- Toilets - up to 3 and they pay part of the installation charge if you hire a plumber.
- Programmable thermostats (but they have a mind of their own)
- Insulation, weather stripping and solar screens
- Sprinkler system rain cutoff devices.
- Rain barrels
- Shower heads
- Trees. But they cut down one of yours first. The ones under the power lines.
Who could resist free toilets? I mean, if nothing else you could use them for planters! Well, maybe the neighborhood is not to that point yet, but I'm just saying. And I'm seriously looking into this. The toilets are, of course, the very low water usage type - 1.28 gallons per flush. But that's the attraction. We pay more for water than we do for electricity. And when Mom and I are home all day... Well, let's just say that "two kidneys and no bladder" is an apt family description.
The problem is I talked to a plumber and he says he charges the same to put in a - pardon the French - crappy toilet as he does a good toilet and as far as toilets go, you get what you pay for. But all is not lost. The City will rebate $200 each on the toilet of your choice from an approved list. But nothing on the list comes close to $200. And then there's the plumber, who may be happier but charges the same. Hmm. More on this later.
Free trees? I've talked about what a jungle it is in our back yard. The City agrees and a little man came around and looked things over and asked for our permission to trim some back there. Now this is tree-hugging Austin we are talking about here. Every tree over 9" in diameter in Austin has a little ID tag with a number. Our pecan out front is #63409. I kid you not. There are some big old trees near Barton Springs that are falling-down dangerous and the City wants to take them out and replace them with some newer models and we've got candle-light vigils and folks chaining themselves to the trees! Not in my backyard!
Me? I'm happy that they want to clear some of that jungle out. Better them than me. So Mom said of course you can and then they sent a Forest Ranger - maybe that was just a Forester - out and he made up a plan and put it in the computer and now we have a print out of the 5 trees they are going to prune and the 5 trees they are going to remove (smallish Hackberrys started from bird droppings under the lines; they should have checked out item #1 above). But we will get 3 free trees from a list of 18 different varieties well-suited for our area. Unfortunately they are 5 gallon trees, and we have to plant them ourselves and while we are eligible for 5 trees the Forester said we didn't have that much room for trees unless we put them under the power lines and you know where that's going.
I love the City of Austin. Free blog material.
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2 comments:
I am impressed, a plan for tree removal. Here the electric company sends out the trimmers who don't ask, they just go down the line and cut the middle out of the trees, to heck with what it looks like.
As for #1, with us gathering at PK for the weekend we need some more of those, do they deliver?
What about a rain barrel? I would love a free rain barrel to use to water my flowers out here. Except for that unfortunate fact that it doesn't really rain here from April to October, so it would be empty most of the year...
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