Why most customer support organizations would like to strangle their engineering teams, part 77,432...

Why most customer support organizations would like to strangle their engineering teams, part 77,432...  This morning we received an electric heater that we bought to warm up our sun room in the winter.  The room is built with double-pane glass, but there's no heat to it, so the cold seeps in anyway.  We got one that resembles a wood-burning stove, complete with “flames” and glowing embers.  The photo at right is the store photo of the model we got.

Naturally, it was a kit, though it was an easy one: I just had to screw 12 screws into the four short legs.  I put it on its legs, turned the power switch on in the back, and started test it.  I could turn the front-panel power button on and off, control the timer function, and adjust the brightness of the fake flames and embers – but when I tried to set the temperature, I just got an “E3” in the numeric display.  I figured that was an error code, so I read the manual from front-to-back trying to find it.  No luck.  Then I called the manufacturer's service number (to their credit, prominently written on the manual) and got a recording saying they'd get back to me within a day.  I left the requested message and figured I'd be lucky if I heard from them within a week, given the season.

But an hour later, the phone rang and a friendly lady named Jolanda asked me what was going on.  I described the issue to her, and she said “Oh, you have the interlock switch on - you need to turn it off.”  I had not seen any interlock switch, nor did the manual mention one at all.  I did find a “heater enable” switch, and I had turned that on.  I told Jolanda that, and she said that that was the interlock switch, and it needed to be off, not on.  Huh?  You can see the switch and label on my unit in the photo at left.  Does that look to you as though you need the switch to be in the off position in order for it to work?  One can only imagine how many calls their poor customer support people are getting!  And all because some disconnected-from-any-sense-of-reality engineer decided that turning a switch on should turn the heater off.  I asked Jolanda if this “feature” was limited to this model, and she said “Oh, no, sir - all our heaters are made this way!”  You could cut her contempt for engineering with a knife.  I decided it would be better not to let her know that I was a retired engineer. :)

Pearl Harbor Day...

Pearl Harbor Day...  75 years ago today the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  Over 2,000 Americans were killed, and more than 1,000 wounded.  The attack led directly to the American entry into WWII, both in Europe and in the Pacific.

A few days ago I read that amongst Americans under 40 years old, less than one in ten can identify the nations that were the attacker and defender in the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Less than half of those could place the event in the correct century, and only half of those in the correct decade.  Sometimes I'm a bit relieved to know I won't be around when that crowd is in control...

Paradise ponders, snowy future edition...

Paradise ponders, snowy future edition...  Check out our ten day forecast at right (click to embiggen).  All that purple area represents periods with a significant chance of snow.  If we were to hit the maximums on the snow forecasts, we'd have 26" of snow on the ground.  Yikes!

I did a bit of electrical work on the mud room yesterday, including the only challenging bits remaining (locating the holes I'd cut into the OSB sheathing before wall board was put up).  I've got a half hour or so to do today, and then the mud room is completely finished and ready for the cabinet maker to get started.  Woo hoo!  Well, come to think of it, that's not quite true.  On the outside of the mud room I have yet to mount a doorbell switch and the house numbers.  Next spring, when the ground becomes workable again, we'll be putting in a walkway to the driveway, putting stone over the concrete porch, and mounting railings.  So probably I should say the mud room is now usable.  Still a huge milestone for us!

Yesterday we had a load of firewood delivered, the first firewood we've actually purchased up here.  This is because we now have an actually working fireplace that we are using on a near-daily basis, and we've run through all the split firewood our neighbors gave us.  Also I wanted to get hardwood instead of the (mainly) softwoods we've been burning; it burns cleaner and hotter.  So I located a source, and he delivered his last available load of hardwood yesterday.  It's about 2/3 of a full cord, nicely cut to 16" or shorter, and split in a nice mix of sizes.  It's all dry, and best of all, it's all a mix of species: black walnut, black locust, oak, maple, ash, plum, apple, Chinese elm, and some others I can't identify.  I feel guilty burning some of this stuff, as it's gorgeous.  In fact, I've asked the vendor to save me some full logs (not split) for turning on the lathe next year.  He gets all this wood from the tree trimming he does, so it's all from people's yards within about a 50 mile radius.

We had our first fire with this wood yesterday evening, and it was all we'd hoped for: five piece of wood burned like a blast furnace for six hours; our heater didn't run at all in that time.  The recirculating hot-air system in our fireplace works great with such a hot fire.  One thing I didn't really anticipate: the hardwood smells good when its burning.  So far the plum wood is my favorite for the aroma.