I have two condensers: one is nice and quiet and the other is insanely loud. I thought it was just the compressor itself and so I put a sound blanket around it. I was sad that it didn’t seem to make much difference. So then I thought maybe it was the fan motor bearings and replaced the fan motor for $145. Here are the results:
The blanket installation was pretty easy. You just unbolt and lift off the fan and then slap it on there. I used a utility knife to make some cuts around the coolant pipes.
Doing the fan motor was pretty easy too. Same thing but you unhook the fan wires from the capacitor and circuit board and then pull them through the conduit. Then you pry off the round plastic cover with a flatheat screwdriver and unbolt the fan motor. The fan blade comes off with a socket wrench. The replacement motor I got had the exact same color coded wires so that was easy.
Old A/C fan motor
The hardest part by far was fishing the wires back through the conduit. I used my fiberglass fishing rods to push a piece of twine through and then tied it to the wires and yanked them through.
I replaced the capacitor while I was at it for good measure while I was in there.
Top of old capacitor
The motor noise is totally gone. The compressor noise is still louder than the other unit but it’s substantially better. Overall I’m happy now.
I moved into a house that has two sump pumps dating back to about 2017 from Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing, a company that is no longer operating. During some plumbing, I became aware of the fact that at least one of them doesn’t work at all. I guess this is partially a good thing: I haven’t actually needed sump pumping for the past ~2 years. This post talks about what I learned and how I fixed the pump.
MIDA 7500SS Sump Pump Switch 120 VAC 3/4 HP 14 Amp from Mid-Atlantic Waterproofing
Problem 1: The pump was seized up
When I unplugged and re-plugged the switch, it beeped, turned the relay on for 3 seconds, and then turned it off and went solid red. When the relay was on, the pump was buzzing but not turning. I unbolted 4 bolts from the pump with a really long socket extension on an electric drill and pulled it out. I could barely turn the impeller by hand. I put on thick gardening gloves and really went to town on it. It broke free and soon I could spin it freely. I plugged it directly into the wall and it spun like crazy. It was probably seized up due to Iron Ochre, see Problem 2
Sump pump removed
Problem 2: Iron Ochre
There was a layer of super gross, super sticky yellowish ooze in the sump. It was shockingly sticky and difficult to wash off hands so I had to be careful with it. Eventually I decided it was iron ochre. I guess this got into the pump shaft and seized it up. I bolted the pump back in, bought some Basement Wash-Dog tablets, dropped 3 in, poured in 15 gallons of warm water, and let it sit overnight. In the morning I plugged the pump in directly and it pumped most of it out. The iron ochre was indeed much diminished! Guess I’ll do this every now and then if water builds back in.
Sump with lots of Iron Ochre in it
Problem 3: Understanding the Pump controller switch
I thought (perhaps mistakenly?) that the pump switch wasn’t working because it always turned off 3 seconds after plugging it in. I cut out the high and low water sensors to experiment with it and see what the problem was. For one thing, one of the sensor lead wires had exposed copper, so I cut that section out and soldered it back together. After that I experimented with a bucket of water to see what it would do. It did turn on if both water sensors were underwater, but it turned off 3 seconds after the red high-water sensor was removed from the bucket, regardless of what the black low-water sensor was doing. This confused me. Eventually I read somewhere that you may need a ground line dipping into the water for these sensors to work right. Sure enough, with a ground wire in (sourced from the mounting screw in the nearby outlet, the switch stayed on until the black sensor was uncovered. The colors observed were:
Color
Meaning
Solid Red and silent
Pump not operating, no water detected
Blinking red and silent
Pump not operating, low water detected
Solid green and beeping
Pump operating, high water detected
Blinking green and beeping
Pump operating, high water no longer detected, low water still detected
Here’s a little video of the switch in a bucket:
So I fished a ground wire towards the bottom of my sump. I imagine ground could be provided by the pump casing itself under normal circumstances, so I’m not 100% sure it was necessary to do this in the sump, but it was definitely needed for my bucket experiments.
Now I’m confident the sump pump will work if it is ever actually needed.
I bought a 2021 EGO electric lawnmower on Craigslist 7 months ago. It’s been mowing my 1/3-acre yard just fine since the spring. But yesterday when I started it up, the light blinked green once and then blinked yellow or orange a bunch of times and made just a little click and failed to start. The motor spins like 1/16th of a turn but then stops. It’s like it’s trying to ‘kick over’ but just can’t make it. The self-propulsion still works fine, as do the LED lights, so I know it has power.
What’s happened to it since it worked last? Well, it’s been really hot and humid here in the DC area, and I’ve been storing it somewhat improperly outside in a tarp (I haven’t gotten around to getting a shed yet after moving). So presumably something temperature or humidity sensitive happened.
I tried a few simple things, none of which worked:
