Once we get into the season of fall proper, it’s often a roller coaster ride from very warm to chilly conditions, often only days apart. This week will be fairly typical in that light. A building ridge of high pressure will send valley high temperatures to about the 90 degree mark for Tuesday and Wednesday, but a digging trough of low pressure will kick up some late week winds and will also drop our temperatures into the 70s by Friday and then bottom out in the 60s by the weekend. Even with the approaching trough, it’s unlikely we will see any rainfall out of the pattern.

Dan had an interesting question: He wondered why, on a windy day, the water levels in toilets tended to pop up and down… even when no other plumbing in the house is being used.

To answer this, you have to look at how a house’s plumbing is set up. The drain pipes, as you can imagine, can emit some pretty unpleasant odors. In order to keep those nasty smells out of the house, the drains from sinks and toilets have an S-shaped curve (S-trap) in them to keep them filled with water, blocking the odors from wafting into the master bathroom. More tomorrow.