Home Improvement

NorthernDaddy spends a lot of his free time reading home improvement magazines. Mostly, it's to find design ideas for the two major projects we're planning (bathroom remodel and connecting the house and garage with a sunroom), but sometimes a new product review will jump out and scream, "BUY ME!!!"

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The most recent product to catch our attention was the HydroRight dual-flush converter from a company called MJSI. The idea: change your normal dump-a-million-gallons-per-flush toilet to a water-sipping eco-toilet with a simple valve kit. NorthernMommy thought it was a good idea because it saves water (EPA estimates state that toilets comprise up to 27% of a home's indoor water use). NorthernDaddy thought that it was a good idea because NorthernMommy wants to save water and a brand-new dual-flush toilet costs significantly more than the eighteen dollars that your home improvement store wants for the HydroRight.So simple that a two-year-old could install it! Well, almost - NorthernToddler might have been able to install it, if he hadn't looked at the icky sediment in our toilet tank and run off screaming. (He eventually came back and assumed his normal role of Chief Flashlight Holder.)So, does this contraption work? In a single word: yes. Installation was stupid simple. Tuning the unit involves changing flush settings until the toilet uses the least possible amount of water to clear the bowl - a process that was time and water consuming. Once set up, there are two flush 'settings': the upper button flushes for liquids, and the lower button flushes at full volume (volume of water, not sound!). In daily use, we have found that the "little" flush handles most needs well. Water savings have been considerable - although without a water bill or measuring device, we can't prove it - we can verify that the toilet uses less than half the tank of water for "little" flushes. That would be a 50 - 60% drop in the amount of water used by the toilet for most of our flushes. Not bad for a sub-$20 item that an untrained monkey could install!

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Another recent project was to insulate the hot water supply pipes in the house. The pipes run exposed through the basement and cool themselves quite rapidly. It takes forty-five to sixty seconds for the water to run warm at the kitchen tap. That's a long time - and a lot of water. The cheap and quick method for fixing that is to use foam pipe insulation to wrap the pipes.

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Secondary use for foam pipe insulation: sword fights! (Please excuse the not-so-clean kitchen in this photo - NorthernDaddy was sword-fighting, not prepping for the photo shoot.)

Down in the basement, wrapping the pipes. The previous owner (or his contractor) insulated the cold water supply lines that feed into the house, but not the hot water pipes.... Pipes are insulated now - so far, it seems that it works okay: it now takes 20 seconds to for the faucet to run hot instead of 45 -60.

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Cool/Freaky new development: As we're finishing this blog post, we are experiencing thunder snow. Really weird to see snow coming down at about two inches per hour and then see the flash of lightning and boom of thunder!