The Housechick Blog

I don’t normally make product sales pitches here, but I was contacted by a guy in New Mexico who has written a book all about evaporative (swamp) coolers - how to “summerize”, “winterize”, repair, and generally maintain, complete with pictures and descriptions.

You can learn more about it at his website, EasyCoolerCare.com.  Given the amount of questions I field from people buying homes with swamp coolers, this book looks like it might be a fabulous $10 (plus $5 shipping and handling) investment.

There’s a section of the Easy Cooler Care book available free via PDF file that you can download and read - it’s a guide to helping you figure out the proper sizing, make, model, and so on for your cooler.  I think that’s pretty helpful if you don’t know how to measure for pads or what size pump to purchase.

It’s heating up in Tucson!  I’ve seen lots of people on their roofs this weekend getting their swamp coolers ready for the season.  I have a friend who claims to not know how to service his swamp cooler, to get it ready to use.  I think they just are trying to get me to go over there and do it for them, but how will they ever learn if they don’t figure it out themselves?

But let’s review the basic concepts.

Hopefully, you winterized the unit properly (or had it winterized properly, if you weren’t feeling so handy).  It should have been completely drained and cleaned, pads removed, motors oiled, unplugged, water turned off and water line emptied, possibly the pan rust-scrubbed and coated, and kept covered over the winter.  If you didn’t do those things, you may fire the evap cooler up and find water dripping out the bottom of the holes rusted through the water pan.  In which case, just get off the roof and call your home warranty person or a cooler repair person.

You’ll need to turn the water back on, make sure there are no holes in the supply line.  You’ll need to install fresh cooler pads as well.  If you winterized everything properly, setting up the cooler for the summer season should be a snap.  Remove cover, turn on water, install pads, plug in pump and motor, and voila.

If you’ve got a MasterCool, you can download their user manuals at the MasterCool site, which should help you figure stuff out and do some basic troubleshooting. 

Don’t know if you’ve got a MasterCool?  Does your evaporative cooler draw in air from one side or from 3 or more?  If it’s pulling air in from only one side, chances are, it’s a MasterCool.  MasterCool pads and operation are a bit different from the traditional evaporative coolers.

If you’ve got the regular non-MasterCool type of swamp cooler, best bet is to go down to your friendly Ace Hardware and ask for help, if you get stuck.  Don’t forget to measure the size of the unit so you know what size pads to purchase.  Otherwise, you’ll be making lots of trips on and off the roof and back and forth to Ace.  Trust me on that one.

Had a nice discussion via the Plugoo widget about termite warranty renewals.  See that little chat box on the sidebar?  You can talk with me there.

We’ll just go ahead and assume you want to renew your termite warranty because you know that in Tucson, the question is when and not if you will get termites.  So you want to keep your home under a termite warranty.

Pricing for warranties can vary widely.  About the cheapest I’ve seen is around $100, give or take a few bucks.  On the expensive side, I’ve seen termite warranty renewals that cost several hundred.  So it doesn’t hurt to shop around and compare services and price.

However - if you want to change termite warranty companies, the new company will want to come out and do an inspection.  If they were to find evidence of termites, they’ll probably want you to have the house treated before they would warrant it.  Which costs $$$.

So the question is this: how long are you going to own that house?

If you’ve got a $200 annual renewal fee from your existing termite company, and you’ll be there about 5 years, then you’ll pay $1000 over the next 5 years.

If you change to a company with a $100 annual renewal fee, but have to have a $400 treatment to change companies, then you’ll pay $900 over the next 5 years.

Had an interesting discussion with someone via the Plugoo widget over in the sidebar.  See that chat box over on the right side?  If I’m online, you can chat with me there.

Okay, back to the discussion.

The visitor was asking initially about whether he needed a permit to install a shed in his yard.  If I look at the Pima County development services site, it says you don’t need a permit for a storage shed that is 1 story in height and is less than 200 sq ft in floor area.  However, you still need to obey zoning, setback, association, and deed restrictions, as they may restrict the installation, location, or design of a shed.

It led him to an interesting question:

What’s my incentive to get a permit, other than to "do the right thing?"

There’s the whole needing to obey the law aspect of going through the permit application process, but is there really any *incentive*?  I guess if you’ve got a neighbor that complains about a permitted shed, then maybe they would have no recourse against you - whereas if you had an unpermitted shed and a disgruntled neighbor calls out development services, perhaps you’d be spending a chunk of money to bring it up to standards or tearing it down.  Is that an incentive?  Every reason I can think of to get a permit is more about avoiding punishment instead of a tangible reward.

I headed over to pimaxpress.com, the Pima County Development Services site, and found this: the top 25 requested permits for Pima County.

Jeez - if I’m reading this correctly, you need a permit to re-roof a house, to relocate a sink, to install a new water heater, to replace a window, to remodel a bathroom.

Ah, polybutylene.  Once the favored child, now banished and reviled.

Polybutylene pipe was once considered the pipe of the future, and was used as a substitute for copper plumbing between 1978 and 1995.  It was low cost and easy to install.  Until reports of leaks started.  And didn’t stop.

Turns out, “poly pipe” has one irredeemable flaw - it tends to leak.  Not the most desirable quality in your plumbing system. 

In Tucson homes, you’ll find polybutylene pipe in homes of that era.  Anything built in the 1980s and early 1990’s should set off a little warning bell in your head.  Or your agent’s head.  Who should then tell you all about PB Pipe.

I heard a plumber talking a year or so ago, who went on about how the crimping tools for the fittings were sometimes hard to use, or that the pipe never tightened up after being stretched over the fittings.  A bit of online research says the pipe may be failing because some chemicals in the water may react with the pipe and fittings, causing them to scale and flake from the inside out, become brittle, microfracture, and so forth.

Bottom line: polybutylene tends to leak.

There’s a class action suit (but that doesn’t surprise you) that you can read about at www.pbpipe.com.  Potentially, home owners with poly in their house who have had leaks can go there and find out if the suit will help them take care of the issue.

If you’re selling a home and your house has polybutylene pipe, know that it is becoming ever more common for a buyer to require the house be replumbed - and to have it done at your expense.  We’re talking in the ballpark of $5k - $8k, roughly.  Your mileage may vary, depending on the size of the house, if there’s attic space, where the pipe runs, etcetera.  I tell you this now, as much as I know you don’t want to hear it: just replace it now.  Really.  I’m urging you to repipe your home now, from the bottom of my heart.  Please, let me help you get a good price and get it done right now, so that we can get you more money when we sell it.  Really.  Please, please, please, trust me on this one.

How do you know if the home you’re buying has polybutylene pipe?  Well, it’s grey stuff.  There’s pictures here, and here, and here.  Best bet - call a plumber and ask them to come take a look.  Sometimes, it’s only the water main that is poly.  Sometimes, the stuff in the wall is poly, but it’s connected to copper that stubs out through the wall, so all you see outside of the wall is copper.  Sometimes, we can look into the washing machine connection box and find out.  Sometimes, we’ll need to get permission to cut a coupla holes in the wall.  Usually behind the washing machine, since we know there’s pipe there, and it’s a somewhat unobtrusive area.

So the water heater went out at my rental property on Wednesday night.  It’s only a 3 year old unit.  As luck would have it, there’s some kind of class action suit against the manufacturers of that particular unit for installing defective thermocouples.  If your serial number begins with ‘FG’ you call this number and they send you out a new manifold assembly.

Yeah, a manifold assembly.  As in, what the heck is a manifold assembly?  I’ll take one, please, thank you.  And can you send that overnight delivery?

So we went over there to swap out the manifold assembly yesterday night.  Picking out tools to take over there was fun.  Do you think we need a screwdriver?  How many variety of wrenches should we take?  Certainly we won’t need a hammer, will we? 

Just ignore that tiny voice at the back of your head saying I probably shouldn’t be tampering with appliances that combine gas and flame on a regular basis.  It had to be done - my plumber flaked and I can’t leave my tenants without hot water for much longer.

Two hours later, we managed to swap out the old parts for the new.  Since I’m the one with the mad water heater lighting skills, I got to lay on the cold concrete and light the pilot.  And it flamed right up!  And then I release the red button and poof.  Flame go out. 

Hold button and clicky-clicky - woo-hoo, flame!

Release button: flame go out.

Repeat for 15 minutes. 

Spend 20 minutes readjusting all connections.

Spend an additional 10 minutes in clicky-flame-release-poof cycle.  Give up for the night.  Apologize profusely to tenants.

Today I’m advised that maybe the thermocouple isn’t *in* the pilot flame, maybe we can just push it into the flame.  Ah yes.  The thermocouple.  As in, which part is the thermocouple again?

At least we know which tools to take over this time.

A common home improvement around Tucson is to upgrade the cooling system from an evaporative cooler to an air conditioner, especially on some of the older Tucson homes.  I’ve got a couple good references for A/C guys, if you’re shopping around.

Many times, my preferred A/C people will bring it up and recommend it, but not every person thinks about it - it’s usually a good idea to change out the air registers when you change the cooling system in the house, especially if the registers look like this:

Okay, that’s just gross.  Don’t ask me where I took that photo, but know that I washed my hands after leaving that one.

Back to the air registers.

It’s not just an aesthetic issue.  See those louvers that are horizontal behind the main vertical louvers in that picture?  Most swamp cooler air registers don’t have those.  Those are the louvers that let you control the amount of air that comes out so you can balance the air flow.  With a swamp cooler, you don’t need those.  With an A/C, you do.

If you do want to change out your air registers and you’ve got one of those classic 1950’s Central Tucson homes, I can save you a little trouble right now: the register sizes in those houses are no longer typical, and you will not find them at Home Depot or Lowes.  Don’t even bother trying.  Take your measurements and head straight to where the professionals shop: Airco Products, 748 E 16th St. 

As a side note, I found that place to buy oddly shaped air registers by calling several stores and asking if they sold Registers of Unusual Sizes - R.O.U.Ses.  If you’re a Princess Bride fan, you’ll get that joke.  It still cracks me up.

I’m sort of a house info geek, so I was excited when I found a site this morning that taught me how to decipher the registration plate on the front of a water heater.

Turns out, it’s usually the first couple digits on the serial number.  Some are the month and year, some are the year and week, and some are in opposite order as others.  There’s examples at the site.

Keep in mind that the date on the plate is a manufacture date; water heaters are most likely installed within a couple years of that date.

Also, because of the hard water that we have in Tucson, you’ll often hear a bubbling noise inside the unit.  Some people call it knocking or gurgling - you’ll know it when you hear it! 

Usually, that’s caused by a build-up of sediment and minerals at the bottom of the water heater.  I’ve been told that if you drain the unit once a year, it can help with that, but I haven’t confirmed that with a professional.  In my experience with water heaters in Tucson, most make some mild bubbling noises after a year or two.  When the knocking gets very loud, it can be a sign the unit is about to die.

Luckily, replacing a water heater is one of the cheaper home repairs for being such a vital appliance, at least relatively speaking.  My last couple replacements ran between $600 and $800 for the new unit, installation, and removal of the old unit.

I think next time, I might try a tankless water heater.  Anyone with experience with those?

Photo via Flickr, courtesy of geekmojo

Good news and bad news.

Good News: I found a termite tube and took a picture of it to share with you.

Bad News: It’s in my own house.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: get a termite warranty and renew it every year.  Luckily for me, I’ve followed my own advice.  They’ll be out to treat on Wednesday at no cost to me.

I wonder how long it will be by Wednesday.  I noticed this one yesterday afternoon and it’s nearly doubled in length since then.  It’s fascinating and disgusting, all at the same time.

If you should find yourself in a similar situation - finding new evidence of a subterranean termite infestation, warranty or no - leave the tubes for the termite company so that they can see where to treat. 

Termites are a fact of life around here.  The question is WHEN not IF you will get them, especially if you never bother with a termite warranty.  And, as proven here, sometimes you get them even if you do have the warranty.  I just purchased this house a year ago, had it treated and got a warranty at that time.  But if these little critters have been munching the wood in my attic since before I owned the house, they were probably not affected by the ground treatment.  We had all new lumber and exposed timber treated as they were exposed during the remodel, but missed spraying down the attic area.

Wednesday, my termite guy will crawl up there, do a spot treat, and we’ll make sure the supports are still sturdy.  My home inspector was up there before I bought it, and it all looked good then, so I imagine everything will be just fine.  A little treatment, a little tube clean-up, and we’re good as new.

I am asked quite frequently if installing a swimming pool will increase the value of a home. 

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the swimming pool because I hate to maintain the thing.  Most Buyers are fairly sharply divided on the issue.  I’d say 45% of Buyers absolutely do not want  a pool, 45% absolutely must have one, and 10% don’t really care either way.

The cost to have a pool installed starts around $17,000 and goes up quickly from there, but your typical Tucson home with an average pool may only gain an additional $5000-7000 on an appraisal for having a swimming pool (in my experience).  So if you really want a pool, and will enjoy having and using it, then go install one.  But don’t expect to recoup your installation costs!

For high end properties, the million plus crowd, pools are almost universally expected, and a nice one at that.  For that type of property, NOT having a pool could be the difference between your home selling and it sitting on the market forever.

There are other aspects to consider as well.  If you’ve got a small lot, and put in a big pool, then most Buyers aren’t going to like that.  If you put a tiny pool on a tiny lot, well, that may just be a waste, as most people who want a pool are going to want something more than 4 people can be in at the same time without running into each other.

Placing a pool in a side yard where it isn’t visible from the patio or main living area of the house can be the kiss of death for a home sale as well.  This one I know from experience!

Also, families with young children are usually very concerned with pool fencing while home buyers without kids may not want to see tall iron fences around the pool.  So even among the pool-wanting-buyer crowd, there will be very different concerns.

In the end, I think the choice to install a swimming pool is a personal one, and not a question of improving the home’s value, unless you’re dealing with a luxury home.