Running Toilet

The guy who made the indoor toilet famous was Thomas Crapper. He sold a valve that would refill a toilet bowl with water. Ever since then, his name has been associated with doing your duty in the bathroom. The next time you go to use the Crapper, you can thank Thomas Crapper for not needing to go outdoors.

The invention has evolved over the years, and is not perfect. Parts wear out and need to be replaced. If you hear the toilet running when it shouldn't be? You crapper probably has a bad flapper.

This is what a flapper looks like. It covers the pipe the runs between the tank and the toilet bowl.

When you push down on the toilet handle, it causes the flapper to raise, which releases all the water in the tank causing it to flush into the bowl, and for your waste to flush down the drain.

If that flapper wears out, it will leak.

First step? Shut off the water.

Next, disconnect the flapper chain from the handle and remove the old flapper. Replace the flapper with a new one.

Turn the water back on. That's all

It takes! In just minutes your crapper will be back to tip top shape!

Heavy Rain is Never Fun

When we built our house into the subdivision 12 years ago, the developer put in a gully to hold rain. He told us the water should never fill the gully to the point of reaching the area behind our property. He showed us a survey where that location was considered a "100 year flood plain". In other words, the area of the gully behind our property should only fill once every 100 years.

Since then, the gully fills at least twice per year.

When we complained to the developer, he said "You have nothing to complain about. The water is all on my property."

We have some heavy rain yesterday. As expected, the gully started to fill.

It continued filling until it passed the bolder (marking the property line) and overtook the back of the wing set. 

Meanwhile, my sump pump crock was filling and emptying every 5 seconds! Our poor sump pump has been running for 12 years! Fearing it could fail, we installed a backup water powered pump. I spent most of the day keeping an eye of the sump pump expecting it to fail at any time. Luckily, it kept going!

The yard filled with water. Because I keep dumping loads of gravel onto my driveway, my driveway now sits higher than my garage. This caused water to enter the garage. I had an inch of water within two feet of the garage door. Luckily, nothing was ruined.

I quickly remembered to turn off the irrigation system for the flowers. The last thing we needed was to add more water to an already wet mess!

Today, the gully water has receeded as the rain lightened. Rain is never fun for a home owner - especially this much rain. It wouldn't take much to have a devastating effect.

Work List

I have been putting in a ton of hours at work. When I get time away from work, I am too exhausted to do very much around the house.  This has caused my house maintenance work to fall behind. The following is a short list of immediate work for this weekend:

Fix rope light on deck - it is falling down

Drywall in office by window repair

Fill hummingbird feeder

Replace old power strips around the house

Fix kitchen aid mixer (leaking oil)

Smoke alarm battery replacements

Oldest son's TV doesn't work

Caulk 2nd downstairs bathroom sink

Van battery replacement

Replace broken Flood lights 

Kitchen light bulb replacement

Teach oldest son about sump pump

Meter read the water meter 

Building permit for shed

Dig out then fill in Eve troth hole

Investigate digging a storm drain in front of garage floor to prevent garage flooding 

I wonder how far I will get?

Decks

One purpose of this blog is to celebrate (aka complain) about all the work associated with home ownership.

If you have a house you either have a deck or dream of having home. Just think of it: if you had a deck, you could invite family and friends over for a BBQ and life would be grand. Right?

I built our deck myself five years ago. It was a lot of work and fairly expensive. Little did I realize the work and expense was just beginning. We have had to seal the deck every year since its construction!

Each year I use Olympic deck sealer with a 5 or 6 year guaranty and it only lasts one year!

Step one is the timing. It requires three rain free warm days in a row. One day to clean the deck, one to dry, and one to seal and let the seal dry. Finding three dry and warm days in upstate New York can be difficult!

The deck needs to be cleaned before it is sealed. It can be cleaned by sweeping it and then hosing the deck down, or better yet, poor a deck cleaner on it (basically it is bleach), scrub it, then hose it off. If you choose to use the deck cleaner method? Remember it is bleach and will turn anything it splashes on white (including your clothes).

Then comes the staining. At $40 per gallon, plus disposable brushes and various supplies - this gets expensive.

I tape plastic around the deck so the Cedar colored stain doesn't splash onto the white siding. The trick with Painter's tape is that it melts in the sun, so, it has to be removed within 24 hours or less.

I always apply the sealant with a brush so that I can fill the cracks and the areas between the boards. However, this year I used a plush roller because I didn't have the standard four hours that it normally takes.

Building a deck is very expensive and a lot of work, but it is just the start. The yearly maintenance on a deck is a huge consideration too. But now that it is done we can enjoy cookouts on the deck for the rest of the summer!