How can I prevent monsoon storms from damaging my flat roof and causing my ceiling to leak?

Monsoon Tips from Lyon's Roofing

The best way to prevent a leak is to know if your roof has a problem before the wind and rain begin. Don’t wait for water marks to appear on your ceiling before inspecting your roof to see if it can hold up during a storm.

Climb up onto your roof (or ask a roofer to do it) and do a visual inspection of your roof a couple of times each year and after every big storm. If you don’t feel safe on the roof, there’s no shame in hiring a professional, who will know how to navigate the dew and frost that can collect up there on cold Arizona mornings and any moisture that can make a roof slippery.

Here is what to look for during an inspection of a foam roof or a built-up/asphalt roof, which are the two most common types of flat roofs in Arizona.
1.Locate every roof penetration. Look around the chimney, vents, skylights, walls, flashing, air conditioning elbows and stands, antennas and support wires, and satellite dishes.

2.Remove any build-up of dirt, leaves or pine needles around drains, scuppers or crickets that would cause pooling and keep water from draining off the roof.

3.Trim tree branches away from your roof.

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What kind of maintenance should I do on my plumbing?

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 buildup 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.

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

What’s the benefit of working with a landscape designer vs. designing my yard myself?

The smartest investment you can make in your backyard might be to hire a designer.

Sound expensive? Consider what a landscape designer or contractor can do for you:

Save you money.  A pro will steer you clear of fads and safety hazards that a homeowner might regret paying for, and point you toward money-saving trends that might help them get a high-end look for a little less cash. An example: When a homeowner requests flagstone for the patio floor, a landscape pro might show you a sample of travertine, a natural stone in the limestone family, whose price has dropped so much recently that it has become affordable for many who once considered it out of reach.

Help coordinate all of the pieces of your landscape and patio design so the outdoor lights don’t shine in your eyes, the sprinklers don’t “water” the patio floor, the trees don’t cast all-day shade over a grassy patch that needs sun and the fireplace chimney complies with the city’s height restrictions.

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

20 ways to trim your energy bills!

You can turn your home into a more comfortable place to live—and turn your energy bills more manageable—by doing the simplest maintenance on your appliances, air conditioning system and even your faucets and windows.

     Here are 20 routine chores that can make a big difference. For some, you’ll need professional help. But you can do others yourself in a matter of minutes.

1. Turn twice-a-year maintenance on your air conditioning and heating system into a habit. A qualified air conditioner technician (or a plumber, if the furnace is gas-powered) will inspect cabinets, motors, fan blades, the control box, wiring, the blower assembly and other parts as needed, and alert you to any problems-in-the-making that you can take care of before they become disasters.
   
2. Turn off your air conditioner when you run your evaporative cooler—and vice versa. When you run them at the same time, you’ll actually waste energy because the two systems will compete with each other. The evap cooler works by adding moisture to the air, and the a/c works by removing it.
   
3. Turn the evap cooler off altogether when it’s wet outside. Once the dew point reaches 50 degrees or more, an evaporative cooler is not very effective. Tip: Remember the Rule of 140. If the temperature plus the dew point equals 140 or more, then don’t expect much out of your evap. If you have an a/c with a SEER rating of 12 or higher, then go ahead and turn it on.
   
4. Turn on your ceiling fans. Ceiling fans don’t cool the air; they move it around so the air in that room feels cooler. That means you can inch the thermostat up by three to four degrees without noticing a difference in your comfort.
   
5. Turn off your standard light bulbs. As they burn out, replace those energy-inefficient incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. They use 75 percent less energy, so you can save $30 by replacing just one incandescent with a CFL.

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

What are the most common recommendations for energy efficiency by home performance specialists??

If you invite a home-performance specialist to your home to detect where it uses energy inefficiently, you’ll get some recommendations for repairs, upgrades and changes that will increase your home’s comfort and lower your gas and electric bills.   Here are four of the most common recommendations:

1. Seal the ducts. The ductwork in your attic has joints that can leak over time. In fact, SRP estimates that the typical Phoenix home loses 20 percent of its air-conditioned air through faulty ducts.   In some cases, installers use duct tape to prevent those leaks, but energy specialists say that’s not the most-effective solution. Instead, installers are double-sealing the joints, first with a super-sticky adhesive called Mastic, and then with a wrap of foil tape.

You can learn if your ducts need sealing by asking your air conditioning technician to inspect your ducts, or by having a home-performance audit that will reveal your home’s energy inefficiencies and recommend solutions.

2. Air-seal the house. When your house was built, the builder ran wires and plumbing plates through holes in the wall that are much bigger than the wires themselves. That extra space around the wires can let your expensive, air-conditioned indoor air leak outside—and invite hot, summer air inside.

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