Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: Reviews

Well we just got the grass cut for the last time for the season. I have to say, the lawn is looking pretty darn good at this point. Especially considering it's only 2 years old.

This summer was fairly mild and wet (coolest July on record). Definitely do droughts this year. In fact, for most of the summer, I could barely keep up with the mowing.

However, during this growing season, the yard did develop a lot of white clover and various broadleaf weeds. Therefore, my fall mission was to eradicate the weeds.

I did some research online to figure out which weed killer to buy. I didn't want to mess around and only get partial kills only to have the weeds come back next year. I wanted to hit them hard. In addition to looking for something that was strong enough for my liking, I wanted to find something in a concentrate. I have quite a good amount of area to cover and concentrates usually give you more bang for your buck.

If you look at the local big box stores, you will notice that most of the weed killers they sell are not concentrates; they are ready to use. If you look carefully though, you might be able to find one or two options in concentrates.

The other thing you will notice is that most of the weed killers they sell (Weed-B-Gone, etc) have Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2-4D) as the primary active ingredient. I've always heard that 2-4D was a good weed killer, but online research showed that while 2-4D is a good broadleaf weed herbicide, it is actual quite ineffectual against clover.

According to the Iowa State Extension Office the best weed killer for clover is 2-2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxy propionic acid (MCPP). And while MCPP is good at killing clover, it's not great at broadleaf weeds. Therefore, the most effective herbicide for me would be a mix of these two.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any MCPP at the big box stores, and the 2-4D that they had was not very concentrated which did not give me a good feeling about its effectiveness.

In the end I went to a local farm supply store and found Trimec 899. Not only does it contain 2-4D, MCPP, and Dicamba (good at killing creeping charlie), it was the most concentrated stuff I could find. In fact, the label said that 1 gallon would cover 3 acres. I bought two.

I applied with a hose-end sprayer. I did not feel like shelling out the money for a pull-behind sprayer for my lawn tractor. It took about 2 hours to cover the whole yard. That was about a month ago. There is basically NO clover left in the yard anymore. And the broadleaf weeds are almost all gone too. The ones that remain are all shriveled and appear to be on the way out.

I'm very pleased with the effectiveness of the product and am happy that I have over a gallon left over for the future. If you have common weed problems like these, I'd highly recommend getting yourself some Trimec 899 for a fall application.

A while back I posted a link to a demonstration video of the Gerber Viper toilet. At the time, we were researching plumbing fixtures for our new home. The Viper was the toilet recommended by our plumber, but after continually plunging the Crane toilets at our old house, we wanted to make sure the new toilets had performance. After seeing that demonstration video, I was truly impressed. It appeared that the Viper could handle just about anything, and it accomplished all of this being just a gravity-fed, 1.6 gallon per flush (gpf) water saver. If you haven't watched the video yet, I highly recommend it.

For newbies, gravity-fed is your standard flushing mechanism. Pressure-assist is the other option which uses compressed air and less water to flush. A flush of 1.6 gallons is pretty much the standard these days.

While we were impressed with the functionality of the Viper, we were looking for something with a little more style. The Viper is basically your typical toilet with no frills. In our powder room, we had already chosen a pedestal sink from the Kohler Memoirs Classic collection. We were really hoping to have a toilet in the same style, however, the Kohler toilets were very expensive and we didn't have any data to back up their performance. Eventually we found the Gerber Allerton line which contains a pedestal sink and toilet. We didn't like the sink enough to forgo the Memoirs, but the Allerton toilet had certain details that made a close match to the Kohler sink. Notably, the tank and lid have a curved front, the top of the tank lid is slightly recessed, and there is detailing around the base and tank lid rim. Although we liked the looks of this toilet much better, we couldn't find any information about it's performance. The only thing we found was that it uses the same flushing mechanism as the Viper. Based on that, we decided to go with the Allerton in all bathrooms. We teamed them up with some enameled wood seats with brushed nickel hinges for a fully finished look.

After three months of use, we couldn't be happier with these toilets. They have had absolutely no problems flushing and they look great. The only downside is that the tank lever is a little ugly. It's a unique shape and only comes in chrome. For some people that's not a problem, but we went with brushed nickel for everything in the house and these levers are the only chrome we have. We bought some decorative tank levers at Lowe's, but they didn't work for the side-flush lever that these toilets utilize. Not a huge thing, but it's something to note nonetheless. I'll end by saying that I would highly recommend this toilet to anyone.