• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Hot!!

WebSlave

WebSlave

Maybe seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
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Damn.... just before noontime and it is already 95.0 degrees according to my weather station. "Feels like" is showing 113.2 degrees.

And climbing...

I think it will be a good idea to just stay inside today and do continuous checking on the air conditioning. :)
 
Man, talk about waving a red flag in front of Murphy's legal team!

The house air conditioning died today. Connie noticed that the thermostat was reading 82 degrees even though it was set for 80. Everything mechanically is working, but the air coming out of the AC vents is 83.5 degrees, so obviously cold air isn't being generated. Compressor housing outside looks ok, with no ice formed to clog the vents. Fan is moving, and the air handler up in the attic is seemingly working. Air temp inside the house is holding pretty steady at 82.2 degrees even though it is 100.8 degrees up in the attic. So the AC must be generating some cold air, otherwise I'm sure we would be getting much hotter air coming out of the vents.

Luckily the entire unit is still under the 10 year warranty, but I'm betting with all this heat we have been having, the AC company is going to likely be slammed with calls tomorrow morning. We are paying a maintenance contract with what they call their "Red Carpet Service" so hopefully that will mean that we have some sort of priority and someone can get out here early on Monday. If not by mid day it's going to be right toasty in here. :(

I did leave a message with their voice mail, but no telling how many calls might be in front of me.

At least this didn't happen Friday night as usually happens with stuff like that. Even with the warranty, they still charge by the hour ($100 per hour) for after hours emergency service.

Sure seems like one thing after another. I guess this is why people will rent instead of owning their own home. After a while just fixing things that break down gets pretty old.
 
Sounds like low on freon. Coils could be clogged up too. Hopefully they get out first thing.
 
We had preventative maintenance done on the unit on 08/15, so I would think that the guy would have caught either situation. I didn't want to pull the panel off on the air handler up in the attic because it is still 100 degrees up there. But when the attic temps drop down I will shut off the compressor and just run the fan, in case it did ice up in there. Seems to me that with the fan blowing out air that is 83.5 degrees, that any ice inside there would melt, though. It is moving air, so I would think that ice in a 100 degree attic would be hard pressed to keep from melting. I checked the pan and it was bone dry, yet the drain pipe outside was dripping condensation when I checked it earlier. Beats me. The warranty is parts and labor, so I just hope they can get out here quickly when business hours begin for them.

I took a screen capture of the inside temps as well as the temps up in the attic (sensor 2). I would think that either low freon or a clogged coil would show a gradual reduction in cooling in the home. The chart shows an apparent failure that happened just today.

Probably going to be uncomfortable sleeping tonight. Humidity overnight is hitting 96 to 97 percent overnight, so opening the window would likely only makes things much worse. At least it's not like we lost power and can at least run fans to move around the warm air.

Does anything ever fail first thing in the morning during regular business hours?
 

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AC guy is supposed to be out here this afternoon. Any time between noon and 5 pm.

Last night wasn't too bad. The recirculating fan in the heat pump/AC system doesn't have all that much oomph, so I put on the AC to get more air flow, even though it seemed to just be moving air around. But it was cooler than ambient temp in the house.

I shut down the AC this morning around 11 when the air that was coming out of the vents got warmer than ambient air. Right now the temp inside is 82.6 degrees. Outside it's 92.1 degrees, so no sense opening the windows even if the humidity wouldn't be an issue. Temp up in the attic is 102.7 degrees, so hopefully the AC guy won't have to spend much, if any, time up there. It got up to over 120 degrees up there yesterday.

Probably will be shutting off the computers, as they are definitely heat producers. Might be a good time to take a siesta until the phone rings with the AC guy saying he is on the way. :)
 
Just being down a 1/2 pound can be a lot on a 90 degree day. Hopefully easy and fast fix. Could be several things. Some cheap and easy and some not. Could be compressor run capacitor is bad. Most unit's have one that does fan and compressor. Usually rated 5 (fan) and 35 (compressor) Those are usually $20.00

I know at work, nothing ever breaks between 5:30 am and 1:30 pm. Then I usually get a call between 8pm and 10pm saying, about 3 hours ago......

I had a/c for jail go down. Ended up being fan wire rub coating off and wire was touching metal. No.1 fan would start, stop and reverse! Happened so fast I thought it was just other fan motor causing bad fan to turn backwards. Unhooked wiring to compressors and turned back on. No.1 fast was blowing hot air into coils. Luckily finding short and fixing did the trick because it was Saturday night and no way to get another fan till Monday.

Weds night just hours before court on Thursday I had contactor go bad on court unit. Luckily only 75 for high so I just used contactor for second stage compressor and disabled it.

Last night I got called in because S1 inner door would not shut which disables door S2. I said can you just get by with N1 and N2 till morning? No (why I don't know) I came in and one of the screw heads popped off and when door shut it stuck to inner jamb. Took my hand and knocked broken head to the floor. Said, Well was that worth $180.00 in over time? I get min 3 hours OT when called in.

Be interesting to see what you have going on Rich.
 
Well, in a way you were correct. Low on freon. Actually OUT of freon. A joint in the copper tubing near the compressor had popped a hole in it somehow and all the freon just blew out. The AC guy found it by pressurizing the system with nitrogen and you could actually feel the pressurized gas blowing out of the hole in the joint. He silver soldered it up, checked the work for leaks, purged the system of air with a vacuum unit, recharged the system and we are good now.

I had to shut off the ceiling fans we had running because I was beginning to feel a bit chilly.

Luckily no broken parts that needed to be ordered. I thought for sure something would need to be ordered and they would be telling me it won't show up for two weeks. :ack2: I guess Connie and I would be taking a trip somewhere for a couple of weeks.

So all is well now. I feel like we have been brought back to civilization. By 4:20 pm it had gotten up to 86.4 degrees inside the house before the fix was done and temps started ratcheting downwards. It's down to 80.1 degrees right now, which is where we normally like it to be during the day.
 
Yep out of doesn't cool well either! lol. It sounded like you were getting some cooling that's why I thought low. Glad your back to the comfort zone. I keep mine at 72. Course I don't have 9 months of warm weather up here to thin blood. I need cool!
 
Yeah, we definitely have "Florida blood" now. Temps in the 50s feel well below freezing to us. Before we moved down here, Connie and I camped out a couple of times in the late fall, and temps got pretty chilly at night in that tent. But it wasn't all that uncomfortable. Now, heck, we would get frostbite.

We had planned a trip for a week out to Colorado this past Spring, but cancelled out at the last minute. Good thing, too. Temps barely cracked 50 degrees each day, and they had snow showers nearly continuously that entire week we would have been out there. Would have been a miserable time for us.

But that sort of thing seems to be par for the course any time we plan on making a trip somewhere. Matter of fact, if we plan on going somewhere, it is pretty much a given that some sort of disaster or unpleasantness will strike there. We're actually getting rather paranoid about it. As an example, we had planned on going to Colorado the previous Fall. Remember all the fires they had out there then? That Spring trip was actually PLAN B.

We would like to go out to Yellowstone, but with all that talk of the super volcano maybe erupting, we don't dare plan on it. We sure as heck don't want to be the trigger for that.
 
The only thing I have really thought about doing is Amtrak to Grand Canyon. They have package deal with 3 nights in hotel at Grand Canyon, Coach accommodations. No driving, no traffic. I can even pick up train a 1/4 mile from my house to Chicago where Canyon trip starts.
 
Wouldn't mind seeing the Grand Canyon that way. Do you have a link I can take a look at to see if that have an origination point anywhere near north Florida?

One of the highlights in the Colorado trip we were looking forward to was a train ride along one of the old mining routes between Durango and Silverton.

https://www.durangotrain.com/

But I think the only way we are going to be able to make such a trip is to sneak up on it and plan on leaving like TOMORROW. Not give Murphy's Law any time to make it's own plans to wreck ours.
 
Thanks for the link.

Doesn't appear to be any Amtrak stations real close to Tallahassee that I have been able to find. And I sure as heck am not much inclined to drive into Chicago. We did a show once or twice in that area, and the trip through the surrounding area was rather depressing. We had to stop for the night halfway through, and I believe I slept with my hand touching my CCW gun. It was something like a 22 hour drive, if I remember correctly.

There is Amtrak service out of Mobile, AL, but it appears to be bus service. :ack2:

I'll have to look closer later on. Might have to think about driving somewhere out west that we would want to visit anyway, and try to catch such a train excursion out of there.

Wish things weren't so darn complicated. Takes the wind out of my sails for things like this when the details start getting in the way.
 
I know they have a stop in Orlando (Sanford). They have an Orlando to DC in which you can load your car up for $89.
Yes it is very confusing. I told wife it would probably be best to visit with a travel agent to get best deals. They have I believe 15% off for seniors 60 and over.

I do know from friends wife who goes to Milwaukee to visit family 2 or 3 times a year by amtrack and has lay over in Chicago. Said very clean with security.
 
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