Category Archives: Yard & Outdoors

Plumbing Tips And Tricks Made Simple For You (2)

April 13, 2022   Matt

Plumbing Tips And Tricks Made Simple For You

Plumbing can seem as difficult as taking the integral of a complex expression. Read on to discover some great advice you can apply to your plumbing projects.

Run your washing machine when it has a full load of clothes so that you can maximize the efficiency of the water that you use. You do not want to waste water, as this will lead to a higher water bill and can cause wear and tear to your machines internal components.

If your pipes bang when you turn on the water, and all the pipes are anchored correctly, you should add some straps or cushion the pipes with a rubber blanket. There may be times when you will need to do both. Make sure that if you have copper pipes, you are not using galvanized straps.

When searching for a good plumber you should always check references. It is easy to just go with the lowest price, but you have to do your research and make sure the plumber has a good reputation with the people they have done work for in the past so you do not get a bad plumber.

Taking preemptive action to fix a strange smelling kitchen sink can be a good way to keep your kitchen smelling great. Make sure not to throw hair or grease into your sink. Use baking soda if you have a strange smell coming from your drain. Make sure you use your garbage disposal if you have one to grind up any food and use water while doing this to prevent damage to the blades of the garbage disposal.

If you are going to update the plumbing in your house, one thing to consider is installing a new tank-less water heater. They are much smaller than traditional tank heaters, which is a space-saver. Tank-less water heaters are available in gas or electric, depending on what your house needs.

Be careful about using liquid clog cleaners. These liquids can contain chemicals that are extremely bad for your pipes. Instead, use a snake or a plunger to dislodge any clogs you might encounter. Be sure to try these things before giving up and calling a plumber, who will probably re-perform those same acts.

One way to prevent water heater problems is to turn down the heat. As long as the water is still as hot as needed for showers and washing dishes, turning it down won’t hurt anything, and will extend the life of the heater. Holding very hot water can corrode the inside.

You need to winter-proof your house. You have to make sure you switch of the master circuit breaker or the shut-off valve before you leave your house. Since one small hole or congested water can quickly freeze and cause pipes to break and expand, you need to drain and open all outdoor and household water lines.

As you can see, plumbing isn’t so scary when you know what to do. Follow the tips you’ve read here next time you have a problem with your plumbing, and soon your problem will be solved, all without having to call an expensive plumber to fix the problem for you.

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Valuable Plumbing Information For Any Home Owner (2)

April 08, 2022   Matt

Valuable Plumbing Information For Any Home Owner

This article has some of the best tips and tricks available to you concerning plumbing. You can check elsewhere if you want; however, in order to make the most out of your time, we suggest that you take a few minutes to check out the expert advice provided here.

Tank-less water heaters are a great space saving alternative to traditional tank units. They are available in many models, some for indoors and some models are capable for outdoor mounting. Tank-less water heaters are known as great money savers when it comes to your water bill.

Throw coffee grounds in the trash, don’t rinse down the sink. Coffee grounds that are washed down the sink drain can cause severe blockages that will be a challenge to take care of. If you are making coffee, you want to always throw your grinds into the trash to dispose properly.

To help keep your drains working properly you should pay attention to clogs. Clogs are a common problem at home but with proper maintenance and preventive measures you can avoid a messy situation. Clogs are not only an annoyance, but can also lead to overflows and water damage. So make sure you keep your drains clog-free by implementing easy preventative practices.

When it comes to plumbing a great choice is to invest in brass fittings. Sure, they may be more expensive upfront, however their longevity is amazing compared to the alternatives, so you end up saving money. As an added bonus, the brass fittings look so much better than the other alternatives.

Check for leaks behind the wall tile in your bathroom, especially any tile surrounding your bathtub, by gently pressing each tile and feeling for some give. If you find any mushy or soft spots, you will need to find the source of the leak and repair it to prevent further damage.

Avoid pouring grease or oil down your kitchen sink drain. Grease and oil can build up in your pipes and cause a backup. Instead, wait for the grease or oil to cool and solidify and either throw it away or see if there’s a place to recycle it near your home.

Frozen pipes can lead to many problems, most of them expensive to fix. So you want to avoid that at all costs. To avoid frozen pipes, make sure the temperature in your home never drops below 55 degrees. Look for any air leaks around your pipes and make sure they’re sealed up.

If you are considering a plumbing project due to having what appears to be pink or red water have your water tested first. This coloration is likely due to having rust in your water, which an average plumbing project is unlikely to fix. The rust is likely coming from your well and installing a water softener there is the best remedy to the problem.

In conclusion, not all advice should be taken seriously. Be sure to be careful who you take advice from especially when it is something that could lead to much frustration in the future. This article hopefully provided all of the details that you need to know about plumbing.

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Solid Plumbing Advice For The Do-It-Yourself Homeowner

April 03, 2022   Matt

Solid Plumbing Advice For The Do-It-Yourself Homeowner

Plumbing can imply a lot of different connotations depending upon whom you ask or talk to about it. We all know that it’s essential to your home, but that doesn’t mean that you should neglect it or just leave it to a pro. Take some time to learn how to do it yourself using the tips below.

Make sure that any exposed pipes in your home are insulated, especially those found in crawl spaces on the outside walls of your home. This will help keep them from freezing and causing you tons of problems. Frozen pipes can often be devastating and leave you with problems that are expensive to fix and no water in the middle of winter.

Be sure that you shut off your drain lines and outside faucets when the weather gets colder. Cold weather, snow, and ice can cause these lines to freeze up, which can cause damage to them. If you can, try to have these shut off before the first frost of the year.

Don’t start any do-it-yourself plumbing project without having a plan in place. You need to know beforehand exactly what you are getting yourself into. Know what kind of space you are working with and what lines are which. Getting a clear picture early on will make your plumbing project go a lot smoother!

Check your water meter frequently to detect if there is a leak in your pipeline. If you are not using a lot of water during a period of time and your water meter rises, this can be a clear indication of a leak. Replace leaks as soon as possible to prevent further plumbing issues.

Insulate all of the pipes in your home that run along an exterior wall to prevent them from freezing. This step is not going to cost you a lot of money, but it is going to save you quite a bit of damage by preventing pipe freezes. It is easy and cheap to do and should be done as soon as possible.

You need to winter-proof your house. You have to make sure you switch of the master circuit breaker or the shut-off valve before you leave your house. Since one small hole or congested water can quickly freeze and cause pipes to break and expand, you need to drain and open all outdoor and household water lines.

When facing temperatures below freezing in the winter it is important to leave the hot water dripping. This makes sure that the pipes don’t freeze over and saves you the expensive repair of fixing and or entirely replacing a broken pipe. The slight cost of dripping hot water is well worth saving you from that large expense of replacing a broken pipe.

It’s true that plumbing should be of utmost importance when it comes to home improvement. That said, you should not just leave it until there is a problem and then call a pro. You can learn to take care of it yourself and hopefully these tips gave you advice on how to do that.

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Furnace Inspections A Must Under New Oilheat Regulations

March 29, 2022   Matt

Furnace Inspections A Must Under New Oilheat Regulations

(NC)-The Canadian Oil Heat Association (COHA) is encouraging oilheat customers in Ontario to book inspections on their heating systems as soon as possible to avoid any unforeseen delays or interruptions in service.
Basic and/or comprehensive inspections on oilheating systems are now required under new regulations from Ontario’s Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA). The new regulations will ensure that heating with oil remains one of the safest and most dependable home heating options.
“Basic and comprehensive inspections are mandatory and should be seen as a part of regular furnace maintenance,” says COHA president John Butt. “They can generally be booked at the same time as your regular tune-ups and service checks.”
Basic inspections involve a general, visual examination of the system. By May 2004, all fuel oil customers must have had at least a basic inspection performed by a certified individual.
Homeowners are also required to have a comprehensive inspection of their heating and delivery system by a certified oil burner technician (OBT). This inspection is required every 10 years. By May 2007 all fuel oil customers must have a comprehensive inspection.
“It is important for homeowners to remember that their fuel oil distributors are required by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority to complete the inspections, repairs and replacements within the prescribed timelines,” says Butt. “Sometimes that can mean that service calls may take a little longer than usual, but homeowners should rest assured that they will be taken care of in a timely and efficient manner.”
The following are a list of Frequently Asked Questions that TSSA has been receiving regarding these new regulations:
Q: What exactly is on the inspection checklist?
A: First, it is important for homeowners to realize that a fuel oil system consists of more than just a storage tank. It also includes a fill and vent pipe for oil supply and an outlet line with a valve and filter to supply oil to the furnace.
Some of the things a fuel dealer will look at during the course of an inspection include:
Verifying that the tank has a proper gauge and vent whistle
Checking whether the tank is leaning over and may topple
Checking whether there are signs of leakage at the tank bottom
Ensuring that the fill and vent are piped outside.
Q: What happens if the fuel oil supplier finds an unsafe installation?
A: Depending on the potential danger from the unsafe installation, a fuel supplier can specify a time period of up to 90 days for corrective action before the delivery of fuel oil must cease. If the unsafe installation is very dangerous, then a distributor must immediately stop the supply of fuel oil to the installation.
Q: I don’t agree with my fuel supplier and I think that my equipment is safe. What can I do?
A: Homeowners can get a second opinion from other Oil Burner Technicians and other fuel oil suppliers to confirm whether or not there is an unsafe installation.
For more information on these regulations, please contact your Fuel Oil Dealer or visit www.tssa.org. To find an oil company in your area, visit www.coha.ca

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Family Fun While Landscaping

March 24, 2022   Matt

Family Fun While Landscaping

Landscaping, gardens and other home improvement projects improve our home in various ways. With proper planning, you can increase the aesthetic value of your home, but such projects are often a big problem. One way to make your landscaping project fun is by asking every member of the family to participate.

Involve your family in redesigning your home. Let everyone pitch-in his/her ideas on how you can improve work together your home. Ask for their opinions on how each area of your house could be improved.

You can exchange ideas on your home improvement project. You will be surprised to discover how creative others are when it comes to these projects.

Kids often use the yard as playground. Ask them what needs to be enhanced in that area. If you have teens in the house, the study hall or leisure room is the place they frequently spend their time. They know what needs to be done in those areas.

Create handy crafts that you can place on their rooms. Painting a decorative fence adds fun not just to your yard but makes work easier as well. Even the simplest task of weeding the grounds can be a fun task for the entire family.

Select plants with them. Have them help you decide plants what you can place in your yard. Look for the supplies that you will need together with your family.

Other than improving the aesthetic value of your home, engaging your children in landscaping your home has many benefits. One advantage of working together on landscaping your home is that you become more productive. It is possible to build stronger family ties and spend quality time while landscaping.

You also eliminate your children’s feeling that they are a hindrance. They begin to perceive the task as something as not just a chore that they have to do. The more that they get involved on the work the more confident they become of their potentials. Your kids may stay home longer if they are involved in home improvement.

Asking your kids to participate helps them develop their creativity. These projects also teach them skills that they will need when they become adults. They learn to express themselves in a more positive way. They build a stronger sense of self-meaning while helping you.

A little help from every member of the family is all you need to make landscaping fun.

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Switching Your Residential Phone Service To VoIP

March 19, 2022   Matt

Switching Your Residential Phone Service To VoIP

If you’re considering changing your residential phone service to Voice Over IP, or VOIP service, there are several steps in the process, and thinking and acting carefully during each step can make the process run much more smoothly and avoid headaches both during the installation and later on in your service period.

First, it’s important to choose a VOIP provider carefully. There are three major providers who offer VOIP in most areas: Vonage, Sunrocket, and Comcast. All three are well-known, and each has different plans and services.

When looking for a provider, you should look first a the quality of their offerings. The best way to determine whether the provider you’re considering has a good record in your area is to get online and look for complaints and critical web sites and blog postings. Of course, these must be taken with a grain of salt; not everyone will be happy with every provider. But you can certainly make a good judgment as to whether a provider has an unreasonable number of complaints by doing a web search.

Support is the next important factor to consider in choosing a provider. Again, checking web sites for complaints is a good way to gauge the quality of a provider’s support. Another way to measure customer support is to send a pre-sales support request. While some providers handle these support requests better than their actual customer requests, in general this is a good way to see how they deal with customers.

Finally, in choosing a provider, you will want to look at features and options. If it is important to you to keep your existing phones and have more than one phone in your home, make sure the provider you are considering allows for that. If you want to check your voicemail online and get email notification of new emails, choose a provider with that service.

The best way to make sure you get the features you want is to find out what features are available from all the providers, which may include some you have not thought of, and determine which are the most important and which you could live without.

Once you’re comfortable with the provider you’ve chosen, your next step will be installation.

Most providers will send someone out to install the equipment and set up your VOIP service. If you’re doing it yourself, they should provide the equipment and instructions.

If you are purchasing or leasing phone equipment, familiarize yourself with it as soon as it arrives.

Next, you’ll want to check all the features once your phone is installed to make sure everything is working as promised.

Your very last step in switching to VOIP will be to study the manual and learn how to use the many features of your VOIP service, from blocking calls to checking messages and asking for help from your provider.

Switching to VOIP can seem like a big move, but if taken step by step, it can be very easy and relatively painless.

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