Hang a cool damp sheet, preferably lighter
colored one, in a window. When the breeze blows the air in, it will
help cool a warm room. A wonderful idea for a nursery or perhaps a room
you may crate your dog, while you are at work. What do yo think? Have
any of you ever tried this trick? I plan to tomorrow!
From the City of Flagstaff:
The City of Flagstaff has experienced a second large water leak at a residential property.
In this latest incident, a property on N. Leroux experienced a
9-million gallon water leak which has generated a bill of $105,000. The
renter at the property was notified of the leak and apparently worked
with the property owner to get the leak fixed. Water consumption is back
to normal levels at the home; however a secondary structure on the site
may be in danger of collapse. City building officials have been
directed to inspect the home and the property in an attempt to identify
any problems with the ground, foundation and/or the structure. While a
bill has been sent, the City has not had a conversation with the
renter/account holder about payment arrangements.
This follows a leak at a University Heights home which resulted in a
loss of 1.5 million gallons of water totaling more than $16,000. That
leak has been fixed and the property owner is working with his insurance
company to pay the bill.
These are unfortunate but important reminders to area homeowners to
have pipes and plumbing checked by a licensed professional. This is
especially important when there are unusual spikes in water usage,
changes in water pressure, standing water/damp areas are noticed on the
property, or sinking/ changes in the foundation. This is in accordance
with the City’s Water Conservation Ordinance (7-03-001-0014) “no person
shall waste water by allowing water to pool or failing to repair water
leaks”.
The current process to determine water usage by the City is not
completely automated. The current process involves a City employee
taking a reading once a month coming back to City Hall and entering that
information into a database.
Once the meter reading is entered, an exception report is created
within one to two weeks. When there are extremely large spikes in water
usage from the previous months reading a staff member is sent to the
residence to see if there is a problem with the meter. If the meter is
fine and there is no evidence of a leak in the front of the home, but
the spike is significant staff will attempt to make contact with someone
at the home. If the resident is not home City staff will leave a door
hanger notifying them that the City has observed an unusually large read
and did not find any issue with the City equipment or City water lines
and recommend the home owner/occupant also check water line from the
meter throughout their home and yard. Common problems include a running
toilet, dripping faucets, or a broken water line under the house or in
the yard.
Currently the City does not have technology that would allow the
meter to be read automatically and sent to the database at City Hall
which could immediately detect abnormal consumption. The City is
currently exploring options for newer technology.
The City is in Water Availability Strategy 1: “Water Awareness that
requires all customers to conserve water, in and outside the home, using
the best practices available to minimize the wasting of water such as
failing to repair water leaks.”
Yes. Yes that is right..Well, not entirely but let the truth be told... Albert Einstein was made an honorary member of the Plumbers and
Steamfitters Union after he had announced that he would be a plumber if
he had to live his life all over again.
Check this video out to be educated on how to and avoid
water damage to your roof and foundation, by cleaning out your homes rain gutters. Remember- the longer
you wait the harder the job will be, so watch this video to help keep your home
in tip top shape! :
Since we are going to get hit with more snow tonight, I thought I would get some helpful information on making sure your pipes don't freeze in the cold weather. From the Red Cross:
Drain water from swimming pool and water sprinkler supply lines following manufacturer's or installer's directions. Do not put antifreeze in these lines unless directed. Antifreeze is environmentally harmful, and is dangerous to humans, pets, wildlife, and landscaping.
Remove, drain, and store hoses used outdoors. Close inside valves supplying outdoor hose bibs. Open the outside hose bibs to allow water to drain. Keep the outside valve open so that any water remaining in the pipe can expand without causing the pipe to break.
Check around the home for other areas where water supply lines are located in unheated areas. Look in the basement, crawl space, attic, garage, and under kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Both hot and cold water pipes in these areas should be insulated.
Consider installing specific products made to insulate water pipes like a "pipe sleeve" or installing UL-listed "heat tape," "heat cable," or similar materials on exposed water pipes. Newspaper can provide some degree of insulation and protection to exposed pipes – even ¼” of newspaper can provide significant protection in areas that usually do not have frequent or prolonged temperatures below freezing.
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES:
Keep garage doors closed if there are water supply lines in the garage.
Open kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors to allow warmer air to circulate around the plumbing. Be sure to move any harmful cleaners and household chemicals up out of the reach of children.
When the weather is very cold outside, let the cold water drip from the faucet served by exposed pipes. Running water through the pipe - even at a trickle - helps prevent pipes from freezing.
Keep the thermostat set to the same temperature both during the day and at night. By temporarily suspending the use of lower nighttime temperatures, you may incur a higher heating bill, but you can prevent a much more costly repair job if pipes freeze and burst.
If you will be going away during cold weather, leave the heat on in your home, set to a temperature no lower than 55° F.
TO THAW FROZEN PIPES:
If you turn on a faucet and only a trickle comes out, suspect a frozen pipe. Likely places for frozen pipes include against exterior walls or where your water service enters your home through the foundation.
Keep the faucet open. As you treat the frozen pipe and the frozen area begins to melt, water will begin to flow through the frozen area. Running water through the pipe will help melt ice in the pipe.
Apply heat to the section of pipe using an electric heating pad wrapped around the pipe, an electric hair dryer, a portable space heater (kept away from flammable materials), or by wrapping pipes with towels soaked in hot water. Do not use a blowtorch, kerosene or propane heater, charcoal stove, or other open flame device.
Apply heat until full water pressure is restored. If you are unable to locate the frozen area, if the frozen area is not accessible, or if you can not thaw the pipe, call a licensed plumber.
Check all other faucets in your home to find out if you have additional frozen pipes. If one pipe freezes, others may freeze, too.
Plumbing problems usually revolve around one of three things: clogs, leaks, or drips. It pays to be familiar with your plumbing system so you can minimize the damage caused by plumbing problems as well as fix minor problems on your own.
The most important thing you can do is find out where the main water shutoff valve is and how to turn it off. This is usually either outside your home or in your basement or crawlspace. If you can not find it or don’t know how to turn it off, contact your utility company and have them show you. If any tools are necessary to turn off your water, keep them handy. Being able to shut your water off at the main valve can be vital to reducing damage to your home if a pipe were to burst. You should also check each plumbing appliance (sinks, toilets, etc.) for their own shutoff valves and verify they work. If the valves fail to turn off water to the appliance, you should have them fixed by a professional plumber. These valves come in handy when the need arises to repair individual appliances. If an appliance has no valves, you will need to shut off your water at the main valve to repair it.
When it comes to clogs and slow drains, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In the tub or shower, invest in an inexpensive hair trap or screen to prevent the majority of hair and soap scum from going down the drain. In the kitchen, don’t pour cooking grease down your drain. It will harden and coat your pipes with a sticky scum that will catch other particles and eventually clog the pipe. Instead, keep it in a coffee can or milk container and dispose of it with your garbage once it’s cooled. You should also avoid dumping coffee grounds down the drain. They’re notorious for causing clogs. Maintaining your drains on a weekly basis is also a good idea to keep your pipes clear. One way to do this is to pour a half-cup of salt, a half-cup of baking soda and a half-cup of vinegar down the drain and follow with two quarts of boiling water.
If you do encounter a clog, don’t panic. Just give us a call. 928-774-4357
Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Hutchison and members of this committee, my name is Mike Rowe, and I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity to testify before you today. I'm here today because of my grandfather. His name was Carl Knobel, and he made his living in Baltimore as a master electrician. He was also a plumber, a mechanic, a mason, and a carpenter. Everyone knew him as a jack-of-all-trades. I knew him as a magician. For most of his life, my grandfather woke up clean and came home dirty. In between, he accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous. Some days he might re-shingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. Or maybe run electricity out to our barn. He helped build the church I went to as a kid, and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in. He could fix or build anything, but to my knowledge he never once read the directions. He just knew how stuff worked. I remember one Saturday morning when I was 12. I flushed the toilet in the same way I always had. The toilet however, responded in a way that was completely out of character. There was a rumbling sound, followed by a distant gurgle. Then, everything that had gone down reappeared in a rather violent and spectacular fashion.
Naturally, my grandfather was called in to investigate, and within the hour I was invited to join he and my dad in the front yard with picks and shovels.
By lunch, the lawn was littered with fragments of old pipe and mounds of dirt. There was welding and pipe-fitting, blisters and laughter, and maybe some questionable language. By sunset we were completely filthy. But a new pipe was installed, the dirt was back in the hole, and our toilet was back on its best behavior. It was one of my favorite days ever. Thirty years later in San Francisco when my toilet blew up again. This time, I didn't participate in the repair process. I just called my landlord, left a check on the kitchen counter, and went to work. When I got home, the mess was cleaned up and the problem was solved. As for the actual plumber who did the work, I never even met him. It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes. There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought. At this point my grandfather was well into his 80s, and after a long visit with him one weekend, I decided to do a TV show in his honor. Today, Dirty Jobs is still on the air, and I am here before this committee, hoping to say something useful. So, here it is.
I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. A big one. Something that addresses the widening skills gap head on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce. Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it's getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They're retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them. Alabama's not alone. A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn't a lack of funds. It wasn't a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders. In general, we're surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn't be. We've pretty much guaranteed it. In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.
In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber if you can find one is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both. I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they're in short supply because we don't acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change. My written testimony includes the details of several initiatives designed to close the skills gap, all of which I've had the privilege to participate in. Go Build Alabama, I Make America, and my own modest efforts through Dirty Jobs and mikeroweWORKS. I'm especially proud to announce "Discover Your Skills," a broad-based initiative from Discovery Communications that I believe can change perceptions in a meaningful way. I encourage you to support these efforts, because closing the skills gap doesn't just benefit future tradesmen and the companies desperate to hire them. It benefits people like me, and anyone else who shares my addiction to paved roads, reliable bridges, heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing. The skills gap is a reflection of what we value. To close the gap, we need to change the way the country feels about work.
More on Mike's Mission
On May 11, 2011, Mike Rowe and Discovery Communications also announced a new multimedia initiative, Discover Your Skills, that will provide unemployed and underemployed Americans with access to resources for obtaining marketable job skills while also raising the awareness of employment opportunities. (Read the announcement here.)
Also, if you haven't already, check out Mike's mikeroweWORKS Web site for his mission statement, information about his foundation and more.
Finally, be sure to check out our photos from the hearing ... and see Mr. Rowe in a suit and tie. (And no hat. Seriously.)
The University of Vermont will become one of the first institutions nationwide to end the sale of bottled water on campus and mandate that one-third of drinks offered in vending machines be healthy options. The decision marks the advent of a long-awaited systematic sustainable beverage policy after years of lobbying by students and the greater campus community. Also, Concord Massachuesetts the revolutionary ;) historic, New England town became the first in the U.S. to ban single-serve plastic water bottles.
I don't know about you, but I have always wondered what's going on underneath my floors. You know... in those places that you will never see, but are supremely important to the running and maintenance of your house. I found this picture that helps explain what's going on, so I thought I would share! Now that I know what's going on in those dark places under my floors, I feel much more confident when talking about any plumbing issues - which definitely helps!
Here are some advantages to Tankless, on-demand water heating:
Tankless water heaters are compact in size and virtually eliminate standby losses - energy wasted when hot water cools down in long pipes or while it's sitting in the storage tank.
By providing warm water immediately where it's used, tankless water heaters waste less water. People don't need to let the water run as they wait for warm water to reach a remote faucet. A tankless water heater can provide unlimited hot water as long as it is operating within its capacity.
Equipment life may be longer than tank-type heaters because they are less subject to corrosion. Expected life of tankless water heaters is 20 years, compared to 10 to 15 years for tank-type water heaters.
Tankless water heaters range in price from $200 for a small under-sink unit up to $1000 for a gas-fired unit that delivers 5 gallons per minute. Typically, the more hot water the unit produces, the higher the cost.
In most cases, electric tankless water heaters will cost more to operate than gas tankless water heaters.
It's Your Money
Whichever type of water heater you buy - either gas or electric - look for a unit with a higher energy factor. It may cost more initially, but the energy (and your money) savings may more than make up for the higher sticker price. Consider the price difference and how long it would take to recover the money through energy savings.
I can already hear the howling! Ever go to a Dog Sled Race before? Looking for something to do this weekend?? Who is ready for a Fun, FREE, family event!? This weekend Jan. 5th & 6th starting at 9 am sharp and ending by 11am, is The 2013 Mormon Lake Sled Dog Races held at Mormon Lake. Dress warm and be ready to cheer on the teams. Hosted by Purina, there will be snacks and hot beverages to keep you toasty, but as always in January -dress warm. :)
In January, you will most likely be doing all your seed starting indoors.
Vegetable and Herb Seeds To Start
Broccoli
Chives
Cauliflower
Thyme
Cabbage
Sage
Parsley
Marjoram
Onions
Cilantro
Perennial seeds can also be sown now, if they haven't been done already. Purchase seed starting mix for your indoor seedlings when you purchase your seeds.
Note: the last expected frost date is May 15th. So if you are from a different area, double check your frost dates and adjust the planting schedule accordingly. Maintenance Chores to Do
Most of the maintenance chores and home garden tips for January deal with soil preparation.
If the soil has thawed in your area, it's a good idea to turn it. This will start to break up the frozen layers, as well as exposing insect eggs and larvae for the birds to take care of.
In addition, if it freezes again, it will kill any exposed pests.
If you have a square foot garden, a warm day in January is ideal for cleaning out last summer's growth and turning the soil.
If you are planning a square foot garden for the first time, you should start building your grow beds now. Pest Control
During the colder months, there isn't an awful lot to do when it comes to pest control. Turning the soil to expose pest eggs, as mentioned above, can be useful.
You should also take a warm day and walk around your property looking for signs of damage. Nipping a problem in the bud before it warms up significantly is much easier.
If you wait until spring is in full bloom, it may be too late to implement a good pest control strategy.
Now is a good time to research natural and organic pest control measures. Have them ready before planting time. Fertilizing
Seedlings that are started indoors don't really need an awful lot of fertilizing. When they get to the juvenile stage, they can benefit from a diluted application of fish emulsion, or another organic fertilizer.
Turn to your compost pile, if you have one, and begin adding that composted organic material to your growing beds. It's also not too late to begin composting the organic matter from your garden.
