Mr. Fixit

Home projects

There are 111 posts filed in Mr. Fixit (this is page 8 of 12).

Ouch

If removing trash from the streets wasn’t enough to send me running for the ibuprofen, I took on another mammoth project today. Raleigh is having a sale on mulch until November 15th where if you buy one truckload you get one free.

Kelly and I have long wanted to put new mulch down so we jumped at this chance. We borrowed a friend’s trailer and early this morning I drove to the Yard Center on N. New Hope to pick up a load. Ten minutes and $16 later, I had 2.5 cubic yards of wood chips. (Wood chips weren’t supposed to be part of the deal, but who am I to argue with the man in the booth?)
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Changing seasons

Yesterday’s cold front brought steady rain, cooler temperatures, and a reminder that fall is right around the corner. On yesterday’s bike ride home I found myself chasing the warm bus exhaust I usually avoid. I’m also shivering at my desk as the building AC cools the office down to 71 degrees.

I’ve still got 300+ gallons of rainwater, too, letting the recent rain go without collection. Its hard to feel superior about collecting rainwater when Falls Lake is four feet above normal, the drought is officially over, and the city has relaxed watering schedules. Kelly says the car is getting quite muddy during her business trip to the coast so we can use the water for washing cars!

On a similar note, I popped a bucket underneath our air conditioning’s condensation drain pipe Saturday afternoon and a day later it was full of 5 gallons of crystal-clear water! I toyed with the idea putting a faucet on that pipe before realizing what a dumb idea it is! But I’d like to make use of the water somehow. Maybe I’ll attach a soaker hose to it and use it in my garden. The water trickles out at the perfect rate for watering our tomato plants!

No room for Fay

I’m glad Western North Carolina will be getting a good drink from Tropical Storm/Depression Fay. Lord knows they need it. As for me, though, I’m still sitting on 300+ gallons of rainwater, so I reluctantly removed the downspout hose from my tank when the first drops came down this morning.

I fiddled with my new tank pump this weekend in an effort to test it out. Turns out the 1″ suction hose I bought had the threads stripped on one connector. After much time spent patiently threading and rethreading the connector into the pump I finally got it on there properly. By that time it was already dark outside, so the pump will wait another week or two when it is dry again.

I have to say I’ve been very pleased with this August’s weather. It hasn’t been baking hot for the first summer in a while. Of course, we paid that price earlier this summer but even that didn’t last too long. We’ve also had reliable rain this month, which is a welcome change.

Rain

We got some surprise rain yesterday evening which was simply captivating to enjoy. Kelly and I stood on our screened porch and just grinned. I was happy to note my rain tank refilled as well, with 30 gallons added from this rain.

We didn’t always smile when it rained – our enthusiasm was always tempered by the streams of water running out of our clogged gutters. Since I put the gutter guards on the house this hasn’t been a problem. I can’t overstate how impressed I am how this $50 solution has worked. It is teh awesome.

VoIP and 911

A lot of people thinking of switching their phone service over to voice-over-IP (VoIP) are nervous about losing their ability to dial 911. While that used to be an issue it is not anymore, now that Enhanced 911 service is offered by most VoIP companies.

Our new home doesn’t have any landline service, so we’ve been relying on our mobile phones for dialing 911, simply because I hadn’t gotten around to configuring 911 service for our Asterisk-based home phone system. Well, I did that Monday night. It took a few clicks on the Vitelity webpage, some Asterisk-Fu to get the dialplan set up, and then we were in business. It costs an extra $1.49 per month but that all goes to support the 911 system. Which is a good cause, I think.
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When obsessions conflict

I recently switched out our shower head for a low-flow version that spits out 30% less water. Knowing I was saving water satisfied my urge to go green … until I realized that the new shower head doesn’t pour water out in individual streams like the old one but instead sprays it – like an aerosol.
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Mind in the gutter

My mind was in the gutter yesterday. Or at least my gutters were on my mind. Yesterday afternoon was the first rain since I put the gutter guards on my house. I can say the guards worked with flying colors: all gutters handled the rain beautifully.

Of course, I’d expect the first one to do well, as I cleaned out the gutters before I capped them. The real test will be to see how clean the gutters remain. So far so good, though. It could be that the dozen tiny cuts I sustained to my hands when wrestling with the gutters will have been worth it.

The stinky dishwasher

We were pretty happy with the appliances that came with our house. The stainless-steel finishes add a nice touch to our kitchen. We get a lot of comments about them from our guests.

Fortunately for they don’t get a whiff of our Bosch dishwasher. While its got a spiffy stainless-steel look and is one of the quietest dishwashers I’ve ever heard, it has a B.O. problem.

Due to an apparent design flaw in the Bosch models, water collects in the bottom of the dishwasher – where it festers to the point of being knock-you-over stinky. Even one day after running it! There doesn’t seem to be any real solution to the problem other than spiking the remaining water with some bacteria-killing concoction or replacing the unit altogether.

A Google Search on “stinky Bosch” shows thousands of hits on the problem (like this one, for instance). Be wary of Bosch dishwashers!

Blogging blocker

You may have noticed I don’t do much posting evenings and weekends. Its not that I don’t want to or have anything to say, its just that I’ve got an ailing laptop that’s been giving my trouble recently.

I’ve known for a while that my Thinkpad T40 doesn’t like to be run anywhere but from a desk. The moment its anything but completely horizontal it promptly zaps its memory – leaving me to reboot the system. Frustrated by its lack of portability, I took it apart last night to see if I could find any visible damage. After an easy disassembly and look-over, I cranked it back up only to have it be even less reliable than before. Now it won’t even boot consistently from a flat surface. That’ll teach me to play technician!
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Taking advantage of the weather

Another busy but fun weekend was had. I spend a good chunk of it doing yard work and cleaning gutters. I made a trip over to the old house Saturday afternoon, where I chatted with the new owners before fetching what brought me: two plants from the side yard that used to belong to my grandmother. I hauled the hydrangea and azalea plants to our new home and planted them in the side and front yards.
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