Rice, potatoes, noodles, and breads that are poured down a garbage disposal can clog a drain. After being mashed up by the disposal, water is added as it is rinsed down the drain and travels down the pipe, then these starchy foods can turn into a paste and expand to clog and block any water from flowing past.
If you’re peeling more than one or two potatoes, don’t grind all of the peelings in the disposal. Instead, throw the peelings in the garbage can or in a backyard compost heap. If you find that your drain is getting slow or clogged because of an excess amount of starchy foods, use an enzyme cleaner such as Bio-Clean to break down the food particles. Enzyme cleaners are especially important to homes with septic tanks too, so incorporate regular enzyme products into your tank’s maintenance.
To encourage homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which came out in February of this year, has a provision that offers tax credits for energy efficient upgrades to homes. Most projects can claim credits for 30% of the materials cost up to $1,500, and include things like new windows, doors, roofs, insulation, water heaters, heating and cooling systems, and biomass stoves.
Through the years 2009 and 2010, homeowners can claim their tax credit for qualifying upgrades, which is different from a tax deduction. A tax credit lowers the bill by the full amount, while a tax deduction depends on your individual tax bracket. For instance, a $1,000 tax credit will get you $1,000 back; while a $1,000 tax deduction will get you $250 back if your tax bracket is 25%.
Check this Energy Star page for a chart on the requirements of the upgrades. If your project meets the qualifications, you can fill out the forms on that page with the IRS and claim your tax credit. 2009 and 2010 are good years to make upgrades you’ve been meaning to make- they’re a little cheaper this year!
Also, some projects that are much larger can qualify for an uncapped tax credit to eliminate your year’s tax burden altogether- and through the year 2016. These projects include geothermal heat pumps, solar water heaters, solar panels, and small wind-energy systems.
Bookmark this website, which is a large database by state of all kinds of incentives for renewable efficiency and energy efficiency: www.dsireusa.org and check it for financial incentives whenever you’re planning a new home project.
This month’s scone is a tasty breakfast scone that is great warm with butter or margarine. We had fun making this one because it was so simple and easy- it only took us about 20 minutes from measuring the ingredients until it was in the oven, so it’s great for making in the morning for Sunday brunch!
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour ½ cup oatmeal 6 tablespoons granulated sugar ¾ teaspoon baking powder ¾ teaspoon baking soda ¼ teaspoon salt 10 tablespoons cold butter (unsalted) ½ cup dried cranberries ¾ cup buttermilk Optional: raw sugar/coarse sugar to sprinkle on top
Directions: Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients: the flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Using a pastry blender/dough blender, cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients until the dough is crumbly. The butter should combine with the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Fold in the cranberries. Then add the buttermilk and stir it lightly with a wooden spoon until the dough comes together to form a ball. The dough will be sticky, but resist the temptation to overwork it.
Drop the ball of dough on a lightly floured surface, and then pat it into a large circle about 1.5 or 2 inches thick. Cut the dough into 6 wedges, like a pizza pie. Transfer the wedges to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (so it doesn’t stick), then sprinkle some coarse or raw sugar on top of them (optional). Bake for about 22 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned- they will increase slightly in size. Cool on a wire rack.
Sometimes a completely clogged bathtub drain can be plunged free- using a toilet plunger. Plunging a bathtub drain works by forcing a pocket of water or air through the pipe to break up or loosen the clog- which is most often made up of hair and collections of soap in a bathtub.
To plunge the drain well, place the plunger over the top of the drain so that it covers it completely and forms a tight seal against the tub.
Plunge the drain with quick thrusts, about 10 times. You can also start by filling the tub with a half inch or inch deep layer of hot water, to help tighten the seal around the drain and force the air or water pocket to move the clog.
What can also help get a tight seal is to cover the overflow drain below the faucet. Cover it with a wet cloth, or remove the face plate to stuff a wet cloth just in the opening. This can help create an even tighter seal to make the plunging more effective.
These scones make a good after-breakfast snack; with a hint of cinnamon and a mildly sweet flavor from the molasses- which is called treacle in Scotland.
Ingredients: 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder ¼ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon ground/powdered ginger ½ teaspoon cinnamon 1/3 cup butter (5 and 1/3 tablespoons) 3 tablespoons molasses 2/3 cup buttermilk
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix the sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger in a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender or rub in with your finger tips until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
Stir in the molasses and buttermilk until the mixture forms a stiff dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and pat it into a circle about ½ inch thick. Cut the circle into wedges. Sprinkle tops with cinnamon-sugar, if desired.
Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.
Kitchen sinks get a lot of food particles and other debris washed down the drain, especially if you have a garbage disposal. There are a number of “home remedies” people prescribe for their stinky drains, and sometimes they can successfully tame a mild odor.
Baking soda eliminates various odors around a home: for your kitchen sink, pour about a cup of baking soda down the drain and let it sit for about 20 minutes. Then run extremely hot water down the drain. Or, boil a large pot of water and carefully pour it down the drain (alone, or after the baking soda treatment). Instead of baking soda, some people suggest using salt, or chopping orange or lemon peels in the disposal and rinsing them down the drain.
Especially in the case of the boiling water remedy, what you are trying to do is cut through some of the grease that’s trapped in the pipe. Of all the drains in a home, kitchen sinks are the most likely to have layers of grease and oils built up inside them, and the odor you smell is from the decaying grease or food that has been stuck in the layers of grease and is rotting away.
We’ve found that the best remedy for a smelly kitchen sink is to remove the grease. This can be done with a thorough drain cleaning or hydro-jetting, or a regular dose of Bio-Clean. Bio-Clean is an environmentally friendly drain cleaner that uses safe micro bacteria to eat away at grease. Using this regularly keeps grease from building up and odors from forming.
A few stray coffee grounds here and there down the drain won’t cause much of a hassle, but a large amount of coffee grounds dumped down a drain at once can cause a clog. Coffee grounds tend to attract grease, allowing small amounts of oils and grease to build up much more easily.
Instead of pouring coffee grounds down the drain, there are a number of other uses for this daily “garbage.” If you have a compost pile, mix used coffee grounds in with the compost to release nutrients into the soil and make the soil more acidic- which helps plants get nutrients from the soil easier. You can also spread coffee grounds mixed with orange peels around gardens to repel cats or other pets that use your garden as a litterbox: the exotic scent discourages them from hanging around the area.
Some say that ants are also repelled by the smell of coffee grounds, so using these as an ant repellent might prove to be an effective alternative to poison traps and sprays. A small bowl of coffee grounds in a refrigerator can also act as a deodorizer for the fridge.
The water in your home contains naturally occurring small amounts of sediment and minerals, which can lead to limescale or other stains in your bathtub, sink or on chrome fixtures- which you may have noticed and had to clean before. But these same minerals can build up in pipes and in the places you can’t see.
Your water heater is no exception. With so much water being pushed through the tank, heated, and delivered to the faucets in your home, your water heater will soon develop sediment and mineral deposits in the tank. The heating elements in the tank now have to work harder to heat the water and keep it hot- which uses more energy and costs you more money. Some estimate that mineral deposits in a water heater can tack on even hundreds of dollars a year in energy costs.
There’s a simple solution that you can do yourself: you can clean out the deposits without having to call a plumber. Every water heater is different- check the manual for your particular water heater and look up the instructions on how to flush the tank or clean it out. Most instructions involve turning off the unit, ten attaching a garden hose to part of the tank to flush it out, and another hose to drain the tank into a sink or drain.
Everyone has met a toilet like this before… you flush, and the water seems to just slowly swirl around for a while, and you wait and wait anxiously for what seems like days (though it’s only a few seconds) to see if it will actually flush or (oh no!) overflow. The best way to describe this toilet is “lazy,” because it seems lethargic and slow in its flushing and like something isn’t quite right in the flushing process. It might even take a few flushes to get whatever’s in the bowl to leave the toilet.
The first thing to determine is if there is a clog in the toilet or if it’s a mechanical issue in the tank. To rule out a clog in the line, take a full bucket of water and pour it into the toilet rapidly. If there is no clog in the line, the sudden addition of excess water should drain quickly and keep the water level in the bowl consistent. If this causes the toilet to overflow, your line may be clogged. Plunge the toilet or call The Scottish Plumber to clear the drain.
If you poured a bucket of water down the toilet and it drained quickly, then there is probably not a clog in the pipe. Sometimes water can slowly swirl around the bowl if some of the ports are clogged. The ports are the small holes around the inside of the toilet bowl that feed the water from the tank into the bowl. Over time, lime, calcium, and other mineral deposits may build up and clog the holes. Try poking through them with a small screwdriver to clean them out and see if this helps.
Sometimes a toilet cleaning tab you place in the tank can shrink down and get stuck in a port. If you have placed one of these in your tank recently, check to see if a small piece of it got suck in a port.
These scones are a bite-sized lemon flavor scone: biscuity and not too sweet.
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons baking powder ¼ cup granulated sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons grated lemon peel ½ cup butter (1 stick) 2 eggs, beaten 2/3 cup milk or buttermilk
Directions: Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour a baking sheet. Sift flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender/dough blender, until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Blend in the beaten eggs, lemon, and the milk or buttermilk to form a soft but not sticky dough. It might be easier if you use your hands instead of a spoon.
If the dough does not come together enough, add more milk/buttermilk until it does. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gently roll or pat the dough into about ½ inch thickness, lightly flouring to keep from sticking. Cut out rounds using a 2-inch floured biscuit cutter. If you don’t have a biscuit cutter, use any kitchen utensil (such as a small cup or glass) that measures 2 inches across. Set the rounds ½ inch apart on the baking sheets.
You can brush them with milk or buttermilk and sprinkle with raw sugar if you’d like. Bake until the scones are golden brown: 12 to 15 minutes.
