I thought ridge vents were all the rage these days. I installed ridge vents and then put up Reflectix Reflective Roll Insulation from the soffits up to 12-18 inches from the ridge. It reduced the heat in the attic by a noticeable amount and wasn't too expensive or difficult to install. I also blew in additional insulation. I plan on adding additional venting in the soffits in the future. My experience is that fans fail, require maintenance, use energy, and tend to only cool the attic off in certain areas if not well planned out with supporting architecture and venting.
I put on an old pair of coveralls, gloves, hat, hood, respirator, old shoes, goggles. I covered the doorway to the room with plastic and setup a fan for ventilation and pre-heated the bottles. Even with all that I was miserable. I was hot and sweaty, had trouble breathing, and couldn't see out of the goggles. My arms were tired and the foam mixture wasn't always mixing properly and ended up wasting a lot of the mixture. It was still pretty expensive and time consuming... not sure I would do it again.
I have "professional" drywall in my house that doesn't look that good. Take it as the learning experience it is and rest assured that most people won't notice it.
You could try gluing it and clamping but it looks like getting a clamp on it might be hard and I have not had good luck gluing veneer that is peeling away like that. That is cheap and easy to try so I would start there though. Some of the other suggestions to repair it are good as well. I will throw out another, buy a sheet of veneer and cut out a square an inch or so larger than the area that needs to be repaired. Lay the square over the area to be repaired and cut out the bad area in the shape of the repair piece, then glue the repair piece in, a little wood putty and sanding to match might do the trick.
Depending on where it is peeling away, you might try putting on small decorative trim pieces stained or painted in a complementing color. I did this all along the underside of our countertop as decoration and to make some new cabinets blend in with older existing ones.
So I’m planning out a bathroom remodel and part of that is replacing the vent fan because currently mine is just venting into my attic (no bueno). I know normally bathrooms are vented out through the roof but my bathroom is on an exterior wall so I was wondering if I could just vent it out the side of the house. I’m going to...
Here is my problem: I have an old house - nearly 100 years old - that I need to insulate but I have a few problems and concerns I need to deal with. The walls are essentially stone and an old kind on solid cement block....
I don’t really know of a way that you can add insulation without taking up interior space, exterior space, or replacing the wall with more modern materials.
What about the sides of the home not facing the street? Can you add an exterior layer of insulation and then new exterior siding to those walls?
On the side facing the street, you could replace the stone wall with a different type of wall that was more thermally resistant. This would of course be a major undertaking.
I am sure you have considered fully insulating the floor and ceiling as best you can.
If rodents and or insects are a concern, look into Mineral Wool/Rockwool Insulation.
Is the house occupied? If not, can the existing floor/decking be removed to get direct access to the crawl space and supports? If so, that will make the job so much easier.
While you are at it, have you considered digging out underneath the house and creating a concrete and cinder-block basement? It would cost a bit more but since you are already doing major foundation work, it might be worth it and would dramatically increase the square footage of the house. Adding a basement would allow you the freedom to bring in large excavation machines to do the digging with.
I have seen time-laps videos on Youtube of a company that retrofits houses that have crawl spaces with full basements. It is pretty amazing to watch them work. They hand dig out sections at a time and pour footings and supporting walls, they then do a final pouring of the floor. They do this without lifting the house.
Homeowner with a decent amount of handiness but wondering if I’m going to bite off more than I can chew. Is it worth it to try and remove the old shower tub combo and replace it with a new one pretty much by myself? I realize this is a bit of a loaded question and can’t really be answered without knowing my skills but if...
I wouldn’t worry about the soft spot too much, it could just be the foam supports underneath the tub itself and not the floor. Even if it is the floor, that’s probably within your skill-set to fix if you can manage a circular saw and swing a hammer. I hired a contractor to install a shower for me in a new bathroom because I don’t have the plumbing skills or time. He outsourced the plumbing, electrical, and did the, framing, tiling, and everything else himself. The shower alone took them about a week, one of the main issues he encountered was keeping the tile lines straight. His tile saw wasn’t exact enough and the cuts were ever so slightly off which caused compounding problems.
I’m planning on converting a 21x21 garage to a living room in the next couple years. I’ve got pretty much everything figured out I believe, and it seems a bit simpler than the bonus room conversion I finished earlier this year....
If you leave the driveway in front of where the garage door is, you may want to think about a curb stop or two so no cars accidentally accelerate into your new living room. You also mentioned leveling the graded garage floor so you are probably fine on this point, but, you will just want to make sure that outside the new wall water doesn’t run back and stand.
I recently bought my first house and I noticed some rot happening beside our garage door. It appears that when the cement driveway was poured, they got too close to the siding and now water is wicking up into the wood. I figure I can cut back the siding and replace it but how do I stop this from happening again?
If you do end up replacing just a bottom portion, be sure you use some Z-flashing so that rain water can’t get behind the seam. As mentioned, use something that won’t rot. I also recommend using Hardie Sierra 8 to replace entire sections, I have it on some portions of my house along with T1-11 and they compliment one another as long as they are not side by side.
Electrically speaking it is in the proper housing, but the box is not secured, so I would ding it for that at the very least. I agree about cutting the conduit back and putting in a proper secure box and then cementing around the box. You could also use a surface mount box. In that case you would cut the existing conduit back, put a 90 degree elbow with a enough conduit to extend past the wall edge. Patch the wall and then install a surface mount box where the wires are connected in.
They make circular conduit cutters not much bigger than the conduit itself. They go for around $25. One of those would easily fit in the opening you have. Be sure to turn the power off to the circuit first though.
Wow, what did he “fix” then? He did a terrible job. I understand an electrician not fixing the cement block, but they should have properly installed and secured the box flush with the concrete.
For the exterior of my house I use Sherman Williams Duration. It has held up really well over the last 12 years and I am still able to buy matching paint as I have only been painting walls as needed and I have time. I am only about half done :(
I’m out of room for breakers in my main breaker box, so would like to add 6-breaker sub-panel to install mini-splits, an outdoor electrical outlet, lighting, etc. What’s the correct way to mount an exterior sub-panel on a house with lapped hardie-board siding?...
Plantjam is correct. My electrician installed a main panel on my hardieboard and used 14-Gauge Electro-galvanized Half Slot Channel Struts to mount to. They mounted the struts horizontally through the Hardieboard into the sheathing/studs, caulking the screw penetrations. They then mounted the circuit breaker panel to the struts.You my need to add spacers.
I am replacing the siding on one wall of my house. I am going all out with it and including a rain screen in the design. It will consist of the sheathing, ice and water shield on sheathing, 2" Polystyrene Board Insulation, furring strips, and finally Hardie Panel siding. There will be a top and bottom bug shield (Cor-A-Vent)....
On further research it seems that in this case I could have brought the polystyrene all the way down to the roof deck and flashed it with the shingles (cutting them back 2") to make the front of the polystyrene the rain barrier. Assuming I could do a good enough job to guarantee no water penetrated behind it. This would prevent the need for the 2"x1.5" board all together and the gap all the way to the sheathing which would be a big source for thermal bridging and transfer. Not sure I am confident enough to take this approach though and the flashing has already been installed by the roofer.
So my question remains, how big should the gap be above the shingles.
Thanks for the response. The barrier I choose isn’t permeable. I live in a moderate climate. We do get the occasional snow which melts within a few days. My house is pretty leaky at the moment, so the walls will be able to dry from the inside. I would like to use mineral wool in some areas (like near my grill) but it isn’t available in large sheets in my area and its R value per inch isn’t quite as good as the Poly, so I opted to go with Poly in most areas.
Yes, I could place the L flashing behind the furring strips (mentioned in my previous reply), but my hesitation there is I wanted to have a full shield of layered tape and wrap all the way up the wall and I didn’t really want to put wrap on top of the insulation because I didn’t trust that none of the penetrations I would need to make for the furring strips and siding wouldn’t leak. I saw in one video where they were doing 4" of insulation they put the rain barrier 2" back between the two insulation layers. I think this would be a good solution but the install is a bit more complicated when doing multiple layers of insulation. To do this I could have done two 1" layers instead of just 1 2" layer and put the flashing between the two layers.
I have to confirm that mastic plus aluminum tape is the way to go. The mastic will help fill the gap and protect the tape from drying out and peeling away. Be sure to clean it thoroughly so the tape will stick long term. Be generous with the tape as over time it may begin to fail. Mastic is doubly important if you have condensation issues. And if that is the case, or the duct work is in unconditioned space, you should consider insulating and covering the duct work.
So the “fails to complete a cycle without erroring out” rate finally seems to have reached 100%, on the Samsung dishwasher that came with the house....
My wife and I just had to replace our dishwasher. She did a lot of research and to my surprise ended up going with a high end Samsung. We just got it installed and it washes fine and is super quiet, can hardly tell it is even running. We did get the extended warranty, we have not always had good luck with appliances in the past
Handyman suggested cutting hole in 1330 sq. ft. attic for second attic ventilator. Does this make sense?
General info:...
Just used spray foam for the first time...
It's on everything, my fingernails are glued to my skin underneath, I hate everything and most of all I hate spray foam....
When you do it yourself and it looks like you did it yourself lol ( lemmy.world )
Okay, my first ever drywall and I know what I did wrong. I just didn't think that small indifference would make it look obviously bad....
How to repair peeling on cabinets ( lemmy.world )
Hi folks,...
Bathroom vent out the side of the house?
So I’m planning out a bathroom remodel and part of that is replacing the vent fan because currently mine is just venting into my attic (no bueno). I know normally bathrooms are vented out through the roof but my bathroom is on an exterior wall so I was wondering if I could just vent it out the side of the house. I’m going to...
Adding insulation to an old house.
Here is my problem: I have an old house - nearly 100 years old - that I need to insulate but I have a few problems and concerns I need to deal with. The walls are essentially stone and an old kind on solid cement block....
Foundation advice ( lemmy.world )
Drawing...
Is replacing a tub/shower combo DIY'able
Homeowner with a decent amount of handiness but wondering if I’m going to bite off more than I can chew. Is it worth it to try and remove the old shower tub combo and replace it with a new one pretty much by myself? I realize this is a bit of a loaded question and can’t really be answered without knowing my skills but if...
Anyone converted an attached garage to a living space? Any unexpected issues?
I’m planning on converting a 21x21 garage to a living room in the next couple years. I’ve got pretty much everything figured out I believe, and it seems a bit simpler than the bonus room conversion I finished earlier this year....
Can anyone give me advice on how to solve this T1-11 siding rot? ( lemmy.zip )
I recently bought my first house and I noticed some rot happening beside our garage door. It appears that when the cement driveway was poured, they got too close to the siding and now water is wicking up into the wood. I figure I can cut back the siding and replace it but how do I stop this from happening again?
How do i fix this ugly hole in the wall?
An electrician ‘fixed’ an issue by making this hole in a basement cinder block wall....
Paint brand preferences?
Back with a dozy. What is your favorite paint brands? Why?
Mount electric sub-panel over lapped hardie board siding?
I’m out of room for breakers in my main breaker box, so would like to add 6-breaker sub-panel to install mini-splits, an outdoor electrical outlet, lighting, etc. What’s the correct way to mount an exterior sub-panel on a house with lapped hardie-board siding?...
Siding Rain Screen Detail
I am replacing the siding on one wall of my house. I am going all out with it and including a rain screen in the design. It will consist of the sheathing, ice and water shield on sheathing, 2" Polystyrene Board Insulation, furring strips, and finally Hardie Panel siding. There will be a top and bottom bug shield (Cor-A-Vent)....
Sealing gaps in duct work letting out air ( sh.itjust.works )
I’m seeing a crack in the corner of the ducts. Can I just tape it shut with boxing tape or is there a better way to do it?...
Dishwasher Recommendations
So the “fails to complete a cycle without erroring out” rate finally seems to have reached 100%, on the Samsung dishwasher that came with the house....