How to use less electricity this summer

Summer is almost here, and you’re probably already dreading your hot-weather electric bills. So you have resolved to live at 80 degrees 24 hours a day to keep AC use down. You’re planning to grill dinner outside every night so the range doesn’t heat up the house. And you’re switching as many light bulbs as you can to energy-saving CFLs and LEDs.

But one more important change can take some pain out of your utility prices, an alternative that people often do not consider when they move to Arizona and sign up for electric service. What’s the secret? Choose what is called a “usage” or “time-of-day” or “time-of-use” pricing plan.

How many homes have these plans? According to SRP (Salt River Project), which has about 882,000 residential electric customers, of which almost 242,000, or about 27 percent of households, have enrolled in these plans. APS (Arizona Public Service), on the other hand, has about 1.02 million residential customers, of which about 528,000, or more than 51 percent, are in these plans. So plenty of residents out there could make the change and probably save money.

Why doesn’t everyone enroll? We don’t want to speculate too much, but many may be unaware of the plans or confused about them even though utilities try to educate customers about their options. Some may be just too busy to think about doing the research.
 
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For answers to all of YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement questions, visit our website, Rosieonthehouse.com

Gophers: How to get rid of them!

How do we get rid of Gophers?

We have many recommendations, including some very interesting suggestions from listeners.

We recommend:

• Gopher Traps

• Gas Cartridges

• Gopher Poisoned Pellets

• Ultra Sonic Vibrating Stakes

• No Gopher.com (Gopher Gitters)

• Gopher Purge: Euphorbia Lathyris

• Rodenator

• The Pickle Jar Solution: Fill up a one gallon Pickle Jar with water (click here to purchase Gallon Pickle Jars), then put a filled Pickle Jar in the middle of the garden.  Then place filled Pickle Jars in your garden, about every 12 feet. When gophers burrow, the jars vibrate and make the gophers think they are coming to a river bed and they will go somewhere else! 

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What can I do to help my air conditioner work more efficiently?

1. Maintain it. Have an air conditioning technician come to your home every spring before it gets too hot and check your system out. The earlier you catch a problem and repair it, the smaller than problem will remain.
   
2. Add insulation to your attic or crawlspace so hot air doesn’t get in the house. The warmer the home’s air, the harder the air conditioner has to work. The harder it works, the quicker it will wear out.
   
3. Make sure your unit is the right size. Bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to a/c. A room air conditioner that’s too big for the room it’s supposed to cool won’t operate as efficiently as a smaller one that’s the right size.
   
4. Install a whole-house fan. It will keep your home cool without using the air conditioner on days when the sun’s not too hot or overnight when the outside air is cooler than the inside air.
   
5. Install ceiling fans, or if you have them already, turn them on. Ceiling fans move the air so you’ll feel cooler, which will let you raise your thermostat a few degrees without noticing any difference in your comfort.

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For more information and for answers to all YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement questions, visit our website, Rosieonthehouse.com

Can I install concrete pavers myself?

Pavers may be the easiest patio surface to install yourself.

Pavers are set on sand or crushed concrete rather than bound with mortar. You can even lay pavers on top of your existing patio if it’s level and in good condition, so there’s no need to break up the old patio or excavate the ground.

Here’s an overview of the job:

• Settle on a style. Pavers come in dozens of shapes, sizes, colors and textures. Concrete is the most popular kind of paver, but they also come in marble, clay and travertine. Decide if you want a natural stone patio, a faux-stone look, an old-style cobblestone floor or a classic brick appearance. The most versatile size is 4-by-8-inches because they’re easiest for forming a variety of patterns.
  
• Get the proper permits, if required, from your city before starting the work.
  
• Design your patio. Decide where you will place the pavers, the size of the floor and how many pavers you’ll need.
  
• Unless you’re laying pavers over an existing patio, you’ll probably have to excavate the area. 

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For answers to all YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement questions, visit our website Rosieonthehouse.com

Protect Your Plumbing in Five Easy Steps

Like many problems in life, plumbing disasters usually happen because of neglect.

Most homeowners don’t think about their pipes until they’ve got a clogged drain or a chronic leak. Here are five easy, inexpensive ways to prevent your home’s plumbing from causing a predicament.

1.  Treat your drains once a month to prevent clogs, whether they seem to need it or not. But stay away from harsh, chemical drain cleaners. I like a natural, non-poisonous product called Bio-Clean, which uses a blend of bacteria and enzymes to attack organic wastes like grease, hair, food particles and sewage. You can use it on drains, grease traps, sump pumps and garbage disposals. Regular use will prevent clogging throughout your plumbing and septic system. Dilute the product with warm water according to package directions.
2. Be kind to your kitchen sink. Its drain is the busiest one in the house, so it can cause the most problems. If you don’t have a garbage disposal, be fastidious about keeping out food scraps and grease, which can emulsify once you turn on the cold water, and build up in layers in your pipes until they’re blocked. If you have a garbage disposal, run plenty of cold water every time you turn it on. If it chops up waste without water, particles will not flush through and you can wind up with a clogged drain.
3. Don’t flush anything down the toilet except for toilet paper. That includes facial tissue, Q-tips and even products labeled “flushable.” A tip: Switch from two-ply to single-ply toilet paper. The less you flush, the fewer visits you’ll need from the plumber. Your old toilet, which flushed five to seven gallons of water every time you used it, could handle more debris. Newer, low-flush models use only 1.6 gallons per flush, and are more easily clogged with paper and “flushable” cleaning products. 

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For answers to all YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement questions, visit our website, Rosieonthehouse.com

How do I repair blisters in drywall due to water damage?

If water is getting into your wall from rain, a sprinkler that’s too close to your house, or even from a plumbing leak you’re likely to see patches of damage on your walls near the spot of the intrusion. That’s because drywall has a paper backing, so when it gets wet, it can bubble and wrinkle, sort of like a sheet of paper does.

To diagnose the problem, place a four-foot level across the damaged area and learn how much the sheetrock has sagged. If it’s more than about 3/8 of an inch, the structural integrity of the drywall is probably ruined and the section should be replaced.

If no sagging has occurred, use an awl to randomly push into the sheetrock. You should feel substantial resistance, and the awl shouldn’t be able to penetrate the sheetrock any more than 1/8 of an inch without excessive force. However, if the awl goes through the sheet rock much deeper than 3/16 of an inch, consider replacing the section.

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For answers to all YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement questions, visit our website, Rosieonthehouse.com

CFL's: Rosie's Pros and Cons

What are the pros and cons of compact fluorescent light bulbs?

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) are poised to replace those familiar incandescent bulbs we’ve been using since electricity became a household necessity.

Among their benefits:

• CFLs use 90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs.
• They emit very little heat. Unlike CFLs, incandescents waste energy because they spend 90 percent of their energy on heat and only 10 percent on light. That also adds heat to your home’s air and makes your air conditioner work harder.
• CFLs last about 10 times longer than incandescents, so you don’t have to change your light bulbs nearly as often.

The quality of CFLs continues to improve. Early versions of fluorescent light bulbs were an odd white color, took a long time to light up when you flicked the light switch and gave off a buzzing sound. Today’s CFLs are smaller, come on almost instantly, appear close in color to the traditional incandescent bulb and are silent.  

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For more information and for answers to all YOUR Landscape, Garden and Home Improvement questions, visit our website, Rosieonthehouse.com