Hot Air

The good news is that its supposed to be cooler today, albeit still quite warm: 34°C (about 93° in old money), down from 38°C (100°F) yesterday.

The bad news is the the water pump on the swamp cooler died last night. Lisa says that hard-water buildup has jammed it, and it's not worth trying to fix. That means the machine is currently just a high-powered fan because it won't pump water into the pads that lead to evaporative cooling.

The less-bad news is that replacement pumps aren't too expensive, and according to Lisa, the worst part of replacing the pump is getting the screws that hold it in place to release due to the hard-water build-up.

The pump died last night too late for us to go over to Big R Ranch & Home and buy a new motor, but we will go and do it after work today. With any luck, we'll be back in business by tonight.

Out of Gas

This afternoon after work, Lisa and I went to Fallon mainly to shop at their larger Big R. We weren't able to find everything we wanted, but we did get a new swamp cooler pump and some other items for which Lisa was looking. The pump is not expensive: $35 plus tax.

As we were returning to Fernley, the Astro started coughing. I was out of gas! I coasted to a place that was off the highway and safe. I was very surprised, as the Astro typically has a range of up to 500 miles, but I had run up only about 400. However, Lisa reminded me that I've been running the air conditioning most of the time, and that on Tuesday, I somehow managed to drive all the way to Reno (around 40 miles) with the van in D instead of OD, which is harmless, but wastes fuel.

We had just passed the Fox Peak Gas Station, and Lisa asked why I had not pulled in there. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but later I realized that the reason was that I would have had to make a left turn at the traffic light, and I didn't want to run out of gas while in the left turn pocket. However, because after that turn I didn't feel safe pulling over unless I'd been forced to do so and until I reached a much safer place to do it, we ended up about 1500 m beyond the gas station.

So there was nothing for us to do but to walk back to Fox Peak, buy a small gas can and a gallon gas, and then walk back to the minivan. Oh, I could have called AAA, which would have been included in our service, but it probably would have taken at least an hour to get anything done. I think it took less time to do the walk and get the gas ourselves. It's a little tricky crossing US-50 at the Nevada Pacific Parkway because there is no pedestrian crossing, and the westbound lanes literally never get a red light because of the nature of the intersection. Fortunately, there were sufficient gaps in traffic that we were able to get across the road.

Fortunately, it was just being out of gas. Lisa poured the gallon of gasoline into the Astro and it started right up. We drove on to the Pilot truck stop and refueled. When I did the math, I found that the gas mileage on that last tank was only about 15.5 miles per gallon. I'll need to bear that in mind for our trip to Westercon and refuel more often.

After refueling, we headed home to install the new water pump, but that's a separate story.

Fixing the Swamp Cooler

Once we got home from Fallon and the unexpected out-of-gas experience, Lisa set to work on replacing the pump on the swamp cooler.

( Out with the old, in with the new )

To our relief, the cooler started working pushing cool air again. It probably is working better than it was, because of the new pump (which pumps the water out of the base of the cooler up into the pads on three sides of the cooler), and also because while she was working on the side panels, she chipped some of the build-up off the slots at the top of each door, allowing more water to flow into the pads.

I wish that was the end of our adventures today, but we had one more to go, unfortunately.

Lights Out, Again

Before we left for Fallon, I had put a load of laundry on. After we got the swamp cooler running, I went to take the laundry upstairs. (We typically hang our laundry out to dry on a rack upstairs unless we need it dryer sooner. In our low-humidity climate, it works well.) Except that I discovered that the laundry had not run, and the lights were out in the utility room, rear bathroom, and the family room.

( Better Call Lisa )

We saddled up for yet another trip out (our third today) to run to Lowe's which was about to close. We bought two breakers so we would have a spare and went home quickly so we could try to work on the breaker box before we lost the light, although we did end up needing our flashlights.

As Lisa started to work, I reminded her to throw the main breaker first; she was so intent on fixing things that she'd forgotten to do so. She then started to remove the bottom-most breaker, and got a nasty surprise when it mildly shocked her. That should not have happened, not with the main breaker off. She made sure every breaker was off and gingerly tested it again, and things were now cold.

Unfortunately, those breakers are old, and the bottom one broke as she was starting to remove it. Then she realized that she'd picked out the wrong type of breaker. Our box uses the older-style "Zinsco" circuit breakers. We'll have to take these breakers back tomorrow and return them and see about getting some of the older type. This will probably be a special order, although I see that they can still get them.

So this leaves us with a couple of rooms in the house dark for now. Fortunately, as the washer only runs on 110V current, Lisa was able to run an extension cord into the next room where there is a live outlet and I could get the laundry done. I needed a flashlight to get upstairs to hang up the laundry, but the upstairs itself is on a different circuit and the lights were working up there. This is a nuisance, not a crisis.

Thus ends our adventures in home repairs for now, but it looks like there will be more tomorrow. I'm certainly glad that I have no early-morning commitments on Saturday.