Shoveling snow can be hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow is most likely hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow while it is still a blizzard condition is definately hard work. So what are the two best ways to make shoveling that snow easier? Other than lifting weights for months ahead of time in order to be physically fit enough to shovel your driveway, that is?

First, shovel the end of your driveway before the back side of it. While the shadows on your driveway and the time of day can certainly change this around, you will generally find that the snow at the end of your driveway is heavier than the snow at the back side. The dirt and grime that the snow plows shove into the snow, coupled with anybody pulling into or out of your driveway and packing it down, means that shoveling the end of the driveway is going to be more difficult than shoveling the lighter and cleaner snow that is away from the road. If you shovel the heavier snow first, then you will not be as tired when you are done because you will still have the energy to move that snow. If you save the heaviest snow for last, then you will have a much harder time as fatigue sets in and your workload increases.

Second, shovel the snow from left to right near the end of your driveway. I tend to push the snow that the plows have thrown into the driveway to the end and then with the direction of traffic, so that I am leaving it on the shoulder at the end of my driveway and off to the side. If you shovel half of the snow to the left and half of the snow to the right, then the plow trucks will just throw that snow right back onto your driveway. If you leave it on the shoulder to the right side, then the plows will carry it away from your driveway and you will have less to shovel the next day. Another advantage to this strategy is that more of the dirt and salt from the road is left closer to the road, so you will not be leaving that detriment in your yard for the spring. The street sweepers will come and pick up more of it. Unfortunately, the plow is probably going to send quite a bit into your yard anyway, but every little bit helps.

A few weeks ago, we somehow put a pinhole in the top of our old faucet. I was out of town last weekend, so for the past two weeks we have gotten by with a faucet that was swaddled in duct tape in order to keep water from getting all over our kitchen.

This weekend, I replaced the faucet with a new one. The first order of business was to remove the old faucet and to measure the holes to make sure that I got one that fit. It turns out that I really did not need to do that, but it was good for peace of mind, anyway. I do not have a basin wrench, but there is enough room behind my sink to get by with regular wrenches and with robogrips. A basin wrench probably would have saved me about a half hour all told between removing the old sink and installing the new one, but I decided against purchasing one.

To remove the old faucet:

1. I shut off the hot and cold water valves leading up to the faucet. I needed the robogrips in order to get them closed enough that no water could pass through.
2. I cut the hose to the hand sprayer as the easiest way of uninstalling it.
3. Next, I needed to unhook the copper water leads between the faucet and the water supply. Unfortunately, the hot water lead had a few connections that I couldn’t bend in such a way that I could pull the faucet out of the hole, so I had to cut it at the base of the faucet. Luckily, I have done work with refridgerant coils in my brewing days and had a tool for just that purpose.
4. I was then able to remove the faucet by pulling the hoses through the hole so that everything was exposed.
5. Last, I had to unscrew the base for the hand sprayer and remove that.

My wife and I then took a trip to purchase a new faucet. I had one that I liked, and she had 3 or 4 that she liked. Since one of those was the one that I liked as well, we decided to go with it. We were a little worried that it would be too tall because of where our window sill sticks over the sink, but after installation we had a good ¹/₈” or so between the faucet and window sill. I also picked up some plumber’s putty and a soap dispenser, since we would not have a need for a hand sprayer and a soap dispenser would remove the need to keep a bottle of soap up on the sink.

Installing the new faucet was much easier than removing the old one:

1. Apply plumber’s putty to the inset on the faucet base. Line it up with the three holes in the sink, press it down, and then use a flat head screwdriver to remove the excess putty.
2. Set the faucet base onto the inset piece.

Ours fit right on top and had a groove to make sure that it was even.

3. Feed the hoses through the center hole and line the faucet up.
4. The next step is to screw the faucet into place from underneath. I had my wife hold the faucet in place up top to make sure that it was straight, since I do not have x-ray vision and could not see through my counter.
5. Our faucet uses stainless steel hoses, which proved much easier than the copper to line up and attach to the hot and cold water pipes.
6. Make sure that the faucet is turned off up top, and then open the water valves.
7. Before hooking the faucet itself up to the mixing hose, we had to run the hot and cold water to flush any gunk from the hoses out. The cold water hose didn’t have anything visible in it, but there was some black gunk in the hot water hose that came out within the first few seconds.
8. The last step for the faucet was to attach the mixing hose and the faucet hose. Everything was basically done at that point.
9. Since we had bought a soap dispense, we had to install that. It was a simple matter of screwing it in place, attaching the bottle, filling it, and putting the pump into place.

The only mishap that we had was that I somehow knocked the nut loose on the hot water valve, so it was leaking a little through the valve stem. Tightening up that nut fixed that problem, though.

So now, we have a brand new faucet! It took a few hours to remove the old one and install the new one, but it looks much better than the old one and so far it seems to work much better as well. I’ll write about that once I have had a chance to really put it through its paces, though.

I have no idea how she managed to do it, but my wife put a hole in our faucet. She was washing a spaghetti pot, which has no sharp angles or protuberances. The next time that I went to use the faucet, I got sprayed!

The pin hole is near the top of the faucet, so it has nothing to do with the threaded piece that you can unscrew and replace. Before she washed the spaghetti pot, there was no hole. It remains as a complete mystery to both of us.
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We got our new Propane Tank delivered, installed, and filled very easily. Our energy company within a few days of our having called them when we ran out of propane, and they not only arrived right when they said that they would but even called ahead to make sure that it still worked for us. My wife was on vacation from school, so she was able to meet them at the house. They were very pleasant, answered (almost) all of her questions, and got our old lines replaced and the new ones run with a minimum of fuss. They tested everything to make sure that the installation was correct and everything was safe, and even offered a few tips about how to improve some other fixtures that they noticed while they were down there. Those tasks were already on my to-do list and just haven’t been crossed off yet.

All in all, it was a great experience. Should we ever decide to utilize the gas in more places in our home, they assured us that we would be able to tap right into our new lines with ease. Unfortunately, the man who installed everything did not know how much it was going to cost, and he did not dispose of our old tank. I will need to find somewhere that will take it off of our hands now, since I do not really see any reason to keep it standing next to the side of my house.

In the picture of the propane tanks, the new tank is the white one on the right. The old tank is the taller one that looks like it has a few years on it that is on the left.

It has been a few weeks since we were broken into, and I have long since cleaned up most of the broken glass from the door. A friend of mine then came over and measured the door for me to make sure that I got the correct size, and told me he would be by after work the next night to help me install it. The best laid plans, however…
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A couple of days ago, our clothes dryer stopped doing its job. I knew that it would at some point in the near future; it was only a matter of time. We ran out of propane. Since the dryer is the only appliance that we have using the propane tank, I am happy that it lasted as long as it did. After all, I have no idea how full it was when we bought the house.

The problem comes with getting the tank refilled. I have no idea which company actually installed the tank, since it has no markings on it. It is a 75 gallon tank that stands about 4 feet high. I have not specifically looked into the laws and regulations, but I doubt that I can legally transport it filled in my pickup truck without some sort of license.

For ease of billing, I called our oil company to come out and replace the tank with one of theirs. Their prices are competitive, and they will deliver. They refuse to deal with another company’s tank, but I will only have to wait for 2 or 3 days before they get over here to swap the tanks out. The woman I spoke with on the phone was planning on swinging by after work this afternoon or before work tomorrow morning to make sure that the pipes we have installed are the correct diameter to fit their tanks. That will give them a better estimate of how long it will take to install and they will be able to let us know ahead of time how much work needs to be done inside the house. They will definately need to come in to test everything and make sure we are up to code and safe, but hopefully that is all that is necessary.

Last weekend, the former owner of our house stopped by to let us know about a burglar alarm we had installed in the house. We were completely unaware of it, and he let us in on a few other tips as long as he was here.

One of the tips was that the plywood beneath our shed was for covering the shrubs in the front of the house to protect them from snow falling off of the roof. This morning, it began snowing pretty heavy with no quick end in sight. After I got done running, I did a quick shovel of the driveway and got the plywood out. Thankfully, I was still wearing my stabilicers, since carrying the plywood up the small hill covered in snow was a little tricky even with spikes coming out the bottom of my feet.

The plywood was actually hinged together from two sheets and in various sizes, so that it was easy to create a tent of sorts over each shrub and bush. A fairly efficient design, and with different sizes it was easy to figure out which bush to put each one over. A couple of them I think have grown a bit wild since I didn’t trim them at all this year, so next year I will have to try taking better care of them.

I have a few lawn care items that I want to address in the spring, so that will just have to go on the list.

I wrote about how to install a soffit extender in your attic, but I did not include a picture. One of our visitors, Fred, left the following comment:

Can you describe (or do you have a photo) of soffit extenders? A quick web search doesn’t show up much - maybe they’re known by another term?

The soffit extenders that I bought are the Raft-R-Mate Attic Rafter Vents, which are thin pieces of pink foam with a ridge down the center. It is basically a flat, U-shaped piece that sits up against your roof on the open end and against the insulation on the closed end. This insures that the air from your soffit vents can get past the insulation into your attic.

It is not very convenient for me to get up into my attic right now to snap a photo, so I included the one from their website. Click on the picture to go visit the official page. Let me know if you have any more questions!

Not homeowner news, but a service that I use is Performancing Metrics. They recently came out with an ad network to go along with the metrics package and their firefox plugin, and were getting bogged down with the cost of running the web tracking tool. Read the rest of this entry »

The true meaning of Christmas is always much more evident on trash day than on Christmas day.

This morning I put out twice as much trash as I usually do, and I normally only put trash out every other week. It is amazing how much more trash gets generated.

I do have to admit, however, that a part of that trash is related to our house getting broken into and having to replace a door. But that only accounts for about half of one of the bags.