Our View

We built our house 12 years ago into a new subdivision. I wanted to be in a subdivision because I believed it would help us should we ever want to sell our house. I had an old house that was in a low traffic area of a town and it took over two years to sell that place. I didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

The new subdivision was awesome. I was surrounded on all sides by farm fields and I had an expansive view in every direction.

And then the subdivision grew. Each year more and more houses were built all around us.

It has reached a point where we are now boxed in, 

The construction of this latest house will take away most of what was left of our view.

On the one hand, I wanted to be in a subdivision to protect my property value. But on the other hand, I would prefer if there were no houses around me, especially houses whose back windows can look directly into mine!

Thankfully, I still have a nice view out the front of the house.

So, that's the trade off. Want to be in a neighborhood? Or by yourself out in the country?

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!

Flower Bed

In May, I planted over 100 flowers in the flower beds. Later, I went out of town for five weeks. I wasn't too worried about the flowers because they are irrigated.

When I returned home I found the flowers had been over taken by weeds worse than any other year!

I cleaned the weeds out and unfortunately, there isn't much left.

Part of the problem is that some of the flowers were purchased at Walmart late in the season, and those flowers didn't survive. Flowers from a local green house did better, however, the weeds took a hard toll.

It is disappointing to see the poor results of all of the expense and work. 

Change Furnace Filter

Home ownership comes with a lot of responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to change your furnace filters! A good furnace filter can cut down on the amount of dirt and dust coming out of your forced air furnace, which will help to keep you and your family healthy.

If you get quality filters, you'll only have to change the filter four times per year: before heating season, before cooling season, and during each season. If you get cheap filters? Plan to change them every month.

First thing I do is put today's date onto the new filter.

Remove the old filter, paying attention to the direction of the air flow.

Then insert the new filter in the correct air flow orientation.

That's it!