SkyBell HD Wi-Fi Video Doorbell - installation and upgrade from an old central intecom system

When I moved into my current house, it had a vintage central intercom system, with yellowed plastic intdoor speakers, yellowed plastic outdoor speakers, and an archaic esthetic. We immediately pulled out the system components, drywalled over the cutouts in the interior walls, and I was left with two very ugly metal boxes in the brick at my front and back door.

Here's the Skybell HD Video Doorbell Completed Installation over top of  the old Intercom Connection Box, using a custome made Aluminum Adapter Plate

A bit of research lead me to the Wifi enabled video doorbells - very simple, they connect to your Wifi router, and ring your smartphone and interior door chime whenever someone rings at the door, and provides live video of the person at the door. In addition, you can use the internal speaker and microphone to speak with the person at your door - even from a distance away from your home.

Vintage Nutone Door Speaker and Connection Box - Don't forget to cut the power to your doorbell circuit before working with these wires.Unscrew, Remove the Wires

A Nutone Intercom Connection Box is 4 3/8" Wide and made of Steel

A Nutone Intercom Connection Box is 5 7/8" Tall

A Nutone Intercom Connection Box has "Model IR-6" Stamped on the right side of the Box

The first step was removing the old Nutone intercom speaker. 2 screws, and I took note that the orange pair of wires in my installation was used for the 17VAC doorbell switch circuit. By connecting the SkyBell HD Wifi Video Doorbell to your existing doorbell switch wires powered by an internal transformer, the SkyBell HD will keep itself charged, and pressing the button on the SkyBell HD will sound the doorbell in your house. Something to note here however - the SkyBell HD will not ring the door chime if you have kept your indoor intercom speaker system - you also have to retrofit a normal door chime in your house.

I started by making a blank cover plate to fit over the old intercom connection box, countersinking the holes for the screws for a neat installation using a metal punch.

The SkyBell HD is smaller and more compact than the Nutone Speaker unit. This caused an issue in my installation because the Nutone was installed in a custom installation box - set into my masonry. I decided to create an aluminum cover plate to hide the old box, and create a flat surface for installing the SkyBell HD.

I then removed the cover plate - and marked the SkyBell HD adapter plate holes on the Aluminum Adapter plate, and used a center punch to mark the hole centers for accurate drilling.

The SkyBell HD Video Doorbell adapter plate is smaller than the Nutone Speaker installation Box, so an adapter plate is required. I cut a rectangle 4 3/8" wide by 5 7/8" tall to cover the old Nutone connection box in the wall. (UPDATE - I now have some of these aluminum plates for sale on eBay in various colors due to popular request from this blog posting - at this link to eBay item number 182895008966.)

In the center of the plate, I punched an 8mm hole to fit a 6mm (1/4") grommet, to protect the intercom wires from the sharp edges of the Aluminum adapter plate. I then installed the SkyBell HD backing plate to the aluminum adapter plate, fixed with flat head screws.

I then reinstalled the Aluminum Adapter Plate over the old Nutone Intercom connection box, isolated the correct pair of wires running downstairs to the transformer, and...

...stripped the ends of the wired, and installed the wires under the power connection screws on the base plate. 

From this point it was relatively simple to install the SkyBell HD. Just clip the Skybell HD onto the SkyBell installation plate, snap down and tighten the hold down screw at the bottom of the doorbell.

The SkyBell HD Wifi Video Doorbell installed. Now it's time to reconnect the power...

Now that all was installed, it was time to reconnect the power to the SkyBell HD by turning the breaker back on for the doorbell transformer. Once you reconnect power, the SkyBell HD will flash various color codes to communicate what it's doing. Now is the time to install the SkyBell HD app on your smartphone, and run through the Wifi configuration sequence. That's pretty simple, just follow the sequence on your app until all is installed.

Screenshot of the Skybell HD Wifi Video Doorbell Setup Procedure on an iPhone

Screenshot of a video call to the Skybell HD video doorbell installed at the side door of the house. Impressive angle of view and picture quality.

Once configured, you can test the doorbell button. You normal doorbell should sound inside the house, plus you'll hear the distinctive chime of the SkyBell HD Video Doorbell. Some have complained that the SkyBell HD may have a hard time reaching a good wifi signal when installed at your front door - this hasn't been the case in my installation - I've got a great signal.

With the SkyBell HD app installed on your smartphone and/or tablet- ringing the SkyBell HD doorbell switch initiates a video call with your smartphone or tablet. On the smartphone you get a notification on the home screen, and the video application launches so that you can see who is at your front door. You can decide whether to accept or reject a call to talk to whoever is at the front door - and this feature is available anywhere you have internet connection with your smartphone or tablet. Very cool.

I also have a Ring Video Doorbell installed at the front of the house, and have tried out a few different Ring Video Doorbell models. If I get a bit of spare time, I'll do a quick post comparing the various. Wifi doorbells that I've tested. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions.

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Ikea Kitchen Cabinets for Garage Organization - Vertical Wall Cabinet for Skis and Thule Racks

One of the things that was sorely lacking in the new house was any form of garage organization - just a huge, empty, 40 x 18 x 10 foot box.

Next to no organization - piles of boxes and a big open mess.

I did a bunch of research, and looked at the garage storage systems in the big box home improvement stores. My impression of the systems offerred, both in metal and in melamine - was typically of mediocre quality, and a lack of flexibility. Typically, only one or two base cabinets and tall cabinets were offerred, so getting a good fit with my space would be difficult or impossible.

Then I went to Ikea and checked out the Akurum kitchen cabinet system. Here - lots of choice in base cabinets, wall cabinets and tall cabinets. Lots of widths, height, door and drawer combinations. In essence - exactly what I was looking for - full flexibility to implement a storage design taking into account my space available. (Note - I understand that the Ikea Akurum system will be replaced in 2015 by a new kitchen cabinet system - Sektion - but that shouldn't change the principles of implementing a similar solution in your garage).

Here's my post on the Akurum cabinet installation. 

Here's a photo of the completed tall cabinet - loaded with racks and gear:

Completed Cabinet Installation - Perfect for Skis, Hockey Sticks, Thule Rack Bars

Empty wall - ready for cabinets.... I had been wondering what I could do with this space between the mandoor and garage door.

Bare corner ready for cabinet installation. I had to move an alarm motion sensor up to clear the cabinet installation. 

In order to fit the cabinet - it was a tight squeeze - I had to use the router to remove some material from one side of the cabinet - to clear the ceramic tile installed on the bottom 2 feet of the wall in my installation. Note the plastic levelling feet used - makes installation a breeze.

A router removed some material from the side surface of the
 cabinet to clear my ceramic tile on the lower part of my garage walls. 

A wall mounted plywood strip compensates for the thickness of the ceramic tile on the wall at the bottom. The metal hanging bracket ensures a solid installation - very simple and straighforward to hang the cabinet on the wall.

Plywood spacer and wall bracket for securing the top of the cabinet. You can also see the alarm sensor wire has been extended. 

Adding boxes to the initial wall cabinet. Levelling is quick and easy with the plastic cabinet feet.

Box installed, waiting for cabinet doors

Once all the wall cabinets are installed, its time for some doors and drawers. I went for the soft close hinges and drawer slides - makes for a polished installation. I also installed a second cabinet door with extra height to hide items placed on top of the cabinet. This space is perfect for wheel holders.

Top door - extra height to help hide items placed on top of the cabinet.

Door installation - checking the height of the shelf with my longest set of skis.

One tip for making the whole process go quicker - use an air powered trim nailer - brad nailer for tacking the back panels of the cabinets to the cabinet frames - this really speeds up the slowest part of the whole operation.

I also added some velcro ties to help store poles and accessories.

Velcro tie - held down with a wood screw and washer.

Pefect for holding ski poles.

Completed installation with the door closed. 

After about 15 months - this setup is still rock solid and very practical. I can't imaging working without it now.

Final touch - was installing a second garage door remote on the side of the cabinet for convenience. I ran all the wires in surface mount wiring channels - to hide the wires and neaten the installation.

Garage Door Control installed on the side of the cabinet

Door sensor installed - wiring channels hide bare wires.

Organization of the Thule Rack Parts

Conclusion

This was a super upgrade. When ever I need to rack up the car - my racks are right near the garage door - no running around and digging up rack components. The skis are also right by the garage door - just open the garage door - throw the skis in the car - and off to the hill. Excellent upgrade and time saver, helps the garage look neat. 

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States. Cabinets are available at Ikea - in person or online.

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Workbench Task Lighting using Armacost LED Strip Lighting

It's been a busy summer - I haven't had much time for posting - so I figured I would get back into the game with a pretty simple one. I wrote earlier about my garage organization project using Ikea kitchen cabinets - full height wall cabinets, combined with upper wall cabinets above my table saw, mini fridge and mini freezer. You can check out that post here. 

Completed Installation - LED Strip Lights underneath wall cabinets, lighting work surface / freezer

The table saw and freezer make a pretty handy worktable when I'm not using the table saw. I thought I would add some task lighting over the table saw, and decided to try out Lee Valley Tools new LED strip lighting kits. They have all kinds of options - white or mulicoloured LEDs with various LED spacing for different intensities, and transformers of various capacities to match the current requirements of the installed LEDs. They also have some dimmers, switches to round out the installation. I made my lighting plan, decided to go with white LEDs with a one LED every 1/2 inch spacing (high intensity) and the appropriate transformer.

Power Supply Mounted in the Wall Cabinet - with all my tool chargers

The LED light strips are high quality - you can select between two different white colors - warm or natural white - and the light strips come with a 3M adhesive backing to apply directly to the application surface. I decided to go with the natural white in the garage, and the light is bright and clear - perfect for task lighting. Prior to application of the light strips, I used a bit of brake cleaner on a rag to clean off the melamine lower surface of the Ikea cabinets - just to ensure I would get good adhesion. This worked fine - 18 months following installation the LED strips haven't moved or delaminated.

The Lee Valley Kit comes with connectors to allow you to cut the strips to custom length

I decided to control the light strip 30W transformer with an Insteon switch for automation control, and installed the switch and a two plug outlet in a 4" junction box using a twin outlet cover plate. This way, I got 2 electrical outlets above the table saw. I mounted the transformer inside the Ikea cabinet on the plywood board I installed for all my cordless tool chargers.

Surface Mount Junction Box with Switch Adapter Cover Plate, Insteon Control Switch, and Power Outlet

Conclusion

The Lee Valley LED light kits are top quality, very versatile with many options. I have above average confidence that if I need to repair or modify this installation, I'll be able to get parts or components from Lee Valley in the future. The finished installation is neat and professional looking, the light quality is very good and suited for the application. All in all - very satisfied with this product.

Light thrown from completed installation.

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. The Armacost lighting components were sources from Lee Valley Tools.

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Troubleshooting Central Vacuum Suction Issues - Old Nutone CV-400 Power Unit and Upgrade to Cana-Vac

It's been a while since my last post - life has been flying by at a rapid pace - and I'd like to post how I verified my central vac performance and resolved the suction issue.

30 year old house, central vacuum was installed at construction, and when we moved into the house about 6 years ago - one of the repairs I had to do was to repair broken or unglued central vac piping that was accessible in the basement. The other thing I did at that time was move the central vac to a corner of the basement utilty room to get it out of the way. Once I repaired the piping issues - the central vac cleaned up about a pound of sand and grit that was lining the bottom of the central vac piping - and the system was serviceable.

In the past year however, it was clear that the central vac wasn't performing well - it couldn't pick small pebbles off the floor, and it really wasn't dealing with the dog hair all that well. I did some internet research - looked at my options - and the first thing I decided to do was to baseline the suction performance before doing any repairs - so I would have some data to show whether my repairs did any good.

I rigged up a suction test using a plastic shop vac adapter, some duct tape, and a vacuum gauge that I had in the garage for tuning dual carburetor motorcycles:

Shop Vac Tool Adapter - Opening Covered in Duct Tape - Vacuum Hose to Vacuum Gauge

Vacuum Gauge Hooked up to the Central Vacuum Port

Vacuum Gauge - Reading approximately 35mm Hg

35mmHg converts to about 19 inches of water column suction. Comparing that to specifications of new vacuum cleaners - new machines are rated to pull up to 110 inches of water column - so my system was performing at about 20% of a new machine. No wonder it was struggling.

The next step was to remove the Central Vac from the installation - so that I could get the covers off and inspect it - and once I had the central vac removed - I installed my Shop Vac on the piping system to check to see if I could remove any debris from the vacuum lines and improve the suction at the test port.

Install Shop Vac on Central Vacuum Piping to Test Vacuum Lines

This worked quite well - the Shop Vac was able to triple the suction at the test port - and I got to about 60 inches of water column. I think I was able to clean some debris from the suction lines as well - I tested each port in the house - however I don't think that I had any fully clogged lines that would have accounted for the poor Central Vac performance. One thing about this test - the Shop Vac worked quite well as a power unit for the Central Vacuum piping - you could probably do this in a pinch without the installation of a proper Central Vacuum power unit.

Inspecting the Motors of the Central Vac Unit

Next step was to remove the top cover of the Nutone CV-400 power unit to check motor brushes and the air pathways. I powered up the unit with the top cover off (you have to take care - there is live 120V AC in this compartment of the central vac - to inspect the running of the brushes. One motor was giving quite large blue sparks at the brushes - which seemed to be an indication that the brushes were finished. I also removed the motors from the installation and found that one motor inlet was almost completely blocked by a piece of plastic that had worked it's way by the bag filter at some point - which certainly would have impacted performance.

I then started looking for motor parts - brushes - for these two Lamb motors. The only numbers marked on the motors were these green letters on the vacuum housing. And guess what - no motor nameplate, no motor part number, and no part numbers on the brushes. No way to identify which motors these were, no simple way to order the replacement brushes online to make a repair with the confidence I would get the right parts. 

Casting numbers for the metal vacuum housings - these are not motor part numbers

Not cool - not putting part numbers on these motors / brushes - certainly not a way to support sustainable development and the ability to repair your appliances instead of replacing them. At this point - my option would have been to take the unit to a repair shop that would be able to identify the motors and make the repairs. When I assessed the time and cost of doing that - I decided to replace the central vac with a completely new power unit. I did some research on suction and performance - there is a liability with running two motors in parallel as this central vacuum is configured - you get much better performance with a single larger motor with a vacuum impellor of larger diamater, so I decided to go with a new, single motor, tangential bypass power unit made by CanaVac.

New Central Vac Power Unit by Cana-Vac

Measuring the suction at my test port - I was up to close to 100 inches of water column - a five times improvement in suction - and the performance increase was substantial at the end of the hose. This has turned out to be a great performance upgrade - although - I was disappointed that I couldn't repair the original vacuum but I figured that even once repaired it still wouldn't have great performance - it would have been limited by the sub-par performance of the smaller parallel motors.

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions.

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Installing the Rain Machine Internet Connected Smart Irrigation Controller

I finally got around to replacing my 25 year old analog Toro irrigation controller. I have to say - this Toro controller was built like a tank - still functioning perfectly after 25 years - but limited by the functionality developed at the time.

Rain Machine - Completed Installation

Here's a photo of the Toro that I replaced:

Toro Analog Irrigation Controller

The rationale for replacing the Toro controller was to have multiple watering programs for different phases of lawn care during the year - for example - a soaking program following fertilizer or nemotode treatments, programs to water under the large shade trees which don't receive a lot of rain water when the leaves are on the tree, spring and summer watering programs, etc. The advantage of the Rain Machine is that you can create these programs, and enable, disable or schedule them as required, all from your smart phone or tablet. You can also have multiple programs enabled concurrently - which is useful for watering flowerbeds on a different schedule than watering your lawn.

The Rain Machine was quite simple to install. I began by labelling all the wires attached to the Toro controller prior to removing the Toro. There was a few peculiar wiring characteristics worth mentioning. The rain sensor in my system was simply an interrupt switch on the common circuit - so I had to identify the two wires going to the rain sensor which wouldn't be used with the Rain Machine - the Rain Machine uses weather forecasting and rainfall data to modify watering based on internet weather data. The rain sensor is not required (and in my case, was not functioning anyway). 

Once I began installation of the Rain Machine - I immediately ran into a problem. The wiring connections on the Rain Machine are TINY - the manual specifies it will take wire from 14 to 22 gauge - but it was impossible to install the wiring from my system directly to the Rain Machine connections - my wiring was stranded 12 or 14 guage wire - and it wasn't possible to get them installed security. So - I ended up crimping on short pigtails of 18 gauge stranded wire to be able to make the connections securely. 

Installation of 18 gauge pigtails to my irrigation cabling, to permit secure connections to the connection blocks

18 gauge pigtails to facilitate connections to the tight terminal blocks on the Rain Machine

Once the wiring was completed - there was a second problem - it looked horrible, and there was no way to install cable relief to prevent the wires from being pulled out of the connection blocks. If you compare this to the Toro irrigation controller, which had a large cavity for making the connections, complete with a cable grommet to secure the field wiring and prevent it from being pulled out of the connection blocks. 

Not a pretty installation - no place to hide the cables inside the Rain Machine. 

In order to neaten the installation - I used a short length of plastic cable channel used in automation panel cabling - to tuck the wires and help prevent them from physical damage / snagging / pulling from the connection blocks.

Plastic cable channel for hiding field wiring

Once this was done - I also tucked the power cable from the power brick into the cable channel, and covered the channel to completely hide the wiring. 

Cover on the cable channel

What would be my constructive criticism to Rain Machine to facilitate installation? Larger cable termination block, wider spaced terminals to accept larger gauge field wiring, and some form of cable management for neater field installations. You can see that they've put an emphasis on the industrial design of this unit, and made it as small as possible. This seems to sacrifice the practicality of installation, however.

Conclusion

How does the Rain Machine work in practice? Quite well - the smartphone / tablet app works very well, intuitive - quick to run individual zones, easy to set programs, run multiple programs at a time, disable programs without deleting them so that you can keep them from season to season, and nice to see the watering history and weather history, and the adaptation of watering times based on the weather and rainfall history. I haven't had a chance to check on Alexa integration yet, will update the post when I get the chance.

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions.

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Solving slow clothes drying performance with an inline duct booster fan - Fantech DBF4XL

Since moving into our new house - we've seen our clothes drying times double. The clothes dryer gets very warm, but due to a long duct run to the exterior of the house - airflow is reduced. The duct run is about 30 feet, not including losses due to elbows and fittings. Large loads would take 2 hours to dry.

The Fantech DBF4XL Dryer Booster Fan with Pneumatic Sensing Control

Some research lead to inline dryer duct fans - which improve dryer performance by overcoming the duct loss due to the length of the duct. I have a standard clothes dryer with 4" diameter round ductwork. The ducts were all sheet metal ducts, with only a short length of flexible at the dryer connection, so the ductwork was already optimized by being as smooth and as short as possible to reach the exterior of the house.

Fantech DBF4XL - Serial Number Plate - On the Pneumatic Timer Control Box

I decided to go with a Fantech model with a pneumatic switch that automatically detects the change in air pressure in the dryer duct when the dryer is activiated, then turns on the booster fan in 10 minute timed periods. At the end of the 10 minutes - the booster fan switches itself off - and if the dryer is still operating - the pneumatic control turns the fan back on for another 10 minutes. I found the Fantech DBF4XL on eBay - previously installed but never used - for a good price.

Reading the installation instructions for the fan - they recommend the installation of a secondary lint screen upstream of the fan to help protect the fan from clogging with lint. When I opened my dryer duct - I had plenty of lint in the duct - which indicated that the lint screen in my dryer was passing a lot of lint - more on this later. So - onto eBay where I found a Fantech secondary dryer lint trap for a reasonable price.

Once the secondary lint trap and fan were received, I set to work. My dryer vent line ran through the basement under the first floor where the laundry room is. So - it was a simple matter to cut into the dryer line where it ran under the floor - and duct in the secondary lint trap and the booster fan.

The secondary lint trap has a clear plastic window which helps to show when the filter box needs cleaning. It's a neat looking installation - but would be much more convenient installed directly behind the dryer.

Installing the Fantech Secondary Dryer Lint Trap - Note the Laser Line - Simplifies Lining up the Ductwork

The filter box ending up screwing directly into some wood cross members under the floor - straight through the base of the filter box. Very simple.

Fantech Secondary Dryer Lint Trap - Installing the Filter Box with the Cover Removed - Note the Laser Line

When installing the secondary lint trap and lining up the booster fan - I used a laser level with vertical laser line to line the filter box, fan and ductwork nice and straight - to have a professional looking installation. The laser really facilitates the installation.

Installing a wood block to install the Dryer Duct Booster Fan - Four Tapcon Screws into the Elevated Concrete Slab

Secondary Dryer Lint Filter Upsteam of Dryer Booster Fan

Secondary Lint Filter and Dryer Booster Fan Installed

Very important installation point on the booster fan - the booster fan uses a pneumatic diaphragm switch - the copped colored cylinder in the photo below. The diaphragm needs to be oriented vertically so that gravity does not act on the diaphragm - which would work either for or against the pneumatic pressure and upset the operation of the switch - your switch would either be on all the time, or not activate reliably on duct pressure. It's very simple to rotate the fan on the installation bracket so that the diaphragm is vertical. When installing the bracket - take care not to install the self tapping screws to close to the center of the fan enclosure - you could screw into the fan impellor and block the impellor from turning. It's not as complicated as it sounds - you just need to take care with these points on installation.

Fantech Dryer Booster Fan - Note the Orientation of the Copper Colored Pneumatic Switch - This needs to be oriented vertically for it to work properly.

Conclusion

So - how does it work? Perfectly. It switches on and off automatically as described above. I haven't had any issues with the booster fan turning on when not required, and it recycles automatically in the ten minute intervals without any issue.  The secondary lint filter needs to be cleaned once every two dryer loads on average - which is more frequently than what I hoped. It would have been much more convenient to have the secondary filter installed in the laundry room - for easier cleaning - but this wasn't practical in my installation without adding a lot more ductwork. Something for me to consider in the future.

The dryer cycles have been reduced by almost one half, 2 hour dryer loads now dry in about an hour - and the automatic dry cycles now work reasonably well - before - the automatic dry cycles never got the laundry dry.

4 Year Update

Still working 100% reliably after 4 years - at least 6 laundry loads a week. The secondary lint filter is a MUST - it is amazing how much lint misses the dryer lint trap. Super impressed with the performance and durability of this fan - no problems at all. 

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States.

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