Although our Texas House is much newer than our California House, we found that it had some initial repair/replacement projects waiting for us.
Transplant 1: Dishwasher
We have some traditions here on the New House Blog (and by "tradition" I mean things we have done every time we have moved into a New House). One of those traditions is to replace old, used garbage disposals, as you saw that we already did in
this Episode. Another is to replace old, used dishwashers - a dishwasher transplant, if you will. The old dishwasher may have been in good shape, but it had been used by a family of four for several years, and it was full of hard water and mineral stains. As with disposals, it just seems like a good idea to start off fresh and clean with dishwashers.
Here is the old dishwasher, in poor lighting. Just a plain, old dishwasher.
This is the old dishwasher removed and awaiting removal from the premises.
The dishwasher hole. Because of the angled construction of the cabinetry, there is quite a bit of space behind and to the right of the dishwasher's footprint.
Part of replacing a dishwasher is replacing its shutoff valve under the sink, so we went to Home Depot with confidence and bought three brand new threaded 1/4-turn shutoff valves (one for the dishwasher and two for the kitchen faucet). We confidently unscrewed the dishwasher's shutoff valve (after turning off the house water), and discovered...
D'oh! It's a compression fitting! I mean, Woohoo! Time to learn something new! After a few Youtube tutorials we went back to Home Depot, with confidence, and bought three brand new compression 1/4-turn shutoff valves.
With the new valve in place, we commenced the complicated, complex operation of new dishwasher installation.
It's complicated, so I'll just skip to the end - this is the new dishwasher completely installed.
Transplant 2: Kitchen Faucet
The kitchen faucet showed a lot of evidence of internal leaking and mineral deposition, so we replaced it.
If you look closely at the base of the faucet you will see a lot of mineral build-up.
Likewise, if you look at the hot water inlet hose (on the left) you can see a lot of mineral build-up on the outside of the hose - which indicates that the faucet had been leaking for some time.
This is the new faucet, in action. As with the dishwasher transplant, we also replaced the shutoff valves.
Transplant 3: Cats
Using a slightly different meaning of the word, we transplanted some cats from our California House to our Texas House. Here they are in alphabetical order.
Daisy seems quite content to stay in the large upstairs room most of the time. We leave the door open, but she doesn't seem to want to roam a whole lot.
Perhaps she doesn't want to run into Edgar, seen here among the spices. He seems quite drawn to food. In addition to being among the spices, he likes getting into the fridge and freezer.
This is Miles, the most transplanted of all of our Cats. Our Texas House makes Miles' sixth place of residence since his adoption.
Mr. Satchmo is quite comfortable on the bed. He is still interested in being on the other side of doors, but so far he is not quite as insistent that he should be allowed outside.
Transplant 4: PVC
Another of our traditions when we move into a New House is to repair broken PVC lines. In this case, the offending PVC was located in the front yard, just a few inches from the driveway, and it was part of our built-in irrigation system.
The break is on the left side of the T-junction roughly in the center of the picture. Note the large boulder upon which the pipes seem to rest. My theory is that the dirt around the pipes may have moved over the years, but the rock, being rock, did not move, and the resulting stress broke the PVC at a weak point. Note also how closely and tightly the pipes are packed.
This picture shows how far along the pipes we had to dig before we found enough non-rock dirt that we could remove so we would have room in the hole to do the needed repair work.
As you know if you have been reading this blog for a while (and you have read every Episode so far, right? right?), you will recall that one cannot simply disconnect and reconnect PVC joints - the joints must be cut out and completely replaced. Here you can see some of the joints cut out and sporting brand new couplers. You can also see more of the gargantuan boulder on which some of the pipe did indeed rest.
More on that boulder. The pipe that formed the center of the T-junction, toward the right side of the photo above (with a blue shop towel stuffed inside), was resting on a peak in the rock. That is, the rock came to a peak at that point, and this peak is where the original installer apparently chose to lay the pipe - right on the pointy, inflexible, unyielding peak of rock. He could not have chosen a more stressful place to put it if he had tried. An inch to the right or an inch to the left would have been fine, but no, he had to put the pipe on top of the ONLY peak of rock in the area, thus guaranteeing stress and breakage in the future.
Here is a close-up. You can see how tight the space is beneath the right-angled pipe and how the boulder sticks up into the area of the PVC. We had to break out our small pickax,
Pick, and our full-size pickax,
Spike, to chip away at the boulder and remove the peak, and to further chip away the boulder until we had some room beneath the right-angled pipe to run the new PVC.
Eventually we finished picking at the boulder and proceeded to repair the PVC. It sure looks like A LOT of couplers and angles were used (and A LOT of blue PVC cement). The idea was that we wanted to move the PVC line out from below the other PVC line, so we put on the 45-degree couplers. In the middle of the straight section we used an expansion coupler for the final connection. I will admit that one of the couplers is because yours truly made a mistake and cut something too short. So far there have been no new leaks from this section if irrigation.
Transplant 5: Trans Plants
The word, "transplant," can be broken into two parts - trans, meaning, "across or through;" and plant, meaning, "to dig a hole in the ground and put in a plant." We brought five succulent/cactus-type plants with us from California (ACROSS the country), and so far we have installed (PLANTED) three of them. To put it another way, we have transplanted (Across-Planted) two cactus and one succulent, so far. We don't yet know what we will do with the other two, but that's a discussion for anther time.
The first to be transplanted was a shoot from our giant aloe plant. We found a nice, sunny spot in the back yard, out of the way of the deer, we dug a big hole, we prepped the soil, and then we planted the aloe.
A quick note about our soil - it is full of rocks. A hole that should have been quick to dig took a few hours due to rocks - rocks that have to be removed, broken up, or both. And that takes a lot of extra time and energy - especially when you're working outside in 100-degree, high-humidity weather. The job actually took two days - one day to dig, and one day to prep the soil and plant.
The second transplanting was a shoot from our sunburst cactus (opuntia sunburst). It was planted in a different sunny spot, near some other cactus, and hopefully out of the way of the deer. Again, the digging of the hole took a long time (again in the heat and humidity). So far, both the aloe and the sunburst are still alive.
Our third transplantation was a shoot from our eve's needle cactus (opuntia sublata cristata). It was planted next to the sunburst, and on a different day (one planting per day in the hot sun is plenty). Sadly, it took a turn for the worse after a heavy rainstorm, and it now appears to be totally dead. As you can see from the picture, it was green and thriving at the time of its transplanting.
Transplant 6: eSpring
We drink water here in Texas, and the cats drink water, and our plants drink water. And we like to drink clean, purified tap water. So we brought our eSpring water purifier from California and installed in under the kitchen sink.
This involved me learning a new skill - drilling holes in granite with a diamond hole saw. I bought a cheap 1 1/4" diamond hole saw on Amazon (it was so cheap I bought two), watched some videos, read the manufacturer's instructions, and went to town. Everything went smoothly, and a hole was born.
The eSpring was successfully installed, and here you see it in action, purifying tap water.
Non-transplant Native
We finish up this Episode with a picture of a recent visitor to our front yard.
This, friends, is a black and yellow garden spider (argiope aurantia). We decided to not disturb him, since he wasn't in the way, and he was gone within a few days.
Bonus Shot
This lightning bolt was seen from our back deck/balcony during a recent thunderstorm.
Did you notice that almost everything in this Episode is related/connected to water in some way?
bIsh
