Recent content by KenN

Whatever say, man.  If you think that the statement "To upgrade, you either need to ship the lock back to Schlage or upgrade via Nexia bridge" is false NOW, then maybe explain the steps to perform the firmware upgrade NOW without shipping the locks.   Honestly, I just think the word "false" was...

  So in other words, the statement is still true today, but that may change in the future?  The email I received from Nexia support suggested that only the Nexia bridge may be used, and a post today on the micasa forum states that the upgrade can't be performed via any controller yet, but the...

Fair enough.  I'd thought that the Kwiksets were limited to the 4-digit code.

  The weakness of the Kwiksets (my opinion) is the doubling of digits on the keys, so rather than 10 digits, there are effectively 5.  So the maximum number of possible combinations in a 4-digit code is 5^4=625, where the Schlage allows a full 10^4=10,000 possible codes.  Also FYI, the new BE469...

  Yep, correct.  But with the caveat regarding firmware as noted in my post above.  I found a thread on the micasa forum with 15 pages detailing the struggles with this lock - resolution required firmware upgrade for the micasa as well as for the Schlage lockset.  The new Schlage firmware is...

I got mine from handlesets.com, but they are also available from amazon.com so at least two places for price comparison.  Smarthome (or for me, the Canadian eqiuvalent - Aartech) don't seem to have jumped in yet.

  BE469 is fully motorized and can be remotely actuated.  I think this new deadbolt hit the market around January of this year or so.   http://consumer.schlage.com/Products/Pages/ProductDetails.aspx?ModelNumber=BE469NX%20CAM%20619   Note to anyone considering this unit ... there was a problem...

  Trust me on this one ...   When you're leaving the house, and your wife is yammering orders at you, and the infant kid is screaming, and the toddler is trying to run out the driveway and into the street and your hands are full of crap for your day trip, etc, etc.  It's pretty easy to get into...

   The Schlage BE469 series are motorized.  I have two installed and one on order!  The BE369 and FE599 series are non-motorized.

  I didn't even have to remove the plastic backing - there are two keyholes on the backside of the Elk, and a tab at the bottom with two more holes.  So with some careful measuring, I just had to drill 4 holes of the right size, and in the right locations.  Put two screws in place and hang on...

  Eeeyowch!!  We're billed bi-monthly, and our last hydro bill for TWO months was $98 ... and I'm still on the hunt for energy savings!  On top of that, we pay about $120-150/month for gas during the heating months.

  One thing you can do is to put a mixing valve right at the outlet of the tank.  Keep the tank set at 140F/60C and deliver through the house at 120F/49C (or even a bit less).  Lower temperature in the lines is not considered a problem as they are frequently getting flushed.  ...

There's a thought.  The controls are external to the tank, so easy enough to log the status of the relay that runs the heater just to confirm overnight usage.  I expect you're all correct, but I'm on the hunt for all the energy reductions I can find!

While I get what you're saying, the reason I wanted some sort of thermostatic control was so I could just set back the temp by a few degrees, rather than turn it off for the whole night. I normally run with the tank set at 125, I was thinking of an overnight setback of around 115 or 110...

I'm looking for a way to cut down energy use by setting back the hot water tank temperature overnight.  My home system uses a tank that is heated by a glycol loop, with an aquastat for on/off heating control.  It looks something like this:  ...