Monthly Archives: June 2014

Gas Water Heater Timer with included timer — I own a whopping eight water heaters between five houses: two at the main house, two at the Utah house, two at the cabin, and one at each of two rental houses. The cabin and one of the rental houses use electric water heaters, so the majority of my water heaters (5 out of 8) run on […]

Product Review: Save Money with a Gas Water Heater Timer

This entry was posted in DIY Home Theater & Automation Product Reviews and tagged American Pacific gas control valve gas water heater timer home automation remote control smartphone water heater WeMo on June 30, 2014 by Steve Jenkins (updated 3656 days ago)

Control options for the ZigBee control module — One of my favorite features of my Ecobee WiFi thermostats is the ability to heat or cool a location so that it’s nice and comfortable by the time we walk in the door. For example, our furnace and heat pump at our cabin both use electricity, so I save money on my electric bill by allowing a […]

Product Review: Remotely Controlling an Electric Water Heater with a ...

This entry was posted in DIY Home Theater & Automation and tagged 240V 30 amp ecobee Leviton product review remote control schedule smart thermostat water heater wireless control module ZigBee on June 29, 2014 by Steve Jenkins (updated 3648 days ago)

Caliber 4R digital hygrometer and thermometer — I recently purchased a dehumidifier to place in my gun safe (product review is coming), but I wanted to make sure it was doing its job properly. The only way to ensure that is to test the humidity inside the safe before placing the dehumidifier in there versus after. And […]

Product Review: Western Humidor Caliber 4R Digital Hygrometer and Thermometer

This entry was posted in Guns Product Reviews and tagged Caliber 4R cigar gun safe humidity hygrometer product review temperature Western Humidor on June 25, 2014 by Steve Jenkins (updated 3836 days ago)

Caliber 4R hygrometer in a salt test — “It’s not the heat… it’s the humidity that gets you.” Not only is that true for personal comfort, but even more so for important items that need to be kept at a specific humidity (like cigars at 70%) or metal parts on guns (which want to be stored in a […]

How to Calibrate a Hygrometer (Humidity Sensor) using the Salt ...

This entry was posted in DIY Reference and tagged 75% calibrate cigar how to humidity humidor hygrometer relative humidity salt test on June 25, 2014 by Steve Jenkins

Honeywell EconoSWITCH Review — When my primary residence was built in 1998, the builder installed a Lutron HomeWorks whole-house lighting system. Basically, it’s a set of three panels (one on each floor) that can control all the lighting loads in the house. It also allows any keypad in the house to control any light […]

Adding Astronomical Clock Functionality to an Original Lutron HomeWorks System

This entry was posted in DIY Home Theater & Automation Technology and tagged astronomical clock HomeWorks HWV-IP5 Lutron on June 25, 2014 by Steve Jenkins

If you’re trying to set up an Apache web server on CentOS as your origin server for Google PageSpeed service, you need to take certain steps to make sure that Apache can see (and also log) the IP address of the visiting host. Otherwise, all you’ll see in your Apache log files […]

Configuring Apache on CentOS 6 for Google PageSpeed Service

This entry was posted in Linux Reference Technology and tagged Apache CentOS configure Google mod_remoteip PageSpeed PageSpeed Service PSS wrong IP on June 24, 2014 by Steve Jenkins (updated 3838 days ago)

New fittings installed in minutes — If you’ve read any of my previous plumbing DIY posts, you know I’m a fan of SharkBite slip-fittings. Yes, they’re more expensive than standard copper or CPVC fittings, but their primary benefit is how easy they are to install… and remove for re-use or reconfiguration. Normally, you don’t have to remove plumbing fittings […]

DIY: SharkBite Fittings Make Adding a Check Valve Easy

This entry was posted in DIY and tagged check valve hot water tank plumbing SharkBite water heater on June 2, 2014 by Steve Jenkins (updated 3860 days ago)