Builder Tips

Lately I’ve encountered people with water damage to their homes.

This is not a new problem. But with a little forethought and minimal effort you can save yourself thousands of dollars. .

1) This occurred 2 times in 2011 the line that connects the toilet tank to the water supply can have a plastic nut on the tank end of the tubing. This nut develops a hairline crack and leaks at funny times (usually when you are not home). Causing floor and ceiling damage to the room below. Keep your eyes open for dampness in back of the toilet. This can be a gradual failure.

2) A family moved out turning off the water to the frig./ice maker. Removed the refrigerator to take to their new home came back next day to find water in kitchen and basement from a dripping water line, (their composite floor buckled like crazy. (causing them to spend money on a home they were moving out of) The drip was so minor I probably wouldn’t have seen it, but the floor sure did. Put the end of the tube in a bucket or sink drain and keep your eye on it.

Both of these situations can be minimized if you would just turn off the main water valve in your basement if you are going to be gone more than normal. Weekend trip turn it off. Going to Europe turn it off. Moving turn it off every time you leave the home, you don’t know when you’ll be back.  Also buy the best supply lies you can afford. Stainless steel braided lines for the toilets and washer is a good idea BUT be careful many of these have Plastic nuts on one end and they can split.

Well thanks for reading and stay dry. 

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I’ve removed many thing from toilets and drain lines over the 33 years of working on houses, building blocks, pencils, feminine products.

Our oldest daughter is just coming of age and so are her friends. We have proper discreet wastebaskets in all our bathrooms with locking lids to keep to stupid dog from eating the trash (one of Gods designs I still don’t understand, Why must some dogs must eat @#$%&; well I’m off track).

Well we had a sleep over just a few 5 or 6 young teenage girls. The following morning I am awaken with “Dad the toilet’s backed up”.

So After about 3 hours of the standard plunger and flush with some improvement but limited results. I knew I had to remove the bowl from the floor and find the object clogging the waterway.

Well I’ll let the picture tell the rest of the story.  

Please share this with as many girls and women (yes there are women who flush too).

These thing need to go to the land fill and not the water treatment plant.

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It came to my attention while doing a home inspection, many people do not understand the Winter/Summer switch on their ceiling fans. Well let me give it a go. I live in Ohio the winters coldish and the summers hot and humid. In the summer air moving across your body helps with evaporation thus cooling you down. So in the summer you want the fan blowing air on and across  you (fan turning clockwise). Now in the winter this would be silly so we just turn the fan off till summer and then start using them again. Now all makers of ceiling fans put a switch located generally above the light and below the fan blades. By flipping this switch you reverse the rotation of the fan and “wowsa” you are now in winter mode. As hot air rises the fan moves the air across the ceiling and down the walls bringing the arm air back down to people level keeping the ceilings cooler and the floor level warmer. Now go flip that switch.

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When purchasing laminate flooring, remember that price is not everything.  We recently installed the floor shown above.  Having installed many systems before, I found this product took 3 times the man hours to install.  Well, the purchase price of $0.89 a square foot was a great price.  The material was very hard to snap together (we had to use rubber mallets) and the edges where the boards fit together left me thinking that moisture is going to find it’s way in and cause the floor to swell.  All in all, this floor made my client’s home look great, but my concern is the great look will be short lived: 3-5 years, and maybe less if used in a home with lots of children.

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Today at my client’s home we ran across a situation where non-adjustable cabinet doors hit each other and wouldn’t close easily.  This was caused by one of the cabinet doors wedging against an adjacent door casing and bending the cabinet door hinges.

To bend the cabinet door hinges back into alignment, insert two thin wood shims between the cabinet doors and gently push the doors shut (see photo below).  This reshapes the hinges, so the cabinet doors will close easily.

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This is a product I’m investigating.  The Power-Save 1200 claims to save as much as 25% on your monthly electric bills.  From the vendor’s website:

The Power-Save 1200™ reduces the amount of power drawn from the utility by storing electricity otherwise lost from the motors in your home.  The unit supplies this stored electricity back to your appliances, decreasing demand from the utility.  Decreasing demand means less usage and lower electric bills.

I’ll be discussing this product in more detail and share my personal experience with it.

Power-Save 1200

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I was a green builder long before the term “green” meant “good.”  Back when I started building homes, green usually had a negative meaning to describe inexperience (“Keep an eye on him, he’s a green plumber”) or illness (“You’re looking green today, do you need to go home?”)

One of the clearest definitions I’ve seen for “green” is by the Skyscraper Museum:

GREEN is a term now widely used to describe buildings designed and constructed with minimal negative impact to the environment and with an emphasis on conservation of resources, energy efficiency, and healthful interior spaces.

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