Finally, they are working on the shop

[Firedome]

At least we all have our projects! With a of couple tube & SS electronics projects, 2 motorcycles to restore, finishing the last 15% at camp, the '69 Olds interior, and a model train layout to design and build, I have enough to do until I can't anymore, so no more projects needed, and fortunately a great TV guru (MM) takes care of the vintage color sets!

[electra225]

I need a great TV guru myself. I have the Stereo Theater TV to sort yet, plus four other old B& W TV sets that I managed to accumulate thru the years. A Silvertone 25" console that was my dad's last TV and an RCA 12" that was my parents' first TV. One of those they sat the picture tube on a counter then built the TV around it. A 19" Zenith I dug out of a dumpster and a 17" Philco that came out of the same dumpster. None have been plugged in in over 30 years. Dad's Silvertone and the Zenith worked last time I tried. The Philco I have no idea about. The Stereo Theater has a raster, but no video nor audio. The salesman at Sears convinced Dad the TV he bought was built by RCA. Not hardly. It is a hot chassis set with two heater strings. It has a 50C5 output tube like a radio. It had a good picture last time I used it. I imagine it was built by Warwick. The little RCA is one of those you have to take the cabinet apart to get the TV guts out. The chassis is vertical with the picture tube neck sticking thru it.

[William]

I'm not skilled enough to work on a TV, probable never will be. I have an 1958 RCA Deluxe tv. It has Orthophonic High Fidelity sound. At least that is what it say one the back. 8" woofer, and two 4" tweeter. It's blonde, or, a faux blonde finish over Masonite. The front wood is real oak.

Bill

[electra225]

Orley Knutsen on WIBC used to call TV "picture radio". The good thing about working on a TV, you can SEE what the trouble is on the screen. If the screen is dark, that's not good. You just gotta watch where you put your screwdriver! Watch a few Shango videos. His videos are interesting even if you don't want to work on a TV.

[19&41]

House plants, outboard motors, lawn mowers and CRT TV's all regard me as the grim reaper.

[electra225]

My grim reaper list is two cycle engines, guitar amps, church organs and record changers.

[TC Chris]

The shop project is tied up in the normal red tape. They are scheduled to "load" the roof on Friday or Saturday, then wait for two weeks for the roof to cave in, then be inspected by the county inspector.

That's bizarre. Here in the cold belt, roofs have to deal with snow load. There are standard data for snow depth and weight. Those direct the truss design. They don't require you to wait for the snow of the century to see if the roof collapses. And besides, take my 1908 house. It has 2x4 rafters, not trussed. Just rafters running ridge to plate. And that was fine when they built the place, because nobody insulated. The heat went through the ceiling and then the roof and melted the snow. Snow load? Just temporary. Now the house is insulated and the snow stays there, adding up. And the roof still hasn't fallen in.. (OK, in the spring when the snow gets wet and heavy and another storm is forecast, I get out there with the roof rake, just in case).

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

There are several new houses across the street that are stuccoed and painted, but the roof tiles lay on the roof in piles. Roof "loading" is a county code requirement. Instead of snow load, we have roof load, Flat concrete or round clay tiles are heavy. I don't know just exactly how heavy, but if construction is not sufficiently robust, the weight of the roof will buckle walls and crack the stucco, obviously not a good thing. So they load the roof then stucco the walls before the inspector gets there. If the roof is loaded for the specified amount of time, and the stucco is not breached, the job passes inspection. On a house the roof has to be loaded 60 days before inspection. On this outbuilding, they say two weeks is the requirement. Why the difference I don't know. I like the looks of tile roofs and stuccoed walls. The stucco is basically adding an inch and a half of concrete sprayed and troweled to the outside of your house. It provides structure as well as appearance and insulation. And it's sun-proof. Stucco wouldn't work very well where you live, since moisture and cold temps are its enemy. If you get water in the roof tiles and it would freeze, the roof could be damaged. Also, in Arizona, we don't have "air conditioning". We have refrigeration. Therein lies a tale.......

When I moved out here in 1981, I got a job at a Texaco station in Scottsdale as service manager/wrench. A lady drove in in her 1971 Olds Cutlas and advised me that her refrigeration was on the blink. Dutifully, I walked into the office, got out the telephone directory, get the number for Spencer's Appliance. I walked out to her car and handed her the number. I noticed the guys in the shop snickering and pointing at me. The lady gave me a funny look. She told me that her REFRIGERATOR was fine, but the REFRIGERATION (air conditioning) in her CAR was on the blink. The guys in the shop were thoroughly enjoying my chagrin.

[TC Chris]

Stucco wouldn't work very well where you live, since moisture and cold temps are its enemy.

Actually, stucco is common around here, both in the traditional mode (troweled in 2 or more coats over wood or metal lath) and the modern version (troweled over a mesh on top of foam). I always kidded my mother. She grew up in a B'ham, AL stucco house. She vowed "never again." I think it was because it needed patching. But after the usual rented houses of early married life, she lived the next 70 years in two stucco houses in Michigan. They never required any patches nor much other maintenance. Pretty durable stuff, properly applied. In the last house, one chimney did need stucco repairs; common bricks underneath spalled.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

There were stucco homes in the small Indiana town I grew up in. They had a gray cast with colored broken glass bits in them. Never saw it anywhere else.

[electra225]

I found this article on stucco that may help some.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/ho ... cle571936/

[electra225]

Our activity for the day on the shop construction was that they brought the air conditioning system out. It is sitting in two boxes on the floor of the shop. Roofing tiles have been put off until Monday, for vague and various reasons. The brand of the mini split system is Pioneer. Never heard of that brand. Less than a thousand dollars in most any configuration. It's too dark in the shop to read much, so I need to see what size it is and what operating voltage, 110 or 220. Here are some specs. I hope this is not off-brand junk that is unreliable and hard to fix.

https://www.pioneerminisplit.com/collec ... mp-230-vac

[19&41]

I always try to research their online presence and get some reviews.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=pioneer%C ... 42CE2411BC

[William]

Just to look at the photo you provided, Greg, it looks just like my Fujitsu system. It may very well be built by Fujitsu, just rebranded. If it is, it's one of the best on the market. Having said that, if yours is truly 12,000 BTU's I would not think that big enough to cool your shop in the heat of the summer. And, at 12,000 BTU's it probably is 110 volts.

Bill

[electra225]

According to what I read, 12,000 BTU's will work for 450 square feet. I need to go out in the daylight and read the box. I'm hesitant to open the box, in case it has to be returned. Again, according to what I read, the 110 and the 220 systems cost about the same to run. I find that hard to believe. I know technology changes and that I'm always behind the times, but I'd feel better with a 230 volt system. If I wanted a 110 system, I'd put in a window unit and be done with it. The project manager told the wife that 3/8" pegboard is now $100 a sheet, so these guys are looking to cut corners where they can. They need 17 sheets and a piece to cover the walls. There is regular old 12-2 romex run to the "air handler" on the outside. I know they wire 220 volt stuff with two wires now. I have no idea how that works with no common. Again, I'm behind the times.....

[electra225]

This is the model they want to use. 8.4 amps current draw. 115 volts. They say it costs $71 a year to run it. Rated at 21.5 SEER, the AC on our house is rated at 12 SEER. I don't know. The reviews are good. I don't know....

https://www.pioneerminisplit.com/produc ... m-full-set

[William]

It looks identical, and, I mean identical to my Fujitsu. Fujitsu is one of the TOTL mini-split units. I'm still wondering if Fujitsu built it, and, Pioneer stuck their name on it. 21.5 seer is a good rating and should be economical to run. If your shop is 450 square feet, 12,000 BTU's is correct, but, are they taking into account all those 100 plus degree days you get? That would be my concern. And, 12/2 is large enough to run it. The 12/2 will have a ground wire with it. My electrician ran 12/2 w/ground to my Fujitsu, and, it's 24,000 BTU's but mine is 220 volts. It is a 20 amp circuit. I guess I would ask a few more questions and see where it goes.

Bill

[Firedome]

There's a huge number of stucco houses here because of the large number of Italians who came here to work in the Endicott-Johnson shoe factories, the biggest in the world at one time. Immigrants got off the boat at Ellis Island and first thing they said to the customs people was "Which way E-J?", about 3 hours NW of NYC. Their descendants are still major contributors to the culture here, especially cuisine, it's difficult to get bad Italian food around here and in some neighborhoods it's common to see wine grape trellises in the yard.

That code requirement for timed roof loading is idiotic and inefficient, structural loads are easily calculated, it's just applied engineering using material specs and vector physics. No wonder stuff takes so long there. I know Morton Building, one of the biggest pole building makers, specifies different designs and material for various climate zones according to maximum snow loads, it's no different really.

[electra225]

Patience is certainly a virtue when you are doing construction out here, that's for sure. I can see both sides of the issue. As fast as they put up houses, shortcuts are bound to happen, risking somebody getting hurt when a roof collapses. But waiting for the red tape to play out has its own risks as well.

[Firedome]

We have 2 mini-splits in our VT place, the bigger one downstairs, which has a 2 story LR/DR area opening into an upstairs loft, is a Mitsubishi 25k btu. We opted for a separate one upstairs, the open-loft plus separated enclosed large bedroom area makes it difficult to heat/cool it uniformly with one larger whole-house system. (pic is view looking up to loft from downstairs LR area, BRs are to the left.) The upstairs unit is a smaller 15k btu Friedrich. Both work great but I like the control display better in the Mitsu unit. It's amazing in that these newer inverter units can still heat well in temps way below zero.