PLUMBING SPELLS CATASTROPHE

Want to strike fear into my husband… Just tell him we have a possible plumbing problem.  We all make compromises and at our home we are all about prevention.

Clogged drains can cause more problems than just interrupting your schedule. Backing up a pipe can put stress on it and shorten its life. So how do we achieve never ever having to call a plumber or worse yet hubby getting out his tools?

·   Keep Food Scraps out of kitchen drains…..Yes you really should scrape food debris from your dishes….Yes, Yes even if you have a disposal!

·   Never Ever put liquid grease down the drain…..that is what empty coffee cans are for…..

·   Cover drains in showers and tubs to keep hair out….one of the major offenders of clogged drains…..

·   Only put sewage or TP in toilets.

You might suggest that the chemical remedies would be the answer but no………..invariably there is a residue of the clog left ...you can never get it all. This means the clog will come back. The real corker is because of the caustic nature of the chemicals your pipes can be damaged….Now that should be a fun way to spend your house hold money on leaking pipes instead of drapes or upholstery.

Removal of a clogged drain by a professional can cost anywhere from $85-$325 The other alternative is to simply buy a manual auger or snake of your own for maybe $15 at the hardware store ….better yet don't allow one to happen in the first place!

based on a great article form house logic
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Lasagna Weed Prevention

Should we order a bottle of Chianti too?

I had heard of this method of choking out weeds before but just stumbled on a Fine Gardening*that gave this rather amusing name to the proceedure. It is similar to using a fabric shield to prevent weeds but if you have moved in the last ten years you probably have card board boxes languishing in your attic and free beats most any other price. Also some authorities seem to think the fabric can be problematic. Plus cardboard is so much more GREEN !

Removing the mulch to reveal the card board

The Cardboard was deteriorating after a month...

I did a modicum of weeding but by no means got all the yucky stuff out. I then started placing cardboard on the two beds I was working on. Ok I even used a small real estate sign but don’t tell Steve my partner! Then I began to liberally water down the cardboard until I got tired of doing that but probably the more water the better. Then I laid down about 3” of mulch. I used Cyprus but pine straw or anything that is appealing will work. My plan was to wait for several months to let the cardboard decompose. Generally that takes about 6 months. Not going to happen! Have those beds look like that for six months no way!  So after about 2 weeks could not stand how it looked and went into phase 2 get those plants in the beds….

Showing the loosened area around plant....this will be recoverd with mulch!

I removed the mulch in the areas the plants were going to live and then used a box cutter to make large X’s to pull back the cardboard. Piece of cake the cardboard was pliable and the ground was easy to dig into…..I first made sure to unwind any roots that were knotted in tight circles pulling  those out to allow them to grow and smoothed soil around them gently. Final step was to smooth the cardboard around the plant leaving a bit of space and then covered the area with mulch…..

I have since learned in another article that planting immediately is ok too! Whew! So let’s all have a glass of Chianti and watch our garden grow!



Lorapetulum



Juniper

For any type of Realty Issues please go to http://www.greatercrestviewhomes.com/ or http://www.theguthrieteam.com/