I thought I would take a moment to tell you a story of a water problem my parents had recently. In spring of 2011 my mother noticed water dripping from the light fixture in her kitchen. This fixture is just inside an outside wall that has an external vent in it (venting the floorspace), and above this light fixture is a flat roof deck that is surrounded by walls and drains out a scupper through the wall and then down a pipe that passes the aforementioned vent. Sorry if that sounds complicated - maybe just take away the message that the construction of the house is unconventional and the problem could have been coming from any number of sources. So my parents engaged an engineering consultant to evaluate the problem. For $500, he told them the problem could be coming from any number of sources and recommended a contractor who could address them. The contractor came and looked, and said that the problem could be coming from any number of sources and that once he opened the wall to start looking at them he was going to have to open the whole wall and rebuild it to meet current building codes. All this was to cost $20,000. It was summer when the contractor came, and he couldn't start work for two weeks, and then he came again but couldn't start work for another two weeks, and then he had to zip over to Europe to see his mom before he could get going, and in the meantime, rains were forecast as we got into mid September. Finally my mom went and bought a can of roof goop and asked my husband if he could at least seal the scupper before it rained, since he's still a little more mobile than she is, and she thought maybe the scupper was what was leaking. One thing led to another as he examined the situation, and finally my husband ended up putting a ladder up from the outside and having a closer look at the vent. It should be noted that neither the consultant nor the contractor had gone up a ladder before pronouncing their opinions. It did require a 24' extension ladder fully extended (we tie two together for stability) and a safety harness, mind you, but nothing you wouldn't do for $20,000. Upon close inspection it seemed that the flashing above the vent was bent out of shape behind the down pipe. And indeed, evidence of a leak did date back about five years to when the gutters had been replaced and a new, larger, down pipe installed (yes, it was leaf guard). So my husband focussed his efforts on this area of the flashing. Removing the piece of down pipe, he straightened the flashing and extended it a little by screwing on a new piece of flashing. He then used a couple of washers to space out the down pipe so it would not squash the flashing again. Then we awaited the rains. So far this fall it has poured and the winds have blown, but nary a sign of moisture has there been in my mother's kitchen. A moisture meter confirms that there is no water in them thar walls. The fix cost a total of under $50 (and was this high only because I had to buy a whole roll of flashing) and took my husband a total of two evenings up the ladder with me on crew, doing the shopping and handing tools and washers etc to him through the window. That is why, although people on the internet can tell you many things, how to fix a water problem is likely not one of them! Your problem may be as small as one bead of water rolling the wrong way somewhere, so you could throw $20,000 at it, with mudjacking and replacing, and still not resolve it. That is how carefully you have to look at the problem. Fifty cents worth of mortar, or sealant, may be all you need to fix it. The $20,000 is saved by taking the time to figure out where to put it. And no one from a distance can do that for you. Karin L

Hi Sounds like you're giving up the idea of having plants?? The answer is if there is moisture there will be algae lol. Only sure way to keep it out of water is to use chemicals even that only works for a short time . A well planted ,well aged pool with moving water will have the least especially if located in shade. This also limits what plants will grow well. A fountain like you describe will probably have the least but will require maintenence. No problem if you have no fish or plants?? It is possible to keep a very healthy pool in full sun with fantastic plants and flowers and fish without chemicals. Takes time and patience to arrive at the "balanced" water garden. catherinet. Was going to reply Walmart until my wife reminded me that it was not here in 1982 lol I bought the replacement tarp at Walmart in the automotive section. Looks just like the original but now you've got me wondering if it is?? lol. The package has no brand, made for WM in china lol gary

Prior to the introduction of the EPA and the Clean Air Act in 1972 it was customary for single family residential homes in the suburbs to have an empty 55gal barrel in the back yard. The barrel was stood on end, the top was cut out, and they punched about a dozen 2" or 3" holes around the bottom to let air in. The household trash was collected in paper grocery bags and once a day just before sunset they would take the trashbags out, drop them in the barrel and burn the trash. We were supposed to have a heavy screen to lay over the top of the barrel to prevent sparks from flying out, but most ppl ignored that. As you might imagine, there was always some trash that didn't burn, cans, vegetable peelings & such so about once ever month or six weeks we had to haul the barrel to the town dump and dump it out. In the larger cities and ppl of means in the suburbs had an indoor trash incinerator, which is what I think the unit in the first photo is. The trash incinerator was a simple burner that you dropped your trash bag in and as it burned it had a flue pipe connected to the house chimney to carry the smoke out. Some actually had a gas burner to effect a better combustion of the trash, but either way, you had to open the door on the bottom and shovel out the excess that didn't burn. Opearting a home trash incinerator is strictly prohibited today. The large dark unit in the second photo appears to be a coal fired furnace, athough without seeing the rest of the top I can not tell if that one is a steam or hydronic boiler. To start a coal fired boiler or furnace you began by opening the firebox door and building a small wood fire. Once the wood was burning good you put a little coal on it and waited till the coal was burning good before adding more. From a cold start it usually took about two hours of close attention until you had a full fire up. Once it was burning good you had to go down about once ever 3 to 4 hours and shake the grate (the pull handle on the left side) to break up any clinkers on the grates, then add a couple shovels of coal. At night you went down right before bedtime, shook the grates and added about 4 or 5 shovels of coal, then open the ash pit door on the bottom and get 3 or 4 shovels of ashes, which you carefully spread over top of the coal so the coal would only smolder overnight, and first thing in the morning, even before coffee, you had to go down and use a poker to break up the ash klinker on top and shovel some coal on to get the heat up again. On the ash pit door there should be a flat panel that is hinged from the top, which is called the draft door, and it was connected to a damper chain from a pulley above the furnace. On the first floor of the house there was a brass knob on the wall that was connected to that damper chain. If you wanted to turn the heat up you turned the knob and it would open draft door allowing more air into the firebox and heating the fire up, but careful, The chimeny flue had a barometric draft relief door that would normally regulate the amount of draft ofer the fire, but if you opened the draft door too much, the fire would get too hot and you ran a serious risk of a chimney fire. Growing up in the 50's & 60's it was a right of passage for boys about 10 years old to learn how to burn the trash and stoke the furnace. The smaller unit to the left of the furnace in the second picture is an oil fired hydronic boiler. If you look on the large copper pipe on the front of it you can see a black section that is the circulating pump for the hydronic system. In both of those boilers the water is contained inside cast iron sections and if the boilers were not properly drained it is almost a foregone conclusion that the water has froze and cracked the cast iron over the years of sitting idle. It also almost goes without say that over the years of storage the firebrick & refractory lining in the fireboxes has deteriorated beyond use by humidity. My greater concern is Asbestos. Both of those boilers will have to be dismantled in place before they can be taken out and they contain substantial amounts of asbestos. It will require complete containment by a professional Asbestos Abatement crew to dismantle and remove those boilers and that can be very expensive...did your realtor disclose that fact at the time of sale?

Hi all I had to chime in as my pool was supposed to be for private swim lessons. We assumed incorrectly that w/ 1 student at a time all we needed was a simple pool. Here in CT, though, there are many rules and regs and I found to my dismay that the state requires public pool standards regardless of the number of swimmers. In CT if you have even 1 student you are required to have a pool built to public pool standards. If start dives are to be taught then you need to be sure your diving well is built to NCAA standards! To satisfy the state of CT I would have needed blueprints of the pool to prove that it met public pool standards and those blueprints alone were priced out at $5000. That on top of the required bathrooms, changing rooms, minimum deck space, sanitation and filtration system for proper turnover rate, monthly health inspections etc proved too much for us both financially and mentally... I guess it depends on where this former Olympian lives but if it's here in CT there are MANY hoops to jump through. We won't even mention the neighbors; mine went ballistic when they heard of my plans to teach private lessons; took their displeasure to the town and state which is where I learned about the hoops needed to jump through... Joanne