Each year, thousands of Arizona residents email or call Rosie Romero’s radio show with questions about everything from preventing fires in their chimneys to getting rid of tree roots invading their sewer systems. His goal is to provide answers that suit the specific lifestyle wherever someone lives in Arizona. Here are questions about home maintenance and improvement from the Southern Arizona area.
Q: For various reasons, I haven’t turned on my air conditioner in three years. Can I simply start it up right now and use it again after all that time? Or do you have to turn it on every year to be sure it’s still OK?
A: Yes, you can turn it on and probably it will run properly. But we advise homeowners that they should have a tuneup done every year on their AC units when they start them up to ensure that they won’t have problems. An air-conditioning technician can check the moving parts and make sure that your refrigerant levels are correct. During the tuneup, a technician may find small problems that can be fixed early before a big breakdown occurs. But even so, in theory your AC should operate just fine.
Q: Do you have to be more careful about checking for termites that might be invading a wood-frame construction home or in a home built from concrete blocks?
A: Obviously, there is a lot more food in a wood-frame house to attract termites. But owners of concrete block homes definitely need to be concerned about termites as well. Even though termites won’t eat the concrete blocks, they still love the soft woods that are used to frame windows and doors in block homes. Wood strips called furring were probably also used on top of the blocks to install your drywall. You can also find termites in the attics of block homes where they eat the wooden trusses. That’s when you’re likely to find them dropping through the ceilings on mud tubes. But you’re not likely to find much in the way of mud tubes built by termites on the foundations of block homes.
Q: I have a house that was built in 1920 and that has a poured concrete slab with concrete block walls. The exterior of these walls is covered with rocks. The structure is still pretty sound. Inside the house, though, they used a quarter-inch of plaster on the walls over the concrete. Now there are many hairline cracks throughout the plaster on these walls as well as some larger cracks. What can I do to repair these walls?
A: You can cover the walls with polyurethane material or put elastomeric caulk into those cracks. Then you should put on a good top coat of drywall mud or veneer plaster. Finally, follow up by putting a coat of primer and two coats of 100 percent acrylic interior on the walls.
Q: I have a Texas olive tree in my yard that is getting too wide. It has lots of low-spreading branches that are very heavy. Can I prune it now in September instead of waiting until winter? Or will that damage the tree?
A: It is important to choose the right time of year to do your pruning. But if the branches are getting too heavy, you can do a little bit of minor pruning without waiting until the end of the growing season. Be conservative and do some minor weight reduction to prevent damage to the tree by wind or rain. It sounds as if you have a very sturdy tree that can handle the pruning without any serious harm.
