Saturday, April 25, 2009

Power Up, Scotty!

The good ol' New Zealand winter draws closer, and in Auckland there's always high humidity. So instead of tolerating condensation inside the abode again this winter, I thought I'd be pro-active and take action.
Inspired, I headed to the nearest hardware store and bought two timers - one for my dehumidifier and the other for my heater. Thought I'd switch the former on automatically late afternoon to dry out the air, and then the latter after that (as dry air heats faster).
Ok, plug timers into junction box, switch on individual junction box plugs, plug appliances into timer switches - remembering to switch on actual appliances at source - and set timers with appropriate on/off times. Did I cover all the steps? Yes. Did they work? Er...guess...no!
So I spent an hour (yeup, count it: one...) sitting on the floor by the junction box checking, setting, waiting, watching, checking, resetting, waiting, watching, resetting again. Eventually I concluded that one timer switched on but did not switch off, and the other didn't switch on at all.
So back to get the products swapped: not as easy a task as it could have been, given that the reluctant assistant kept insisting they had "never had any problems with this brand before". *Ding-dong!* Warning bells rang dimly somewhere down the dark dank dingy corridors of my cranium.
Home, bearing two new timers. I proceeded to proceed through the plug-in procedure...wait, watch... same problem, no action. Fiddle-curse-mutter. *Ping!*
A light went on. Contrary to the instructions, the switch on the side of each unit (which determines timed power or normal power flow), instead of being pushed towards the 'timer' icon for timed power, needed to be pushed toward the 'normal' icon - thus covering 'normal' and only leaving 'timer' visible...therefore showing that 'timer' was in fact what was selected!!! Duuuhhh!!
Of course, it would have been of some help if the "Made-In-China" units' instructions had made that clear. Or maybe it's just me...

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