Mark’s Blog

DaVinci RoofScapes: Excellent, Green, and Cost Conscious New Products

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:30:27 -0500

If you’ve listened to our show (thank you) and read some of my articles (also thank you) you know my rant about how vastly over-looked the roofs of our homes are as core features of green, fashion, and durability. In this installment I will focus my glare on green—and on a solution that meets and beats all the requirements I have for roof shingles.

OK, step one: roofs are often heat sinks. They absorb heat from the sun (solar gain), making it harder for the home to stay cool. In other words, a hot roof and/or attic space is like having a heater over your house in the middle if summer. Doesn’t make sense, right?

DaVinci’s new EcoBlend tiles can save 7-15% of total cooling costs while still looking great and being among the most durable shingles on the market. How? Color.

EcoBlend tiles in Weathered Gray and Castle Gray—which can be ordered for any DaVinci RoofScapes product—meet the Cool Roof Rating Council’s criteria for a cool roof, one which reflects sunlight away from the home making the actual surface of the roof and the interior space cooler. What’s more, Cool Roof requirements meet or exceed initial ENERGY STAR requirements and qualify for LEED’s Heat Island Effect points.

Bottom line is that the roof is not to be overlooked in any remodel, whether it’s green or otherwise. Not only can the home’s style be extraordinarily enhanced outside with distinctive products like DaVinci’s, life inside can be made more comfortable, and it is yet another way to do our part for the bigger picture of environmental responsibility.

Deck Building and Wood Flooring Trick

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 11:11:21 -0500

Theresa and I used a deck-building trick installing our wide plank pine floor as part of our ongoing kitchen remodel. See, we’re using Eastern White Pine and the beauty of it is its imperfection, part of which is that boards are bowed sometimes.

So to snug up the seems between boards we used the old chisel-as-pry-bar trick. Here’s how it works: Drive your chisel into the joist where the deck board (or floor board) bows the most. Drive the chisel at about a 20 degree angle. Make sure the bevel is facing the deck board. Then push the chisel straight. It takes some umph to be sure (enough that there are tools invented to take some of the strain out of it), but it works.

Let us know if you’ve tried this trick and how it worked for you.

Best Snow Shovel Ever

Sat, 5 Dec 2009 15:19:04 -0500

So we’ve all done it. Forecast calls for big time snow and we race out to grab a “snow shovel.”

Every snow shovel I have ever owned has been terrible at…well…shoveling snow.

Well I’ve found the best snow shovel ever—a “grain scoop”. Several companies make them including Ames True Temper (that’s what mine is) and Vigoro; they’re available in most stores.

You can get an aluminum scoop, though I’ve had excellent luck with the plastic. You can use the tool like a plow and shove snow out of the way. Or you can use it like a dirt shovel to scoop-and-throw the snow, say off stairs or a sidewalk.

I also use the shovel in my home improvement projects, too. It’s ideal for scooping big messes into the trash can. You can see the kinds of messes I use it for in the photo—not exactly dust bunnies!

This snow king doubles as the best dustpan ever. No kidding. This is no snow job.

Take a Whiff!

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:04:58 -0500

So here’s a blog about—that’s right, I said it—smell.

Actually, stuff that smells good. And, believe it or else, delivers a chuckle.

Yup…not that you (or I) need it right now...but there’s a green-label brand that’s surreptitiously winning me over because I like their ads.

If you still buy your coffee small, medium and large, you’re a Mitchum Man.

If you hate when there’s ‘no assembly required’, you’re a Mitchum Man.

Indeed, I believe I can lay claim to having played a small role in the development of the latter.

Anyway, I see them at bus stops, at my gym, and in other locales which I think are cool like bars (when I go to them anymore…thank you parenthood.)

So here’s a FixItUp Contest: You can win something (I’ll think of something) if you come up with the best Mitchum Man slogan presented here. Visit http://www.mitchumman.com/ for inspiration and to sign up for whatever they’ve got cookin’.

Please take a whiff—you may only win the praise of your adoring FixItUp fans—and trust me, they adore you.

Here’s my entry to get it all going: If you like to win, you’re a Mitchum Man.

I like the smell of this.

Water New Seeds

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:35:34 -0400

We’ve had the most drenching rains that I’ve ever seen in my life this summer where I live (Philadelphia). The sheer volume and force of water that has fallen out of the sky—I know this is a problem many areas of the country wish they had the last few summers—has whelmed previously dry places like the skylight flashing in my roof and the yards and basements of houses around me. (Photos taken while returning from a home center errand a few months ago.)

When I re-roof the house I’m adding another layer of flashing to the Velux skylight heads (stay tuned). But it is the yards and basements that have caught my eye lately, notably one house I pass all the time.

Water rushing down the hill its built into—and in the ground water—has found its way into the home so they dug up the entire back yard and installed a French drain. An excavator cut in the trench. The machine also wore a path from the front into the back and all of it needs new topsoil and seeds, which it got.

It looks good, too except—ironically—this many thousands of dollars of work is on the verge of going largely to waste because it is missing one simple thing: water.

There’s nary a sprinkler in sight and—news flash—the grass won’t grow by magic. So, the takeaway: water new grass seeds, even if it’s just patching up bare spots.

I use the Gilmour Turbo Nozzle. It’s a fire-hose nozzle style for the garden hose. Duluth trading Company also sells one. You can get it to spray gently for newly seeded areas (I actually use a different Gilmour nozzle for misting, the Gilmour 327 . Yes…I am a total landscape dweeb) but what I really get a lot of mileage out of is that once things are a little established, I can drop a ton of water quickly with the fire-hose nozzle. It saves loads O’ time. I use it for flowers, trees and grass. For larger areas, I use a spike sprinkler—metal ones usually work best.

Going to all the trouble of raking out the soil and planting the seed is a waste without water.