Pete's Log: More House Stuff

Entry #1916, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 42 years old.)

Sometimes I think this house is changing me just as much as I'm changing it. It was built in 1955 and owned by the same family through 2016 when flippers flipped it and sold it to us in 2017. It's a solid house with a definite DIY vibe from the original owner.

Spring is definitely here, and with it our need to charge batteries for our yard care equipment. Because of how life is, we've got several different charging systems and have never quite known where to keep them. But I happened to notice that all of the chargers had mounting holes on the back. So instantly I knew what had to be done. In the back of the utility room, we now have the charging station:

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Also, now that we have outlets in the crawl space, I added something I've wanted for a while — a camera to keep an eye on things. Getting into our crawl space is a bit of a maneuver. The entrance, while plenty wide, is a mere 13 inches high.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Our sump pump has only rarely kicked in since buying the place. I think that we are lucky enough to be just slightly elevated above the rest of our block. Additionally, I think the previous owners at some point spent some money on drainage tiles around the outside of the house. In any event, getting into the crawlspace is a pain, but I'd like to be able to keep an eye on things in there, especially on the sump pump. So here we are.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Above is the view of our sump pit. It's currently dry. While this will be the default view of the crawlspace cam (looking straight down), it does have pan and tilt capabilities, so we can see more of the space.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Above is the view looking South. Straight ahead is the drain from our kitchen sink, and to the left is the gas line to our stove. Also visible is some old phone wire going nowhere. This gets back to the DIY vibe of the house. There is a lot of phone and coax cable running everywhere that I should really pull out. In some cases I find myself hesitating because the existing wire might be useful for pulling ethernet to somewhere. But for the most part it's a combination of laziness and also feeling like I still need to earn permission from the house to yoink out its innards.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Above is the view to the East. We see some ducts, more of the gas line to the stove, as well as more phone and coax cable. Additionally an old extension cord is visible. I'm not sure what its purpose was, as it is disconnected at both ends.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Finally, we have the view to the West. We can see the discharge pipe for the sump pump, as well as a few more phone and coax cables. Also along the far wall is a flexible conduit which I think runs to our kitchen lights.

The more I look at these pictures, the more I think it's time to pull out the phone and coax cables. But there are definitely more important tasks to do first. But I feel quite happy to be able to monitor the crawlspace, especially the sump pit.

In non-house news, I was able to find some time to solder together the signal generator from HackerBox #64.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

Hooking it up to the Oscilloscope I previously assembled, it appears to be working, though I haven't put it through many paces yet.

No alt text found for this picture. Please email prijks@esgeroth.org to complain.

The soldering did seem to go a good deal faster this time, so maybe all I need is more practice...