Stain vs paint maintenance I am removing paint form a wood fence door (paint was not primed it seems). The paint was peeling and I wanted to get this door done. Very painful (process of removing paint).

I thought stain is better, but here are my questions: using Behr as my example for learning

is there a difference in the maintenance if using wood-tone or semi-transparent stain?
If the product says it lasts for 5 years, what will I have to do in 5 years? just clean the surface with water and re-apply? or is the work of preparing the door will be just as painful as scraping the paint now?
this article from TOH http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20361229_20771120,00.html has few types of stain, which one is Behr "wood tone" equivalent to? wood tone is less then semi-transparent, but is it "clear" or something above it?
TOH claims that semi and transparent will not peel. great, so if it doesn't peel, it means that maintanance is as easy as just re-apply?

I don't mind re-apply something every 5 years, that is easy, I just don't want to scrap every each of the wood like I do now ever again. I understand that possibly, I got it wrong, and that if I was willing to just paint the door again, I would not have to scrap all the paint (right?) since all I need to do is just scrap the bad paint that is easy to scrap, and than prime and paint over...

opinions on the paint vs stain part ?

To answer part 2 of your question.

You should probably reapply the stain a little earlier than the full 5 years - it could be starting to show signs of wear before then and you don't want to let the weather in.

If you are reapplying a stain then cleaning and lightly sanding the door should be preparation enough. If you want to apply a lighter stain then you will have to remove more of the old finish first.

Even if the stain does peel (which is unlikely) then sanding should be all you need to do. Be careful though to make sure that you sand the door evenly. If you take more off in one area than the rest it will show through.


Radon abatement complete, but contractor used weird wiring? We had a contractor do radon abatement, which involved adding a fan to pump air out from under the slab. They decided to power this fan by hard-wiring an extension cord. There is a disconnect switch in a weatherproof box on the outside of the house. The wire going off to the left in this picture leads to it. The 2x4s continue for several feet in both directions, so the wire isn't actually hanging in free space.

Is this normal? Should I have a licensed electrician do something about it?

That is 100% a code violation. A flexible cord CANNOT be used as a substitute for permanent wiring. The means of disconnect, or service disconnect, is the switch outside. They should have simply hard wired with cable to the receptacle box, or better yet, run a circuit to the fan, not for the added load, but to keep the fan isolated from other loads.


Do the doors on my utility closet need to be vented steel? Our home is on a slab foundation, our furnace and hot water tank are in a closet. Currently we have vented steel bi-folding doors, I'm looking to replace the doors. Do they need to be steel and vented?

We have the same arrangement in our 1970 house with slab on grade foundation--both water heater and furnace natural gas fired in a utility closet centrally located on the living floor. All of the houses in our Fox and Jacobs 200 house tract neighborhood are built that way.

These gas fired heaters get their combustion air from inside the closet which is open to the the attic via wire mesh in the ceiling. The double doors to the living space are standard hollow core doors, no vents, and seal fairly well.

The conditioned air is pulled into the furnace air handler through a plenum below.

In your case is there a wire mesh over an opening into the attic? Is the attic vented (soffitt and ridge)? Or do your water heater and furnace get their combustion air from outside via roof or soffitt vents?

It would be highly unusual for the WH and furnace to be getting their combustion air from the living space, but if they did then you would need a grill in the door, otherwise no.

But find out what is code in your jurisdiction.

EDIT Another possibility: Where does the air flow into the air handler enter the closet? My parents had a small, nicely built retirement home in which the air entered the air handler through a vent in the door. The door when shut sealed against the inlet to the air handler. If you have this arrangement, the door must be vented. In my house the air enters under the door through vents into a plenum and then goes up through the filter, the fan, the furnace and the a/c evaporator


Sealant used to prevent water getting between bath and wall? What's the name of the 'rubbery' sealant they use between the bath and the wall, and why don't they use it in between the wall tiles?  They use a hard grouting between wall tiles, but if the weight of the bath water makes the bath slightly drag the tiles down when it is filled which may crack the grouting (presumably why they use the rubbery sealant between bath and wall), isn't it more sensible to use that rubbery sealant for all the grouting?

The rubbery sealant is bathroom (or general-purpose) silicone caulk. As to why they don't use it between every tile, the answer is that it shouldn't be necessary; except for the one row of tile overhanging the "backsplash" of a "built-in" tub (helps keep minor splashes and overflow from seeping into the wall behind the tub), all tiles should be fixed to the wall, and unless the bathtub is not properly supported from underneath the weight of water should have only a minimal effect on stretching and shrinkage of that wall. If the wall IS stretching and shrinking enough to crack and flake the grout, it will probably also be affecting the tiles' adhesion to the wall, and you will, sooner than you should have to, be paying someone else to repair or replace the tile.

It's also a cost-benefits thing. Grout is very easy to apply; after applying the tiles to the backing, simply load a trowel with the grout mix, and scrape it over tile and gap alike, pressing the grout into the gaps. Then, with a damp rag, wipe off the tile, leaving grout in the gaps. Contrast that with going over every gap between tiles with a caulk gun, carefully applying just the right amount of caulk; caulking is precision work if you want it to look good. You can grout a full shower in less than an hour; you'd be there all day with a caulk gun.


How can I get a brick out of my drain pipe? There's a brick inside my outside drain, and I can't get it out. It's stuck in there, and the drain is now overflowing with all sorts of things. It's already too deep. I tried to hit it in as hard as I could, hoping I could break the brick in pieces, but no luck. I'm stuck now.

First, do not attempt to break the brick into any more pieces, should you succeed these pieces may get lodged further down the pipe making it that much more complicated (and expensive) to resolve.

Unfortunately the only solution will be to cut the section of pipe that the brick is stuck in and remove it.

Call a plumber: it already sounds like you are in over your head; a qualified professional will be able to resolve the situation for you without further compromising the drainage system.


Does wardrobe/closet need doors? I was always told to let the wardrobe doors open sometimes, so "let the air circulate". And I wonder, does the wardrobe actually need to have doors? What would be the problems (other them visual) of let it always open?

The main reason for having doors that I can think of is that UV light will fade clothes and degrade some materials over time. As a commenter said, this might more of a problem depending on what direction the rooms window faces.

Having doors also will help to some degree with smells from cooking or smoking.


Can I identify window manufacture from the NAMI information? All I could find short of removing the window to look for the manufacturer's label is the NAMI sticker information it had inside top frame.
And yes I did look through the posted NAMI list here, mine wasn't found on it.

Apartment Bldg.: All Windows replaced mid 1980's with vinyl frame/impact glass.
Location: Cooper City, Florida
NAMI LABEL: Information ANSI/ AAMA  101-93
CODE:  E-207-1
SPEC:  DH-R35
SERIES:**93105/91F/101F/95
**MST: 4562  (MST stands for what?)

My Purpose: Replacement of the plastic slider clips that come on the window screens.

Function: Clips keep the screen snug in place when slid out into the corners. To remove screen you slide them into the center and pull down on them to release the screen out from the frame.  Being vinyl, they have disintegrated and broken. The screens now rattle constantly in the frames whenever the wind blows or it storms.  I'm looking to find replacement clips for the screens if possible.

I'm honestly not to optimistic about finding them, but worth a try.

I would recommend you just make the Window screen yourself.  They are really easy to make and I am sure you can find a clip option that will fit your needs.  Besides, if these are contractor windows, you probably can't get the OEM screen anymore and/or the manufacturer no longer exists.

Here is an example screen parts supplier: http://www.qualitywindowscreen.com/screening-supplies-parts-tools.html

Here is an example video showing how easy the screens are to build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxZHslZduRw


How do fish tank stands take the weight? So I was wondering how they take the weight? I have one tank that is 125 litres (33g) and its on the fluval 125 stand which i know is made for the tank. But with the weight of the water and tank when full how does it handle this? Because the stand has no central support at all? Its on support at the left and right side.

Yes the load (weight) is distributed to the sides and the 5 cross members that are visible in the picture share the job of keeping the stand square(lateral support). The bottom one and the one in the shade doing the brunt of that job. The top deck is to transfer the weight to the sides and the top illuminated cross member keeps it from sagging as does the large shaded cross member.


choosing a programmable thermostat: wiring and power I want to replace my non-programmable RobertShaw 9500 thermostat with a programmable thermostat.

The current wiring uses these terminals:  RH, W, Y, G.

With that set of wires, can I get a wire-powered thermostat with battery backup, or does it has to be battery only?

You will not be able to get a "wire powered" thermostat, without at least one more wire. You'll need an additional wire, to connect to the C terminal of the new thermostat.


Why won't my Kenmore front load washing machine start? I have a Kenmore 796-4116 front load washing machine. It's <2 years old. It powers on and there are no error codes or indicators of trouble on the display.

I turn the knob to select a wash cycle and press Start/Pause to begin but it never starts the cycle. The door latches as it always has and there are no broken parts on the door or on the machine where the latch goes. I see no obvious physical damage of any kind anywhere on the machine.

I have power cycled the machine, unplugged and replugged from the wall.  The manual's troubleshooting section does not have an entry for this issue. The chime works and I can turn the knob to designate any of the wash cycles but none of them will start.

It's possible the door switch has gone bad. Next possible is a bad panel. My money is on the door switch. Occasionally slamming the door will make it work once or twice. If this works, it's definitely the door switch. There are videos to show how to replace the switch. Be sure to unplug the machine before attempting any repairs !


Should I install a grounding rod near my light post to protect against lightning? We have a very old house, which has had an old run of electrical cable (2-wire) from the basement about 40ft to a lamp post that has been unused.  The old cable has been disconnected, and the current plan is the following:

Use the old line to pull a new cable in to the basement
Add a new, 13th breaker (20A) to the panel for this line
The cabling will be outdoor 12/3
The cable will be buried 18-inches inside PVC (because it runs by a garden and there could be future digging)
The lamp post will have a GFCI outlet, a motion detector, and a light attached
The run will contine to the garage which currently has no lights or outlets (another 12 or so ft)
Will add in a GFCI outlet, then a few LED overhead lights to the garage.

My main question is this - I had a client with outdoor lamps get lightning strikes and fry stuff in their office (like 8k in equipment). Is it wise to add a new grounding rod near the outdoor lamp post? (post is currently wood, but someway will be replaced with metal)

You can put a proper ground rod there if you really want to, and tie iti n with the grounding system.  There's no restriction on grounding, what you can't do is tie neutral to ground.

Now... Why are you putting GFCI outlets all over the place, outdoors no less? GFCI devices perform very badly outdoors and it will be a maintenance headache.

You only have one circuit, so you only need one GFCI device.  If this comes as a surprise to you, this is a great time to get educated. Save you a fortune in the long run.

And put it indoors. So it's out of the weather.

If you're simple, fit a GFCI breaker.   Otherwise you can run EMT conduit off the service panel to a nearby location (like right next to the panel) and fit a steel box,  and a cheaper GFCI deadface or liveface receptacle there. That will position it to take the lightning hit instead of your expensive stuff.

The outdoor circuit gets fed off that, and you use plain receptacles throughout.  If the circuit has good grounds, you should be able to confirm the efficacy of the GFCI protection with a pocket tester.


New Switch for Outdoor Area Lights I'm working on replacing an old rotary timer switch with a new smart switch, that controls two outdoor area lights. However after getting everything wired up, the switch is not turning on the lights. Here's what I'm working with.

Old rotary timer and wiring:

There's also more info on the specifics of the old wiring in this post where I was originally asking what my options were.

Outdoor area light - there are two of these that the switch controls:

Here's the bulb that I recently put it one of these lights. The other one has a similar bulb that was working.

New smart switch, Lutron Caseta:

After wiring this up, I'm able to see the status lights on this smart switch:

When this smart switch wasn't turning on the lights, I decided to go back to the basics and installed a standard switch; however, this switch isn't turning on the lights either:

Any suggestions for what's causing the problem here and how to go about fixing it?

I cannot answer your questions regarding the wiring and why the lights do not switch on and off. But clearly there is something misunderstood regarding what wires have to hook to what in order to allow this to switch correctly. With that said there are a few things that do require comment here.

After removal of the timer box from the wall you just have the Romex cables poking through the wall. You are going to have to install a proper electrical box in the wall to secure the Romex cables, contain the electrical connections and provide means to mount the switch.
The quality of wiring workmanship in both the old timer box and the connections showing for the new switch leave something to be desired. For example the wire nut does not even cover the insulation on all the wires as showing below. Throw away those hard plastic wire nuts and get some of the softer plastic wire nuts that have longer skirts to cover the wires better.

The type of smart switch you are using is one designed to operate without a neutral connection and as a dimmer for indoor lighting. I would really recommend another type to use for exterior lighting which is the Lutron PD-6ANS-WH. This switch eliminates the dimming function and uses a neutral connection. This configuration of smart switch will provide you much more reliable on/off operation for a variety of load types (which could come into play as your lighting fixture calls for a specialty type bulb).


Replacing the wiring to a socket in a home? In my home, in one bedroom circuit, there are several receptacles.  After first two receptacles, next socket has no power.  After significant effort, it has been determined that the sockets are fine, connections are okay, but one wire coming from attic via the wall is broken.  However, I do have a 100% confirmation.  Questions:  (1) How can I be 100% sure of this diagnosis. (2) Assuming that my diagnosis is correct, how to replace existing discontinuous (broken) wire with a new one through the wall.  Earlier answers did not answer either of these questions.  M.S.

To confirm the wire is broken/damaged, you can measure the electrical resistance of the cable with a multi-meter.  If the wire is OK, you should get a near-zero measurement.  If it is broken or significantly damaged, the resistance will be a high value or infinity.

You need to isolate the section of cable you think is damaged to in between two electrical boxes.  With the power off, at one end of the cable, connect the hot and neutral with a wirenut.  Measure the resistance between the two at the other end. Repeat this with all combinations of hot/neutral, hot/ground, neutral/ground in order to figure out which wire is broken.

As far as replacing the cable, you will likely need to cut one or more holes in your wall in order to pull a new cable through.  If it's a relatively straight and short run you might get away just removing the electrical boxes and fishing a new cable through, and then replacing the electrical boxes, but usually you have to cut multiple holes to run a new cable.


close an old hood vent We are in the process is renovating our kitchen. One of the things we are doing is installing a more modern range hood instead of the older under cabinet hood. The new hood requires us to create a new vent hole and so our problem is "how do we close and permanently seal the old vent hole on the outside which was much lower?" Especially on the outside - can I cover it with wood and then siding or are kits made for this task?

The 'ducting area' of most hardware stores will carry caps that fit over common sizes of duct. Buy one for the interior and seal it in with silicon as close to the outer wall as possible. On the outside these vents are almost always covered with a downward angled cover. Just spray in "large  crack foam" and you may not even need to move the cover. I wouldn't even bother to conceal the outer cover, houses have these kinds of covers all over.


How can I tell what kind of baseboard heater I have installed? I assumed the baseboard heaters in my rented apartment were electric since there is an electricity breaker that effectively turns off the heating. However, after looking at my utility bill, I think it may actually use gas as well.

How can I tell what kind of heater it is? Here is a photo of it.

That's most likely hot water (hydronic) - the heat source might well be gas (and will be a lot cheaper than electric if so, in most places). The breaker probably shuts off the power to the boiler.

As for "how do I tell for sure?" ask your landlord.

There is a fairly small possibility that it could be steam.


FHT x MHT bibb with screw mounts I am running a hose under a deck which has a wooden "fence" covering the "crawl space". I'd like to have a spigot on the side of the deck where the hose come out. Do they make something like this that I can screw a hose in the back/inlet and screwn the bib into the fence? All of the bibs I've found with screw mounts like this do not have FHT on the inlet, and all of the bibs I've found with FHT on the inlet do not have a mounting flange/holes. Any recommendations?

I think you'll need to pass through pipe threads in the adapter part of the world if you want this done with hose.
I do see PEX to FGHT (female garden hose thread) fittings, so if you are coming from a hose bibb and going into this you could use PEX rather than hose, with a FGHT fitting at the one end and MPT (male pipe thread) or FPT (female pipe thread) fitting at the other end.


Can a Sonoff Basic Switch be connected between a wall switch and a light? Newbie here from India.

I was wondering if a Sonoff Basic switch can be connected as given in the diagram below:

The "Light Switch on the Wall" stays always in the 'On' position. And the Sonoff switch disrupts the flow of electricity.

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician. I will be getting this connected by a qualified electrician.

Edit: Changed the diagram to better reflect how a switch works

There's no reason that wouldn't work unless the manufacturer advises against it. It's a possibility that frequent on/off cycling isn't good for it, but that's unlikely. It's somewhat likely that there will be a wifi reconnect lag, however, so take that into consideration.

Really, this is no different than a typical motion detector on a switch loop.


Gutter pitch configuration I have a shed withe following gutter/downspout configuration:

The problem at the moment is that there is standing water in all of the gutters. The gutters are not sagging, but they are perfectly level (i.e. no pitch).

Side D is outside of a fence in an alley, while the other sides are in the yard, which is presumably why they went with this configuration??

The question now is how would you reconfigure the gutters to fix the standing water problem? It seems like I'd need to:

make side A look like an "A" where the center is highest (of the whole system) and the two corners are lower (by about 1/2")
Slope sides C and B down away from A by an additional 1"
Slope the corners of D down to the downspouts a little bit, and the center of D down to the downspouts a little bit.

So assuming that is the right approach, this seems like basically a full re-installation? Like I'd have to detach all of the corner joints, then setup A first and follow it all the way around to the downspouts?

Also, can you make an "A" shape with a single gutter piece? Or do you need a joint at the top of the "A"?

Yeah, it sounds like you're going to want to basically remove and re-install. The good news is that gutter is actually somewhat flexible, so you'll probably be able to make the adjustments without fully removing all the pieces.

Cleaning the debris from the gutters is definitely a good idea, but it'll accumulate again. If you can get enough slope in the gutters then rainfall might be able to clean some of the debris automatically -- but the shingle sand will always have to be cleaned out manually. Cleaning the gutter before you begin will reduce the weight you have to deal with while working, too.

Yes, you can make an A profile with a middle hill. There are reasons why this is sometimes done but they don't apply on this job. When a gutter is very long or serves a large roof area (ie collects a large volume of water) it can be necessary to divide it into multiple zones. This is the case on my shop building -- it's 51 feet long. With a single slope the gutter would have to hang below the fascia at one end and the collected water would overwhelm the single downspout. Instead that gutter is crowned in the middle and the two ends drop half as much. Where your side A is only 15 feet long this isn't necessary -- but it won't hurt if you want to do it anyway. As I mentioned, gutter is somewhat flexible, so you'll be able to set the center at 1/4 to maybe 3/8 or even 1/2 inch higher than the ends without needing any joint.

Again, because gutter flexes, I think you'll be able to progress from the midpoint of A around the corner and down the B/C sides by unscrewing the hangers some 6-12 feet ahead of where you're working. If you're really lucky you might not even damage the sealant between the corner pieces and the straight sections. If it doesn't work out, complete removal followed by re-install is always an option.

It can be tricky to get the slope of the gutter "just right." Fortunately, it mostly doesn't matter -- just don't make any bellies (low spots). A water level could come in handy. This is a stunningly low-tech, inexpensive, simple tool you can build yourself. It's harder to describe in words than it is to use.. maybe look for a youtube video. You'll need a bucket and a hose. Clear vinyl tubing is great, but if the distance is longer than the amount of clear tubing you're willing to buy, then get a section 10 feet or so and attach it to the end of a garden hose or whatever you already have.

To set up and use the water level:

Secure one end of the hose in the bucket, and position the bucket so it's about eye level. In this case, that would be somewhere near the level of the gutter.
Fill the bucket with water to about 3/4 of capacity.
Fill the hose with water, taking care to purge all air bubbles. Run pressurized water from the end of the hose back into the bucket, or siphon water out of the bucket through the hose.
Move the end of the hose and watch the level of the water through the clear tube. No matter where you take it, the water level in the tube will stay perfectly level with the water level in the bucket.
Take care to not allow any water to drain or spill from the system, nor to move the bucket. All of these will cause the reference level to change, and measurements at the new level can't be compared directly with measurements at the old level.
Fix some kind of measurements to the tube. I like to tape it to a yardstick, but tape or pen marks on the tube work too.

With a bit of math you can work out the relative elevation for any point along the path of the gutters.


What is the proper way to bring a water line in through skirting on concrete runners? Hello,

I have a new manufactured home in the greater Seattle area. Our frost line is at 12” and the home sits on concrete runners.

My contractor ran a common trench for our utilities, power and cable and water.

We are supposed to back fill the house a bit but I’m not sure how much, but I’m trying to find the right way to bring plumbing in.

One plumber said they would just put insulated pex on and pass it straight in above the runners. Another said he would put a valve box in and a main shut off first.

Neither addressed frost concerns. I asked online and everyone said the line should come up through the concrete not above it.

What’s the best way to solve this properly?

As for the best way to solve this properly, I'd say "put the house on a foundation" but that's clearly not what you are looking for.

Digging the trench to the point(s) where the water and sewer connect and then building an insulated box with a hard skin to keep animals out of it (cementboard or metal) to contain the pipes running vertically. Otherwise you're into the godawful failure-prone land of wrapping things in heat tape and insulation, and hoping you don't have a heat tape falure that either freezes your pipes or sets things on fire...


How do I Secure the Vent Stack to Replace a Section of the Waste Vent Pipe? Though similar questions have been asked 1 and 2, neither actually answer what I need.

My house was built in 1950 and its iron waste pipes are 'exposed' in the basement. The Vent pipe is clogged, with rust and according to a professional. The professional said I should only need to replace the 90 section at the base of the vent pipe that connects it to the rest of the waste piping, but lowest price was $1,000 so I want to try to fix this myself.

He also said the vent stack needed to be secured in the attic. I have found plenty on cutting and fitting a new pipe, but nothing on securing the vent stack. Securing it makes sense since the whole stack appears to rest there at the bend and if I remove it then the whole stack comes crashing down.

How do I prepare to replace this section of the waste drain and what would I need?

You should be able to hack together something to secure it, and you could probably do it from directly above your work area there in the basement, rather than having to climb up into the attic.

An initial thought would be to utilize a "band coupling" the size of the vent pipe, pushed tight against the subfloor.

Fasion some flat steel strap or angle-iron into brackets that get clamped tightly to the pipe and screw to the subfloor from below. Use several (see lame picture that shows just one strap).


Electric Motor: Spark and Repair Issues I'm trying to repair a shaded pole induction motor from a home appliance. However, each time I connect the motor to the power outlet there is a spark in the same place (I've already tried 2x):

video: electric motor spark

Any idea?

Additional Notes

Home Appliance
More information about the problem with such home appliance:

Electric Fan not Working
Water Distiller: Reassembly Issues

Electric Motor

It seems this electric motor is Chinese, unfortunately there is no tag in it. My best guest is the following description:

120 VAC, 60Hz, 20W

Soldering

To solder the wire from the coil, I've done the following steps:

Remove the coating of the wire by applying some solder (How to solder enameled copper wire)
Overlapping the wires (Soldering Thin Wires)

After that I did a continuity test to confirm the circuit was fine.

Because continuity, alone, is an indicator of nothing.

Actually, you've got way too much continuity!  But you are not testing for that.   You should test the resistance of the coil, better, measure its inductance.  Not happy stuff.

This is the crux of your problem.  You have a shorted coil.  It's very obvious, from the big arc flash coming from the receptacle, that the coil is much lower impedance than it should be.   That kind of arc flash is TROUBLE and you should not provoke it.

The arc flash occurring at  the coil itself is telling you what's gone wrong.  Some of the varnish insulation has failed and coils are shorting.  You need to rewind this motor.


Strange black mark against washing machine wiring harness My washing machine stopped working and I can see that the front panel circuit board has scorch mark on it. I'm thinking about getting a second hand circuit board to replace it but wanted to check some thing before I waste my time and money.
I also noticed the following black marks (see image) against the machine where the wiring harness touches the machine. Notice also the black dust around the inside of the machine? Is this just some bacteria or burn marks. The wires themselves seem fine.

Thanks.

With the machine unplugged take those wires out of the wire ties, when whatever went up in smoke the wiring also got overheated and may have shorted, or even been the cause if the wires rubbed through and shorted out.
Closely inspect all of the wires as the insulation may have melted enough to allow conductors to short to each other or ground.


Recommendation for a light duty screwdriver with a precise clutch I've scoured the web looking for info on a good light duty screwdriver with a precise clutch but I cant sift through all the bs.  I have a Milwaukee fuel m12 drill/driver which is great for the heavier duty tasks but I need something for smaller tasks. The main characteristic I'm looking for is a good clutch with many positions which can go low enough for working on small sensitive applications like electronics.  Real assembly tools seem to be mostly pnuematic and very expensive, but I don't need that level of precision(at those prices at least) Suggestions would be much appreciated.

The request for a "precise" clutch would appear to indicate a "torque screwdriver" which are widely available in "manual-operated" form but which can, due to precision (and probably low sales volume as well) be fairly expensive. I have a Sturtevant/Richmont torque screwdriver (purchased used) for that purpose. There are others...

Looking for those characteristics in a power-tool form is both overkill for any use other than an assembly line and even more expensive. For most things where you just need to assemble without destroying, learning to use a manual screwdriver is all that's required. The Torque screwdriver is for things like electrical connectors that have a specified torque range that needs to be hit with some precision.


Is a conventional interior drain tile system likely to silt up over time? Three companies have proposed the same solution, more or less, to address pretty bad flooding in our crawlspace: Dig a trench around the interior perimeter and install a perforated pipe that leads to a sump pump. All good, I'm convinced. But the more information I get from the various vendors, the less certain I am of which one to pick. A few questions:

One company told me that with the “old” method of using a round perforated plastic pipe surrounded by a bed of gravel, the pipe will silt up and eventually either get blocked or jam up the sump pump, even with the filtering action of the gravel layer. Their solution is to use the Waterguard system that sits closer to the wall and is wrapped with a sock or sleeve, as is the stone bed. Is he right about the silting problem?
How important is it to install more than one sump pump? One vendor says one (with a battery backup that operates the same pump) is enough because they're very reliable. Another says I should have at least two.

If anyone can share some of their knowledge on this topic, I’d be grateful.

Thanks

Steve

In my area conventional drain tile loops are used extensively. They often use "sleeved" pipe, which has the silt sock you mentioned. They generally work well, assuming that they're not crushed by concrete work or careless backfilling.

If you have extremely smooth clay-like soil, silt may be a concern. The microscopic grains in clay can make their way through the sock over time. Otherwise, you won't see much silt at all after the first season or two. My sump water runs completely clear after heavy rains, as do most others I've witnessed. This is anecdotal information, of course, and your results may vary.

In short, I wouldn't be concerned about using a sleeved "conventional" drain tile loop, assuming that you haven't heard horror stories from a bunch of folks in your immediate area.

I don't know of anyone who has needed more than one sump pump. If you find that yours is running more than say 10% of the time, it might be wise, but that's something you can evaluate later. It's really a matter of risk tolerance.


Where can I find replacement handles for windows from 1956? I have 22 windows in my old house and they all need new handles/openers before I can move out in one month.  Can only find a name in a scroll font on the inside of the pane, but I cannot read it. Does anyone know who used an old scroll font for putting in the name of the company who built the window? Gotta then find the handles.

Try Restoration Hardware. Click on Residential Catalog, then Hardware, then Windows.


I need a switch, 1 receptacle and 1 dual outlet receptacle on 1 circuit I removed 2 fluorescent hard wired light fixtures from above my work bench.  I installed an outlet in the box (on ceiling) where the 2 fixtures were hard wired in.  There is a 4 way outlet box on the pegboard in front of me that has to stay hot.  This 4 way is hot always.

In the ceiling box there is a white wire connected to the black ones.(?)
There is 1 extra black wire in that box that I didn't hook up.  I didn't know where to put it.

I plugged in the new LED fixture into the outlet, that I installed on the ceiling.

The wall switch does not work the new light. Where does the "extra black wire go?"

All outlets were checked with a circuit tester (the 2 amber/1 red light kind).  All were good...2 amber lights.

I need to operate the new light with the wall switch.

Thank You one and all...

In the future, pay more attention to how the old lamp was wired.  In electrical, key information is in the position of wires - wires are not color coded by function.  If you mix up wires, that information is gone, and must be reconstructed by an expert.

The solitary white connected to one or more blacks is the hallmark of a switch loop.  This bundle will be always-hot wires.  This bundle is of no use to a light, so you should leave them alone, just as you found them.

The aforementioned oddball white.  Follow it back to the cable where it enters the box.  In that cable will be a partner black.  That is probably a solitary wire.  That is switched-hot, and  you want it for the lamps.

With all others accounted for, the remaining bundle of all white wires is assuredly neutral.  This bundle needs to stay together but neutral from the lamp will be added to it also.


Can I install a switch upstream of my service panel for regular shuttoff duty? I lived in Europe where it is common to have on/off switches on all electrical wall outlets. I asked my electical parts store if I could replace the cicuit breakers in my home with switch rated (swd) breakers.

I was told that I would have to replace my entire panel as swd circuit breakers need a panel made specifically  for there use.

My reasons for wanting to turn off all power when I'm not home are - our homes are filled with appliances and devices from various world-wide sources that are not always reliable especially when some of those items may be decades old. I know these items sometimes cause fires even when connected to proper circuit protection. Our homes are sometimes invaded by critters (mice, squirrels and others) that are attracted to the insulation on wiring. They have been the cause of home fires.

Is there a basic on-off power disconnect switch that could be installed upstream from my service panel? It is not likely that I will unplug all my appliances whenever I leave my home, that would involve pulling refrigerators, washing machines, etc. out from the walls to get access. I need a system disconnect switch.

A much better plan would be to install a subpanel near the service panel.

Then, move the circuits you want to shut off to this new subpanel.

At that point, you have two ways to solve it: First, the individual breakers in the new subpanel could be SWD.  Second, you could shut the feed breaker off to the subpanel.

Depending on the subpanel, you could also install Arc Fault protection, which will help a fair bit with animals chewing on wires and feisty old devices.  I presume there is already a whole-house RCD.


Old structure: 2X4 studs at 24'' on center I have an old freestanding 2-car garage on my property that needs a lot of work.   There are some major rot issues where the sills were sitting in water for a long time.  Which brings me to the issue: the studs are 2X4 and are 24" on center.

Since I need to replace a fair number of the studs anyway, I'm considering putting in 2X6s.  My understanding is that 24" is standard for 2X6 home construction.  It would allow for more insulation and I would like to put in some heat in this space later.  This seems to be a lot more cost effective than replacing the entire structure since the existing hip-roof structure seems to be in good shape although the rafters meet up at the studs every 24".  Of course, it would be a lot cheaper to just replace the rotted 2X4s.

Is this an issue or am I making a big deal out of nothing?

I live in a tract house built 1970 which is framed with 2x4 studs in all exterior walls and interior load bearing wall on 24 inch centers. It is structurally sound, but the insulation is not good. I think 2x4s on 24" centers is fine for a garage.

Houses of this vintage and quality didn't use finger jointed studs. This may be stronger than the finger jointed studs but of course it meant that some studs were curved as installed or curved in place. What type of studs are you going to use?


How do I correctly join this sink fitting to the wall pipe? I was unclogging a blocked drain and putting everything back together and I'm unsure how this piece is supposed to work

Here it is just loosely resting where it came from. It seemed to be held onto the pipe by some cohesive force before (though now I'm doubting myself about that), but I'm not sure how. I thought I may have lost a washer or something but I double checked the floor and couldn't see anything.

Here's the rest of the plumbing without that piece

And here's how I left it for now

While the metallic piece is screwed on as before, I'm pretty certain it's not accomplishing anything (besides maybe aesthetically). Something presumably needs to exert a force towards the wall to get a tight seal there. It expectedly leaks slightly. If I apply pressure towards the wall then it doesn't.

The sink was leaking before this, but I thought that was only from the black rubber washer. It's possible that my landlord never did it properly and that it always leaked from here too, but I tend to think I'm missing something.

How can I fix it?

Agree with others. In UK known as a compression fitting. You're missing the black rubber o ring.


How to remove this PVC to cast iron adapter? I need to remove the existing PVC to cast iron adapter in the main waste outlet of my basement. Another PVC fitting will be added in place.

This is a 4" cast iron with a rubber ring that seals between the PCV and the iron.

Here's what I've done:

PVC pipe will rotate freely in the rubber.
PVC pipe will deflect left/right up/down a few degrees without much force.
Added some soap as lubrication. This made the above 2 things a bit easier.
Pulling outwards: it won't move at all, even while pulling and rotating/wiggling at once.

I had imagined that this was a straight pipe passing through a rubber "donut" but after what I've tried so far, I'm not sure. It feels like something solid is preventing it from pulling out.

I could cut the PVC apart as I don't need to reuse it. But I don't want to damage anything inadvertently (especially the cast iron) and would rather do it right if that is possible.

Thanks for any advice!

If it's all one piece I'm inclined to believe you have a donut and coupling similar to the ones below installed in you cast iron pipe.

I have only used these one time, but I had to hammer the piece of PVC into to rubber donut because it fit so tight. Some PVC fittings have a lip at the tip, like the one below, that would  make it harder to remove once it was installed. I think you're going to have to work it out, pulling and twisting, using a lot of elbow grease.


Why is the conductor size 4mm2 and 10mm2 listed twice in this table of conductor sizes? Looking at the following table where the y-axis list the conductor sizes and the x-axis (A1, A2, B1, B2 ...) list the method of installation why is the conductor size 4 and 10 listed twice? Table gives ampere rating for installation method and conductor size. (Anzahl belasteter Adern = number of phases conducting current)
DIN VDE 0298-4

I received a reply by the VDE publisher. I will post it (although it is in German) and translate it below

Während die Strombelastbarkeiten der Referenzverlegearten B1, B2 und C für die Verlegung auf einer Holzwand (also dem thermisch ungünstigsten Fall) ermittelt wurden – und damit bei Verlegung auf Mauerwerk, Putz usw. auf der sicheren Seite liegen –, sind für die in der Installationspraxis wichtigen Leiterquerschnitte 4 mm2 Cu und 10 mm2 Cu zusätzlich Strombelastbarkeitswerte bei Verlegung auf Mauerwerk oder einer Wand mit mind. vergleichbarer Wärmeableitung aufgeführt.
Es wird also weiterhin bei diesen Leiterquerschnitten und Verlegearten eine wirtschaftlichere Zuordnung von Überstromschutzeinrichtungen ermöglicht. In der Tabelle 3 von DIN VDE 0298-4 sind die zusätzlichen Strombelastbarkeitsangaben durch separate Zeilen (jeweils doppelte Nennung des Leiterquerschnitts) zu erkennen. Die zusätzlich aufgeführten Strombelastbarkeitswerte gelten selbstverständlich nicht für die Verlegung auf einer Holzwand. Hier gelten die „normalen“ Strombelastbarkeitswerte der DIN VDE 0298-4, Tabelle 3. Umrechnungsfaktoren, z. B. bei abweichenden Umgebungstemperaturen oder Häufung, dürfen auf zusätzlichen Strombelastbarkeitsangaben gemäß Fußnote c auch nicht angewendet werden; will sagen, für die Anwendung von Umrechnungsfaktoren gelten ausschließlich die ursprünglichen Strombelastbarkeitswerte der Tabelle 3 aus DIN VDE 0298-4, so der Erklärungsansatz für die zusätzlichen Zeilen und die (bei uns im Buch unterschlagene) Fußnote c.

Translation:

The values in the original table are for the unfavorable condition, when the installation is done on wooden walls. But because the conductor size 4mm2 and 10mm2 are economically important other values are given, which are suited when the walls have similar thermal conductivity but are not made out of wood.
Conversion factors, such as for deviating ambient temperature or clustering cannot be applied to these additional values. They are only suitable for the original values. Normally, there is a subscript c) for these rows, but in this edition it has been left out.

TLDR:
If you install your conductors on walls made of materials other than wood, but which have similar thermal conductivity you can use these values. However you cannot correct these values for ambient temperature or clustering.
Because the values are only marginally higher than the corresponding values which give amperage for conductors installed on walls made out of wood, I find their usage questionable.


Why does my GCFI plug trip when I connect the ground? I installed a GCFI plug at the beginning of a series in my basement.  As soon as I turn the power back on, my GCFI circuit trips.   I discoverd reverse polarity in several plugs.  Could that be the problem?

First, you have to unplug everything plugged into any of the rest of the circuit downline.  It's pretty dumb to chase a wiring problem when in fact the problem is a plug-in appliance that would trip if plugged into the bathroom GFCI.

Now most likely you will have cleared the trip.  If you're going "wait a minute, this has to work with that appliance plugged in, because my house needs that", then fix the appliance.  Or if it's a fridge or freezer, it should not be on GFCI in the first place, and you need to rethink your wiring strategy.

Hook up ground first

You're getting blindsided by the fact that you hooked up ground last, as an afterthought.   "Correllation is not causality", but you get fooled into thinking ground had anything to do with the problem.

So now, you need to connect ground, and go to about the halfway mark in your circuit's length, and open up the junction box there and see what's inside.  Disconnect hot and neutral so the downline is no longer on the circuit, power back up and see the GFCI trips.

if it no longer trips, the problem is between here and the end of circuit.
If it still trips, the problem is is between here and the GFCI.

The rest can be excluded as positively good.  Reconnect what you disconnected. You still have a problem area. Go to the middle of that, find the nearest junction box, and disconnect hot and neutral as done here.   Continue divinding and conquering until you narrow it down.

Divinding. LOL, a typo, but not entirely.

Always keep all grounds connected.  When you see other defects, fix them.  However, switching hot and neutral on a receptacle will not trip a GFCI.  It might make an appliance trip a GFCI if the appliance is marginal.


How can I prevent these LEDs from blinking when turned off? In a block of units we installed 240v EARTHED downlights. I believe the neutral maybe 2-3volts above earth causing the lights to flash when turned off. The fittings are provided with earth connection as they are metal and operating at 240. If I disconnect the earth the blink stops. In NSW may the unit board be MENed, would this stop the above earth condition. There is a Core balance breaker on the light circuit

My guess is that you have a dimmer which has a light or LED on it.  If this is the case, your particular dimmer does not have a dedicated neutral on it, so in order to power the light/LED, it needs to feed a small amount of current through the lighting circuit.  If you had a standard incandescent bulb, this would not be anywhere near enough to cause it to light up, but with CFL's or LED's, this might be enough to cause it to flash.

Purchase a dimmer that has a neutral connection on it (usually these are a bit more expensive). Because it can be powered without powering the rest of the circuit, it will eliminate the flashing light.


Is it safe to touch the ground contact? When plugging in a device in the dark, or behind furniture, it's hard to get the contacts aligned. It's tempting to put a finger on the end of a contact, use that finger to find the slot in the recep, and guide the plug in. However, that seems like a pretty reliable way to get a shock.

However, for 3-prong grounded plugs, I think I can do the same thing with the ground contact.

Is it safe to plug something in with my finger touching the ground contact?

If the recep is miswired, then the answer is probably "no, it's not safe", but I'm really asking about correctly wired receps.

(If the USA changes plugs in my lifetime, I hope they pick a design that's easy to plug in the dark.)

Well, in theory, assuming wiring is done right the ground prong will contact the ground terminal in the outlet and that terminal is connected to the ground with a thick enough wire and touching it is as safe as touching a washer or fridge chassis.

However you should not do that ever, because Murphy is out there...

First of all, the ground prong is very close to the phase and neutral prongs and there's a slim yet quite real chance that you will touch the phase prong at the same time. Once this happens you get a ground fault and if there's no ground fault protection that yields a major short circuit which gets you a nice several millimeters deep burn on your finger (I have nice experience touching phase and neutral terminals together with the same finger - heals in two weeks and can be fatal in an unlucky electrical setup). If you're really unlucky (like you're touching a grounded appliance at the same time) you get a ground fault through your body and this yields fatal shock. Such things do happen - it's just a matter of time. You do that no-problem one thousand times, then you accidentally do it wrong and consequences are dire. Chances are slim, but quite real and potential consequences are serious.

Second, you can't be sure at all times each outlet is wired right. Wiring may fail at some point and put you at risk. You can also try to do that in other person's house where wiring happens to be done wrong and that puts you at risk.

Finally, there's this cheater plug thing. Clearly if you plug a three-pronged device into a cheater plug and then try to plug the cheater plug and habitually try to find the prong you likely find either phase or neutral prong and that puts you at risk.

So the bottom line is you technically can do that, but you really should not - getting such habit is potentially very dangerous.


How to get the sunshine and sunlight in my house I am living in house in which the sun is not overlooking through the window at all, Is there a way to make overlook at least partially inside the house.

Tubular skylights, a suntube in use and available from Solatube. There's roofing and carpentry involved but no framing needed. They're the only way to have a skylight with an attic above without blowing out your ceiling. Cut 2 holes, flash it to the roof, enjoy.


Multi-home Utillity Alley Potholes - fix it my self or is there someone to call? Ive recently bought a house that has a service alley in the back leading to parking. Its a no outlet alley servicing about 4-6 houses (mostly rented) which is probably why it hasn't been properly maintained.

The potholes are on the verge of being "tub"holes if youre catching my drift.

Should i fill them with gravel for the time being or is there someone i can call to fix them?

First step will be determining who owns the land. I'd start by contacting the landlord, as they should know who owns the land. Depending on where you live, the city/town hall should have lot surveys (these are required at the time of sale, in some areas). So if the landlord doesn't know who owns it, you should be able to look it up.

If it's an easement, maintenance likely falls to the property owner.  If it's outright owned by a utility, then it should be the utilities responsibility.  In all cases, it's almost never a renters responsibility.


Concrete subfloor with 2x4 on top I need a new concrete subfloor due to water damage.  Then 2x4s on top of that, then oak hardwood on top of that.

I am told by the concrete guy the 2x4s can do down the next day.  The floor guy says it takes a month for the concrete to cure before the 2x4s can be done.  Is either one of these right?  How long does it take?

Thanks for the help.

if you are going to lay hardwood on to the subfloor, then i assume its going to be nailed down and not floating.  if this is the case, then the floor has to not only be flat, but also strongly attached to the concrete below (to prevent deflection over time from moisture changes in the oak and in the subfloor).  therefore, you would want the concrete to be hard, but not necessarily fully cured, before you start anchoring your 2x4's.  assuming you will use construction adhesive and concrete screws (tapcons or something similar), you will want a low moisture content as well.  since tapcons need a compressive strength of about 20MPa to work properly (a little less if its a smaller diameter), and since it takes about 7-10 days for new concrete to hit that as a minimum, i wouuldn't be anchoring anything until about 2 weeks later.  if you go to soon, your anchors will strip out more easily and your adhesive won't bond well due to the moisture in the slab.


Is negative pressure bad and how to fix? I have a one story house and I think there is a negative pressure problem. If the central a/c is on and I close the hallway door the hallway heats up like an oven. This hallway leads to all the bedrooms; there is a return air vent in the ceiling and a door in the ceiling to the attic. Obviously the heat is unpleasant but is there a bigger issue with having negative pressure like this in part of your house? What can I do to fix? There is a 2nd return air in a room on the opposite side of the house - the door to this room is usually kept open.

Many homes have only one main return located at the air handler. The separate rooms have a supply but the return is the space/gap under the room door. While closing a room door might not affect cooling too much, a hallway door cutting off a number of bedrooms would have a major effect. Installing a through vent above the hallway door might be the answer.
I love whole house fans but you have to cover them up in the attic during AC season because the vent that comes with them is not insulated and any negative pressure will suck hot air out of the attic.


Drywall installation on the ceiling without help I bought a piece of drywall(48x26 inches) and ready to install it. Please see the images.

The height of the ceiling is about 11.35 foot. I tried to hold it with my hand, but it is heavy. I can't find a helper because the ladder only supports 250 lbs.

Please recommend tricks and tips.

Also I bought Black$Decker 5.2 amp 3/8 drill/driver. I am not sure whether I got the right tool and how to use it for mounting the drywall.

Should I use it drill holes on the drywall before installation?

The old screw likes below.

And do I have to drill holes on the wood with this tool?

Get a 12' 2x4 and a 3' to 4' 1x4. Screw the 1x4 at right angles to the 2x4 near one end. The 1x4 should be centered lengthwise on the 2x4 and overhang the end about 1/2". See sketch below. In the sketch I showed screwing the Tee board on the edge of the 2x4 but you may want to screw it to the flat of the 2x4 to get a better screwing to make the 1x4 fairly solid. Use 4 or 5 screws for this.

Cut the total length of the 2x4 to be about 3 to 4 inches longer than the floor to ceiling height. Now you climb the ladder and hold the drywall in place and have another helper hoist the 2x4 up with the cross piece coming up under the piece of drywall. The helper should be able to wedge the 2x4 in place to hold up the drywall until it can be screwed into place. If the wedge wants to kick out on the bottom then it may be necessary to shorten the 2x4 a slight amount.

The power drill you can purchased can be used for installing drywall screws but it can take practice to avoid sinking the screws too far or even all the way through the drywall. I would recommend instead using a hand screwdriver for this small job. Make sure to use proper drywall screws. A common size for this will be 1 5/8" length screws. When installing drywall screws you do not pre-drill the drywall itself. The screws are also very sharp and will not need any pre-drilling into the framing members either. When setting the screws use care to tighten them down just enough so that they dimple the paper and recess a small amount. You do not want to tighten so far that the outer paper layer tears.


How deep are gas lines and electrical lines under ground (to code)? Before I start, I know I should always call Diggers Hotline (or comparable service depending on where you live) to have them mark all under ground gas & electrical lines.

At what depth underground should gas and electrical lines in the US should be located (to code)?  I ask as I have seen this Diggers Hotline commercial where at the end of it, it seems as if the digger immediately hits a line when starting to dig - implying the line is extremely close to the surface. I am in the process of removing several bushes and that requires me to dig out the roots.

Typically they will be at minimum, 18" below grade. However this is the grade at the time they are placed.  Soil will compact and erode with time which would result in them being shallower than expected. Frost heaving might also raise them.

The depth requirements only applies to line-voltage lines.  Typically low-voltage lines would not be buried at this depth. Likewise, telco lines are often found significantly shallower, maybe only an inch or two below.

If you know lines are present, the best thing you can do is carefully hand-dig around them.

A lot of telco's will not even properly locate their lines and instead will just fix them quickly when you end up slicing them.  Annoying indeed.


How to cut into plastic to remove a metal slug that had been press-fit to be flush with the surface? What tool would be appropriate to cut a gap around a metal slug that is holding this plastic join together? It has been press-fit to be flush with the surface. There is no access on the opposite side for pushing it out.

I've been trying to cut a small gap around the perimeter so that I can grasp at it with a pair of pliers and pull it out. But I want to do it in such a way that I can reinsert it later.

It is a soft plastic. I drilled small holes around the perimeter and have cut away at it with an x-acto knife.

Is there a better tool that I can use to nibble away at this?

If you can cut it with an xacto you can cut it with a razor blade utility knife (aka carpet knife, Stanley knife), like this:

The blade is thicker and more durable than an xacto, and the handle allows you to apply more power to the blade.

My option 1 would actually be a rotary cutting tool like a Dremel with a cutting wheel attached, however it's an expensive thing for a single job, the utility knife will do the trick for much less money.


How to reduce drywall hole size I want to run network cable into a bedroom and was going to use one of those Low Voltage Wall plate
and cat 5E wall plate over it. While trying to install low voltage wall plate, instead of tracing inner sides I traced outer sides and cut a wider hole than I needed. What are my options to installing wall plate. I was considering attaching wall plate to drywall cut edges using screws. Would that work ? There is also a stud to the right side of the hole. Not sure if I can use that in some way to fix the hole. Here is the picture of what I am talking about.

Finished Job

Just patch the drywall, and make a new hole. If you haven't thrown the old piece way, you have the patch pre-cut.


2 pole 20amp breaker connected to my 40 amp stove Hi I recently noticed in a house I bought that I have a 50 amp outlet in my kitchen that is connected to my electric range stove that requires a 2 pole 40 Amp breaker. But the breaker that these are connected to is a 2 pole 20amp breaker with 12awg wire. Is this safe and/or Correct?

It is not correct, NEC 210.21(B)(3) specifies a 50 amp receptacle on 40 amp breaker, with minimum #8 AWG wire is the correct configuration for a 40A range. (NEMA does not designate a 40A configuration.)

It is likely the breaker will protect the wire from being damaged, but the breaker will likely trip often and wear out quickly. Typically modern breakers failure mode is to become more sensitive.

I would suspect the house was originally wired for a gas range.


How to edge laminate to curved edge? I have been asked to fit bathroom laminate in our bathroom. I have laid bathroom laminate before, so that holds no fear for me.

Edging laminate is usually one of two options:

skirting boards are used to hide the edge of the floor
scotia trim or similar is run round the edge of the wall to hide the edge of the floor

The problem I have is that the shower tray of my bathroom is a 800mm quadrant, and so I will need to edge the floor round this curved edge. How can I do this?

Using scotia trim, I need to find some trim which is flexible enough (so far I haven't found anything) and the tray is fixed in place, and I don't want to have to re-do the plumbing of the waste (as I didn't do it, I don't know how it's all fitted together so taking it apart without damage is tricky).

A quick Google search for "flexible trim" shows several items that should work. I don't know if they're any good but they're clearly designed to do what you want and there are several to choose from.
Here's one example called eXtreme® Quickstep Flexible Laminate Floor Beading & Skirting. The photo looks like it matches your description exactly.

And there's also something called Flexible PVC skirting which is taller but equally flexible since it also comes in a roll.


Appearance of damp after dpc injection - can "good enough" plaster go soft? Approximately 1 year ago we had a wall treated with damp proof course injections (silicone I believe) and we then rendered with a mixture including a relatively strong mix of good waterproofer.

After a few months we started to see what appeared to be a recurrence of the damp on two wall corners.

We've now had the company that injected the chemical DPC round and they have found that the plaster where this damp is showing is quite soft. They therefore claim that our plaster / render is deficient as this is coming through from the wall still having moisture in it, and that "good" render / plaster would still be hard and holding this damp in, even if there was rising damp there, so as it's soft then it has to be the plaster / render.

The image below shows this issue. I find this hard to take (partly I'm sure because of the time and money invested and at risk from their assessment) but also because it looks so much like it's damp rising through the corner of the wall.

Should I accept that this is residual moisture, 1 year after treatment, and that our render is definitively at fault?

Edit: to clarify this is a wall between the kitchen and entrance hallway, approx 1m from external wall. Original issue is rising damp - house is from early 1900s so built without a DPC. We are near a river and water table is relatively close.

"Deficient" render? That is a line of bull. Your use of damp proof course and render makes me think you are UK based. If so, you should have a guarantee of several years for the damp course work, and if so you should demand they fix the problem as they clearly missed a spot. Residual moisture? Don't make me laugh. They need to do fresh moisture measurements and to re-course the areas that still show high moisture content.

At the same time look at your exterior brickwork in the area of the damp and make sure that your pointing and exterior render isn't blown. Also, when it rains make sure your guttering is piping the rain down to the ground properly.


How do I figure out if these walls are load-bearing? My house is a bungalow built in 1917. There are pillars under a central beam in the basement supporting the first floor (marked in red in my little drawing.) There is nothing obvious supporting the roof in the attic.
I want to know if the two walls I've marked are load-bearing. They are over the basement pillars. They run parallel to the joists. It seems like my roof is not supported by the interior walls, but something must be holding the ceiling up. What would I look for in the attic to figure that out?
Edited to add: I am not going to tear down any walls DIY. I just want to learn how things work as much as I can before I get into planning.

You don’t give a lot of info, but I’ll make some assumptions and you tell me where I’m wrong.
You live in an area that does not get much snow, based on the size and spacing of your roof joists.
Likewise, you live in an area that is not a high wind area.
You say “joists run this way”, which I assume you mean roof joists and ceiling joists.
The end wall shown in the picture (with a window in it) is NOT one of the walls marked “Wall 1” or “Wall 2”.
The type of roof structure is what I call “stick built”. That is to say, individual boards are used for the construction of the roof and roof trusses are not used. However, each roof member is important and no member can removed without careful consideration.
The ceiling structure is independent of the roof structure, but required for the integrity of the exterior walls.
Load bearing walls are walls carrying vertical or horizontal loads. Obviously there are no vertical supports coming down from the roof structure and because they are oriented in the same direction as the ceiling joists, the walls are not load bearing.
Another kind of roof load is called a “point load”. That means a structural post could be resting on the walls (or in the wall), which is not visible in the picture and is not used in this type of roof.
Horizontal loads are from wind loads and seismic loads. Shear walls are constructed to resist these loads and are usually the exterior walls, because the need to attach to the roof sheathing. Your walls do not extend up to the roof sheathing, so your walls are not “load bearing”.
Summary:
The two walls you want to remove are not load bearing (vertical or horizontal).


Seal gap between bathtub faucet and cracking tile We've got a 1/2 inch gap between our bathtub faucet and the tile, and as you can imagine water has been leaking through and sometimes even dripping though the wall to the floor below. The tile is starting to wear out and chip off as well, so I'm not sure if caulking will hold or even work for such a large gap. We are saving up for a bathroom reno but need some sort of solution to hold us over for the next few months at least.

That is too large of a gap to seal with caulk. If you are looking for a (very) temporary solution you would be better off with plumber's putty. Get a tub of putty (it is not expensive) and knead it well until it is warm and soft, then pack the void with it. It should do a fair job of keeping the water out for awhile, until a proper repair can be completed.
Proper repair would be removing the tub spout and properly sizing the pipe so the spout was close to the tile, then caulk.


GFCI breaker with GFCI outlets trip with no load This is my first time posting here. I hope someone can give me some help.

The issue I have is new construction wiring for a driveway light and outdoor outlets at the head of the driveway. The contractor wired a sub-panel and buried the wire (8 awg 3 + gnd). I would like to have two 20 amp GFCI circuits, one for the lamps and one for two outlets. The contractor had left a single pole 20 amp GFCI breaker in the sub-panel for me to use.

I initially wired this up to the two GCFI outlets (overkill) and everything was OK. So since I have another 8 awg wire buried I thought I would just replace the single pole GFCI with a 2 pole (expensive) and have two circuits. The problem is the 2 pole GFCI breaker trips with no load. The single pole GFCI breaker worked fine when wired to just the outlets.

I did see that the 2 pole breaker stated that wire lengths should be less than 250' and I am at 350'. Could this be my problem? If so what can I do? Do I need to use GFCI breakers? Attached is a crude drawing of how it is currently wired.

Thanks in advance]1

This is probably a leakage problem

GFCIs are differential trips -- if too much current (more than 4-6mA) is going out but never getting back to the GFCI (remember that current flows in loops!), they trip on the assumption that current is going somewhere bad (like through you).  As thus, a variety of leakage sources can trip them:

Cable leakage due to water in non-wet-rated cables, degraded insulation, or physical damage
Faulty or intentionally leaky appliances or fixtures
Capacitive leakage on long lines
Water in splices and boxes causing leakage currents to flow
Miswiring that routes current around the GFCI

In your case, even with 350' of cable, you should be fine -- you'd need a cable running at 200-300pF/foot of capacitance to get into trip territory from capacitive leakage alone.  (I can't find any figures for UF, and only a passing mention online of 20-30pF/foot for NM, nor do I have a capacitance meter and cable samples otherwise I'd test it myself.)

So, once you rule out a miswire, I'd have your nearest friendly electrician megger the cable hot-ground and neutral-ground to make sure the insulation is good -- make sure to disconnect the cable at both ends when doing so though!  If the buried cable passes the insulation test with flying colors, then I'd check the devices at the load end for water infiltration or insulation damage.


How do I do a minor grout repair properly? I've got grout between some floor tiles that is cracking and coming out in small chips, over time.  The tiles and remaining grout are otherwise in great shape.  I suspect this is just a problem high-traffic area of the floor in our hallway.  I'm not about to tear up the entire floor to solve the underlying issue.

But, if I did want to patch the grout (while accepting it is likely to crack again, down the road) what is the proper way to fill in missing grout so that new grout bonds with the old?  Should I remove any more of the old that appears to be cracking before filling in?

When I've done grout repair I've cleaned out the old grout, did some slight prodding to see if anything else was loose, made sure the area was bone dry and then got a small batch of grout from the local hardware store. You can probably buy a small tub of the premixed grout (unless you have colored grout then you're stuck buying a larger tub usually).

I just put it on as normal grout, slap it on, push it in, smooth it out a bit, let it dry and wipe off the excess. It'll take a little while to fade in but now it looks like it was part of the original tile job.


How to identify a fixture/outlet and wiring to breaker as knob and tube? I have spent time charting out all the lights, outlets, etc. in our house and what breaker they are each on.

I know that most of the original part of our house in knob and tube and the early 90's addition is romex. Looking at my list I can see that a few breakers are most likely mixed, part K&T and part romex.

I believe each fixture/outlet could be:

Knob and tube from the outlet all the way back to the breaker box.
Knob and tube at the outlet, but changing to romex somewhere before the breaker.
Romex from the outlet all the way back to the breaker box.
Romex at the outlet, but changing to knob and tube somewhere before the breaker.

I could take off the outlet covers/lights to determine the first part visaully though that will be time consuming. Could I also use an outlet tester to determine if there a ground, with no ground meaning K&T at some point and a ground meaning Romex the whole way back to the breaker? Then do for each on the breaker to figure out what part is first/second?

K&T could be at any point in the run, the circuit could start romex, then switch over to K&T and then switch back over to romex (potentially with a ground pulled from another circuit).

The only way to be completely sure no K&T wiring is in use is to find and trace all of the circuits and visually make sure.


Can I disconnect a Corian Sink Overflow tube? We have noticed a foul odor from our sink which has the corian overflow tube (made out of plastic) that sits outside the bowl.  As soon as we turn the water on, the odor appears.  I have taken it apart, cleaned it and poured chemicals down the tube and drain.  The odor occurs again and again.  There is water in the p-trap so I know it is not sewer gas.  It is simply a poor design.

I have a pfister faucet with a pop-up drain stopper.  The Overflow tube fits right below the drain on the under mounted sink.  We know that we will never have water reach the overflow.

Question...Can I seal the overflow tube and the connection at the pipe so that these smells don’t occur and no water becomes stagnant?

Just looking for ideas before my wife wants a new sink.

It's quite possible that there is hair or other gunk in the sink tailpiece or caught in the stopper.  It absorbs some of the sewage and then gets really nasty.  The stink could then freely travel out.  Try taking out the stopper and cleaning any gunk you might find.

This would solve the stink problem.

To answer the question about the overflow being sealed... it would violate plumbing code almost surely.


Make a wide power connector fit in a narrow slot This seems like a bad idea but I wanted to know for sure. I am trying to extend the reach of my Christmas lights this year into a garden that is about 6 feet from my fence. I don't want to have lights on the ground as my kids would try to play with them. Same logic if I tried to brace them in the air from the fence into the garden.

Light connectors, all of the ones I purchase anyway, have the two narrow power connectors. All the groundless extension cords I find have the narrow and wide connectors which means I cannot use it to extend the lights.

What I could do is use wire cutters or a dremel to trim the wide connector down to size. Again I could see that being a bad idea if I was to try and use that cable for anything else.

What are my options here assuming I cannot find the right extension cable?

I might get some flack for this answer, but if you are only connecting a set of mini Christmas lights to another set, this should be fine.  I had to do it as well...

For those that don't know, mini light sets have a male plug on one end and a female plug on the other so you can string several strands of lights together.  Unlike every other extension cord sold, a light set has two narrow blades on the male end and two narrow slots on the female end.  This means that polarity doesn't matter at all, and has the bonus effect of making sure you only plug another polarity-doesn't-matter strand into the end.

All cheap extension cords that I could find have one wide blade and one narrow, so if you need a "gap" between strands of lights, you're out of luck.  Unless you have a Dremel or wire cutters or even a decent file to make one of the blades narrow.

That said, I only use my modified cord with mini light sets, and I labeled it as "Christmas lights" so I don't use it for anything else.

Disclaimer: Modifying electrical components such as extension cords is in general, a bad idea.  They are made a certain way for a reason, and if you think you need to modify it, you're probably trying to do something dangerous, and there's a detail or a special part that you don't know about. In this case, the modified cord could allow a device requiring a polarized connection to be plugged in the wrong way, which is dangerous (the mini lights, as discussed, are not polarized).

Update:  I did find this one company that sells (not sold in stores!) a non-polarized plug for around $12 each.  They only sell this one product...


Is it safe to mount a pull-up bar on an exterior stucco wall? I live in a house built in the mid-60s.  I bought a wall mounted pull-up bar (this: https://www.titan.fitness/strength/strength-accessories/pull-up-bars/titan-wall-mounted-pull-up-chin-up-bar/400510.html), with the intention of mounting it on an exterior wall (there are no indoor walls - including the garage - with a high enough ceiling to be able to do muscle-ups).

However, right as I was about to drill, a thought occurred to me: is this is a bad idea? Will drilling into the stucco "break" some kind of weather seal, & exposing my house to mold, mildew, etc?

I'm in Los Angeles, so we don't get that much rain, but the concern still applies.

Edit: I'd be mounting it on the studs behind the stucco, obviously. My concern just had to do with "breaking the seal" of the stucco or not.

The bracket bolts would need to penetrate the stucco and then embed nicely centered into the studs directly behind the brackets. There will be no safe mounting trying to use plastic anchors, lead expansion anchors or toggle bolts that just deal with the stucco alone.

This pullup bar with its 32" extension out from the wall will place tremendous pullout force on the anchor bolts, especially the upper ones, when an person applies all their weight on the pullup bar. The forces would be even more if there are impulse loads such as occur if the exercise activity involves any motions other than slow steady load in the downward direction. Expansion anchors mounted right in the stucco will surely work loose and pull out. Toggle type anchors that would just bear against the inside of the stucco wall would likely crack the stucco around the mount points.

If you do mount over studs using proper lag bolts with correct pilot hole into the wood can have the actual holes in the stucco sealed with good quality caulk or silicone. Just make sure to blow out all the stucco debris. I would fill the hole with the sealing agent before pushing the lag bolts through the bracket and screwing into the studs.


3 way switch controlling outlets. Top working bottom now? So I just replaced all the outlets and switches In my new house. A three way switch controls all 4 outlets in the living room. I broke the brass tab on one of the outlets and now only the top outlet works with the switch and none of the other outlets work. I was told there was something wrong with the wiring in the house. Any ideas?

I do not think the wiring is bad .Do the 3 way switches operate on  off at both switches and makes one or all work ? Just  trying to get through switches. Now try to find first recpt. that comes after switch, will have a bit of wire in it. That will be load out from switch. Unscrew recpt. from boxes leave the wires on is fine. Should be a 3 wire going to any recpt. that can be switched. Very odd if you want to control all with switching. If you have no lights only one  has to be switched  or if you have more lamps to put in ect,  3 wire will have black red white bare ground. One is going to be for switching power (load out) the other will be constant power. Pick what outlets you want to switch . Must have the load out to be able to switch. I take this as all on one circuit if so take recpt no broken tabs take the whites put on the common screw . Now if you want to be able to switch recpt. must have a (load out). Lets say red is (load out) should be two reds spliced  with pigtail , and two blacks spliced and pigtailed. Break off tab for hots only. Black on one red on the other. If switch ok should work. Say next recpt. you dont want to switch it. Take recpt. no tabs broken whites on common, wire nut two reds no pigtail on together,push into box. Take black splice together with pig tail tabs not broken mount to hot on recpt. Have now a constant recpt. with reds spliced through to go on to another outlet. Also all bare grounds spliced together if metal box must ground box,and recpt. Looks like switches are not grounded in pic. Hope this helpful took me long time to type,Could drive there fix and been home by now.


Should I rent a trencher, or hire it out? I need a straight 100', 18" deep trench to run power from my house to a workshop. Though I've never used a trencher before, I'm more than willing to give it a go. That said, when I needed to have a stump ground recently, I found out that it cost about the same to have someone grind the stump for me as it would have cost to rent the machine, and he got it done much more quickly than I could have done it.

So, for trenching would I save much money by doing it myself?

I have rented trenchers several times to dig long trenches. From the experience I can say several things that may help you bias your decision.

Using a trencher is surely the way to go over hand digging. Hands down easy decision.
If you have to trench near a tree be prepared for a major pain in the tush. Small roots are no problem but if you encounter major roots it can be time consuming and can even get treacherous. On medium sized roots the machine can get bound up and if you are not paying close attention could even overturn the unit. So use caution.
If you have to trench down an embankment be prepared for some dangerous work as you approach the bottom of the embankment as the ground levels out again. The controls and holding bar of the trencher can come right down to the ground.
Depending on access to the to space up near the buildings you may find that some hand digging will be necessary. I found it useful to dig out a hole at each end that was several feet in diameter and extending right up to the foundation so that the trencher bar never had a need to come real close to the building.
Good advice is to trench away from the building at each end and let the trenches meet out at come convenient crossing or merge point.

On one occasion I elected to hire out the trench job to a contractor because I did not have the equipment to hoist a trencher over into the back yard where there was no direct access. In the end it was a good thing because after the contractor came to do the job, that they had quoted assuming use of their trencher, they ended up having to dig the almost 200' trench by hand because their unit was way too big to even work along the side of my house even if they could have hoisted it in there.

So if you have a nice level terrain, no trees and good access on each end then renting may be a good idea. Do note that most rental yards will have the trencher on a trailer that you also rent. And if you do not have a suitable sized truck with a good hitch you will be required to rent one of their trucks to pull the trailer to your site. That will need to be figured into the cost comparison you make against contractor quotes that you get.

As for deciding if it is cheaper to do it yourself ... that answer can only come from you getting several contractor quotes and then checking prices at the rental yard. If it is your first time ever using a trencher do figure on extra hours of usage time to deal with learning and encountering unexpected things ... especially with not having the site prepared ahead of time.


Why is my furnace filter alarmingly clean? I have central air and heat at my appartment I moved into about 6 months ago. Today I decided it was probably long past time to figure out how to change filters in the furnace so I poke around until I find the slot where the filter is.

However, when I pull it out, it looks like it was installed yesterday. It's perfectly clean, doesn't have a speck of dust on it. I've been using it for the past six months so I highly doubt it should look this way.

It's a really cheap fiberglass filter (Ace hardware brand), could it be defective? Could the landlord have placed it in the furnace incorrectly? Could something be wrong with the furnace? Or is this expected?

My last apartment had a permanent filter that had to be pulled out and washed every couple weeks or else it got filthy. Please help me figure out what's going on here.

The thin fiberglass filters (usually blue in color) are referred to as "rock catchers" by some of my fellow construction friends. They don't do much to catch dust, but they'll stop anything large from damaging the blower. It's entirely possible that it was changed before you moved in and just hasn't had enough time to catch the little dust that it will catch.

If you really want to filter the air, you'll want to upgrade this to the pleated filters. Just remember that these do require changing on a more regular basis.

The other possibility is that you may have filters at your return vents doing a majority of the air filtering, and the filter at the blower is simply redundant.


thermostat connections with different size wires my current thermostat has 14 gauge wires connected to it and the wires are supplying 24 volts to the thermostat. i want to get a new thermostat but will need 18 gauge wires. since the voltage from the 14 gauge wires is 24, is it safe to nut new 18 gauge wires to the exist 14 gauge wires and then connect the 18 gauge wires to the new thermostat?

Do make 100% certain that the 14AWG wires are not line voltage. There are such things as line voltage thermostats that are designed to directly switch the mains voltage to a device such as a heater or fan unit. It would generally be unusual to find a low voltage thermostat connected up with a large sized wire unless it was a line voltage thermostat.

If indeed the wires are verified to be low voltage 24VAC then you can for sure use the properly sized twist on wire nut to join 18AWG to 14AWG wire.

If there is any feasibility to replace the 14AWG wire used for a low voltage application like this with widely used multi conductor thermostat wire please do consider doing so. It will help to eliminate future confusion. At the same time as replacing do use wire with more than two conductors so that there is flexibility in the future to use a smart thermostat, or one with additional fan and cooling controls.


Several LEDs and LED bulbs in my house are failing at the same time and way before their estimated lifespan I've never had this happen to me and, now, in a span of 1 month, it's already happened 4 times... The following 3 LED bulbs and 1 LED strip have become unusable:

An Ikea Ledare 600lm spot LED buld (supposed to last 25000h; failing after less than 2 years)
An Ikea Ledare 1000lm LED bulb (supposed to last 25000h; failing after a bit more than 1 year)
A Lomatee 310lm candle bulb from Amazon (supposed to last 30000h; failing after less than 2 years)
A LED 12VDC strip bought from Aliexpress (having been in use the longer, for about 3)

All them are over 1 year old but but no more than 3. They're not from the same batch, obviously, nor even bought in the same country. But they're all used in the same apartment, only in different rooms. However, in the lapse of 1 month they're all flickering and ceasing to work. It's important to note that they're not actually burning out, that is to say, the diodes aren't burning out and not working any more; they're only flickering or, at least, they're still flickering before dying completely, if that is the case.

The big Ledare is in my bedroom, and it simply flickers off more than it's on. It may turn on for a couple of seconds or even a couple of minutes, but then it turns back off for 15 minutes, 30 mins, etc.

The Ledare spot is one of 3 in a hallway and it simply flashes on and off all the time, rhythmically, even as if it had a microchip set to make it act like the flickering light of TV static.

In the case of these 2 I don't think it's the actual diodes but rather something to do with the transformer from AC to DC.

In the case of the candle-like bulb, which is in my living room, I can see one of its strips of LEDs is the one that's flickering on and off when I turn on the bulb; after a couple of minutes, it just remains off.

And in the case of the LED strip, which are also in my living room, it's one or 2 LEDs on at the beginning of the series that's flickering, almost constantly.

As you can see, whereas the first two bulbs completely turn on and off, the candle-like bulb and the LED strips are only partly affected, the rest of them work fine.

All the bulbs are connected directly to the AC mains, of course. The LED strip is connected to a 12VDC transformer.

The only thing I can think of is that it may have something to do with surges... Last year my Mac's transformer blew up all of a sudden and I had to get a new one. The iStore's damage assessment was a probable surge. So I bought a surge-protected extension for it and I noticed some months back that the green light which says it's protected has gone out, so I'm assuming that the surge-protection was burnt.

Nonetheless, I find it really weird that these LEDs are dying at the same time, instead of having been dying one by one all these 2 years I've lived in this apartment if, in fact, it's due to surges. Moreover, none other of my appliances (nor our computers' transformes) have burnt out around this time.

I really don't trust that this apartment has a good ground connection (or any ground connection, for that matter)... I'm assuming it probably has something to do with this. It does have thermal switches; and once they were tripped when we were using the oven, the washing machine and the vacuum at the same time, so they're not decorative... But that's about as much as I know, except that the electrical wiring is probably rather old, as it is an old building.

So what could be going on? And, more importantly, how can I solve it? Some of these LED bulbs are pretty costly, and one invests in them because they're supposed to last a long time but, in this case, they're lasting about as much as a normal incandescent bulb! At first I thought it might be faulty bulbs, so I called up Ikea, but then, some days lates, another, and another started failing... so to me it clearly has something to do with the house's electrics, right?

Thanks in advance for your input!

In North America, we have whole house surge protectors that can be installed in your electrical panel and protect everything.  I imagine you'd have something similar but need the owners permission to have it installed.   I have this one:  EATON CHSPT2MAX 120/240V Max Standard Surge Protector.

I agree with jwh20 though - you've bought bottom of the line LED bulbs, even the LED bulbs that are top of the line I've had die around the hour rating.

Even after the lifetime that they note LED bulbs are supposed to still be working they are just supposed to be 30% dimmer or something but in my experience the transformer kicks it well before that.

The piece that is failing in your case is the transformer so probably cheap components.  It could be that you have surges and that this exacerbates the problem, cheaper components will probably not be as resilient.  Even the name brand Philips LED lights put a warranty of 3 hours a day for 3 years = 15,000 hours.  The led lights you've bought are cheap at $2 each or something is that the investment you are talking about?

Even the A19 bulb from philips that i paid $30 for only lasted around 15k hours.  https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/142134-philips-revamps-mainstay-led-bulb-a19-led-is-prettier-and-more-efficient - the transformer failed.  I feel like that was an investment.  I didn't even have any surge conditions and the house wiring was less than 20 years old.

Prices have come down though and now I can get a 3 pack of the A19 2700k for $13.  So if each bulb is $4 instead of $30 it probably pays back for the lower amount of electricity that it has used over the course of its lifetime.

The brand name ones are - more than likely - designed to fail after the warranty hours, the ikea/chinese ones aren't even designed - they'll just fail randomly and likely before 15,000 hours.

At the cost of your specific bulbs if they last close to a year then probably you could go for a hundred years before it would be worth the cost of adding the whole house surge protector and that might not even help with the bulbs lifespan.

Electronics in general tend to fail with heat.  Is your apartment climate controlled or subject to higher than average temperatures?

Here is an LED bulb that is around $1 USD but the prices you've paid are higher than I would have expected.


How do I replace this bathroom fan with a different plug? I want to replace my bathroom fan 'cause it stopped working. The ones in stores I see have a normal house receptacle plug that can just be plugged in to any outlets in the house etc. The one for my current broken fan is different. What do I do to change this to work with a new fan from home depot?
Here is my old fan with the white plug. The new fans do not have this kind of plug.

All the new fans the plug look like this.

The conventional way this is dealt with is to replace the whole fan unit housing with all innards with a new one. With luck you can find a replacement with the same or similar housing size.
If, as your question suggests, you intend to just try swapping out the motor and fan blade subassembly then you need to carefully check that the new unit is in any way compatible with your old fan housing. A number of things need to be looked at in addition to the AC power connection:

Is the fan blade assembly the same diameter, depth and blade pitch?
Does the motor mount in an identical manner?
Does the motor rotate in the same direction?

There are very similar style motors used in these types of fans but there are probably as many variations as there are manufacturers and model types that they build.
If you do get lucky and believe you can acquire a fully compatible motor assembly then  you will have to get creative if you hope to use it. That connector type used on the old motor is a very common part that you can purchase from places like Mouser or Digikey. Then with a new connector you install it onto the cord of the new motor. Be aware however that doing this may invalidate the UL safety rating of the fan if you start cutting up approved parts.


Dishwasher: Can my ground wire be exposed? I just replaced my dishwasher, and noticed that the old unit had two wire connections: black-to-black wire and white-to-white wire.  The ground wire from the home was exposed and wrapped around a screw on the unit.

Now, my new unit has a green wire for ground.  Is it okay to simply connect the exposed ground wire to the green wire on the unit?  The alternative would be to re-strip all of the wires so that the ground is not exposed (but, I'd rather not).

Thanks!

Residential Dishwashers are connected with a cord. The ground wire is the most important wire because it is intended to keep people safe from shock hazards. Unlike the NM cables (romex) that runs throughout your home cords come with an insulated ground. Some dishwashers have a ground wire and some have a grounding screw that the green wire of the cord needs to connect to. The main thing here is to make sure you are grounded. Grounds come insulated and non insulated but they both preform the same function. Insulation on a ground wire is intended to keep that wire from touching live parts or electrical systems. I am not sure how your dishwasher is connected. Does it have a cord that plugs into an receptacle or is it connected to a piece of romex?


Cold water entering hot water circuit? I'm having a bizarre problem. At least it's bizarre to me.

I'm repacking a HW faucet connected to our washing machine. To do so, I turned off the HW heater, and then the valve on top of the HW heater.

I then opened up the HW faucet on the sink in our downstairs and upstairs bathrooms to drain as much water as I can out of the loop. Works fine. No hot water coming out of any faucet now--including the one for the washer.

Then my son enters the bathroom and turns on the cold water. It sputters for a second but then comes on as you'd expect.

Now here's the weird part...suddenly, water comes sputtering out of the HW faucet for the washer!

Turn of the bathroom cold water, and water stops coming out of the HW faucet for the washer. Turn it back on for 10 seconds, and we get 10 seconds of water coming out of the washing machine faucet.

Now it's an experiment. We discover that any bathroom will cause this (As they are stacked, so likely all on the same wet wall). The kitchen faucet will not cause it.

What's going on here? Is there some natural siphoning thing going on somewhere in my system where cold water is being siphoned into the HW line? Or do I just have very messed up plumbing?

The only time I ran into something similar it was due to a failed anti-sweat mixing valve on a toilet that allowed back-flow through the hot water pipes. That would also explain in your case why the kitchen sink doesn't seem to be effected by the issue.

About the only way I can think of to test this theory (without opening walls) would be if you can cut your cold water off to the bathrooms without cutting the supply to the hot water heater. In the unlikely event that you can do that, your toilets would still be able to fill from the hot water line when flushed.


Tips on keeping window screen in window sill We like to open our windows when it is nice out. Unfortunately the bottom part of our window, where the screen fits into, is not very high. So what happens is our cat tends to push the screen out slightly so he can get out through the bottom by pushing the screen out. The screen does not come out per se but the entire frame is pushed out by our cat. I thought about using duct tape, but that is ugly. The lip is just too small to hold the screen in properly. Wedging a piece of wood in there did not work either.

Thoughts?

Without knowing exactly how the screen fits into the window, I'm not sure that this will work, but here's what I did (I had exactly the same problem - the cats learned that they could get out by pushing against the screens.)

In my case, the screens had an aluminum frame - I took a few small finishing nails, and gently hammered then through the frame, into the channel in the window frame.  I made sure that there was a bit of play in the nail so that they could be pulled out in an emergency (some of the windows were in bedrooms).