I just wanted to make a small rant against UPS. Generally, UPS and most of the big shipping companies are known for their innovation and ever-lasting pursuit of efficiency. They have large computer networks to track shipments and deliveries and optimize routes.. fleets of hundreds of planes and thousands of trucks.. and can manage to get a box from one side of the continent to your front door on the other side in a day for less than the cost of fuel to drive a couple hours out of town.

And yet, even though I am basically never home during the day, I cannot get them to not try to deliver a package to my front door. They put my package on their truck, drive it to my house, and then drive around with it all day, before bringing it back to their warehouse, where they repeat the same process for the next two days. Finally, they leave it in their warehouse, and I can finally stop by after work to pick up the package.

I’ve previously emailed their customer center, and asked them if there is a way to set up my address so the package is always held. Apparently, this is not possible – the best I can do is open an account at a UPS Store, and then have it delivered there (which also means registering the UPS store as a valid shipping address on my credit card). I’m also assuming that opening the account is not free.. so I have to pay them for the privilege of not wasting their drivers time and gas attempting deliveries. That’s innovative.

To send it to my office, I have to add my work address as a shipping address on my credit card, and waste my co-workers time dealing with my personal shipments. This doesn’t really seem like the best way to handle this, although this is probably what I will do from now on.

Today, they’ve only tried to deliver my package once so far. I tried to request my package be held via their website (which both their website and phone system say is possible), but I simply cannot figure it out. I can track the package.. but even after creating an account, I see no way to modify anything about this shipment. So I gave up, and called the number on the notice they left me, again, and this time pressed 0 until it let me speak to a real person. (And then said yes about 8 times, because yes, I really do want to speak to a person.)

Finally the agent was able to stop them from trying to deliver.. maybe. It might have been too late, so they may try tomorrow again anyways. I asked if in the future, I could just call as soon as I got my tracking number. She admitted it would sound strange, but apparently, no. I can’t do this. They have to try to deliver it at least once first.

So even though this package gets from the other corner of the continent and across an international border in just over a day, it is doomed to be driven around in a truck pointlessly for at least two days, and stored in a warehouse over the weekend.

I must have a different definition of “efficient” than UPS does.

While I was getting ready for the insulation, I disconnected the dryer and noticed basically a very cold wind coming out of the end of the pipe. Upon closer inspection, there was actually frost on the pipe inside of the house, and when I took it apart, there was actual snow in the outside vent (the picture is hard to make out, but most of that is snow, except for at the very end, which is just dryer lint).

The outside vent was fairly cheap, and although it had a damper, it was stuck open due to the cold and the warped plastic shell. This mean that basically, cold air and snow could blow into the house through the vent, effectively into the back of my dryer.

I pulled the old vent out, which basically broke into pieces while I was removing it. In case you were wondering. chipping tiny pieces of plastic stuck to 30-year-old caulk in -15°C weather is not fun.

It took a bit of cutting and caulk to get the new vent to fit nicely with the siding, but it works.

I built a small box in the corner for the vent to go through, but then ended up rebuilding after the insulation was in because I realized the vent was sticking out the wrong way, and the dryer would have had to be too far from the wall to connect to it.

I used a piece of semi-rigid 4″ pipe to make the connection from the outside vent into the box, and then a 5′ section of straight 4″ vent, into an elbow to come out of the wall. At the very bottom, I added a 4″ damper as well, to provide some extra protection in case the outside damper gets stuck or clogged with dryer lint, etc. This is pretty cheap, and it will still be accessible to clean once the drywall is up.

When done, the dryer will be about 6″ from the wall.