Stove Repair: Burner Controller Replacement

We had been having problems with a particular burner on our electric stove for a few months.  The burner would sometimes get red hot, even when the knob was set to low.  Makes for interesting results when you are just trying to keep something warm, and leave the kitchen for a few minutes.

Anyway, it's an 8" burner:

Need the right tools, of course.  So here's what I used.

With this sort of problem, it has to be the controller for the burner.  It sits right behind the adjustment knob.

So, after pulling the fuse to the stove, I pulled off the knob,

and unscrewed the two screws.  Next, had to take off the faceplate, or whatever you call the thing with all the labeling.  Unscrewed it with the right-angle screw driver.

Popping it open, you can see the old controller...along with the mess of wires back there.

Removed the old controller.  Here it is:

Here's the new one, which I got on Amazon for about $45.  Kind of expensive for what it is, but at least I don't have to pay anyone to install it.

It was easy to put it in.  Just replicate the wiring for the old one.

After that, it was just a matter of screwing the faceplate back on and turning the power back on .  Works like a dream.

Bathroom Sink Replacement

About two years ago my oldest dropped a glass soap dispenser into the sink in our downstairs half-bath.

The soap dispenser cracked the sink from the drain to the rim:

I bought a sink shortly after the accident, but had been putting off doing the replacement because of the time involved, and because I dislike plumbing.  Anyway, taking a short vacation during the recent holidays, I decided it was time to tackle this project.

The sink is wall-hung.  It's about the only option for our tiny half-bath, so I had to get another wall-hung about the same size.  Fortunately, Home Depot had one.  It was the only one they had:

The first thing to do was to disconnect and remove the faucet and drain.  Pretty much standard procedures.

And then, the sink was removed:

See that black thing?  That's the metal bracket which held up the sink.  I was hoping that I could use the same one, but no joy.  The new sink would not fit, so I had to install the bracket that came with the new sink.  This is when I started running into challenges.  First, if you don't already know, these brackets need to have some kind of lumber bracing in the wall.  Fortunately, I have easy access to the back of the wall.  Here's the old 2x3 bracing:

The new sink has different dimensions than the old, and clips at a different place than the old, requiring a bracing to be several inches below the old bracing.  Also, due to a less than optimal design, the new sink tends to rotate about the bracket, creating a lot of torque on the bracket.  So it requires additional fasteners to securely attach the sink to the wall.  Just a poor design.  The old sink used a single bracket and was rock solid on that wall.  I had to remove this old bracing in order to attach the new sink. However, it was nailed in with 6 nails and would not budge as I wailed on it with a hammer.  I then decided I needed something to make the job a little easier:

Just a couple of passes with the saw, and I was able to knock the block off, first at one end then the other.

Next, I cut some scrap 2x4 I had lying around with my power miter to make another bracing:

After it was cut, I affixed it using some construction screws.  It wasn't as stable as the old one, so I added some right-angle braces.

Next I needed to hang the sink on the brackets, and then add two additional toggle bolts to stabilize it on the wall.  This required another piece of wood (so it wouldn't pull through the drywall).  

The sink was on, so it would be clear sailing to the end.  Just had to attach the faucet and drain, hook everything up and be done. Or so I thought.  When I attached the faucet, I noticed how NOT flat the sink's deck was.  Check out this rather large gap:

You get what you pay for, I guess.  I was hoping that I had enough plumber's putty.  I tightened down the faucet and it seemed to be OK.  Attached the water supply lines.  No problems there.  Then it was time for the the trap.

What's wrong with this picture?  Turns out the sink's drain opening was about 3/4" further from the wall than the old sink, so the tail didn't line up with the trap.  Back to Home Depot...

Home Depot had a flexible tail pipe extension which allowed the trap to be connected.  However, there was a leak I just could not fix. I found a better solution on Amazon:

It worked like a charm.  Now we have a new sink.

Perhaps the worst part of all this was wasting two days of my vacation for something that I thought was going to take a few hours, and aggravating my cervical radiculopathy.

Bathroom Faucet and Drain Replacement

For over a year the faucet in one of our bathrooms has been dripping.  Initially, we could stop it by turning the handle a certain way.  Recently, however, the turning trick stopped doing the trick.  So, I knew it was time to change this thing.  Here's the piece-o-crap faucet:

Never liked this thing, ever since installing it about 11 years ago.  It worked well for about a month, then started getting stiff.  It also started corroding. Then dripping.  Moen just sucks.  I installed a Moen kitchen faucet that was terrible.  I didn't want to repair the thing; just wanted to replace it.  Here's the drain that's going with it:

I had installed an American Standard faucet in another bathroom several years ago, and it works well, so I bought one for this bathroom several months ago.  Just never got around to installing it 'til now.

First, I had to get under the sink to remove the old faucet.  Check out this drain, clearly some leaking going on here:

Removing the faucet involves first removing some nuts. They were a little difficult to get off due to corrosion, but that's pretty normal from my experience.

 I really like the way American Standard designed this faucet.  They use these large threaded brass pipes that are secured with plastic nuts.  Very easy to put on, and corrosion won't be a problem.

Once the faucet was installed, I installed the drain, which was pretty straightforward.  the mechanism for the pop-up stopper was interesting.  I've never seen one like this, but it works very well.

And here's the brand new faucet!  Woohoo!

And a shot of the drain:

Snakes in the Attic?

A few days ago, the Orkin termite inspector did an inspection of our house.  While he didn't find any termites, he did note that the screen covering a vent on the west gable end of our attic was pulled open, and that there was a huge squirrel's nest below it.

He stated that squirrels pulled the screen down and built the nest.  He said that Orkin could staple the screen back up, clear out the nest, and put down a few inches of TAP (Thermal Acoustical Pest Control), a blown-in cellulose type of insulation laced with boric acid.  He said that the boric acid would kill any insect infestation, and would repel the squirrels.  Cost would be about $1000-$2,200, depending on the thickness of the TAP.

I was extremely surprised that the screen was pulled down.  A couple of years ago, I had gone up there and found the screen for that vent totally torn-up, and that huge nest below the vent.  I thought it was a bird's nest because I found about 15 dead birds up in the attic.  So I replaced the torn screen with an aluminum fine-meshed screen (the kind for windows), and a 1/4" "hardware cloth" (a mesh made of galvanized steel, I think). I left the nest because...well...it was huge and I was lazy.  Anyway, I stapled the screen and hardware cloth up with probably 50+ staples, so I was quite shocked that the screen was partly pulled off.

Well, I went up there today and found that although the hardware cloth was partly pulled down, the fine-meshed screen was still intact.  Basically, nothing could get through it.  So, it occurred to me that either the hardware cloth came off by itself (unlikely), or someone pulled it off.  Now, I am the only one in my family that goes up there.  I was up there last December or January, and everything was intact.  So I suspect that the Orkin guy pulled the hardware cloth, leaving the fine-meshed screen.  I decided to repair this thing so nothing, not even an Orkin guy could pull it off.  I used some 1" #10 stainless steel screws, with 1 1/4" washers:

After screwing down the hardware cloth with some of these and adding about 50 more staples, it was fixed:

I then decided to check the east gable vent.  To my surprise, there some rather large wasp nests on the it inside the attic:

Close inspection revealed holes in its metal screen, probably pecked out by birds or a squirrel.  So I put a new screen on to cover the entire vent.

I also found something while up there that totally shocked me.  Check it out:

A shedded (molted?) snake skin!!  What would a snake be doing up there?  How would it get up there?  Maybe somebody put it up there?  The Orkin guy?  Anyway, weird.  I don't think there are any snakes up there now.  I had spend a lot of time up there in the past couple of years, and had never seen any snakes or signs of snakes.