Basic History Of Air Conditioning/ Auburn, Ca.

And while we may take air conditioning for granted, it wasn’t that long ago — 1881, to be precise — when a team of naval engineers built a cooling contraption to comfort a dying President James Garfield. While the device — which blew hot air upwards and employed rags soaked in freezing water — could lower room temperatures by 20 degrees, it also ate up a quarter-million pounds of ice a month. (Think of all the Pina Coladas they could’ve made instead.)

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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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Top 5 things any property owner, leasee, or responsible property manager can focus on in keeping their plumbing running and saving money:

Top 5 things any property owner, leasee, or responsible property manager can focus on in keeping their plumbing running and saving money:
Clearing all debris around an area or roof drain and flushing the line to push any other debris through and to test the line. This should be done 1-3 times a year depending on what sort of debris collects in a given area.
Water consumption assessment. Install a dual flush toilet or an “Ultra Low Fush” 1.2 gpf toilet in your Auburn, Ca home. Over time (in some cases two years), the toilet buys itself. Another great water saver is a quality 2.5 gallon per minuter shower head. With just these easy stepes can save 1000’s of gallons of water a year, and if you install quality components you won’t notice any difference in performance. Do not carelessly leave the water running as a habit.

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