Notes on the townhouse at 208 Litchi Grove Court Taken by Bryan Henderson, bryanh@giraffe-data.com, who lived there from September 2009 until October 16, 2022. Mailing address: 208 Litch Grove Ct San Jose CA 91523-1751 Lot 108, Tract 4934 Assessor's Parcel Number (APN) 690-15-033 (Book 690, Page 15, Lot 33) Latitude 37.26 degrees N, Longitude 121.82 degrees E (37.26, -121.82) Zoning R-1-8(PD) San Jose City Council district 2 ocs1999 purchased 09.08.28 for $245,000. Previous owner paid $364,000 in May 2004 and defaulted on mortgage. Before that, it sold for $245,000 in December 1999. We did $30K of renovations immediately (kitchen, downstairs floor, windows). Closed sale to new owner on 22.12.15 for $770K after $22K of renovations - upstairs carpet, ceiling texturing, paint, closet doors, security door, fence. We moved in in the first week of September 2009 and out on 22.10.16. Neighbor in 210: Rick Brune, Pam, Savannah, Richard (born June 2004) See 'contact' file. Neighbor on Sigrid: Andre C. Morrow and Momi Neighbor in 212: Denes Czanka Neighbor in 206: Ludy Pineda, Axel Pineda As of 2026.05, Google Streetview still has imagery from 2018, which shows Bryan's covered truck parked behind the townhouse. DISTANCE -------- Walk to 27 bus stop: 10 minutes. 27 goes down Blossom Hill Road. Stops are at Eagles and at Judith. The Eagles eastbound stop does not have a bench. The Eagles westbound stop is about 100 ft from the corner, in front of the high school. The 27 goes from Kaiser hospital to Los Gatos, with a detour north to Good Samaritan Hospital. The ride to Kaiser hospital is 11 minutes. It runs every 30 minutes 06:25-20:45. Bike to safeway: 1.2 mi 7 min bike 26 min walk. Walk from 208 Litchi Grove Ct to Snell light rail: 1.1 mi 25 min conservatively. Walking quickly, I did it in 18 minutes once. With the rollerbag, I add 5 minutes. Bike from Lean & Santa Teresa to ST light rail station was 9 minutes one day. Bike from dentist to Lean & Santa Teresa was 12 minutes one day. Bike from home to ST light rail station is 3.5 miles, 23 minutes. Via Santa Teresa. Via Great Oaks, it is 3.3 miles. IBM Almaden is 6.4 miles. I biked it (uphill) in 45 minutes. Hill: 1.8 miles. 19 minutes uphill From office door to Santa Teresa & Lean is 25 minutes. IBM to light rail station: 3.4 miles Walk from IBM Almaden to light rail station: 50 minutes Drive to 7515 Shorewood Ct: 800 miles, 12.5 hours DIMENSIONS ---------- area: 1439 square feet. Lot: 1028 square feet Dimensions measured from inside of walls: Width: 21 feet Downstairs depth: 29 ft Upstairs depth: 35.5 ft Ceiling height appears to be 8 ft from slab to ceiling joist, minus about about 2 inches, probably for floor covering and ceiling drywall. Patio depth: 12 ft Patio fences are 5 ft high. Parking space: 18' x 9.5' See Visio drawings in d/archive/litchi . LOCATION, ORIENTATION --------------------- Faces exactly due south. Sun is overhead at 12:48 Pacific Standard Time (13:48 PDT). FLOOD ----- If Anderson Dam breaks, water will reach here (12 miles downstream of dam) in 2.5 hrs (2.0 under storm conditions) and peak at 21 ft (24 ft storm) 2 hours later. I don't know what this height is; it doesn't seem likely it is height above the ground, so it is probably height above Coyote Creek, which might not reach the ground here at all. CONSTRUCTION ------------ Built in 1971. Replaced 2009.10: Kitchen, dining room floor Kitchen cabinets, sink, faucet Garbage disposer Downstairs bathroom floor Downstairs bathroom faucet Master bathroom floor Master bathroom vanity, faucet Main water shutoff valve Water heater gas supply line and valve The closets in the master bedroom were changed in 2009.10. The original closets were two large closets spanning the entire west wall. Both closets were shortened to create the alcove in the center, which was wired for TV cable and electricity so a dresser and TV could be put there. Replaced 13.08: master bathroom shower tile, pan, door. Space underneath stairway enclosed 2010. Patio electrical outlet installed August 2011. Hallway electrical outlet installed sometime 2009-2017 Joists and subfloor for Northeast bedroom repaired/replaced August 2014. See details below. Carpet replaced 2022. $4000. All inside walls, doors, and trim painted 2022. $7000 Closet doors in the southwest and northeast bedrooms installed 2022 by Anythony Reyes. Dishwasher installed 2022. Security door replaced 2022. HOA --- Oak Grove Gardens Homes Association Manager: Associa Northern California 485 Alberto Wy, Ste 210 Los Gatos CA 95032 408-540-5050 Community Manager Gladys Jimenez Gladys.Jimenez@associa.us 20.11 Admin assistant Bailey Virgo Bailey.Virgo@associa.us 20.11 After hours emergencies: 888-809-7020 20.11 Newsletter in July 2020 came from Bailey Virgo . Annual meeting: 3rd Tuesday of November. Time is 19:30 according to some document, but the 2009 meeting was held at 19:00. The 1997 rules mention a bimonthly meeting on the 3rd Wednesday of odd numbered months, with residents encouraged to attend. Board of Directors meets bimonthly (odd numbered months) at the Massingham office. (As of 2009). 2009 association dues: $250/unit. 2021: $375 2022: $400 126 units in HOA. 2008.11.10 unfunded reserves: $5071/unit. BRYAN'S DEED OF TRUST --------------------- Recorded on 2009.10.21, document number 20474716. I saw it on the web site on 2010.05.22. The deed doesn't mention the parcel number, so it is not listed under the parcel number on the web site. That appears to be the only way parcels are indexed, other than by grantor, so a thorough search would find it. Though Bryan requested the deed returned to him, he never got it. Bryan reconveyed when Bryan's lease ended in 2019. Though Bryan requested the reconveyance returned to him, he never got it. When title was transferred in 2022, the title insurance company didn't think the reconveyance specified clearly enough what interest it was reconveying -- they wanted to see the recorder file number of the deed of trust on the document. So Bryan executed another one in December 2022. That reconveyance has no effect, as Bryan no longer had any title to reconvey. STRUCTURE --------- The second floor is supported by the north and south walls and an east-west beam across the center of the house. I haven't seen the supports for that beam, but I presume there is one in the center, where the north living room wall meets the wall between the mechanical room and the bathroom. The second floor joists run from the center beam to the north and south walls, 24" apart. They are exactly 11" high. There are diagonal metal torsion stabilizers in the center of each joist and no fire breaks. WALLS, PARTITIONS ----------------- The party walls are covered with two layers of gypsum board. The electrical boxes, however, are flush with the first layer. So we extend them with wood blocks and use extra long screws. My cheap stud sensor does not sense studs through this thickness. There is something strange in the framing behind the vanity in the downstairs bathroom. A stud appears to be interrupted -- a nail hits a stud further up on the wall but not directly below it. Hence, one of the screws below the mirror should go into a stud but is instead in a molly anchor. The walls are 2x4 construction; the partitions are 2x3. The back wall of the living room and the front wall of the master bedroom are load-bearing and are of 2x4 construction. I don't know what hold up the ceiling joists above the upstairs hallway. DRYER VENTING ------------- See 'technical' file for information on dryer venting. Before October 2009, there was the original 3" vent hood and 3" duct in the floor, going all the way back to the hole in the ceiling in the laundry room where the original booster fan had been. It stopped there; there was no way to connect it to a dryer. In October 2009, I installed 4" duct work up to the 3" duct at that hole in the ceiling. Dryer was new in October 2009 and with no duct attached to the exhaust port, air flow was 18 m/s. It was considerably faster at the bottom of the port than at the top. Air flow at the vent hood (with the 3" duct in the floor) was 6.2 m/s. Air temperature at exhaust port was 70C. In about July 2010, I replaced the original 3" duct and vent hood with 4" duct in the floor and a large vent hood. Drying times for a normal load with the 3" pipe and small vent hood were: 64, 49, 48, and 52 minutes in 4 trials. The 64 minutes was with towels. With the new pipe and hood, times were 40, 42, and 41. The floor contained great mats of lint and the wood near the vent hood was quite rotten, with some of the flooring appearing to be new plywood. I suspect the dryer vented directly into the floor for a long time. But see Waste Plumbing; the wood all around the area was also rotten, suggesting that the venting of water vapor into the floor was not the cause of the rot. TELEPHONE --------- Telephone service comes in at the utility box outside the front door. But as of May 2014, telco service is disconnected at that point and telephone service comes from the Comcast cable modem in the lab, which is injected into the house telephone wiring through the wall jack in the lab. The sole telephone line comes in as Line 2 (yellow/black pair coming into the network interface box (NID) from the CO), which goes to the right-hand RJ11 jack as Line 1. Wires for Line 2 go to the left-hand RJ11 jack as Line 1. On the customer side of the NID, the red/green pair is attached to the right-hand plug The black/yellow pair is attached to the left-hand RJ11 plug. Until May 2014, the right-hand RJ11 plug was plugged into the right-hand RJ11 jack so that the house got telephone service from telco Line 2. The left-hand RJ11 plug was not plugged in. Nothing was plugged into the left-hand RJ11 jack. In May 2014, we discontinued AT&T telephone service and unplugged the house from the NID. From the customer side of the NID, the wires go up to the jack in the southeast upstairs room, presumably through the front wall of the building. A wire runs under the baseboard from there into the southwest upstairs room. From the southeast room, it runs up into the attic and over and down to the living room jack (the point in the attic floor does not seem to be directly over the living room jack, though -- it appears to be in the wall between the two south upstairs rooms. From there, it goes back up to the same hole in the attic floor and across the attic to the jack in the master bedroom. From there, it goes back up to the same hole in the attic floor and across the attic to a point just above the furnace vent in the master bedroom. It goes down into the area above the mechanical room. You can see the wire behind the furnace vent in the master bedroom. This wire went someplace else originally, but now it goes to the jack on the south wall of the kitchen. There is a splice above the downstairs bathroom visible from the mechanical room. It enters the downstairs bathroom through the ceiling two inches from the wall and across the ceiling into the wall, then down to the jack. There is an access port near the ceiling through which you can see the wire, but there is no splice there. This hole was presumably made in order to fish the wire through. It appears that the wire originally went to a kitchen counter just on the other side of the utility room. In August 2009, there was no such counter -- there was a floor to ceiling cabinet there. So apparently, someone remodeled the kitchen and moved the jack to the other side of the utility room doorway. In September 2009, I found a telephone wire inside the wall in question (a wall we removed at that time). Its other end was above the downstairs bathroom, visible from the mechanical room. It was a cut end. As part of the September remodel, that wire was extended and run down around the kitchen cabinets at baseboard level, then up the gap next to the sliding door and over into the wall just above the kitchen counter next to the sliding door. The idea was to put a phone jack there, but I thought at the time that the wire was connected to the phone service, which turned out not to be true. Furthermore, by the time all the work was done, which was fairly abusive to that wire, two of the wires were shorted together. So I just abandoned the idea and the wire is still inside the wall there. The other end is now in the ceiling where the dryer vent duct enters. There is a splice in the middle, where the colors change: green, red, yellow, black becomes blue, white, orange/white, white/orange respectively. green and red are the ones that are shorted together. In 2009, a splitter in the NID plugged into the Line 2 (right-hand) RJ11 and both customer-side RJ11 plugs plugged into that, so that in the house, both Line 1 (red/green) and Line 2 (yellow/black) were telco Line 2. All the jacks were wired with Line 1 = Line 1 (red-red, green-green) except the one in the Northwest bedroom, which was wired Line 1 = Line 2 and Line 2 not connected. I presume that the phone in the Northwest bedroom was once on Line 2, and when they went back to a single line in the house, instead of changing the wiring in the jack in that bedroom, they just hooked both house lines up to the same telco line. And maybe the reason that one line is Line 2 is because they decided to turn off Line 1 and keep Line 2. RACEWAY ------- (Raceways were removed in October 2022 in preparation for selling the house). The raceway in the living room is the "375" product, size small (3/4") from Electriduct. I don't know who the manufacturer is, but it is available from other retailers with the "375" desgination. The color is "beige", but only the fittings are actually beige, and they are very light beige. The main raceway is white, even though it has the "beige" product designation. Raceways are screwed to the wall with #6 wood screws. Some are screwed into wood behind the drywall; most are screwed into drywall anchors. Screws are 16" apart. The raceway came with double stick tape. I removed it with a hairdryer. I installed this in January 2010. FURNACE ------- Limit switch is fixed at 185 degrees F (main burner turns off when heat exchanger temperature exceeds this). Fan thermostat is adjustable between 80 and 100 degrees F. I don't know what the hysteresis is. As of 09.11.15, I have it set to 101. It was 110 when we moved in. At the 110 setting, the fan started 2:10 after the burner and stopped 4:04 after. At the 101 setting, it was 2:14 and 5:00. This was with a cheap 30 day air filter. In 2011, room temperature tracking shows that the burner turns off a few minutes after the blower starts and starts up again a minute or so later. This presumably is due to the limit switch. This may be because of the recently installed washable air filter and it may be because of the recently replaced gas supply valve. I closed the valve down to 45 degrees and the behavior stopped. Furnace gas supply line, valve, and nipple replaced November 2011. There is one cold air return for each floor. For the first floor, it is right next to the furnace in the west wall of the mechanical room. For the second floor, it is in the hall ceiling. The duct for that rises up from behind the first floor cold air return vent, through the bump in the wall visible in the hall bathroom, to the attic and then over. The combustion supply comes from the vent in the north overhang outside the patio door. The duct comes south through the inter-floor space and down to just above the cold air return in the mechanical room. WATER SUPPLY ------------ Main shutoff valve outside front door: replaced 09.10. Pressure 11.06 18:50: 66-68 psi (150 ft head). Unchanged with kitchen sink faucet open. kw water pressure Flow rate from patio hose bibb through 1/2" coiled hose and 5/8" regular hose: 7.1 gpm. kw gallons per minute Total dissolved solids measured from master bathroom sink cold faucet 11.11.30, measured by blue TDS meter: 300-325 ppm (mg/L). Measured from hot faucet, with water hot, started at 535 ppm and declined rapidly, down to 485 within a few seconds, then I stopped measuring. On 11.12.15, I measured cold water from the kitchen sink at 327. Hot water started at 500 and declined rapidly as the water cooled. After it cooled completely, at 18 degree room temperature, it was 332. EPA calls 500 mg/L the limit of aesthetic drinking water. WATER HEATER ------------ Water heater was replaced approximately 2015. The thermocouple on the old one stopped working and the pilot light would not stay lit. Gas supply line and valve replaced 09.09. It is very difficult to see the pilot light. There is a 3/4" round glass view port neat the bottom that lets you look in, but as you have to get your head right down on the floor and you don't know exactly where to look, it's not much use. I put a mark on the drain pan to show where to line up your eye with the view port to see where the pilot flame and ignition spark are supposed to be. Since the thermocouple in the pilot flame is what powers the controller, if the pilot light is off (and has been long enough for the thermocouple to cool), the status light on the controller will be off. If the light is on or flashing, the thermocouple must be hot. In July 2022, I accidentally filled the drain pain with about an inch of water. This is not high enough to extinguish the pilot light, and the controller didn't detect anything wrong, but when the burner came on, the water heater vibrated loudly. It sounded like one of those boom cars with the bass turned up. It did this 3 times before I drained the pan, and then not again. The burner stayed lit for about 30 seconds and there were a few minutes between burns. WATER PIPING ------------ The original piping is galvanized steel. When the hall bathroom was remodelled in about 2006, some of the pipes were replaced with copper. The water enters just west of the front door. It enters the south wall just above the slab and goes down under the slab and across to the south wall of the mechanical room, as 1.5" galvanized pipe. It goes up inside the wall and connects to the water heater supply, then continues up the wall as 1" galvanized pipe. It tees there and one branch goes south as 1/2" copper pipe to feed the master bathroom shower and hall bathroom bathtub. The other branch goes north as 1" galvanized pipe about a foot and then west to the master bathroom sink. It probably branches off to the north to the master bathroom toilet, hall bathroom toilet, and hall bathroom sink. The hot water supply goes up inside the south wall of the mechanical room as galvanized pipe, then south half a foot, then west to the master bathroom sink. Where it turns west, it probably also turns north to go to the hall bathroom sink. The supplies to the laundry room and kitchen sink are under the slab. The hot water supply line that goes up inside the south wall of the mechanical room probably also goes down under the slab, as galvanized pipe. You have to draw 4.5 quarts of water through the kitchen faucet before it gets hot. That means to get a quart of hot water, you have to heat 5.5 quarts, which is about the same price has heating a quart of water with electricity. WASTE PLUMBING -------------- The soil stack is in the mechanical room. It goes through the slab into the sewer line and up through the roof to a vent hood. Waste lines connect to it from the two upstairs bathrooms. In about 2011, the soil stack leaked at a joint. I'm not sure how, since it's not under pressure, but it would start dripping after I ran water down the drain and for a few minutes after I stopped. I fixed it just by adding glue to the outside of the joint. Before the fix, water had accumulated on the floor (slab) and caused some of the wood flooring just outside the mechanical room to bulge. But the outside of the soil stack has continued to accumulate scale, indicating that water sometimes trickles down it. The shower and sink in the master bathroom drain slowly after a a few seconds of running water, which I think means the soil stack is filling up with water, which could explain the leaks. The master bathroom toilet burps, which also is an indication of drain blockage. On the other hand, the sink fills up instead of water backing up into the shower, which is inconsistent with a clog in the soil stack. Before that repair, the soil stack was enclosed with drywall. I removed all the drywall to make it accessible. There is a vent stack that takes off from the kitchen sink drain and goes up the wall midway under the upstairs window, then east to get past the window, then up to a vent hood in the roof right above the wall. VENTILATION ----------- There are 4 vent hoods in the North wall of the house, at 2nd floor level. Going from left to right: Soffit: stove exhaust Wall: clothes dryer exhaust Wall: downstairs bathroom exhaust fan exhaust Soffit: furnace air supply (other end is the 12" vertical round duct that ends just above the furnace cold air intake). GAS SERVICE ----------- Main valve greased, section of pipe next to it replaced 2010.05. Smart meter installed August 2010. The black iron gas pipe enters the south wall and goes up to the inter-floor space. From there it goes over to the mechanical room and down inside the east wall of the mechanical room twice - once to the water heater and once to the furnace. There is what appears to be a gas hookup point for a barbecue on the patio. But there doesn't appear to be a valve and it doesn't appear to be capped, so maybe it is obsolete. MASTER BATHROOM PLUMBING ------------------------ There is something wrong with the sewer connection to the master bathroom, and has been for many years. The shower and sink drain quite slowly, and drain opener treatments have no effect. The toilet burps every time it is flushed. The soil stack in the mechanical room has leaked through a seam, which seems to indicate that the stack fills up with water. But the toilet seems to flush the waste fine and the drain rate has been stable. A clog in the vent stack might explain some of this. There doesn't seem to be a drain problem in the other upstairs bathroom. MASTER BATHROOM EXHAUST FAN --------------------------- Bryan installed the fan/light in the shower stall and the countdown timer switch in January 2010. The lamp is a 13 watt 3500K fluorescent lamp. The house was built with the smaller exhaust fan in the corner above the toilet, connected to the light switch. The fan is still there, but disconnected from electricity and the exhaust duct. The new fan's exhaust connects to the vent hood in the roof directly above the old fan (to which the old fan was originally connected) with 7 feet of flexible 4" duct running roughly diagonally. The electrical power runs from the junction box near the attic hatch over to the junction box inside the fan. Another wire runs from that junnction box over to the wall switch. The junction box is accessible from the bottom, with the lens, light, and fan removed. There are two NEMA 1-15 polarized sockets inside the fan housing. Plugs for the fan and the light, inside the housing, plug into those. Both sockets are wired to the same power today, but can be wired separately. CEILING FAN, TOP OF STAIRS -------------------------- Bryan installed this October 2009. The fan's junction box is screwed to a board that sits on top of and across the rafters. The light and fan are connected to the same power source, controlled by the switches at the top and bottom of the stairs. The house was built with just a lamp there. PATIO HOSE BIBB --------------- In October 2009 this was leaking from the stem when turned on. In January 2010, Bryan replaced the hose bibb. At that time, the hose bibb had a 1/2" female threaded connector. It was attached to a short male-male nipple, which was attached via a female-female reducer to the 3/4" male threaded pipe coming through the wall. Bryan removed the reducer in order to put on the new hose bibb with a 3/4" female threaded connector. However, the pipe that comes through the wall had rusted through, leaving a 1/8" hole in the threaded portion. Bryan fashioned a patch out of steel and glued it down with epoxy, then covered it with Goop. After 3 hours, the epoxy was still soft. This may be because the epoxy was about 30 years old; it was in fact very hard to squeeze the resin out (but even new epoxy tends to set that slowly). Bryan couldn't wait, so when the Goop was mostly dry, he screwed on the hose bibb. Bryan also found a place just inside the nipple pipe coming through the wall with a rusted out crater about 1/8" in diameter. Bryan filled that with epoxy. Goop would have been a better choice than epoxy even if the epoxy worked right -- both below and above the steel sheet. The hose bibb, with two turns of teflon tape, is quite loose when oriented to point down. But after a few initial drips, it hasn't leaked. SLAB ---- The slab is cracked in the living room. You see this if you take up the floor. This is probably from the 1989 earthquake. ELECTRICITY ----------- PG & E rotating outage block 50, which means exempt from rotating outages, for some reason. PG & E baseline territory X, whatever that means. Electric meter # 1007500901. Electrical service: 100 amp The kitchen, dining room, and patio outlets are 20 amp circuits. Everything else 120v is 15 amps. The range is 240v 30A. The dryer is 240v 50A. There are 4 cables going into the box that contains the garbage disposer switch and outlet: two from the top and two from the bottom. There are two circuits in there: 10A for the under sink outlet and 9A for the local outlets. (This may be a code violation). But there appears to be only one cold supply wire for both. The cable on the bottom left goes down to the under sink outlet. The cable on the bottom right goes into the patio outlet box just below, then on to the outlet in the north end of the east wall of the kitchen. One of the upper cables goes to the distribution panel. The other goes west to the outlet in the west end of the north wall (dining room). I installed the patio outlets, breaking the bottom right wire, pulling out some staples, and pulling some slack out of the wall. I pulled up the floor above for the dry rot repair and thus traced the upper cables. There is a door bell power transformer in the circuit breaker box. It is not screwed in; it just sits there. It is wired directly into circuit breaker 15B. The 24v cable goes out of the circuit breaker box into the utility cabinet, then up out of the utility cabinet and along the outside of the front wall to the top of the door frame, then into the wall. The door bell is above the front door on the inside; the button is in the metal frame on the outside. I replaced the GFCI outlet once between 2009 and 2014 and once in October 2014. It stopped working - the indicator light went out and it would not reset. In October 2014, I installed the outlet in the hallway outside the main bathroom. It is fed from the load side of the GFCI outlet in the bathroom. Thus, it is GFCI protected and both outlets go off when a ground fault happens at either. The reason I wired it that way is that it was too hard to fit all the wires in the box with an independent feed for the hallway output. Wiring an outlet through another outlet may violate code; no other outlet in the house is wired that way. ELECTRICITY COST ---------------- PG&E time of use plan has higher price 16:00-21:00 every day. Price is $.06/kwh higher off-peak in summer. Summer starts 06.10. 1 watt is .732 kwh/month PG&E charges $.29/kwh averaged over whole day in summer 2021, so 1 watt is 21 cents per month. Desk is 13 watts with nothing turned on. Desk with everything turned on is 44 watts averaged over a day, including having the lamp on some of the time. On 20.11.01, with nothing running except the desk, computer rack (with no Optiplex computers), and Penguin, the house power meter said 221 watts. 'recipe' note file tells how much it costs to cook various things. For major appliances at Litchi Grove Ct, see ELECTRICITY USAGE. In 20.12, with winter prices, over-baseline electricity is $9.23/therm and natural gas is $1.63/therm, for a ratio of 5.7. Below-baseline electricity is $6.46/therm, for a ratio of 4.0. In 2021, regulated common stock ROI is 10.25%. Proposed for 2022 was 11%. kw energy power PATIO GATE ---------- This swells considerably in wet weather. From 2009 to 2018, the post that holds the gate hinges gradually sank. I continually sawed the bottom off of the gate to keep it from hitting the ground and moved the strikeplate a few times. I also shaved a great deal off of the gate to keep it able to close when swollen. I also installed a diagonal cable in 2016 to keep that post from leaning in and further preventing the latch from hitting the right place. I also replaced the upper hinge in 2015. The post finally broke off at the ground in 2018 and the HOA had it replaced along with the section of fence between there and the property line. By this time, it appeared that the gate had sunk 3 inches from where it was when the house was built. The carpenter replaced the post and rehung the gate in dry weather, leaving no extra room for the gate to expand and as a result, I had to shave more off the gate when the weather got wet. There was evidence in 2009 that the gate originally was considerably higher and had rather different hardware. Because the lockset on the gate is meant for doors which much tighter tolerance for width and position than this gate, the bolt does not throw far enough to make it work in both wet and dry weather. Therefore, we seasonally add and remove shims under the strikeplate so that the gate closes and the bolt engages the strikeplate. BUT: after I shaved down the the gate in the 2018-19 winter, it went an entire year without needing shims, so maybe we don't have to do that anymore. UPSTAIRS HALLWAY BATHROOM ------------------------- The upstairs bathroom has a privacy lock. To unlock, insert a straight blade screwdriver blade, 1/8" wide, with the blade horizontal. Feel around for a slot and turn 90 degrees counterclockwise. The lamp takes two 120v 100 watt double-ended T3 79mm halogen quartz lamps. We replaced the one on the right 17.02.07 with Feit Electric Bpq100t3/CL/S. The bathtub faucet is Delta Monitor 17 series (it says Delta Monitor on the backplate and I found a description of the 17 series in an Amazon listing for it). Another Amazon listing in 2021 said the 17 series was new in 2006 and still in production. The faucet began leaking in 2021. We had it replaced on 21.09.21. The bathroom is a complete remodel from the original construction. It appeared to be quite new in 2009. Toilet angle stop would no longer close all the way, so we replaced it 21.09.21. The plumber also replaced the galvanized nipple with a brass one because the old one was corroded. He said he was aware of the electrolysis problem with the brass-zinc union, but didn't seem to think it was a problem. The toilet supply hose broke during this repair, so we replaced that too. (There was actually some confusion in which the wrong angle stop (in the wrong bathroom) was replaced and then we moved the old angle stop from one bathroom to another, and then that failed; the end result is the repairs described here). DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM ------------------- On 21.09.21, the angle stop for the toilet broke when I turned it and started leaking. Replaced. On 21.09.27, the toilet fill valve started leaking so that the toilet ran constantly. This was an old ballcock type of fill valve, so probably at least 20 years old. We replaced the fill valve and supply hose. I think we replaced the flapper valve in about 2010 with the fancy one that is there on 21.09.27. If I recall correctly, this fancy valve does a half tank flush if you push the handle and then release, and a full tank if you hold it down. It is also requires little pressure to push the handle, and that was one of its selling points. Floor was replaced in the 09.10 remodel. Faucet replaced 09.10. ATTIC ----- The attic access is in the south closet of the master bedroom. In September 2009, the attic hatch was covered by a simple piece of drop-in drywall. At that time, I replaced it with a hinged wooden door. CARPORT STORAGE LOCKER ---------------------- Combination is in userid file. Broken into 16.11.27. Nothing taken, but hasp destroyed and lock taken. The hasp was pried apart with a crowbar. Replaced hasp with somewhat more secure one. The prior one was the kind where the loop is held down by another piece of metal; with the new one, the loop is a continuous piece of sheet metal bolted onto the door with 4 10-32 machine screws. PAINT ----- The interior was painted in 2009 as part of marketing the house. It was light brown, flat in most rooms, but semigloss in the kitchen and bathrooms. It was next painted in 2022, again as part of marketing the house. The color was a light gray called "Modern Grey". The old paint was in good condition; the purpose of the repaint was to make the house brighter. Anthony Reyes did the painting. The HOA painted the exterior of the building around 2015. This included painting the front door and the paint used stuck to the weather stripping long after it was dry, causing the door to be very difficult to pull open. The paint eventually pulled off the door and stuck to the weather stripping. We cleaned the weather stripping and covered the sticky paint on the edges of the door with paper tape to solve the problem As part of marketing the house, we removed the tape and repainted the door in 2022. The new paint also stuck to the weatherstripping, making it hard to open the door, but it stuck much less than the previous paint. FLOORS ------ In 2009, as part of marketing the house, both floors were recarpeted. Later in 2009, all of the bottom floor was replaced with simulated wood laminate. In 2022, as part of marketing the house, all of the upstairs (and stairway) carpet was replaced. Some of the closets had linoleum under the carpet in 2009; that may have been the original floor covering in much of the house. CEILING ------- The ceilings were built with acoustic (popcorn) texture. By 2009, the lower floor ceilings no longer had it. The upstairs ceilings were retextured in 2022 as part of marketing the house. Anthony Reyes did the work. The acoustic texture in the southwest bedroom and the upstair hallway had an oil based paint over it; the rest did not. GARDEN ------ Lilies East of gate were there when we moved in in 2009. Rick says a neighbor across Sigrid brought one plant over a few years ago. Raspberry bush planted 2011. Two stalks, one broke off. In 2012, about 5 more stalks rose from the ground - two near the original stalk reached full height. Buds appeared at the end of January 2013. In 2013, many more stalks sprouted. In 2014, buds appeared mid-January. In 2015, one stalk budded the previous December. The rest budded in February. Peach tree: planted 2011. First bore fruit in 2012. 8 peaches, first harvested July 4. Started losing leaves approximately November 5, 2012. Buds appeared at the end of January 2013. Flowers appeared 13.03.05. About 25 peaches formed, but all but one were stolen by animals. I made a 1/2" hardware cloth cage around the last one. The last peach was ready to harvest July 1 and tasted great. A bird apparently pecked it through the cage. Applied chlorothalonil fungicide in December 2013 and again at end of January 2014. In 2014, buds began to swell beginning of February. Flowers appeared 14.02.15. Fruit reached full size June 4, still not ripe. About half of the peaches were caged and animals did not take the uncaged ones. In 2015, leaves and flowers appeard 15.02.23. Before the 2019 season, we trimmed the tree so far that it spent that season regrowing and bore no fruit at all. In 2020, it was more productive than either - hundreds of peaches - whole branches covered with peaches almost like bunches of grapes. But most did not get big and juicy. Last one harvested August 1. April 2012 planting: snapdragon in square pot, snapdragon near North fence. red plant in square pot, violet flower near West fence. Orange tree in pot. Strawberry in hanging pot. The violet color flower died in winter. Snapdragons began blooming 13.03.05. They were gone a year or two later. Most of the snapdragons in the square planter died in September 2013. The rest were gone a year later. The strawberry plant lasted only a year. The red plant lasted a couple of years. Orange tree (Dwarf Clementine Mandarin) in pot did not start growing until June 28 in 2012. Planted in ground 12.12.15. Hardly any roots. Orange tree flowered in March 2013. In 2014, it only barely flowered, but it grew a lot of new foliage January-April. It continued to grow every year, but never flowered again until 2021. That year, two of the flowers became oranges, about 3 cm diameter. In November, they began to turn yellow. We picked them May 27, 2022 and they were quite dry. They were fully orange months before that. The tree flowered again around March of 2022 with the previous season's oranges still on the tree. No oranges survived to larger than pea size. Soil ph tested 2012.06 with green/red ph indicator appeared to show about ph 6.8, but the color was really hard to compare to the scale. It was no lower than 6.5, and was the same as the tap water. Applied fertilizer 13.03.10. Jobe's Fruit & Citrus with Biozome 3-5-5 plus 8% calcium, .5% magnesium, 1.6% sulfur applied to ground; Osmocote to pots. Again 13.07.10. Applied fertilizer 14.04.06. Lilly Miller Citrus & Avocado 10-6-4 with multiple release speed nitrogen, plus 3% calcium, 3% sulfur, .02% boron, 2% iron, .05% manganese, .0005% molybdenum (.007% soluble), .05% zinc (.004% soluble) to ground. Osmocote to pots. Applied fertilizer 14.08.03. Dr Earth Natural Wonder Fruit Tree Fertilizer 7-4-2 plus calcium 5.30%, sulfur 2.22%, plus bacillus subtilis, bacillus cereus, bacillus megaterium, azotbacter vinelandi, lactobacillus acidophilus, rhizobium japonicum, aspergillis oryzae, plus mycorrhizae: pisolithut tincturus, rhizopogon villosuli, rhizopogon luteolus, rhizopogon amylopogn, rhizopogon fulvigleba, glomus intradices, glomus mosseae, glomus aggregatum, with 10% humic acids. Lettuce in 6" pot with Miracle Gro moisture control potting soil, planted June 1, 2013 did great. 3 plants. Same lettuce in same size pot sitting right next to it with cheap bark potting soil grew only reddish brown leaves, and not many of those. Lettuce in plastic trough with compost, planted around 13.06.14, did great, first harvested 08.02. But an early planting had to be replaced when sprouts got eaten. And many of those replacement seeds did not germinate. Radishes in long wood planter planted 13.06.01 did fine, harvested at 63 days, but ready to harvest in 45. Got infested by the gray bugs (aphids)? Sevin seems to have stopped them. Hanging tomato plant in 2014 grew 5 tomatoes. There were many more flowers. The tomatoes started ripening July 30. The plant did not die over winter; a few branches survived. In 2019, the neighbor gave me a cutting of a cactus with flower-like foliage. I planted it in a square planter, where it thrived. As the stems got long, I cut off several branches and replanted them in the same planter. In 2021, a pumpkin plant grew from the compost pile. There must have been pumpkin seeds in a meal an Airbnb guest had. It grew quickly and got really big and formed about a dozen flowers, but only two became pumpkins and only one of those lived to be bigger than a golf ball. That one grew until the plant caught a fungus (leaves had white stuff all over) and died with the pumpkin was about 15 cm across. ELECTRICITY USAGE ----------------- The oven draws about 3300 watts when the element is on. I measured this from the house power meter, which jumped around quite a bit. The right front burner on the range, small subset, draws 1080 watts; full burner 2640 watts, per the house power meter. I wrote the power draw of the refrigerator, measured with the Brultech, on the side of the refrigerator. The dryer draws 5600 watts. I measured this from the house power meter, which jumped around within a 30 watt range. A few years later, I measured around 5700 watts. So 25 minutes is 2.4 kwh. PG&E data indicates that a load of laundry (wash and dry) with sheets is 2.75 kwh. The dryer draws the same on low heat setting as high heat. Maybe it turns off periodically on low heat, but I never saw that and clothes seem to get just as dry on the low heat setting. With no heat, it draws 245 watts. The TV cable amplifier draws 16 watts. The entertainment center, with everything on standby, draws 40 watts. The week the house was empty for Bryan's visit to San Diego in 21.07, usage was 5 kwh/day. The only usage was the refrigerator and central computer. 5 kwh/day is 208 watts. There is no discernible change in the refrigerator usage as the temperature varies during the day. A typical day when Bryan goes to work during the day and nobody else is home and there is minimal fan usage is 6.5 kwh; when Bryan works from home, it is 1 kwh more. In an OhmConnect ohm-hour when I turn off the lab desk, Penguin, and the refrigerator, with no fans on the computers, usage was 180 watts. A typical Saturday is 10 kwh. kw energy REAR DOOR BELL -------------- Heathco WL-111A-A. Receiver has nightlight feature; can't turn off. Receiver draws less than 1 watt. Transmitter uses A23 battery. 20.05.07 battery dead. Replaced with one dated 2011.12. Measured 11.8 v idle, 10.2 v button pressed. Previous was Home Depot brand, new in 2016.04. Uses CR2032 battery. Receiver contains a 4.897 MHz crystal. Draws 115 mA. Transmission range is specified as 100 ft. Previous was Heath/Zenith. It quit working in 16.01. Uses A23 battery. A new one is 12.6 volts and goes down to 12.5 while the button is held down. In 2013.03, the original battery from 2009 was at 12.4 volts ambient, 12.3 with button held down. Around this time, the bell stopped working reliably. It was reliable indoors, but not from the gate. I moved the chime from near the TV to near the back door. kw doorbell REFRIGERATOR ------------ It does a defrost cycle every 24 hours; I'm not aware of any way to set the time or change the period. It always does a defrost cycle immediately after you plug in the power; maybe that's what starts the clock. Defrosting means it turns off the refrigeration and blows hot air over the refrigeration coils to melt the frost off the coils. Enough frost builds up in the course of a day that you can hear the melt water trickling down into the pan. The pan is below the freezer compartment. You can remove it by pulling off the grate and just sliding the pan out, but the water always evaporates before the next defrost cycle. The compresssor draws 145 watts. The defroster draws 583 watts. One May, I measured a total of 1.4 kwh/day. I measured the humdity in the refrigerator compartment as 10% normally, and up to 52% immediately after opening the door. 2014 FRAMING REPAIR ------------------- When we moved in in 2009, one could see an area of the soffit siding in the rear was rotted out. In 2014, as part of the repainting project, the HOA found the siding crumbling and tried to replace it, but found the ends of the joists were also rotted. So we mended 3 joists by bolting 2x12 scabs to both sides. Two of the scabs are 9 ft and replace 3 ft of rotted original joist; the other is 3 ft and replaces 1 ft of rotted original joist. We also replaced most of the bottom plate of the south wall of the Northeast bedroom with a 4x4, because it and the bottoms of the studs were dry rotted. We also replaced most of the subfloor in the Northeast bedroom. The HOA replaced most of the soffit siding under the Northeast bedroom and painted it. Because the electrical wire that goes from the box near the sink in the north kitchen wall to the outlet in the dining room went through one of the joists that had to be scabbed, we had to cut it, and then add two junction boxes in the floor and splice in more wire to reconnect it. We found that a shoddy repair of water damage had been done, and HOA records indicated it was in 2006. The carpenter had replaced one sheet of plywood's worth of subfloor, while leaving the rotted joists. Also, in order to use only one sheet of plywood to cover an area more than 4 ft deep, he cut and rearranged the wood into about 5 ft x 7 ft, and that meant that one side of the new wood was not supported on a joist! The floor was thus springy. It was hard to tell what caused the dry rot. HOA records indicated that the owner thought it was rain coming through the walls, but that seems unlikely to produce enough water. Rainwater dripping down the plumbing vent stack from the roof could have been the cause. It might also be condensation of dryer exhaust, because the dryer exhaust duct was broken when we moved in and the space under the floor was full of dryer lint. But the rot pattern radiated out from the center of the window, and the dryer duct is at the edge of the rotted area. Still, the condensation might have happened in that pattern if the air flow and temperature patterns were right. TELEVISION RECEPTION -------------------- 13.10.12 With rabbit ears on the coffee table oriented north-south, TV finds the following channels, by virtual channel number. They are 4 UHF channels, real channel numbers 51, 36, 49, and 50, from Mt Allison and Monument Peak. They have transmitter power over 300 kW. Other transmitters on those peaks are under 100. 14.1 KDTV-HD 16:9 1080i 14.2 KFSF-SD 4:3 480i 36.1 KICU-HD 16:9 720p 36.2 KICU-SD 4:3 480i 36.3 KICUSD2 4:3 480i 48.1 KSTS-HD 16:9 1080i 48.2 EXITOS 4:3 480i 54.1 KQED+ 4:3 480i 54.2 KQED 4:3 480i 54.3 LIFE 4:3 480i 54.4 KIDS 4:3 480i 54.5 V-me 4:3 480i Reception was approximately the same with rabbit ears turned 90 deg, rabbit ears detached, and UHF antenna attached. On 13.12.01, attached to the aerial antenna, the PTV-7000 found 39 channels, but most of them appear to be radio stations (and no sound comes through). The reception is approximately as good as the rabbit ears and on the day I tried, in addition to those above, there was partial reception of KGO 7 (both with the aerial and the telescoping antenna). There were 20 channels labelled "1-1", "1-2", etc. and 8 of those identified as KAXT radio (but there was no sound). COMMUNITY HISTORY ----------------- Blossom Hill Road in this area used to be called Downer. There was always a Blossom Hill Road in Los Gatos (named after some hill there), but it was not connected to Downer. The shopping center at the southeast corner of Blossom Hill and Snell used to be called Downer Square, presumably named after the road. It was built in 1966. In 2022, a listing for the big space that had been a Lucky grocery store and later Smart & Final Extra, said almost all the tenants had been there for 20 years, some over 40 years, and a few over 50 years. Eagles Lane used to be called Dangerfield. It was renamed when the high school was built, after the school mascot, the Eagles. Oak Grove Garden Homes was built 1970-1972, at the same time as the two large Mckeon complexes (Blossom Hill Estates I and Blossom Hill Estates II) that sit between Oak Grove Garden Homes and Blossom Hill Road.