Take it Away Now... the water and stuff that is.

Lancifer and I have been doing a lot around the house as of late. Some planned, some not.

Of the "unplanned" nature we have: night before Thanksgiving sewage disaster, the flood of plenty in our master bathroom, and now a "we've gone too far" tale of the kitchen sink drains and disposal.

Then Lancifer has also been busy playing a game of attach and disassemble with the dryer vent aluminum hosing for various planned reasons.

We've discovered we have a tree root issue which triggered the first offense, the Thanksgiving eve sewage disaster. Luckily a nice man we hired gave us the scoop of how common this issue is and just how often we'll expect to see our own issues with it. There's also a possibility of having the city dig up and replace the pipes beyond our home.

A few things I've learned in this experience:

1) Do not get a sewage issue the night before, day of or day after on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

2) Always check with your home owners policy and insurance to see what you have covered under your plan for such issues and eventual clean ups.

3) Check with your city or county to see if you qualify to have the pipes that connect to yours dug up and replaced at their cost. Some places have an elaborate camera scope that diagnosis' the issue and then a bid process for who is hired to do the job.

4) If you are looking at homes and you have large mature trees, be prepared to handle such situations in the late fall and pretty much every year.

Unfortunately, our fun did not stop at hiring a plumber at 9:00pm on Thanksgiving Eve. We also had a casualty to this event... the master bathroom. I thought it was odd that when we moved in, the master bathroom was carpeted. I've never really seen all that many carpeted bathrooms, and for good reason. The result of our Thanksgiving Eve is one of those reasons.

After a valiant attempt at carpet cleaner, we knew the only choice was to remove the carpet entirely. Lancifer and I used utility knives to cut up the carpet and cut it at the door frames to salvage our bedroom carpet and closet carpet, which the water did not reach. As our master bath and bedroom are located on the lower level of this split ranch, this carpet was on top of concrete. It took some time and patience to get up all the concrete nails and to scrape away all the debris. We also have been letting the concrete that was under the soiled carpet dry for some time now. It was very damp and looked as though there had been water trapped under the carpet padding for some time.

Lessons here:

1) Get prepared: gloves, knives, flat head screw driver, hammers, scraper, and a wet/dry vac.

2) Carefully remove or dismantle any baseboards before attempting to lift carpet. (Don't worry, I did remember this)

3) Have a disposal plan... where is this nasty carpet going next.

4) Let the area below the carpet dry for a few days at least. Make sure no consistent leaks exist.

Our most recent adventure consists of our kitchen sink. It had been acting up, water was not going down the drains properly and was backing up in to both sides of the sink. Previous to this even, our dishwasher had been leaking, a tale tell sign that something is up with drainage. So we went out on a limb and decided to take apart the PVC piping from the drains and snake down our main pipeline. We got some gunk up, but nothing special. No surprise since we had sunk two drain-o solutions in it in previous weeks. At this point we wanted to see if we'd gotten any clearer, so we reassembled and tested our draining quality. Unfortunately, previous owners had used putty to seal the PVC together, and not plastic o-rings, so with the pressure of the water not draining properly, we had a gap in the PVC and a big mess of a clean up.

We're now on to buying a new disposal, as this is what the culprit must be at this point, and some o-rings to reassemble the PVC piping properly. More to come!

Some Assembly Required

Milestone achieved - first BBQ at the new house!  There was definitely some preparation work to be done before we could accomplish it, though.  The grill I bought was $40-$50 marked down from $80 at Home Depot.  As it turns out, grills (and lawnmowers) go on sale just before winter.  I highly recommend buying them then if you have the luxury of doing so.

My grill came in about fifty different parts.  Normally I don't read the instructions, but I'm glad I did this time. I would have missed something very important.  My grill has plastic handles that connect to a stainless steel base.  If you're not careful, the bolts will heat from inside the grill and potentially damage the plastic.  That is why you will probably get some washers that are specially designed to dampen that heat.  They're easy to overlook because they look a lot like the normal ones..  Everything else was fairly self-explanatory.

In the end, the BBQ went great.  Both of our families enjoyed BSing around the table and watching the World Series game.  I also built a beer pong table this past weekend, so look forward to some details on that in my next post.

Moved In and Making Progress

As of now I'm almost completely moved in and just starting to discover all the uniqueness and potential of the house.

It's still sinking in that this is potentially a place I'll be living for longer than a year. The renters mentality has been my way of life for the past 8 years and it's going to be awhile before I realize I have time to buy things, time to fix things and time to enjoy this home.

Relax, prioritize, and budget!

These past two weeks have gone by so quickly, I hardly feel settled. We've been lucky enough to acquire some furniture from family, and also lucky enough to experience furniture shopping with one another. Oddly enough, we agreed on something so we went ahead and bought it!

The photo does not really do it justice, but none the less, I'm proud of our selection and for Lancifer's good eye. Now, time to brainstorm what will finish the room... and maybe if I'm anxious, actually finishing it. :)

Side note: I have a feeling Lancifer's posts are going to prove more helpful to the outside world where as I'm used to documenting more than guiding... so beware!

Porch Lights

When I first moved into the house, neither of my porch lights functioned.  Troubleshooting time!

1. Replace the bulbs - no change
2. Power cycle all of the switches in my switch box downstairs - no change
3. Check that the wires are attached at the lights themselves - no change
4. Call Dad - success!

Dad took two seconds to figure out my issues.  In the left light, the wire was attached but still did not have a strong enough contact point.  Dad stripped the wire some more, and re-spliced.  Light one works now!  On the right light, my replacement bulb was bad, so we just ended up replacing it.

Lessons to be learned: Always pick off the low hanging fruit first when diagnosing a home maintenance problem.  Also, the problem solving method in House M.D. will not solve all of your home maintenance problems - sometimes the patient has two conditions that have nothing to do with one another.  Lastly, replacement porch lights are cheap for the most part (depends on the material it's made from).  If you narrow things down to a faulty light, don't get bent out of shape over needing to fix it.

Hardwood Flooring

While hardwood floors provide several unique comforts, maintaining them poses some unique challenges that you wouldn't have to deal with if you just had carpet.  I knew from the start that I would need to protect my floors from the furniture on top of them, so I went to Home Depot for some supplies.

I was hoping to find some furniture pads for the tables, chairs, desks, etc. that I was moving into the house.  The depot had a couple of different varieties of felt pad (in all different shapes and sizes) - one you could hammer into a wooden surface and another that just rested between the furniture and the floor.  Since we have almost entirely wooden furniture, I opted for the type you can hammer in.  (See the pic below.)

I later found out that our computer desk chair was putting some light scrapes on the floor.  This is because normal computer chair casters are made of a hard plastic that tends to slide more than roll.  The caster is drug across the floor, and you get scuffs.  This time I went to Amazon and got a package of five polyurethane casters that both roll better and provide a softer contact point.  (See the pic below - new on the left and old on the right.)

In summary, if you want to keep your hardwood floor in good condition, you need to take the proper precautions before you start using the furniture it comes in contact with.