Kwaree Blog

Amerimax Gutter Covers – The Verdict Is In

Okay, I have been waiting for this post for some time now. It is a follow up to my previous post, “Cleaning Gutters & Installing Amerimax Gutter Covers.” If you visit that post, you can see some comments going back and forth concerning these gutter covers and other gutter covers in general.

I had these gutter covers installed in June of 2008. When I had them put on, the installer really didn’t want to do it. He said that he hated these things and was always taking them off of people’s gutters. I believed him because when I looked in the back of his truck, there were piles of old wire leaf guards. Also, he is a gutter cleaner, so if everyone got gutter covers, he would be out of business.

There are some issues that drive people away from gutter covers. I would say the two main issues are ice buildup and pine needles getting stuck in the covers. Some of the comments in my other post describe six foot icicles. I will tell you about my experience with these gutter covers and then I’ll talk about icicles.

Amerimax gutter cover with oak leaf

Do you want the verdict? Okay, here it is….SUCCESS.

We went through the summer, autumn and winter and all that we have to show for it is one oak tree leaf stuck in the gutter cover. That’s right, one leaf stuck in the whole gutter system. During the winter, we had a few six inch icicles over the front door. That’s it. These gutter covers didn’t cause ice buildup in the least and handled the heaviest of rainfall. Also, leaves slid off with ease. We have many oak trees around the house and I watched the leaves come down on many occasions. We don’t have any nearby pine trees, so I can’t comment on the pine needle issue.

Let’s talk about icicles. Please read this short article on what causes ice dams and icicles found here.

As I said above, I had some comments describing huge icicles that were allegedly caused by gutters or gutter covers. The truth of the matter is, if a house is properly insulated, you won’t have an ice problem. Ice dams and icicles are caused by warm air leaking through the ceiling of your home and warming the roof. When that happens, the snow melts and water runs down the roof to hit a cold gutter or gutter cover. The water freezes and causes an ice problem. Ice dams and icicles are a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. The real problem, is heat loss.

Since the house we live in is properly insulated, we didn’t have any ice problems. I will tell you that we live in Connecticut and had about five or six nice snow falls. A few of them were about 12″ in depth. This is valuable information when trying to compare locations with ice issues.

So there you have it. My conclusion is…if your house is properly insulated, go for it and get some gutter covers. It will save you money on gutter cleanings and will make life easier. If you have an insulation problem, get the problem fixed before you install gutters or gutter covers. If not, you may find yourself outside one snowy night tearing them off your house in a frenzy.

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Another Year, Another Pile Of Mulch

Okay, today is no doubt the nicest day of the year so far. It’s mid 60s and sunny. I can’t complain about that.

Yesterday, I had 15 yards of mulch delivered from the place down in East Hampton. I got it for $22 per yard, plus $8 for delivery (per yard). That’s $30 per yard for the cheapest stuff they had. Considering I paid $120 to have yesterday’s mulch delivered, I am considering getting a sweet little trailer. After all, I did have a trailer hitch installed on the new vehicle for a reason. What a treat it would be to drive down there and pick up mulch for $22 per yard. Either way, I got the 15 yards and still need about 5 more. I’ll have to think about this a little before I order the rest. I have a severe allergy to throwing money out the window for delivery.

The task was to mulch the small garden in the front, the stone wall garden in the front and the side garden that I just expanded. I didn’t think I was going to have enough for anything else.

It took about a half day to get those three areas done. When I was finished with them, I had about 4 yards of mulch left over. I decided to spread some around at the end of the driveway. When it rains, the runoff from the driveway erodes the ground there. It isn’t the prettiest thing. I figured that mulch was the answer. Also, I decided that I could tackle some of the back garden as well. I would say that I got about a third of that finished.

Hey look, I even took some before and after photos for you.

Talk about weed control.

What I am trying to accomplish here is a nice base. I think that light yearly applications of mulch will keep the soil nice and black and the weeds down. If that happens, I will be happy.

Now, I need to order 5 more yards of mulch to finish up the back and then it’s off to get flower bulbs, plants and shrubs…and a hammock.

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A Huge Flower Garden In The Back Yard

Remember when I told you I was transplanting the Daffodil bulbs from the area along the stone wall in the back yard to the area near the driveway? I told you I was doing this because the area was just too large for a garden and I would rather simply plant grass there instead.

Well, as it turns out, we are going to have a garden in the back after all.

Laura and I have been wrestling over the idea of a new flower/veggie garden for some time. I came up with a few ideas, but the look on Laura’s face told me to keep thinking. The problem with setting up a real fenced-in vegetable garden is spacing. We have a few good areas to do this, but trying to have a combination vegetable and flower garden is getting rather difficult.

Yesterday, we decided to limit the new garden to flowers and shrubs. For the veggies, we’ll think of something else. Laura has been talking about different varieties of bulbs and some sort of a garden trellis that we can grow vines all over. For these types of ideas, the only place available is the area along the rock wall in the back yard. I guess I am going to be ordering 30 yards of mulch, instead of 15. Gee, that’s going to make for some real fun after that delivery.

I spent some time yesterday edging the area for the mulch. I will probably make the order next week. Here are some pics of what I did yesterday…

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Is Installing A Pellet Stove Worth It?

I received a message this morning from the heating fuel oil company we use. The person who left the message was inquiring about the low quantity of oil that we used throughout the year and wanted to update their system with whether or not we were burning wood or some other source of alternative energy. I gave a call back to fill her in.

When I called her back, I told the lady that we did, in fact, have a pellet stove. I said that the oil was primarily burned for hot water and to heat one bedroom during the winter. She praised me on my intelligence for getting a pellet stove. I asked her how much oil we burned in the last year (they just came to fill the tank a few days ago). She replied with 256.6 gallons. I thought that was pretty good for a year.

That got me thinking…since the pellet stove was pretty expensive and the pellets themselves were an additional cost on top of the stove, was it worth it to get the pellet stove and pellets, or should we just have burned oil to heat the house for the whole year? I can’t remember the price per gallon of oil last year, when they wanted to lock me into that foolish contract, but I swear it was over $4 a gallon. Since I can’t remember, I did some quick research online to see what oil prices were last year at this time and I came across this website. It shows last year’s oil prices vs. this year’s oil prices in New York. Close enough. At this time last year, oil prices were $3.93 per gallon. Last year, the oil delivery company estimated that we would burn approximately 1000 gallons of oil for the year. That was based on other, similarly sized houses in the area.

Let’s do a little math.

If I signed the oil contract and burned the estimated amount of fuel oil, we would have paid $3930 for the year’s worth of oil.

Since I didn’t sign the contract and since we burned much less oil than the oil company’s estimate (because we used an alternative form of energy), we only paid $638.93 for the oil we burned. That number is from the oil prices on the receipts I kept.

Even if we didn’t sign the contract, but still burned the estimated amount of oil, we still would have paid $2490 for the year’s worth of oil.

Let’s see…I paid about $1100 for the four tons of pellets that we used for the season. We paid about $2500 for the pellet stove and installation. That equals $3600 for the pellet stove and one year’s worth of pellets.

I am going to go out on a limb here and imagine that I was feeling the same way a lot of people were feeling last year at this time and went ahead and signed that oil price contract. If I had signed it and never got the pellet stove, I would have $330 less in my bank account right now.

I know there is some more delicate math involved here, such as the actual price paid for the oil that was already in the tank before we moved in, but I am going to ignore that. This post has already almost put me to sleep. I just thought it was my duty to write it.

That’s the point? Well, I would say that even at today’s lower oil prices, it’s still worth it to get a pellet stove. The payback period is very short and you won’t cringe every time you hear the boiler kick on.

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Transplanting Daffodil Bulbs

Well, I think it’s almost here. Yeah, now that I said it, it’s probably going to snow next week.

What I’m talking about is Spring. If you’ve gone outside over the past few days, you might have gotten a tan. Sure, that may be exaggerating things a bit, but no one can deny sweating a little during a warm March day. I did and I don’t think I miss the sweat. I miss everything else, but definitely not the sweat.

When I woke up this morning, I looked out the window and thought it would be a great day to get a little yard work done. I know, I know, it’s a little early to start hitting the yard work, but you have to remember that I have been waiting about four months for this. If it’s over 50 degrees, I am going to be outside getting stuff done.

Today was the day that I dug up the sprouting Daffodil bulbs from the backyard and transplanted them to the new mulch bed. Well, the mulch hasn’t exactly arrived yet, so I guess I should just call it a dirt bed for now.

As you can see from the above photos, I decided to expand the mulch bed that I made last year. I got thinking about it and thought the old one was just too small. Also, I was sick and tired of mowing around that fruit tree. Now that the new mulch bed is dug, I could plant all sorts of stuff in there, starting with the Daffodil bulbs I dug up today. I am not a fan of small mulch beds. If you have a small mulch bed and don’t know what to do with it, give me a call and we’ll chat.

It took about a half hour to get all those Daffodil bulbs up and out of the dirt. When I first started, I dug up a big chunk of dirt and transplanted the whole thing, but as time went on, I thought it would be more efficient to grab a bucket and shake the dirt off the bulbs so they would fit inside. That way, I could just carry the bucket over when all the bulbs were dug up.

I got about five gallons worth of bulbs. I did manage to dig up a few Iris rhizomes while I was at it. Do you remember the last time I did this? If not, here, check it out. I like getting everything all dug up and put in their new spots.

You may be asking, “Jay, why are you doing this?” I would answer, “Friend, I am moving these bulbs over because I think grass would look nice up against the rear stone wall. Also, the whole area near the stone wall was full of weeds last year and I have learned that you can’t have a garden without mulch. The area in the back is way too large to cover with mulch.” How’s that? I guess I just like to consolidate.

I will tell you one thing that happened today. I got my hands all dirty. I have to say that I just love getting my hands filthy while gardening. It’s one of those things I suppose.

(Remember, if you click on a photo to view the larger version, you can click on it again to see an even larger version.)

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A New Work Bench For The Garage

I have to post this for my father. He wanted to see pictures.

I am not sure I told you this already, but for the longest time, I was using a big 36″ wide solid door as a desk. It was mounted on 4″x4″s. It was huge and worked well, but I needed to grow up and get a real desk, so I took the door desk apart and put the parts in the garage. I tucked the 4″x4″s away in the corner nicely, and leaned the door against the front wall. It was kind of in the way, but not all that much.

Poor Laura has been crowded for a few months now on her side of the garage. It seems as though the ride-on mower, the push mower and the snow blower were all in her car’s way. She was able to pull the car in the garage, but it was a tricky maneuver each time. The main culprits were the ride-on mower and the snow blower. When she tried to walk in front of the car, the push mower’s handle would jab her in the stomach. It was hard to watch. It was even harder to receive those wicked stares during those times I did decide to watch.

A few days ago, I decided it was time to clean up the garage and get rid of that door. It was just sitting there. I figure that if I disassembled my home-made shelving unit, I could replace it with a “door work bench” that could park the push mower and the snow blower right underneath. You’ll see in the photos.

I just want to say that I am a master carpenter when it comes to these types of projects. I even use a level. It’s simply amazing.

To do this project, all I needed was a miter saw, a circular saw, a few 2″x4″s, some screws, a stud finder, a tape measure and a level. It was pretty easy. Let me show you the photos, but please ignore all the items on top of the work bench. I haven’t organized them yet.

As you can see from the photos, I simply mounted some 2″x4″s against the side and back walls. Then, I cut the door to size and placed it on top of the 2″x4″s. I used one of the old desk legs for the last corner. Remember, this is a thick, heavy, solid door. Also, since I had an extra piece of door left over, I decided to use some shelve brackets I had hanging around to put up a nice little shelf. I keep a bunch of stuff up there and even drilled holes in it to use some old hooks. Now, I get to hang extension cords and stuff like that.

See how nicely the push mower and snow blower fit under that beauty? I moved over the ride-on mower a bit, tucked those two under the work bench and now Laura is all smiles. Plus, I got rid of the door.

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How Many Tons Of Wood Pellets Do I Need For Winter?

That’s a pretty good question. I thought four tons was more than enough. I think that’s 200 bags. Here’s the kicker…it’s February 22 and we only have 30 bags left.

30 bags of wood pellets

In the last house, I bought two tons per season and we had about a half of a ton left over towards the end of winter. This time, we get four tons and will run out in early March? What gives?

Well, first of all, the last house was smaller. Second of all, we didn’t run the stove all day while we weren’t there. I don’t think there is a third of all.

Since I am a man of many plans, I devised one to handle this situation. Next week some time, I am going to run out to Home Depot to get 10 bags or so of wood pellets. That should get us through most of March. Then, we’ll just burn wood in the fireplace as the temperature gets warmer outside. For next season, I am going to buy five tons of wood pellets (and not give any away to my brother).

How many tons of wood pellets do you usually use?

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Washing The Car On A Nice Winter Day

Did I ever get to wash the car yesterday? No, I didn’t. We had to drive to Foxwoods in a dirty car. Oh well.

I did, however, get to use my new water spicket setup this morning. After I finished up some work and since the sun was shining, I thought it would be a good idea to get out there and wash up the car. It needed it bad. There was sand, salt and grime all over it. I think the car was almost at the point of someone drawing “wash me” on the back window…again.

Now, there really is no story here, besides the fact that I washed the car and got to use the new spicket that I installed in the garage (next post). I simply wanted to take some pictures. Mind you, these gallery photos are working correctly now. You can click on the thumbnail, then click again on the medium sized picture to see the full sized one. This is going to come in handy when I post detailed photos.

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Installing A Water Spigot In The Garage

Valentine’s day was here. I wanted to wash the car and have it nice and clean, so my lady and I could drive down to Foxwoods in style. It was pretty dirty and needed a good wash.

On my way back from tennis yesterday morning, I dreaded the idea of going downstairs, turning the water valve to “on” and then going back outside to hook up the hose on the water spigot at the front of the house. I think the part I hate the most is hooking up the hose outside and then having to unhook it to put it back in the garage. The reason I would have to go downstairs to turn the valve on is because of freezing in the winter. No valve downstairs, frozen and broken water spigot upstairs come spring.

I had a great idea. Why not install a water spigot inside the garage? This way, I can keep a hose hooked up all the time and not have to worry about the spigot freezing over the winter. I could use the spigots that are outside for watering and things like that over the summer, but for washing the car and things like that, I could use the inside one. I thought it would be very handy.

Since the area I wanted the spigot located in the garage was right on the other side of the washing machine hookups down in the basement, I figured it would be a pretty easy job. Somehow, I would just tap into the cold water feed for the washing machine. I really look forward to these types of projects because I have to get imaginative. I enjoy standing in the pluming aisle at Home Depot trying to figure things out. I really do.

Before I left for the Depot to get all the parts, I decided to drill a hole through the 2×10 that the floor was resting on. This 2×10 is up in the ceiling of the laundry room and down towards knee level in the garage. I would drill a 7/8 inch hole to see what I would find.

I drilled the hole from the basement and saw daylight. Lucky me. I went upstairs to the garage and saw a hole right where I wanted the spigot to be. Really lucky me. I started getting my thoughts together and made a little list. Then, I hopped in the car and drove over to Home Depot.

I am not going to give you the list of parts I bought here because I forget what they are. Hopefully you can see them in the pictures I will show you. As I post the pics, I will probably remember what they were. Take a look at the finished product.

Let me do a little explaining. I know the proper way to do this is with copper piping. I may change that some day. For this application, I used hose. Since I am aware that this is not a permanent thing, I put an on/off valve down near the splitter in the laundry room. I saw the hose in the store and couldn’t pass it up. When I am not using the spigot, I can just go downstairs to turn the valve off.

Also, the reason the spigot is mounted to 2×4s is because I wanted it really solid on the wall. I am probably going to tug on the hose as I pull it outside and I didn’t feel like having the spigot tear off the wall. It’s not the prettiest thing, but you should try to give it a wiggle. Nope. I know there is a 2×10 on the other side of the sheetrock, but the hole I drilled was a bit too big and the mounting screws weren’t sitting right.

After everything was all set up, I hooked up a nice brand new no-kink garden hose I bought last autumn to the spigot in the garage. I went downstairs to turn on the easily accessible on/off valve and then came back upstairs to drag the hose out into the driveway. I turned the spigot on and…well, that’s for the next post.

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Dewalt Reciprocating Saw Blade Kit

Yesterday, I had to run out to Home Depot to get some stuff for a little project I was working on (I’ll tell you about it in the next post). While making my list, I remembered that I needed some saw blades for my reciprocating saw. Remember me telling you about that in the “Replacing The Exhaust On A 1999 Honda Civic DX” post? If not, you should go re-read that post. It is quite fantastic.

While at the Depot, after I did all my “project” shopping, I managed to make my way over to the tool aisle. I found the reciprocating saw blades and promptly put two nice metal cutting blades in the cart. I noticed that they were priced at $3.99 each. That didn’t really bother me because I had a bunch of gift cards in my wallet. I figured that $8 wasn’t too bad. Then, I happened to look up to see a nice Dewalt reciprocating saw blade kit for $25 and change. I said to myself, “That’s too much. All I need is a few metal cutting blades.” I picked the kit up anyway. The kit has 11 blades and one handy-dandy blade carrying “tough-case.” I did the math and just couldn’t help myself. I was sold on the carrying case. I am so bad. I rationalized it by telling myself that I was saving money because I was getting all those blades at so much less than I would if I had purchased them individually. You see? I actually “saved” money by going out any buying something. Incredible.

Here, take a look.

Dewalt reciprocating saw blade kit

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