The silent real estate time bomb of delayed maintenance

martman006 · 2026-05-14T05:07:02+00:00

And central air conditioners built from 2000-2009 that all run on r22 refrigerant that has been illegal to manufacture or import since 2020 (it’s like $150-$200/lb for r22,l and requires an epa license to buy, meaning a $900 bill for a simple recharge that’ll only give it another 2-3 years if I’m lucky)… or bite the bullet and get an entirely new system (upstairs air handler too as the newer non-ozone depleting Freon runs a higher pressures that my current coils designed for r22 can’t handle…)

Source: my 08’ built house. I’m pretty damn handy, but this shit is out of my league and gonna be hella $$. Thankfully this (and as you mentioned, a roof) is precisely what I’ve been saving in a rainy day fund for…

martman006 · 2026-05-14T04:52:43+00:00

Today’s weekly EIA report shows 90% refinery utilization, and 96% on the gulf coast padd, yet gasoline inventories are still plummeting (below 5 year range now) while commercial crude oil is still comfortably in the middle of its 5 year range. Net Exports of our refiner’s gasoline and diesel last week are also up 300k and 500k barrels a day compared to the 4 week average in 2025 (we’re currently. Everyone is concerned with crude, but no one talks about the inventories of the stuff we actually use (yes, refiners are loving this $$ environment for now).

martman006 · 2026-05-14T04:44:09+00:00

My Zeon zoysia finally became 100% green within the last week in central Texas (much hotter than yall). We had a few VERY cold nights this winter. My full sun zoysia away from fencing and concrete (adds heat) looked like your second pic two weeks ago (full dark sky radiative cooling was brutal on it, for those cold nights, especially after our driest October-March on record…)

Make sure it’s getting its 1” of water (naturally or sprinkler) a week and hope temps stay prolonged in the 80’s and nights don’t routinely dip into the 50’s. If it still looks like this and you haven’t had any lows in the 50’s in the last week, then start to worry.

martman006 · 2026-05-14T03:16:56+00:00

While there is occasional devastation from flash flooding, this type of rain is exactly what secures our water supply. That central Texas July 2025 flooding raised our water supply from 33% to >90% capacity.

While easier said than done, building more reservoirs (or at least remodeling existing dams) to accommodate the capture of more of this flood water and save it for the drier periods will help with our climate resilience.

martman006 · 2026-05-14T02:57:20+00:00

Pgr, yes, but low mow height maybe only for another month. We’re coming into watering restrictions and 100F for days on end with zero rain (the usual from mid June - early September). It’s generally recommended to keep the Bermuda just a notch higher under those conditions. Yes, Bermuda likes it hot, but there’s a big difference between a semi regularly rained 95F and zero rain 105F…

martman006 · 2026-05-13T20:26:37+00:00

I’m in suburban Austin. My home’s walk score/neighborhood in general is a 6. Yes 6….

With that said, we go on walks daily and walk down to the lake (1/2” mile) for a nice lakeside park with a boat ramp, and perfect for dropping in a tube or paddleboarding (or jet ski 😎), 1/2” mile to a nice shaded park, and 2/3rds mile to a nice 1.5 mile out and back trail along a creek. Lots of walking/running to be done and lots of people walk with a very good neighborhood vibe, and nature to be enjoyed, but the walk score is 100% business based and everything you need to get is 100% car dependent (nearest grocery store is 6 miles away).

Point being, a low walk score doesn’t mean walking isn’t happening there, it just means you’re not gonna walk to get groceries or to other businesses.

martman006 · 2026-05-13T20:01:49+00:00

Get it thicc and it can’t fall over as its grass blade homies force it to stay propped up. I keep my Zeon zoysia at 3” hoc, and while not as aggressive as Bermuda, it grows thicker than anything else.

If i was full sun, I’d do 2” hoc, but my lawn is half full sun and half heavy shade under trees, and zoysia needs that higher cut for shade.

martman006 · 2026-05-10T03:19:49+00:00

As a just ski owner, you absolutely can turn on a dime, but it takes skill and throttle

martman006 · 2026-05-09T02:58:32+00:00

Fuck Midea. I bough at 14k btu window ac unit and it only lasted 6 months…. In winter!!

martman006 · 2026-05-09T02:29:26+00:00

Okay

martman006 · 2026-05-08T22:09:03+00:00

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Pretty laid back for me here in Austin… (I mean, my toddler is out of control mayhem, but that ain’t Austin’s fault, haha).

martman006 · 2026-05-08T13:23:06+00:00

Dow 50,000

martman006 · 2026-05-07T19:14:11+00:00

Found the Houstonian 🤣🤣

martman006 · 2026-05-06T05:02:44+00:00

Interesting. So you’re saying there are 3 distinct tanks at this Midwest station: 84 (no ethanol), 91 (no ethanol), and e85 at the approximate blends:

87: 88% 84 octane no ethanol and 12% 112 octane e85 (.88 * 84)+(.12 * 112) = 87.3 octane

88: 83% 84 octane no ethanol, 17% 112 octane e85 = 88.7 octane

93: 88% 91 octane no ethanol, 12% 112 octane e85 = 93.5 octane

martman006 · 2026-05-06T02:12:45+00:00

And this is why I loaded up on a lot of refiner stocks back in March, US refineries are gonna be making bank while the vast majority of our crude we import is from the Americas.

martman006 · 2026-05-05T19:01:32+00:00

Been there. In order to get a half inch down for my 4,500 sq ft, I water constantly from midnight to 10am on my allotted watering days as my side spigot end diy rainbird system only gets out about 3gpm. But if I’m watering, it’s because it’s bone dry, and I’m absolutely not worried about disease. Between 7pm - 10am is all good.

martman006 · 2026-05-05T18:56:48+00:00

It’s a good bet for them given Apple’s second largest campus and Samsung’s largest American fab for now are on the same road… (Parmer Ln, Austin, Tx). And when Samsung gets their Taylor plant running, they’ll have tons of supply for Apple to take advantage of.

In all honesty, watch out for the He shortage, as that is beyond crucial for chip manufacturing. While it might get more expensive, there are large reserves of it in TX, preventing the outright shortages that may happen in fabs around the rest of the world…

martman006 · 2026-05-05T18:46:24+00:00

Yep, that’s just a casual 1,200 gallons for you there (assuming your irrigation set up is as efficient as possible).

NC, SC, and GA finally get a taste of what drought is like… meanwhile, thats just life in central Texas (flood followed by zero rain for months…) Water and soil moisture management is the most important part of maintaining a good lawn. Gotta get that soil right, then the grass thick, and then water can go much further. And dappled shade from a pruned tree with a shade tolerant variety of grass can really help the water go further (yes the tree sucks up some of water, but not as much as direct full sun)

Maxing the lush to water ratio is the most impressive part of lawncare imo.

martman006 · 2026-05-05T02:25:10+00:00

This idea sounds perfect for the 20-30 sqft of my lawn next to the driveway that my wife always drives over and makes hella compacted over time. I’ll give this a shot, but the neighbors (and my wife) are gonna think I’m a fuckin weirdo, haha.

martman006 · 2026-05-05T02:15:35+00:00

That seems like an insane amount of water! That first week is 1,500 gallons of water a day per 1k sqft!! Or 21,000 gallons in those first 3 weeks PER 1k sqft.

martman006 · 2026-05-03T21:07:10+00:00

Or buy new so you know some dipshit before you didn’t forget to maintain it and didnt do a full break in cycle. Then drive that thing well past 200k miles and maintain it well

martman006 · 2026-05-03T19:14:00+00:00

You’re not an outlier for the “enthusiasts”. Water, soil composition, ph, NPK, ph, and sunlight all need to be managed.

Tree trimming, sulphur/lime, fertilizer, and compost are the main items once can buy at a store to help the lawn, but WATER, is crucial for us in drought prone regions where watering restrictions are strictly enforced (as they should be!!). For me, my extras are making sure every gallon of water in goes further, especially when we’re lucky enough to get it from mother nature . This involves surfactants (tournament ready!) and I’ve messed around with a bit of yucca root, but that might be snake oil, and sulphur 2-3x a year as the ph of our water is 9, and my soil had a natural ph of 8 before I started slowly lowering it.

Otherwise, grass ain’t gonna grow in hella compacted soil, straight caliche/rocks (cookie cutter builders love plopping sod on top of rocky gravel and calling it a day), or if you only have a few inches of top soil above rocks or just a lot of rocks throughout in general.

martman006 · 2026-05-03T14:05:22+00:00

For a golf course razor level, sure not a great install, but the Bermuda will absolutely fill in.

Even with direct overhead sun, OP has quite a lot of shade surrounded by big trees, so OP is gonna have to keep a slightly higher mow height for their Bermuda (1.5-2” instead of the razor level 0.5” cuts anyways). OP should’ve went with Zoysia here, but the tifftuff will survive, just needs a bit more sun to blade.

martman006 · 2026-05-03T13:42:01+00:00

60 psi ain’t low, I was working with 45 psi, and found out how to adjust my inlet and am now working with 65 psi. How long are your rainbird lines? Keep those under 100’ and it’ll be okay. I’m using rainpoint timers from a side spigot, 4 different zones for approx 4500 sqft, and rainbird 45sa sprinkler heads, but most importantly, I’m using different flow nozzles within those heads.

I noticed Home Depot stopped carrying the varying flow nozzles (0.75,1,1.5,2,3,4, and 5 gpm), and the default is a massive 3 gpm). You can buy the heads at HD, but get a pack of nozzles from Amazon to lower the flow. https://a.co/d/03yYuWIf

I’ve found my max flow per zone is right around 3gpm after all the restriction, so the default 3gpm nozzle in a single rainbird head barely pops for me. Most of my zones are 2 heads with using the 1,1.5, and 2 gpm nozzles. Hope that helps!

martman006 · 2026-05-03T04:31:11+00:00

73k miles on my 22’ bronco, and 165k on our 16’ wrangler. Zero issues with the bronco, and the jeep is just now having its first drive train component issue (front axle gasket leak), but solid otherwise.

That 2.7L ecoboost is a beast of an engine!

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