Hot Water Heater Timer & Circulating Pump

When we built our house, we met our contractors by word of mouth. We went to one supply store, and then they’d ask if we had a tile guy. Then they’d recommend someone. It was a great way to meet dependable contractors that other contractors liked to work with. Because we had different framing(ICF), we let our framer recommend an electrician that was familiar with our framing type. When we went to a local plumbing shop to shop fixtures, he recommended some contractors and they were all great! He wasn’t the one that recommended our plumber, but we LOVED our plumber. He was honest and knew his stuff. We even used him at my mom’s townhouse when I broke her outdoor hose bibb after trying to use it in cold weather. 

One feature that our plumber and the fixture salesman recommended was how to heat our hot water for the entire house with one heater! Our house is rather large and we heat the water with one tankless hot water heater! We keep our tankless Rinai water heater in Mr. JCrew’s closet. We built the alcove on purpose in the design. We didn’t want it exposed to the outdoor elements and didn’t want it so far away in the garage either.

We’ve never had a tankless water heater, and I was unfamiliar with how one works. You don’t have a tank of hot water waiting on you when you want it, so when you turn on a fixture, it sends a signal to the tankless hot water heater to send hot water… but it’s not instant! You have to waste water leaving the fixture on to keep the signal going so that it knows to heat the hot water. Once it’s on, and you’re filling your bath tub and taking your shower, the hot water keeps coming. 

The recommendation that we went with was an add on to the hot water heater. There were actually two add-ons. First was a circulating pump.

This was what allowed us to use one tankless hotwater heater for a large house. It pumps hot water to each fixture in the house at a 30 minute intervals. This allows you to have instant hot water on demand.

The second add-on was a timer for the circulating pump and tankless heater. This prevents the heater to be on constantly. 

We set the timer to circulate hot water to all features at peak times when we would want it. (Morning showers, noon dish washing, evening baths, etc) During that time that the timer is on, the heater is circulating hot water to each fixture in the house.

During the off times, you can still get hot water. If you know you're going to need hot water not at a designated time, you can hit "override" on the timer and get hot water. If you don't hit the button, you can still get hot water, but you have to let that fixture run for a few minutes to send the signal to the heater (water waster). 

This add-on is so nice! When we first moved in, we didn’t have it set up properly and I got so frustrated waiting for hot water to fill up a cup so that we could grow our capsules!

I wasted so much water trying to get water hot enough, that I might as well have put the cup in the microwave to get the hot water. 

But this timer means we can turn on the shower and jump in immediately! Mr. JCrew is still in the habit of turning the shower on and brushing his teeth while he waits for the water to heat up, but he doesn’t have to! Less water wasted!

I’ve now become very spoiled with this timer. Never knew it existed and now can’t live without it!

Sprinkler System Control

I’m going to get a little geeky here, but adding technology to nature is like dessert for me! It’s so good!

There is always going to be something we wish we could go back and fix. Most things you can, but you have to decide its worth. I thought I knew what I was doing and planning ahead with my landscape, but I have learned I could have gone further and want to share with you!

I shared my landscape plan with my sprinkler installer when we built the house and I put my trust in his expertise. But I should have known I should have been more involved with the details. I assumed if I identified trees/shrubs/lawn the sprinkler guy would create a custom sprinkler system to accommodate the different requirements. We got a really good system, but I recently learned how custom it can really get!

 

Our Sprinkler controller was nothing special. We have 5 zones and our controller could be set up to have multiple start times to a zone. I used this to water my lawn once at 1AM and then again at 3AM. You need to water heavy but don’t want to waste water running off because the ground cannot absorb any more water. So if you water some, then let it soak, you can water again and it will absorb it all.

I mention 1AM, because I learned a LONG time ago not to water at night (5PM-1AM). This promotes fungus as water sits too long before the sun dries it up off the plant. Watering during the heat of the afternoon is wasteful. There is usually wind, and the hot air dries up the water too fast before the roots get any of it. I also like for my sprinkler system to be done watering before the early walkers in the neighborhood are out and have to dodge all the sprinkler systems going off while on their morning walk.

I change my sprinkler system during the Spring, Summer and Fall with frequency, but I also watched the weather regularly to make sure I didn’t’ water at the same time as a storm or right after a huge amount of rainfall collected. This manual observing and changing got me thinking of how to be smarter. For my birthday, I bought a new controller. This controller is so sweet!

It’s called Rachio. It does all the things I was doing manually and makes me look like a master gardener! It has wi-fi connection to get the latest weather. It rearranges the water schedule for you!

The setup is a little intensive if you really want to make it custom. Installation is quick and easy. You download the app to your phone and control it from there. You set up your zones with all kinds of information and it does the rest. This is where I realize how custom a sprinkler system can be. 

Our system knows Zones 1,2 and 4 are for our lawn. They run more often than Zones 3 and 5 that are the flowerbeds. 

I told it that the root depth of the flowerbeds is 15 inches, so it calculates the temperature and how long it takes to dry out before it needs to water again. (You can control the percentage you will allow to dry out). But this doesn’t stop it from watering the lawn that has shorter roots and needs to be watered more often.

I’ve also witnessed where the weather was forecast to rain, but it didn’t, so it started a cycle to make up for the rain that it anticipated.

Where I realize how custom it could be is that it can control drip lines, perennials, annuals, shrubs and lawn. There are different water frequencies for each of these. I mix annuals, perennials and shrubs in my flowerbeds. I wish I would have set up zones for perennials and annuals. Maybe down the road I will. 

And it calculates the time for you! I ask that it always be complete by sunrise. So no matter what it is watering, it will start accordingly to make sure it is complete by sunrise. You can also control the day. Some people have set water days and you can tell it to be smart, but only use those days. I don’t have any restrictions other than not to water on Friday when our lawn mower comes. It takes all that into consideration.

It will also adjust for seasons. It knows July/August are the hottest and adjusts, but I don’t have to worry about slowing it down or ramping it up. September and October I will see the amount of schedule waterings go down. Adjusting the frequency was a pain on my old controller.

Since the controller is run by an app on your phone, I have notifications set to alert me when the sprinkler system was in use. I usually wake up to these messages.

Really really really cool product! It can act like my old controller, but when it has so much potential to be custom, let it do its thing and sit back and enjoy!!

Garage Door Monitor

Over time, I have found products that make life so nice. I wanted to share my happiness with an add-on to our garage door opener.

We have the LiftMaster 829LM Garage Door Monitor and love it. I actually bought 3 because I thought we needed one per garage door, but I was able to sync all three garage doors to one monitor. We ended up using two of them and I have a third, if someone local wants to buy it from us!

Back to why we love it… It beeps when the garage door is opened or closed. It’s just a little chirp to let you know the door is being used. Our dogs and the kiddos know the sound of the chirp. It doesn’t bother the dogs, but they do go running to the door to see who is home. And the boys hear the chirp and also go running to the door to greet whomever is home.

It will also beep if the garage door is left open. The beep is about once every 60 seconds until the door is closed. You can close the garage door from the monitor and not have to go out to the garage to close it!

I mentioned that we bought 3, and are using 2. We don’t need two, but we keep one in Mom’s room so she can hear it. The other one is in our bedroom. We actually keep them under the bed, so we do not see them. They are loud enough that we still hear them when we are not in the bedrooms (but we keep our bedroom doors open.)

We discovered this add on when we bought a new garage door opener from Costco. When you buy anything from Costco, they add all these extras to the product. Sometimes you don’t need all those extras. With the Costco garage opener came the monitor, a smart control panel, a remote light control, and the internet gateway. I was afraid I would need to buy all of these extras for the new house, but I only bought the monitor and have the features I want. The smart control panel does have a neat feature called “time-to-close.” If you have an older model door opener, you can switch it out with the smart panel to get this capability. I love it! You can set it to automatically close your garage door in 1, 5, or 10 minutes. We never forget to close the garage door now! When researching the garage door openers, I made sure ours came with this capability. I love it!

I’m all about making things automatic. We have been so use to these features that they have become the norm in our house, and I forget to share their coolness. 

Amazon

Light Switch Lever/Extender

When we first moved into our house, Mr. Brigglesworth was not even 3 and could not reach anything. Our toilet seats are high, so we put steps at the toilet for him to stand on. Our light switches were also too high for him. Even as he grew taller, he could not reach to turn on the lights. It frustrated him, and us too, as he would constantly call for us to turn on a light.

There were stools we had at the table in the bonus room that we removed, because Mr. Brigglesworth would drag the stool over to the playroom closet to turn on the light switch. The danger of that, was that the stool was then next to the railing. Mr. JCrew is our safety patrol and he didn’t like it. Taking the stools away took away Mr. Brigglesworth’s capability to turn on the light himself.

I don’t know how my mom found them, but she found a light switch lever. It was perfect. It comes in a 2-pack and I got 2 sets. I didn’t need to put them in every room, but I put them on the rooms that matter (the toy closet, the playroom, the guest bath and Mr. Brigglesworth’s room).

It’s a simple install. You remove the screws that hold the coverplate onto the wall and place the lever over the wallplate and use the new screws to fasten the lever and the wallplate back on.

They are so cool. Mr. Brigglesworth is now tall enough to reach the light switches, but I am keeping these on so that Pfitzer can use them. He is still not tall enough, but he’ll be there soon!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PGPPKE/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I1UKSTI1T5ENF&colid=29OBOHAQ01YP7&psc=0

Finding Homes for My Electric Lanterns

I had four lanterns that I madeelectric. They now needed homes.

My mom already had the same lanterns on her side porch, and I decided to give her one of my small ones to replace the light fixture by her front door.

Their previous lantern is just like mine on the front porch, I’d love to replace mine, but I need a little light there because of the storm door that hits it when open.

All I had to do was cut off the plug and actually hook up the lanterns to a light switch!

I just took down her old light and hung up the new one.

We bought a switch plate with a small hole to cover up the electrical box and allow for the cord to come through.

I think it looks lovely!

With my remaining small lantern, I put it back where it was on the back porch.

I drilled a hole in the mortar.

Then cut the plug off the cord and fed it through the hole down the wall.

It wasn’t as easy as it should have been. I couldn’t take the box out of the wall, so I was trying to fish the wire somehow.

My mom let me borrow a light. It was pretty cool. It let me see better.

I still couldn’t see the cord!!! I then taped a magnet onto the end of the wire and fed it back into the hole in the wall outside.

The light I borrowed had a magnetized end.

Back when I added the lanterns on thefront of the house, I didn’t have to worry about feeding the wire through the wall. I just made a hole in the garage.

With the two big lanterns, I rearranged my porch furniture and put a lantern on the side table.

The other lantern, I put back on the wall where it use to be.

I taped the white wires with electrical tape, to blend them in.

Then Gorilla tape to securely keep the wire close to the lantern.

I then bought a brown extension cord and a cover connector and buried the cord along the edge of the patio.

The two lanterns are connected to a timer. It is a dusk-to-dawn or 2-hr, 4-hr, 6-hr, 8-hr timer for only $10.

Because it has a photosensor, I couldn't hide it like I wanted it to, but I drew attention away from it with the plants.

I’m really excited about my new outdoor space. We were toying with the idea of screening in the porch, and luckily it didn’t work out.

I really like not being confined to the porch. And the new arrangement of furniture is currently in the way of where a wall would be.

They provide just enough light at night. They come on everynight for two hours.

With the other lights on, the place it lit up very well.

Even without the other lights, it's nice to have a light on  in the backyard, too.

I was really excited about turning my lanterns into something that worked, and now I’m even more excited I found a home for them!

Decorative Lantern Turned Electric

I WAS working on a REALLY big project behind the scenes. So big, that it would have been years before I could finish. Basically, I made a five-year plan and it covers everything in life. You know those plans that you did in high school? “Where do you see yourself in 1, 5, 10 years?” And then at your high school reunion, you check the current status to your goals.

I’m always surprised at my status checks. I found a plan I made back in 2009 that said I wanted to get my Florida house off my books in 2012. That was a goal, but I had forgotten what date I put to it. I then found my goal checklist in March 2013. Pretty cool that we sold the Florida house on December 31, 2012! Barely made that deadline, but we did.

Okay, I’m losing focus. I came to talk about my lanterns. I love lanterns and especially love lanterns that are in working order. People use them on their front porches to flank the front door, and many other locations.

Source: Houzz

I’ve had my lanterns with electric candles in them on the back porch. I pretend that they are working lanterns.

I have a bigger version that I filled with pinecones and set on the stone wall out back.

I had since taken them down. I used a glue to bond them to the wall, but after a few storms, they blew off. Glass broke one time and I had it replaced. Ever since, they have been sitting on the bench on the back porch.

This is where my big project came in. These lanterns were just a small piece of it. I got the idea that I wanted to use a lamp kit to turn them into working outdoor lights. You can turn anything into a light, and a lantern is meant to be a working light, so this wasn’t going to be impossible.

I bought the Hemma lamp cord from Ikea. There are many kits out there, but this one fit my needs. I didn’t need an on/off switch and this model doesn’t have one.

I then proceeded to see how I could connect the cord with minimal damage to the lantern.

The cord fit through the opening of the lantern, but the light did not hang straight down.

I had to put my thinking cap on to come up with a solution. The main goal was minimal damage to the lantern. I saw where someone repined a picture I had on Pinterest, and I noticed it had huge lanterns! I studied it.

Source: TheInspiredRoom

Then the idea came. I would use a dowel rod to keep the cord straight.

I was already planning to wrap the cord in black electrical tape, so why not tape it to the dowel rod?

I measured the length the dowel rod needed to be; 7 inches on the tall lanterns and 3 inches on the shorter ones.

I then got out my favorite saw and cut them.

The dowel rod was screwed into the top of the lantern and the cord went out the side.

I spray painted all the lanterns with Oil Rubbed Bronze paint.

I pre-drilled a tiny hole in the dowel rod to get the screw started.

A whole was then drilled into the top of the lantern.

I then screwed into the dowel rod.

I hung them up in the old location near the back door for a test run. The bigger lanterns looked a little too heavy.

I was excited to see them working. The lightbulb was an eye-sore, but I could find another.

Since the big project is no longer a goal, I had to come up with new homes for my working lights! I’m going to put one of the smaller ones back on the back porch where it was.

I only needed a 3 ft long dowel rod that cost me $2.50.

And the cords were only $5 (but add on $5 shipping L)

I know I got the lanterns for less than $10 from Olde Time Pottery. I enjoyed my non-working lanterns and now I’m excited to repurpose them!