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Grimas

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Everything posted by Grimas

  1. Tablespoon of Dijon and about a cup of olive oil and a little balsamic in a container and shaken until emulsified -best salad dressing ever... (I don't measure but do it by eye)
  2. This remined me to make an Amazon order for one before a trip next week...
  3. Yea, stick frame. 2500 sq feet downstairs, 1400 upstairs.
  4. Biannual service just done 2 weeks ago and all working good (other than the 15 year old capacitor that went out this weekend). Downstairs can hold 73 with no problem (mentopausal wife and sorry, no pics). Filters all changed every 3 months, all duct work in attic suspended (not sitting on the installation) and no leakage in any of them per test last year... Front entry is 2 stories so any heat from downstairs from downstairs goes up both the stairs and the entryway. UT_OB1 - 8 tons is the normal for most of the 2 story houses in the neighborhood. When you say contact a contractor - I assume you mean an HVAC one? (Just wondering what to search for...)
  5. Got a 2 story house with an original 5-ton unit (20+ years old) and a 3-ton (3 years old) for the upstairs. Every summer I struggle keeping the upstairs cool - set to 75 but thermostat shows 79 at 5pm. Been fighting this for a few years and looking for suggestions/options... 16" of installation blown in a few years ago but didn't make much difference. Insulated cover on attic entrance. Relatively steep roof with ridge vents (and soffits cleared to ensure no blown-in insulation covering them). For the windows facing south and west, shades/curtains closed. In the upstairs game room with vaulted ceilings, the 2 ducts were replaces with "high capacity" vents to allow for greater flow. Attached garage roof that gets late afternoon direct sunlight has reflective barrier sprayed on it while the remaining house has mature trees blocking afternoon sun. Ceiling fans up upstairs rooms constantly running and all room doors open during the day. \ I haven't installed solar attic fans (yet) as with the steep roof and ridge vents, attic air should be circulating decently as designed. (I actually stuck a high capacity fan in the attic at some point a few years ago that was point upwards to help with circulation but that didn't seem to make a difference either...) Was listening to home repair show on Saturday and a caller made a comment that made sense but I hadn't considered before - the 5 ton should be cooling upstairs and the smaller unit should be cooling downstairs (duh - hear rises...). Would it make sense to get someone to change the ductwork to have the ducts from the 5-ton unit to send air upstairs and the 3 ton downstairs? Asked my AC service company if they could test the flow out of each vent to see if I have the system "balanced" and to adjust the dampers if needed and they said they don't do that and I need to get an "engineering firm" to do it... I just think they don't want to deal with it so anyone got suggestions in Houston area who might do this? Not sure where to go next/what to try next... Looking for suggestions...
  6. Out of beer - finish this shit off so I can go to bed!
  7. Oh, and for the shaved ice, go big or go home and get something like this... Not just for snow cones but for drinks, a bed to put oysters on the half shell on, etc...Ice shaver I have a Kitchen aid as well but no way would I spend the time with that attachment...
  8. Love my carbon steel wok. Gas on the countertop just doesn't get hot enough/fast enough. Got a wok burner similar to this and it rocks. Gets the center of the wok glowing red in 5 seconds. Have it setup next to the gas grill so I can connect to the propane. Stir-fry done in 3 minutes. burner
  9. Why do they do the mock toss to a base? Does it reset the 20 second clock?
  10. Hopefully this is the last game on LHN... The stream I have sucks and I have to reset it ever 3 minutes...
  11. I'd check the T's & C's of the pension to see what happens to it if you were to die tomorrow... I have an old one that I had forgotten about from early in my career and that one won't go to wife or kids when I'm gone so doing a transfer to an IRA (or elsewhere) is a must or the money goes away...
  12. So what happens if you use a different email and sign up for the free trial? It says If you create a second account with a new e-mail, you will not be able to complete your enrollment at the airport. Anyone try this?
  13. Yup - I want to know which of you stoned fucks ordered 180 of them! Gone
  14. Typo above, my stovetop is gas, the oven is electric. On my VSP, you basically have to override the timer settings and go into a low circulation/low RPM mode just to keep the water moving (and the chlorine working). Or play with the fusebox to not let A/C kick on until after the initial VSP prime is done...
  15. No clue on this one - the interlock/transfer switch (either manual or automatic) keeps power from the generator (or solar panels?) going up the line and zapping a line crew which is why it's totally illegal to plug in a generator to your 30A plug the dryer uses... (yes. people do this...)
  16. Westinghouse WGen9500DF Dual Fuel Portable Generator 9500 Rated and 12500 Peak Watts On Amazon (right now available for $1000) I can easily run 2 A/C compressors, 2 fridges, all electronics and pool pump (need to se the pump to run at a constant low speed and not the initial high speed ramp-up it normally does). All house lights LED so low load. I wouldn't try running electric dryer or electric oven without fear of tripping a breaker but who is doing laundry or baking during an outage (as cooktop) and if needed, I would just turn off one A/C unit on the panel if I needed to use either...
  17. I had multiple quotes to do the electrical work that ranged up to $2000. I purchased the lockout switch myself (you need one specific to your breaker box) so my main cost was for the 50A switch, the custom cable from the switch to the generator and the labor. Of course, parts are more expensive now as well... 20' cable, labor and the transfer switch were $7-800 IIRC.
  18. I'm handy but I don't do electrical and paid an electrician to do the panel work and installed the 50A connector (and A/C guy who put in the hard start setup in the units). All I need to do is flip a switch, turn on the propane and then push start on the generator...
  19. Did Gassely ever get penalized for blowing the corner and passing on it? It was "noted" 10 minutes later but I never saw anything about it afterwards...
  20. Bumping this thread... Was talking to my financial planner last week and was looking at options if I were to get let go from my current employer or just decided to say "Fuck it, I'm done"... As I'm in my mid 50's, biggest cost in "retirement" besides mortgage would be medical insurance and the going rate is around 3000-3500/month to keep a similar coverage I currently have in the US until we are eligible for Medicare/Medicaid coverage. Apparently, "private" insurance for EU citizens like somewhere like Spain is closer to $3000/year for expats/EU citizens... This alone has me thinking F-this and EU here we come... As I have mentioned earlier in this thread, I have a EU citizenship due to a "heritage restoral" from grandparents who were disposed after WW2 and my teens have it now as well. (I was born and raised in Texas and kids are 5th generation Houstonians via wife (no pics) so this will always be home...) They have 2 years of high school left but may be applying to EU universities in Europe as well (I have the funds set aside for them but told them that whatever they don't spend from those funds go to them when they graduate so they have an incentive get done early/go somewhere cheaper). Once they go off to University, wife and I are probably going to call it quits and are looking for alternatives so sell the casa and move elsewhere. Original plan was to downscale here and still live overseas most of the year but still have a "Home base" in Texas (where I can put my gun safe, some furniture and a car). Now thinking, F-it and Italy/Spain/Portugal, here we come... Now trying to look at options like Mexico/Central America vs Europe in terms of livability and cost if we (or my current employer) pull this trigger... And still investigating if we can get an EU medical insurance that would allow us to say, live 3 months in Nice, then 3 months in Prague and 3 months in Isla Mujeres/Playa/Acumel with 3 months back in the US... (Please share if anyone has any experience with having EU medical insurance but then travelling outside the EU...)
  21. For short term outages, I have several battery up UPS connected to fiber router, a tv and another mesh router and a led lamp that will be good enough for short outages. More than 30 minutes (especially in 95+degrees), then I fire up the generator - long enough to keep fridge and freezers cold and to run a/c to cool down the house. Something longer term like a hurricane outage and I connect it to the natural gas line..
  22. I went the manual route. Power goes out, i slide the lockout bar in the breaker box, plug in cable from generator to wall and the start the generator. I could have gone the auto-start route but I didn't think it was worth the cost ($2-3k more) for the convenience... Ask me again after I have to do it at 2am with rain blowing sideways and I may have a different opinion...
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