The French Drain, Part 2

February 2007 to January 2008

Back in 2003, we put in a French drain to get rid of water from the front and side of the house, allowing it to drain to the back yard. But the French drain just stopped in a hole in the back yard. That clearly wasn't a final solution -- it just solved the water problem. We had to, at the least, continue the drain down the back yard until it could be terminated in a reasonable way.

So we started to dig again. We continued to dig along side the fence, down the back yard, from where the pipes ended towards the end of the lot.




We continued to dig.



As we continued, the rocks, which had been very level, and just 8 inches or so below the ground, began to become upeven and broken into more irregular surfaces.



Using the jackhammer and pry bar, we got down below this layer until we had a trench that was about 2 feet deep. We continued it until we got to the narrowest spot of the yard near the fence, where the large planter area we call the Jungle narrowed the yard to just 8 feet or so. There we excavated everything down to bed rock. Using cement, cement blocks and and rocks, we constructed a pit, roughly 8 feet square, by a foot or two deep. We extended the drainage pipes, enclosing them in rocks and landscape cloth as before, so that they emptied into this pit. The rock for this cost $307.37 from Custom Stone Supply in November 2007.



Then we filled the pit with rock. The rock is loose fill, so there is plenty of room for the water from the drainage pipes. And in the worst case, the pit can just fill up with water and then overflow, running down the hill.



To make it look attractive, we filled it with rock, but made the top layer of rock, Mexican Beach Pebbles, fairly large, bluish rounded rocks, creating the Blue Rock Pool.




The main cost of all this was the Mexican Beach Pebbles which are fairly expensive. The two loads of them were $575.16 and $204.75 from Austin Custom Stone in December 2007 and January 2008.

Rebuilding the Back Gable

December 2007 

While working in the backyard, I noticed that the back gable on the house was not what I would have wanted. The original construction was masonry (stone) for the first floor, but all the gables are a stained rough cedar. When we had the loft room remodeled, I had the gable over that room removed and rebuilt with windows and stone exterior. 

So in comparing the gable for the loft room with the gable at the back of the house, I wanted to replace the wood gable with a stone gable. 

I contracted with Dillo Construction for this. The contract was signed on 26 November 2007, and they started work shortly after that. The cost was $5120, with half down, half on completion. Dylan was my main contact. They did a really good job. 

First they took off the existing wood gable, exposing the insulation in the attic.

They framed a new exterior wall, and covered that with Tyvek, then put the new stone exterior on.

This took two or three days and was done by 22 Dec 2007. 

The stone and mortar should age over time to be less noticeably lighter in color.

Can I grow Olive trees?

20 February 2007 

With global warming, the climate should get warmer and dryer, more like the Mediterranean. That might mean that we could grow plants from that region. Specifically, maybe we can grow olives. I ordered two olive plants over the internet from www.growquest.com. Two Sevillano olive trees. Just small ones. $77.38. They should be okay if we can get them thru the winters. The winters here are still getting below freezing, and that should be okay once the tree is established. For the first three years, I've been covering them whenever it threatened to be below freezing. One of the trees died, but the other is still doing okay. 

Now, January 2011, I have bought two new ones. We were driving thru California and the signs for Corning said it was the olive capital. I asked at the Olive Pit if they sold olive trees and she directed me down the street to Martin's Gardens, 530 Solano Street, where I bought two 1-gallon Manzanillo trees ($7.95 each). I will keep them in their containers until Spring, and then find a place to plant them. 

 Update: Feb 2021. At least one of the olive trees did not make it thru our coldest winter.  While the weather on average may be warmer, it is also more extreme, and the olive trees really cannot take that.

A Sidewalk around the Back Deck

Sept to Dec 2006 

Once the back deck was replaced, and the area under it excavated and then stoned in, we wanted to put a stone sidewalk, or walkway around it. Our layout that showed the planters also shows how the flagstone walkway goes.

The work for this was relatively straightforward. First we have to remove any dirt and grass from this area. 

This leaves us with rock, sometimes all the way down to bedrock.

Now we put a concrete wall down all the way to bedrock, and top it with a layer of limestone blocks, to give it a "natural" appearance. I started to do this, but it was clear that I don't have the skill to do it right, so we paid Lupe $1200 to do it. 

Now we fill all the area which will be under the sidewalk with rock and sand and concrete to fill the space.

Then we smooth it all off with sand and put flagstone rocks on it.

The flagstone rocks are Oklahoma Thin from Austin Custom Stone. They also provided the sand and decomposed Granite that went under the flagstones, for a total cost of $895.04. 

Guadalupe Zarate did the work again, for $3000. Again, an excellent job, level and stable.

This same work was necessary all along the sidewalk, including over by the iris planter.

Along this stretch, we had to move and redesign how the lawn sprinkler system was laid out. 

 

 

 

Solar Panels on the Roof

Working in the back yard one day, I looked at the roof of our house . There was no shade on it. The sun was just beating down on it. And I thought, this would be a perfect spot for a solar system. We have a 3000 square foot one-story house, facing North, with the longest axis going East/West. So we have a large roof facing South in the back of the house, between a chimney on one end and a skylight on the other.

 The City of Austin provides a lot of help to home owners with their utility bills, both water and electricity. One insert in our utility bill mentioned "Solar Energy for Your Home", a meeting at an elementary school. It was a short presentation followed by a question/answer session. 

Austin Energy is the electrical department for the City of Austin. It has a rebate program to encourage the installation and use of solar systems. The rebate program will pay up to 75% of a system, up to $12,000 (at $4 per watt with a 3KW system). 

A solar system produces electricity from the sun. But at what cost? And how much would we need? The system promoted by the City is a "grid-tie" system. We are still on the normal power grid, using power provided by the City. When the PV system works, it produces power. If we are using more than the system provides, we get the difference from the City. If it produces more than we need, the extra (above what we can use) goes back to the City. 

With the City's program, we have "net-metering". We pay for the net amount of electricity we use from the City. That means that the City will buy the electricity we provide, at the same rate that they would charge us, at least as long as we don't produce a total amount which is greater than we use. 

This is about the best arrangement we could hope for. We don't need to store the power we generate and don't need. We just give it to the City, and later, at night, we can have it back. The meter runs forward, backwards, forward, and so on, and we just pay for the net amount that we use: the amount the City delivers to us minus the amount we give back to them. 

To look at the economics of the purchase, I looked back at the last 12 months of electrical usage.

Month	KWatts Used	Cost
May 2005	715	$61.55
June 2005	1014	$93.77
July 2005	1447	$140.44
Aug 2005	1249	$119.10
Sept 2005	1305	$125.13
Oct 2005	903	$81.81
Nov 2005	573	$44.91
Dec 2005	634	$50.39
Jan 2005	750	$60.78
Feb 2005	605	$47.78
Mar 2005	586	$46.09
Apr 2005	674	$53.96
12 months	10,455	$925.71
Average month	871	$77.14

A 3KW system will produce 4050 KWh per year, or 337 KWh a month -- about half our minimum monthly usage. This would be a savings of $30 a month. If our system costs $21K, and the City pays $13K, and we get a $2K tax credit, we end up paying $6K. At $30 a month, this is 200 months, or 16 years to get it back. Without interest. Assuming power costs stay the same.

But we expect power costs to go up. And installing and using the system should help create demand and a market for these systems. And more demand should mean more supply, which will help bring costs down. It's a good thing to do and the economics aren't too bad (as long as someone else is paying 2/3 the cost!)

The first step was getting the City out for an inspection and approval for the rebate program. They want to make sure that the system will work. You need to own your house. There has to be a place to put the solar panels, facing South, that is not shaded. They filled in a form and then approved us with no problem.

The rebate program requires that the system be installed by an installer registered with Austin Energy. There were 8 companies on the list at the time that we started to work on it. I sent e-mails to each company, saying I had been approved by the City for the rebate program, attaching a photo of our house and asking for a proposed 3kW system. 

Two companies did not respond. Two companies said they were so busy they didn't want any more work ("Unfortunately our installation crew is booked out for the next several months."). That left 4 contractors. Each of these came out and looked at the house, took measurements, and sent me a proposal. This process took about a month.

	Panel Manufacturer	Configuration	Inverter	Total Watts	Cost
1.	Kyocera	24 panels x 130 W	Xantrex GT3.0	3120 Watts	$19,500
2.	BP 170	18 panels x 170 W	Xantrex GT3.0	3060 Watts	$19,887
3.	Isofoton	21 panels x 150 W	PV Powered PVP2800-XV	3150 Watts	$23,356
4.	Sharp	16 panels x 208 W	Fronius	3328 Watts	$21,983

As you can see, each bid had a different panel manufacturer and configuration. The sizes of the panels is quite different. The costs also vary.

So, we went with Proposal 1, which was Armadillo Solar. Armadillo computed that the City of Austin rebate program would pay $11,793.60, leaving a balance for us of $7,706.40. We accepted this contract on 26 June. By 6 July, the City had approved the rebate application, and notified Armadillo. On 14 July, we paid Armadillo our part, as a deposit. At that point, they ordered the panels and inverter. 

The materials arrived in late August, and the installation was done 23 to 25 August. Everything seemed to go smoothly. An inspection by the City was scheduled for 10:00 AM on 5 Sept, and by 8 Sept we had our new meters and were operational.

The solar panels went on the roof, and the controls on the side of the house.

The power from the solar panels is in Direct Current (DC). It comes into the panels from the left, in the metal pipe. The first box is a cut-off that allows the panel to be turned off. Next, the black box, is the inverter, that converts the DC power (about 180 volts) to 240 volts AC to match what the house uses. Then there is another cut-off switch. After the cut-off switch is a meter which measures how much solar power is produced. From that meter, it goes into my electrical box, so it could be used by the house, or if there is an excess over what we need, it goes out thru our standard electric meter, but running the meter backwards.

Despite what was quoted in the estimate, we ended up with a slightly different inverter.  The installed unit is an Aurora Magnetek.  A tag on the bottom says Model PVI-3000-I-OUTD-US.

 

Metal Stairs to Attic

After all the usage for remodelling the attic, the wooden pull-down stairs that the builder installed was really showing the wear and tear. So I replaced them with a new set of pull-down stairs. Lowe's had a metal unit ($132.12), which seemed like it would last much longer.



We removed the old wooden unit, and installed the new metal stairs. Notice that the legs are separately adjustable, so I have a short one and a longer one to match the garage floor.

Replacing the Patio Door

The Patio Door is a sliding door from the Living Room out to the Back Porch. It seemed to be a fairly standard unit when it was installed by the Builder (1986). When the house was broken into (1992), they pried the door open. The lock was a simple cast-iron piece that just broke. It only cost a couple of bucks to repair the lock. 

So when the door started to not slide easily, I figured it was time to upgrade to a much nicer door. From the advertising I see, Andersen and Pella would be the main choices. Home Depot carries Andersen, and those doors looked very nice. Pella had an office on Burnet, and they also had very nice doors. We went with Pella. They could do the whole job -- removing the old door and installing the new one. We got a triple-pane glass, wood door, with Argon-Filled Low-E glass, Satin nickel hardware and duets between the glass. $3620.29. The contract was signed 11 July 2005; it was installed on 23 August. 

This Pella door was so well built that it introduced a problem. When we let the dog out in the back yard, we couldn't hear it bark at the door to be let back in! To fix this, we got a baby monitor and put it outside the door. When the dog barked, the baby monitor would pick it up and transmit it to the inside of the house. 

But, incredibly, despite all the thought and work that went into the door, I found the locking mechanism so badly designed that it made the door unusable. In our home environment, it is a disaster waiting to happen. The basic design of the lock is flawed. All doors have 2 basic independent attributes: they are either (a) open or (b) closed, and they are either (1) locked or (2) unlocked. In the following picture, the door is unlocked. 

The Pella door's design introduces a new state: (*) primed to lock, but not locked. The locking mechanism moves the door from the (2) unlocked state to the (*) primed to lock state. The next following change from (a) open to (b) closed will also cause the door to move from (*) primed to lock to (1) locked. This violates many obvious design criteria which are necessary for any well-designed general door: 

(A) There is no visual cue or clue as to what state the door is in. If the door is closed, and the locking mechanism is down, the door may be in either the (1) locked or (*) primed to be locked state. So you cannot tell whether the door in the following picture is or is not locked -- it may be locked, or it may be only primed. 

(B) A (b) closed door cannot be put into a (1) locked state. The locking mechanism must put into the (*) primed state and then it must be (a) opened and then (b) closed to lock it. 

(C) The exterior key cannot put the door into a locked state, unlike probably any other lock in general use. 

This design means two undesirable common situations will frequently occur: 

1. A person will approach the closed door, and put the locking mechanism down and then leave, thinking the door is locked. In fact, it is not locked, but only (*) primed. This creates a security risk -- the house is unlocked although it looks locked. 

2. A person will open the door. Since a locked door will not open, they will then go thru the door, closing it behind them. But since the door may be in the (*) primed state, closing the door will then lock the door, locking them out. This happened to us twice in the first week. 

As I said, this is a disaster waiting to happen. This is a door that is unlike doors that most people will have encountered. Children, guests, visitors. It is unreasonable to expect these people to be taught how to use the door before they use it, nor is it reasonable to expect that they will remember the peculiarities of this design. 

Unlocked doors that look locked (and should be), doors that lock behind you, and doors that are not locked when you want them to be, and then lock when you don't want them to and not well designed. 

This locking design is apparently used on all the high end sliding doors -- the Architect Series and the Designer Series -- from Pella, and it was beyond their ability to replace it with just a simple lock. 

So we had Pella come back and take the door out. 

We replaced it with an Andersen door. Basically the same, but only double paned glass (not triple paned) and so without the built-in duet blinds. $1597.68 on 19 November 2005. 

 

It was installed on 28 December 2005. $400. 

Astoundingly, even the Andersen door did not have a simple lock. The Andersen door has a hook type latch and if the door was closed, there was insufficient clearance for it to swing and latch. So to lock a closed door, you had to first open the door a bit and then latch it closed. But the Andersen people were just bad builders, not bad designers, so taking a file to the latch, I was able to file it down so that it cleared. Now we can lock a closed door without having to open it. I really do not understand how these two major door manufacturers can be so clueless in what is an acceptable sliding door. 

But finally, we have a nice sliding door. I put two coats of polyurethane on the wood trim.

Under the Back Deck

June to December 2005

When the back deck was replaced, it was also enlarged. The deck is level to the house. Since the ground slopes from the front of the house to the back (from North to South), the deck is 2 feet or so above the ground at the house to some 4 feet at the farthest point from the house. The builder had cleared off the area under the deck, put down landscape cloth and put pebbles on top of it. This keeps things from growing under the deck.

Since the new deck extends out further from the house, something needs to be done under the new part of the deck. One approach would be to just throw some landscape cloth over it and put more pebbles on it, but much of this area was a mixture of dirt and rock.




Rather than just cover it up, I decided to dig it all out, down to bed rock (which is just another two to three feet down. This took months, and involved both removing the dirt and rock, carefully, to avoid disturbing the supports for the deck, and then replacing the deck supports. When the deck was extended, they just dug down a little, poured a concrete pad, and put the deck support on that concrete pad. The result was that the deck support was on a concrete pad which was generally on dirt and rock. Dirt and rock that I was removing.




To keep the deck in place, I used a number of steel pipe jacks to hold the deck on both sides of a support while the rock and dirt under the support was removed and a new concrete support pour which went all the way down to bedrock.



Otherwise, the process was mainly just the work of digging out all the dirt and rock under the back deck.



Once all the dirt and rock was removed, I went in and built a retaining wall under the edge of the back deck to bring it back up to ground level. Behind the retaining wall, we put down landscape cloth and pebbles, to match what the builder had done under the original deck.



Now we wanted something that was beyond my amateur capabilities. We wanted to brick up the space under the back deck and create planters. The smaller planter would be for my irises, and the larger, two level planter for Linda's herbs.



Notice the area under the deck near Linda's herb planters. When we were excavating this area, it went quite deep, almost deep enough to stand up in. Rather than just filling that in, we put up a stone wall to hold back the pebbles further in (from the original builder), and left it an open space -- what we call "the dungeon".

To do this work, we called someone who had done stone work for Linda before, Guadalupe Zarate. He found someone to do the work for $4400, mostly using the rocks that we dug out from under the deck. They did an excellent job.

Hot Water Heater

March 2004

The hot water heaters that were installed when the house was built were getting old. We were beginning to experience not enough hot water for showers after Lauren took her shower and then Linda and then me. So the idea was to stay ahead of an actual problem and change out the hot water heaters to avoid a problem later. There are two hot water heaters -- one in the garage for the kitchen, washer/dryer and garage and one in the hallway for the bathrooms.

There are a couple of steps to this:

1. Find a new hot water heater.
2. Switch out the old one with the new one.
3. Haul off the old ones.

There aren't that many different hot water heaters. I found six or so to consider. I'm looking for two 50-gallon gas hot water heaters. I can check locally at stores and on-line.

I checked locally at Lowes, Home Depot, Sears. Online at State, Rheem, and Maytag. Looking at warranty (8 to 12 year), BTUs (40K), Energy Factor (.58 to .64), recovery (40.4 to 44.9 gals/hour). The best of the bunch seemed to me to be the GE unit from Home Depot. It was slightly more expensive than the Whirlpool unit at Lowe's, but had a higher Energy Factor (.62).

The next problem was step 2 -- how to actually do the switch. Looking at the way the old units were installed, it became clear to me that I couldn't do this myself. I can so some plumbing, but I don't sweat pipes; I just don't have any experience or training in doing so. So I would need to get a plumber. That changed the whole problem of getting the hot water heaters.

Most plumbers wanted to do the whole thing -- provide the hot water heaters and do the work. Buying the hot water heaters from Home Depot would be about 400 each, or 800 total. Plumbers wanted much more for the hot water heaters and then the installation too. Sears wanted $1700 for the two. Custom Plumbing quoted $1275 (each) for the hot water heaters. And almost all of them were for the State brand of gas water heater, but not the better version (Premier) but for the Standard.

Eventually, I went with Fox Service Company. They would do just the installation.

So, on 18 March 2004, I rented a truck from Home Depot ($20.90) and bought two 50-gallon GE Hot Water Heaters ($904.13) and brought them home. On the 19th, Fox came out and installed them ($765.00). There was one "minor" problem -- we apparently had two 40-gallon heaters before, so it was a bit of a tight fit, but they got it done just fine.

 

Or it seemed that it was fine. There was one minor problem that didn't show up for another 7 months. In October, I opened the heating closet and found that the hot water heater was sitting in a pool of water. There is a pan under the hot water heater, so that if it leaks, the leak is contained. The pan then needs to drain, and Fox had connected the drain for the water heater to the drain for the air conditioner, so it didn't overflow.

Of course the unit was still under warranty, so I spent the next couple of days on the phone trying to get this hot water tank replaced. This was not easy. I notice the problem at 12:30 AM Friday 8 October and called at 7:30 AM to report it. I was told that "Someone will respond within one business day", but by 5:30 no one had responded. For days, I got the run-around. Since it was the weekend, everything was time and a half. By Monday, I was told "We are really backed up on our warranty work; maybe Thursday. Maybe."

With lots of calls, I was able to get Sully to come out on Tuesday 12 October. I had previously gone to Home Depot, rented a truck and got a replacement (40-gallon) hot water heater. In two hours, the work was done. ($170.00). Then I had to rent another truck and take the leaking hot water heater back to Home Depot to get credit for the replacement unit I bought.

In retrospect, it would have been much easier if either (a) I learned how to install the hot water heater myself, so that I could do the whole job, or (b) I had the plumber do the whole job. Even with a warranty for the unit, we were without hot water for 3 or 4 days, and it took a lot of coordination to get it done.

And it probably wasn't necessary. While there was water all around the hot water tank, in the pan, and the rust suggested the hot water heater had been sitting in water for a long time, there was the suggestion that the water came not from the hot water heater, but from the A/C system. Remember how Fox had tied the hot water heater pan drain into the A/C drain? The suggestion was made that the water from the A/C system was going down its drain and then into the hot water heater pan. To prevent that, the last plumber cut the connection and sealed it, so the hot water heater has no drain. I got some battery operated alarms that are supposed to warn of water in the pan.

Update (28 Dec 2018):  While we were resting after dinner, there came a shrill noise to the kitchen.  We tracked it down to the hall way, and then to the hot water heater.  It was the battery operated alarm that I had put in the pan.  And there was water in the pan!

There is a pressure/temperature relief valve at the top of the hot water heater (on the side), and it was leaking around that.  I've known that these things will/can fail, and this one apparently was on the verge of doing so.  I called a plumber, Wilson Plumbers, and they sent two guys out to fix it.  They had two replacement valves, but one was too short and the other too long (it prevented the door from closing), so they had to go get the right size, but they did, and installed it.  The whole thing took about 2 hours.  (They said our water pressure, which they measured at 100 pounds, is too high, but also that the springs in these valves just give out eventually.)

A couple of days after the plumbers had been out, I opened the door to the hot water heater, and there was water -- inches! -- in the pan.  The drain/flush valve, at the bottom of the tank was dripping, quickly!  So I turned off the water to
the hot water heater, drained the tank, and removed the top of the drain valve.  Looks like it needs a new washer.  I found 00 Flat washers at Home Depot (1/2" outside diameter) as being almost the right size -- a tad too big, but they can be squished to fit.  Then a new screw -- #6-32 brass, about 1/2 long at most.  Put that all back together, and fill it up again.  Seems to be working with no drips.

Remodelling the Back Bathroom

Lauren wants to move into the back bedroom, and Linda took an interest in remodelling the bathroom and bedroom before she does. Linda worked with some people at Materials Marketing which sells lots of different types of stone tile and pieces. They laid out a design for using their stone work to tile the sink counter top, the floor, and the bathtub/shower areas of the bath. 

The material for all this was $1983.08. We then contracted with Fox Tile to take out the old tile and install all the new stone tile. This was $2000. 

The installation was not as good as I would have preferred. The tile was supposed to go all the way to the ceiling, but they stopped about 8 inches from the top. 

And once the tile was in place, we replaced all the fixtures in the room. 

The toilet was replaced by an American Standard Champion. This is a higher toilet than normal (they call it "Right Height"), an elongated bowl, in a "Linen" color. $477.38 from Home Depot. 

The tub/shower fixtures were American Standard 8630 in Nickel Satin finish $415.50 from Home Depot. I needed help from Fox Services to install the tub/shower fixtures. $85.00 

The sink fixtures were "Iris", again in a Nickel Satin finish $402.00 from Home Depot. 

 The light fixture was from Texas Light, $162.55. 

The towel rods were from Restoration Hardware, their Chatham line, again in Satin Nickel. $132.07. 

The builder had installed a ceiling heater, but no vent fan, so I took out the ceiling heater and put in a Broan Model 683C Deluxe Fan. This required installing a vent in the exterior gable wall and running a vent duct thru the attic. 

And finally, we painted the walls and ceiling. The ceiling is a Premium Plus Interior Eggshell paint, a pastel base with "Restful" (400F-4) tint. The walls are a green Behr paint. 

And once the bathroom was done, we repainted the back bedroom. We removed the original "popcorn" ceiling, and textured it to match the walls. $550.00. Then I sanded the wood floors and put a coat of polyurethane on them.