Anian

It's to add a bit of rigidity to a gazebo built with 6x6s. It will be a 45 degree brace for two pieces that join at 90 degrees, so it needs to look pretty nice, but I need four of them in total which means 8 angle cuts and would be a bit of a workout just using a saw. I'm now thinking that I could get away with a 4x4, which is still too deep for my circular saw but far less cutting overall.

Nutek

Good news! I found my ground Bees!

Lion in Winter

You had misplaced them?

And exactly what are ground bees, apart from not sky bees?

Nutek

Think "Angry Stealth Bees".. That lie in wait until you park your lawn tractor on top of them.

I hadn't seen them for a while.. Not since that fateful day clearing the path to the river..

Lion in Winter

They look quite sweet. I mean, you would be upset if someone parked a tractor on top of your house, to be fair.

Ingles

I grow a LOT off Tomatoes , a couple week's back I was away for a few day's & on return found several plants infected with White Fly & Aphids
As I was out off the usual spray I use, I thought out off desperation I would try ordinary House Fly Spray
I worked & believe it or not ,within 3-4 days it had also killed off the plants I used it on (bugger it)
BUT I have a very large patch off "couch grass" I have been trying to clear for some time, so I tried the fly spray on it
3 days later it was looking sick & within a week it was completely dead, roots & all as I dug some up.
Just thought I would pass this info on !

zzrmark

4x4 sounds like the more sensible option, 6x6 braces might make it look a tad industrial, unless you're engaging in a Brunel sized project!

Bob

We had one pea pod with a few peas, pea pod number two got eaten by something in the garden and pea pod number 3 only has one pea in it. We've almost 10 green beans. Something ate a stalk of corn. Tomatoes, quite a few, still rocking the green look though.

WEBlue

When we returned from our trip to Blighty, I found my two cherry tomato plants had disappeared from their pots--either eaten or just didn't like the spot I tried this year. But the lettuce which had provided bountiful salads for the Husband and me before our trip is still thriving, though getting a little tough in the leaf due to heat....

Several herbs I'd babied for a few years sadly bit the dust, due to drought-like conditions during the 3 weeks we were away, but tough old sage, my new mints, and the lavender all survived.

Steerpike

Modern 'single control' shower controllers - my friend has just moved into a house that has been remodeled, and the bathroom shower has one of these new 'single lever' water controllers - you simply turn counter-clockwise, and water flow starts / increases, and temperature also changes / increases. I've encountered (and hated with a passion) these things in hotels in the past, but never had to deal with one at home (I personally prefer setting a temperature, and separately selecting a flow).

Anyway, this weird control seems to start out reasonably functional - flow increases, and then once you reach max flow (about halfway through the turn), the temperature increases. BUT - if you go 'all the way' round, water gets cooler again, and eventually the flow abruptly stops / shudders, as if some cutoff has kicked in.

So ... does anyone know how these valves work? Is there a 'high temperature cutoff'? (note - the water was only tolerably warm, even at the best setting - which is why I was trying different settings).

Steerpike

I did some online searching and also poked around with the unit. Weird thing is, after fiddling with it and not really changing anything, it seems to be working fine - for now - at max rotation, I get a fairly hot, powerful flow. I wonder if I dislodged some blockage?

Glacier Bay shower control

There are two brass screws (1 and 2 in photo). These limit the max flow in the hot and cold feeds. One website suggested I could turn these to the maximum 'open' point to get max water flow. They turn easily, but my fear is - is there a danger of removing the screw altogether, since the same website explained how you could remove these screws completely and remove a plastic insert that further limits water flow. I don't want to accidentally have the screw drop inside the wall! So does it unscrew to a 'limit' or does it come all the way out if you turn enough?

There is a red 'temperature limiter' sleeve (3 in the photo) that can be slid off easily and replaced at different settings. Unfortunately, mine seems to be at the 'max heat' setting already.

There is a threaded end on the valve (4 on the photo). There was no screw in that 'hole' ... suggesting a missing screw. Doesn't seem to affect anything, but I am assuming this means I'm in danger of the whole thing coming loose ...?

Edit To Add: I removed the red 'sleeve' altogether as a test, and without it, I can get a nice hot shower ... is there any reason (other than I may burn myself ) to have that red sleeve in place at all?

Steerpike

Finally found a useful site after hours of searching - these two screws are referred to as 'integral stops', and they are there to allow you to shut off water to the cartridge for repair purposes without having to shut off the whole house/etc. I'm going to assume I can unscrew them to a 'limit' and not worry about them falling out. I think that turning the hot water screw counter-clockwise a turn was the reason my shower got hotter today.


Still curious if there's a problem removing the temperature limit device altogether (the red sleeve in the photo).

tom169

Not sure if there is an operational problem, but most likely a code violation if the temperature is too hot. I think around here it's 120f.


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WEBlue

Where oh where is Pulaski when we really need him?

Pulaski

Florence and Michael did a number on my yard, flattening several trees, breaking a couple and pushing others into significant lean. Florence pushed over a large oak tree (82') which was only about 15' from our house - thankfully directly away from it! Unfortunately my chainsaw has needed repairs, so four months later most of the trees still need to be cut up and removed. I am hoping my chain saw will be ready within a few weeks, though a part is still on back order.

As a result of months of continued heavy rain, both before the hurricanes and afterwards, our yard is soggy pretty much everywhere. Even though the back yard slopes slightly, the mud is so wet that it is like walking through a shallow puddle, the driveway has "weepers" (water trapped under the concrete is oozing up from between cracks), and on the other side of the house there is a spring that is feeding a continuous flow of water into a ditch that normally only carries surface water from storms. All this has made it impractical to do a final clear up of the leaf and twig debris from last autumn, so I am hoping for some drier, mild weather so things will try out before spring and I can tidy things up. For certain it would be totally impossible to mow the yard in its current state as the ground is so wet that the tires would just chew the grass up and turn the back yard into a mud pit.