Archive for 'Home and Family'
5 Typical Jobs a Plumber gets Called Out To Do
Posted on March 3, 2009, by Amy Nutt, under Home and Family.
There are elements of plumbing all over your homes - predominantly in kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, wash rooms and basements, but the pipes carrying water to each of these end units runs all over your home. Things go wrong with plumbing all the time; gaskets dry out, pipes freeze and break, porcelain cracks and drains become gummed up. Some of these jobs are small enough for the home owner to handle on their own, but some require a trained professional to be taken care of properly.
Here are some of the more typical jobs that plumbers get called out to repair on a regular basis:
Leaks
Leaks, especially those in copper plumbing pipe can be a really difficult task for a homeowner to handle. Many leaks of this nature will require a portion or complete length of pipe to be replaced, this means working with a torch to loosen the joints before removing the damaged pipe, then working again with a torch to seal the joints once the new piece of pipe is in position. This practice can be dangerous for someone who has no experience, and it’s often difficult for the novice to make a complete seal at a copper joint - which will potentially result in a worse leak than was there before the work began.
Removal or Replacement of Sinks
Porcelain sinks can be very difficult to handle, they are heavy and awkward to work with and most often require a plumber to install or replace. If a new sink is going in, a qualified plumber can insure that it will get installed properly, without getting damaged in the process. Porcelain, when not handled properly can get cracked or chipped resulting in a sink that is worthless. It’s not unheard of for a homeowner to be able to remove and old sink and install a new one, but the likelihood of him or her doing it with no damage to the sink and with no drips or leaks along the connections of from the trap is pretty rare. Getting it done right the first time is important with sinks and the only way you can ensure that will happen is by contracting a plumber.
Toilets
Replacing toilets can be a messy job - wax rings, sewer gas and people with no plumbing experience dont usually mix. In order for a toilet to work properly all of the old wax ring must be removed and the new one must be perfectly in place - the toilet must then line up properly on top of the new ring. The bolts must be securely and evenly fastened and the toilet caulked to the floor. If you mess up any of these steps, the new wax ring may be ruined and youll have to make another trip to the hardware store and start over again for the beginning. Replacing a toilet is certainly a job best left for the plumber.
Hot Water Tanks
Hot water heaters and hot water tanks are definitely a job for plumbers, they are big and heavy and difficult to install. If there was no hot water tank in place some installations require piping in a gas line, running duct work to the chimney and piping in new water lines. Damaged hot water tanks are often something that an emergency plumber will have to get called into handle due to the fact that they hold so much water, in addition to the water constantly running to them. Any damage to or replacement of a hot water tank should be handled by a professional.
Drain Cleaning
If you got a small clog in a sink or tub then a chemical drain cleaning agent may temporarily due the trick, but for big clogs or total blockages a plumber could be a necessity. Plumbers have access to drain cleaning tools that homeowners do not - they have augers and snakes to break loose large blockages to get the water running freely again. Serious, drastic drain blockages may even require damaged sections of drain pipe to be replaced; this can be a very large and difficult job for even an experienced plumber and should never be attempted by someone with no experience.
There are all sorts of reasons that come up in daily life that may require a plumbers services, the above five listing are some of the most common, but if you run into any situation regarding your plumbing that you aren’t exactly sure how to handle it’s best that you enlist the help of an experienced plumbing contractor.
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Cleaning your Concrete Floor
Posted on March 2, 2009, by Mercie Hallow, under Home and Family.
Concrete cleaning is a process that needs to be regularly maintained in order to attain a beautiful concrete surface always. There are many methods known to men on how to clean a concrete surface. Because of the natural appearance of concrete it is oftentimes hard to tell if it is dirty or not. Dirt in acid stained concrete is even harder to see because of the concretes natural earth tone color.
To remove dust, grime and mold from concrete is the easiest process so far. These types of dirt can be removed through power washing. Power washing is the method of using pressurized water that comes out of a nozzle. The water mixture from power washing usually includes water with detergent or soap that effectively washes out simple dirt from the concrete surface.
Grease and oil stains in concrete can be cleaned by pouring hot water with a mixture of household detergent or soap. Hot water lifts off the grease from the concrete. An alkali degreaser is then added to it since it emulsifies the grease and oil thus making it possible to wash out with the power washer. Some floor cleaning contractors use alkali degreaser also when cleaning simple dust and dirt off concrete since they are sometimes are oily too.
Paints are the hardest to remove since they tend to adhere more to the concrete surface. A potassium hydroxide cleaning agent should be used to remove paint stains. However, this type of cleaning agent tends to be too aggressive. A citrus-based solvent can be used instead which is less aggressive. A potassium hydroxide cleaning agent should be allowed to settle for a few hours before power washing.
Paints can also be removed through the use of tungsten-carbide nozzle power washer with sand and water stream coming out of it. This type though can lead to concrete damage because of the sand bits and pressurized water. A softer sodium bicarbonate adhesive in power washer can be used instead.
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Alpine Strawberries
Posted on March 2, 2009, by admin, under Organic Gardening.
There are many varieties of strawberries. Below are a few choice varieties of compost growing of strawberries that gardeners usually plant.
They can be transplanted in rows roughly 18 inches apart, allowing a one foot space between the plants. The fruits are tiny and reproduction can be achieved by deviding the clumps after fruiting has ended in the late fall. About fifty plants are needed for a normal family. This type of strawberry will thrive on a partially shaded border rich in compost or sedge peat. You can raise plants from seed and buy them from your local nursery in early September. Remove the first few blooms for prolific cropping that will last through to October, when the regular varieties are done.
It pays to mulch the ground mid July with sedge peat so as to keep the berries from touching the ground. There seems to be no clearcut end to a truss of flowers which may continue to bloom until it is about 20 inches long. The planting should be done in rows 2 feet apart, allowing 18 inches between the plants. Again, remove the first few flowers for prolific cropping that will last from August to October, when the ordinary varieties are over.
Hampshire Maid if deblossomed in May or June will bear fruits from July through November. The plant is dense, the trusses appear all round and the fruit can be located at the edge of the foliage. The berries are rounded-conical, sturdy and dark red. These heavy croppers are excellent for making jam.
Charles Sinnen is a hard variety to get your hands on due to the fact that it does not bear any runners and must be reproduced in very late fall by dividing the crowns. I’ve included it here because it is admired to be one of the most delicious berries. These come from the United States and are only offered by one or two British nurserymen. It is easy to grow and produce dark red juicy berries with dark green foliage. It is an excellent grower and a prolific cropper which will form runners.
Royal Sovereign can be compared to the Cox’s Orange of apples. Mouthwatering when well grown. It’s also good for heavier soil. The fruits are flush, very big and of premium quality. Rather leafy for growing under ganwicks or cloches. An excellent variety for the small garden. Cambridge Rival is a marvelous variety for the damp parts of Great Britain and during rainy seasons. It produces low trusses, with added foliage that are on long stems clear of the fruit. It is also a good variety to grow in sandy areas which may be low in potash. The flavour of the berries can be enhanced under ganwicks or frames. It is very rebellious againts Red Core Root Rot. Fruits are large, conical, firm and crimson. Season early as they do not travel well.
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Elegance with Wrought Iron Towel Bars and Racks
Posted on March 1, 2009, by Susan West, under Interior Design.
When you consider the beautification of your home decor there are many ways to create a pleasant atmosphere. Perhaps you have even considered the use of wrought iron decorations, such as wrought iron towel bars and wrought iron towel racks. There are many wonderful pieces of wrought iron creations for home use, such as wrought iron towel racks, wrought iron towel bars, as well as wrought iron candle holders, tissue box holders, paper towel holders and a nice selection of wrought iron window treatments and many more decorative wrought iron accessories.
Most wrought iron designs tend to follow the European fashion, which adds a certain touch of elegance to any home. It can bring a feeling of warm nostalgia of days gone by. There are a variety of items for both inside and outside the home available in wrought iron. Some examples include wrought iron chandeliers, candle wall scones, patio lamppost, wrought iron towel racks and wrought iron towel bars. The list of possible decorating items is endless.
Many styles of wrought iron pieces are available to choose from. Whether you want to get a towel rack made out of wrought iron that looks like a bear or any other type of animal, there are plenty of choices to look at when getting into wrought iron decorating.
If you are debating about whether to get these wrought iron towel bars and racks for your home, though, consider the many benefits that wrought iron offers to many people for their homes. First of all, the look and feel of wrought iron should give you a sense that you or the homeowner truly care about the appearance of their home. As such, wrought iron towel bars that are placed around your bathroom for the purpose of holding your bath towels add to the beauty of the decorations in that room. Additionally, another benefit to wrought iron towel racks is that they resist corrosion better than other steel products.
There are so many beautiful and functional wrought iron items to decorate your home, to compliment your wrought iron towel racks and bars. For instance, you may be interested in using specialty wrought iron items such as picture frames, napkin holders, wine racks, and other wrought iron storage racks to decorate your dining room and kitchen.
Other than adding wrought iron towel bars and wrought iron towel racks to your bathroom, you can add small touches to other sections of your home. Try some wrought iron curtain rods, and a chandelier. Remove the standard screen door and have a new wrought iron door put in its place. Have an idea for a design you would like, then have it specially made to your specifications.
Odds are you will adore using wrought iron products, no matter which style or design you may favor. You will also find that wrought iron products are tailor made to fit your home decorating needs. Various manufacturers of wrought iron pieces the world over is willing to help you create a home atmosphere, which is exquisitely, beautiful and stalwartly secures. Wrought iron towel bars and wrought iron rack are only a small part of wrought iron decorations just waiting for you to discover them. You can purchase online while filling your home with the touch of beauty only wrought iron provides to your lifestyle and home decor! Edited by Glinda Zuladra
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Plums
Posted on March 1, 2009, by Ian Nathaniel, under Home and Family.
In the olden days it was thought that walnuts could only be grown as tall standard trees, but latterly there has been a move to produce them as bush trees and I had seen a number growing satisfactorily in gardens. Because the flowers of walnuts are so easily ruined by frost, it is vital to plant where they will have the maximum of protection in the spring. It only takes 2 degrees of frost to ruin the female flowers. Plant, preferably, in a nice well-drained soil with a fair lime content. Be sure to mulch the trees with compost after planting in a ring 3 feet wide. Buy grafted trees and plant one tree and no more (in a garden) early in the winter. Each March apply meat and bonemeal all over the soil where the walnuts are growing, at the rate of 2 oz. to the sq. yard.
The branches are thorny, the leaves arc small, while the little plums themselves suggest a wild fruit.
Don’t attempt to prune nuts severely in the winter or the wood the trees will bleed badly. Don’t prune the trees any time between Christmas and May. One of the big problems in connection with walnuts is that which concerns the male catkins. Very often these do not appear early enough in the life of a tree. Secondly, there are varieties which bear their male flowers long before the female. It is therefore a good thing to plant a pollinator which will produce plenty of male catkins.
For the first three years reduce the one-year-old leaders or end growths back by about half, making a cut to just above an outward pointing bud. After this period allow the bushes or trees to grow naturally, except to thin out the over-crowding branches sufficiently to let in the light and air and produce an evenly-shaped, well-balanced tree at the same time.
Pick the nuts the moment they start to fall and remove the husks. Then scrub them well with a nailbrush to remove any trace of fibre in the crevices of the shells. Dry them in a room where the temperature is about 50 F. and, if you like, place the nuts in a bleaching solution for about three minutes if you want to improve their appearance. Only well-scaled nuts may be bleached-those with a slight crack may be ruined. After bleaching, store the nuts in a cool place.
Unfortunately, walnut trees take years to bear, as a rule-though the provision of the pollinators does make cropping a certainty!
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Growing Peach Tree System
Posted on March 1, 2009, by Joshua Ethan, under Home and Family.
There is no doubt at all that the best time to plant is November, and the earlier the better.Bush-shaped trees are best bought as two-year-olds but fan trees may be three years old.
He first of all builds up the straight supporting main stem and finds that this is not difficult to do because the peach is a strong grower.
When the main stem is growing well, the laterals are cut back, starting with those over 2 feet long. In later years, the two-year laterals are cut back to within an inch of the main stem or at their point of origin.
The fruits must be thinned out when they are the size of a little cobnut, leaving them at about 9 inches apart. Some people do a second thinning when the peaches are the size of walnuts. It is seldom necessary to thin when peaches are grown as bushes, except the removal of one of each of the twin fruits. Peaches should be picked very carefully with the whole hand and not with the thumb and finger. It is ready for gathering when it will come away from the short spur without any difficulty at all. One of the great advantages of growing peaches is that they are hardly attacked by any pests or diseases other than Leaf Curl.
It is true that there are aphides which will curl the leaves and damage the blossoms, but these can easily be controlled by spraying the trees with a 5 per cent solution of a tar- oil wash in December. This will also kill Peach Leaf Scale, should this appear. Red spider sometimes does damage, causing the leaves to turn brown in the summer, but spraying with liquid derris overcomes the trouble very quickly. The big trouble is the Peach Leaf Curl, which causes the leaves to become swollen, red and twisted.
Wires are provided, spaced 18 inches apart, trained against the wall or fence 4 inches away. The young growths are tied to these wires in position. A good specimen would be one which has oneyear-old growths about a foot long tied to the wires every 4 or 5 inches, in the space allotted to it. It helps greatly if special attention is paid to the trees in the summer. On the length of fruiting wood one can leave three laterals: one right at the base, one half-way up and one somewhere near the tip. The other side shoots that tend to develop in the axils of the leaves are pinched out with the thumb and forefinger as they appear. Then when the tree is pruned in the winter, the branch can be cut back to just above the lowest lateral, which then takes the place of its ‘parent’ and is in fact tied up in its place.
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Growing Peach Trees
Posted on March 1, 2009, by Austin Thomas, under Gardening.
It is useful to have the tree planted in a lawn because then sheets or clothes can be laid under the tree on to which the fruit can drop when fully ripe.
It is important to mulch where the drainage is perfect, because one cannot water once the fruit is set or split stones result. Those who dislike straw mulching, or grassing down, do so because it increases the frost risk. It is curious the way that damage can be done to peaches early in May by frosts, though the peaches normally flower early in April.
Bushes have been grown in large tubs or pots in a cold greenhouse so as to get fruits of good quality which are easy to pick.
Opinions differ greatly as to whether it is better in this country to grow trees on their own roots, on peach stocks or on plum stocks. The latter were, of course, used for many years by the nurseryman for trained trees which were to be planted in greenhouses. It is said that the Brompton Stock produces the largest tree whereas the Common Mussel Stock produces a much smaller tree. The truth is that we don’t know enough about stocks at the moment, especially as different varieties undoubtedly behave differently on the various stocks mentioned.
If a fan-shaped tree is to be planted against a wall or a fence, the base of the tree should purposely be planted 6 inches away from the wall and the half-circular hole dug out to a depth of 8 inches should be arranged so that the bulk of the roots can be spaced out properly. Should it be necessary to cut back some of the broken roots, the cut should be at an angle of 60 degrees, facing upwards. This encourages more fibrous roots to be produced.
A series of wall trees should be 15 feet apart from one another. Wall trees are best mulched after planting with sedge peat to the depth of an inch placed on the ground for a width of about 3 feet in a half-circle.
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Top Fruits
Posted on February 26, 2009, by admin, under Gardening.
Trees planted in an already established orchard are curiously enough slow to make headway, and therefore in such cases I always advise grubbing.
The black parasitized bodies of the aphides are fairly easily seen and this circumstance makes collection not at all difficult. In the spring the shoots must be taken out of the straw and tied on to the branches in the orchard early enough for them to do the work. Actually woolly aphis activity may commence in early April in some seasons.
A sensible scheme is to remove alternate trees diagonally in the rows, as shown in the plan.
The work should be done in May or early June, if possible, and if the tree is seriously affected with silver leaf, it may show some sign of the disease next year. In this case, the bark should be re-split from top to toe and that should do the trick. In very bad cases one may have to continue this bark cutting for four years.
Soft fruits, however, grow comparatively quickly and come into cropping in the matter of a year or two. Apples, pears and plums, on the other hand, often take six or seven years to settle down before they start fruiting seriously.
Therefore, it is worth while tackling neglected trees carefully and gradually getting them right. The only exception to the rule, perhaps, is in the case of an orchard where there are gaps which amount to 25 per cent.
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Picking Fruits
Posted on February 26, 2009, by admin, under Gardening.
In the case of top fruits the whole process changes. It is very often necessary to gather pears, for instance, when they are quite unripe, and they ripen up perfectly in the store.
Commercial growers have such containers strapped to the body of the picker so as to leave both hands free for harvesting. This makes it easier, too, for climbing ladders where the trees are tall.
With the summer or early varieties, which are going to be used in the home, it is important to pick when the fruits arc just ripe, and the date will vary from season to season. It is inadvisable to pick dessert apples too early in the summer or autumn as they may be tough. Late-keeping apples when picked too early often shrivel in store.
As the baskets are weighed, then they are taken to the packing table, it will he as well if the foreman examines them to see that the picking has been done correctly and that a whole lot of unripe fruit has not been included. Bad picking will be pointed out.
The stalk then separates from the spur on which it is growing quite naturally and without having to do any tugging or pulling at all. Most people fail to realize that the skins of apples, pears, plums and peaches are very delicate. They have only got to be slightly bruised and they are seriously damaged. Furthermore, fungus spores may easily enter such a wound and rot will set in.
They can be easily moved about from one tree to another and the fruit can be harvested without pulling down the branches dangerously or overreaching and doing damage. When picking or rather when transferring the fruit from the container to the orchard box, some sort of grading is necessary, in order to save time later.
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Fruit Tree Mechanical Aids
Posted on February 26, 2009, by admin, under Gardening.
When it comes to the question of mechanical aids, the door is thrown wide open for the purchase of dozens of machines whose makers claim that they will do this or that. In the small garden, of course, the great bulk of the work will be done by hand.
It must be remembered that varieties are always a matter of opinion. One man prefers a hard crisp variety and another a soft mealy type. It is always better to get the trees planted in the autumn or early winter. This gives the root the chance of getting established before the spring. It is possible to plant, however, at any time during the dormant period, say up to the end of February. The compost fruit grower, however, should plant about early to midNovember-while the soil is still warm and as soon as all the leaves have fallen.
It is obviously better to plant a very young tree and allow it to become established in the place where it is to grow and crop. The amateur seems always to want an old tree because he thinks it will crop quicker.
An old tree, however, has undoubtedly been stunted in the nursery where it has never had a chance. The compost fruit grower will buy the trees for bushes, pillars, spindles and cordons two years old; half-standard and standard trees three years old; and trained espaliers at four years of age.
Some, like Cornish Gilliflower, Worcester Pearmain, and St. Edmund’s Russet, produce fruit buds on the tips of laterals and when these are cut hard back, as in normal forms of pruning, the fruit buds are removed.
The great advantage of the Clifford is that one can attach behind it a spraying machine with a 30-gallon tank and thus with two good lances, the trees can be sprayed in a minimum of time. The Clifford moves forward with the tank; it needs one person to guide it with, say, two women operating the spray lances and so circling the trees.
