March 26, 2017 AsktheBuilder Newsletter
It's a gorgeous sunny Sunday morning here in central New Hampshire. It's also very frosty.
I've still got piles of snow around my driveway that are 8 feet tall. The average height down around the parking apron is about 4 feet.
But warmer WX is on the way.
Snow-Be-Gone Contest
I've decided to have another fun contest where you guess when the snow will be gone from my land.
My Davinci Roofscapes synthetic slate roof has a number of positive qualities. One of them is it requires NO roof raking. The snow slides right off.
CLICK HERE to see a video of this amazing roof.
On my side yard lots of it funnels to one spot and a month ago it was 8 feet tall and climbing. Had it snowed a lot during January I know it would have been 13 feet tall.
This side of my house faces north and the pile of snow in the photo you're about to see is always in the shade. Here's a shot from a spy satellite showing you where the pile is. The red arrow is pointing at the exact spot.
See how all the snow from the three roofs is concentrated to this spot?
Your job is to look at the weather almanac and historical data and try to guess when all the snow at that spot will be gone.
I live in Meredith, New Hampshire, if you're going to study the past WX data.
If it all melts and then it snows AGAIN, the date it all melted is what counts. Remember, we can still get snow through April here.
The WINNER of the contest gets a 4.5-pound container of Stain Solver which happens to be ON SALE right now - more on that below.
If more than one person selects the right day, I'll use a random number generator to determine the winner.
CLICK HERE to see a photo of the pile of snow and to GUESS WHEN the snow will be gone. It's just over 5 feet tall at this point.
I'll provide weekly update photos for you.
Good luck and there's a funny TRICK question that's part of the game. You don't have to answer the trick question.
Brad's CLOGGED Kitchen Sink
I just got a text as I was typing all the stuff about the snow contest.
It was from a neighbor named Brad. He was frantic.
He sold his house and tomorrow morning is the house inspection! The issue is his kitchen sink decided yesterday was the day to get clogged. He's been snaking it for hours with no luck.
I've been a master plumber since before I was 30 years old, and knew exactly what was causing the clog:
Grease
Kitchen sink drain lines are notorious for getting slowly choked off with grease.
Have you ever noticed how your kitchen sink starts to drain slower and slower? Sometimes it happens so slow you don't realize it's draining slow.
When drain lines are wide open and you fill your sink to the top with water to TEST IT (hint: you do this once every three months, don't you?????), water leaving a sink usually goes very fast and finishes with a slurp sound.
If you haven't heard the slurp in months, your drain line is coated with grease.
Once clogged, chlorine bleach - or my Stain Solver - will almost always do a fantastic job of breaking open the clog. But it can take hours.
I told Brad to put the trap back on and then pour as much bleach as he could into the sink until the bleach reached the bottom of the sink basket strainer. You don't ever want chlorine bleach to sit on stainless steel. I assumed he had a stainless-steel sink.
This amount of liquid creates a hydrostatic head of bleach in the clogged drain line. The weight of the liquid helps force it down any small passageways in the grease eating it up as it goes.
Brad didn't have any Stain Solver - SHAME ON HIM - and so he had to use chlorine bleach.
If he had Stain Solver, I would have told him to pour a half-cup of the powder down into the drain. Then I would have had him mix up one gallon of BOILING HOT water with a cup of Stain Solver.
You mix the powder with the boiling water to get it to dissolve. Then you carefully pour this into the sink. The hot water helps dissolve the other powder you poured in first and we all know that hot water helps melt grease.
In most cases, the drain will open up in a few hours. It's NOT A GUARANTEE, but this is a cheaper thing to TRY rather than calling in a drain-cleaning plumber at the tune of $200 or more.
Stain Solver Sale UPDATE
I told you on Friday about the Stain Solver Sale.
Are you a new subscriber? Kathy and I started Stain Solver back in 1996.
CLICK HERE to see what Stain Solver will clean.
It's a certified organic Oxygen Bleach. It's NON TOXIC, color and fabric-safe and simply full of goodness.
Remember the LIMITED QUANTITIES of the product I mentioned on Friday?
We've sold so much in the past 48 hours that two sizes are getting DANGEROUSLY LOW.
If you want to get the size you prefer, or a BIGGER SIZE so you won't run out, NOW IS THE TIME TO ORDER.
I mean NOW.
You get a 10% discount and FREE SHIPPING to any place in the lower 48 states.
Use this promo code:
Spring1710
The sale will end in a few days so GO BUY NOW.
You enter the promo code on the LAST SCREEN of the checkout process, so don't freak out if you don't see the box right away.
After ordering the Stain Solver, go back up and play the Snow-Be-Gone Contest.
That's enough for a Sunday morning. If your kitchen drain is SLOW, take action now to keep it open. Pour 5 gallons of boiling water down the drain.
Manana.
Tim Carter
Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com
Do It Right, Not Over!