanup

 BWW Project 25-10:  Sticks and Leaves Winter Cleanup

Last spring we had a monumental clean-up after winter, mostly because we hadn't done any tailoring of the yards and gardens.  This year we returned to find a lot of small branches and sticks that blew out of the trees, and quite a pile of leaves for Cathy to clean up.

I started out with scooting around with a drywall bucket and breaking up sticks and branches.  In no time I had filled one yard waste bag.  We had some pretty windy days and nights even after we came back in early March for my medical appointments.  There was a lot, and ultimately I had three bags full.  Cathy, of course, outdid me with garden refuse and leaves with 8 bags of her own.  Plus she has a little to do yet but doesn't want to rough up gardens too much because stuff hasn't come up yet and she does not want to jeapordize it.  

Eleven bags sat in the garage until April 20 when they were able to be put on the boulevard for the city to collect.  This happened in a few days.

BWW Project 25-9: TDY Sara's -- New Bathroom Faucets & Drains

 BWW Project 25-9:  TDY Sara's -- New Bathroom Faucets & Drains

One more project getting Sara's old house ready to put on the market.  She has an upstairs bathroom with double sinks.  The faucet on one sink is broken and cannot be repaired because the cowling where the handle assembly fits in is broken as well.

First step is to try and match the other faucet.  A trip to Menard's found one that is very, very close.  The spout is almost identical but the column that the faucet sits on is narrower in diameter (not much) and the lever of the handle is slightly different.  I texted pictures of both and she ultimately said "buy two" which is probably the right decision even though it means more work.  Bought two.

A few days later, I went down there, turned off the shutoff valves and removed both old faucets.  It could have been harder but after pulling two drawers, I was able to remove them without much difficulty.  The hoses from the valves to the faucet risers is a different story, as I expected.  Two feeds come off each shutoff valve and I had to buy some more hoses to make sure I could match to the new risers which were different from the old.

Mounting the new faucets was easy enough.  Then I noticed that new pop-up drains were included with the new faucets.  The old ones were scuffed and worn and ugly, so it was a no-brainer to put in new ones.  Unfortunately the drains and traps had to come out to do this.  More work.  Having the drain pipes somewhat out of the way made it easier to deal with routing and connecting the new feeds.  Naturally, I ran into a problem connecting the hot left feed because the male end on the tee was right up against a partition in the cabinet and the new fitting would not quite line up so that I couls engage the threads.  I struggled with this immensely and decided I needed to come back the next day with roto-cutter and take away some of the material from the partition so I could line them up.

Next day, I spent about an hour and a half trying to do just that and realized, aftert I cut a valley (with great difficulty) in the side of the partition.  It had a corner support beneath so I couldn't just notch it out.  Finally I gave up and decided to buy one more stainless steel encased feed tube and re-route the whole thing while simply capping off the male end of the tee that I couldn't line up.  

That worked OK and I was happy to re-charge the water and find everything worked.  Except for one small drip.  Murphy's Law.  One drop about every 25 seconds is intolerable.  I tried to tighten the fitting only to find that the valve handle was in my way as was also the part of the drain tube that went between the sinks.  Again, I needed a plan.

Ultimately I opted to return a third time because we were going to Easter

dinner at Aaron's folks house.  Afterwards, armed with the bit to fit the handle, I removed that from the stem and found that now I could get two channel-lock pliers in there with good vision angles, hold the tee with one and tighten down the female nut with the other.  I believe I got rid of the drip, so I put the handle back on, hooked up the traps to the new pop-up drains and left a plastic tray beneath for Sara to check and see if any drips occurred.