How to roll a seamless gutter

At big box retailers, you can buy 10-foot sections of gutter. They are cheap, usually a little scratched up at the big box stores, but they work. The problem with gutter sections like this — in addition to the fact that the big boxes only carry an inventory of about half the accessory parts you need to finish the job — is that the short 10-foot sections require splice seams in the middle of the runs. That is a problem because, over the years, they will leak. It’s also more expensive to install.

An alternative to the big box stores is to use a seamless gutter roller. This machine can make gutters as long as your roll of coil stock!

A unique old light switch

Home history buffs like me should get a kick out of this picture.  I am in about 20+ different houses here in Capitol Hill every week.  So, I see all sorts of unique and historic features. This is the kind of stuff that I think is really cool. This is the least fancy, but coolest from a functional perspective. It is an old rag wire wood handle light switch that just hangs from the asbestos insulated conductor. The switch just hangs there. It is kind of like a keyless fixture with a pull string, but in this case the switch itself is inside of the “string!”

I was like whoa!!…

One day I was just working on a house and, out front, this happened!

I was working on a house a few months ago.  I came outside in the middle of the day and saw a little truck half wrapped around a light pole.  The speed limit on this road is about 25.  It was just the most peaceful and pretty day other than this, and I have no idea what happened, but, today, when I started cleaning off hundreds of old pictures from my camera card, I came to this and still am scratching my head.

A simple lesson for DPW workers on how to paint…

Here in Capitol Hill, we have some of the best DPW workers in all of DC.

But, funny story, I pulled up to a meter just off of Mass Ave, NE the other day.  My eyes drifted toward the pavement as I dug into my pocket for change and I was shocked to see what is here in the photo below.

First, whoever painted this parking meter pole didn’t prep the substrate before they painted.  Second, they got more paint on the brick paving than they did on the pole.  Maybe the city doesn’t get enough tax revenue and maybe they couldn’t afford a tarp, but they could have used an old newspaper for FREE!

So, anyway, I just had to take a picture because of how ridiculous it looks!

100″ Truck Spade

Have you ever wondered if it is possible to transplant a really big tree and how it is done?

Back when Gary worked for Air Force base development he saw it done all the time. But, it is rarely done here on the Hill!

To remove, relocate, and transplant a large tree, we use large truck spades. A 100″ truck spade is a very large one.

Big truck spade

There’s a new music video that doubles as an ad for GLBC!!

https://screen.yahoo.com/weird-al-yankovic-handy-parody-133702425.html