ABC Blog

Please choose a city to view local blog posts:

Choose a City

4 Popular Hardscaping Features

. Posted by in • San Antonio

Landscaping Improvements That Work For You

Lawns need mowing, gardens love edging, and weeds deserve whacking. Yard chores aren’t fun, but they add up to a beautiful home landscape. What if you could improve the scenery with features that don’t demand special attention? Here are four great hardscaping ideas for homeowners who like to relax on the weekend.

1. Retaining Walls Have Purpose

Whether they’re built with concrete block or native field stone, well-placed retaining walls minimize erosion from pouring rains and help control storm flooding. They shade delicate gardens from sizzling Texas summers and provide welcome wind breaks when winter storms blow through. If your lawn mower bounces over uneven terrain, consider the shorter cousins of these functional walls. Terracing tames the wildest slopes in San Antonio yards.

2. Pathways Work Around Problems

Towering shade trees thin the lawn under their branches, and family foot traffic wears ruts along favorite home trails. Win this … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Are Ants Stealing Your Pet’s Dinner?

. Posted by in , • Bryan-College Station

Texas is home to a variety of pesky ant species that thrive in our year-round warm climate. Ask the professionals how to protect your home from ongoing invasions and chances are they’ll tell you to watch where your crumbs fall. While a lot of other variables – moisture levels, landscaping, and location – come into play when ants look for new spots to settle, food waste is a major source of infestations. Keeping food off the ground is generally great advice, but what if you share your home with a hungry pet? When a food bowl is a permanent fixture on your kitchen floor, following the tips below can make all the difference.

Get to Know Your Enemy

They may look similar, but different ant species behave in very different ways. For example, carpenter ants are nocturnal, while look-alike acrobat ants are active during the day. The more you know about the … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Restaurant Team Spirit: Your Staff and Pest Prevention

. Posted by in • Dallas-Fort Worth

Serving up smart pest control tips

Folks in Dallas enjoy dining out, and their love for delicious food and great service keeps you in business. As hard as you work to make your restaurant profitable, a pest infestation can ruin inventory, run off customers, and put a dent in your reputation. Prevention is your best defense, so get your staff involved in a team effort against expensive invaders.

Back-of-House Strategies

Fresh inventory gets checked in against daily and weekly orders, but kitchen staff should give everything a second inspection before moving it to storage or the walk-in. Anything that pushes food costs over 35% sets off alarms, so there’s no room in the budget for losses from pest contamination. Red-flag meal moths around flour sacks and cockroaches in produce boxes. Stress the importance of rotating inventory, regularly sweeping out storage, and mopping floors after every prep.

Front-of-House Strategies

Your waitstaff knows the restaurant’s layout from … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Winter Ahead! Is Your HVAC System Ready?

. Posted by in • Austin

Ensuring that your heating system makes it through the Austin winter

When the chilly days of winter roll in, you don’t want to be worrying about your heating system. Keeping your home’s HVAC in top condition for the coldest months helps guarantee that you and your family stay warm throughout the season.

Getting Your HVAC Ready for Winter

There are several things you can do to prepare your heating system to tackle winter temperatures. One of the most important is to make sure that all components are clean. Start by cleaning or replacing the filter if necessary. Check the air vents to make sure that they’re allowing for proper flow. Blockage or restriction anywhere in the system reduces efficiency and can negatively affect the air quality in your home.

Blower doors should also be checked to determine if the seals are sound. This component of your HVAC system is designed to keep gasses from … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Simple Guidelines for Selecting a New Water Heater

. Posted by in • Austin

How to find the right model without paying too much

When properly maintained, your home’s water heater can provide a decade or more of dependable service. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. If your water heater is on its last legs and needs to be replaced, you’ll need to determine which type and brand of heater is right for your home. Here are a few guidelines that you should follow as you make your decision.

Selection Criteria

According to the Department of Energy, you need to base your water heater selection on several key factors:

  • The upfront and ongoing (annualized) cost of the device
  • The size and heating power of the device as it relates to the size and water use of your house
  • The overall efficiency of the device
  • The type of fuel used by the heater

Fuel Types

On the matter of fuel, it’s important to note that not all water heaters run on … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Wildlife in the City: When Neighbors Collide

. Posted by in • San Antonio

What to do when those cute critters encroach

The San Antonio area is a great place to see wild animals in their native habitats. We’re surrounded by natural areas that harbor dozens of bird, reptile, and mammal species, reminding us that humanity is just one part of a diverse ecosystem. Unfortunately, wild animals occasionally encroach on our property and necessitate a response from homeowners or trained professionals. It’s important to understand how to deal with such activity without overreacting.

What Animals Tend to Live Among Us?

There are plenty of resident critters in central and south Texas. The ones that tend to do best among people include:

  • Opossums
  • Raccoons
  • Coyotes
  • Deer
  • Songbirds and birds of prey

Should You Feed the Deer?

Many San Antonio-area homeowners welcome the influx of animals into our neighborhoods. Some even go so far as to encourage their presence by leaving out bird or deer feeders.

While it can be great to watch birds frolic at your … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Do You Know the Wormy Truth About Rats?

. Posted by in • Bryan-College Station

Everyone knows rats don’t make great tenants because they carry loads of bacteria, but how about parasitic worms? Rat lungworm—or Angiostrongylus cantonensis, if you want to get official—is a parasitic worm that targets rats through their food sources. If that sounds scary already, wait until you hear this: In rare cases, humans can catch rat lungworm through contact with infected foods.

Since we’re talking about rats, you’re probably wondering what eating infected foods has to do with rodent infestations, and that’s a very good question. Here’s how the exchange works:

1. Rats that are infected with an adult form of the rat lungworm parasite pass the parasite’s larvae through feces.

2. Slugs and snails munch on the droppings, picking up the infection hiding inside.

3. Rats then eat the infected slugs and snails, bringing the cycle back to step one.

The interesting thing about this infection is that it works its way up to humans … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

San Antonio Tree Selection: Choosing the Best Trees for Your Yard

. Posted by in • San Antonio

Windbreaks, Shades and Canopies That Love Central Texas

Planting a new tree in the yard yields instant green thumb gratification. Even the smallest sapling stands up straight with a promise of easy care and future shade. The mild San Antonio climate is very forgiving about your choice in timber, but some trees love the area more than others.

From Understories to Canopies

Trees don’t have to grow tall to be beautiful, and some of our loveliest local choices are the understory species. Mexican buckeyes and Texas redbuds mature at 10 feet, so enjoy these smaller plantings as windbreaks that offer natural landscaping privacy. Taller maples, walnuts and Mexican plums reach ideal heights for keeping your great outdoors shady and comfortable. Count on live oaks, cedar elms and Sabal palms for magnificent, towering canopies that spread over the house, block the sizzling sun and help hold down summer cooling costs.

Fabulous Flowers and Delectable Fruits

The … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Are You Overwatering Your Lawn?

. Posted by in • Austin

Stop drowning the grass and start practicing smart irrigation

Proper lawn care is all about balance. While it’s a good idea to give the grass a drink when it’s looking parched, overdoing it can lead to a host of problems that leave the lawn looking worse than before you watered.

Signs of Overwatering

How can you tell if you’ve been watering too often? One sign is the development of excess thatch. This layer of shallow-rooted plant material is routinely broken down on healthy lawns but can take over in the presence of too much water. Overwatering discourages grass from putting down deep roots, allowing thatch to thrive. Weeds that like damp areas may take up residence as well.

Watering too often promotes the growth of fungus which may appear as bright colors or brown spots. Dampness attracts insect pests that eat away at healthy grasses both above and below the ground, leaving unsightly damage … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed

Why Are We Bugged by Bugs?

. Posted by in • San Antonio

The science behind our fear of insects

What’s your least favorite insect?

For many people, that question is hard to answer. That’s not because there are so few scary bugs out there. Rather, it’s because lots of people are afraid of—or just generally “creeped out” by—all bugs. Recently, we heard an illuminating podcast about the psychology behind our fear of bugs. While it might not be enough to dispel your fears, it could help you understand why insects, arachnids, and arthropods seem so creepy.

Anyone Can Be Afraid

In the podcast, a well-known academic named Jeffrey Lockwood discusses his own fears of insects. As a grasshopper expert, he fancied himself immune to the fears that afflict normal folks. As it turns out, however, he’s just as susceptible as the rest of us. When he was out on the open prairie near his home base at the University of Wyoming, he came across an area … Read Full Post »

Comments Closed