We've been trying to put in some sweet upgrades into our little abode. You know, things like ceiling fans and a quazi "sprinkler system." The first fan we put in went wonderfully smoothly. It was of the smaller type since it was in a smaller room, so there weren't TONS of doodads and doohickies. Plus we read the instructions.The second fan didn't go quite so smoothly, and I'll tell you why.
Problem #1: We started too late in the afternoon so we ran out of natural light. Since we were improving our unnatural lighting, we didn't have anything to help us out really.
Problem #2: Because the corner of our ceiling slopes, we needed an extension down rod.
Problem #3: We bought the fan at Lowe's and the down rod at Home Depot. big mistake. "Standard" my foot. It's like saying "One size fits all." It's just not true.
Problem #4: Because we were totally experienced in fan putting together since we'd done it once before, we opted out of reading the directions carefully. Never a good idea.
Problem #5: Because we had a rod that wasn't the greatest fit nor did we employ the smartest route of installation, we accidentally stripped and broke a necessary screw piece. Oops.
Luckily the piece was available at Lowes so Matt bought that and a new down rod after work on day 2 of our installation attempt. However, we continued to have a few more issues.
Problem #6: The fan had a remote control option we tried first. Though we could use the control we discovered that it rendered two of our wall switches useless. Gah.
Problem #7: Had we actually read the installation manual we probably would have understood the afore mentioned problem #6. But we didn't. So we spent another good 45 min. to an hour trying to discover where we'd gone wrong and why the wall switches didn't work.
In the end we resolved it by taking out the remote control thing and reading some troubleshooting things in the internet about the wiring. All in all it just took us about 5-6 hours longer than it should have.
As for the sprinkler situation, if we had some sweet mula we'd be able to put in a real sprinkler system instead of our low-tech 20 hose system we worked out today.
Starting June 1st McKinney put us on a tier 3 water restriction. That means we're only allowed to water our lawn once a week. During the summer, we're not allowed to wash our car at home or run through the sprinklers. There goes my summer fun.
Anyway, we were trying to figure out the range of the sprinklers we bought today. We weren't actually watering watering our lawn. We were just trying to set up the system so it would be most effective the one day we can water. We were close to finishing figuring out the front yard positioning when one of our neighbors drove up his drive way. We hear him saying to someone in his house, "They're watering on a non-water day." Hijole. We got a little spooked that he was going to turn us in or something so we stopped our positioning project. If we were found guilty of watering on a non-watering day it could be up to a $2000 fine. Yikes.
2 comments:
Nice picture!! Where ever did you find it? Hope your neighbors don't turn you in to the water cops. So much for Southern neighborliness!
I just googled his name and selected "images" and found it like that.
Yeah, we just found out at church that there's apparently a hotline people can call in to report their neighbors. Hopefully that's not what he was doing! (Matt's next to positive that's what he did.) I guess we'll see if we get a bill or a warning. He's got me all paranoid now.
I guess Frisco, the next town over, has actually hired full time people to drive around and look for violators. Hu. Whatever.
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