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Older House - How I Am Going to Make it Better

Thu 28 Aug 2008 - 13:49

Older House - How I Am Going to Make it Better
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Crystal_Jackson]Crystal Jackson

I've owned this house now for just under a year. I have done a little cosmetic stuff on the outside like trimming the trees, and edging some of them. The worst was cutting down all the shrubbery near the road. It was over ten feet thick and ran the entire length of my property. Thats over 400 feet of frontage. Exhausting work but paid off very well in the looks of my property. I piled up the branches and shrubs into a huge pile and had a big one time burn (after getting a burn permit). Where I live, we must have a burn permit to burn outside. I think that the charge for not having one is over $400.

About half of the pile was burnt down when my neighbour dropped by. He has a big beautiful yard, and a very nice home. Joseph was telling me that I should have rented a shredder and used the wood chips around some of the trees. I guess I should have thought of that too because I wanted to add to the landscape. My neighbor Joseph, told me how I should use the ashes from the burn to place it either in the garden that I have cut into the side yard or place it around the trees. Apparently, ashes ( potash ) helps in the growth of plants. I am not very big on plants and fertilizers etc. so after a bit of research, I was pleased to clean up my burn area and place it under my main tree group. Since then, I have added nice red wood chips and a few annuals to create a great look.

The yard is great now. I still have a lot of different things that I would like to add but at least it is appealing to everyone that drives by now.

The house however, needs a lot of work. It is quite an old house, over 50 years. Quite small but one day I hope we can add on. One of the biggest issues I have with the house is the hydro. I have had a hard time understanding why the fuses blow. I have never had the hydro go out in the middle of drying my hair before. At least until I bought this house. Fuses suck! 60 amp service sucks! Each day I would get more and more angry when I would blow a fuse. I now had to get used to shutting off every electrical appliance on the west side of my house before I used my hair dryer. Trust me, I didn't put up with that very long. James would get so mad when I woke him up to go to the basement to replace a fuse. But, he would always get up and do it for me. (wink wink)

Our water is very high in iron, making it more difficult to keep the bathroom tub clean from the orange colour that the iron leaves. Not to mention the clothes washing. My nice white clothes all turned orange within a few weeks. We began doing our white laundry in town at the laundry mat. I / we got into a daily routine to clean small spots in the tub during the morning shower. I really had to choose weather to upgrade the water or the hydro first. I chose to upgrade the water because driving into town to do laundry just ruined an evening every week. Not like there is very much to do during that 2 hour time loss. James fully agreed, since I always made him come with me that we should do the water first. I was excited when I had a small team of plumbers come out two months ago to upgrade my water system.

Three days later I had cleaner safer water. Here's what they did: New jet pump, pressure tank (old one was an old style and was so solid from settled iron that it took 4 men to get it out of the basement) one inch pipe into the tank and out to the first small commercial filter system. This filter is changed on a bi-monthly basis. Usually, it is very solid orange and heavy from the iron content. (Did I tell you that our iron was very strong!!) Now that filter system is a smaller version of what comes next. It was meant to be a safety system so that the main system doesn't get overloaded. I understood that the main system will do it's job but with the iron content in our water, it was highly recommended to add this smaller filter. For the extra $250 James and I felt that it was worth it. Next, the main iron filter was added. One inch copper going into it and 3/4 inch on the out side, going directly to the softener. There was a bi-pass put in place should we ever require maintenance. The pipe came out of the softener at 3/4 inch and at the first 'T' it changed to 1/2 inch which is meant to keep the water pressure up.

Clean water and I could now do all our laundry at home. The bathroom looks very clean now and take very little time to keep it that way. No more cleaning the walls in the shower during my morning shower.

If you ever have the desire to upgrade your water system in your home and have a very difficult iron problem, you should add a small commercial filter before the main ones and make sure that the size of the pipe from the pressure tank is at least one inch going into the filters. This will keep your pressure up high. We can actually flush the toilet and have a shower at the same time and no difference in the pressure of the shower. The small commercial filter is changed by us ( James ) every 60 days. I put it on the calendar so we don't forget. The colour of the filter and iron left in the small filter system is cleaned out and a new filter is placed in the unit. We buy a high flow filter which is about $9 each but I would rather pay out $9 every 60 or so days than replace the main iron and softener system which was over $5000 fully installed. Someone may think that is a lot of money but we believe we made the right decisions and now have nice clean water.

Keep in touch as I upgrade our home.

The hydro guys come next week.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Crystal_Jackson http://EzineArticles.com/?Older-House----How-I-Am-Going-to-Make-it-Better&id=1437469


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