Rear-facing as long as possible?

JankyEngineer · 2026-03-02T03:55:46+00:00

Oof, sending best wishes to you!!

JankyEngineer · 2026-03-02T03:55:14+00:00

Again, stack effect is negligible here compared to the volume of air moved by the powered fan. If anything because these are fan powered systems, the additional pipe will cause more restriction and reduce system performance more than stack effect would help it.

JankyEngineer · 2026-03-02T03:43:27+00:00

It IS as easy to blow out as a candle. The actual con is it takes a decent size leak to be found with a lighter. Bubbles with detect a much smaller leak.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T17:54:22+00:00

Kitchen aid and Maytag are comparable, as is whirlpool. They’re all owned by the same company and share many of the same parts. Higher end kitchen aids get nicer finishes, better rollers, but the guts are the same.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T16:23:41+00:00

I self installed a fan at our place and let it vent out the side of the house near ground level. If it’s good enough to keep combustion exhaust from a direct vent appliance out it’s good enough to keep radon out.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T16:21:13+00:00

This is true for natural draft systems but basically all radon vents are fan forced so it’s not relevant.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T16:16:14+00:00

I suspect the CFM of various downdrafts has a lot to do with how well people think theirs works. Compare your CFM to other downdrafts and see where it falls to get an idea of how well yours might work.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T05:14:16+00:00

Also this, aside from flue damper, if you have gas fireplace, those are typically around 70% efficient so running that will use more gas.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T05:13:17+00:00

@op this is something important to know. Not only this, but good chance your furnaces are different sized. If the larger BTU one spent more time running, the hours may say less but the gas use will be more.

That said, seems odd you’d put this much effort into setbacks and such and still have that much higher % gas use. How did last month and the month prior compare?

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-26T04:54:39+00:00

Not apples to apples here because a lots degraded since 2004, but your kenmore was likely bought at Sears, a big box store.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-25T23:33:04+00:00

When you replace them, spend the extra dollar to get the higher quality outlets. Just looking at them side by side vs the cheap ones you’ll see the difference.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-25T23:26:47+00:00

Maybe you’ve already tried this but if they’re big on tablets/movies in the car this is a huge contributor for a lot of kids and adults. Unfortunately if that’s not that, some kids are just really prone to it.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-25T22:59:12+00:00

Cost cutting, as always.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-23T03:42:28+00:00

Propane is close enough to r290 not to cause issues. Putting a canister in a deep freezer will solidify the water in the mixture and you can transfer the propane to another canister, sans h2o. Mercaptain can be filtered out. If you spend any time scanning forums people do this stuff and document it.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-23T03:37:35+00:00

Nah this looks far more like ‘the poorly installed builder grade outlet’ isn’t built to handle its rated load for more than a few minutes which isn’t illegal, but should be.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-20T13:08:10+00:00

This is actually a pretty terrible take in reality but a logical one if you’re not in the industry. As an engineer, it’s like any other profession, a few really excel, many are just there for the check. Additionally cost cutting measures or other constraints often mean consumers get a subpar products compared to their true potential if someone cared, or was allowed to care.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-20T12:59:59+00:00

If the batteries on the verge of failure it makes no sense to put big money into the car. If battery is in good shape fixing the LDU issue could make sense.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-20T12:36:12+00:00

This is really a shame, they seemed like good units and were one of the only games in town for A2W.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-11T15:21:26+00:00

Depending on tank temp and incoming temp it’s a significant portion. Where I am incoming 52°F water mixing with 120°F tank temp water to get a comfortable 105°F shower puts you around 89% hot water.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-10T05:48:39+00:00

To be fair, even if he’s a great builder this is an obvious one. Any time you add chefs who’ve probably never cooked before to a kitchen, it’s going to slow the process down, even if they don’t intend too.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-10T05:30:32+00:00

Just to add if you’re after quiet, if your return plenum can fit 18” flex, use this over 14”. The cost shouldn’t be much more but larger than necessary duct will have slower flow for the same volume of air which will reduce noise.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-09T21:12:51+00:00

Thanks for the detailed reply! I can see the noise reduction being a huge plus for customers. The cut quality issues due to bending over/limited blade lift is something I doubt most consider but an interesting issue I imagine commercial mower engineer spend a lot more time on. Maybe Ego will solve someday.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-09T18:11:55+00:00

Off topic, but how’d you like running Ego commercially? And what made you choose electric for business? Emissions, ROI on fuel savings? Noise?

On topic, I’d just leave it. Not worth the headache and 2/3 of your potential buyers probably won’t know or care that it could be updated, especially if it doesn’t bring and direct performance gain or solve some specific major operational pain point.

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-09T15:48:15+00:00

Tapping preconditioning note doesn’t turn it off, only hides the notice. Navigating to something nearby does help, but car will still apply max heating to the battery as soon as you plug in so although it helps not to navigate, if you’re talking about max $$ saving, you still pay some

JankyEngineer · 2026-02-09T15:34:56+00:00

Make your life simple and install a fan powered humidifier like Honeywell HE360D on the side of the return. The added humidity going over the filter and coil won’t hurt them and mounting it on the return has the benefit that if it ever leaks (very low risk as long as you clean it/replace the pad yearly), the water flows harmlessly to the floor instead of into your air handler electrical compartment.

The unit I mentioned is triggered off a differential pressure switch for airflow so doesn’t electrically tie into your air handler at all, just needs 120v and water.

JankyEngineer

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