Moen Shower Faucets are Evil - or how I learned to love the internet (even more)

This was supposed to be the "relax, do a little laundry" Saturday between the intensity of Thanksgiving week and the upcoming preparations for the Christmas Gift to San Jose. Somehow that changed when I thought "oh I could change out the tub/shower faucet in the hall bathroom while my wife is out of the house." As you can imagine that's now how it went.

I purchased two new valves, one made of plastic and one made of brass. They each included a small plastic cap that is used to help remove the old unit.

I took the knob off of the control and removed the keeper clip. I then placed the plastic removal tool on the old unit and started to turn the whole assembly inside the wall. It promptly stopped and shredded the tool. The Moen faucets work by rotating a metal tube inside of another metal tube selecting some part of the hot or cold water and mixing them together to go out the faucet or shower. The tool is supposed to loosen the outer assembly so you can pull both pieces out together. Unfortunately I hadn't loosened it enough and when I was pulling on the internal shaft, it pulled clean out, without the other piece I needed to get out. Now I had a worse problem. I couldn't grab anything to pull on the piece still in the wall. I tried putting a sprinkler system removal tool in there. That got it to spin, but it wouldn't come out. I eventually stopped and thought "I wonder what I can find on google with my iphone." I simply typed "Moen Faucet removal" fortunately there was another blog post that suggested getting a 1/2" tap and tapping the interior of the remaining metal and then threading in 1/2" shaft. At that point you have something to hold on to and can use a nut to jack it out of the wall.

This is a picture of the tap and interior after I got it out:


As you can see, I bought an eye bolt and a couple of washers. This allowed me to use a large tool on the outside to rotate the whole assembly. After all of this, the insertion of the new unit was a piece of cake. It works a lot better now.

You have to clean a Squirrel Cage? (fan)

For months I had been thinking that bathroom fan "super-quiet" fan wasn't so quiet. Today I was looking at a can of compressed air and I thought "Hey, I could use that blow any dust that might have accumulated in the bathroom fan." I figured if a can of spray can clean a fan in a computer, it should be able to do the same for a bigger fan too. I sprayed the air in to the opening, but it didn't really seem to help. Then I figured I should take the fan out of the ceiling and look inside:
Wow, that's a lot worse than I thought it was. It's hard to tell from the photo, but apparently there is a layer of dust on top of a white crust. I assume that the white crust is calcium deposits from the moisture in the air. Removing the dust and crust was a lot harder than I thought. I ended up taking the fan out of the housing and using q-tips and screwdrivers to break the dust and crust free. I vacuumed up the junk as I went.

After I thought I was all done I hit it with the air spray again and all sorts of more dust blew out of the fan assembly.

After it was all cleaned up I hooked it back up to power and it all sounded good. After putting the fan back in the ceiling and the low rumble that we used to have in there was gone.

It's in there! (Garage Door is done)

Friday was a full day. When they put "11-1" on the paperwork I thought it meant, arrive at 11AM leave at 1PM. Well when I got home at 11AM and they weren't there I waited 15 minutes and called to find out they meant "Arrive 11-1, finish as possible" oh.

They arrived about 11:45 and were two very polite hard workers. I told them that the door hinge was about to come apart and asked me to push the door opener button as they helped the door up. Of course since the door wasn't being held down by gravity any more it immediately slid off the door hinge pin and the springs released with a loud bang! Fortunately I had safety locks properly in place and the springs didn't go shooting off in to the ceiling or one of them. Unfortunately these two guys were literally holding up the garage door by themselves. One guy sturdied himself and the other guy jumped in his pickup and backed under the door to hold it up.

From Home Improvement

I always wondered how they got those big doors up on the roof rack of the pickups. Now I know :)

From Home Improvement

From Home Improvement

From Home Improvement

I asked them to estimate how long it would take and they said about two hours. I needed to get back to work so I asked if they could call me before they were done. They verified my cell phone number and I left them working with my wife home.

Later that day they called me to say they were just about done and to come back and sign it off. As soon as I arrived I noticed a problem. The window inserts were the "Full sunburst" where the combination of four panels make up the whole sunburst. I had requested the "Dual Sunburst" where two panels make up a sunburst and there are two sets. I went in found my order form, double checked that I had actually ordered it, walked back out and told them that there was a small problem. They immediately got on the phone with their boss and told me that they would take care of it without our intervention. The panels are installed from the outside and are easily replaced. I had him show me how so that if mine are ever damaged I can replace them myself.

The lead person showed me how to use the remote and as soon as the door opened there was a loud "pop" and I asked him what that was. He disconnected the motor from the door and manually slid the door along its tracks. At one point the upper and 2nd from upper door segments would bind up then release dramatically, kind of like an earthquake. He adjusted the spacing between the doors and sprayed lubrication all along the interface between the door segments. I still noticed some creaking, but it was significantly better. Not having a sliding door like this before I had no reference for how quiet or loud it should be. He showed me that there are new sensors near the bottom of the track for making sure nothing is in the way. He showed me how you can lock out remotes without disabling the button by the door to the house. I signed the paperwork and they left.

From Home Improvement

Later that night I needed something in the garage and when I went out I didn't have to turn on the overhead lights, there was enough light coming in through the windows in the door that I could get what I needed, clothes from the dryer, without any additional light. I had no idea how much that would improve our situation. I am really glad I went ahead with the windows. All in all it was a great experience.

The Door is in the mail

Well, I met with the "Costco" salesman yesterday. He was actually from a local contractor "Aaron Overhead Doors." He was pretty convincing on getting the double wall insulated door. When I asked my wife if she wanted windows in the upper portion of the door she said "I don't care" which of course meant she cared but there were too many choices etc. etc.

We ended up choosing windows with "dual sunburst" patterns.

The salesman ordered the doors, set up an install time tomorrow and we were done. That was the shortest sales pitch I had ever received. Of course the price was fixed and the options were limited so it made it pretty easy.

Tonight we have to clear 12 feet back from the garage door for them to be able to install it. I think we can do that without too much effort. Fortunately the outdoor temperature has dropped dramatically so it won't be unbearable in there after a day of sun baking.

Need a new garage door

The time has come for the makeover to start up again. In this case mostly because our garage door is about to fall off one of its hinges. I called the "Costco" 800 number for garage doors and was met by a menu for all of their other home contractor services like counter tops etc. etc. They obviously have a list of local contractors that they send your call information to for them to call you back. I got a call back yesterday from my local contractor and someone will be at my house today between 1 and 3 PM. They are supposed to call 30 minutes before hand so I can meet them there for the discussion. We'll see how that goes. By the way, when I started to ask Sandi a question about the garage door she said "four panels" what? "four panels." Oh, I see you want the garage door to be a four panel across variety, not three, not eight, OK thanks.

I'm going to leave the garage door removal and installation to the pros, but am going to add some outlets in the garage for the opener and an outlet near the front for plugging in electrical yard tools (string and hedge trimmers etc.) I have read that the newest electrical code requires all garage outlets to be GFCI. Most GFCI outlets can be put in series so that you only have to have one of them and any downstream outlet can be protected. The problem with this approach is that if you pop the GFCI on the opener for instance, the power to a garage fridge or freezer will go out. So I am going to pay the price to buy individual GFCIs and not put them in a chain to hopefully prevent this problem.

I had planned on having this done before any salesmen or installers came, but it has been unseasonably warm and the attic would be unbearable. So I asked the lady that called if I can get away with an extension cord and she said that they would do the installation, but not sign it off until that portion was complete. I can handle that, they are willing to work with me.

While I'm talking about the garage, I need to put a new Attic access door in. The one that was in the garage ceiling when we moved in was not installed correctly to begin with and has suffered and caused damage to that portion of the garage ceiling. I'll be doing that a little later after the garage door is in.

Wish me luck!