Water Hardness

I've seen a bit more mineral deposit build-up at our house in Natick than I did at our condo in Belmont, so I've been wondering what the hardness level of Natick water is. I think I just got the answer. I just received our town's annual water report and one of the items they sample is CaCO3 which is considered a measure of hardness. Wikipedia says that Hardness is usually measured as a combination of Calcium and Magnesium, but I'm guessing the number my town reports is a pretty good judge. They report 94.3 ppm CaCO3. According to Wikipedia, it sounds like this is the same as milligrams per Liter. Wikipedia provides a scale of hardness levels:

Soft	0–60 mg/L
Moderately Hard	61–120 mg/L
Hard	121–180 mg/L
Very Hard	181+ mg/L

So, we have moderately hard water here in Natick. No wonder I see more mineral buildup---I believe we had soft water in Belmont. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that Natick water comes from local wells whereas Belmont water comes via the MWRA which gets its supplies from the Quabbin and other western Mass. reservoirs

How to Dispose of a Mercury Thermometer

I just replaced a mercury-based thermostat in my house. Mercury is common in older, non-digital thermostats. Mine is Honeywell and is made in the shape of a circle. The mercury is in a small glass tube with three wires attached. Mercury can be quite dangerous and needs to be handled carefully. Fortunately, my local Natick Health Department accepts mercury thermostats for proper disposal and even offers a free digital thermostat in exchange. From what I've read, most local governments will accept mercury-based thermostats for disposal like Natick.

Grubs

It seems that April is the start of the lawn care season in New England. I purchased my first two installments of fertilizer over the weekend and also purchased two 40 lb. bags of lime since soil here tends to be more acidic than grass likes. I think I'll also need to spread a grub control product. From what I've heard, grubs are a common problem here in New England and I've seen at least one spot of lawn damage that I can't otherwise explain. That UConn article says that June is about the best time to apply a chemical treatment and recommends watering before (to bring grubs to the surface) and after (to draw the chemical down to the grubs) application to maximize effectiveness.

No More Yellow Pages!

A colleague at work just told me about Yellow Pages Opt-Out which allows you to (de-)select the local Yellow Pages books you receive. I'm always annoyed when they drop they off since it just means I have to get rid of them. Recycling works, but I'd much rather they simply not give me one. With the Opt-Out site, I can tell the publishers that I don't want any YellowPages. It determines the local Yellow Pages you might receive based on your addresses and allows you to select 0-3 copies of each. There are some minor usability issues with the site, but it seems to work and I was able to select zero copies of each without much trouble. If Yellow Pages annoy you too, I'd advice you to hit this Opt-Out site.

How To Operate Your Home Articles

Tom Feiza aka Mr. FixIt has posted a number of excellent articles on house maintenance. It sounds like these are largely excerpted from his book, How To Operate Your Home.

Update (3/25/11): I bought Mr. Feiza's book and gave it a read. It includes lots of good tips and diagrams. It's definitely worth the money. One thing I learned: I might be able to reduce the water hammer noise from my fancy front-load washing machine by installing a water hammer arrester, which is a tube attached to the water line half-filled with air to cushion the sudden changes caused by my washing machine.

Damn Ice Dams

The first winter in our house wasn't bad---temperatures and snowfall lingered around normal and snow often melted within a week or two of when it fell. My major concern was reducing our heating bill. Since then, we've replaced a leaky window, removed a leaky in-wall, window-style A/C, and added insulation to about 1/2 of the house walls. These improvements have helped reduce our oil usage by about 25%. But, I wasn't prepared for this year's surprise: ice dams.

This winter hasn't been so kind. We received about 6 feet of snow in little more than a month. And, for a span of 20 days and 4 1/2 feet of snow, the temperatures have stayed low enough that almost nothing has melted. The piles are high enough that's its getting difficult to clear my driveway.

Last Monday, my wife called me to say that there was water leaking into the house around a window. Ack! I knew we had significant ice build-up around the gutters, but I didn't think it was that bad. I scheduled an appointment for Thursday (since it was supposed to snow Tues & Wed) to have our roof cleaned and decided that I needed to do some roof cleaning myself. So, I dragged my shovel up on the roof with the help of my wife and I started shoveling. Four hours later, I had the roof mostly clean. I was afraid of damaging shingles and/or gutters by trying to break/remove ice, so there were still patches of ice on the roof and plenty of ice in the gutters, but I figured getting rid of the snow was at least a huge improvement. On Thursday, Willard cleared the snow that had fallen Tues/Wed and also cleared off much of the ice. After the recent warming and rains we've had, my roof is almost completely clear of snow and ice.

I knew that our low-pitch roof, cathedral ceilings and recessed lights contributed to ice dams. I now realize that skylights, vents and chimneys also contribute---anything that allows heat to come in contact with snow on the roof contributes to ice dams. This is the best article I've seen about ice dams. It provides a good explanation of how they form, why they lead to water in the house and how to prevent them.

Snowblower Repair

A year ago, a clutch cable partially broke on my Craftsman snowblower. My most excellent neighbor helped me rig a fix that worked for a year. But, last Tuesday, it slipped out again and a push nut fell off, making a spacer handle come loose. I was able to put the handle back together and applied the same fix to the clutch cable. But, I think it's only a matter of time before things break badly enough that I'm not able to hack them back together.

My neighbor told me about a power equipment and supply store across town in West Natick. But, I wasn't able to find it the one time I tried to find it, and, with two kids, it's hard to find the time to go searching again. Lucky for me, today I discovered Sears Parts Direct. All I had to do was enter the part numbers from my snow blower manual, pay for the parts and $8 shipping. And, voila, they're on their way to my front door! I know what you're thinking---that sort of thing was exciting 5-10 years ago, but today? C'mon, Amazon has just about everything. Sure, but have you tried buying a snowblower part online? Search for the part number and manufacturer name and you're likely to find... nothing. There just ain't sufficient volume in snowblower parts for Amazon to start selling them and many manufacturers just don't have the incentive to create a web site that makes part buying easy. So, I'm pleasantly surprised that Craftsman/Sears makes it so easy.