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I have a strange need. I am having a crew remodel my basement. I would like to put an exterior door lock on my basement door, so the crew can't roam the rest of the house. BUT I have a 3 year old son, and I use a privacy door lock with the emergency key thing so he can't unlock the door and...

I am planning to start the framing of my Basement. I have a couple questions about HVAC and ducting. 1) Do I need 6" walls to drop my cold air return ducts through (I think code here requres they be ducted, not use the wall cavity)? 2) My Basement has a main cold air return duct that runs...

I'm still gathering information to make sure I do this right. In my basement, when we get REALLY heavy rains, and in the spring when all the snow melts, I get moisture on my block walls in the basement, it doesn't run off and get to the floor, but you can see wet spots on the wall itself...

I'm in the planning stages for finishing my basement. I'm thinking about HVAC. When the house was built we had the future layout of the basement designed. New code required them to Sheetrock the ceiling even though it is unfinished. Because of this, it looks like they ran supply air to each...

I have one room in my basement that will be a home theater room. I have 2 pipes in that room that will require me to frame around. I plan to just make pillar looking things on those 2 spots, then pillars on the other side of the room to match (4 in total). I want to put wall lights on those...

I am looking to finish my basement. VERY early stages. The builders of my house by code needed to sheetrock the whole ceiling, which means they also built soffits around all duct work. When I go to fram my wall to cover the cement block walls. can I just run them up to the underside of the...

I am looking to start finishing my basement here in Minnesota. I have concrete block walls. I read an article by Holmes on Homes about using 2" rigid insulation glued to the walls, then tuct tape the joints. He mentions no need for vapor barrier or fiberglass insulation. My question is...

I have a 2 story house with an unfinished basement. The temp in the basement right now is about 64 degrees, and the humidity level is around 61%. I want to get a dehumidifier to get the humidity in the basement below 50% to avoid mildew etc. A dehumidifier for the size of the basement looks to...

I am looking at getting a Whirlpool WHES33 water softener for my house. I would also like a whole house water filter to take out some chlorine etc. But there are so many out there, and I have no idea what I need, or what to look for. I was looking at the Aqua-Pure AP904. I got a copy of my...

I will start the process of building a house soon. Well, the contractors will build it, I will sit back and watch them do their thing. I do know that price per sq ft in my area it a pretty big range. I've seen some that look to be $100 up to $160 or more. The builder I'm working with says...

I have been looking around. I see that code for my area requires an R of 49 for ceiling and 19 for walls. I am just curious. Is there a maximum? If I have an R49 currently, could I bump it to R80, or R100? or is R60 really as high as you want to go? And if there is a max, what is the...

I was just about to start building/installing window casings. When I measured the depth from the window to the front of the drywall, I noticed one side is 3.5" while the other side is 4". I also noticed I have a big gap in the drywall around the window frame. one side the drywall is tight...

I built a fence a couple years ago. I used 4x4 posts which I planted 2-3 feet deep and cemented in. The fence panels I got are 6' high and 8' long. they were pre-built panels and it is a wood privacy fence. The fence uses 3 1x4 boards that the pickets attach to. I have 2 3" long screws in...

I am staining doors, and using minwax polycrylic over them. it doesn't say on the can, but I am curious if I can spray them with my spray gun? I know they have aerosol versions of it, but to make things faster and more uniform, I was thinking spraying with a spray gun may be a good option.

My house was built in 2010 so my windows are pretty new. They are double pane, Low E glass, with argon (I think) between the panels. They are sliding windows. Would there be any advantage to putting up the shrink wrap? I wasn't sure if I would have an improvement or not since my windows are...

What is the max bulb wattage for those cheap general purpose light fixtures that are normally found in garages? I wasn't sure if there was a norm for them, or if they are all different like most other lighting fixtures.

I have a water softener. when I Installed it I found the water hardness was at 15 gpg. When I called the city they said between 20-27. so I set the softener to 30. I have always suspected it wasn't doing much, but we do go through salt (very slowly). so I had the water tested, and it says...

I bought a water softner from Lowes. "INstall kit" has a few fittings that snap into place, no problem there. But the final connections on the softner is a 1" plastic pipe. 1 for in and 1 for out. My house has the flexible water pipe 3/4". I got a metal bell reducer to convert it down to...

I have a room currently white walls. My bed has a light oak headboard, my TV stand is the same lite oak, and my ceiling fan is light oak. OH, and all my molding is light oak. My thought is I would like to go with a black and white theme in my room, but don't want to replace all the oak I...

I replaced my thurmostat at the begining of summer. The AC worked just fine, if I put the unit to fan it works fine. I just tried to turn on the heat, and the heat does not come on... My old thurmostat had the letters W O G R C Y New has RH RC W Y G Now I have the AC working, when it...