When you take a vacation, don’t forget to give your appliances a rest too. Turn off and unplug everything you can, set your water heater to the lowest setting and shut off the water supply to the dishwasher and washing machine.
Removal of old flowers prolongs the blooming period, reduces self seeding which leads to volunteer plants, and promotes flowering on side shoots. Cut off spent flower spikes just below the lowest floret. To be effective, removal must be done soon after the flowers fade.
Whether they are architectural, engineering, electrical, or general contractors, most service providers in the building industry are honest. But disasters attract scam artists. Consumers must protect themselves.
Here’s how to restore the missing brass hardware on an antique door. The ghost image of original brass hardware is often visible. It can be replicated by tracing the impression. A cardboard template is made to scribe the design. The brass is cut on a bandsaw and smoothed with a belt sander. The piece is polished and installed on the door.
If your extension cord gets tangled up, don’t pull on the ends. Instead, gently loosen all the tighter snarls in the middle until them become larger loops that can easily be untangled. A way to avoid tangles is to use a retractable cord reel. It will let you reel out only the amount of cord you need, then quickly reel it back when you’re done.
As a rule, you should fertilize at least three times a year; spring, summer and early fall.
If you will be working in close quarters attaching new molding to walls or ceilings with finishing nails, first check out your hammer handle. Inevitably the handle end will hit the adjacent surface in spots. Either use a new hammer, clean up the handle of an older hammer, or mask the end of the handle with masking tape, especially if the handle has an older covering of black rubberized material. Doing this before you start can save you time that otherwise would be spent cleaning up or repainting over the scuff marks.
If you don’t have a soil moisture probe, some simple guidelines can help you decide when to water. Water when grass changes from a green to a grayish blue color, when grass leaves begin to roll, when the grass stays down after being walked on, or when you can’t easily push a screwdriver down into the soil a half foot or so. Apply 1/4 in. of water and then check to see if the soil is wet down to 6 in. If it isn’t, make another application just so the soil is moist, but not wet or sticky.
When a smooth, finished appearance is necessary, stop hammering the finishing nail approximately 1/8 of an inch above the surface. Then place a nailset onto the tip of the nail head and set it into the surface with a couple of sharp taps.
When you are fastening two pieces of wood with screws, keep the pilot hole through the top piece slightly larger than the diameter of the shank of the screw. This will allow the wood screw to pull the two pieces of material tightly together. If the pilot hole is too small, the top piece can climb the threads of the screw and leave a gap between the two pieces.
