We're moving January 13, 2009
Posted by a1291762 in : house , add a commentWe’re selling our house!
The only problem? We now have 13 days to move out and nowhere to go!
It’ll be sad to see the house go. It’s been a great home for the last 4 years. We’ll be moving into a rental for 6-12 months while we build a new house in Eagleby.
Surround finally installed March 11, 2008
Posted by a1291762 in : house, isaac , add a commentI finally got around to installing my surround speakers. I did it over 2 weekends and the result looks tidy, though you can see the wires. Kind of a shame I couldn’t just put them through the ceiling but the lounge room doesn’t have a ceiling space :(
I whacked on a movie to test them out and it was THX one. There’s this thing at the start where this funny man makes a cow noise then plugs it into his THX sign, then it makes cow noises from everywhere. It showed the speakers are working fine but totally feaked out Isaac. I guess he wasn’t expecting the noises to come from everywhere :)
Microwave is dead September 5, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : house , add a commentI was making dinner last night. I heated up two bowls of tuna pasta and when I went to do the third one the microwave was dead. It doesn’t respond to buttons and appears to run whenever the door is closed. I’ll be at the shops tomorrow night getting a new one. Bree said to me “we don’t use it very often” but I’m pretty sure I use the microwave at least once a day. I had to do porridge on the stove this morning (which I didn’t figure out until after I’d got ready to do it in the microwave).
Update 6 September 2007
We got the same model of microwave. It’s white though instead of silver so it feels strange. We had to get the model from the floor because they didn’t have any in stock.
Our new dishwasher August 16, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : house , 3commentsWe got our new dishwasher today. It’s an Electrolux/Dishlex DX302. Interestingly, that’s a discontinued model but there’s a reason for that.
We wanted something good but not expensive. A brief look indicated that around $1000 is what we would be looking at. There was a good half-dozen models at that price around the place. Bree wasn’t too keen on a foreign model (more expensive repairs and parts delays) which narrowed the field a bit. I was actually keen on the DX403 but it failed our most important requirement.
Since we don’t have a dishwasher hole, we needed something that could be moved. There’s a few “freestanding” dishwashers available and many models have kits that make them suitable for freestanding operation but that still requires your machine to be relatively close to the tap/drain and in our kitchen that was not the case. What we wanted was a mobile kit which includes wheels and a tap adaptor so that the machine can be wheeled up to the sink, used and then put away in a corner.
So the DX403 had some additional safety thing on the inlet hose that meant it was not suitable for the tap adaptor. That meant we were looking at the cheaper DX303. The problem was that the DX303 was so new nobody had an information sheet on it. It turns out that the new model is built in Europe instead of Australia and for some reason they made it incompatible with the mobile kit. Not only that, there’s no plans to introduce a mobile kit for the new model. Bummer.
Luckily there were a few DX302’s around. Strangely, Clive Peeters was selling their remaining DX302’s for more than their DX303’s. Harvey Norman was much more reasonable, offering the DX302 at a real clearance price. Actually, I noticed that quite a few of the models for sale at Harvey Norman were clearance models. We happened to visit the Harvey Norman up at Garden City and it had all the new models out. Either our store took ages to sell it’s old stock or old stock comes to our store for clearing. Best of all, Harvey Norman had a mobile kit in stock so we could get the whole package at once. None of the other stores could manage that so there was really no choice.
We bought it on Sunday but we got it delivered today for logistical reasons. I was originally fairly sure it would be easy to setup but once it arrived I had some doubts. I had a look at the instructions and it looked easy after all so I ripped out a few tools and went to work. The mobile kit contains a “plastic cardboard” cover for the bottom (being on wheels exposes the motors), the wheels themselves and a counterweight. It looks like a backpack when it’s on the machine and it holds the power cord and water hoses when they’re not in use. I had to cut the end off the inlet hose and then attach the hoses to the tap adaptor. You’re meant to put this special end on your tap so the adaptor can snap on and off but the end piece doesn’t have a bubble screen and (at least on my tap) the bubble screen has to be removed to put the end piece on. I just swap the two tap ends depending on what I’m doing. The tap adaptor has a button for times when you need water while the dishwasher is connected. It’s not like a tap’s output but I suppose it’s better than having no access to water. There’s a slight leak somewhere. I checked carefully and it’s definitely not my work that’s the problem. I can’t really check how much it’s leaking for each wash run because the outlet hose connects to the tap adaptor so anything I used to catch the leak would overflow when the machine empties.
We haven’t actually had a dishwasher before so we’re not exactly sure about detergents and stuff. We’re going to try the “eco” wash for a while since it uses less water and power. Why do these companies get to advertise water/power for “eco” wash but recommend powerballs, which require a regular wash? So yeah… we can’t use powerballs, I think because the water doesn’t get hot enough to dissolve them properly. If we have problems then we’ll try powerballs and regular washes to see what the difference is.
A spot of gardening April 14, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : house , add a commentJordan turned up today. He was up to help us get rid of some plants. We had these big green plants (not sure what they’re called) with really evil roots. They were so big Bree didn’t realise they were in a garden bed. Getting the leaves off was easy but the roots were thick and plentiful. They were even wrapped around the fence palings. It was slow work cutting them all off the stump then trying to rip them up before cutting them off. We didn’t get them all out but them apparently the roots will shrivel up as they dry out so cleaning them all out will be easier later.
We also did around the garage. Bree has been after me for a while to do it but it’s so scary with bugs and spiders so I’ve just left it. We cleared everything out so the space around the garage is a barren wasteland again.
Next on the list was the palms. We’ve got them in our front yard and I reckon they’re a pest. They provide a good screen but they also produce heaps of waste mass that has to be removed. When we went to the tip most of the green waste we could see was palm fronds. So the ones in my yard had started getting all clumpy. We attacked them and thinned them out a bit leaving only stumps coming out of the ground. There’s still enough palms there to keep up the screen but the bushiness that had developed is gone. We didn’t end up doing all of them though because time ran out. Jordan will be back to drop off Isaac’s bed (he’s getting Adam’s old one) so we’ll do some more in a week or two.
Eventually we’re going to just get rid of the palms but we’d rather wait until we’re not in severe drought before doing it so that the hedging plants we buy will be able to grow at bit.
New clothesline, Isaac chews March 4, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : house, isaac , add a commentWe got a new clothesline quite a while ago but since the one that was here was working the motivation to get it installed was lacking. It didn’t help that finding someone to install a clothesline is hard.
The other day, the old clothesline died. One minute it was drying washing, the next minute the whole top section had broken free and was on the ground.
Bree rung around and eventually found a guy from Ipswich that would install our new one.
It’s from the Hills Hoist Heritage series (ie. the big metal ones, not the green ones) and it’s the biggest size they had. That’s 2 lines more than our old clothesline had. If I remember right, it’s got a 6 meter diameter. Needless to say, it’s absolutely massive! Bree tried filling it up this weekend (we’d been over a week without a clothesline) but despite doing all the sheets, towels and clothes we couldn’t fill it up.
Isaac has got a few molars in the last week so he can finally chew stuff. Hooray!
Electrical work September 23, 2006
Posted by a1291762 in : computers, house , add a commentWe had an electrician in on Thursday. The main trigger for calling was that our front light switch was failing. We haven’t used it for a few weeks now because it sounds all fizzy and makes the lights go strange. We had 2 more switches replaced because they were close to failing. We had the switch in the laundry moved too. Frank put a door on the laundry for us ages ago but since there wasn’t room for a regular door, we’ve got a sliding door. Unfortunately, it slides over the light switch! Our original plan had been to move it to the other side of the doorway but that was going to be a very involved process. The electrician had the idea of putting it above the oven. It was a much easier movement but the switch is now outside the laundry.
One thing we’ve wanted to do for ages is move the cable point from Isaac’s room to behind the TV. It’s a small job but you need someone with extra qualifications or something. Since we have both the cable modem and the wireless router connected to the cable point that would have exhausted the points behind the TV. We asked about adding a new point and ended up with a new product called an entertainment pack. It’s a massive wall point with 6 independently switched points and a cable outlet. It’s designed to go behind TVs since most people have much more than just a TV and a VCR these days. Unfortunately, our TV cabinet requires more than 6 points but at least we’ve got heaps of extra capacity now.
For reference, this is what’s plugged in behind the TV.
- TV
- PVR
- 2 x VCR
- DVD Player
- CD Player
- Radio/Amplifier unit
- Cable modem
- Wireless router
I also want a computer plugged in and available all the time. I’m thinking of either putting seven behind the TV or putting a wireless card in Asteria and using Linux to drive it. I’d use Luksusdyret but it’s rather unstable these days and the (third party binary-only) wireless drivers for the wireless card don’t handle connecting automatically which kind of ruins the point of an always-on server.