Gutter Guards

 When the new roof and solar system was installed, they also took down the old gutters and put up new ones.  But the crud that was in the French drain re-enforced the concept of putting screens over the gutters to keep out leaves and twigs.  I think I've already put them on the sections of the roof that run along both sides of the garage.  I don't think we need them on the gutter in the back -- it gets very little in terms of leaves and in any case just runs out into the yard.  We don't have gutters along the West side of the house.  So that just leaves the front gutter.

We found the cheapest gutter guards available, from Home Depot, consisting of 3 foot sections of plastic screens.

We slid them under the last row of shingles and push them onto the front edge of the gutter.

Until we had them covering the entire front gutter.

Update. 9 Sept 2024.  When we were putting up these cheap plastic gutter guards, Michael (our neighbor from across the cove) came over and offered me a pack (well, a partial pack) of Easy On Gutter Guards from Costco.  These are stainless steel mesh gutter guards. $10 apiece, instead of $1.54 for the plastic ones.  But 4 foot long instead of the 3 foot plastic ones.

The one pack was enough to redo the gutter on the East side of the garage.  This gutter gets a lot of leaves and such from the Crepe Myrtle trees and the Chinese Pistache tree.

First, we remove the current plastic screens.

 The stainless steel screens are much stronger.  They slide in under the shingles easily and then are held in place with either tape 

or screws.  We used the tape to put them in place and then used screws, just to be sure. We use a #8 x 3/8 sheet metal screw, but since we only had 12 in the package, we then ended up with only two per screen (the instructions suggested 3 per screen).

We can evaluate if they work that much better, to justify the cost.

French Drain Camera

 Kyle showed up this morning with the drain camera.  The camera is on the tip of a long cable and communicates with a specialized iPad in a case.

The camera and cable go down into the clean out pipe and transmit video back to the computer which displays and records it.

Most of the video is uninteresting -- just a long sequence of a white pipe.

But you can see, in the upper left corner, a time-stamp.  And in the lower left corner, in white, in brackets, how far down the pipe we are.

As I said, mostly it's uninteresting, but occasionally, you hit a joint

Or here, at 9 feet in, we have gone under the gate into the back yard and are turning to go over and run along the fence.

At 18 feet, we are along the fence and turn to run parallel to it.

Further down, we run into some twigs that got into the drain and have not yet been flushed down or decomposed.  We actually ran into some at 26 and 34, but the camera will actually push them down the pipe as it moves forward.

At 53 feet, we hit another turn, where the side fence stops at the fence along the back of the lot (on the West side) and turns to continue down the back yard.

Then, at 59 feet, the bottom of the pipe seems to fall off.  Kyle says this looks like the pipe has been broken or collapsed.

And a few feet more, a massive root ball.  Kyle says this is most likely from the big old oak tree in the back.

Then, to know exactly where the camera is, Kyle could turn the cable into an antenna of some kind generating a signal that he could pick up with a locator device to follow the cable from the clean out pipe down the back yard to exactly where this root ball is, and he marked it on the ground with a big white circle ( and I stuck a yellow flag).

So we know exactly where the problem is.  I can dig down and find the French drain at this location, take it apart, repair it and we will be back in business.  Also this would be a good spot for another clean-out pipe.  Apparently, good practice is a clean-out pipe every 50 feet.

French Drain stops working

 The French drain was put in back in 2003 and has been working fine since then.  It was extended and terminated into the blue rock pool in 2008, and then the front end was rebuilt when we built the retaining wall in the front yard.  We exposed parts of it when we moved the gas line, and when we dug out the stumps of the two elm trees.

But when we got the roof replaced in 2023 and new gutters installed, it seemed to stop working.  Heavy rains would cause the downspout in the front West corner to overflow and erode away the dirt around where the downspout went underground to enter the French drain.

The first step to fixing this is to expose the end of the French drain in the blue rock pool in the backyard, between the Bamboo Grove and Zone 7.

The pipes in the French drain should terminate at the rock wall, under the rock.  So first we remove the blue rocks.

That exposes a badly weathered landscape cloth.  Removing that we find a layer of limestone rock.

Removing that, we get down to the actual pipes. 

The center one, sticking out the most, is the main pipe that should go all the way back to the downspout.  The other two, one on the left and one on the right should be perferated drain lines that run parallel to the main pipe, just to drain more.  The main pipe is 39 inches from the fence, and down 16 inches from the top of the rock wall between Zone 7 and the blue rock pool.

We can test for a problem by putting a house in the downspout and turning on the water.  After a long enough time, the downspout is full of water, but nothing is coming out of the pipes in the blue rock pool.

If we put a hose up the pipe from the blue rock pool, we get about 30 feet up the pipe before hitting something that keeps us from going further up.  But we do manage to flush out a dark material we believe is decomposing leaves and the protective granules from the asphalt roofing.

In trying to understand the French drain, we notice old pictures of it showed a clean-out pipe which would now be under, or in, the Rive of Rocks, and digging just a little, we find that.

Pushing the hose down from this clean-out pipe into the French drain, we only get about 9 or 10 feet before it stops.

But the French drain is not just a straight pipe.  It was imagined originally as going along the fence, and only later brought over to attach to the downspout.  So it goes from the clean-out pipe back under the fence gate and then turns right to the fence.  There it turns left and follows the fence down until the fence turns left again and follows the fence to the blue rock pool.  So there are 3 turns.  I think those were 30 degree turns, but possibly 45 degrees, or a mix of the two.  Those turns may be what is stopping the hose.

We tried a Large Drain Bladder from Home Depot ($21.97).  That is a balloon type device that you hook to a garden hose and then stick into your clogged drain.  The water pressure causes the bladder to expand until it seals the drain and then water shoots out the end at high pressure washing away any clog and debris.  Putting it in at the clean-out should then push all the roof granules and decomposed leaves out the other end into the blue rock pool.

That didn't do anything either.  After running the water for about 10 minutes, there was some seepage from the pipes at the blue rock pool.

So we called a Radiant Plumbing to clean out the line.  They could come out two days later.  Matt showed up and after inspecting things offered three solutions: (1) a water blaster for $740, (2) a rotating cable for more, or (3) both the water blaster and the rotating cable for $1074.82.  We went for the least expensive -- the water blaster.

That was similar to what I had done, but with better equipment.  The water blaster put out much higher pressure out the front to break up any clogs, and also put water out the back to (a) move the head forward into the pipe all by itself, and (b) to push anything that was loosened up back out the pipe.  We tried it from the clean-out pipe

and from the blue rock pool back up the pipe.

And then back to the clean-out pipe again.  But we were getting nothing.  Well, almost nothing.  There were small artifacts of PVC pipe and some small pieces of shingle that had worked there way into the drain, but unless there were more, bigger, pieces that didn't really tell us anything.

 So we decided to try the cable snake to see if that would clear things out.

It seemed to get a bit further, but it was hitting something solid and could not get all the way thru the drain.

But we were able to get some flow.  Putting water in at the clean-out pipe would cause water to come out at the blue rock pool, but out of the wrong pipe!  It seemed to come out of the left pipe, not the center one.  Which made no real sense.

Since we had some flow (although we did not understand why), we had done as much as it seemed we could.  The cable hitting something hard was puzzling too.  So the suggestion was to bring a drain camera out and put it down the clean-out pipe.  The drain camera would give us a good view of what was in the French drain, and that would tell us what was needed next.

House Numbers on the Curb

 The house numbers that we painted on the curb are showing their age.  So we decided to repaint them.   I scraped the old surface to get off any loose paint.  Then I spray painted the rectangle underneath the numbers to white.  Stencils were used to spray paint the numbers on black.

But the curb curves, and the stencils don't so there was a lot of over/under spray and the numbers looked fuzzy.  I tried to sharpen things up with a little paint brush and paint from the spray cans, but spray can paint is very thin and runny.  When I put paint to the curb with the brush, it tended to run down the curb, thru the numbers.

So I decided we needed actual paint.  In a can.  Oil-based enamel outdoor paint.  Bought one quart can of white, one of black, from Home Depot.  Using another brush I touched up the number I had sprayed.  Took two days -- one to touch up the white, then another to touch up the black, then another to touch up the white that had drips of black, and another to touch up the black that had drips of white.

 To save trouble with the other number on the other side of the driveway, I just went straight to the touching up with the can paint, since I could still see where the number was from the last time.

 And while I was at it, I did the same for the neighbors at 10603.

Sealing the Shower Floor

 We really like the newly remodeled master bathroom. Especially the shower.

However, after about a month of use, Linda noticed small black spots on the shower floor.

We think this is mold.

So two questions: (1) How to get rid of it? and (2) How to prevent it?

To get rid of it, I would normally spray it with a mold/mildew remover, which is basically bleach, but the internet says not to do that because (a) the tile is marble, (b) Marble is calium carbonate -- a form of limestone, (c) limestone is base and bleach is acidic, (d) bleach will eat away at the marble.  Instead I found a recipe for a cleaner for marble composed of:

• 1.5 cups of water
• 1 teaspoon dish soap
• 3 tablespoons Rubbing Alcohol

I mixed that up in a spray bottle, then sprayed it on the tile and scrubbed it with a scrub brush. 

Once that was dry, we decided to seal the stone, to try to keep the mold out of it.  Marble is porous.  We decided to use BulletProof Sealer by StoneTech.

The hope is that this will seal the stone, and not allow the mold to get into it.

In addition, we are looking into using a UVC light to kill any mold.  A UVC light  (254 nm) is supposed to break down any DNA molecules and so kill the mold.  It is also damaging to people, so we will need to be careful.

Replacing all the old utilitarian light fixtures

 Most of the real rooms in the house -- the kitchen, dining room, living room, library, bedrooms and bathrooms -- have major light fixtures selected for that room.  But there are a bunch of smaller rooms -- closets, pantry, hallways -- that just need light, but don't really need anything fancy.  

One of these sorts of simple utilitarian lights are the lights over the toilets.  The bathrooms all have their own major lights, and then there is a single solitary light in the ceiling over the toilets.  All these simple utilitarian lights were the same.

 

The remodeling of the two bathrooms removed those lights and replaced them with a more modern light fixture.

The old style light was a brass finish, but Linda prefers "Brushed Nickel" and so we are gradually moving the old brass things over to being brushed nickel.  She found this light at Home Depot as a "9 in. 2-Light Pewter Ceiling Light Flush Mount" for $18.36 each.  We counted 11 of them in the house, and figured if we were replacing 2, we should replace them all.  So 11 fixtures for a total of $218.62, including tax.  

The old fixtures required one light bulb; the new ones require two.  Plus, when we went to replace them, we found most of the bulbs were CFLs, so we should upgrade to LED bulbs -- 22 of them.

The replacement process is fairly straightforward, as long as there are no surprises.  First

turn the light on.  Then find the circuit that this light is on, and turn off the circuit braker.  The light should now be off.  Remove the glass globe and the light bulb.

 

This will expose two screens on either side of where the light bulb screws in.  Backing these out allows the light fixture to be twisted slightly and it comes off.

There should be two wires going to the fixture -- a black (power) wire and a white (ground) wire -- attached by wire nuts.  Remove the wire nuts, and the fixture separates from the wiring, leaving the two long screws that held the fixture in place, plus the black and white wires.

The new light fixture has two white wires plus two black wires (one for each light bulb), plus a copper ground wire. 

 

Wind the three black wires together and the three white wires together.  Then use the wire nuts to secure all the same color wires together.  The ground wire should be connected back to the metal box in the ceiling.  Generally, fishing around in the metal box, I found more ground wires either tied together or attached to the box.  They should be attached to the box.  Take the new ground wire and attach it to the others either by a wire nut or by adding it to the ground wire attached to the box.

Now the new fixture just has to be lifted up so that the two long screws stick thru to the two keyhole slots in it's base. Notice the two holes next to where the light bulbs will go.

The biggest problem is being able to line up the screws, which are already attached to the electrical box in the ceiling, with the keyholes in the new light fixture.  The new light fixture, of course covers and obscures the electrical box and the screws. And the back side of the new fixture is covered with aluminum foil and fiberglass insulation.

The solution is to extend the holes so that they can be lined up with the screws before the fixture is lifted up and covers everything.  I found a simple plastic straw works well for that.  Cut the straw in half, since it doesn't need to be too long, and we need two of them, one for each keyhole.  Put the straw thru the keyhole, from the light bulb side 

 

and push it thru the insulation and foil, so that it extends out the back of the fixture.

Now you can push the light fixture up to the electrical box.  You can see the straws and the screws to align them, and can pull the straw out as the screw moves into the keyhole from behind.  Then use a screwdriver to tighten the screws to hold the new fixture in place.

Add the light bulbs.

And the new glass globe.

Go turn on the circuit breaker.  Test that the light works.

Now repeat that another 10 times until all eleven old light fixtures have been replaced by the new light fixtures.

Mostly it went pretty well.  The main problem was not having a ground wire attached properly.  The other problem that came up was with the long screws and the electrical boxes.  The new base is larger around than the old base, but it is not as deep.  This means that the long screws have to be screwed in more in order to secure the new base against the ceiling.  Some of the boxes were normal boxes -- 3 to 4 inches deep -- so there was plenty of room to accept the screws going in further.  But a couple were really shallow boxes -- more like just a flat lid than an actual box, and trying to screw the screws in further meant it hit the back of the box and would not go any further.  These then had to be substantially modified by drilliing a hole that would accept the screws going in further.  That process could take hours.

Light Switches for the Remodelled Bathrooms

The light switches for the two remodelled bathrooms needed to be changed.  I wanted an illuminated switch for the main bathroom light for all the bathrooms, and to change the normal toggle switch to a rocker switch.

For the central bathroom, the current switch was a single toggle switch by the door.

 so we took it out, and put in an illuminated rocker switch.

The illumination is very faint but shows up at night on the top half of the switch.

For the Master Bathroom, the switch for the bathroom lights is part of two switches, one for the bathroom, and the other (a 3-way switch) for the bedroom.

We remove the first switch (on the left) for the bathroom with an illuminated rocker switch, and replace the second switch with a 3-way rocker switch.

We needed the two illuminated switches, plus the 3-way switch, plus the new switch plate to cover them up.  $29.17 at Home Depot.