Handbag detectives/experts...help?
Sueb20
4 years ago
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Comments (30)
maddielee
4 years agoolychick
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoRelated Discussions
Controller zone detective work, adding drip line
Comments (1)lafutura, you have piqued my curiosity as to why you would want to install a perimeter drip line on a lawn that is already watered by a system. I would think that installing a gate valve or similar ahead of the drip zone would allow you to regulate the water flow into the new drip line. Concerning the other question, there ought to be a manifold on the premises. Either all the piping to the zones start out at a central location and are routed their separate ways or else all the valves (and piping) are in a central location. Another possibility is that a main 'hot line' was run from the water source and the zone lines (and valves) were tapped from it. A radical approach would be to disconnect the wire from the unidentified terminals (one at a time) at the clock and observe which area wilts. This is recommended only if you can critically observe your whole landscape daily. You want to spot the earliest symptom of wilt to avoid serious damage to you landscape....See Morestrong odor in the basement: suspect it's from the cherry floor..
Comments (12)In early September 2012, a top-rated flooring company which was subcontracted to my general contractor completed installation and finishing of new white oak floors in two upstairs rooms and the downstairs den of our new house. The floors were stained and finished with three coats of Bona High Traffic. Each coat was allowed to dry several days before re-application. They also sanded the existing pine floors in the living room, dining room and hallway, stained them, and finished them with three coats of Bona High Traffic. The floors looked beautiful, but my wife and I immediately noticed a strong odor, despite the insistence of the flooring man and the general contractor that this was a "green" product with no smell. I had been working in the house almost every day for five weeks before the floors went in, and had never smelled this odor before the floor installation. Nonetheless, I tried to believe that perhaps it came from some other source, or that it would go away quickly. Just before we moved in, the house was cleaned and dusted extremely well by a maid service, including removing the covers on the baseboard radiators, and thoroughly vacuuming. Despite all this, after moving in, the odor became more noticeable. My wife and I first thought it might be due to the boxes or dust generated by moving. However, even after we had cleaned up the boxes and vacuumed several times with our excellent Miele vacuum with HEPA filtering, the odor persisted. I tried to think of ways to ascertain whether the smell was coming from the floors or from some other source. After a lot of trial and error, two simple experiments finally convinced me that the source was the floors: First, the smell was only present in the rooms where the floors had been treated. In the kitchen and breezeway, where we eat and sit for long periods, there was no such odor; also not in the basement where I spend time at the workbench. Second, by kneeling down and putting one's nose against the floor, the odor could be intensified. This odor cannot be detected in the kitchen, bathroom, or breeezeway floors where no Bona High Traffic finish was applied. The worst of it is that now, four full months since the application, I wake up every morning with a runny nose and sneezing from the irritation caused by the smell. It is worst in the rooms where the oak was installed. Naturally, it is most offensive in the bedroom where one spends 8 hours every night. By leaving the windows open a few inches with cross ventilation, as I do every night even in the cold, the odor is reduced, but still not completely eliminated. The only good news is that the smell is gradually receding. It is not annoying me anymore in the rooms with the pre-existing pine floors. I'm sure that after some finite amount of time the outgassing will be complete in the oak-floored rooms as well. But how long? It is four months already, and the improvement is very slow. There is no question in my mind that the odor problem comes from the floor treatment. This does not prove that it is the Bona High Traffic by itself. As the floors were also stained, it could be the interaction of the Bona High Traffic finish with the stain. Either way, there is an odor problem with the Bona High Traffic product that has not been forthrightly acknowledged by the manufacturer . The product should be able to be applied in conjunction with stains, and not leave such a persisting odor. It is disconcerting to hear people who have an interest in the matter, such as contractors who use the product, or designers who recommend it, imply that there is no odor problem. This entry is intended to cause them to hesitate before saying, "In so many years of using the product, I never had a complaint." I have suffered the odor problem, and so did two other people on this page. How many more, who haven't troubled to write it up? I think that the company needs to carry out a scientific investigation, and try to determine what is the problem (perhaps an interaction of two products, or of the product with certain woods?). It should be noted that the term "green" or "natural" does not mean odorless. A skunk is natural, but it stinks. So does sewage, or the organic esters that produce the smell of bananas. So let's get real here, acknowledge that this Bona High Traffic product affects at least some people adversely with its persisting odor, and try to get to the bottom of it an honest and scientific fashion. Thank you for hearing me out....See MoreFamily Photos on Display.......Dying a Digital Death?
Comments (48)I guess I'm a sentimental old fool (at 53, LOL). Here is my experience... I have a few picture books printed online and they are great. However, IMHO, they can't compare to actual printed (or developed) pictures. I was tasked with writing a biography of my M&D's life, and believe me, it wasn't short! To do this I used verbal accounts from my M&D; a few thousand slides from my M&D, GP's and Great A&U; hundreds of photographs; my Great Aunt's daily journals; and tape recordings we sent from overseas to my GPs'. I digitized and transcribed almost all of it. Even though the slides were decades old, the digital quality was amazing. The scanned photographs, even the old, old, B&W's, were generally good quality. I only used a few pictures that were taken with a digital camera. The best part of the whole process was the obvious telling of their life story by my parents to me. As an adult you hear stories you weren't aware of as a child or wouldn't have been privileged to. The second best was handling the old photographs. Actually feeling them in my hands, turning them over to see if there was any writing on them, thinking of all those who had looked at them before me. Right up with this feeling was the handling of letters and my Aunt's journals. It's as if I could re-touch family members deceased through the pictures, letters, and journals. The nostalgia cloaked me with love when sifting through the pictures, holding each one in my hand and remembering. The biography is now complete and published. It's an amazing story and there are pictures, journal excerpts, and even conversations from the tapes that were transcribed (like when my sister was born and my Dad got the other four kids' reactions and my Mom talked to my Grandparents right after the birth). This is a long winded way to say that I prefer, much prefer, holding and looking through actual photographs to looking at the pictures printed in a book. If they are in a photo album, you can still take them out, look at the back, handle them, scan them, kiss the faces of your loved ones, hold them next to your heart. It's just not quite the same, for me, when it's a picture printed on a page of a book....See MoreOT......writers who need to go back to English class !
Comments (58)Annpan, some years ago at a book club meeting one of the members spoke of a letter which she had written for her children to read “if I die”. I told her there was no “if” about it. And I got a laugh from students recently when I remarked (as I was removing hot plates with burning chocolate from a failed classroom experiment and airing the room to get rid of the smoke it produced) to a student who wailed, “We’re going to die”, “Well, yes, you will, but not today.” I recall reading a self-published autobiography which was driving me nuts because _every single anecdote_ ended with the phrase, something like “such is the way things go”. I wanted to scream every time I read it. About halfway through the book I did. Why do so many British people refer to things being “on the floor” when it’s outside, and there is no floor. It’s the _ground_, people....See MoreSueb20
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