The humble Thermocouple, here’s the lowdown about pilot light safety

OK seeing how its still like winter temps outside, we shall now discuss a common heating item you may not know about.  So if you have ever had to light a pilot light for a gas water heater, maybe gas furnace, you have used a thermocouple.  You know the instruction that says “push down, light and HOLD for sixty seconds”?  So here’s why:

A thermocouple is 2 dissimilar metals welded together. Heat the junction, and it makes tiny DC voltage.  Not enough to pull in an electro magnet coil. But enough to hold it in.

 

When u light a pilot, u push down to open a valve. Once there is enough voltage from the thermocouple (once the thermocouple junction is hot enough) the electro magnet coil has enough power to hold the valve open.

If the pilot goes out for any reason the dc voltage quickly drops and the valve closes.

The valve u push down controls gas not only to the pilot but also the main supply to the burner. So the system will not let main gas flow unless the pilot is proven.

A brand new thermocouple will generate enough voltage to do its job quickly, maybe 15-20 seconds. As it ages (how would u like to spent 24-7 in a gas flame?) it generates less and less.

Nominal voltage for this type thermocouple is 30 milivolts. Ya, that’s 0.030 volts.  30 thousandths of a volt.  Kind of amazing right?  So u gotta push the knob to open the valve, then Mr thermocouple will take it from there.  For years.

Btw there are old school systems that have a large enough thermocouple, to generate a large enough voltage (0.750!!) To operate the gas main valve. Those can operate during a power failure.  That’s the picture on the right, notice that its rated 600-750 MV.         Note:  Still less than 1 volt!  3/4 volt actually.

Fyi, there r also thermocouples that r used for temperature measurement.  All you lab folk chime in!!

 

Saturday Shredding

So last Saturday morning i went shredding —

Well not like that, it was more like, peacefully waiting:

Ya me and lots of others, went to the free document shred in Halfmoon.

Along with the past years stuff, we got rid of archives from ’96, ’97, ’98.

 

More complaints about snow

Woke up this morning, there it was again – snow on the solar panels  –  BOOOO

I hate real winter, you know with actual accumulation of snow.  I like fake winter, when the plants just turn brown and it barely makes it down to the 20’s.  and the snow is just in the mountains.  Though i like skiing, i have more or less given it up.  And its not like i can ski at my house.  Gotta drive to the ski area anyway.

So to me, now, snow is just work.  Extra, unpaid work.  Tired of this winter.

  The good news, it melted as soon as the sun came out.  

Canoe Restoration 05

Ok here’s the last canoe post.  All i have left to show you is the finished product.  Mostly, because even though i did this in 2017, i still have to put the last cross-member in.  The last one needs to be remade becuz one end was rotten.  I have a piece of the ash ready to cut and shape, but we used it like you see here with just a center thwart.  When i make and install the last one i will share it here.  So u see a couple shots with the seats and the center crosspiece in. The seats are pressed cane, like a chair seat.  They looked fine, but were not.  kinda funny, i never sat on them until our annual canoe trip.  As me and Aaron sat down to paddle, we both immediately broke through the cane.  So the seats don’t look like that anymore, they r blown out.  It was quite uncomfortable, the rear end drops into the opening and your weight tries to conform yer butt into the rectangular shape. We ended up sitting on our life vests.  So when i get to the center thwart i will show you the repaired seats as well.

    

So here’s the reason to own a canoe – the trippiing in the Adirondacks!! Woo hoo –

Canoe Restoration 04

So next i treated the ash strips with a combination of Tung oil and solvent.   The “Real Milk Paint Company” makes products the way paints etc used to be made b4 the (wonderful?) age of modern petrochemicals    See this link if interested in using, btw the stuff i used was a mix of tung oil and orange solvent which now is harder to come by. So the half/half is made with Pine oil at this point.

https://www.realmilkpaint.com/shop/oils/half-and-half/

OK so anyway the ash got treated (read: waterproofed) and then I started fitting onto the boat.  First inside strips and then outer, using lots of clamps.  The black marks you can see on the upper edge of the hull are the locations of the original screw holes.  You are told to avoid using the same locations.   So with a lot of fitting the new strips were carefully reattached to the boat.  Suddenly i realized that this is a very nice design.  The wood gives it an organic trim, just enough structure and a great look.  It will require an occasional reapplication of the tung oil mix but that shouldn’t b a problem.  Also i am storing it indoors over winter (garage loft).  Also the seats and cross member are not attached in the picture, just put into the boat to make sure they will fit later.

Sun winning, spring is coming after all

OK so winter tried to hang on a little more this am.  But NO!  The sun came out and overpowered it.  Check this vid of the snow loosing to the sun.   As i  was doing dishes this A.M. i beheld a beautiful sight of the snow slowwllyy sliding off the solar panels.  This is better than watching paint dry!!

To me it is anyway.  Just look at it zoom –  Wow.  .  .  .  .  .

OK maybe zoom is the wrong word.  But its faster than watching the clock.  Second hand doesnt count.

First day trip / campfire of 2018!

So yesterday the weather was really fine.  Warm sunny spring day.  After i went to son’s house to help set up the trampoline (gulp, hope no one gets killed or maimed), came home and did most of the spring chore of returning driveway shale to the driveway (snowplowing moves my driveway) then i decided to take a day trip to the great outdoors.  Of course most of the day was spent so it would have to b short.  So the trip was just to deck.  actually it wasn’t really a day trip, better coin a new phrase:    “Outdoor interlude”

I think that’s a pretty good and honest way to put it.  Easy short and sweet. 15 feet of travel, start a fire, roast, eat.  I didn’t even refuel the fire after.  But hey, it was a great time!!

I love my Chiminea!

 

You don’t really care about this post

So if no one will care about this post why do it?  Well because its like a marker in time for me.  Even though i have been blogging for years, it was just last nite that i looked up the difference between “Categories” and “Tags”.   that made me realize i have way too many categories.  So im cleaning house here. getting better organized.  Just removed a few.  may trim out some more without even asking you.  anyway you almost certainly don’t care, do you?

Happy Easter btw.     HE IS RISEN!!

Canoe Restoration 03

OK so first let me say if you get one of these canoes to fix for yourself u better be able to make ur own ash strips to replace the old ones.  Becuz i called the canoe mfg local rep (now just to let u know i live in upstate NY and the canoes are made in Vt.  On the eastern side of NY, like i can drive to VT in an hour and could get to the mfg location in say 4 hours.  So i found out there is a dealer in Saratoga, like 20 min away.  Not the other side of the country.  Called them and asked about new strips.  Guy said he would recco that i wait till they get an order coming in from mfg so i don’t have to pay for shipping.  I said ok get me a price.  call back in like 3 -4 days (he told me about how long til i should call back) and then he gets back to me and says the strips will be around 500.  Dollars.  yikes!!!

Luckily my brother in law is a contractor master craftsman carpenter type. Old school, and lives out in the country, farm area small village.  He just the past few years was involved in making a barn type facility for someone near where lives.  His customer has lots of acres and trees. Thom (my bro-in-law) picked out trees and this guy made lumber enough to build the barn (to b used for wedding receptions and the like).  So lots of trees cut into lots of lumber.  And Thom ended up with some of this lumber.  Also my wife’s side of the family had a big reunion, and i happened to speak to him there, saying i was needing ash and thinking about ordering a 20 ft board from a lumber yard.  He said no don’t bother come up i should have one you can take.  So i don’t know how much that board would have cost, but plenty.  Plenty becuz it needed to be like 19-20 ft long about 6″ wide and no knots.  Plenty plenty it would have been.  Thank you thank you thank you Thom.

So look at the board and see in the first pic that it had a curve to it.  i’m thinking how we gonna cut this into strips when its got a curve thats more than the width of the board??  Well sonny boy to the rescue!  He says no worry we just put the convex side against the saw fence and run it through.  Well i had my doubts but you know that old saying “u learn something new every day” that’s true.  Maybe not every single day, but most, and that day I sure did.  Worked just like he said it would.  BTW my son is also a great finish carpenter just like his uncle Thom.  So then we put the strips through the planer and routed the two corners on one side of each strip.  See how nice they look?   Power tools are truly cool.  Another shout out to Thom and Aaron!!   Yay!

Jump to Canoe 04

Canoe Restoration 02

  

  

OK so here we see a few shots of the hull cleanup.  The rotted pieces of ash strips still left have been removed  (Stainless screws mostly still good!)  and we got the pressure washer into action.  If i didn’t have a pressure washer it would have taken eons to clean this thing up.  Using the pressure washer it took around an hour or so.  Maybe 2.

Note that is lichen growing on the hull, along with a thick film of algae.  You know like when you hike to a mountain top, you see the lichen growing on the rock.  Ya that stuff.  so u can also grow it in your backyard if you leave something long enough in the right micro climate next to your shed.  Wonder why the ash rotted??