Archive for category hallway

Will someone please invent a smoke alarm…

…that doesn’t take five minutes to figure out it has a fresh battery in it? Or beep after you’ve disconnected the power AND removed the battery (that was an almost amusing ‘whaaaaa?’ moment)?

I just put fresh batteries into the smoke detectors upstairs (after determining that I’d have to run new wire all throughout the attic if I want them connected to each other, and deciding that the things are so damn loud that, should anything ever catch on fire, one going off will be plenty so why bother right now?). With the power off (from that attic checking) I put one in. After a moment, it beeped. No idea why. I pulled it out to deal with something else. After ten seconds, the damn thing beeped again with no power source; capacitor must have held some charge. Anyway, I go around and put new batteries in all of them. I flip on the breaker. There is some beeping here and there. I open a battery compartment to check to make sure it’s in. It is. There is still beeping. I press all the ‘press here to silence’ buttons. Still beeping. I go downstairs to see if the manufacturer has a user manual online (they don’t – I don’t understand why companies don’t archive PDF manuals of discontinued products…) While sitting on the couch. I notice less and less beeping. Then there is silence.

I swear, as soon as I go back upstairs they’ll start again. They’re just waiting for me…

No, seriously, why do smoke detectors take several minutes to figure out whether you’ve corrected the problem or not? The same thing happened in an apartment I used to live in. I realize these things are pretty simple machines, but still…

This has been the first, I believe, and only, I hope, post that is much more ‘blog’ and less ‘house’.

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Small Successes

More camera cleaning. Here are a variety of things I’ve actually done at the house over the last 2+ months.

This was the first fully successful project in the house, actually, which is the only reason I’m bothering with posting it – minor surgery to remove a shard of what may have been the previous doorstop’s screw from the hole in the wall, then sinking the new stop into the barest sliver of good wood next to it.

All I wanted to do was replace the two broken door guides for my shower doors. But the generic ones Home Depot required some… modifications. As in, there used to be another upright portion on the bottom edge there, and there wasn’t a screw hole in the originals. But hey, they both stay in place and guide the doors.

I hung it myself. And it even turns on! Its sister at the other end of the hall is still not up, though, because the wires in the attic might as well be replaced before I attach anything to them.

And now people don’t suffocate while working in the back bedroom.

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