Wildfire Mitigation Evaluation

 The City of Austin is offering a Wildfire Mitigation Evaluation for residents, and being a couple houses (and a road) away from the Great Hills Greenbelt, it seems like it could be a useful piece of information.  So I scheduled one.

Two people came out, Marco and Lauren (?) came out.  Marco walked around the house with me, pointing things out and explaining them, while Lauren went on ahead with a tablet, taking pictures and making her own notes for the report.  They produced a report on a City website after a couple of days which listed properties of the house and it's landscaping, with some identified as priorities to fix, and others as "Resilient Items" where we are doing things right.  The report was available the next day, but it took a couple days for all the pictures to be uploaded and appear on the web site.  The web site wanted me to create an account, but allowed me to just view it -- although the amount of info you have to provide to just look at it makes it more efficient to just create the account, if you want to look at it more than once.

 And the website would also generate a downloadable PDF of the report (33 pages!) .

 Overall we are in pretty good shape.  The house itself is almost all stone exterior.  

The roof is asphalt shingles,  The roof was installed in 2023 with "CertainTeed Landmark Series Resawn Shake (Model/SKU 620401) fiber glass asphalt self-sealing shingles" which Google says is "Fire Rating: UL Class A fire resistance".

And they liked that the deck is Ipe, which has a Class A fire rating -- " one of the highest natural resistance levels to flame spread and ember ignition among all natural wood decking".

They didn't like that not all the house is stone.  We have stoned-up the two triangles of siding on the South and West sides of the house, but we still have wood siding over the kitchen (on the East) and the garage (on the North.  And then the windows have these large wooden beams along side and siding below and above them. 

The basic rule they have is that there should be a 5 foot wide zone all around the house of stuff that won't burn.   What with the stone sidewalk, the deck, and the River of Rocks, we do pretty well there.  There are two native flowering bushed planted next to the house.  One by the back bathroom

 and one by the kitchen

 If we had known about the 5 foot rule, we could have run the stone sidewalk and the River of Rocks closer to the house and planted the bushes further out.

The other main issue they had was with the fence.  The fence itself is okay since it is mostly away from the house, but there are the two newest sections of the fence, with the gates, on the East

and the West

 

 which go right up to the house, so that the dog can't get out.  They suggested a chain link or wrought iron fence for the sections from the house to the perimeter of the lot, but I think it would look better to do a stone fence for these two short sections.  There is a house over on Floral Park that did that.

 There were a couple of other issues that the report brings up that are misunderstandings on the part of the inspectors.  Basically it seems to be partly caused by Lauren going out on her own and not discussing her findings with Marco or me before committing them.

They complain about leaf litter and debris on the roof and gutter along the garage.

 and suggest that I should get gutter guards to prevent it building up in the gutter.  But, in fact, we have gutter guards here -- you just can't see them under the leaf litter!  We haven't had significant rain in months, and the crepe myrtles right over this gutter (and the one on the other side of the garage), drop their little leaves which then harden into a layer of debris right on top of the gutter guard.  I got a ladder out and just brushed this off with my hands to expose the gutter guard.

 The other misunderstanding was underneath the back deck.  The deck itself is Ipe, so that's not a problem, but they are worried that under the deck is exposed and leaf litter can build up, and then be ignited and burn from below to take down the deck, and the house.

 They suggest "Enclosing the underside of the deck is one method to reduce the risk of ignition".  But the underside of the deck is enclosed.  On 3 sides by the foundation of the house, and by a stone wall on the other side.  We did leave this one "crawl space" type opening so that we can get under there as necessary to clean and maintain it.  We have a screen that we put over this opening in the Fall, to prevent leaves from accumulating, and in the Spring we go under to rake and vacuum any leaves that do get under.  But most of the area under the deck is rock and stone; it won't burn from below.  

And they wanted us to get rid of our doormats, since they could burn.  We're not going to do that.  They may need to be replaced, but the risk of them starting a fire to burn down our house seems really small and while I looked at "metal or rubber" replacements, it's just not the same.

 In summary, there are issues that we could have addressed in construction, and landscaping:

(1) less wood trim and more stone for the exterior siding.

(2) trees (particularly the crepe myrtles and the elm and Chinese pistache further from the house.

But unless the house is significantly damaged, and must be rebuilt, these are not likely to be fixed.  The elm, crepe myrtles, or Chinese pistache may die from age or weather (others of them have over the past 40 years) and if so, we will replace them with the fire zone in mind.

And there are major improvements that can be made over time as parts of the house need to be repaired or replaced.  When we get a new fence we can replace the two sections with stone.  When/if siding needs to be replaced we can use a non-combustible replacement, around the windows and for the remaining siding.  If the two plantings that are too near the house die because of heat, drought, freezing, or something, we can re-route the River of Rock and move any replacement plantings further from the house.

 There are on-going maintenance  that is needed to trim the plantings, and rake up the leaves, but that is always the case.

 

A New Possumhaw Holly Tree

We planted a Possumhaw Holly tree back in October 2023. But after 3 years, it had made no improvement in size or development.  

 

 

And Linda found a new Possumhaw Holly at a sale at the Wildflower Center, so we decided to give up on the old one and replace it with the new one.

 

But we wanted to make sure that there were no problems with the new tree having a good home.  Maybe the old tree just couldn't grow in it's spot.  This is in one end of the Jungle, and when we put it in we had just removed all the Nandina and  put down black plastic and mulch everywhere to prevent it from growing back (which seems to have worked).

So first we pulled out the old tree, pulled back the mulch and removed the black plastic from this end of the Jungle (seems a misnomer at this point). 

 We had cleared out a spot for the old tree, but not being certain how far down we went, or how far out, we decided to excavate out the entire exposed area, going down as far as we can.  We started by trenching from the center, where the old tree was out to one edge of the bed, down as far as bedrock.

 Then we enlarged that trench sideways, taking out all the dirt to expose the bedrock layer of rock.

 Although it looks to be bedrock, in reality it is several layers of sedimentary limestone with thin dirt layers between, so we could get down another 6 to 8 inches by taking out all that rock.

 That got us to 22 to 26 inches of depth (from the top of the limestone border wall.  Given that the Possumhaw Holly is a type of Yaupon Holly and is native to Texas, we figured that should be good enough.  It's really more of a bush or shrub than a tree anyway.

So we then expanded the excavated area towards the other side of the bed.

 And continued pulling out the rocks, to clear the entire bed down to real bedrock

 Then we  redistributed the saved dirt back into the hole,

 Of course, having removed a substantial amount of rock from the bed, we needed to bring in more dirt. 

 And more dirt.  Eventually we bought 35 bags of enriched topsoil, each 2 cubic feet, at about $4 a bag.  Then we topped it off with 8 bags of hardwood mulch ($31.78).

 

And, after letting things settle for a couple of days, we put the new tree in place.

 

Mulching the Trees

 With Spring, we need to maintain the plants for the new growing season.  For the trees, that mainly means mulching around them.  There are only 3 or 4 trees now in the lawn, which are really the ones we need to work on.  The lawn gradually works itself into the mulch, trying to get right up to the tree.  The mulch should left the tree grow with less competition.

As an example, consider the older Pecan tree.  The grass is working itself into the mulch bed.

 So first we dig up the old mulch bed, loosening the mulch.

 Then we extract all the grass roots and all from the loosened soil, to create a new ring of grass-free dirt around the tree.

 And then we put mulch down on top of that dirt

 Repeat that on the younger pecan tree.

 The Mexican Plum tree.

 And finally the Lacey Oak

 That took about 8 bags of mulch, two bags per tree.

 

Fence Gate Problem

The new fence was put in just last year, and it has worked fine.  But somehow, over that time, the space between the left gate (by the garage) and the stationary part has grown.

 To the point that the latch no longer reaches from the fence to the post.

 This isn't a problem for the gate on the other side of the house.

The simplest solution seemed to be to move the stationary latching mechanism closer to the gate.  So we removed it, found a piece of 1x3 oak (leftover oak flooring), and attach it to the post, moving the latching mechanism about an inch closer to the gate.

 That still leaves the wider gap, but means that the latch properly works with the stationary locking mechanism.

 

Irrigation Problems

 Linda wanted to water some new plants in the front yard, so I went out to turn on those zones of the irrigation system.  The water supply for the irrigation system is controlled by a valve near the water meter -- a big yellow lever is used to turn it on or off.  We turned it off back in October.  We turned it on now.

 But nothing worked.  It seemed that there was a trickle getting thru, but not enough to see anything in the yard.

 We suspected it was the irrigation controller.  The controller is in the  garage, and controls all the valves that open the various irrigation zones.  It normally works on a timed schedule, but also allows manual operation.  The schedule is set to water on Wednesday morning.  But the controller is so old that it does not "know" which day is Wednesday, when it is told what year it is.  

 

I think the internal tables that keep track of leap years stopped working in 2000.  Leap years are multiple-of-four, but not for centuries, unless it is a multiple of 400.  So 2000 was a leap year, but the controller didn't think so.  Or something like that.  There are only 14 different "year" calendars -- defined by the day of the week that January 1 falls on, plus the leap year variants.  But telling the controller it was 2026 doesn't get the correct calendar.  I had to lie and say it was 2038 (or something like that) to get the correct calendar.

So we replaced the controller.  We bought a new Orbit 12-zone irrigation controller.

 First we removed the old controller, making sure that the wires to each zone were properly numbered.  

 Then we installed the new controller.  Originally it was too high up on the wall, and one of the zone wires would not reach where it needed to attach, so we lowered it on the wall, allowing everything to be wired.

 Then we could plug it in and start it up.

The entire process took about 3 hours, but still the system would not work.  We had exactly the same behavior as before.

At this point, we decided to call for professional help.  We called Sprinkler Medics.  We had used them before.  It took a week or so before they could come out.

When the guy showed up, it took him about 5 minutes to solve the problem.

It turns out that there is more than one cut-off valve for  the sprinkler mechanism.  The big yellow handle is attached to a back-flow preventer and it has maybe 3 different cut-off values.  One of the other valves had been turned off.  Probably by the plumber when he was fixing the leak in the neighbor's water line. 

 

Turning that second cut-off valve on solved our problem.

While the technician from Sprinkler Medics was here, he checked out all the system ($115).  Found one broken head, which I replaced.  So we should be good to go once we get to irrigation season.

 

Update:  We went back and dug out the dirt around the irrigation backflow valve so that it should be easy to see all the various parts. 

 If we put a piece of cardboard underneath it, it is easier to see the two smaller cut-off valves on the side of the backflow valve.

 

 

More Hooks in Garage

 Somehow the hooks that we use to store Linda's tomato cages when not in use no longer provide enough space for all of her cages.  So we bought some more 

 

and installed them on the other side of the garage

 which provides additional space for storing the tomato cages.

 

 

Removing the Burr Oak

 We planted a Burr Oak in the back yard, over close to the Bamboo Grove, behind the Jungle.  There was a tree in the neighborhood, dropping huge acorn seeds onto the sidewalk, and we brought 5 home and planted them.  Three of those grew and we selected the best one and planted it in the back yard.  Over the years, it grew into an 8-foot sapling.

 But upon further consideration, it really is in the wrong place.  Too close to the fence, the Jungle, and the Bamboo Grove.  So we posted it on Craig's List and gave it away.

A guy came and helped dig it up, leaving us with just a hole in the ground.

 The hole goes down to bedrock, and is about 18 inches deep.  Not really enough room for the roots of a big tree. 

We filled it back in with dirt and leaves.  It will probably settle over time, as the leaves decay, and we will need to add more dirt when that happens.

 

New Refrigerator

 The old refrigerator had developed problems.  Water accumulated under the meat/cheese drawer.  There was a large rust spot on the back.  And the ice maker stopped working.  So it seemed time to get a new one.

Consulting Consumer Reports, suggested either a Whirlpool (which is what we have) or an LG, from either Home Depot or Lowe's.  A trip to Home Depot to view the suggested units, and we bought a new Whirlpool refrigerator. Around $2500 with delivery, pick-up of the old refrigerator, and a 5-year extended warranty. Our previous experience suggests that if you don't have an extended warranty, the unit breaks quickly.  But buying an extended warranty (which you won't use) will appease the Refrigerator Gods, and it will continue to work fine.

In the meantime, we moved the old fridge out of it's place in the kitchen, to allow for the new one.  This required disconnecting the water line to the non-working ice maker.  The cut-off valve for that line did not quite stop the flow of water.  But it looked like a slow leak, and so I just put the water line into a bucket for the one night until the new fridge was delivered.   That was a mistake.  It leaked more than that, and by the morning, the bucket was full, and had overflowed onto the floor.  

The water then flowed back towards the wall, under the wall and into the pantry, the utility room, and out into the garage.  I mopped all that up and set up a fan to dry things out.  

But it was also clear that we needed a new cut-off valve.  Carlos (the plumber) found that there was some strange plumbing in the line, and so the new simplified line did not reach down to the plastic box that held the cut-off valve.  I suggested that we just move the plastic box up to where the  new line was.  

We did that, but that left a hole in the sheetrock below the box, and above the box.

 I patched those holes.

 and painted it to match the existing Hemp paint color.

The new refrigerator was delivered the next day.  The problem we had, generally, is getting the refrigerator thru the doors to the kitchen.  Removing the handles from the fridge helps.  Then it can be brought in thru the front door (if you take the door off).

 Then, removing the lower freezer door, the fridge can be lifted up to clear the kitchen island.  (This also required removing the handle from the dishwasher).

 and then positioned in it's proper place.   The same path was used to remove the old refrigerator.

The water line for the ice maker went on easily to the new cut-off valve, in the relocated plastic box, and we have a new functioning refrigerator.