May 2010

Placer County (Auburn, Colfax, Loomis)Home Repair Help

You may not be aware that there are many programs available for low to moderate income household to move forward with needed home repairs. Each year Placer County (Auburn, Rocklin, Cool, New Castle, Loomis, Colfax) applies for various State and Federal grants from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME), Affordable Housing Trust Fund Program, and other grant programs. Placer County then provides these funds, in the form of low-interest loans.

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Low Flow Toilets, Do they Really Work?

The federal government decided that after 1994 toilets shouldn’t use any more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush. Manufacturers had to comply, but by most accounts their early efforts were a flop.

That was a decade and a half ago. The redesigned low-flow models that followed work as well or better than older models that used as much as 7 gallons of water per flush. There is, in fact, a joint U.S.-Canadian evaluation program called Maximum Performance (or MaP) that uses soybean paste encased in latex to see just how well these low-flow toilets work. And most of them work very well. Test results are easily accessible on the Internet.

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SQUIRRELS IN YOUR AUBURN ATTIC

Question: You probably think I have bats in the belfry, but my real problem is squirrels in the attic. Their scurrying and chattering drive me nutty! I know this isn’t part of your trade, but I suspect that people in any home repair business may have encountered this problem. How do I get rid of the creatures (a humane solution, please)?

Reply: You guessed right. Anyone who has worked in home repairs for a length of time gets it all. We fix our share of doorknobs and table legs and get asked to help with everything from auto repairs to marriage counseling. Plumbers, Electrician, and HVAC technicians have had to deal with pets ranging from hamsters to boa constrictors (not in the same house, you can be sure). Yep, people in the home repair business hear a thing or two about squirrels invading peoples’ living space.

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