Scary Story Time

It was a dark and stormy night when my phone rang. My friend was scared AND was home alone......... water was pouring into the home office that contains a lot of filming and electronic equipment. Ok,  not the horror flick plot you may have envisioned at first, but this is very scary for a home owner! Not only can water ruin the stuff inside our homes, but it can cause damage and mildew and mold (oh my).

First things first, the water needed to be diverted until the rain stopped. Based on her description of where the water was leaking I suspected the exterior sill was the problem and advised her to dry any pooling water on the sill as best as possible and to put a waterproof, malleable plastic something or other in the window draping over the side of the house. She suggested trash bags, which was a perfect solution! Add a little duct tape and no water was going to touch that sill. It worked for the next couple of days of storms. She sopped up as much water from the carpet as she could with towels and kept fans oscillating on that area for days too.

The day after the phone call I was able to bring another fan for carpet drying and assess the window situation. A crack between the bricks and the mortar seemed to be the issue. It would also explain why there had to be downpours and pooling water on the sill for it to come inside the house, since the leaks didn't happen every time it rained. Luckily they have plaster walls which are mold resistant, so that's one less thing to worry about, and overall the damage wasn't bad. It still needed to be fixed because a trash bag barrier isn't the classiest.

I happened to be at a Lowes two days later so I picked up some Quikrete Mortar Repair. I already had a trowel from my deck building project and a caulk gun. The weather seemed to be cooperative the next two days with no predicted rain, so the next morning I set to repairing that crack. First I needed to clean it and make sure it was dry. My fan set-up may have been overkill, but I wanted to be sure it was dry after all of the rain we had!

Next up, applying the mortar and smoothing it out. The mortar repair canister actually has a little lip on the end to help get the new mortar into the crack and smooth, but I was glad I had the trowel too. It really helped to make it more even. I probably spent twice as long as I needed to on it, but I feel good about the results. So far there haven't been any more downpours to test it (which means it should be good and "cured" at this point), but crossing fingers that it solves the problem! The before-and-after picture below makes me hopeful that it will!

Expanded compost bin!

I finished moving my compost into the new bin and even had a whole wheelbarrow load to add to front yard where I planted more tomato and pepper plants! Because I still had wood supports, mesh, and a large pallet, I added a second section to my compost bin. I figured I should share pictures.











I found some old plastic plant pots that fit in the tops of the pallets (see empty ones in picture to right), so I added compost and some small flower seeds to them. If they bloom in the shady section of my yard I'll post pictures of those. It could be a nice addition to this practical/functional part of my yard.

Pallet compost bin

My brother and I had put together an amazing compost bin in 2010 from salvaged trash in the industrial park near my house. Three and a half years of storing decomposing matter later, it was SPENT! Last year I flipped it over and used the top as the new bottom by attaching a new piece of plywood, but it was in very sad shape this year. This picture is after I pulled off one side of it in order to more easily move the compost. The decayed sides you can see used to be part of the bottom. I can't complain because its contents filled my gardens, which provided me with lots of food. But it was time to upgrade the bin.

Conveniently just in time, a neighbor had some leftover pallets from a materials delivery for a project he was doing. I used them and some mesh that another neighbor had put out for trash to make a new compost bin. The pallets had the wood supports (front and back of bin in the picture below on the right), so instead of removing them, I just left them to be part of the bin. The mesh keeps the compost inside the bin at the back. The best part is that I also have another discarded pallet and extra wood supports so eventually it will become a double-bin, which will make flipping the compost much easier. I may even extend it to a triple-bin with another two pallets, because that will be extremely helpful in the fall when there are a ton of leaves to compost.

I moved a lot of the compost into the new bin, but that stuff is heavy and I had enough of a workout putting everything together. I'll move the rest later and it will be ready for my garden next year!

Here's a descriptive source with more information to make your own.