Home Improvement

  At this point in time a newer faucet and base plate was installed to replace a leaky faucet. The previous faucet was not repairable. The new water pump is up and running 24/7. All siding is in place. The solar pv station is working 24/7. Interior and exterior painting remains to be done.  UPDATE: I trimmed the length of the Wagner paint sprayer hose and was able to remove the clog. I have part of the hose that may be enough to use a paint bucket. I will need to drill holes in the bucket lid and attach to the bucket to prevent paint splashes.

  PAINTING    Up until now, I've been usng a brush to paint the house. There's something quieting about brushing. Brushing can be theraputic. However, I'm getting to ares of the house that will be difficult for brushing, so I've gotten an electric paint sprayer.    I found an inexpensive but usable painter on ebay. A Wagner Power Painter Wide-Shot  spray painter. The painter coomes with a cup that srews into the bottom of the paint gun. There was a hose and accompanying bits and pieces to allow spraying directly from a paint bucket but the hose had a dried  paint clog half way down the tube. I asked for and got a partial refund from the seller. I checked the web and a new hose will cost as much as the kit did. I'm going with the cup since I/'m going to be in some awkward positions when I paint. PLUMBING    I ordered and have installed a new 1/2HP water pump. Mysystem seems to be able to handle the load on a sunny day. Use on a cloudy day migh...

 Occasionally, I have to do some property management other than mowing and trimming with a string trimmer, e.g., a "weedeater." Now, I need to eliminate crabgrass. For this, I have ordered chemicals from Amazon Prime. Torocity and Southern AG non-ionic surfactant. Combibed with water in a 1-2-3 ratio, can be sprayed on a lawn as an effective post- or pre- emergent crabgrass control.  1 tsp - Torocity 2 gallons - water 3 tsp - Southern AG NIS surfactant This will treat 1000 square feet.

     Added an external light for the basement door. A Philips HUE bulb allows programmed control of hue(color) and intensity(bightness) from inside the house. The bulb was removed from the front porch light. Previously, that light contained two bulbs. Now there is just one, but that is enough. The addition of a basement entryway light makes nighttime trips to the basement a lot safer and easier. I could have used an upside-down section of siding plank to make the mount surface plumb, but did not. I may do that later.

  The house has been standing without corner frames, the vertical pieces that conceal where the two walls meet, in several places. The corners are formed using 1"x6"x10' cut to 8' ( a mistake, the 10' length shhould have been trimmed AFTER placement).  The planks had knots painted with Zinsser BIN then Zinsser Cover Stain, and lastly, a coat of white exterior latex house paint. One plank was attached to  corner for placement reference of the first. The plank was placed to extend beyond the edge of the siding so the other plank would butt up against it. Once fastened in place the reference plannk was removed and a permanent plank attached using the edge of the plank already in place as a reference point. This was done for three corners. The TV cable was removed and surrounding siding repainted. This improved the look of the house as did the addition of corners. I also added window frames around the two window replacements.  The long cable in the view is the power/c...

I decided to make some improvements in the rear gutter downspout. The downspout attchment to the 2" pipe 'funnel' needs to be changed. A strong wind blew the downspout off the house. Reattchment was easy enough but a stronger more secure method is needed. A flexible pipe for the upper connection to the gutter is an improvement and will allow the gutter downspout to be attached to the house instead of floating in air. Some images of the back gutter downspout: