IoT Obsolesence

 Two years ago, I was thinking about the various IoT devices we have in the house. Since then, we haven't added any new (hard-wired) items, but Google has decided to sunset support for all the Nest products we are currently using.

Back during the remodel that sparked the decision to start this blog, we installed a new Nest thermostat. That was in 2014, so it was a new second-generation unit. Last week, however, Google announced it was ending support for first- and second-generation units in October. The units will continue to work, but only as an old-school "dumb" thermostat.

Part of the whole appeal is being able to use the smart features — adaptive scheduling, adjusting things from miles away when travelling, alerts to the phone, etc. So while I still look of the second-gen Nest and it is doing its job well, knowing that it is going the way of our SmartDry and being forced into obsolescence, I went ahead and took Google up on the discounted price for a new fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat.

I briefly considered not rewarding Google with a purchase, choosing instead an Ecobee or some other option, but I'm already well connected with Google's ecosystem. Plus, I installed two fourth-gen Nests at my parents' house earlier this month, so I'm already using the Google Home app to provide remote tech support.

When reading up on the Nest thermostat announcement, I also found out that few weeks earlier Google announced an end to the Nest Protect line of smoke detectors. Since those have a ten-year lifecycle, Google is continuing to support them through their planned end-of-life (November 2027 to December 2028 for our three). At the moment, the company is partnering with First Alert on new smart smoke detectors that will integrate with Nest Protect units. But the new SC5 lacks a few of the nice touches of the Nest Protect — no path light, no presence sensing, etc. — so hopefully there will some improvements/other options before we have to start replacing the smoke detectors.

If a Tree Falls and No-One Realizes What They Heard...

Right around midnight on New Year's Eve, Celeste and Evelin heard a noise (not fireworks). They thought a limb had fallen on the deck or something, but looking around on the deck and around the side of the house didn't turn up anything unusual.

Flashforward six or seven hours, I'm headed out for a healthy walk to start the New Year and I looked in the sideyard and saw this ...

Apparently, the noise was the other hemlock falling over, just a few days over two years from the date the first one fell.

Unlike the 2022 hemlock-drop, this tree was looking pretty healthy. There had some signs of dropping needles, but nothing as bad as the other one. There was a front that came through that evening, dumping about a third of an inch in less than an hour (and during one heavy burst the rate of rainfall was over an inch per hour). There were some wind gusts, but it looks like it was pretty calm around midnight. I'm guessing there was some illness or something that weakened the shallow root system and the rain combined to stress things enough that it just tipped over.

Fortunately, it fell into a relatively empty part of the yard. The maple we had planted back in March did get hit, but not broken or uprooted, and one of the apples (and the neighbor's mulberry) both lost limb or two each.

Instead of a walk, I spent time in the morning with loppers and (after 8 a.m.) a chainsaw trimming off branches and bits to get the stuck trees free of the mess. Now we just need to get some out with a woodchipper to take care of the detritus ...

It's a bit sad. The hemlocks were great for privacy and noise screening, so now we're getting a lot more sun on the deck, but it's much more exposed. But it also eliminates one of the routes squirrels used to easily hop on to the roof. Random memory: There was one time when Evelin and I woke up in the middle of the night and looked out the window to see a possum in that tree at the level of our bedroom window. Not sure if she was raiding a bird's nest or looking to get on the roof or just chilling.

Blue Is Back!

And it's done! We still have to put things back in place (and make some decisions about whether or not to rearrange things), but the scratches and peeling are gone and it's all blue again. The job was done with Sherwin Williams "Gallery Series" (20 Gloss Satin) paint for cabinetry and millwork, which was custom colored to (mostly) match the old blue with a clear waterborn topcoat base (651307803). Since it's a custom color, here's the formula used (in case we do need to touch things up in the future):

CCE/Colorant	OZ	32	64	128
W1 – White	2	28	–	1
B1 – Black	2	46	–	–
L1 – Blue	4	12	–	1
R3 – Magenta	–	24	1	–

(Here's a website that helps explain how to read that formula.)

We're Not Cooking Anything

To the untrained eye, it looks like a scene from Breaking Bad in the kitchen these days. Plastic tarps everywhere and lots of chemical smells.

The truth is nothing so sorted. The cabinetry installed during the remodel was solid, but the blue paint fairly early on started chipping and wearing off. Not sure if it was something defective in the finish or just wear and tear, but it was annoying. Things finally reached the point where it could no longer be tolerated so we have painters cleaning them up and making it all look new.

Day one was mostly disassembly and priming, along with some small repairs. Today is all painting.

I'm not sure if a second day of painting is on the agenda or just reassembly of things tomorrow, but I'm guessing it will be takeout or just snacking again for dinner tonight.

13 Years …

... almost to the day. Seems like that's what you can expect for a washing machine. I'd noticed an issue with the basement bathroom tile a while ago, but I though it was connected to issues we'd had with flooding from the roof/gutter problem. It turns out not. There had been an issue — probably the drain pump — with the washing machine that got a lot worse this month.

I was worried water was getting under the tile from the shower — maybe a leak in the plumbing there, but after pulling up (without breaking!) a few of the tiles and watching things for a bit it was clear the water was intruding from the other side of the wall … where the washer and dryer live.

Once the source was confirmed, the question became repair or replace? At first we planned on the repair option, but once I realized how long ago it was we'd installed this washer, read up on the likely problem, figured the cost of repair, and the likelihood of future problems, replace seemed the better option especially since everyone seems to be having sales on washers and dryers this week.

So out with the old Kenmore 4027 washer and in with an LG WT7005CW. The Kenmore dryer gets to stay. This is a switch back to a top-loading model, which is going to mean more water use, but Evelin has long been convinced the front-loader just wasn't cleaning things as well as she wanted. It’s also a slightly larger drum (4.3 ft³ instead of 4.0). Don’t tell Celeste, but it also uses LG's ThinQ IoT platform. I also picked up an Oatey washing machine pan to go below the washer ... just in case. Our basement lacks any sort of floor drain or grading that pushes the water towards the non-existent floor drain, so having something to hopefully constrain the flow of water if there's a problem in the future makes sense.

Just waiting on a delivery date/time now so I can take the basement door off to get the old washer out …

UPDATE

(April 24): It's arrived and installed without a hitch (excuse the mess in the photo).

For the delivery, the door did have to come off the hinges again to ensure the old machine could get out, but it was still a tight fit for the new machine to come it.

Turns out this model does not support ThinQ; it just has a smart diagnostic feature that will produce audible error codes that can be "read" via smartphone. C decided that "feels analog, so it's fine for a washer." (We have diverging opinions about IoT appliances.) In a related vein, I'm going to put a Govee water sensor alarm in the pan as an early warning system. (I'm a little paranoid about the water thing...) We have a few of these and they've proved helpful, like when the water filter broke.

More Trees

I talked a bit at the end of 2022 about our trees. Today we added two new trees to the side yard: a red maple (Acer rubrum) and a bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). The maple is an October Glory cultivator, which is supposed to have really nice red–orange foliage in the autumn. They were delivered and planted by Casey Trees (for free!) as part of a city program to help increase Hyattsville's tree canopy. Both trees are pretty substantial, 8 feet or taller, and we're looking forward to seeing them grow.

When the arborist came out in the autumn to consult on possible species and placement, I asked him about getting a sassafras (Sassafras albidum) and while Casey used to grow them apparently they didn't have much luck with them in an urban context so they didn't offer them. He did, however, identify a spot where I could put one if I could source one. That guy (a more affordable 4-foot tree) arrived in December and I got it into the ground then. I've been worried that it didn't make it through the winter, but the arborist who came to help plant the new trees took a look at it and said it looked like it was still alive, so I should keep watering and see what happens. 🤞🏻

The maple is in the foreground, the sassafras to the right, and the cypress in the back. Behind it, near the fence are three pawpaws (Asimina triloba), one of which was translated as a little seedling from a neighbor.

All three of the new trees are now protected with cages to help ward off nibbling deer (we don't get those too often, except for when the apples are out, but better safe than sorry) and they just need to get watered weekly (twice weekly come summer).

UPDATE

(April 23): The maple and bald cypress are looking good; the sassafras, however, is pretty sad. There's supposed to be a one-year warranty on the tree from the grower, but I have to wait until June to see if anything happens.

Small Things

The linear drain we put in the basement bathroom looks great, but the spacers used to keep the cover positioned in the trench were just free-floating little plastic rectangles. They could block some of the waterflow and, if you tried to clean the filter basket while the shower was in use they could float around or even end up in the drain.

I recently found these grate risers as a replacement. They clip to the cover, keeping them stable, while positioning it properly in the trench without affecting waterflow. Sometimes small things can make a real difference.

Thinking of small things, in mid-December we had a bit of excitement when we awoke to the sound of the water alarm under the kitchen sink. The Grohe Blue system takes up a lot of space in there with the chilling unit, CO₂ tank, and water filter. The filter head uses an unusual push-to-connect fitting for the outflow from the filter to the chiller.

As can be seen in the photo, the plastic sheared apart, letting water spray from the filter into the kitchen cabinet (and down through the bathroom ceiling below. It was easy enough to shut off the cold water to the sink and then a surprising amount of mopping things up given that it wasn't spraying for too long.

The problem was then finding a new piece. Once it was late enough for the Home Depot to open, I headed over there. They had similar fittings, but nothing that was female-to-female with European threading. Driving a bit further, I tried Lowes with no luck, and then both Ace and True Value Hardware shops. Nothing.

A pain, but not the end of the world. I figured we could last through the weekend and I could try a plumbing supply store on Monday morning. (We did find out, thanks to the water alarm again, that using just the hot water also caused some leakage thanks to water backflowing into the filter, so the sink and dishwasher were out of commission until we could get a new part.)

Monday morning, early o'clock, I visited three area plumbing supply stores with no luck.

Next step was to call Grohe and after a few false starts I had the exact part numbers needed ... but it wasn't something they could provide. Searching around online wasn't giving me too much confidence in finding the right piece event with the Grohe-supplied parts number.

I thought I'd ID'd the right piece at McMaster-Carr, but I called them to make sure. After a bit of back and forth, the best we were able to figure out was to replace it with a female-to-female (British threading) coupler and then a male-to-female push-to-connect fitting. It made for a slightly longer piece, but not so long that it wouldn't still fit under the sink.

I hit submit order on the website while still on the phone with McMaster-Carr, which was good because the sales person was able to change the order to ship the pieces diectly to me. Otherwise, it would have meant driving to somewhere near Trenton, N.J., to pick them up. (Although, because UPS was so busy with pre-Christmas packages, it might have been less frustrating if I had made the drive; the UPS app showed that the driver was just a few blocks away for about four hours before he finally dropped off the package. At one point, I took Lucy for a walk and saw him resorting boxes in the back of the very crowded van trying to make the deliveries more efficient.)