Homeowners: I own 8 different power saws, primarily to attract a mate.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Homeowners: I own 8 different power saws, primarily to attract a mate.

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

Axiem posted:

There are lots of guides floating around giving schedules for doing things around the house ("Check your smoke detectors every three months", "In October, make sure to pick up a bag of salt for when it snows", and so on). How do people keep up with these schedules, and remember when to do things? They just seem so easy to forget.

How do people keep up with these schedules? They don't. Almost no one has time to do everything on those lists. They're written by moon people.

For the most part, you're going to have "spring cleanup" tasks and "prepare for winter" tasks. Spring cleanup is basically whatever you need to do to make sure rain won't ruin your house and bugs won't move in anywhere you care about. Winter prep is making sure snow won't ruin your stuff or kill you, and also that food/shelter-seeking critters won't move in anywhere you care about. Along the way, you'll have things like "replace smoke detector batteries" and "switch the furnace filter" but those will probably fall in with seasonal maintenance because that's the only way you'll ever remember to do them before a machine starts yelling at you to PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO IT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Bonus points if you make it as far as "make sure the house doesn't look like poo poo" tasks. I did have a Google calendar for yardwork, so you could go that route if you want to make sure you're following a fairly set schedule.

# ¿ May 8, 2016 05:49

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:22

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

OSU_Matthew posted:

Anybody here planted a tree and had success with it/any advice they could pass on?

I'd like to plant a small ornamental tree out front once I rip out the retaining wall, and a few Paw Paw or other fruit trees in the back. I'm just a bit nervous since it's a fairly big investment (relatively) and I've known my fair share of planted trees to not make it.

The most important thing when planting trees is not to plant them too deep. That's probably the biggest mistake people make. That and over-watering. Don't suffocate or drown your tree.

Be aware that fall is usually when trees are planted. Planting trees in hot summer weather is asking for trouble. Summer weather is very stressful for plants, and a stressed tree attracts opportunistic insects.

Here's what I do:
1. Dig out an area twice as wide as the pot it came in. Don't dig any deeper than the pot it came in unless you have really terrible dirt - but make sure whatever level you end up with doesn't put the tree any lower in the ground than it is in the pot. If you aren't sure, you can lightly brush some dirt away from the base of the trunk and look for where it just starts to flare outward (toward roots). That's usually where the dirt level should be.
2. Pick out large rocks from the dirt around the hole if feeling ambitious.
3. Tilt the pot on its side and gently roll it back and forth while loosening the pot away from the dirt/rootball mass.
4. Put the dirt/rootball mass in the middle of the hole. If it was extremely root bound, you might want to unravel some of the roots a tiny bit - but the goal is to disturb the roots as little as possible, so don't go overboard. Definitely don't separate all of the roots from the dirt (I have really met people who thought that's how you plant things).
5. Fill in around it. If you want to get fancy, you can mix nicer dirt into the dirt you dug out before backfilling, but it isn't necessary. Pick trees that will grow in the type of dirt you have and they'll be fine.
6. I don't stake them, except for one ginkgo tree that had clearly been staked at the nursery and was flopping over. If you absolutely must stake a tree, don't use supports that will cut into the bark, and try to remove the supports as soon as possible. Young trees should be motivated to develop a strong trunk and root system to keep themselves upright.
7. Mulch around the tree with a mulch that helps keep in moisture (like wood chips) but don't pile it up against the trunk. Keep mulch about 2 inches or so away from the tree trunk.
8. If you have deer and they're likely to eat your tree, put up a fence around it until it's more established. If you have rodents that like to gnaw on things at ground level (like shrews or rats), put a guard around the base of the tree.
9. Water deeply, regularly (ideally in the morning) until it's established (the first few weeks), depending on weather and the needs of the tree. After it's established, you'll need to train the tree to be low maintenance, so you'll gradually taper down your watering to once every week. Focus on watering deeply, not just sprinkling it for a few minutes, and don't drown it. Trees generally want moist soil, not soggy soil, so don't flood it.

Never raise the height of the soil around a tree after you've planted it. If you want a raised bed there, raise the soil level now, not later. Many trees will suffocate if you change the amount of dirt sitting on top of their roots later.

Edit: Good clarifications from LogisticEarth!

LogisticEarth posted:

This is all pretty good advice but I'd elaborate slightly on two points:

1) It's hard to know what "too deep" is if you don't know what you're looking for. What is key is to keep the "root flare" slightly above ground and not covered by mulch. The root flare is just as it sounds: the part of the trunk where it starts to flare out into the roots. You don't want to bury that.

2) When unpacking balled or potted trees, you want to watch out for girdling. This can happen if the roots have started to grow in a circle or spiral in the pot. Just gently splay them out so they're not wrapping around the trunk. If you don't do this, they can actually "strangle" the tree in the long run.

Zanthia fucked around with this message at 00:46 on May 22, 2016

# ¿ May 10, 2016 07:27

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

Bozart posted:

So I have a groundhog. I tried to scare it away with a broom but it just lunged at me. So now I am planning on getting a trap, then getting some dry ice and then euthanizing it. Homeownership is great!

Also the American College of Veterinarians has extensive literature on how to humanely murder animals.

We had a burrowing animal in our yard for a while, so I dumped cat litter down every entrance I saw. No more burrows!

# ¿ Jun 2, 2016 02:17

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

minivanmegafun posted:

Used cat litter or fresh? I like to think that the fact that our garbage cans perpetually smell like a catbox help keep rats away.

Used. Gross but effective. I'm pretty sure the smell of a catbox will keep anything away.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2016 05:36

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

Bozart posted:

Those are pennsylvania bluestone flagstones, total cost approximately 9k on 200 Sq feet, including permits, a concrete base, labor, etc. It is probably higher on the cost scale because fairfield county CT is expensive, and the gc gets a cut too.

E: the mason sourced it from someplace, my gc said he went there himself to choose the stones so they would look nice and match.

This is a joke, right? There is no way someone could be talked into paying $9k for a small section of flat rocks.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2016 20:34

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

Lawnmower robot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f-4J98EWrI

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 04:33

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:22

Zanthia: Dec 2, 2014

life is killing me posted:

This is basically true for me, all of this paragraph save the mold or rot.

Just found out today all the flashing on my standing seam metal roof was incorrectly installed and doesn't cover the area well enough anywhere the roof meets the outer walls of the house. Basically it's not going down far enough so water has free reign to splash right into any open seams. Roofer sent me FORTY loving PHOTOS AS EXAMPLES OF SHODDY WORKMANSHIP. He said the rest of the roof is great, just not the 30-40 areas where the roofers apparently were running late for their lunch break and said, "gently caress it, this is good enough right?" They used cheap plastic vents and overtorqued the screws so they are cracking and letting water in, they didn't bring corners together all the way, and there is plywood showing through huge gaps as I mentioned in an earlier post. There are numerous loving places water can get in, and probably IS getting in, and other places where we KNOW water is getting in.

The worst part about the flashing is, my house is loving STUCCO. So of course the flashing was put in and stuccoed over, and to replace it completely all around the house would mean tearing out that stucco, the color of which, when replaced, almost certainly won't match the color of the rest of it. That'd cost thousands. The estimate I just got is going to cost almost $5k, and that's with them jury-rigging new flashing over the old flashing to make it do its job, WITHOUT tearing out the existing stucco where the flashing is anchored.

What part of TX are you in? If you're anywhere near Lubbock, you need flood insurance. If you're closer to Dallas/Fort Worth, flood insurance can still be a good idea but at least that area doesn't get unending torrential rains like the panhandle.

Fix your roof and drainage immediately. Those are emergency repairs. Talk to a lawyer if you want to see if you can hold the builder accountable. I don't know if the drain system and regrading are necessary in your case, but I wouldn't be surprised, and you need to know exactly what's required.

When I had a fixer-upper house, the house trained me to think this way:
1. if anything about the contractor seems off, don't trust any estimate from him
2. if a non-cosmetic estimate comes in under $1,000, do it right now if the contractor is good
3. if a non-cosmetic estimate comes in above $1,000 but under $5,000, do it within 2 months if the contractor is good, otherwise get at least 3 estimates
4. if a non-cosmetic estimate comes in above $5,000, cry
5. immediately cross off any cosmetic work on your to-do list; there will never be time or money for those

Accept that you might have to tear up your patio to get heavy equipment in to deal with drainage, and that plants are a waste of money until the grading is in good shape. You can fix some drainage problems with plants, but it sounds like your issues are much bigger.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2016 19:48

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