architecture, engineering, drafting

All things architectural, civil, mechanical, geographical, structural … the whole engineering world.

heat pump explained (with boiler)

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I found this while snooping around on the internet.  For those of you who keep hearing about heat pumps but still know nothing about them, this is a pretty good visualization.

A fridge but in reverse? The fascinating science of heat pumps – visualised – The Guardian (newspaper in the UK)

…except that boilers are certainly not the norm here in western Canada.  Substitute boiler with heat exchanger.

So I’ve had a heat pump at 520 for over a year now, and it works well.  To be honest, though, we still haven’t had much of a winter yet this winter.  If / when it ever gets down to -40°C, then we’ll actually put it to the test.

ongoing renos

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I’ve taken a day off working at 520.  I’m back at it tomorrow.  You can read about its progress here.  Being my first purchased house outright, I want it to be my own.  No shortcuts.  I’m scoring paint off beautiful hardwood and colour-match staining and polyurethaning, undoing renovations and restoring pieces to their original shape, and repairing broken, cut, or rotten structural joists, beams, king studs, and frames.  I know I won’t live there, but just the same…

FT’s road trip, house #2, new fridge

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FT is on the road again, on a trek to Saskatchewan with TF.  So I’m on my own now for two weeks.  Nothing wrong with two old guys rattling across the prairies in a Pontiac.  They went last year, making this a now annual event.

This leads me to my next topic – travel.  I haven’t gone anywhere this year.  I’ve been working on the rental properties and the teardrop trailer, working only half days the past few weeks because of the heat.  Since Floyd’s leg started acting up, I’ve decided to take it easi(er).

The plumbing for the rear suite (formally called the garage) at house #2 is now complete.  It passed inspection just yesterday.  It is still a garage for now as there is still a bay door in it.  But that will soon disappear.  Next task: framing interior walls.

On my way back from trying to pay the Gutter Shop for work to be done at house #2 (turns out they closed down their storefronts, and Google hasn’t caught up to it), I stopped at Starbucks for a cup.  Nice day for a coffee in a shady outdoor area.

I bought a new fridge a week ago, and it finally arrived yesterday.  It’s a Whirlpool 18 cu. ft. freezerless fridge.  The problem is, it has to go back.  The fridge door is not reversible!  I haven’t seen a fridge with no reversible door for ages.  So I called, and they’re sending someone in the next few days to bring it back.  So I ask you, why would they make a fridge that 50% of the population cannot use?

Their explanation is that it is stainless steel.  …  What?  What the heck does that have to do with it?  I thought and have come to the assumption that people who want stainless steel fronts do not want extra holes with plugs in them.  There aren’t many fridges out there without freezers, so pickings are slim.  In the mean time, FT has opted for a normal fridge with freezer at the bottom.

CNC birdhouse #1

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This is the first CNC-cut birdhouse as well as the first 3D object created with AutoCAD Civil 3D and cut on the CNC.  Many mistakes!  But it’s a learning experience.  I know I’d likely not use AutoCAD again.

 1/10/2021  8:15 PM       965096 birdhouse 1 20210110_200729.jpg
 1/10/2021  8:15 PM       983134 birdhouse 1 20210110_200746.jpg
 1/10/2021  8:15 PM       995958 birdhouse 1 20210110_200802.jpg

garage thermostat

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It seems ‘cloud-connected’ thermostats are all the rage these days.  Google doesn’t own enough personal information – they want to dissect how we heat our homes, too.  I went to Rona, Canadian Tire, Lowe’s, & Home Depot to find a manual thermostat suitable for the garage – that is, one that goes down to zero degrees.  Finding one that goes that low is not as easy as it sounds.  They’re all made for the insides of homes and only go down to 10°C at best.  I absolutely don’t want to keep the garage at a toasty 15°C in the dead of winter – just keep it above zero.

I finally one at Home Depot.  It’s made for electric baseboard heaters, overkill for this application, but it goes down to 0°C.  Now I see that Canadian Tire has the same one, but I dismissed it at the time because I didn’t know if a baseboard heating thermostat would be compatible with a forced-air type.

Yes, you can use a baseboard heater thermostat to drive a forced-air furnace but not the other way around.  The line voltage on a baseboard heater thermostat in North America is 240VAC/60Hz or sometimes 120VAC.  A forced-air furnace thermostat line voltage is 24VDC, I think, and does not handle any significant load – just a basic on-off thing to trigger a relay switch in the furnace.

So now I have a garage that will not freeze and will be nice enough to work in during the bitter, cold months.

reprieve in the long hours

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After finishing college and taking a couple stabs at finding my ‘ideal’ workplace, which took a year and a half, I think I found a place I belong, at least for now, at CE.  (Or, rather, T found it for me on Kijiji and emailed it to me.)  I’ve been working since late Nov. 2019, learning as I go.

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architecture on Ritalin

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Holy cow.  How true.

This Is Your Brain on Architecture

Sarah Williams Goldhagen presents scientific evidence for why some buildings delight us and others—too many of them—disappoint.

Can anyone design a more depressing looking building?  Maybe Arthur Charles Erickson?  (The University of Lethbridge resembles a prison inside its halls.)  I thought for a moment – “What else has that cold, lonely, depressing look?”  What popped into my mind was Robson Square in Vancouver.  Oh – Mr. Erickson again.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not really into hobbit houses, either.  But surely some warmth can enter architecture, can it not?  We’re creating environments to be in.