Chris Bergeron's Blog

Worked on the wainscoting in the basement

Chris — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:22:27 +0000

A few weeks ago Natalie and I found time to work on the basement wainscoting. Here’s a picture of the progress:

More work on the wainscoting in the basement

Chris — Sun, 15 May 2011 20:23:37 +0000

Natalie and I spent some time this weekend installing wainscoting in one of the basement rooms. Here are some pictures of the project:

Electric car project is stalled indefinitely

Chris — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:40:14 +0000

Sadly, I sold my electric car project Ford Aspire. At this time I don’t have the bandwidth to work on that project. Someday in the future I may renew my interest, but for now this project is indefinitely stalled. The car paid for itself and then some, so it wasn’t a loss financially but I’m still sad to see it go, particularly considering current fuel prices.

Created new utility bill graph

Chris — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:51:24 +0000

I updated the code that renders my utility bill graphs. You can see it here.

Here’s a screenshot:

Installed the security system keypad

Chris — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 22:32:05 +0000

This weekend I installed the security system keypad. I still have some programming to do, but the majority of the system is complete.

Security Keypad

Security system integration

Chris — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 21:34:58 +0000

Today I worked on the security system / home automation integration project. The security system now communicates with the home automation computer and it can now send events/triggers to remote servers. In the following picture you can see my homemade PIC reporting circuit (left), the security system (center left), the staging area for my homemade circuit breaker interruptor (center right), and the breaker panel (right).

Integrating these systems has proved to be more difficult than I initially thought. I’m on track for total home automation and internet connectivity via my event log and my remote iPhone control panel.

Here’s a picture of the installation:

Security System

Updated the kitchen kiosk computer

Chris — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:46:15 +0000

I was out of commission today, so I figured I could be productive by updating my blog. Here’s a picture of the kitchen kiosk computer:

Kitchen kiosk

The original thread can be seen here

Primed and carpeted the theater room

Chris — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:19:34 +0000

Last week I primed the theater room and replaced the carpet (temporarily). Here’s the room as it exists right now:

After priming the theater room

Basement remodel: finishing sheetrock / drywall

Chris — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 22:02:13 +0000

This weekend my friend Jeff and I worked on finishing the drywall in the basement. Natalie painted the stairway. Here are some pictures:

Created utility tracking page

Chris — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:55:35 +0000

I created an executive dashboard of my overall energy expenditure. One of the graphs from it can be seen below. In this graph, you’ll find electricity, natural gas, and the aggregate (the red line). I’d like to overlay an average monthly temperature trendline on this graph, but it’s going to require me to install my own weather station (or a reliable source of data for my zipcode). Until then, here’s the graph at present: