Category: The ongoing saga of the house

I‘ve been daydreaming of putting in a lovely vegetable garden since the day we first saw this house last August. The yard is so huge, there’s tonnes of room for it.

You know what else is huge? The garden. I’m thinking that I may want to try keeping up with the existing garden for a year or five before I get all excited and start putting in even more beds that will need tending.

It started innocuously enough this morning. I figured since the boys were outside anyway, I’d grab the gardening gloves and pull up the leftovers from last summer to give the garden a clean start. (I was too overwhelmed to do this last year in between the move and raking 20 bags full of fallen leaves and the rest of the housing disasters that comprised last autumn.)

Ha! Four hours and five garbage cans full of dead leaves and other garden detritus later, and I’d only managed to clear out the front garden! There’s still two more patches to explore in the back. YIKES!!!

The garden really is lovely, though. There’s plenty of puschkinia and scilla and a few forget-me-nots creeping across the lawn. The daffs just woke up, and there’s tulips not far behind. I’m pretty sure I found a clump of peonies or two, and there’s quite a few patches of scotch moss and other groundcover. A rose bush and three (three!) lilac bushes just outside my bedroom window. And lots and lots and lots of stuff I don’t have a hope in hell of identifying.

Truly, it’s a garden for someone who has more time on her hands and more enthusiasm for backbreaking hard work than me. I get excited about the yard around this time every year, and my interest wanes as the summer arrives with its plethora of non-gardening activities. And with a half-acre to mow, I’m thinking just staying on top of the grass is going to be a full-time job this year!!

Speaking of which, I’m thinking of upgrading my little electric mower to a cordless electric one. (I’m a little bit scared of gas mowers, which is part of the reason why we invested in a snow service instead of a gas snowblower this winter.) Do you have any experience with them? Will they cut through thick grass and do a good job mulching? I’ve been known to forget to mow the grass for a week or three every now and then.

Funny, isn’t it, how I’m quite content to putter in the yard for hours at a time and yet can’t find 15 minutes to string together for housework once I’m inside?

Each time I even think about writing a new blog post, a voice in my head says, “You’ve really got to blog about something other than photography. You may be obsessed, but you’re going to bore them to tears. For the love of all things holy, is there nothing else in your head except photo apps and web galleries and f-stops?”

*crickets*

Okay, so that’s not entirely true. There’s this really wicked cool thing happening next weekend — but I can’t talk to you about that yet. And there’s all sorts of another kind of crazy with my work, but I can never really blog about that. And — that’s about it. That’s all my brain has room for these days.

No wait, there is one other thing: we’re getting a new dishwasher today! That’s kind of exciting, in a mundanely domestic sort of way. You may remember that when we took possession of the house, the very first time we tried to use the dishwasher it stuttered to a stop about three minutes in to the first cycle. $150 and three days later, we had a switch replaced, but the thing has been dying a slow death ever since. It doesn’t clean very well, the door gets stuck on the countertop when you close it, and it sounds like a jumbo jet is taking off every time we run the damn thing.

So, a new dishwasher. We comparison-shopped for a while, waffling over name brands and features like a stainless steel interior (apparently not worth the money, even though it helps speed the drying when you refuse to use heat dry like I do) and water use (a huge issue with an aging septic system) and noise (an even bigger issue.) Everybody we spoke to recommended Bosch, but their tubs are smaller than industry standard and with a busy family of five, size matters.

We got a good deal on this one from GE and it seems to get above-average reviews. (Side note: I spent hours one Saturday trying to cross-reference model numbers from Corbeil and Sears to the last two Consumer Reports Buying Guides, and ended up with nothing but crossed eyes for my efforts. Once again, living in the shadow of the US adds a layer of complexity to life!)

The model we choise was on sale at both Sears and Corbeil but Corbeil has free delivery, so I went in and asked them to match the price. They started to argue that their price matching includes the delivery free so really was a better deal, but when I shrugged and said, “Well, if you want to lose the sale over $25, okay, I’ll go next door to Sears” they dropped the price to match. I’m getting good at this haggling thing!!

So we can now add to the ever-growing list of household investments and upgrades a new dishwasher. Let’s hope we can cross this one off the list of things to worry about for another five to ten years!

I dashed off this post on the weekend, and then I thought it was rather pointless and whiny and took it back down again, but apparently feedburner launched it into your feed-readers because a few of you took the time to e-mail me and commiserate and offer basement renovation advice and support — so I’ve reworked it to mitigate the whininess. A bit. Here’s the revised version!

I tell you, I’ve learned more about houses, structural issues, home repair and contractors in the last six months than I learned in the previous forty-one years! And this post has gotten so ridiculously long that I’ve tucked it beneath the fold. Settle in and grab a coffee if you want to stick around for the whole saga to date! Continue reading “Adventures in hiring a contractor and other housey updates”

It went something like this.

*ring, ring*

Hello?

Hey, Universe, it’s DaniGirl again.

DaniGirl! Delightful to hear from you. How’s that new house of yours?

We love the house, Universe. We truly love it. It felt like home from the day we moved in. I still keep pinching myself, I’m so amazed that we’re lucky enough to live in this gorgeous neighbourhood.

And the boys are getting settled in their new school and with the new caregiver?

Yep, that’s all working out fine. More than fine, actually. That, and the amazing sense of community here, are giving me reasons to be grateful every day. Did you notice a few weeks back, before it got cold, that Saturday morning when the big boys disappeared from the breakfast table and played outside for nearly THREE HOURS, just rambling about in the yard, the treehouse and the porch?

I did see that. They have a lot more freedom here than they did in the old neighbourhood, don’t they?

And last week, when one of the neighbours invited me over for a street hen-party to welcome a new baby to the street, that was just amazing. The whole street gets together for social occasions — this is the kind of neighbourhood I’ve been dreaming of for years and years.

So what’s on your mind then, DaniGirl? You seem troubled.
Continue reading “In which she discusses home repair and other issues with the Universe”

Today’s post was supposed to be the next in my fledgling series on accidental environmentalism, and how moving to a well and septic system and a larger plot of land has helped one family become more aware of its environmental footprint.

That was the plan, anyway, until today turned into a panic of messages and service calls. A day does not unfold well when it starts out with you turning on the tap for your 5:45 am shower — and nothing happens. All is well that ends well, though, and water was once again flowing through our taps (and toilets!) by lunchtime. Turns out a $4 switch can subvert $8,000 worth of pumps, pressure tanks and filters. Who knew?

This semi-rural living thing has been an education and a half. Rather than talking about water conservation (and hoo-boy, not having any water AT ALL sure erases any propensity to take your water for granted!) I’ll tell you a little bit about the system we installed, and why I am so pleased with it. When it works.

When we first looked at the house, in addition to the building inspection we paid for a septic inspection and a well inspection. The total cost of the three inspections, which ran concurrently, came to a little less than $1400. And they paid for themselves more than tenfold. If you are even considering buying a house with a well and septic system, DO NOT SKIMP on these costs.

I thought the weak link in the chain would be the 40+ year old septic tank, but it seems to be (touch wood!) glugging along just fine. The building inspection suggested a new roof was in order, and the well inspection opened up a whole cauldron of trouble. Turns out the well construction was grandfathered, and any changes to the system would require that it be brought up to code, which would be about a $4000 expense. The water pressure was horribly low, which would make me insane, so we knew we would at least want a new pump, and the water softener was as old as the house, so it too would likely need to be upgraded. Those two changes would necessitate bringing the well up to code, which meant literally meant bringing it up, so the well head was above ground instead of below.

We had the water quality tested, and though it showed no harmful bacteria, it did show extreme hardness, which refers to the mineral content in the water. Hard water is common to Ottawa, but the well water was hard even by those standards. A new water softener would address that. The testing also showed high iron and sulphur counts. Neither of those is a health issue, but a high iron content leads to rust stains and sulphur gives off that rotten-egg smell and taste — not terribly pleasant. So we ordered a filter to remedy those. And the water as drawn from the well also showed fairly high sodium levels, which was only exacerbated by the sodium used by the water softener to counter the hardness in the water. High sodium levels are not really a problem for cooking or cleaning water, but just as you should monitor your sodium levels in the foods you eat, minimizing the sodium in your drinking water is also a good idea. So, we also invested in a under-the-counter reverse-osmosis unit for the kitchen, which provides a separate spigot with reduced sodium water. We use that spigot for drinking water, coffee, pet water and some cooking. And finally, I grew up in southern Ontario where the Walkerton tragedy is still a current event, so we had a UV backup filter installed to kill any bacteria that might potentially be introduced into the well water at some future date.

Long story a little less long, we haggled on the price of the house until the seller dropped it enough to accommodate the upgrades to the roof and water system, then built that price back into the mortgage through the bank. We now have a brand new roof and the Cadillac of well, pump and filter systems — apparently, at the mercy of a $4 switch, as we found out this morning!

The water? Is awesome. I used to buy Brita filters for my kitchen tap when I was on city water, as I found the taste horrible. Did you know they actually add ammonia to the water? The water through the reverse-osmosis system is divine. And the softened water is so amazing on my hair and skin. I even kind of like the salty taste of the water when I’m showering — reminds me of my friends’ saltwater pools. The only thing that’s a little annoying is that every time you draw water from the reverse-osmosis unit, you can hear it dripping for hours as it fills back up again. It’s a constant trickling sound in the kitchen sink that makes me have to pee!

We still have a little bit more work to do on the pump system. It’s on house power, so if there is a power failure, we lose our water too. We’re getting a small generator to power the pump, and the sump pump. (I need a whole other blog post to tell you what I am continuing to learn — and spend! — with regard to the sump pump.)

So that’s the saga of our new water system, and how we’re learning to live with it. Soon, I’ll get you that post I mentioned about water conservation. And tonight, I will enjoy the shower that I didn’t get to take this morning just a little bit more!

I‘ve been thinking about this post, which may eventually be a whole category on its own, quite a bit lately. Even though you haven’t seen much evidence of it, I’ve been busy blogging in my head throughout the chaos that has been the move, and I’m swimming in ideas and inspiration, if not free time to type it all out.

One of the biggest changes for us as a family in the new house is the fact that we’re now on a well and septic system. I knew virtually nothing about well and septic systems on the day we first visited the house, but I’ve had an education and a half in the past couple of months. What I didn’t expect was that in learning to live with our own private wastewater system, we’ve become far more aware of our environmental footprint than we ever were on the city water and sewer system. I thought it would make an interesting occasional series in the blog if I shared some of our new-found and hard-earned knowledge. If well and septic systems are old hat for you, feel free to intervene and correct me as I go!

For today’s post, here’s a bit of Septic 101. When you are not connected to municipal sewers, anything you flush down your toilets, dump into your sinks or otherwise rinse down your drain goes into a big underground tank — the septic tank. In simplistic terms, here’s how it works. The septic tank has two chambers separated by a baffle. The solid and liquid wastes go into the first chamber, where the solids sink to the bottom and the liquids rise to the top. While the waste is in the septic tank, naturally-occurring bacteria are hard at work breaking it down. The liquids (called “scum”) pass through a pipe into the second chamber, and are further broken down by the bacteria. Then it flows out into a set of pipes called the weeping bed or leaching bed, a series of perforated pipes laid out in a big square or rectangle buried at least three feet under the ground. The waste water is further broken down by microbes in the soil and eventually returned to the groundwater system. Somewhere around every three to five years, depending on your tank size and family usage, you pay someone to suck all the accumulated solid waste out of the tank. Delicious, eh?

The weekend we spent considering putting an offer in on the house, I read pages upon pages of information about septic tanks and frankly? I was horrified. The poop flows out into the YARD? Simplistically speaking, yes, but not exactly. When the septic system is working well, everything is completely natural and sanitary and it is a very effective system. Unfortunately, when the system fails, it can be disastrous — from a financial, environmental and, for me, emotional perspective. The ways that the system can fail are myriad, and I lost more than a couple of hours sleep over it in the early days of my education.

For one thing, septic tanks are expensive to replace, in the order of tens of thousands of dollars. They have a life span of 20 to 40 years, depending on whom you ask. And guess how old ours is? From what I can tell, 42 years old. Eep! But, we hired a professional septic inspector as part of our home inspection, and he said that the system is functioning very well and we have no cause for concerns. For now. *touch wood*

Monitoring the health of your septic system is vital. If the effluent is not breaking down properly or something is blocking the perforations in your leaching bed, you could have problems from sewage seeping up from the ground to sewage seeping into the groundwater that supplies your (and your neighbour’s) well water to sewage backing into the (*shudder*) house, not to mention the cost of repairs or replacement. It’s a pretty good incentive for increased environmental stewardship!

Some things that I might have done on the municipal sewer system are expressly forbidden, like rinsing paint trays in the sink. When I painted the kitchen cupboards, I learned that you can wrap a roller in saran wrap overnight if you’re out of day but still not done the job, and you can even put it in the freezer if you have to wait a few days before you get back to the job. When the job is done, wash your brushes and rollers out in a five-gallon pail of water, and then leave the pail open. The water will evaporate out, and you can scrape the semi-dried-out paint into the garbage — or just dispose of the pail.

You can’t dump cooking oil or grease down the drain, so I now dump it into a mason jar that I keep under the sink. We have to be careful of letting coffee grounds or egg shells rinse down the drain — a bit of a challenge since our coffee maker overflows about once a month, spilling hot coffee and grounds all over the countertop and sometimes the floor. And no kleenex or (ugh!) tampons in the toilet, either. 🙁

I have become as vigilant in reading cleaning supply labels as I was in reading food labels. No more anti-bacterial soap (although the jury seems to be out on this one), minimal household bleach, and no liquid fabric softeners. Did you know vinegar can be used as a fabric softener alternative? I haven’t tried that one yet.

I spent a lot of the weekend googling “what happens if the septic system freezes” because it occured to me that Ottawa winters are long and cold, but it turns out that you really don’t have to do much if you’re on a year-round system. It will take care of itself, if it’s functioning properly. I’m sure there are many other facets of septic stewardship that will panic me in months to come, though.

If you had asked me a few months ago if I were environmentally conscious, I would have said, “Of course!” I recycle madly, even picking things out of the garbage that other family members might have tossed away. I use my Green Bin for most of our household compostables, and regularly walk through the house turning off switches and nagging the boys to do the same. But really? I was in the minor leagues of environmental awareness before now. There’s nothing like the threat of untreated sewage seeping up onto your lawn or backwashing into your house to make you an environmental vigilante!

One of the biggest learning curves for us has been water conservation, the topic of my next post in this occasional series.

For now, though, I’m always curious as to what you think. Are you like me, a child of the city whose jaw dropped at the idea of a personal wastewater plant on the property, or are you rolling your eyes at my endless naiveté? And if you have any, I’d be grateful if you share any advice or knowledge. Not sure I need to hear your horror stories, though — I’ve got enough of those in my imagination to keep me awake through months of sleepless nights!