Bingo! If you're detectors are in that date range don't wait, just replace them all. We bought a 10 year old house, within a year or so we replaced every smoke detector. Of course they never go bad during the day, just in the middle of the night.

---

--------------------------
The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

And you spend at least 20 minutes finding out which one is beeping at you. Also with replacing batteries, whenever they go off, you never have any 9V batteries in the house.

Coming from a home with municipal sewage to one with a septic guy, 5 years is a bit too long to wait to have your tank emptied. You should do it every 3 years or so.

Oh, if the septic guy opens your tank and says, "Hey, you gotta look at this," you really don't gotta look at this. Just take his word, pay the money, and get on with the rest of your day.

---

---

---

Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I replaced all my spoke detectors a couple of years ago with wireless units from Kidde. Pretty easy to set up the connections between them. The kicker is, drumroll please, they are AA batteries! Besides the wireless feature to connect them. The AA batteries sold me on them.

OneLink now sells some Alexa compatible units, but at $200 they are pretty expensive for a smoke alarm.

If you have a humidifier tied to your HVAC, make sure you clean it annually. If it is the old type (basically a tub of water & a paddle-wheel thingy) make sure you sanitize it with bleach regularly. If it is the newer type (metal radiator type) make sure you either replace it annually or soak it in vinegar every 6 months to stop the scale from building/clogging it).

Spring clean your AC system....amazing how many leaves & critters like those things.

---

____________
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers

Seriously what the fuck is it with them doing that. Also CO alarms

I about jumped through the ceiling when the CO alarm went off at 3 am.

Oh I forgot about that one. If you have a septic tank there is a good chance that there is a little filter thingy to keep the solids out of the sand pit.

They tell you that you should clean it twice a year. They are right. Otherwise you will need to reach shoulder deep into dark cold septic tank water while you feel around for the top of the filter when it plugs up.

---

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

That’s flipping brilliant.

Yeah I'd pay someone to do that for me. Thankfully I have sewers

What???

What am I supposed to do with these 9V batteries now?

I never knew this growing up.
My dad and his dad put in a new septic system in the early 70s (my parents bought the house from my grandparents in the mid 70s). They sold the house in 99. They never touched the septic system, AND never had a problem with it...

Wireless ones? interesting, mine are all on the same electrical circuit as its city code. I guess you must live in an older home? My city also has a code that they all need to be the same brand, but I don't think the inspectors really care because I passed an inspection with two different brands.

Rebel scum.

---

--------------------------
The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

And if you're on municipal sewage, get your line cleaned once a year...or make sure you really don't care about the room with the lowest drain in the house. That's a mistake you only make once.

---

"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Sewers? Socialist.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Since I moved to Florida I've come across a few new house related chores:
1) Stucco exteriors require inspection at least once a year. If there are cracks of any size they need to be fixed immediately to prevent water intrusion. Fixing can require touch up painting, caulking, or in the case of the house I moved into $8K worth of professional stucco repair.
2) In my previous houses I had to change a single furnace filter every few months. In my Florida house there is a damn filter in every room so I have to replace like 15 filters each time. It gets freaking expensive.
3) The climate in Florida is umm swampy so everything outside gets covered in green or black mildew (and pollen) all the time. This means you have to invest in a power washer or hire someone frequently. We have to power wash just about everything on the outside of the house a few times year to clear all the yuck off. Also our HOA requires us to keep our sidewalk and driveway (and freaking roof) clear of mildew or we face fines. So yeah lots of power washing.
4) More HOA goodies - Gotta keep those palm trees trimmed or you get a fine. Want to skip hiring someone and trim it yourself? No problem, just try not to fall off the 25 ft ladder that is swaying with the palm tree.
5) Gotta keep inspecting the lawn for fire ants. They are everywhere and you don't want to be mowing the lawn or walking the dogs and accidentally find out you have a new colony.
6) We have city water where I live (Tampa) but for some reason it is still mineral rich so it means continual preventative maintenance of the dishwasher, faucets, shower heads, toilets, sprinkler heads etc. I really need to bite the bullet and get a water softener.

Code now requires wired ones. 4 wire 14 gauge is typically used with the non hot wire being used to control the alarms so all alarms sound in the house if one goes off. The wireless ones I purchased effectively do the same thing. Pretty sure this would not pass as code if building a new home or doing a remodel that would cause the install of wired units.

Playing basketball. :)

learned in grad school: must clean lint trap in dryer

---

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Use this properly on a regular basis:



Hint: Ignore whatever Duffy says to do with it.

---

---

"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

Not long after buying our condo in 2006, my husband went into the attic space to “look around”. The dryer vent hose was disconnected and he brought 3 - 13 gallon trash bags of lint down to throw away. It had possibly never been connected to the outside and had been a rental for 10 years before we bought it. If I remember right, we bought a new hose and started with a clean vent hose after that.

---

**********************
Harry: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Loyd: "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man."

That sounds like a great way to get some free blown-in insulation!

---

Long Chile was a silly place.

Maybe if it had been dispersed... it was all clumped up in one spot - around the hose!

---

**********************
Harry: "I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this."
Loyd: "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver's full of shit, man."

Shovel your roof of snow. We got 50 something inches of snow and we have steep roof sides but some ice dams still formed and back ice up back up under our metal roof on a little stick out part. I had to use an axe to break the foot tall ice dam so it could melt. Got one of those 15 ft pole shovels for the rest of the roof. Third year here and never thought we would need it. Lived in snowy places before but this year it was just too much. For a while I thought people were doing it for the weight until last year a friend told me about the ice dams.