Canonical_Warlock @ Canonical_Warlock @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Joined

7 mo. ago

A quick tip if you want to minimize the number of repairs. If a motor dies, replace all the start components as well. The old ones might be fully functional and even test good but when the motor quit it likely weakened them. Similarly, if one start component fails then just replace all of them for the same reason. A failing start cap or run cap can really beat up the start relay so even if it works temporarily, it will often fail later. Also if you notice that you keep having to replace start components for a particular motor then that motorcis starting to fail. We see that all the time with compressors in particular. A hard start kit can help in that case but it shouldn't be considered a fix.

As a refrigeration/HVAC guy, the past couple months have been hell. Most of our crew has been working over 60 hours a week for two months straight and we still aren't even close to keeping up. We're having to heavily triage calls. Hell, I just finally got dispatched to a prison the other day where aparently a whole cell block had been mostly without AC for an entire week. Normally a call like that would get someone dispatched same day but we just don't have the people. I work with guys that have been doing this for decades and even they say that the current volume of tickets is unprecedented.

I remember my moms old Garmin GPS always said "turn left down bike path" when we got close to home. I also one heard it tell her to turn left down a river while we were driving over a bridge.

Hmmm. Are they DTF?

I just jam my gas cap in the handle.

It still doesn't beat the long term durability and 100% recyclability of copper though. If I was doing an install in a factory or somewhere where the plumbing would require frequent modification then the fact that pex is easier to work with would probably make me go that route. But in my house where I will be replumbing once and then it will be almost entirely burried in the walls and left alone for decades, I would rather just put the extra work in and do it with copper.

I'm not sure about shower valves in particular but I have devinitely brazed directly to regular nylon core plumbing ball valves before by using the rag trick.in that case you just wrap the valve itself with the wet rag.

Yep. Thas is all that's in silphos. For any work that isn't copper to copper then I would need to use silver brazing wire which is just copper, zinc, tin, and silver.

Yep there are crimp fittings but they cost more and the seal in those fittings is only rated to last so long. Of course that is a very long time (50 years I think) but I still prefer sweat fit copper that lasts for the life of the pipe.

Copper pipes don't leach microplastics into my drinking water, are 100% recyclable, and are more durable.

The same is actually true of a lot of refrigeration components as well. You just wrap a wet strip of rag around the pipe to act as a heat barier between where you're brazing and the sensitive component. As long as the rag stays wet (which it will unless you go really slow) then heat won't significantly propogate past that point. Just doing that can let you braze a joint within 1" of a plastic component as long as you're careful where you point the torch.

and they're like the drug central for the state (they're not).

To be fair you never know. There is a small town fairly near where I live that had one of the largest meth production operations in the country at one point. Turns out it's pretty easy to make a lot of drugs and not get caught when you do it in the middle of nowhere.

Remember, your refrigerator is just a heat pump; it also has a hot side.

The DNC campaign managers broke him.

Haha. I'm the same way. It's fun to tinker with that stuff. It's actually probably a good thing it's so expensive otherwise I'd have twice as many half finished renovations.

Just be sure you're aware of local laws. At least where I live home owners can do all of their own electrical work as long as they get it inspected but that isn't the case everywhere. As far as the minisplit goes you should be legal to DIY it as long as you use precharged units and linesets. You just can't buy refrigerants or legally tap into the system in any way unless you have an EPA 608 certification. But if you're using precharged linesets and the equipment works then you won't need to do either of those things unless you somehow lose the refrigerant charge. As far as the rest goes just do your research on system sizing, placement, and all that jazz. But as far as DIY goes, a minisplit is probably about the same difficulty level as installing a new gas furnace so if you would be comfortable doing that they you should be fine.

Also if you're going with a heat pump minisplit, I'd go with mitsubishi, not a samsung. The Samsung units are more technically advanced and have more flashy options but they aren't very reliable. I've worked on several that had major issues less than a year after install. They're also more "proprietary" when it comes to working on them. On the other hand I have never come across a dead mitsubishi with less than 5 years of hard use and they're dead simple to work on as far as minisplits go.

Honestly, the requirements to become a professional in most of the trades are pretty minimal because there's a massive shortage of trained workers in basically every trade. The bar is probably the highest for electricians. I'm a refrigeration mechanic and the bar for us is basically subterranean. I've come across "professional" repairs all over the place that are just wild.

Honestly, if you're a DIYer and you're consulting building codes at all then you're probably doing better work than many (but not most) pros. That's why you should never just go with the cheapest contractor you can find for anything. They're cheap for a reason. You really need to ask around and see who is good in your area. One thing that can help is if you can find a contractor that does commercial as well as residential work. It's not 100% but generally they're going to do better work because it's a bit harder to get away with shoddy work with many commercial customers than it is with most residential customers.

No idea. I just work with acetylene and am familiar with old acetylene gas machines which use calcium carbide to make it. I have no idea what those toxins actually do in large amounts because I'm only used to dealing with them as fairly trace contaminants. I just know enough to know that the acetylene itself shouldn't be much of an issue but those two chemicals could be.

West, East, and Center, each heading up a major chunk of territory

Fuck no. Don't lump us minnesotans in with basically exclusively red shithole states.

Good thing it's surrounded by water.

Joking aside, if it didn't burst into flames right away then it's probably fine on the acetylene front. The main hazard of acetylene is just the insane flamability (explosive limits 2.5-100%). But it's also very soluble in water and isn't really harmful to the environment on it's own. There are actually bacteria that can use it as a food source. So the acetylene is just going to be quickly disapated by the wind and disolved into the ocean where it'll be broken down into harmless products.

The bigger concern is that, with that much calcium carbide reacting, there was likely fairly substantial amounts of phosphine and arsine produced as well. Those are both pretty damn toxic. Normally the amount of both of those produced in a calcium carbide reaction is fairly small but when there are several shipping containers of the stuff reacting then those normally trace contaminants are likely going to actually amount to something.

Holy shit, this is what that part in the bible is actually about. People back then just didn't know about electricity so they thought it was about gay people.