Thermostats - What You Need to Know

Each year millions of people throw away money trying to heat or cool their homes.  There are a lot of great ideas and articles about making a home more energy efficient.   One idea that is rarely talked about is the Thermostat. This should be the first step in energy efficiency, since this is the tool that tells the A/C or heating unit to kick on and off. 

We met Tim from Greenspoint temp controls at a jobsite.  He saw us testing some power tools and we started talking.  Tim works mainly on commercial properties, but he says the same information he told us applies to homeowners as well.  We bought Tim a cup of coffee from the jobsite canteen truck and picked his brain a little.  Below are a couple good ideas he told us.

Occasionally, test your thermostat by using a thermometer to test the accuracy of the thermostat.  Put the thermometer next to the thermostat for about 10 minutes and compare the two readings.  If they are within 5 degrees, you thermostat is working fine.  If they are over 5 degrees apart, either the thermostat needs to be changed if electronic. If It is Mercury based, it needs to be recalibrated. 

Most people make the mistake of lowering their thermostat too much at night.  If the temp is more than a 10 degree swing, this can actually cost more money than you think you are saving.  In the morning the furnace now has to work hard in order to get the heat back up past the 10 degree mark.  Also, if the temperature outside will be close to zero or below, don’t lower the thermostat that night as this will really cause inefficiency.

Check you thermostat’s position in the room.  Even it it has been there for a while.  Maybe the installer made a mistake and didn’t install it in the correct location, or maybe something was added later that might give a false reading.  Check by your thermostat to make sure there is not a draft from somewhere.  Also, make sure there is nothing hot around the thermostat, like a TV or radio. These items can give false readings.

If you do find out that the thermostat needs to be replaced or you need to change locations, this can be done very easily.  If you need to relocate the thermostat, make sure you check the owner’s specifications on each unit.  All you will have to do is run some new wiring to the location of your choice.  This will take some time and work, but it can be done.  If you are replacing your old thermostat, this to is easy.  Most thermostats have two pieces, the head (Body) and the base.  The head is the actual unit you see on the wall with controls.  The base is the part that is screwed onto the wall.  Remember to turn off the power to that thermostat first. 

• First remove the thermostat head which is usually just snapped onto a base. 
• Second, remove the screws from the base that are attaching the base to the wall.  Now you should see four wires, Red, White, Green and Yellow, but this can vary.  Mark each wire if they are not color coded. 
• Before you remove the wires, place a piece of tape over the core of the wires to hold them against the wall, so they do not fall back behind the wall. 
• After this is secure, you can remove the wires from the base. 
• Next, place the new base in place where you want it.  Make sure it is level.  Now with a pencil, mark the spots where the screws will go.  You can drill holes for the new screws.  If you are going through drywall, just remember to use anchors when you screw the new base in place.
• Once the base is in place and the wires are attached, you can now snap the head back into place
• You can now program the new unit for your home.

Tip

If you are going to have people over, lower the thermostat temp by 5 degrees.  Bodies give off heat, so a lot of bodies around will create  good heat build up. 

Ladders - Safety and More

We stopped by our friend Jim’s jobsite the other day.  Jim, or Jimmy as we call him works for a very large construction firm in the Chicago area.  As we started to talk, he mentioned how he had to yell at one of his workers for safety concerns.  It seems this guy was more concerned about getting the job done quickly instead of safely.  This worker put up a ladder on uneven ground, with the wrong angle. In addition, he didn’t have the right height.  Worst of all, this guy wasn’t even an apprentice. He was a journeyman who has over 20 years of experience.  Maybe he wasn’t thinking, or maybe he felt to safe, but either way it was dangerous.  After talking a while Jimmy wanted us to write a short hand out that he could give to his workers at their morning safety meetings.  We wrote a nice piece for them and got great feedback, so we decided to add it here on our website.

Before we get started we need to get down to some basics so we are all on the same page. First, lets start with terminology. If you all ready know the terms, you can skip down to the next paragraph. 

Butt or heel - Bottom end of the ladder, the end that is placed on the ground.

Dogs or Pawls- Device attached to the inside of the beams of the fly section used to hold the fly section in place after it is raised.

Fly - Upper section of an extension ladder, the part that is raised into the air

Footpads- Rubber swivel parts attached to the butt of the ladder

Halyard - The rope used to raise or lower the fly section

Rail- The two lengthwise members of the ladder beam

Rung - Cross members that provide the foothold for climbing.

Tip - Very top of ladder

 (Click on picture to make it larger)

Some of the types of ladders are: Single, Folding, Extension, Combination, Step and more, but these are the most common. 

Before we get started you always want to do a quick check of the ladder to make sure neither the aluminium, fiberglass or wood is defective and causes the ladder to lose its integrity.  You never know what has happened when your not around.  Maybe a co-worker borrowed the ladder and then threw it on the ground when they were done, maybe your kids knocked it off the wall and didn’t want to tell you, maybe another contractor knocked it over and forgot to mention it you. You just never know.

Before you every lift or place a ladder, always look to see what might be above.  Look for obstacles such as electric lines or anything else, don’t just raise a ladder without looking. Next, you always want to place the ladder on even ground.  If there isn’t any even ground, put a piece of plywood down to make your own level ground.  Make sure the plywood is wide enough to make a difference. 

We have a video below that illustrates how to set up a ladder, but a quick run down will also help.  First, remember to always lift with your legs and not your back.  If you are placing an extension ladder up by yourself, let the wall be your friend.  Put the butt of the ladder where the ground meets the foundation and lay the ladder on the ground with the fly section down.  Next, start at the tips and lift up.  You can then grab the first rung and start walking the ladder up by grabbing the next rung and so on.  With the ladder against the wall, it will not slide.  Once the ladder is all the way up, walk the bottom of the ladder out while the tips rest against the structure.  Your goal is to get about a 75 degree angle.  One way to check is to put your feet at the butt and put your arms straight out, shoulder height.  If you palms touch that rung , with your arms completely straight and no bends at the elbow, then the angle is fine. 

When you are walking up the ladder don’t take to much stuff.  If you have to make a couple of trips, then do it.  Remember to always have three contact points with the ladder.  Each hand and each foot is considered a contact point.  So if you have nothing in your hands, you can walk up using the rungs.  If you have something in one hand then you need to slide you hand up the rails without removing them. 

Ladder Tips

• If you have to work around electricity on a ladder, do not use an aluminium ladder, because it  conducts electricity.  Also don’t use a wood ladder that has lots of metal, or a damp wood ladder. We all know electricity and water don’t mix.
• If you are working next to a door, put an “Out of Service” sign up or let others know not to use the door.  You can even leave it open, but you still have people walking around not paying attention, so you need to make others aware somehow.
• On the jobsite, you should always be with someone else when working on high places, but if you are by yourself, tell a co- worker, or if at home let a family member know.  Give them a time you should be done, that way if something happens, at least someone will get to you shortly.
• When walking up a ladder, turn your tool belt around so it doesn’t snag on a rung and throw you off balance.

For home users only

• If you are dropping tools on your folding ladder, put a bungee cord around the fold down section and put your tools under the to hold them tight, just remember to take them off before you fold up the ladder, so they don’t fall on your head.
• On the top of your folding ladder, you can glue a magnetic strip to hold screws and nuts in place so they don’t fall off

Here is a quick video on how to raise a ladder.  It is junior ladder training, but if you take a couple minutes to see the basics, it could save time, aggravation, and most important maybe your life.  Notice how they do a one man ladder raise using the base of the wall.

Fireplaces - The Ins and Outs

There is nothing better than sitting in front of a fire on a cold winter day.  As you will discover there is more to a fireplace then just putting wood in and lighting it on fire.  If you own a fireplace, you are probably aware that it can be the best feature of your house, but also the worst feature in your house.  Yes, it is great to sit in front of a blazing fire, but it also causes heat loss, smoke build up and more.  Below are some good tips and tricks you can use to make a fireplace the best feature of your home and at the same time cut down on the negatives.

This has happened to all of us, we build a blazing fire only to find out it is actually cooler in the house than warmer.  Here is another one, when the fire is going, we actually feel a cold draft circulating inside the house.  There is a simple solution to these two problems.  A house will feel colder and more drafty for two reasons.  First a fire needs oxygen, so as it burns, it pulls more oxygen towards the fire, but the biggest reason is hot air rises.  As the air rises, it needs to be replaced with more air to fill in the void.  The only place it can find more air is inside the house, so this air is pulled into the fire and that’s why we feel drafts or even cold air.  A simple solution is to make smaller fires.  I know, it fun to have bigger fires, but actually a smaller fire makes more sense.  A smaller fire does a couple of important things.  First, it slows down how much air is being pulled up the chimney.  Since the air is moving slower up the chimney, the fire actually has more time to radiate heat into the room and this will actually cause the room to get warmer, even though the fire is smaller.  A smaller fire will also cause less drafts in the house, which will keep the house warmer.

Another way to make sure you have more heat radiating into the house is to always keep around 1/2″ of ash on the fireplace floor.  If you start a fire with out any ashes on the fireplace floor, the fire now has to work hard to warm up the floor below, which can take a long time.  All this time you do not have as much heat entering the house since it is working on warming up the floor.  Remember, heat always travels to cold, not the other way around.  The ashes on the floor act as a good insulator, which will help radiate heat more effectively. 

You want even more heat?  Well burn hardwood instead of softwood.  Burning hardwood does two things.  First, hardwood burns slower and hotter than softwood, so it will produce more heat that can radiate into your home.  The second and most important benefit of hardwood is that it will not create as much of a soot build up as softwood does.  You still need to clean your chimney on a regular basis, but the build up is a lot less.  Chimney fires happen because of soot build up.  The hot air rises and starts to cause the soot to build up.  As soon as the soot reaches its ignition temperature, it will ignite and start to burn.

Since we are talking about wood, let’s discuss where to get wood.  Look at your surroundings, maybe a neigbor cut down a tree.  Maybe it is worth your time to take the tree and split the wood yourself.  Remember, it takes about 6 months before split wood will dry and becomae usuable.  A great place to get free wood is at a construction site.  No, not the lumber, but the trees.  Some jobsites will take down trees in order to erect the building.  These trees will sometimes sit there for awhile.  Just make sure you talk with the contractor before you go on their land. 

Have you ever noticed that when you are having a fire, you get smoke that comes out the sides?  I am not talking about the occasional downdraft or the times you don’t have the wood arranged properly in the fire place.  This tends to happen in older homes.  The reason for this is the fireplace opening is too tall.  The smoke cools down to quickly and therefore doesn’t properly rise.  We had this happen to an older home about a year ago.  We used a simple solution that any homeowner can perform.  We laid down a layer of firebrick on the bottom of the fireplace.  This raised the level of the fireplace and basically eliminated the problem.

Since we are talking about smoke bellowing out of the sides, we all have smoke build up on the outside of the fireplace.  The best way to clean this is to use warm water with a mild detergent and this should take care of the mess.  If the water still leaves some behind, i get out my magic earaser and this always does the trick.  The brick will look brand new. 

** If you have a gas burning fireplace, make sure you install a Carbon Monoxide detector in case of a failure.  The detector will alert you in case there is a back up in the chimney or a downdraft. 

Fire Safety

Well, it’s that time of year when we start up our furnaces and have fires in the fireplace. So now would be a good time to talk about fire safety.  Each year we have thousands of fires and many deaths. There are multiple reasons for people not surviving fires. One thing to remember is that most people do not pass away because of the fire itself, they pass away because of the fumes, the Carbon Monoxide.  Carbon Monoxide blocks your lungs from getting oxygen into your body.  So let’s start with smoke detectors

There are two type of smoke detectors - Ionization and Photoelectric detectors.  Wikipedia is a good source of information for these two types of detectors.   The main point is that you should have them installed in your home.  If you don’t have them installed, stop reading this and go down to your local hardware store and buy some, then come back and you can keep reading this article.  Oh, you all ready have them, well have you tested them within the 6 months?  If not, stop reading this and go test them out.  If you have them, and have tested them within the last six months, you may proceed reading this.

It may seem like over kill to install a lot of smoke detectors, but we’re talking about your life and your families lives.  You should install a detector in the basement and attic.  You also need to install one detector in every bedroom and you should have one outside in the hallway, best if you can do this at the top of each stairwell.  Always place the detector on the ceiling about 1ft away from the wall. 

As noted above you should test your detector every six months minimum and replace the batteries every year, even if they are still working.  There are two ways to test your alarm.  First you can press the test button to make sure the batteries work.  The second way it to light a match, blow it out, then pass the burned out match under the detector to make sure it picks up the smoke detection. 

Another important step in keeping safe is to close the doors at night when you are sleeping, this helps protect you and slows down the spread of fire.  If you have to leave because of a fire, close the door behind you.  Always make sure you have an escape route.  Each person needs two routes, in case one is blocked by fire, so you have an alternative.  Also, have a meeting place so everyone can be accounted for. 

If a fire does occur and you can not get out, you should also have a plan.  First stay calm.  Second, stay close to the ground.  Third, don’t hide.  Adults can be like dogs, while kids can be like cats.  Kids tend to hide in a fire.  You should educate your children that if for some reason they can not get out to stay close to the ground and up against a wall.  If they can be against a perimeter wall , not under a window, but close to a window, this will help in their rescue.  Firefighters will do a primary search of the building and they use the walls as reference, so they will have an easier time finding someone next to a wall.

If a small fire does start and you are aware of it, you can use a fire extinguisher to put it out.  You should always have a couple on hand.  Maybe one in the kitchen, garage, basement and your workshop.  Keep them accessible.  Just like smoke detectors, you need to check the fire extinguisher to make sure the pressure is OK. 

1. In the picture above, you will see a gauge (Click the picture to enlarge).  Make sure the needle is in the green.

2. Make sure your fire extinguisher is right for your application.  There is an A,B,C,D.  As you can see with this one, it is a combination of A,B,C. 

• A - Wood and trash
• B - Liquids
• C - Electrical
• D - Metals

Fire extinguishers have directions on them.  Make sure your read them and understand them.  Most of them, you just pull the pin, point the fire extinguisher and spray.  Aim at the base of the fire to quickly put it out.  If for some reason you can not put the fire out or have other problems, leave and shut the door behind you, then call the fire department. 

One last item.  Try to seal the crack or opening between floors as this will help stop the spread of fire and smoke.  Fire tends to crawl up these areas and spread quickly.  A fire will double every minute.  Older homes have what is called balloon construction. In these houses fire can spread rather quickly if it gets in the wall.

Here is a great video to show how quickly fire spread and hits home the point of smoke detectors and having a plan in place.