Category: home improvement

Remember That Manual Edger Last Year?

OK, so remember that dual wheel manual edger I bought last July? It’s a Yardworks 54-inch wood handle dual wheel edger. Remember that so you never buy one yourself.

 The wheel lining started tearing off in pieces just like the old one before it. The new one was a replacement for the edger that provided about 12 years of service before it failed.

How do you like that? It was a replay of what happened last year. I just finished the job with the replacement the other day. It rolled pretty rough and I looked at the wheel, which was shredded.

It lasted one season last summer and a few edging jobs this season. It had a 15-year limited warranty. I wonder what the word “limited” signifies.

Once again, I had to run over to Menards to get a new one. They didn’t have any other brand but the one I got last year. I exchanged it. It’s the same brand and has the same 15-year limited warranty.

Any bets on how long this one will last?

There are benefits of a manual edger. Traditionalists extol the virtues of sustainability, zero emissions (unless you develop gas yourself and you fart while you work), and they’re less pricey. You never have to worry about gasoline, they don’t take up much space, and, according to some people, they last years longer than any motorized tool. You can’t necessarily always believe the hype. Some hardware stores don’t even know what a manual edger is; I found that out last year.

That doesn’t mean you should haul off and spend a lot of cash on something a lot more sophisticated. I’m not endorsing just any list for best manual edgers because the lists seem to be biased toward particular hardware stores. One list of the best manual edgers focuses only on step edger models with crescent shaped blades. Maybe I should consider them. They look easy to use but I’m a little concerned they might cut too deep, maybe into something I don’t want to cut. There is one method that involves using a step edger, a shovel, and a broom. It’s mainly for sidewalks that are heavily overgrown with turf. I never let it get that bad.

It can be hard to get through a list of best manual lawn edgers. I get pretty tired of the pop-up ads they fire at you so much you can’t even see the list. I could find one list of best dual wheel edgers and it was for 2022. It’s on a web site called Bestadvisordotcom. It gives the pros and cons of five rotary edgers and holds up the Ames Companies, Inc. 28112200 True Temper Dual-Wheel Rotary Edger as number one. All five have between a 10–15-year warranty. Three were possibly out of stock and I consider them relatively pricey at around $60-$70.

If this replacement dual wheel rotary edger I got a few days ago at Menards goes bad again, I might go with a crescent blade manual step edger. Menards sells them but I’ll avoid the one made by Yardworks. There’s an alternative with a 28-inch handle which might work.

Your thoughts?

Show and Tell: Our New Stuff

We got a few new items lately. One of them is an AIKE Touch-Free Automatic Soap Dispenser. It’s rechargeable and has 5 settings for how much soap to dispense. The two setting is plenty good, especially for a sudsy dishwashing liquid like Dawn.

 I don’t think AIKE is an acronym. I looked up AIKE and it has a number of meanings. One of them is “a hooked or crooked person” derived from the Viking settlers of ancient Scotland. One way to pronounce it (British) rhymes with the word “ache.” It can also mean “sword.” If you’re looking for a good first name for a baby boy, I suggest you look for something other than AIKE. Maybe Jim.

You should avoid waving anything other than a sponge or your hand under AIKE. It’s not fussy about who or what it squirts on.

We got a couple of new mouse pads. The old ones were looking ancient. These are snazzy and have bright colors. They’re made by Insten. Their website doesn’t say much about the company other than it has been around since 2014 and they make “top-of-the-line accessories for the hottest electronic devices.”

Their mouse pads are pretty hot. They are quite psychedelic, and you could get dizzy if you look at them too long.

We also got a hand soap pump dispenser which one reviewer said reminded her of a penguin. It only sort of reminds me of a penguin. You can buy a hand soap dispenser that more realistically resembles a penguin, but I’m not sure why you would do that. Penguins are filthy creatures, even when they are babies. The parents regurgitate fish into their mouths and that’s sort of what the dispensers mimic.

Your turn.

Do You Really Need to Replace That Ceiling Light?

Sena and I just had a very challenging time installing a ceiling light to replace an old fan. I just want to point out that I would always rather hire a handyman to do this because I’m not real comfortable with electrical components. I can replace outlets and switches OK, but the ceiling fan…well, all I can say is we got the job done.

You always want to cut the power off at the circuit breaker before tackling a job like this, of course. And there are the usual problems with hooking up the right wires to each other between the ceiling light fixture (or whatever) and the electrical box in the ceiling.

The model of ceiling light we got had a fairly heavy base, which is the thing that has all the wires and the fluffy insulation and covers whatever mistakes you made in the electrical box. Just kidding.

This was a 2-person job for us and involved jockeying around on a tall ladder, taking turns hanging on to the heavy base while the other did the magic of making wiring connections. If the base had been lighter, we could have hooked up the ground wire in the ceiling with the ground wire in the fixture and just let it hang.

Sena found helpful YouTube videos about how to manage this installation. There were different perspectives on grounding, even on whether you need to do it given that some experts said the electrical box is already grounded so another grounding contact is unnecessary.

We grounded generously and even wrapped wire nuts with electrician’s tape.

Making the wire connections was hard enough, but we thought the most frustrating part was fishing for those two mounting screws through all that fluffy insulation on the base. I thought we’d never get that done.

If you ever have to do a thing like this, you might want to consider hiring the job out to someone who has a lot of experience with it.

Crank the volume on the video to hear my voice over comments.

More Knockdown Furniture

We got another chair—for the master bedroom closet. It’s called the Jasmine Chair. It came with all assembly hardware and other parts. This one was a 15-minute assembly job, which amazed me. However, there were sharp staples protruding from the upholstery, so you have to watch out for them.

Jim on a Winning Streak on the Bigfoot Cribbage Board

Ever since we got the Bigfoot cribbage board, I’ve been winning. If you believe in lucky streaks, I’m on one. However, Sena wins most of the time when we play on the jumbo cribbage board.

Is it the Bigfoot cards? Is it the Bigfoot pajamas? Sena was so overwhelmed she put her house slippers on backwards.

My reward was to put together more knockdown furniture.

Our New Front Door

We got a brand-new front door today. Of course, because the old one had to be removed, it got a little chilly in the house. We didn’t mind because the new door is handsome and has pearl privacy glass.

We were always a little uncomfortable with the clear glass sidelight and door windows on the old door. Anybody could peek inside.

The tradesmen got here at 11:00 AM and were done by 3:00 PM. We turned the furnace off because the door was off-for several hours. It wasn’t a terribly frigid day, but we still had to put jackets on. Outside it was in the 40s for the most part and only got up to the low 50s. It got down to 64 degrees inside.

The color of our new front door is grey, a color that is thought to be dignified, intelligent, and balanced.

Doorways also are said to represent transitions or passages from one stage of life to another.

One thing our new front doors says is that, at this stage in life we feel a whole lot better when nobody can spy on us.

Jim Learns About Induction Cooktops

I’m learning about induction cooktops. I know I’m way late in the game. The house we bought a little over two and a half years ago came with an induction cooktop. It’s the first one we ever had; we always used gas or electric stoves.

The main topic here are the noises including clicking noises we heard when using the induction cooktop. I say “we” but I should say Sena because I am allergic to kitchens.

I had to search the internet about induction cooktops. I found out way more than I wanted to know about them. I guess I can summarize that in a few lines:

Induction cooktops:

  • They work using electricity, not gas. They generate energy from an electromagnetic field below the glass cooktop surface which transfers energy to the magnetic cookware, which causes them to heat up.
  • They’re more energy efficient than gas.
  • The electro magnetic field (EMF) they emit have not been shown to increase the risk for cancer.
  • Although some chefs say hard anodized cookware won’t work on induction cooktops, they will if the bottom of the cookware has a ferromagnetic surface (meaning it has iron in it).
  • You can tell most of the time if a pan will work on induction cookware by holding a magnet up to the bottom of it and checking to see if the magnet sticks. If the magnet sticks, you’re good to go.

I finally checked that last point about magnetism by suddenly realizing that we had a magnet. It happens to be the magnetized lid for the space holding a deck of cards and pegs on our large cribbage board. It stuck to the bottom of one of our new KitchenAid hard anodized pans.

The old pans we had clicked a lot and there are reasons for the variety of noises you can hear. Most of the websites I noticed which describe this problem also have videos about which don’t have audio. Many of the websites say that some clicking is normal. Others will make an effort to identify the cause for the noises.

Our new cookware doesn’t make any noise at all. And they heat up very quickly. You don’t need to crank up the heat and can keep the power level pretty low.

The sound of screaming is probably from the extraterrestrial you’re trying to fry. Don’t do that.

Tile Drain Grate Off Again!

Last night something removed our tile drain grate again! This time it wasn’t flipped. Something lifted the grate off the pipe and set it on the ground beside it. We were flabbergasted.

Recall that I thought I had secured the thing with a worm gear adjustable clamp on October 1, 2022. Up until that time, something (or someone) was flipping the grate upside down off the pipe every 2-3 days and lately every day.

I looked around and could not discern any animal tracks. The two crossed rods and thread over the grate were not disturbed. The worm gear clamp was still in place. I figured I had just not placed it close enough to the top of the grate and not screwed it down tightly enough.

So, I put the grate back on the pipe, pulled the clamp up so it covered the seam between the pipe and the grate better, and really cranked the screw tight enough so I could not move it at all.

Now we’re shopping for a critter cam. I favor the idea that a raccoon could be the culprit. Another outside possibility is a woodchuck. Both have fingers and are strong. This lid removal caper looks like it only happens at night. Sena checks it in the evening when she comes in from working out in the garden. That would tend to focus on the raccoon suspect since it’s nocturnal and the woodchuck is not.

Sena is going to get a brick or two to set on the grate and we will see what happens. Raccoons can lift 10-20 pounds, though. I’m thinking it’ll just move the bricks one at a time.

The other possibility is that the culprit might not be an animal. What if this is a kid playing games? There are not any kids in the neighborhood old enough to pull this off, though.

I’m pretty sure it’s not Bigfoot. The sod is loose and soft around the grate. Bigfoot would leave obvious tracks.

What about extraterrestrials? For example, some people think aliens are behind all the cattle mutilations. Others think it is some ultra-secret government agency running experiments (which have been going on for decades) to see how much nuclear radiation cows are absorbing from all the atomic fracking these bozos are doing to discover more fossil fuel energy resources underground all over the country. They cover their tracks to hide it from the public using the usual conspiracy tools—they just tell enough to investigators who get TV producers to make expose shows about it. They tend to air them in October to make you think this is just all about Halloween. I saw this show on TV last night.

Of course, if the government were doing that, there would be nobody living in the country by now because everybody would be dead from cancer from all the radiation.

But what if the extraterrestrials are trying to steal all the tile drain grates to use them as cooking grills to make barbecued chicken? The only problem is that aliens are so puny, they cannot do more than barely move them off the tile pipe. They get all out of breath and exhausted, which leads to them just giving up and going to a good BBQ joint like Jimmy Jack’s Rib Shack in Iowa City.

Where was I? Oh, I need to hire a new guard for the grate now. Obviously the first two bozos were incompetent. The zombie was too busy eating his own armpits and the wolfman started pooping on the grate and clogging up the slots, because even though they may be hundreds of years old, you still cannot potty train them.

And the sword the wolfman carried got stuck in the grate slots, leading to a hernia, the surgery for which veterinarians charge a lot. I could get them from passing zombies, but they are touchy about their stuff.

So, the tile drain grate saga continues. Aren’t you glad?

Update: Sena bought 3 big rocks, the total weight of which might exceed 20 pounds. We set them on top of the grate. And I called the Temp Agency and hired 3 new guards to make sure that grate stays on. Depending on what history you believe, either good things come in threes—or bad things come in threes. We’re going to go with good things.

Day 1: Drain Grate Intact

So far so good. After I affixed the drain grate to the corrugated base with a worm gear adjustable clamp, this morning the lid is still on.

I also posted a tiny zombie guard. He’ll chew up anything that tries to come up from below or break in from above. He’s not fussy about what he eats. He doesn’t sleep. He’s not scared of anything. Bad weather doesn’t bother him. He says the same thing Beetlejuice says:

“I’ll eat anything you want me to eat, I’ll swallow anything you want me to swallow; so, come on down, I’ll chew on a dog!”

Something is Flipping Our Lid

The tile grain grate in our back yard popped off again last night. One of the landscaping pins Sena used to secure it was bent and the other pin came out when the lid was flipped. The grate is always flipped upside down. Sena wondered if something might have pushed it up and over from inside the drain.

That would pretty much rule out Bigfoot, but something is flipping our lid.

It might be a rodent head-butting the grate from inside. Or it could still be a raccoon, picking it up with its fingers from above, either by the lip or the slots. We’ve never seen the culprit.

We have seven of these grates in our back yard but only one gets messed with. I’m not sure I want to spend $30 on a critter cam. You can order them through Walmart. They can run off several AA batteries. I suppose I could try to mount the camera to a support post under the sun room.  I’m still not sure if it would have the range to capture something several yards away. And they’re not available in the stores, not even in Fin and Feather. Local rental stores don’t carry them.

I searched the web for animal control service and it’s difficult to find. In most instances, there’s a professional you could hire for a minimum charge of $100-$500 or more—if you know what animal you want removed. Other options include the dog shelter or the police. The pros have an advertising strategy which naturally steer you to their own service.

We don’t even know what is flipping our lid.

Our options are limited.

We could try to duct tape things together. It’s not ideal and I’d probably get the tape all bunched up.

We could try getting a worm gear adjustable clamp that would fit around the pipe that the lid fits inside of and cinch it tight.

We could screw the lid to the pipe. That would probably solve the problem but we’d like to be able to remove it easily.

I could stay up all night with the yard light on and try to catch the critter in the act. That might lead to a more focused solution. It might also lead to me just nodding off in the chair, no matter how much coffee I drink. And if an extraterrestrial is involved, I might get abducted and then I’d be screwed, literally. That probing routine has got to be a violation of intergalactic law.

Get a critter cam and get a picture of the perpetrator.

Which of the options would you pick? Any other suggestions?

Update: We opted for the worm gear adjustable clamp. Sena found one at Menards that’s a little over 7 inches in diameter. It cinched down enough that I couldn’t lift off the lid. Let’s see if a critter can figure out how to knock that lid off now.

She found a few other things for me to do while I was out there: got rid of a couple of basketball-sized wasp nests using a blowtorch. After I rebuilt the house which burned to the ground, I had to check for Bigfoot turds in the yard and I slipped on one, cracked my sacroiliac, got it fixed at the ER and when I got back home, I had to throw some sod on a bare spot in the yard that was about as big as a football field but I persevered nevertheless and watered it down but got soaked to the skin and had to dry off by doing a few hundred wind sprints between Iowa City and Des Moines. Next up was to heft a few dozen bags of dirt and mulch to the back 40 where Sena’s building a city park; the Ferris wheel is on backorder—all this before dinner.