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Beat the Heat: What Summer Means for Your Pipes

. Posted by in • Austin

Plumbing trouble isn’t just a cold-season phenomenon

Winter isn’t the only season that can wreak havoc on your pipes. In central Texas, the mercury exceeds 100 degrees on dozens of days per year, and an unprepared plumbing system can take a serious hit as a result. Below, we outline some of the most common hot-season plumbing problems and offer some common-sense tips for dealing with them.

Sweating Pipes

When the weather warms up, your skin isn’t the only thing that sweats. Poorly insulated pipes can “sweat” excess water and create serious leaks that eventually threaten the integrity of your ceilings or floors. Due to contraction in the pipes themselves, sweating pipes that are already constrained by clogs can suffer catastrophic backups.

Sewer Backups

Although summer tends to be a fairly dry season in central Texas, occasional thunderstorms and unseasonable rains can cause unexpected sewer backups that devastate your home’s lower levels or yard. Likewise, tree … Read Full Post »

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10 Things You Should Never Put Down the Garbage Disposal

. Posted by in , • San Antonio

Save them for the trash bin—and save your garbage disposal’s motor

If you were fortunate enough to have a garbage disposal when you were growing up, you probably weren’t very careful about what you threw into it. After all, that scary motor seemed to take care of just about anything. Over time, though, you may have learned that garbage disposals are just as susceptible to clogs and breakdowns as other appliances. Now that you’re older and wiser, take care not to throw these 10 items down yours.

1. Non-Organic Trash

It might seem obvious, but plastic and metal can seriously damage your garbage disposal blades. Even smaller items like paper and cigarette butts can wreak havoc.

2. Grease and Animal Fat

Once it passes through the disposal, this stuff can congeal in your pipes. This often has devastating effects for your plumbing system.

3. Rice, Pasta and Other Starches

This stuff expands dramatically when soaked and is … Read Full Post »

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More Than a Trickle, Less Than a Flood: Achieving the Perfect Water Pressure

. Posted by in • Austin

It’s not as hard as it sounds!

We’ve all been there before. You turn on your faucet or shower and are blindsided by a deluge of fluid that practically knocks you off your feet. Alternatively, you’re greeted with a pathetic trickle that’s barely enough to get your skin wet. In either case, your home’s water pressure needs adjusting—and fast. While this might seem like a task for a professional plumber, it’s possible to do on your own. Your family is sure to thank you for it.

How Can You Adjust Water Pressure on Your Own?

Every residential structure that doesn’t use groundwater is outfitted with a pressure regulator that protects its water system from the industrial-strength flow of water through municipal pipes. This reduces the average flow into your home from about 200 psi—an extreme torrent—to about 50 psi. However, various factors can interfere with this flow, and your regulator can fail as … Read Full Post »

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Fleas and Ticks: Bugs With a One-Two Punch

. Posted by in , • San Antonio

Protecting your home, family and pets from an itchy situation

If the thought of fleas and ticks makes you itch, you’re not alone. These common parasites appear on dogs, cats and wild animals and can wind up on you or in your home. Fleas jump or crawl from host to host; ticks wait for a potential meal to walk by. In addition to being irritating, these bugs are a potential source of disease.

Flea-Borne Diseases

Fleas feed on the blood of both animals and humans, sometimes resulting in the transfer of bacteria between hosts. Certain diseases are passed through the bite itself while others may be transmitted through flea feces. Cat scratch fever, tapeworms, typhus and even the plague have been known to be spread by fleas.

Tick-Borne Diseases

Though they’re often associated with deer, ticks feed on a variety of hosts from dogs and cats to lizards and mice. There are different types of … Read Full Post »

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Create Flights of Fancy With a Butterfly Garden

. Posted by in • Bryan-College Station

Attracting butterflies with beautiful blossoms

Splashed with vibrant color and scented with wonderful fragrance, a garden is a delight to the senses. Perhaps these are the same reasons that butterflies are so often attracted to gardens as well. Just watching them flit from flower to flower is part of the pleasure of being in a garden. In fact, luring butterflies into your Central Texas garden is just a matter of growing flowers that they enjoy. The right colors and shapes make all the difference in creating a butterfly garden that attracts people, too.

Plants with clusters of tiny flowers where butterflies can perch for a moment and sip the nectar are their favorites. Vivid yellows, reds, oranges and purples are the colors that attract butterflies’ attention. White also works well. You can’t go wrong combining these colors in your garden.

Sunflowers are a great choice. Ranging from 1 to well over 12 feet … Read Full Post »

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Central Texas Drought May Be Producing Mutant Mosquitoes

. Posted by in , • Austin

The newly improved pests bring bigger bites and fatter bodies to your backyard

For homeowners in Central Texas, the ongoing drought has many ramifications. Drought conditions change the way you maintain your lawn and use water in your home. They may even impact your pocketbook at the grocery store, where the effects of droughts across the nation are seen in food prices. You might be surprised to learn that the drought is also having an intriguing impact on one of the state’s most hated pests, the mosquito.

Are Mutant Mosquitoes Biting in Your Backyard?

Mosquitoes, known for their irritating bites, rely on water sources in order to lay eggs and maintain their populations. In fact, these bothersome pests are often found in areas with standing water such as still streams and backyard puddles. For many homeowners, the ongoing drought seems like the perfect solution to burgeoning mosquito populations.

Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case. … Read Full Post »

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Hair Balls and Bath Toys and Dirt Clods, Oh My!

. Posted by in • San Antonio

Keeping your drains free and clear

Nothing is more annoying than a slow-moving drain or a drain that just won’t clear at all. Whether you’re stuck with a slow-running toilet or are trying to figure out why it takes so long for your kitchen sink to clear, it pays to think about common causes of clogged drains. Figuring out what’s slowing down your drains is key to addressing the issue and preventing future problems.

What’s Stuck Down Your Drains?

Almost all San Antonio homeowners will experience plumbing problems at some point in time. Among the most common of these problems are clogged or slow-moving drains, which can cause inconvenience and seriously impact the performance of your plumbing system. The first step in treating and preventing such clogs is understanding what causes them. Some of the most common causes of clogged drains are:

• Fats and greases that make their way down the kitchen sink
• … Read Full Post »

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Fire Ants and Crazy Ants Battle for the Throne in Texas

. Posted by in , • Austin

Who will win?

Residents throughout the Austin area and southeast Texas have grown accustomed to the problems that are associated with fire ants, most notably their notorious stinging bite. However, recent research indicates that a newer invasive species commonly referred to as the “crazy ant” is currently locked in a struggle for superiority with fire ants. In fact, entomologists believe that crazy ants might eventually win this territorial fight, and this isn’t as positive of a possibility as some people might believe.

What Is a Crazy Ant?

The scientific name for crazy ants is Paratrechina longicornis, and some Texas residents refer to them as Raspberry crazy ants. This invasive species originated in South America just like fire ants, and these pests have an unusual defense mechanism against their natural enemy. Fire ants typically spray venom to defend themselves against other ants and bugs, but this venom doesn’t usually kill crazy ants. Instead, a … Read Full Post »

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Eat Your Way Through the Seasons With Homegrown Produce

. Posted by in • San Antonio

What’s easiest to grow and when to eat it

Sick of the produce selection at the supermarket? Grow your own fresh fruits and veggies this year and enjoy fresh, delicious food all season long.

Zucchini

Also called courgettes, zucchini are a variety of summer squash that taste delicious in soups, salads, curries and baked goods. They can be grown in the garden or in a pot on your porch. Each plant produces a large amount of zucchini, so you don’t need very many to get a good crop. The only trouble you might have with these little green powerhouses is figuring out what to do with all of them once they’re fully grown. Expect to start harvesting in June and not stop until September.

Green Beans

Another high producer, green beans will grow just about anywhere. There are many varieties, including bush beans, pole beans and broad beans, not all of which are green. You … Read Full Post »

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The Sticker Shock of High Water Bills

. Posted by in • Bryan-College Station

Finding the leaks and plumbing problems that are sabotaging your budget

Are hidden water leaks making your water bills skyrocket? Try these tips for finding the source.

Trust the Meter

Your water meter is the best tool you have for leak detection. When you suspect you have a leak, turn off everything in your home that uses water and go take a look at the meter. There should be a small red triangle on the face of it, which is known as the low flow indicator. If it’s moving, you have a leak.

Tricky Toilets

“Phantom flushing” in toilets can waste as much as 4,000 gallons of water per day. To test for a toilet leak, drip food coloring into the tank and wait about five minutes. If the water in the bowl becomes colored, you’re likely dealing with a leaking rubber flapper valve. Constantly hearing water trickle inside the tank could be a sign … Read Full Post »

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