Baseboard Hot Water Heat Diverter

We have baseboard hot water heat.  In the baby's room his bureau obstructs nearly half of the baseboard heaters in the room.  Since the bureau is topped with bookshelves, it traps the heat against the outside wall.  Typically its not an issue, but in the dead of winter when the temp drops below 30 and goes far lower at night, his room can get to five or six degrees colder than the rest of the floor.

Rather than move the bureau which would mess up the decor and flow of the room, I decided to divert the heat from behind the bureau into the room.

I made an assembly out of some Reflectix insulation I had lying around, using computer fans, and a temperature controller.  The assembly sits on top of the heater behind the bureau suspended by 6 command hooks.  The temperature controller is set to go on at 75 degrees, with the sensor placed inside the baseboard heater.  So very quickly after the heat goes on, the fans start spinning to move warm air from the heater, around the bureau, and out into the room.  A nice feature of this setup is that the fans continue to spin until the temperature at the baseboard returns down to 75 degrees, so long after the heater turns off, the diverter continues to blow warm air into the room.

Results were good.  After 30 minutes the room is 28% warmer using the diverter than without it.  In the middle of a cold night, the room is generally not more than 2 degrees colder than the rest of the house.  When the heat comes on, it heats quicker, and stays warmer for a longer period of time.

Materials:

• Reflectix Insulation
• Duct or foil tape
• Computer fans (I used 3ea 120mm)
• 12V power supply
• 12V molex extensions
• Inkbird ITC-308 temperature controller
• Zip ties or elastic cord (1/8" shock cord)

1. Measure how long the piece of furniture is that you want to divert heat around
2. Cut a piece of Reflectix long enough to pass along the length of heater you wish to divert.
3. Form the Reflectix into a U shape for the length of the heater
4. Fit the computer fans into the Reflectix and secure by cutting holes or slats in the sides of the Reflectix and securing by wrapping around with the zip ties or elastic cord
5. Daisy chain the fans to each other using the Molex extensions
6. Create a mating piece of tube made of of Reflectix to wrap around, or go underneath the furniture, exhausting into the room
7. Connect the one of the fans to the 12V power supply
8. Connect the 12V power supply to the Inkbird controller
9. Set the Inkbird controller to come on 5 degrees warmer than your highest thermostat setting

There are a number of variations that could be done.  If you didn't have Reflectix you could potentially fix the fans directly above the heater and fit a piece of cardboard on top moving the air over the heater and around the furniture.  Instead of cardboard you could use plastic gutter.  You could use aluminum dryer ducting to go around the furniture.  

I also used 120mm computer fans, but think 90mm may be better for a lower profile or to mate with aluminum dryer ducting.

Soften Sunbutter

Today we live in a world of allergies and the one that affects kids the most is peanuts.  No more delicious peanut butter and jelly or fluffer-nutter sandwiches at lunch, or your child is likely relegated to a "special" table, despite being in the majority of non-allergic kids.

There are numerous products to get around the peanut butter problem, and one of the most popular is Sunbutter.

Unfortunately Sunbutter is not very spreadable, even the creamy type.  And you can forget about it if you put it in the refrigerator, which I'm sure some of you do.

Fortunately there is a way to soften it up, you can microwave it.

Now you may have tried this and found that Sunbutter is microwave resistant, meaning it takes a long time to get results softening.

The trick is add water. 

1. Just add a little water to coat the bottom of your microwave safe container and put a dollop of Sunbutter on top. 
2. Microwave 30 seconds.
3. Drain excess liquid.
4. Spread!

Soften Dry Bread for Sandwiches

Sometimes when you get a loaf of bread, it's very dry.  This seems to happen more often with the expensive organic wheat or multi-grain loaves.

Dry bread can be off-putting to the little ones.

Fortunately there is an easy solution which will soften the bread. Once you are finished  you put it in the sandwich bag or container soon after, the bread will stay soft until they eat it for lunch.

To soften dry bread:

1. Take a paper towel and run some water over it to make it damp.
2. Wrap the paper towel around the bread.
3. Microwave on high for 10-15 seconds.

Breaking in Jeans with a Tri-Acid Wash

I received a pair of LL Bean Double L jeans for Christmas.  It's my first pair from Bean and they are a nice heavyweight material good for daily wear.  A negative to the heavy denim is that it was rather stiff.  I turned to the internet to search for ways to soften them up quickly.  There are plenty of articles on how to break in a pair of jeans.
I settled on a vinegar soak and wash followed by extended drying with tennis balls.  Of course this was too simple.  I didn't want to go the extra step to beat them with a bat or run them over with a car in the filthy New England winter.  So what could I do?
If the main acting agent in vinegar was acid, wouldn't more acid be better?  Well its worth a shot, instead of one acid I decided to use three.  Vinegar = acetic acid, Barkeepers Friend = oxalic acid, and pure citric acid.
A soak, acid wash, regular wash, and two dry cycles produced softer jeans with little to no fading on the dark wash jeans.  I did the process with the jeans inside out and the inside surfaces seemed to be softer than the outside indicating that the beating in the dryer had a bigger effect on the exposed surface.  I think repeating the dry cycles with the jeans normal side out would make the outside softer as well, and I might take the extra step next time I have some time.
Another good thing about the LL Bean Jeans is that they are affordable and it emboldened me to take a chance on the multiple acids.


Materials:

• Tennis Balls
• Dryer Balls
• Aluminum foil balls
• 1 Gallon White Vinegar (acetic acid)
• 1 TBS Barkeepers friend (oxalic acid)
• 1/4C Lemishine (citric acid)
• Laundry detergent (I used Woolite dark)

Process:

1. Soak the jeans in warm to hot water mixed with a half gallon of vinegar that just covers the jeans.
2. Dump the jeans and solution into the washer (most washing machines will drain prior to starting anyway)
3. Fill the pre-wash, main wash, and fabric softener dispensers with vinegar.
4. Add the Bar Keepers Friend and Lemishine. I put them on the bottom of the washer not touching the jeans.
5. Run the longest pre-soad/wash combination cycle that you have with warm water.
6. Add small amount of detergent to main wash, vinegar to fabric softener dispenser and run another wash cycle.
7. Put the jeans in the dryer with tennis balls (I used 4), dryer balls (I used 3), and aluminum foil balls (I used 2). You probably don't need the variety of balls, the point is to put a bunch in there. A half dozen of one kind or assorted should do it.  I just happened to have them all on hand. Note that the drying is going to be loud with all those balls in there.
8. Run dryer on low heat for longest cycle (mine was 1:50)
9. Repeat drying cycle 1 or more times as fits your schedule, on the second and subsequent you can switch to just air tumble (I ran them twice for a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes)
10. Enjoy your now softer jeans.

Bonus: All that acid does a great job of cleaning your washer, especially when you have a front loader.

Keeping Wooden Train Track in Place - 1 Year Follow Up

Just a quick note updating the command strip + wooden track project.

1 year later and everything still in place.  No movement of any piece.  Amazingly the kids haven't even pulled any of the taps out.

I highly recommend this method to hold a wooden train track in place.

I'm planning on building an inclined drag race table for an upcoming birthday party soon and plan on using this method again.

Mellisa and Doug Wooden Box Lids

The kids received several Melissa and Doug stamp kits as gifts over the holidays.
Each kit came in a small wooden box with dividers.
They are great for storage as long as you keep them upright. The problem is that they are open top boxes and come shrink wrapped in plastic, missing a key feature... a lid.

This drove me nuts so I decided to remedy the situation.

The result was a see through plastic lid secure enough to invert the kit without losing everything, yet still simple enough for a 2 year old to open.

All it took was about $5 in materials and 10 min of time.

Tools:

• Clamps (or tape) 
• Straight edge metal ruler (a guide) 
• Plastic cutter 
• Pliers
• Materials:
• Magnetic Tape 
• Clear acrylic panel
• Sandpaper, file, or concrete
• Sharpie Marker

Steps:

1.  Put the wood box on the panel and mark off the two sides to cut.
2. Clamp the guide to the panel (or tape it)
3. Score the line against the guide with the plastic cutter, repeat 10 times
    (a flat head screwdriver or any sharp pointed object that will scratch plastic will work)
4. Put the plastic on the edge of a table and snap off the edge
5. Repeat for the second edge
6. If you don't get a clean break you can use the pliers to snap off any jagged edges
7. Remove any sharp edges with sandpaper, a file, or by rubbing against a rough hard surface like concrete or brick
8. Affix a section of magnetic tape to the box. (my tape was too wide so I cut it in half lengthwise)
9. Cut a matching size piece and stick it to the one on the box. This is important to make sure that the pieces are in the correct orientation to attract and not oppose.
10. Repeat on all four sides
11. Remove the adhesive backs to the top magnets
12. Align and place down the plastic panel on top of the magnets
13. Use the sharpie to make a dot on one corner of the box and also matching on the plastic cover. This will make sure you put it back on in the correct orientation and will have no issues with the magnet orientation causing them to oppose and not secure.