Changing pressure of well only by pressure switch? We have 2 20 gal pressure tanks and a 40 / 60 Square D pressure switch. I was talking to my well installer and he said they typically set the tanks to 20psi and regulate the pressure only by the switch. The pressure seems to hold stead at 43 psi and cuts off at 60 psi. In the house, the pressure is "ok". It's not great.

After much reading and asking this question, I thought the tanks should be set 2 under the cut-in pressure. Am I losing pressure because my tanks are only set at 20 psi?

In responding to this, I am including information from your original post. (You said your well is about 100 ft from the house, that the storage tanks are next to the well, and that your plumbing is mostly PEX.)  I am assuming that your house is not elevated far above your well.  If it is, then you will have roughly 1 PSI additional pressure loss for every 2 ft of elevation.

PEX is sold using tubing size and not pipe size, so if there is 100 ft of 3/4" PEX connecting your well to your house, then the ID of that tube is only 0.681 inches and the pressure drop may be very noticeable.  Running two fixtures or flushing a toilet while running a sink might cause 10 psi pressure drop across the run length.  If the house is piped mostly with 1/2" PEX, then there would be additional pressure losses there also.

Instead of setting the system operating pressure ever higher in an attempt to compensate for this, I would suggest correctly setting the air charge in the storage tanks for the reason I mention in my comment under your post above, and then use a couple of inexpensive pressure gauges to measure the pressure at various points in the system to locate the losses.  For example, use the pressure gauge at the storage tanks, put another gauge at a spigot on the side of the house, and another on a sink in the house.  Turn on a tub and a couple faucets and record the pressures.  If a significant amount of loss is between the well and the house, then replace that line with a larger size.

40-60 PSI is the upper operating range for many residential well systems, so I would not increase the system pressure above that if the issue can be practically resolved some other way.


using hardie backer as a temporary floor? We are planning on tiling our kitchen when we finish our remodel, but can't do it now.  Floor needs to be replaced due to water damage, so has anyone ever heard of using hardie backer as a temporary flooring?  Painting it perhaps?  Hubby wants to try it...

You can walk on HB as long as you like.  If it is of the 1/2" variety I seriously doubt you could damage it.  However it does emit silica dust.  If you walked on it vigorously you could kick some up and it is really not a good thing to breathe or be near food.  You can certainly paint it.  There are waterproofing paints used for backer boards like redgard... However these will generally smell like puke for a week or two and given it's in your kitchen maybe not a good idea.  I would then go with a primer coat - which might need to be scuffed up a bit with a brush before thinset/tile.


Screw and washer should go through flat area or curved? I have a screw with a washer. Which one of the two sides should it go through (ie which side the washer should be "in contact with"), the flat or the curved one? The structure is symmetrical so it can go either way. The other side of the frame (opposite to where the washer will be) is going to be mounted to a flat surface. Basically the screw goes through the hole of the metal frame and screws on the flat surface on the other side. If someone also knows the reason why one is more suitable than the other it would be great.

The depression you're asking about appears to be simply sloppy manufacturing to me. It doesn't seem like an intentional countersink. If it was you'd probably have flat-head screws instead.

The washer goes under the nut when working with metal, not under the screw head (unless there is no nut or it's an integrated nut).
The screw head should be oriented where it's accessible and gives the best appearance.

I'd put that ugly dent against the mounting surface and the screw head against a nice flat hole, personally, No matter where you put it you'll mash that tubing if you tighten too much, so go easy.


What is the correct tool/method for digging out existing concrete holes for fence posts My garden needs a new fence as well as two new fence posts. There is an existing concrete base along the boundary which is already securing three posts and has holes where two posts snapped in the wind at the base.

One of the holes is intact with all four sides:

The other hole appears to have one of its sides broken, you can't see it from the following picture, but there's no sign of it when poking into the ground at the base:

My question is two fold:

What tool/method should I use to dig out the old debris/wood from the snapped fence post? It's obviously a tight space and I suspect I need to work smarter not harder.
For the hole that has one side of the concrete missing - what could I do to sure up the hold? Should it be relatively easy to lay more concrete around it? Or is there some other method of securing it I haven't thought of?

I doubt you can get the broken off posts out and new 4x4 posts in with the holes intact. In one case on this site the poster had clean holes and put in steel posts which are smaller enough in diameter than the original wood posts that they could be inserted plumb into the existing retaining wall.

If your concrete is relatively weak, you might be able to break down the concrete on the two "outer" sides flanking each post using manual tools, such as a heavy steel concrete breaker bar or a heavy mattock with pick on one end.   An alternative is an electric jackhammer which you can rent.


Should I put down underlayment when putting a layer of tile on top of another? I have two layers of tile down. The suggestion is to tear off the first layer of tile and then put on new Armstrong tile. One contractor has underlayment in the bid, while the other does not.

Do we need the underlayment?

Per the Armstrong subfloors and underlayment manual, all Armstrong vinyl tile installations require an underlayment.

If you don't have an approved underlayment, you may not receive full warranty coverage for the tiles.

Further, the underlayment is secured using mechanical fasteners through the old tiles to the subfloor, so you don't have to worry about whether the adhesive will secure the new tiles to the old tiles. The adhesive will bond correctly with an appropriately chosen underlayment, and the tiles will not bubble or spread due to temperature fluctuations and differing rates of expansion between the new tile and the old.  This can only be guaranteed when the adhesive works, and most tile surfaces are designed to be difficult to stick to or stain, so finding a suitable adhesive might be difficult.


Is there a 3-way occupancy switch with one sensor being external? I have two lamps wired to a 3-way regular switch: one in a hallway and another one on the staircase following it. I would like to change the regular switch with motion detection occupancy one, but there's a problem. One of the 3-way switches is in the hallway, but the other one is in the living room (adjacent to the staircase). Which means that if I change the switch to an occupancy one, it will trigger when people are just moving in the living room, not necessarily going to the staircase.

I can see a couple of solutions, but they are too time consuming/expensive:

Move the living room staircase switch to the staircase. But I would like to avoid doing it because it's too much work.
Remove the regular switches completely and buy occupancy sensors that are installed directly on the lamps. It's a better solution than (1), but such sensors could be difficult to match to the existing lamps.

I'm wondering if there's a solution that would be something like this:
- Replace the hallway switch with 3-way occupancy one
- Install another 3-way occupancy sensor on/near the staircase lamp
- Keep or remove the living room switch currently used to control the staircase lamp

There are more choices than you might think

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/SectionDisplay.jsp?section=38557&minisite=10251

I am thinking you might want a 3-way, manual on, auto off.

But whatever Pattern, Coverage, Time delay, or Switch type, you will likely find it here.

You can get leviton stuff anywhere, it is likely one of these would be a special order, or buy it online.

Do not worry about bad amazon reviews on these things, they are usually a case of the switch being more clever than the installer.


Window unit AC installation in narrow window My apartment has double hung windows, but they are quite narrow (~19.5 inches at the screen, 22 inches at the opening).  I'm currently using a portable air conditioner, but I'd really like to use a standard window fit model.

There are a variety of compact AC units available whose physical dimensions are smaller than the opening, but state they require a minimum window size larger than I have (23 inches, for say a unit that measures 18.5 inches at its widest point).  Can these units be made to fit, by say not installing the side panels? Anyone tried this and made it work?

The accordion side panels should be removable (in fact the AC is probably sold with them detached to make a more compact box).  To seal the window you'll need to put something else to fill the gap between the side of the AC and the window frame.  A small piece of plywood cut to fit would probably work.


Protect wall behind trash can What can I do to bare (painted) wall behind a trash can to protect it from, well, trash?! Would like it to be washable, obviously, and only semi-permanent as we will not live in this house forever and I don't want it to look too tacky. I considered tile, but that is too permanent. Also considered sheet metal, but I thought that might look too weird.

Suggestions?

I'd consider fiber-reinforced plastic panels (FRP or "milkhouse panels" - example) attached with hook-and-loop tape. Both are available at your nearest home improvement store. It would be very tough and could be easily removed.


Light switch for multiple fixtures feels warm after a while I have a light switch that handles 4 chandeliers (3 60 watts bulbs) and two ceiling fans.  If switch is on for awhile it is warm to the touch.  Should I install a heavier switch?

Unlikely that the switch isn't heavy duty enough. But the contacts in the switch and/or the connections to the wires may have problems. I suggest replacing the switch just in case it is having internal problems. When you do that, check the wires for any evidence of arcing. If the wires are not in good shape, cut off the end and strip a new section to attach to the screw terminals on the new switch. Obviously turn off the circuit at the breaker before doing any of this.


Storage of portable (but bulky) power tools So in the course of this renno, I've acquired a few larger/more bulky power tools (portable table saw, compound sliding miter/stand, 13" planer, etc..). Currently I am using the soon-to-be kitchen pantry for storing them.  When the pantry is being finished in a few weeks, the tools need to find a new home.  My options are:

Basement utility room.  Small room that houses the water pressure tank, water heater and furnace.  Has drains in the floor, but can get a tad bit damp.  I'd put in some hooks/shelves to keep the tools off the floor.  However, storing the tools here would make this room VERY cramped, and make accessing the utilities in there, a bit of a hassle.
Detached Garage.  Very large garage, tons of room, nice and dry.  The downside- it is unheated, and I am in Minnesota, so it will get quite cold in the winter.

Thoughts on the best route to go?  Will extreme cold damage the tools?  If so, they'll stay indoors, and I'll deal with the inconvenience in the utility room.  If not, the garage seems like an ideal place to store them.

I'd be tempted to keep them in the garage, where it sounds like they could be used in a pinch, even though its cold. I don't think the cold would hurt them.


Is it ok to use a gas stove with gas pressure lower than what's specified? I got a new gas stove. I will use an LPG tank as the source for gas. The stove's user manual specifies to use gas at a pressure of 37mbar, and that "the company isn't responsible for any difference in performance or any risk if it is used at a different value". It also warns not to use it at a pressure greater than 45mbar in any circumstance and that a pressure regulator should be used in that case. I can't find any gas regulators that output a 37mbar pressure. Is it ok if I use it with 28mbar, 29mbar or 30mbar for example? These are the only ones I could find in my country. Are there any risks to do so?

Is your gas stove set up for using LPG? If it was used in a home with "Natural Gas" piped in, that is very different from LPG and requires different burners, orifices etc. They are not interchangeable.


How can I replace particle board overlayment installed under interior walls? Just bought a house built in 1980 from the original owner. The bathrooms are carpeted, the master bath carpet had been soaked in urine over the years. So we immediately ripped it out and found the overlayment (also soaked in urine and growing mold) is 3/4" particle board, which the interior walls, shower, and cabinets all sit on top of the overlayment. The shower and cabinets aren't a problem (although it will be a pain), however the walls are an issue. How can I safely replace the particle board with plywood under these interior walls?

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

I just completed a similar project where cat urine had soaked through carpet into the OSB subfloor in a bedroom which ran underneath an exterior wall.  I cut the subfloor as close to the wall as I could but the remaining stub of OSB still smelled.  A few nights of research convinced me that replacing the remaining OSB under the wall would be nearly impossible.  Recommendations were to saturate it with BIN 1-2-3 pigmented shellac primer to seal in the odor.  I was expecting a heavy coating, but the BIN is about as thick as whole milk and the porous OSB drank it right up. I put several coats on every bit of the exposed OSB, the exposed wall framing under the drywall, and also 6" up the drywall which had wicked up some of the urine.  It took 7 coats until the smell was mostly gone.  If followed up with 3 coats of Kilz MAX water-based primer (avoided oil-based due to pregnant wife in the house) over the BIN primed areas and up the entire wall, which I realized was still emitting odor.  The Kilz went on thicker and was more effective at sealing in the odor by the 3rd coat. For the unsupported subfloor edge, I built a "bridge" between the last I-joist and the wall ledger, loosely based on ideas in another thread on this website.  Search "How do I replace a sub-floor that goes under a wall" and you'll find it.

(Top) This is the section I had to cut out.

(Bottom Left) The ledger board was 2" beyond the OSB cut and there was only 7.5" between it and the first I-joist, not enough room to swing a hammer to fasten joist hangers or anything else.  I sistered a 2x12 with StrongDrive 1/4 x 3 wood screws (using a Dewalt right-angle drill attachment) and some P&L, after first fastening 2x10 cleats with 16d nails, leaving just enough room for a piece of 2x between the top of the cleats and the OSB.

(Bottom Right) For the I-joist, I ripped a 2x10 to squeeze in snug against the web between the two flanges.   I fastened vertical lengths of 2x4 flush with the top of the 2x10 using 3" SPAX structural screws, then fastened the completed piece against the web with 1/2 stainless hex bolts.

(Left) I then cut more 2x4 pieces to bridge across the 2x members and screwed them down using cheapo 2.5" wood screws and P&L.  The bridge pieces fit snug under the existing OSB cut edge.

(Top Right) I cut a new piece of OSB to fit which joined the T&G in the uncut floor board to it's right.  The bridge provided flush support where it joined the wall edge.

(Bottom Right) I cut and fitted the 2nd board, then glued and screwed everything down.  It feels solid as a rock and I'm confident it will support the hardwoods going in this week.  As mentioned, I followed up with 3 coats of Kilz Max on the entire back wall and used the rest of the can to coat the entire floor, so that if anything manages to seep through the new hardwoods and the vapor barrier the OSB hopefully won't drink it up like a sponge again.


Rear doorbell not working A neighbor ask me to help him figure out why his back doorbell isn't working. When I arrived, the back door button was gone. I know you should just be able to touch the wires together to get the chime to go off. The back doorbell wires go straight to the chime. The front doorbell wires go to the transformer. There is another set of wires at the transformer that go to the chime. The two reds are on the transformer and the whites are wire nutted together. The front doorbell works fine. I can't get my mind wrapped around this wiring setup.   My question is, will this set up work with the back doorbell wires going straight to the chime? I have tested the wires with an ohm meter so I know the wires go to the back door and they are not broke anywhere. Any ideas how I can wire this up without the wires from the back door going to the transformer?  Thanks for any help.

The transformer-button red wire  is supply hot or "R" in thermostat speak.
The white wire is "front button switched-hot".
The chime-transformer red wire is return/common/neutral or "C" in thermostat speak.

You need to bring supply hot, and "rear button switched-hot" to the other doorbell.

...  presuming the doorbell has 2 different chimes.


Remote Switch wiring for a gas log fire place I have a remote switch outside my gas log fireplace to turn the fireplace  burner on and off. I've been having problems with the standard thermostat wiring that was supplied with my remote switch. The wiring is melting. Should I be using a "heat resistant" wiring to run from my wall switch thru my fire place to control the ignition of the burners?  The answer seem obviously "yes" but do you have a recommended type of wire for this application?

Again the wall switch simply "jumpers" two terminals on my gas valve, thus allowing the gas valve to open and thus the burners to ignite off the pilot. I was thinking of going to my local electrical supply house for some "heat/temperature" resistant low voltage capable wiring and trying that. Also should I run that wiring under the burner pan or behind the burner pan and under the sand/stones provided for aesthetics for the fire place?  .

I thought any time you came within 18" of a stove or insert (fireplace type) you were supposed to use "glass" or high temp appliance wire (but this may be an Oregon thing).  It is about a buck a foot here in the pacific northwest. You only need a small gauge to control your gas valve; 18 would probably do just fine but it may be easier to find 14awg.  The wire I am talking about has a glass braid on the outside and some type of plastic inner insulation, this type of wire can handle the heat unlike standard AWM/NM/THHN. Plumbing and electric stores usually have it; I'm not sure about the big box stores.


Help connecting unused C wire for Smart Thermostat Looking to connect a newer WiFi thermostat which requires the connection of a c wire. My old thermostat didn’t use a c wire however there is a c wire present in the bundle of wires ( unconnected at thermostat and inside air exchanger/furnace. However I am a little lost on where to connect this loose C wire inside the air exchanger compartment. My furnace doesn’t use the typical screw terminals I’ve seen while looking for the solution to this. It uses a clamping type of connector ( see pics) there is a C terminal however this is already used. The wire from the c terminal goes to some black block ( I believe is a heat sequencer through some googling) then another connection off of that “heat sequencer” connects to the red wire from the 2 wire cable that I believe goes to the air conditioner? Any assistance on where I need to connect this c wire would be greatly greatly appreciated!!!! If any additional pics are needed I can do that ASAP

Your C connection is as depicted below in the furnace electrical diagram as I highlighted by the blue line. As you will note that highlighted connection in the lower right corner is to connection #5 of the transformer. Note also that that connection also connects to the frame ground of the furnace.

It is very typical that your air conditioner compressor is driven  from the furnace control wiring with a two wire cable. One of those two wires will also be connected into this C wire connection. If you carefully trace your wire connections from the AC unit you will find the wire of the two that ends up being tied to furnace frame ground. (With power turned off to the furnace a digital multi-meter in continuity testing mode can be a handy way to find the wire that connects to the frame ground).

Once you identify the wiring harness that attaches directly to the frame ground (or transformer connection #5) you can tie your spare wire in the thermostat cable into that harness wire.


What is the term for a bathroom tile which wraps around a backerboard edge? I am tiling my shower, and (unfortunately I think) the hardy backer board is not flush with the regular sheetrock surrounding the tub.  The board is 1/2" thick.

So, I need edge tile which wraps around the corner at a 90deg angle and down for 1/2".  What is the term for this type of tile?

It is not bull-nose tile obviously; I just don't know the term to be able to search or ask.

There are quarter round tiles

and sink rail tiles

There is also a mud cap (also called radius cap)

One of these may work. You can search for corner tile to find other examples.

 Images and links are illustrative only, not an endorsement of goods or sources


How do I prepare a wall for backsplash tile? I am getting ready to tile my blacksplash.  I had laminate counters and backsplash.  Of course when I removed the old backsplash the paper on the drywall was damaged.

How should I fix this ?  Will just skimming with a coat of drywall mud be enough ?

EDIT : It is travertine tiles.

Assuming this is ceramic tile - not glass or stone - and you are going to do the standard mastic installation, if there is only mild damage (for example, a few 4-inch patches ripped off) either just ignore it or use joint compound to fill.

Joint compound is not strong at all.  It is pretty crumbly and soft - i.e. it's not plaster, even though builders nowadays use it to skim-coat walls for texture (you can easily gouge it with your fingernail on such installs).  So if there are large areas of damage, I would cut out the sections of drywall and replace them.  This is not difficult, because although you should still mud-and-tape the joints, you don't need to sand much since you'll be covering it with tile.

Final comment - I wish, on my installation, that we had added 1/4" hardiboard over the sheetrock (with const. adhesive and screws) to stiffen the wall.  My wall has the garage door in it, so the wall gets flexed and the grout cracks.  Just FYI.

(Adding Fein Multimaster picture, see comment below)


What is this 1" growth cluster that formed over night This grew overnight on ceiling. There are some brown stains on the ceiling near it. but only there.  No where else in home.  Have not touched them byt they look spongy.
 Live in central Florida in manufactured home. House is always clean and pet free. The air conditioning is on during the day and it has not been very humid.  Any one ever see this before?

The best thing you can do--and you're going to have to anyway no matter what is--is to cut a hole to inspect further. Make sure to open windows and wear a mask, eye glasses, and safety gloves.


Tile basement bathroom over cracks without Ditra I am tiling a basement bathroom that is 5 feet by 6 feet.  It has a crack running the entire length of the bathroom as well as a small hairline crack near the toilet.  I've read that Ditra is the best for crack isolation and to keep the movement from transfering up through the tile.

I am using 1 foot by 2 foot tiles running lenthwise over the crack.  My problem is if I use Ditra with the thinset underneath it + the Ditra it self and the thinset on top I'm way too high to match up with my wood floor that is meeting up with it.

I've seen a few other online putting crack isolation membrane over the floor, but it sounds like that is more for prevention, not for cracks that are already in the floor.

Are there any other low profile options to prevent the crack from traveling up into the tile or grout?

Use a thinner crack isolation sheet, ask for "slip-sheet" at the tile store. Some will bridge cracks up to 1/8" wide. Note, although slip-sheet works great for cracks caused by horizontal movement, they are not great for preventing cracks caused by vertical movement.


I did a bad job pouring a cement walkway, how can I fix it? I poured three 4'x4' slabs to make a walkway beside my house. The first two look alright but the third one is a half inch lower than the one next to it and slopes up at the open end where I want to pour six more slabs. Of course I wanted my slabs to slope down the walkway but my third slab slopes back the wrong way.

Is there something I can use to fill this half inch and get it to slope the right way, or at least make it somewhat level?

A number of the low aggregate rapid set cements are good for applications down to  a 1/2 inch.  The patch is best made when the old cement is still fresh, and for good measure use some concrete bonding adhesive.


Is a NIOSH mask advised when sanding a fully dried hardwood floor? I understand that a NIOSH mask is necessary if one is applying an oil-based polyurethane.

Is a NIOSH mask needed or advised if one is sanding a hardwood floor with a polyurethane of unknown type, but one that has dried many years ago?

On the (very possible) case that the polyurethane used was an oil-based one, will organic fumes be released again when sanding a perfectly dried such hardwood floor?

Update

If an NIOSH-approved mask is recommended, Should I use an N95, N99, ... ?

NIOSH (National Institute Of Safety and Health) does not manufacture respirators or dust masks, they conduct research and make recommendations for prevention of worker injury/illness. If their name is on a respirator it means they approve of it's use for the manufacturer's stated purpose.

Generally. you should wear a particulate mask or respirator when sanding, mostly because of the chance for lead in old coatings. For old varnish the chance of significant lead exposure is slim and no volatile organics will be released.

However, you should wear a N99 dust mask or P100 particulate respirator anyway because breathing airborne dust when you don't have to is dumb. Ever blow your nose after working in a dusty field? Do you really want that stuff in your respiratory tract?


How to connect a detached garage and house electrical panel at the meter? The meter is in between my house and the garage.  Can I connect the service conductors from both panels to the same lugs at the meter?  Do I handle both panels grounding and neutral bars as 'mains'?  There is no conductor running from the garage to the house.

In my State you cannot "double lug" inside the Meter. This is a requirement from the Utility Companies. Also you cannot connect two conductors to a lug intended for a single conductor, see NEC 408.41.

You can put in a junction box or wireway and tap the conductors in it. There are many insulated lugs that can be used. Just make sure you follow all the tap rules.

My preferred method is to install two enclosed breakers or a panel with two breakers. Which is allowed under the six disconnect rule and you can run a large conductor (200A) to the house and a smaller conductor to the garage (40A?) and not worry about tap rules etc. In your case, see NEC 230.40 Exception 3.


Wet sanding using 1200 grit on my brown table has created a white/dust-like cover I worked on 2 projects for painting a wood table and a metal table, where wet sanding had worked perfectly on the metal table while it ruin the wood table, as follow:-

I have a wood table which i painted using oil-based semi-gloss Jotun brown paint around 3 months ago. where there were many paint brush strokes.. so i decided to do a wet sanding for the table. i used 1200 grit  sand paper + water. after wet sanding the table i cleaned the surface, but the sanding has created a white/dust-like surface, which will not go even if i use soap to clean the table for many times.

while on my second project, i have a metal table which i painted using Dulux oil-based satinwood white paint around 3 days ago. where there were many paint brush strokes.. so i decided to do a wet sanding for the table. i used 1200 grit  sand paper + water. after wet sanding the table i cleaned the surface, and the surface had a glass-like finish and most of the paint brush strokes disappeared, which is what i were looking for.

so can anyone advice why the wet sanding worked on my white metal table and failed on my brown wood table? is it because wet sanding dark colors will not work? or because i wet sanded the wood table after 3 months of painting it unlike the metal table while i have painted only 3 days ago?
Thanks.
Here is a picture of the failed project:-

I suspect the reason for the different outcomes is a result of using two different types of paint. The different properties and composition probably means their surface will respond differently to being sanded.
Many glossy surfaces will be dulled by sanding, even at 1200 grit. You were fortunate with the white table. Perhaps it doesn’t show the effect up as much because it is already white.
Sanding is an appropriate method to remove brush marks from a painted surface, but not as a final finish. It should be used as a preparation step before repainting.
Whatever the cause, you’ve not ruined your table, you just need to sand it correctly and repaint using a better technique.
The paint on your white table might now have an ‘open’ surface with micro abrasions from the 1200 grit. This could make it more susceptible to dirt or stains and it might need refinishing at some point.
For your brown table, you can prepare the surface ready for repainting and try again.

Dry sand with something like 120 to remove any remaining brush strokes and unevenness, followed by 180 to remove any scratches from the 120. Either way you need to rough up the surface a little because 1200 is too slick for the new paint to bond to properly. You could sand back to the original wood, or just stop when you get a nice even surface to repaint.
You could repaint using aerosol spray paint, which should give an even finish. Follow the instructions carefully especially about ambient temperature, distance, using several light coats and don’t put too much on at once so it runs.
You could try again with an oil based paint, but apply with a mini roller and a disposable short pile sleeve, followed by very light laying off with the tips of good quality brush to remove the roller stipples. Work quickly before the paint starts to skin over.
You could try again with a good quality brush. Work quickly and don’t overbrush the paint.

Personally I found that oil based gloss was easiest to paint to a flawless finish, followed by oil based satin and then water based needing the most skill.
Some tips here on getting a good finish: https://traditionalpainter.com/flawless-paint-finish


Wire nut tie together for a #4 braided aluminum wire? I have an electrician running a 220 line out to my shed, using 4-4-6 braided aluminum run underground.  The wire is about 3 feet too short (after running about 150 feet).  He wants to just use 3 wire nuts for #4 gauge wire and tie the 3 right above the circuit panel and then make the connection to the breaker.

Is that legit?  I'm okay with it if it isn't going to cause a problem, but I just wanted to make sure.

He'll need to use a pull box to house this

Splicing of wire that fat can't be done in a regular junction box due to the fact regular junction boxes are too small to let the wire be bent in conformance with bending radius specifications.  Instead, what's needed is a NEMA rated (NEMA 1 if it's inside, NEMA 3R if it's outside) pull box, as these are available in dimensions that conform with the specifications in NEC 314.28(A)(2):

  (2) Angle or U Pulls, or Splices. Where splices or where angle
  or U pulls are made, the distance between each raceway entry
  inside the box or conduit body and the opposite wall of the
  box or conduit body shall not be less than six times the metric
  designator (trade size) of the largest raceway in a row. This
  distance shall be increased for additional entries by the amount
  of the sum of the diameters of all other raceway entries in the
  same row on the same wall of the box. Each row shall be calculated individually, and the single row that provides the maximum distance shall be used.

  Exception: Where a raceway or cable entry is in the wall of a box or
  conduit body opposite a removable cover, the distance from that wall to
  the cover shall be permitted to comply with the distance required for one
  wire per terminal in Table 312.6(A).

  The distance between raceway entries enclosing the same
  conductor shall not be less than six times the metric designator
  (trade size) of the larger raceway.

  When transposing cable size into raceway size in
  314.28(A)(1) and (A)(2), the minimum metric designator
  (trade size) raceway required for the number and size of
  conductors in the cable shall be used.

Note that for large raceways, this can lead to rather large boxes, so it may be best to mount the box to one side of the panel and leave a bit of slack length in the too-short run instead of mounting it above the panel, although mounting it below a bottom-fed panel may not be an issue, depending on the depth of the box.

4AWG Wirenut Not Found

Wirenuts are generally not made in large enough sizes to splice 4AWG wires, so your electrician will be using a different splicing device -- a mechanical setscrew connector, or Polaris™ connector as it is often called.  These, like wirenuts, are one-piece splicing units, but instead of twisting the wires together, each wire is individually attached using screws that clamp the wires down into a block of plated aluminum, much like a breaker box neutral or ground busbar.  While they are available in different configurations (one-sided, two-sided, in-line), most are like the picture below in that the screws sit under the caps on top while the wires go into the ports on the front and/or back (or each end) of the connector.  Furthermore, as a result of their construction, they can handle a variety of wire sizes (even in a single connector -- the smallest ones go from 14AWG to 4AWG, and the next smallest size starts at 6AWG and goes to 3/0 or more), and can handle any mix of copper and aluminum wire.


Washer Drain pipe too high - suggestions? First post on this site, long time Stack Exchange consumer for tech stuff, didn't realize there was a Home Improvement section!

I've got a GE washing machine that periodically will spray water out of the drain standpipe.  The drain situation is pretty bad, the house came like this.  It's way too high, the connection point (the 4 way fitting) is 6 feet off the ground and the open standpipe itself is not even 12" long.  Not sure why it's been working OK at all, but it only seems to overflow occasionally.  A couple more data points:

I know that the standpipe is supposed to be 18" at least, but I'm not sure how much taller I could make it given the clearance to the (low) basement ceiling
The manual for the washing machine actually says that it can pump up to 8 feet high

I just am sitting here scratching my head, trying to figure out what my options are.  I suppose I could get a drain pump, and feed the washer into that, and then pump that out.  I'd prefer to not have to do that (more complexity, electricity usage, etc).  But do I have any other options?

Thanks so much.

Yes, as @TomG says, take the standpipe up - but I'll modify 18" to "as far as the ceiling or the 8 foot limit allows", that's the least expensive first approach, and if it solves it, you are done. Get it right up inbetween the floor joists.

If a plumber was involved in the black Tee on the white PVC pipe at the top of the picture, the licensing board should hear about it. That thing is dead wrong - it's installed sideways (it's the wrong fitting for the location). I'd expect there might be venting issues with that connection, too.

If merely extending the standpipe does not do it, you need to clean up the lower mess to gain some height (and ensure adequate flow.) That might well involve a plumber (or some advanced DIY plumbing) and some expense, but it would not involve extra complexity and electricity use.


Can a single 8" flex duct be split into a 5" flex and 7" flex? Our house used to have a fur-down A/C unit that fed a series of rigid ducts made with duct board.  We'd like to replace a vent in our bathroom (5' x 11') with a 5" flex duct.  We'd like to replace a vent in our kitchen with a 7" flex duct.
Based on the research I've done, It seems we can take a single 8" flex duct off the output plenum and split it into a 5" flex and 7" flex.
Do all those sizes seem appropriate for the rooms?  Can I really split an 8" flex into a 5" flex and 7" flex?
I'm also wondering if 7" would be big enough for the kitchen so I'm considering going with a 8" flex.  So could I run a 10" flex and split it into a 5" flex and 8" flex?
Are there any issues with using a flex duct as a "trunk" line to the splitter?  Or would it be better to use a rigid duct to the splitter and then go with flex lines from there?

The volume of a round duct can be generally estimated using its cross section. Pi * r^2
For an 8" it's 16Pi
7" is 12.25Pi
5" is 6.25 Pi.
18.5 > 16, so this is an oversized split.
However, using a 6" instead of a 7 gives you 9Pi.
9+6.25=15.25
So splitting an 8 into a 5+6 is a bit smaller, a 5+7 a bit bigger.
Given the choice I'd go 5+7 but if the rooms require 5+7 then it will be insufficient.
A 10" would be 25Pi, and that will happy split into 7+7 or 8+6.


How do I build a deck that is easy to take apart? I spent the day taking apart the platform for a yurt. It was a real pain, and I want to make it easier to take apart next time.

Old deck construction details:

Decking was 1 1/8" tongue-and-groove plywood, fastened with 3" Robertson (square-drive) screws. The deck was painted after installation, so some paint was in the screw heads. A regular cordless drill wasn't strong enough to turn these screws, but an combination drill / impact-driver was able to do it. However, maybe 1 in 10 screws had their drive heads stripped instead. Too much friction / too much torque. We used a Sawzall to cut those screws out. Went through 4 Sawzall blades.

Framing was 4" x 6" joists on 4" x 4" posts on concrete piers. Most lumber was pressure-treated, but about 1/3 of the joists were not. Beam-to-post caps were nailed in to the joists and posts, 3 nails on each side. We spent a lot of time hammering a Cat's Paw under the nail heads, and then prying them out.

Insulation was 4' x 8' sheets of 2"-thick foil-faced foam board, between the joists, secured with 1/2" x 1" lath strips, which were fastened with 2" screws. To be able to get the Sawzall in to place, we crawled around in the dirt under the yurt to remove the foam. These screws were also hard to remove, and sometimes we had to break the lath instead.

We're going to put the yurt up at a new location. I'm guessing it'll be there about 5 years, and then it'll be time to move it again. So I want to think about how to build it in a way to make it easier to disassemble when the time comes.

Some ideas

Fasten the floor with 2"-long scews, for easier turning.
Prime & paint the floor panels before installation. Maybe 1 more coat after installation.
Pilot the floor screw holes.
Duplex (double-headed) nails for the beam-to-post caps. Maybe screws instead?
Tiny finish nails for the lath that holds up the inuslation. Easy to rip out. 2" screws was overkill.

My first thought would be to build the deck in individual 4x8 sections.  So you build a frame out of 2x4's or 2x6's with one sheet of plywood on top and the insulation pre-installed between the framing members.

You would then set up your concrete piers and beams that would support the sections.  If you use 2x4 framing for the pre-built sections, you would need more beams and piers, but the individual sections would also be lighter and more easily man-portable.  Place the pre-built sections on top of the joists and screw them together from underneath.

When you disassemble, you just unscrew the pre-built sections from each other and the joists, take them out in one piece, and stack them on a trailer.  Being 4x8, they are the perfect size to fit in just about any trailer or pickup truck and not too heavy for one or two guys to handle.  Once those are removed, you can disassemble the beams and piers.


can I mount a copper pipe to stone with an epoxy? how can I mount a copper pipe vertically to a flat slate stone after first drilling into the stone to insert the end of the copper tubing?

Yes, you can. In fact, this is exactly how anchor bolts are placed into concrete and stone for posts. A hole is drilled, filled with epoxy, then the bolt is inserted.

Keep in mind that slate is fragile, however. Go easy on the drill so as to not crack the slate.


How do I unclog my dishwasher? Our dishwasher, which is only about 5 years old, has been finishing its cycle with quite a bit of water in the bottom that doesn't drain.  The water stays that way for several days or more.  Is there a Drain-o like product that's safe for use in dishwashers?  Or should I take it apart and clean out some filter or something myself?  How would I go about doing this?

I should mention that we're pretty bad about carefully rinsing our dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, so I'm pretty sure the problem is with the filter or whatever takes the solid matter out of the drained water.  We've been using Cascade Complete, which claims to allow you to skip the rinsing phase, but apparently it doesn't work quite as well as advertised.

At the botton of the dishwasher, there's probably a basket-like cover over the drain.  You should be able to pop that off, and under there you'll find a nice collection of disgusting bits.

I used a turkey baster to blast a lot of it loose, then scooped the resulting soup into a bucket, but next time I'll just use a wet-dry shop vac.


What is this flexible hose under my bathroom sink for? In the 2nd floor bathroom (sink, toilet, tub), I noticed a flexible hose coming into the sink drain. It's below the counter, above the trap, very similar to a dishwasher draining into a disposal. There are no other plumbing fixtures in the second floor, and from what I can see the flexible hose connects to standard pvc pipe at the wall behind the cabinet. I don't know where it goes after that.

I do not see this on any other sink drains in the house. Is it for venting? Or something else?

It's a tap into the drain.  Likely for Air Conditioning (condensate) located nearby in the attic.

If this is proven to be the case you will want to familiarize yourself with how it works.  Is it all gravity?  Is there a pump?  Regular (annual) cleaning/flushing is important, as you don't want this to overflow.


Best way to child proof a house? First child is on the way, and aside from placing locks on cabinets and fences around the pool, what are the top ways I can child proof the more dangerous parts of the house?

Pad sharp edged fixtures and furniture, like slate fireplace hearths and metal/glass furniture (I used split foam pipe insulation). Install safety plugs in your electrical receptacles. Put a latch on the toilet seat to prevent small toys from being flushed. Install latching gates to restrict stairway access. Place latches on shower doors/sliding glass tub enclosures.

Sell your motorcycle. Sell your 1968 Pontiac Firebird and buy a mini-van. Give up poker night with the boys. Learn sleep deprivation coping strategies. Start saving for baby's college tuition. Jump off a bridge...


How do I repair spots of damaged hardwood floor finish? I have some hardwood floors that I refinished 5 years or so ago.  They're mostly holding up pretty well, but around our breakfast bar the stools have taken up some of the varathane and have left damaged (scuffed and peeling) spots.

Are there products and/or tools that I can use to repair those spots without substantial sanding, and without refinishing the whole floor?

Repairing these worn spots should be fairly easy assuming the damage is only to the urethane finish and not into the wood itself. This should be as easy as buffing the affected area with a green dish style scrubby to remove loose finish and slightly level the surrounding surface.  If the scrubby is not quite aggressive enough, use some very fine 220 grit sand paper gently by hand or with a DA or vibrating style sander. Without seeing the area and damage, it is hard to say how far you need to sand, but most likely do the area where the chairs have worn the finish to slightly into the non affected area. Be absolutely sure to get the same urethane product and finish (satin, semi gloss, or gloss) to do the overcoat. After cleaning all dust etc after sanding, apply a VERY THIN coat  of the new finish. Allow this to dry completely, buff sand the area again removing any dust that dried into wet finish, assuring it is extremely smooth to the touch. Repeat this process with at least 3 coats.  I recommend using a good grade foam brush or very good Purdy flared bristle brush. If the area is larger, consider a mohair roller.  A mohair roller is simply a very low nap roller avail at a good paint specialty store. You may see a slight difference in the new finish to the old surrounding area, simply because of the age of the rest of the room, however that is a small compromise compared to having the damage migrate into the wood which will require a much more extensive repair later.  Good luck


Replaced bathroom fan/light The bathroom fan/light went out and I replaced it.  Apparently I did not hook wires up right.
There is a black encased wire with hot, neutral, and ground. There is a white encased wire with hot neutral,  and ground.  I hooked black to black on fan, blue to black, white to white and grounds to grounds.
When I turned power back on, the fan runs without light switch up.  I swapped black and blue wires and the light stays on without switch  on.
Help!

The black wire that is hooked up to the blue wire that keeps the light on, that is your always hot. Follow that wire back to the encasement and the white wire coming out of that encasement is your neutral. Hook that neutral up to only the white wires coming out of the fixture. Now take your always hot black and hook it to the remaining white wire in the other encased cable and mark it with some black tape. That wire now energizes the switch. Take the black wire in that encased cable and hook it up to the black wire and the blue wire from your fixture. Both fan and light should come on when operating the switch. Naturally, you want to turn off the power when you do any of this.


How to troubleshoot a florescent light. I'd like to know if there is a way to troubleshoot a fixture with T8 or T12 working on a ballast that stopped working, if the problem is in the ballast or the bulbs, without having to buy new bulbs to try them.
Thanks

Yes if they don't light and the ends of the bulbs are black you just found 1 answer the bulb is bad. If you replace the bulb and still have trouble your problem is the ballast, electronic ballast die when overloaded. I almost left a sarcastic note at the end of this but will explain. After just changing 3 ballast in very high end fixtures that the owner was two cheap to change lamps. The cost of new fixtures almost 700.00 plus install. I purchased 3 cheap fixtures and pulled the ballast cost just under 110. For the same ballast. I made 400.00 to replace them. Not bad for a few hours work, If he changed the lamps would have cost less than 35 at Home Depot


Why my new hot water heater performs worse than my old one? I know a lot of posts have been made on this topic, but, I have tried everything. I wanted to move my hot water tank from the first floor of my house to the crawl space. My old unit was performing well, but, the plumber I hired recommended a new unit (mine was 12 years old). Prior to replacement, my hot water worked perfectly!! We could take three showers back to back with no issues at all. Now, with a new unit, I can't even make it through one shower before it gets cold. During the one shower, I constantly turn the hot know to increase the temp until it just gets cold on me. I have taken the following steps:

Replaced the new HW unit with the same size (38 gallons), number of elements (2), and wattage as the old unit
Checked the dip tube in the new unit
Replaced the elements (with genuine factory parts)
Adjusted the thermostat to 120
Replaced all the stems in faucets with a one handle (mixing stems).

I have already dropped 1500 dollars on the unit and stems including labor costs. Please advise.

You or the plumber must have missed something because if you had 38 gallons of hot water at the start of the shower, you would not run out of hot water during the first shower. I would re-check that the dip tube is actually hooked up to the cold water inlet and that the thermostat actually switches the power to the bottom heat coil when the top element is satisfied. If only the top element is working then only the top part of the tank will get hot giving you a short supply of hot water. Either of these 2 items could yield the problem you are having. I would check the tank thermostat first since this is the easiest to service and is more likely the problem.


Wood stove and heat pump combo I am contemplating the following design:

A house has a primary electric heat pump heating setup consisting of an outside heat pump, inside air blower and all the duct work that distributes warm air through the house.

Now I want to also be able to burn wood to heat my house. Would it be possible to leverage out the existing duct works from the primary heating setup described above and conduct air into it that's been heated by the wood stove in the basement of the house? I think I have seen people do it but with radiators using water and air is a different medium so I imagine it'd be different. Would the stove be heating air directly or heating coiled coolant, similar to the heat pump if I understand how it works correctly?

Essentially, every time the person living in the house felt like doing some physical exercise to chop some firewood, they could help their electric bill by generating BTUs by burning wood, which may be cheaper than electric in the area.

I have a wood stove in the lower floor of my house. I cut a vent size opening and installed a temperature activated fan that blew the heat into the intake duct. I started out with just the opening but found the fan made a big difference. When I ran my stove I turned the furnace fan on and the wood stove kept the house warm. On really cold days or if I was too lazy to start a fire the furnace took over. I did add smoke detectors in each bedroom just in case smoke got into the intake, that never happened and it cut my heating bill over 250/month.


Why does my shower only get hot when the sink faucet is on? Had this problem for a while.  Delta, single handle, shower.  Sometimes showers are hot.  Sometimes luke warm to cool.  To fix the luke warm shower we have found that turning the hot side of the sink (same bathroom) on causes the shower to get steamy hot (good).  It doesn't take a lot of sink flow, just a little does the trick.  Turn the sink off and we go back to luke warm shower water.

To make the mystery even more interesting is that the hot water side of the sink comes out cold while the shower is on.  Both faucets (sink and shower) are fed from the same hot water line.  How is cold water being introduced to the hot side of the sink.

Changed out the shower cartridge, as well as the sink cartridges within the last six months.  This did not fix the problem.

Try pulling the cartridge out and turn on the water valve back on. Look to see if you have good flow coming from both hot and cold water holes.  Doing this could blow out any debris in the lines restricting flow. Cartridges act weird when water pressure is not balanced between hot and cold.

Try turning off just cold supply and then just hot supply so 100% of water pressure is directed to clear out any debris.

Some showers have built-in valves for hot and cold.  Adjust them so same flow is coming out of both holes.

Did you try adjusting the hot water safety limiter? It basicly just stops the handle from turning all the way to hot.


Why do heat pumps use a separate “reversing” signal from thermostats? Thermostats use a W signal to call for heat and Y for cool.  For heat pumps they also have an O or a B signal to "reverse" the pump into the appropriate heating or cooling mode.
Why two signals?
Why can't the pump reversal follow the appropriate W or Y signal?  Why is there a separate but identical signal to reverse one component, the pump, for heating or cooling? The thermostat does not generally control all the system components separately.  If the thermostat calls for heat, the system should do whatever it needs to do to produce heat.  Why does one part, the pump, need its own command?

This is because control boards and programmable thermostats are recent inventions
The concept of a "control board" in a piece of HVAC gear is a fairly recent invention, dating back to the 1980s or so when single-chip microcontrollers started to become inexpensive/widely available.  Before then, if you wanted anything more intelligent than direct control of the various pieces of equipment (burner or element, fan, compressor, reversing valve), you had to do it the hard way with relays, sensing switches, and dedicated timer boards, such as found in the fan/limit system of a pre-control-board gas furnace, or the dedicated timer defrost controls in early heat pump systems.  Furthermore, programmable thermostats as we know them today also aren't any older than control boards, while heat pumps and heat pump thermostats date back to well before we had any of this solid-state stuff roaming around.
As a result, what you had with early heat pumps was a bimetal thermostat with extra contacts on its mode switches sending control signals directly to the compressor contactor and reversing valve on the heat pump's outdoor unit, or to a dedicated defrost timer/relay that could override the thermostat to initiate defrost.  This saved money on extra relays in the outdoor unit at the cost of requiring (cheaper) switch contacts in the heat pump thermostat, and a slight bit of extra wiring in the walls.
Furthermore, the use of a separate signal allowed the reversing valve to be kept in the same "idle" state across cycles during both heating and cooling operation without further logic inside the outdoor unit, as the O/B signal's state does not depend on whether the thermostat is commanding a cycle or not.  This is important because reversing, while simple to implement, puts non-trivial stresses on the rest of the heat pump, so you don't want to "swap ends" unnecessarily.  Unfortunately, some zone boards exploit this behavior by require both an O and a B wire, which makes installing a modern thermostat on them a non-trivial proposition.


How do I splice a drywall metal outside corner bead? When re-finishing my ceiling (formerly popcorn, now smooth) I had some trouble with the edge of the tray ceiling in the master bedroom. Since the length of the tray was longer than a standard metal outside corner bead, the builder spliced several together by overlapping a few inches.

For future reference, is that the correct method for splicing? It was really hard to get a smooth coat of mud over it, since it was a sharp irregularity on the corner. (I never did get it perfect.) If the corner beads were butted instead of overlapped, I don't think I would have run into this problem. Would butting the corner beads cause cracking at their joint? What are some other factors that I haven't thought of?

I've always butted them together, and I've never had any problems with doing it that way.

Not sure what your builder was thinking by overlapping them.


How is the Air Conditioning wiring supposed to connect to my furnace? My dog has chewed through my wires on my unit that turn on my fan at the ac unit.  This is not the first time.  Its always been an easy fix until now.  He actuall pulled the wire from the unit and I dont know exactly what wires im supposed to connect.  The wires coming from the house are red and white.  But when I take the plate cover off the unit...  the only wires exposed are blue and yellow. Are the the correct wires?  And what connects to what.????

Wire colors with HVAC wiring are non-standardized, so the colors themselves don't help much.

Your furance/air handler should have a control board with terminals labelled R, W, Y, G and C. There should be an existing wire that connects to all of these (though maybe not C) that goes to your thermostat.

If anything is different in your setup, please update your question with a picture explaining, don't just wire it as I described or you may damage something.

The A/C unit wires connects to Y and C (usually white on C, but it doesn't really matter).

For reference:

R = power (24VAC)
Y = cooling
W = heating
G = fan
C = common power (24VAC with R)

Since this happens a lot, I'd also highly recommend putting some mechanical protection on this wire. Since it's already disconnected, it should be easy to fish through now.

Some flexible ENT tubing might be the easiest option:

1/2" rigid PVC conduit could also work, you can get elbows and other connectors.

All of this should be available at your local electrical / big-box hardware store.


Snapped off screw on sewer vent cover The city recently told me I need a new cover for a sewer vent on the sidewalk. The cover looks like this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/NDS-4-88-in-x-4-88-in-Perforated-Sidewalk-Grate-BSB-CP-RTL/203262583

However I noticed the screw holding the previous cover in place has snapped off in the holder, as seen at bottom here:

Is there any hope of getting that screw out or am I going to have to take out the entire holder?

First, you can try to douse the area liberally with a penetrant to remove any rust and corrosion then grab the screw with a pair of locking pliers and twist it out.  Rather than pliers, you can try to use a screw extractor bit (easy-out), but that almost looks too small for that to work.

If that fails, the screw can be drilled out and the hole can be rethreaded.  Really what you would be doing is drilling with the proper size bit for that hole and threading with the same sized tap to remove the remaining screw rather than cutting new threads.  If that fails you can simply rethread the hole for the next largest screw.

The main point is you have a few options here, and you really shouldn't need to replace that piece.


How can I hide exposed countersunk screws in kitchen cabinets side panel? How do I hide screws on the side of a kitchen cabinet wall that has slightly countersunk screws?  I will be painting my cabinets black.

You can use wood filler if you're painting the cabinets. Use a putty knife to apply, and then sand even after it dries.

Alternatively, if you're going to stain the cabinets, you can use a plug cutter that matches the countersink diameter. Using matching scrap wood, cut a plug that has a similar grain pattern, and lightly tap it in the hole after applying a thin layer of wood glue. When it dries, you can use a chisel to cut it flush or nearly flush, and then finish up with sandpaper. Then you're ready to stain!

If I remember correctly, this 5/16" diameter plug cutter works well with a #8 countersink hole. (You may want to check, it's been a while since I used that combination on a project.)


Why is there a jumper wire between the hot screws on my outlet? If my picture messed up during resizing - it looks like a jumper wire between the two screws on the hot side of this outlet.

Someone broke the fin off, then had breaker's remorse

A factory-new duplex receptacle has a copper "fin" connecting the two screws on each side -- breaking this fin off on the hot (brass) side is done when you want a half-switched receptacle outlet, for instance.  It appears somebody broke the fin off at one point, then either the same person or a different person had regrets about the broken fin and replaced it with a jumper wire.  So, leave the fin on your new receptacle, and all will be well.


Exterior metal threshold to transition from concrete to tiled entryway? Is it possible to transition from the sidewalk concrete to my tiled entryway by using an aluminum exterior grade threshold? I am thinking of something along the lines of this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/M-D-Building-Products-Flat-Top-2-1-2-in-x-48-in-Aluminum-Saddle-Threshold-99028048000/205967458
I just had my tiler guys finish the job and I can't believe they installed a tile with a chip in it. But it's along the edge and it kinda also looks unfinished anyway I thought a simple aluminum exterior grade threshold would make it look more finished and hide the small chip. Here are a couple of images:

I live in the desert so and this area is covered by an eve and only gets about three hours sun a day and approximately a mere four inches of rain a year. Will my idea weather well or can anyone recommend something else?

There is a significant issue with aluminum in concrete - e.g., an aluminum post or conduit embedded in concrete is not a good idea. My hunch is that a piece of aluminum on top of already cured concrete will not have the same issues. However, I am not a metallurgist and so, to play it safe, I would look for a similar piece of steel instead.
On the other hand, a quick search finds steel thresholds to be a bit on the expensive side. I suggest checking with an aluminum threshold manufacturer to see if installation on top of concrete is acceptable.


Does weathered wood benefit from paint or sealer? 2-3 years ago my father-in-law created new gates for us.  He was visiting from out of town, and his visited ended before he could paint them.  At that time, I didn't understand anything about wood & thought the paint was strictly for aesthetics.  Now I know it's to protect the wood from the elements.
We live in Los Angeles, where the weather has been more gentle than other parts of the country, but we still get seasonal rain... and they've been through 2-3 seasons of it.
At this point would it make sense to paint them?
If so, I imagine I should sand them.  That's easy enough for the 2x4s, but I worry about sanding the plywood.
Picture attached.  We have small kids, who sometimes draw on them with chalk.

You are correct to be concerned about sanding plywood. The exterior layer is often quite thin, however it shouldn't be that thin on an exterior grade plywood. Get in touch with your FIL and ask if he remembers what kind of plywood he used. I'd guess that it's an AAX - "A" is the surface grade and means that it's got a nice, sanded finish and all voids are filled - on the right-hand gate, just above the center lock, there's a knot and an oval that doesn't match the grain - that's a filler piece in a void. The second "A" indicates that the other side is also an "A" grade finish, and the "X" is an exterior grade indicating that they used waterproof glues to laminate the plys. It may have also been pressure treated to protect the wood itself from water.
Honestly, thought, there's got to be something other than just plywood going on. Each main panel has very distinct vertical lines, and thought the grain mostly matches, there are changes. Is it a bead board with those thin vertical lines cut into the surface?
To prep the plywood

Wash off the chalk - paint over the chalk will just fall off when the chalk gives up its grip, then you'll have more "permanent" drawings in those patterns. :)

Just some water should be sufficient to get the chalk off. You could just rub, but you might end up with splinters.

Remove all the mounting hardware

It will be easier to paint if you're not trying to mask/paint around the hardware
Water will get behind the hardware and that's where it will rot out first.

Give the whole thing a light sanding.

Your goal is to remove the surface dirt and to lightly smooth the surface, removing any small slivers that may have been raised by the rain, not to get to shiny, new looking "brown" wood instead of the grey weathered surface.
You'll want a finer grit of sandpaper, in the 100-150 range. This will help in removing less wood.
Use a sanding block so you've got a smooth surface
Don't sand any one area too much or you'll go through the surface layer
You're probably better off with too little sanding than too much, though this isn't a piece of indoor furniture, so minor flaws are probably acceptable.

Give the solid wood a nice sanding to smooth its surface and remove any gunk

You can be more aggressive in sanding here if you want, but, you're planning on covering it in paint, so it doesn't need to be perfect.

At this point you should be ready to apply your finish according to the instructions on the tin. Try to get the paint into the mounting holes to cover the interior surfaces, but you don't want it sealing over the openings, though that's a fairly easy fix. Once the paint is dry, rehang the gate, enjoy, and start making plans to paint again in a few years.


When is a bath fan considered to be "over a tub or shower"? I'm going to add a fan to my currently unvented bathroom.  The fan installation instructions include the text "if this unit is to be installed over a tub or shower, it must be marked as appropriate for the application and be conencted to a GFCI-protected branch circuit."

The fan is marked as such, but my question is: what is technically "over" the bath?  The fan is not directly above the bath.  If I were to draw an imaginary line from the top of the shower curtain rod to the ceiling, the fan would be about 4" outside of this line.  Does that mean I do not have to put the fan on a GFCI circuit?

Let's get one thing straight. Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter protection for personnel is designed and intended to protect a human (or any animal I guess), from being electrocuted (killed) due to an electrical fault. In most situations, the grounding system will handle any direct faults to ground. A GFCI devices is there to protect you, if you happen to come into contact with an energized conductor.
Let's also be clear that a GFCI device may not protect you from a shock, but should protect you from death (electrocution).
Examples:

You grab hold of the ungrounded "hot" conductor.
In this situation, the GFCI device should disconnect the circuit before you are killed.

The frame of a device is energized, and for some reason the grounding system has not performed its job, and you come into contact with the energized frame of the device.
In this situation, the GFCI device should disconnect the circuit before you are killed.

A GFCI device is there to protect you, from death.
But why does it seem like codes tend to require GFCI protection in locations where there is water, like bathrooms and kitchens?
The simple answer is that when your skin is wet, it's a better conductor. Because of this, you could potentially provide a fairly good path to ground. It's also important to provide this protection in bathrooms and kitchens, because it's common for plumbing in homes to be grounded.
Let's say you're washing your face in the sink. The water is running, as you reach for a towel. You reach with one hand to turn the water off, while the other fumbles for the towel. While you're still holding the faucet with one hand, the other hand accidentally finds the non-GFCI protected receptacle. The electricity races through your wet hand, across your body, and out your other hand into the well grounded faucet. While crossing your body, the electricity ran right through your heart causing it to stop. Now, you're dead.
If it was a GFCI protected receptacle, you would have gotten a bit of a shock and a scare. But you'd still be alive.

As for the question asked...
Put an imaginary box around the tub/shower, and extend it all the way up to the ceiling. If any part of the exhaust fan is within the box, you should GFCI protect the fan as per the installation instructions.
If it makes you feel safer, then by all means GFCI protect the fan.


Water being sucked into cold air return from humidifier pad This is a brand new house and have had this problem from day 1.  There is so much suction, or negative pressure, in the cold air duct that the water from the humidifier pad is actually being sucked in the duct and then I get a puddle of water at the base of the furnace.  I have tried several pads hoping that one would be better than the other, but they all have the water sucked out of them.  I am able to hold the pad at slight angle and see this happen, if I let go of the pad, it is sucked back into place.  It is like they put too big of a fan in my furnace or the cold air ducts are plugged.
My water PSI is 60 and the requirement is that it be less than 125 so I am good there.  I have also cranked down the supply line valve to the humidifier so I just get a trickle, and that helps, but doesn't totally solve the problem.
Is there anything else I can do to fix this?

There should be a damper on the 6" pipe from the hot air plenum to the humidifier, closing it part way will help but the most probable cause is not enough return air openings in your house. If you have wall returns, take the grills off and make sure the air is going through and nobody forgot to cut the openings in the bottom of the wall or in the ductwork itself. Also get a copy of the heating design submitted in the building department to make sure it matches what's in your house, including the furnace size. It wouldn't be the first time a furnace was put in that was all they had in stock instead of buying the correct size. Mine was replace with one at double the btu output and I had to modify the orifices to half the output to get proper heating. High efficiency furnaces with too high of an output only wastes fuel since the design only brings them up to the proper efficiency after running for 20 minutes so you don't want it with a much bigger input than called for in the heat loss design. If everything is it's supposed to be and you closed the bypass damper and still having issues, you will need to add more returns in your house, even if it's a floor return grille in your return duct, or if the Return duct running down the sie of your furnce is under 10 to 12" on the narrow side and under 23 or 24" on the width, it should be changed to something around 10 x23" to 12 x 23", if it's still bad then you are really starving for Return airs!


Repairing Crack in Drywall I have a crack abutting and running the length of a door frame; a French door that opens outside. I have repaired drywall damage, so I tried to work from that angle; using spackling to patch it. The spackling didn't take and I'm left to wonder what I should actually do to repair this. I have attached a picture.

Any help is appreciated.

Scrap all the junk off the seam and wall, then sand it. Get some fiberglass mesh drywall tape and some joint compound and seam it. If you're not familiar with taping drywall, there are countless videos on the subject on the internet. Good luck.


NEMA 14-50 outlet installation - uninsulated ground ok to use? Purchased a new house that is pre-wired for electric car charging with 4 wires: red, black, white, and 1 uninsulated wire (see picture). I'm trying to install a NEMA 14-50 outlet (for a Tesla) and its pretty straight forward, but hesitant to install the uninsulated ground to the outlet. Is ok to use the uninsulated ground? If not, what would be the alternative?

Grounding
Actually, the ground wire needs to go to the metal box first.
The 14-50 receptacle will pick up its ground via hard-flush bare-metal face contact between the yoke of the receptacle and the metal box.
Just make sure the surfaces are clean of paint or rust, and any of those little square "screw keepers" are removed.
You can hardwire a ground from the 14-30 recep to a pigtail coming up from the metal box if you really want to, but it's unnecessary.
Aluminum (don't panic)
Oh, one other thing.  That ground wire may be tinned copper wire, but it might also be aluminum.  There's nothing wrong with aluminum at these large sizes, but you do need to use special splice techniques that are safe for it.  Look closely at the writing on the other wires.  If they say "Copper" or "Cu" that settles it.  If it says "Aluminum" or "AL" that also settles it.   If you can't find any such markings, look end-on to the wires - you'll see copper in the middle of the strands if it's tinned copper.  If not, it's aluminum.
If it is aluminum, look at your NEMA 14-50 recep labeling and instructions. Is it UL-Listed for aluminum?  Then the wires can attach directly.  If not, search for another 14-50 recep, or alternately, pigtail to some #8 copper.  The best splice I know of for #6Al to #8Cu is the "MAC Block Connector". They're tough to search for thanks to Apple, but they're similar to large Alumiconns or small Polaris. Get your torques right and make use of  the goop provided in the holes.


What type of primer and paint are better used in a bathroom? I just removed some wallpaper from a shower ceiling. I now have exposed drywall. What type of primer and paint do you suggest I use? I'm overwhelmed by the oil/water/latex bases, and when to use which. It stands to reason, being a shower, that moisture is top concern.

Ideally, if it's standard sheetrock, I'd suggest removing it. You normally want to use 'greenboard' (sheetrock with a waxed paper layer) or, even better, the paperless wallboard products like Densarmor (they use a fiberglass layer rather than paper). The paper is what the mildew will like to 'eat' so removing as much of that as you can, the better.

Barring that, they do make paints specifically for bathrooms. They usually have some sort of anti-mildew additive.

Finally, be sure the bathroom is properly vented. That, alone, is the single best solution. If there is no ceiling fan, invest in that first.

To answer the specifics:

Latex is water based, so that's the same thing. And is what you want to use--specifically ones labeled for bathrooms and high-moisture areas (ie, they have the mildew preventative additive). You COULD use Oil based paint, and that has historically been something to use in a bathroom, but latex paints have come a long way and Oil based interior paint is now a rarity and likely not what most DIYers would want to use anyways (it's a bit more finicky and smelly to apply and a lot more messy to clean up).


What maintenance is needed for subway tiles? I see many kitchens with subway tiles on their backsplash in design magazines, but this isn't a popular design here in Singapore.

It seems like most people consider it a durable option, but I have been trying to find out if there will be problems like grime sticking between the tile 'gaps'. Is this something I need to be looking out for?

The best is to seal your grout.  What some do not realize is that the grout needs to be sealed every 3 years.  Especially if it is a heavily cleaned area or use.


Pool bonding, retaining wall in the way I currently have an 24ft intex Pool. I know it doesn't have to be bonded but while the yard is torn up I am thinking it may be a good idea to run the  bond wire now for when I upgrade the pool to a permanent one.

The problem is, I have a retaining wall on one side with a 24 inch tamped rock  base,  and about 6 to 8 inches of gravel behind the wall.

So this wall falls within 18 to 24 inches from the pool wall for where to put the halo copper wire.

Where should I put this wire?

The retaining wall blocks are  11inches deep. When i last measured, right behind the wall was 25 inches to the pool wall. And the 18 to 24inches rests over this wall area.

When you upgrade to a permanent pool each section of the galvanized wall has to be attached to the bonding wire. This means the bond wire has to be run after the permanent wall sections are installed since it will run through the bracing for the wall. Plus, the excavator will probalby pull your exsting wire out while digging for the permanent pool.

Given the existing pool doesn't have to be bonded, I would just wait until you put in the permanent pool.

Good luck!


How can I repair a persistent toilet seal leak? The older rental home where an elder relative lives has a slight leak where the toilet attaches to the floor. Nothing else on the toilet appears to be leaking so is this probably an old floor "seal" / wax ring? (Ground floor with a crawl space under the house.)

She frequently cleans three sections of dark coloring (feces?) around the base but they gradually return. We're positive it's leaking from the bowl because those spots around the base of the toilet changed to blue/dark after she started using blue drop-in tablets (non-bleach). The spots are slowly getting bigger.

Getting the landlord to fix this is possible but problematic and his (cheap) handyman always makes a mess & takes twice too long. She wants to avoid dealing with them.

So ... is there any way that I could safely seal the toilet to stop the leak? Silicone or something similar? Or would that just be hiding possible damage under the toilet and the landlord needs to be notified?

Remove the toilet . Remove the wax ring and replace it with a new one - the toilet should rest on the seal / floor - there are also some non wax ring seals available as well - they are typically used for fixing a broken or cracked toilet drain pipe.


How to diagnose a broken transformer? I have a 2000w, 240 -> 120v transformer. It's a Bronson++ AVT 2000, with a continuous max wattage of 1200w, meaning if running for over 30 minutes it should be under 1200. I ran a 1500w blender on it for roughly 5 minutes at a time which I was told has a soft start on it to avoid initial power surges so I figured it would be fine to use with.

Whatever the case, the transformer doesn't turn on anymore. It has a fuse, and I checked the fuse for continuity and it seems ok. It came with replacement fuses, I threw in one of those and still no go. The transformer worked fine the last time I used it and then the next time it just wouldn't turn on. I have reason to believe the connection I was using it on at the time may not have been grounded properly.

So what happened? I thought transformers were pretty simple things and if something were to blow it would be the fuse. How would you debug what created the problem, and is it possible to fix them as an amateur or is it not worth the risk?

So what happened?

Well, the rule with all things electrical is, they work right up until they don't. With a small transformer like that, it is likely if it overloaded it could burn a wire in half thus failing open.

Apparently, you have a basic voltage tester so you can test for continuity (or resistance) on the primary side (240v) of the transformer, and test the secondary side (120v). It is possible some part of the external wiring  has opened and could be repaired. If either the primary or secondary are open, internal to the transformer, then you could replace the transformer. If this is cost prohibitive then, unfortunately, you may have to buy a new one.

Good luck!


How can I remove a stripped nut from a bolt? I have a bolt with a nut on it that holds a small wheel onto a fork.  I assume I over-tightened because now the nuts turns while I hold the bolt, but it will neither tighten or loosen.   Also, it's on so tight, that I can't fit a saw blade between the nut and the fork.

Any suggestions on how to easily remove this without damaging the wheel? (though I'm willing to destroy the bolt.)

You can use a special tool called a nut-splitter.

Another method is to use a rotary tool (e.g. Dremel) with a cutting wheel or grinding bit. There's a strong likelihood of damaging the bolt.

As a last resort you can use a smaller angle-grinder to cut through the nut and/or bolt. There's a good chance of damaging the fork (or yourself) unless you are very carefull.


Breaker Panel, what is this label? So I am trying to identify all of my breaks in the panel.  There is this one that I have no idea what it serves.  I am hoping that someone could shed some light on what this might be referring to?

This is probably the circuit for the fridge outlet

The label says "REFERDIGE"(sic) -- whoever wrote it left their spelling at home that day, but their heart was in the correct place.  The use of a dedicated branch circuit for the fridge outlet (vs. plugging it into a receptacle on a kitchen small appliance branch circuit) falls under the (recently expanded) NEC 210.52(B)(1) Exception 2:

  Exception No. 2: In addition to the required receptacles specified by
  210.52, a receptacle outlet to serve a specific appliance shall be permit‐
  ted to be supplied from an individual branch circuit rated 15 amperes
  or greater.


Electrical shock when touching the water faucet in the shower Yesterday when I took a shower, I got a pretty bad jolt of electricity in my arm when I was done showering, and was about to switch off the water faucet.
I immediately jumped out of the shower, grabbed a flashlight and shut off the main fuse. Grabbed a piece of insulated pliers, and managed to close the faucet without another shock.

The day after, I got a hold of the landlord to tell him about this issue. I borrowed a multimeter from him to check the faucet again today. I connected the ground cable of the multimeter to a ground pin in an outlet, and probed the faucet: And sure enough, it's live! However, the voltage is not constant. It seems to oscillate between 100mV and 82V, in a sort of random phase-pattern.
Next, I tried to disconnect the fuse for the water heater and probed again. It's still live and nothing different. So I then tried to disconnect the fuse for the bathroom as well: And it's still live! (I didn't try with main fuse off, sorry, The landlord had to run and I had to return the multimeter before I could finish)

So here is my question:
What could this be? Is there a bad ground connection somewhere, or a leak somewhere to a neutral connection in the pipes? Why is there still voltage on it despite the fuse being shut off?
I live in Norway, So the mains voltage is around 230-240V @50Hz. The house is roughly 30 years old, and the electricity and plumbing system appears to be well maintained.

I am somewhat familiar with electricity and how it works, however, I am no professional. So I won't try to diagnose this issue too deeply unless the clues I give here tell some of you something that could be obvious and potentially easy to fix.

I was shocked so badly I had to go to the emergency room an hour later because I still felt pain in my arm. I was released roughly an hour later, with no diagnosis. My arm is fine today.
I am showering at my mother's house until the problem is rectified.

Update:
The landlord just called me and informed me that an electrician will come tomorrow to look at this problem. I will post an answer with the update on what caused this as soon as I know.

I forgot to update this after the electrician visited and I'm terribly sorry, so here is what happened:

The fault was caused by a neighbor two houses down the street. He had wired a ground and a neutral wire together in an outlet that he installed himself. Causing voltage to leak over the ground wire.

It is illegal to wire outlets yourself in Norway if you're not a certified electrician (and probably a lot of other places as well). The electrician said I was lucky to escape without any injury or complications. The person who did that wiring was clearly not an electrician, and was fined accordingly.

Apparently I wasn't the only person who had noticed the problem. Another neighbor in the neighborhood had also complained.


How do you best help trees that have been damaged by severe freezing? In my home area, we had a very deep freeze about 2 weeks ago, at least, for this area. You can usually count on 1 hand the number of days it goes below 30 in a given year, and rarely does it go below 25 (Fahrenheit, BTW). It got down to almost 15 degrees for two nights, causing lots of damage...

In particular, I've noticed many of our plants have either died outright, or are looking to be in much worse shape than normal. What can I do to help make sure these plants don't die any further, and how can I tell if they are dead to the point where it's just worth cutting them entirely down?

Not a lot to be done, damage done is , well , done. Best to just make sure they are fed and watered well, and in the fall you could trim any remaining dead wood though that's not necessary.
It's probably a bit early to determine if a tree will survive, let spring get here.

Trees are very self sufficient. Probably better than 80% of so called "tree care" is actually human care.


Connecting neutrals in disconnect switch Disconnects are an inexpensive way to connect two relatively large gauge conductors for 40-100A applications. However, most 240V disconnects only provide lugs for the two ungrounded conductors and the ground wires -- leaving no place to connect the neutral.

What's the best way to inexpensively bond the two neutrals when using 3-wire + ground cables? Large wire nuts are available, but I would prefer a lug-based connection, which seems more reliable at high currents. Polaris lugs are suitable but relatively costly. Does anyone have a more economical suggestion?

For the 240V single-phase 60A circuit to my shop I used a 3-phase disconnect. It had 3 switched terminals, and also a ground lug bonded to the case itself. The inspector was fine with this approach.

Elsewhere for another project I used Polaris lugs which I got off eBay for a reasonable price, and were very easy to work with. Far simpler than using a split bolt and gobs of electrical tape and other supplies. But that said, a split bolt would work perfectly well if installed correctly.


ac condenser spins slower than normal and buzzes on occasion I've got a 4 y/o Carrier AC unit that worked fine all summer (bought the house this past winter). Today, I noticed that the house isn't being cooled, and the AC is making a loud buzzing noise. The noise is periodic - roughly ever 3-5 minutes, and lasts for about 5-10 seconds - like something's trying to start and failing. The condenser fan spins the entire time, but appears to do so more slowly than normal, and - no cold.

Could this be a capacitor issue, or should I call in a tech?

For posterity - replacing the cap seems to have resolved the issue.


How do I patch a medium size hole so that I can install a baby gate securely? Long story short, 2 holes became 1! I'm trying to patch a medium/large hole so that I can put a baby gate up but it's not working with just spackling! I've tried securing a board over it but it's effecting the use of the gate so I now have to remove the board. What else can I use to patch the wall and make the gate secure? HELP!

Since you're going to fix the drywall anyhow, you could cut out a section of it and install a piece of wood blocking across the inside of the studs to fasten the baby gate hardware to. (The picture you posted looks like you used pocket-hole screws to attach the board to the wall so I'm thinking you could make use of pocket holes to attach the board between the studs.)

Something like this (disregard the notes on the image pertaining to steel studs. The concept is the same for wooden ones):

Then replace the drywall and attach the baby gate to the wood through the drywall patch. This not only gives you something good and strong to attach the baby gate to, it also makes it much easier to patch the drywall because there's something solid behind the patch to hold it. Also, when the baby gate comes down, the screw holes can be filled and nobody will know the blocking board is in the wall.


What do I need to do to finish a roof with exposed rafters on a shed I have a shed as pictured that had never been finished completely.  As such the shed has a lot of dust debris, etc getting in that should not be. What do I need to do to finish the shed. Should I be concerned about the exposed wood / rafters?

Far as I can tell I am going to need to add:

Facia Board
Soffit board
Drip Edge

Is there anything else I need to add or be concerned about?

The diagram you showed is fine. That is really all you need to do. I might add a small strip of 1X2 along the wall as a nailer for the soffit.  The only alternative would be substituting a vented soffit panel for the solid soffit. Using a vented soffit would help a little in exiting hot air and give a bit of ventilation. Best used with a ridge vent for really good ventilation, but better than nothing if used alone.


No light but hot wire is hot I was using a circular saw and thought that I blew the circuit breaker.

The breaker I have on the line is a GFI and I noticed that "test" button on the breaker was no longer working and I couldn't get light to go on even after resetting the breaker.

I purchased new breaker and replaced the old one. Now the "test" is working and I detect current at the circuit breaker between a black wire and the ground (the breaker box itself). At the wire that feeds the light (and the receptacle I connected the saw to) I still detect current between black wire and ground but not between the black and white wires. And light is not turning on.

Additionally when I use a non-contact current tester it beeps both at the white and the black wire, so I'm not sure what's going on. The whole line is out because I have a few lights along it and none are working.

Any ideas? Or is it time to call professionals? I'm pretty good with wiring but have little experience with circuit breakers and switch boxes.

You have an open neutral somewhere in the line

From the meter readings you took with the breaker off, namely no continuity between any pair of wires, even neutral to ground which should have a low resistance between them since they are connected at the main panel, as well as the neutral "ringing" as hot with a non-contact voltage detector, it sounds like you have an open neutral somewhere.  I would go down this circuit from the failed point towards the beginning, replacing failure-prone backstab connections into receptacles with proper shepherd's hooks around the side-screws instead, and making sure there isn't a failed wirenut splice somewhere, either.


Will this type of welding be strong enough to withstand Southern California winds? I've recently had a frame installed by one of the local Ironworks companies (see attached pictures). This frame is made out of 1/4" steel is intended to hold horizontal 6" IPE wood boards with 1/4" spacing in between. My concern is the 10 feet section of the assembly shown in the picture. It's suspended about 1" from the tile and currently held in place by a few weld fillets against the railing in the back as shown in the picture. Occasionally, we get 100mph+ wind gusts in the area and I am worried whether this type and amount of welding is strong enough to resist such winds. Should I maybe ask the company to come back and weld more fillets? Thank you in advance.

As long as the weld has made good penetration into the two metal surfaces you should be fine. From my experience the only way the weld would fail is through metal fatigue which involves a consistent flexing or bending of the metal. I don't see this happening (or it is highly unlikely) given that the steel posts (they appear to be C channel or columns) will be tied together by the horizontal IPE boards making it a rigid structure. You would probably get more failure to the welds from seismic movement than from sheer wind force.


How to set up tap/faucet for cold water only? I have a sink with two pipes connecting to the tap (a.k.a faucet) - one for hot and one for cold. There is no hot water in the house, so the hot pipe is disconnected. That means if you open the tap halfway between the hot and cold, the water just flows out of the disconnected pipe instead of the tap. My first thought was to just plug the end of this disconnected pipe, however I fear that this will result in water standing in the pipe leading to legionnaire's disease type problems.

This seems like a pretty common problem that probably has a standard solution, anyone know what that is?

Three ideas off the top of my head:

Terminate the end of the disconnected pipe with a valve. You can mitigate legionnaire's risk with a maintenance plan to open the valve in order flush the disconnected pipe every month or so. (More research needed on required frequency of flush through if you do choose this option). I'm against this option because of the maintenance: it's ongoing effort, you may forget it and not do it as frequently as required, if/when you sell this house it's almost certain that you'd forget to tell the next owner and/or they wouldn't take the maintenance requirement seriously.
Branch the cold pipe, and feed one branch into the cold inlet pipe and one into the hot inlet pipe.
Buy a replacement tap which only expects feed from one pipe. This may be problematic, as I think most non-mixer taps are designed for smaller mounting holes than mixer taps are.

Option 2 seems to be the winner as the others don't seem overly practical.


Lumber Storage to Prevent Issues Previously I had access to commercial style storage racks purpose built for lumber.

Now I live in a smaller home. Is there an optimum arrangement to storing lumber in a garage or basement that will prevent mildew or excessive swelling/warping?

I would like to purchase 25-50 board feet of 4/4 poplar and store it in one of these places, but I'm worried about it getting ruined before I can use it. Any advice?

I'm using a system which is basically a set of heavy-duty shelf brackets mounted to the wall; the lumber then acts as its own shelves. Each of the woodworking tool catalogs I get has their own version of such a system, with different tradeoffs between price, adjustability, weight capacity, and so on.


Drilling in concrete and hitting something hard - what are my options? I drilling somewhat deep holes (inch and a half) into concrete and I'm hitting something hard in two out of my four holes. I'm fairly sure it's not metal I'm hitting and I'm wondering how to proceed. It's a new building (finished half a year ago - in October 2018) and it is in Sweden, so I'm sure modern building standards have been followed.

I'm using a proper rotary hammer and a proper concrete drill for the job and as far as I can tell the tip is not getting dull or anything. Could it be a rock or something? Or is modern concrete fairly uniform? Any suggestions on how to proceed and get past this obstruction?

You may be hitting rebar, the reinforcing steel embedded in concrete.  You can buy a rebar cutter the same size as your concrete drill bit to get through the rebar then switch back to your concrete bit once through.  However a great deal of caution is in order.

It's pretty hard to determine whether you're hitting a very hard bit of aggregate or steel / metal, and if it is metal, it's hard determine whether it's safe to drill that metal.  In some cases, for example concrete beams, cutting the steel in the concrete can weaken the beam.  It's also possible you're hitting a water pipe, waste pipe, or an electrical conduit.


What are my options for tiling over an uneven concrete floor? UPDATE:

After doing my research, it seems like I will need to level the floor before tiling. My carpenter doesn't know how to it so I will have to get a contractor to do this job. How much would it roughly cost to level a 550sf floor in Chicago area? I will get a quotes but it would be nice to know the ballpark figure beforehand.

Here are some photos how the floor look.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMOEk8rZGFprcejd63FeoRT2TUbdMbJWp6bJvgrhbEZAygfvkO4JLow_MCLlDNp3A?key=VUlFNmUyNXZnRVRGSFd5RmVyQ2s2WDg2Q0FnaGRR

My basement of about 600 square feet had vinyl tiles and carpet. I ripped everything out to install porcelain tiles. However, the concrete floor is uneven and wavy. The basement is a rental unit. Some of slopes are about 2,3 inches deep. It would cost me a lot for the self level compound like levelQuik ($36/ 40lbs bag that covers about 40 sq feet 1/8" deep)

My contractor has already installed the porcelain tiles in the kitchen. They show lippage but don't look too bad with wide spacer. I'm just concerned if they will break or come off later because of the uneven floor they are on.

If I don't level the floor and install the tiles anyway with either

vinyl planks like this
http://www.homedepot.com/p/TrafficMASTER-Allure-6-in-x-36-in-Canadian-Hewn-Oak-Luxury-Vinyl-Plank-Flooring-24-sq-ft-Case-81314/205893535

or

porcelain tiles like this
http://www.homedepot.com/p/MS-International-Classico-Blanco-12-in-x-24-in-Glazed-Porcelain-Floor-and-Wall-Tile-16-sq-ft-case-NHDCLASBLA1224/204800225

will they lose adhesive or break and come off later? What are my options here?

One option would to roughly fill the deep depressions with a relatively inexpensive mortar mix, and only then pull out the self-levelling stuff so you can use less of it.