Toilets and 2000 Flushes

2000 Flushes is one of those "drop in the tank" tablets that turns the water in the toilet blue, and is supposed to make it easier to keep the toilet bowl clean.  But, for us, it doesn't.

There were initial problems where it turned the water red, brown, purple, but these went away after a couple of days.  The company said that the color balance "can shift as the product settles in the toilet".

But the real issue is after things have "settled".  The product does nothing.  The reason is an interesting mixture of the product and the toilet design.  The following is after using the product for about 2 weeks, and not seeming to get anything from it.

This toilet is an American-Standard Champion 4 model, designed to be low-flow and water saving and all that, so it doesn't have the standard "flapper" design to the water closet part of the toilet -- the tank above and behind the toilet seat.  We put this one in in 2013.

If we look in the tank, we can see the tablet has crumbled, and is tinting the water blue.  The longer it sits there, the blue-er the water.  But it's always at the very bottom of the tank -- the blue tint is heavier than water.

The problem is that the flushing mechanism only drains the top 3/4 of the tank, meaning that the bottom part of the tank, where the blue tint is, is left undisturbed by flushing.

The result is that the toilet bowl itself then has none of the blue tint, but is almost completely clear water.

Now this may, or may not, be true of other blue-tinting toilet products, but certainly seems to be the case with 2000 Flushes.

Excavating the West Lawn Bottom Zone, Part 4

Excavating the West Lawn is just more digging.

Which exposes more of this big rock.  The dirt is mixed with leaves and put back further in the Bottom Zone.

More digging.

A day with the jackhammer reduces these two rocks to

and then a day getting the rocks out of the pit gives

Another day of cleaning up the debris, and moving the dirt that was under the rock out of the way.

Extending the River of Rocks

Once the ground level has been settled, and the Retaining Wall mostly done, we can outline the River of Rocks.  Then we can bring the rest of the rocks over and fill it out.

Then we need to settle the rocks down, so that they are level.

And Linda and Lauren believe that the River of Rocks looks better if it flows on both sides of the group of small oak trees.

and we can then settle these.

We borrowed the Pick-up to get 3 cubic yards of dirt (Professional Mix from Whittlesey Brothers) and poured the dirt over the River of Rocks.

We worked it down into the spaces between the rocks, leveled it off and swept the rocks to finish up the placing of the rocks.

Nest Smoke and CO Detectors

The fan for the Heating and A/C system died and had to be replaced ($1032).  That should keep the system going for awhile, but it is about 12 years old, so we should be prepared to replace it.

The Lennox system we have has had a number of problems, so I'm inclined to switch brands.  Consumer Reports suggests that Trane is a reliable brand.  I contacted 3 local Trane dealers and got estimates for replacing our current system with a new one.

One comment by at least two of the three people who came out was that we would need to upgrade to meet current City code.  And current City code requires both smoke detectors and CO (carbon monoxide) detectors for the bedroom areas.  We have smoke detectors, but no CO detectors.  So we will need to upgrade.

We could get just standard smoke/CO detectors for around $60, but the top of the line would probably be the Nest units at $100.  We have one Nest that we got with hotel frequent flyer points, and it seems to be working well, so we will go ahead and get two more.  This will replace the previous units, installed in July 2012, replacing the ones put in when the house was built (1986).

The two units near the bedrooms are wired, so we bought two Nest Protects for wired installation.  Circuit 25 for one and Circuit 35 for the other.  Turn the circuit off, take out the old detector, wire in the new connector, install the base for the new units, plug them in, and switch the circuit back on. 

One outside the master bedroom.

And one in the hallway outside the computer room and other bedrooms.

The Nest units themselves are a bit more complex to make work since they connect with WiFi and an app that runs on an iPad or iPhone.  Since our WiFi is limited to devices whose MAC address is on our MAC address list, but it seems we have them working.  They show up as working correctly on the Nest.com web site when I log-in.

Replacing the Kitchen Microwave

The Kitchen Microwave has been there for 30 years.

But the turntable is no longer working.  The turntable has 3 wheels and one of them has stopped turning, so it has been ground flat on one side and the friction is now so large that the turntable does not turn at all.

So it's time to get a new one.  It's not easy to find one.  Consumer Reports does not evaluate microwaves, but just gives general properties to look for.  The control panel for the Magic Chef is very simple; control panels now seem to be much more complicated with lots of buttons for specific purposes (Specific buttons for popcorn, potatoes, pizza, ...)  All we want is to be able to punch in a time and start it up.

And opening the microwave door seems to be mostly pushing a big button to pop the door out, rather than pulling on it.  It seems pushing the big button would be difficult for older people, so we would prefer a big handle to pull.

The other problem is that we have a "built-in" microwave.  Most microwaves now seem to be for over a range, or for a counter top.  But some counter-top models come with a "trim kit" that makes it look like it is built-in.  Mainly the trim kit needs to make sure there is enough air flow in and out of the microwave.

Eventually  we settled on a Kenmore Elite Model 75223 2.2 Cubic Foot 1200 Watts Stainless Steel Microwave.  Model 405.75223310.  They have a trim kit for this, Model 22273 Trim Kit, 27 inch, Stainless Steel.

The first step is to remove the existing microwave.  That leaves a big hole for the new one.

The main problem we have is that the previous microwave was about 1.2 cubic foot; the new one is 2.2 cubic foot.  The previous microwave was probably a 24 inch model; the new one is a 27 inch model.  So we have to make the hole bigger, especially bigger vertically.  Rather than make the entire hole bigger, we just cut a couple of notches in the top to accommodate the trim kit. We also took the cabinet doors off the cupboard above the microwave, so we could work.

The trim kit first puts a pan down that the microwave sits on.

Then the microwave slides in.  It plugs into the outlet in the back of the hole.

The trim then goes over this.

And we put the doors back on the cupboard above it.  The doors had to be moved up about an inch.

Update.  On 23 March 2017, the microwave stopped making microwaves.  Everything still works, but it does not heat.  15 months after the start of the 12 month warranty.  Since it only cost $150, plus about $100 for the mounting kit, it does not seem to make sense to try to repair it, so what do we replace it with?

Consumer Reports has actually rated Microwave ovens, in their 2017 Buyer's Guide, and this exact model is rated their #2 choice.  So let's assume it was an item defect and not all such model microwaves.  Unfortunately that model is no longer available, but there is a  successor, the model 79393.  It's $250 as is.  Plus this time, we will pay for the extended warranty, so that it won't break.  An extra $50 to make it last for 3 years.

But of course, the new model is a slightly different size.  It still fits in the opening just fine, but the mounting kit won't work.  Instead of 24 x 12.5, the new model is 24.5 x 13. 

Sealing the Border Between the Jungle and the West Lawn Bottoms

As we have excavated the West Lawn Bottoms, the trench that will be the Bottoms is defined by the Retention Wall on the one side and the Jungle on the other side.  The Jungle has a limestone block border that defines the one side.  We have excavated right up to, and under that border.  Digging gets most of it clear from the border down to bedrock.

A little jack hammer work gets out the stubborn stones to clear it straight down from the edging to bedrock.

We can then form this up and fill the area under the stone edging with cement, to keep the plants from the Jungle in the Jungle, and to support the edging.

After removing the forms, we have a section of the wall support.

This work was done in August.  In December, we had the opportunity to continue this further.

First, we have to clear out the dirt and rock.

Then we form it up.

Pour the concrete, wait a day for it to dry, pull the forms off and move the forms down to do the next section.

And do it again for the last section in what has been excavated so far.

The result may not be pretty, but it should be functional -- supporting the stone border around the Jungle, and sealing the Jungle off so that the plants in the Jungle do not grow out into the yard.  

 (We have had problems with the Nandina in the Jungle growing into the yard; this should stop that.) We want to continue this all the way around the Jungle, as we continue the excavation in the yard.

In March, we continued to dig around the Jungle.

Getting the rock out of the way, exposes a bunch of roots coming under the border between the Jungle and the lawn.

And a couple days of cleaning this out gives us another section of the border that we can pour concrete under.

We form this up, and pour the concrete.

We need to do this in two steps.  The first step creates the bottom half of the wall.  Then we move the forms up and pour the top part, right up to the bottom of the border rock.  The result is a bit rough, so we plaster the outside with mortar mix, to create a smooth plastered wall.

Irrigation for the West Lawn Upper

With the Retaining Wall laid out, we can outline where the River of Rocks will go.  Not actually laying it out or putting it in place, but just outlining where it will go, relative to the main area of the West Lawn.

And once we have that in place, we can now look at what we want to do for an irrigation system for the main West Lawn, the Uppers above the Retaining Wall, all the way back between the fence and the River of Rocks.  Most of this is shady, from the Oak tree and the Elm trees.  Our intent is to put in native grasses that are shade-tolerant and drought-tolerant.  Low maintenance.  Our landscape plan says Inland Sea Oats and a Texas Sedge.

So I've designed a irrigation plan that involves a big loop around the area, with a couple of lines run from side to side to put a head in the middle of the area.

First we located the Zone 8 valve

We connected to the Zone 8 valve both to the outer loop and to one of the lines that go from side to side.

The output from the valve is 1 inch PVC.  We attached a 1 inch Tee and then brought those two lines to the same depth as the main lines, reduced it to 3/4 inch and attached it to each of the two lines.   We run 3/4 inch PVC around the entire area.  Every 10 feet (since the PVC lines are 10 feet long), we put a sprinkler head with a 3/4 inch Tee that has a 1/2 inch threaded center hole, which goes to a 2 inch nipple to the irrigation head.

We ran a line along the fence.

and along the new masonry work.

along the Retaining Wall

Then up along where the River of Rocks will be

past the connection to the valve and all the way up to the middle Elm tree.

At the end of both sides (next to the fence and next to the River of Rocks), we just ran a line as far as seemed reasonable and ended with an irrigation head.

And then after all the irrigation heads are in place and things are tested, we can cover it all up.

And we can top this off with the good dirt that we have piled in the middle of the back yard.  This reduces the pile

to nothing.

and fills up the back half of the new West Lawn.

We then sowed about a half a pound of inland sea oat seeds on this good dirt -- between the tree and the fence.  The expectation is that the seeds will act like they fell from their previous inland sea oat plants, lie dormant over the winter and sprout come Spring.