Question: Several years back my wife insisted on having a small waterfall and a shallow koi pond built in our backyard, and I have since spent a small fortune feeding koi to the local egrets, herons and raccoons.

My wife loves watching the koi, but they don’t last more than a few weeks. I stopped replacing them several months ago, my wife really misses them, and she is not happy at all with me over this issue.

Is there any way to keep the koi from getting eaten by our local wildlife population?

Your Handyman: Koi can make for very expensive bird and raccoon food, and even the most alert backyard dog will be hard pressed to provide constant 24/7 surveillance on your pond.

Herons, egrets and raccoons have a lot of free time on their hands, and if your pond is not constructed correctly, they will eventually dine on your fish.

I have known of several cases in which homeowners have spent considerable time and money designing and installing water features in their yards, and stocking their ponds with koi, only to have the fish eaten in the first weeks by our crafty local wildlife.

The solution is to consult with a koi expert during the design process, and my understanding as a nonkoi expert, is that the pond needs to be at a minimum 3 feet deep to allow adequate depth for the fish to escape the long saber-like beaks of the herons and egrets.

Less than 3 feet deep and the fish get shish-kebabbed by the bird beaks or snatched up by the nimble thumbed paws of the raccoons.

As far as a solution for your pond, we have built in the past a lightweight, shallow, framed box made from redwood covered with chicken wire that is staked to the ground over a shallow pond keeping the koi in and the wildlife out.

This may sound a little unsightly, but it works, and as the perimeter plants fill in through the wire mesh it will become a little less noticeable, your koi will peacefully swim about, and your wife will be happy again.

And as a wise man once told me, “A happy wife makes for a happy life.”

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Question: We have an old spa on our back patio that we no longer use because my husband has vertigo, and I’m afraid he will slip and fall climbing in and out.

We do not know how to get it out of the yard because it is so big and heavy, and we had a new fence built a few years back that blocks the side yard through which it was originally delivered.

This old thing has really become an eyesore that gets no use at all, but we don’t know how to get rid of it!

Your Handyman: Many homes have older portable spas that are no longer used or have stopped working but remain in place because they can be exceedingly difficult to move, or a fence or gazebo was later built that makes it impossible to remove the spa intact.

The solution is to cut up the spa into four or more pieces that can be lifted by two or three strong young workers and then removed from the yard.

We have done this numerous times, and it is accomplished using a Sawzall, which is a reciprocating saw with a long blade that cuts through the plastic shell, interior insulation and hoses, and the exterior wood box.

The electrical service connections need to first be disconnected and capped, and the circuit breakers for the spa need to be turned off or removed from the circuit breaker box — all done by an electrician.

The spa pieces are, of course, too big to be put out for trash collection but need to be loaded into a pickup truck and hauled to the dump, eventually to be buried in the landfill since they have no recycle value.

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Question: For some reason, rainwater gets behind the rain gutters on our house and there are several sections of fascia board that are water damaged and need replacement.

Why is this happening and what type of wood do you recommend for the new fascia board?

Your Handyman: Great question. If rainwater is running off the roof and down the fascia board instead of pouring directly into the rain gutter, the fascia board will eventually become water damaged and start to show signs of rot.

So, the first issue to deal with is why the fascia board is getting wet. The solution is usually the correct installation of the rain gutter.

There should be a metal drip edge on your roof that was installed over the edge of the plywood or wood planks before the waterproof membrane and roof shingles were installed.

The purpose of this drip edge metal is to keep rainwater from running down the facia board and causing the damage that you are experiencing.

The flat back side of the rain gutter should be installed under this drip edge so that all water coming off the roof is channeled into the gutter; the fascia board is then kept dry and remains in good condition.

If the wood rot is left untreated it can consume the fascia board, which is relatively easy to replace but can then move into the rafter tails and eves — which can become a much more expensive repair project.

All our local lumber yards sell replacement fascia board, which is free of knots, has a factory-applied primer coat of paint, and is smooth on one side and has a rough finish on the other side.

This fascia board is more expensive than using common framing lumber but will hold up much better over the years to rain, fog and the blazing sun.