Condo Blues: water
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

How to Replace Plumbing Valves Without Soldering

The CPVC water shutoff valves that came with my house are prone to leaking. I always give them an extra tight twist with my wrench which usually solves the problem.

Or makes a bigger problem when I accidentally snapped the threads off a bathroom valve when I installed our bidet (I bought this exact Lux Bidet attachment – it is life changing!) (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links for your convenience.

 

how to replace broken water shut off valve
The broken bathroom water shut off valve.

I jumped in the car and grumbled my way down to Lowes that I’m now in a situation where I have to wait on a plumber to replace the valve buy instead of finishing the bidet installation like I planned. Well, at least I have the chance to replace all of the cruddy PVC shutoffs with sturdy metal water valves we’ve been talking about.

I figure I can make the plumber’s job a little easier (and a little cheaper for me) if I buy replacement stop valves before I made the appointment. I’m not confident enough in my soldering skills to do the job myself and not burn down the house in the process.

Thursday, May 13, 2021

Easy Garden Watering Hack and Friday Favorites Week 581

I used to have a hard time not killing plants in my flower, herb, and vegetable gardens. I'd either overwater them or under water them. 

Often I thought a recent summer rain had already watered plants for me because the soil was wet on top but not deep down at the root of the plant. The result? Plant murder. (Unintentional, but it's still death.)

A few years ago, I learned a great little gardening hack on how to know when you need to water a garden that works 100% of the time - use a simple rain gage like this one! (Disclosure: I'm including an affiliate link for your convenience.)


best gardening tip and watering idea
I put my rain gage in a pot in my outdoor container garden.


Thursday, June 4, 2020

Easy DIY Small Space Under Sink Water Filter Friday Favorites Linky Party 532

My mini DIY project for the week was decided for me by my old water filtration system because it started to leak after I changed the filter. After some tinkering, some Googling, and tinkering some more, the only solution was to replace the whole thing. Which lead to more Googling and researching for the best under sink water filter for small spaces like our condo. 

Since our water tests at a good quality, we don't need a super duper reverse osmosis water filter system. Good thing because there isn't room under the kitchen sink for one. I didn't look at whole house water filter systems because I have even less room to install one of those on the water main and frankly all of our drinking and cooking water comes from the kitchen sink.


easy DIY undersink water filter installation
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Sunday, June 10, 2018

How to Extend a Downspout the Easy Way

Your local building code my differ but most recommend the water running through the downspouts of your house discharge the water at least six feet away from the house’s foundation. Otherwise, the water can splash back and erode the soil around the downspout where rain water can get in to damage the foundation of your home.

Putting a splash block under each downspout is the easiest way to divert rainwater away from the foundation of your house and fix the problem.  That’s what the builder of my neighborhood did to our houses.

The results are hit and miss because the builder used a one measurement fits all approach and some of our downspouts are too high due to hills in the neighborhood and some of us have soil eroding under their splash blocks like my neighbor’s house shown below.

How to prevent soil erosion and lengthen downspouts the easy way
Pin this tutorial on Pinterest for later and share it with your friends!

Two Easy Ways to Extend an Existing House Downspout

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

12 Easy Ways to Save Money on Your Hot Water Heating Bill

Tens years ago, in 2008 my family started a year long product to reduce how much energy we use and our bill in our new home because a ton of Greenzillas said I couldn’t until I trashed all of my conventional and came new with the house major appliances and systems and replaced them with new super duper high efficiency (and expensive) everything.

I blogged about our new habits and inexpensive energy efficient DIY projects right here on Condo Blues in the very first year of this blog. Long story short, we reduced our use by 32% and kept it that way while staying toasty warm, clean, and well fed.

And using less energy than comparable families and homes in our area – including the Energy Star rated homes of which we are not.

Until recently when natural gas bill started to creep higher. Not break the bank,  we’rel going to starve high, but high enough to knock our house from constantly rating Very Good to smack dab in the middle of  Good. 

I wanted to figure out what’s going on because I had bragging rights on the line!

Turns out we were wasting too much energy heating water and after addressing  Tips One through Three we lowered our energy and hot water heating bill. 

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

How to Repair a Dishwasher that Won’t Drain

 My dishwasher did not drain after washing a load of dishes. I like my dishwasher and it is barely four years old.  I really hoped I could fix my broken dishwasher because I do NOT want to go through The Great Dishwasher Research Hunt again.

Basically there are a series of filters and pumps in a dishwasher that can become clogged through normal use, not rinsing dishes, or in my case my bad habit of not removing paper labels from jars before I stick them in the dishwasher clogged the drain pipe. This little exercise cured me of that habit.

Unclogging a dishwasher drain pipe is much easier than the dozens of YouTube videos I consulted make it out to be. The most difficult part of the process is dealing with the vile stench of the clog because I’m a baby about bad smells. 


How to Unclog a Dishwasher


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Tuesday, June 6, 2017

How to Make a Hanging Self Watering Herb Garden

Husband and I like to cook with fresh herbs and the easiest and cheapest way to do that is to grow them on the patio off our kitchen. Unfortunately for my herb garden to be, most of the patio space has already been claimed by tomato and pepper plants.

No problem -  if you can’t go out, go up!

I made last fall’s hanging flower pots into a self watering hanging herb garden. I hung them on hanging plant pulleys I bought from Amazon here so I can water then more easily using the pulley to lower the pots to Lisa height and then raise the planters so no one else bonks their head on a low hanging plant. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience)

Easy DIY Self Watering Hanging Planter



Pin this post for later! Share this clever planter idea with your friends! 

Sunday, May 21, 2017

How to Make a Self Watering Flower Pot

Last summer Husband and I planted green and Apache peppers in my DIY self watering planter box the Mark 2. Self watering planters are fantastic for nightshades like tomatoes and peppers because they looooooooove being watered from their roots.

There are other benefits to growing vegetables in self watering containers: you conserve water by only watering the plant and not the surrounding sidewalk or patio with the sprinkler (or is that just me?) and may be less likely to kill the plant if you forget to water it every day (also me.)

I built the Mark 2 in the Earthbox style (learn more about it herewith a plastic aeration screen making a false bottom to fill with water. Unfortunately the aeration screen collapsed during the winter under the weight of snow and heavy wet soil. (Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)

There is another style of self wicking planter that creates the water chamber with gravel and allows the water to wick to the plant roots using a layer of  landscaping fabric as a wick. Both water conserving planter ideas work well but I want to to reduce potential spring maintenance of replacing aeration screens that collapse under weight of wet soil or decomposing cloth wicks on a yearly basis.

I combined the two styles to make self wicking and watering tomato planters from pretty flower pots for my container garden.


How to Make a Pretty Self Watering Container Garden

Sunday, April 23, 2017

How to Make a Brick and Pallet Rain Barrel Stand

There is an issue with the French drain in my side yard which leaves my side yard is wet and spongy days after it rains. I installed a rain barrel as a temporary fix until I can get my Homeowner’s Association to repair the poor drainage problem. Not to mention being able to capture and use rainwater to water our flowerbeds. A quick drainage fix, free plant water, and being green – high fives all around.

Originally I planned to hook a soaker hose up to the rain barrel as a lower waste way to water the front yard and garden but it didn’t work as well as I hoped because the rain barrel water pressure was practically nil. Turns out the height of your rain barrel determines how much water pressure flows from it and not what I thought – the amount of water in the rain catch system.

How to Increase Rain Barrel Water Pressure the Quick and Easy Way

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

What is This Green and White Corrosion on My Faucet and How Do I Fix It?

The kitchen sink started leaking from the back side of the faucet handle.  Most of the time the kitchen faucet leaks because the washer in the faucet handle wears out.

Faucet handles get a lot of use all day every day so the wearing of moving parts is inevitable. Replacing the washer with a new one is usually the quick and simple fix.

I removed the screw cover and screw from my single single handle faucet to lift the  handle up to remove it and replace the rubber washer.

It wouldn’t budge.


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You can see a lot of rust inside of the faucet handle. White and green corrosion fused the faucet handle parts together and snapped off in my had. What is this stuff?

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

How to Adjust a Shower Water Temperature Valve

The shower in our guest bathroom runs cold and takes forever to heat up. It can be sign your water heater is ready to heave its last breath. Sure enough after 11 years of faithful service, our water heater went to that great metal recycling plant in the sky.

Well, actually, it went to a metal recycling plant down the round but in the sky sounds more poetic.
Shower water still took forever to heat with the new water heater. I thought it was set at a lower temperature until we passed inspection from the natural gas company.

Nope.

The natural gas inspector told me our hot water heater passed with flying colors and is already set at the correct temperature. He said the issue is with the faucet not the water heater. The water temperature regulator (also known as a scald valve) on the faucet is set too low.

How to Adjust the Water Temperature Regulator on a Kohler Shower Faucet

 

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