Tag: water

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Tiny Travel Humidifier

I recently got this Tiny Travel Humidifier, and I’m calling it that because those are three of the words included in the 25+ word product name listed on Amazon. The reason I got this is because I’m doing a lot of traveling for work and staying in hotels for multiple nights and since I use a humidifier at home (as well as the one in my CPAP machine) I wanted something for the road.

On a recent trip I noticed that I kept drying out in the hotel room and combined with the amount of talking we do all day at a tradeshow I got a slightly sore throat so I thought a humidifier might help. I had some requirements…

I wanted something small. We travel with no checked luggage, so it would need to fit in my carry-on bag. This thing is 6.7″ x 2.1″ x 2.1″ in size. That’s pretty much the size of the box I toss in my bag.

I wanted something that was USB powered. Some of them have batteries. I don’t want to charge it. I’m at a hotel, I have lots of USB plugs, so a USB cable is all that is needed for power.

I wanted something that I could put into a container full of water. Some of of them are made for an inverted water bottle, or have a container built-in. I had read that you don’t want it to run out of water as it may damage it. I can put it in a cup or an ice bucket that’s found in every hotel room. I did have a small issue with it standing upright in the ice bucket and used a modified cup, but I could easily fab a piece of cardboard or use some tape next time.

Those pretty much cover what I needed. It makes no sound, it runs for 8 hours, and you do need to soak the wick for 10 minutes before use, but otherwise it’s pretty darn simple. I don’t know how effective it is, or how to measure that easily, but it’s definitely putting moisture into the air. On my recent trip I was there for two nights and kept it running most of the time and kept adding water to the ice bucket. I’ll keep trying it out on trips and update this post if anything changes.

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Tank’d

Tankless Water Heater

The previous owners of our house did a number of “upgrades” over the years, and one of them was to install a tankless water heater. If you’re not familiar with tankless heaters, it’s basically a water heater that doesn’t keep hot water sitting around, but heats it on demand. The idea makes sense, I mean, why keep 40 gallons of water hot all the time when you don’t need it all the time?

Tankless heaters also have the advantage of not running out of hot water. In theory, you can take a shower for 6 hours and never run out of hot water! After your 6 hour shower, you can run the dishwater and do some laundry. Nice! There may be some concerns about how much hot water a tankless heater can deliver at the same time, so taking a shower while washing the dishes and doing laundry may result in warm water rather than hot water if the system can’t keep up.

Well, we managed to get eight months of usage from the tankless water heater. We moved in back in June, it was warm, and sunny, and all was good with the world. Then came winter. It was cold, and bleak, and everything sucked.

I woke up one morning, and turned on the shower so the water could warm up (oh yes, it typically takes a bit longer to get hot water from the faucet from the tankless. At least in the winter months) and it was nothing but cold cold cold water. I went to the basement to see what was up, thinking perhaps the circuit the heater was on had tripped, and I was greeted by water pouring out of every orifice of the tankless water heater. Fun! I was now standing in freezing cold water trying to solve the problem. Luckily all the water was going right down the basement drain, and not really flooding the basement. Score!

It seems that it got so cold (and yeah, this is the coldest Wisconsin winter on record for quite some time) that the water in the tiny tubes of the tankless water heater froze, and the the tiny tubes cracked, and then the water came out.

So I learned a few things:

  1. Tankless water heaters don’t work when the power is out. No power equals no hot water. None. At. All.
  2. Supposedly we could have prevented this if we had left the hot water running all night. Yes. Seriously, that was the advice of a plumber. If it’s cold, leave the hot water running.
  3. Don’t mount your tankless water heater on an uninsulated exterior wall. If the heater had been located somewhere else, or there had been more insulation between it and the concrete wall, it may not have froze.
  4. Home warranties are sometimes useless. Wasn’t covered, so we were on the hook for repair/replacement.
  5. Having more than one heating vent in the basement might be useful. I know the basement is mainly storage/laundry/workshop, but the only heating vent is on the opposite side of the basement that the water heater was on. Cold!
  6. We’re not ready for tankless.

Tankless heaters might be fine for some people. The idea is a good one, but there are a few factors that can cause problems. (Obviously!)

Tankless water heaters are also expensive. Of course you may recoup the costs over X number of years. (X may be 10 years, so you’d need to still have the same tankless heater for 10 years. It’s a gamble.)

In the end, we decided to replace the tankless water heater with an old fashioned tank water heater. It ended up being about half the price after purchasing it, and paying a plumber and electrician to install it. We also opted for an electric heater instead of gas. I’m still not 100% sure that was the best idea, but hey, the deal is done. We now use electricity to heat our water and store it in a big-ass tank for when we need it. Hooray.

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Bucketworks Needs You!

Folks, we need to put a drop in the bucket… and no, I’m not talking about water… we got plenty of that!

Bucketworks storm damage...

During the storm, things got a little crazy (see Flickr) and there is water everywhere. It ain’t pretty. If at all possible, can you put a drop in the bucket? If you’ve ever attended a Web414 or a MilwaukeeDevHouse, it would be cool if you could chip in a few bucks to help our little clubhouse make it through this disaster. Bucketworks has been a gracious host to us, and it’s a time of need for them, so put a drop in the bucket and let’s hope it adds up enough to get everything back to normal.

Right now Bucketworks is closed. Until the damage is assessed, they can’t open again. What does that mean for the June 2008 Web414 Meeting? We’re not sure yet… we may have to move it, as well as other events scheduled there in the near future. Like I said, there’s a lot of water…

Jenn has a post on bucketworks.org that tells more, so please go there and see what is up…

And seriously, go pitch in some money! So far it’s just Gabe and I that have done so, and that’s pretty sad. I know there are others out there who can help, even if it’s just $5 or $10.

(Update: Wow! The total is going up! Thanks people, let’s keep it going…)

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I Fell Through…

“I fell through” is what I said when I broke through the ice and fell into Fowler Lake over the weekend…

I was pretty damn matter of fact. I didn’t panic, or freak out, I just sort of had the ice give way under me, and then I was all wet, and in the water up to my waist.

It wasn’t really a matter of thin ice, but I’ll say this: If you are on the lake, and decide to stand next to a raft, don’t stand there too long, because there is a good chance the water under the raft is not really frozen, or frozen very well.

Unlike every movie you’ve seen, I did not go under the ice, or lose hearing in one of my ears. Basically, my legs got all wet, and then I climbed out of the water and onto the raft. Everyone else was freaked out, but I was just instantly wet and cold, so I wanted to go home. I was wearing a pair of dungarees and snowpants. My dungarees didn’t even get that wet, but my snowpants did, as did my Chilkats, which are still drying out 4 days later.

By the time we got home and I got out of the wet clothes, we were laughing about the whole thing. (Remember, tragedy + time = comedy.) I even came up with a headline in case the local paper wanted to mention it “Local man falls through ice” and I considered printing up a shirt that said “Fowler Lake Polar Bear Club” for myself…