Recently I drove out to our Texas House to visit, move some stuff, check out the area, and do some basic household maintenance. Yes, even though our Texas house is only 9 years old, it still needed, and needs, some small amount of maintenance. The previous owners did not seem to be the DIY type, and it seems like they may not have noticed, or thought about, a few minor things that were in need of attention.
Road Trip 1
The eastbound trip was a lot more pleasant than the westbound trip. There was less traffic, in general, fewer bad drivers around me, and I saw a lot of excavation and construction equipment being transported westward. In both directions I was able to cross all the way through New Mexico with no stops.
This is me just inside the Texas border, at an information center. I picked up a free Texas map here.
This colorful mosaic may be viewed at a random rest stop in Texas.
Maintenance 1
The first maintenance item on my list was an oil change for my vehicle. It was nearing its recommended 10,000 mile oil change interval before my trip, so I decided to get me some oil, a filter, and an O-ring, and do the oil change myself at our Texas House. This was the first oil change I have done myself in several years, and I'm pleased to say that I've still got it. :) It was also an excuse to finally get myself a torque wrench.
This is the top of the engine, where the filter lives inside that circular housing in the center of the photo. The O-ring also lives here. There is a cap that screws onto that receiver to enclose the filter and seal everything up.
This is a different view of the engine. The oil cap should be tightened to 25+5Nm of torque.
Yours truly and the oil pan drain plug. Old oil was drained, new oil was added, and old oil was put into empty new oil bottles for disposal. I took the used oil to a local auto parts store for recycling (or whatever they do with used motor oil). So far there are no oil leaks. :)
Maintenance 2
The remaining maintenance items did take place in our Texas House. On previous visits I had noticed that one of the hand towel hangers in one of the bathrooms was loose and hanging down. I decided to fix it. After fixing it I checked and tightened up the hand towel hangers in the other bathrooms as well.
This is the hand towel hanger that first caught my attention. It seems that small details like this did not attract the attention of the previous owners. It turns out that this hanger was missing an important spacer, which I found in a nearby drawer.
Tightening up the various hand towel hangers involved unmounting them from the wall, which involved dealing with very small screws like the one pictured at left.
Happily, all of the hand towel hangers are tight.
The Border
On previous visits we had been somewhat vague about where our property ends and someone else's begins in the back yard. On this visit I decided to determine where, in fact, the actual property line was. I did this by running a blue rope (brought on the trip for this specific purpose) from one
property boundary marker to the other to create a visual straight line between the two markers to show the actual property line.
In this photo I have digitally enhanced the rope so that you can see where the property line is. Our property is to the right of the blue line.
This is the same digitally-enhanced blue rope, but looking in the other direction. Our property is therefore on the left of the blue line. The rope was not left in-place, but was returned to our Bay Area House.
Maintenance 3
Now we come to the main maintenance job - replacing the 9-year-old garbage disposal. I seem to have made a hobby of replacing disposals - we buy a house, and I
replace the disposal. And if I'm bored I can
replace them at the Parents' House, then
replace the replacement. One reason for replacement when we buy a house is that we don't know what has been run through the disposal by the previous owners, and 9 years of stuff being run through the disposal by a family of 4+ people could result in some pretty nasty stuff in the disposal. So, even if the existing disposal is in good working order, it just seems like a good idea to put in a known-clean disposal at the start of our stay in a new house.
This is the old disposal and under-sink setup. It may have been an Insikerator, but I don't recall, and I don't seem to have an photos that include the label.
After disconnecting the pipes, and smelling the smell that came from them, and seeing the hideous residue inside, I decided to replace all of the drain pipes, in addition to the disposal. If you've ever worked with sinks and plumbing you know what smell I'm talking about.
Here we are looking upward at the rusted-in-place flange assembly. This was a key piece that had to come off, and the lock-ring was rusted in place. This told me that there was some serious leakage and lack of sealing going on when the previous owners lived there (Are you beginning to understand what I mean when I say that they did not notice little issues that needed attention?). You should be able to see the lock-ring very clearly, but as you can see, it just looks like the entire assembly has been fused together into one big rusty mess.
Here is the flange assembly disassembled. I had to hack away at the rust to uncover the rusty lock-ring, then hack some more be able to insert a screwdriver to remove the rusty lock-ring. Fortunately I had some good eye, nose, and mouth shielding.
Rebuilding has begun. In addition to the piping, I also replaced both sink flanges.
The new disposal came with a power cord, cord clamp, and wire nuts.
Reassembly is complete! I do not seem to have any photos of the label, so I don't know exactly which Insinkerator Badger model this is, but I believe it is likely a Badger 900 series. Yes, I removed the dishwasher drain plug. So far there have been no leaks.
Maintenance 4
The final maintenance task was to make sure the complex automated sprinkler system was working as intended.
With the aid of the former owners, via a phone call, I was able to verify that the sprinkler system was programmed to run on Wednesday nights. With the aid of me being there on a Wednesday night, I was able to verify that the sprinkler system is active and that it runs according to its programming.
Parting Shots
Below are some parting shots.
As you can see, the shelving in our big, empty garage has gained several items.
The shelving in the fireplace room has also gained a few items. Can anyone guess what's in the white box?
These two items did not remain in our Texas House. One returned home with me, and one was disposed of. I'll let you figure out which was which. :)
Road Trip 2
As I said, the return trip was more annoying and less enjoyable than the trip outward. Part of this was the heavier westbound traffic, and part of it was something I hadn't planned for - the angle of the sun. While driving east my driver's seat was on the north side of the car, and thus did not receive a lot of direct sun. While driving west, however, my driver's seat was on the south side of the car, in full sun much of the time. I found this to be annoying.
It was not all bad, however. I got to visit some nice rest areas, I stopped briefly at the Cabazon dinosaurs, and I had plenty of old-timey radio dramas to listen to - mostly the old series, "Space Patrol," and on the last day of driving the wonderful Star Wars radio drama. "Space Patrol" revolves around the adventures of two Space Patrolmen who regularly fall for obvious traps, never take additional patrolmen with them, never call for backup, never use their ray guns on anyone, always get shot with ray guns by the bad guys, regularly forget about weapons and equipment they used in previous episodes, very often fail to do the obvious smart thing, always fall for hostage situations, and always, ALWAYS subdue the bad guys with fisticuffs (despite possessing the previously-mentioned ray guns (said ray guns having a stun/paralyze setting)).
Smokin' Rockets!
bIsh
