There are many factors that affect signal strength, some are in your control like antenna placement, but most are not (other buildings/structures, topography, location of broadcast, atmospheric conditions, etc.).

If you are trying to find the "best" placement then you need to do a site survey.  The crude version of this is using a long temporary cable, moving the antenna around to different locations and viewing the signal strength from your receiver ("box") or TV.  Professionals will use instruments like signal meters of varying sophistication.

One nice attribute of digital OTA is that being binary (ones and zeros), picture quality isn't affected - it either works or doesn't work (for the most part).  If you placed the antenna at your desired location and could get say 75% signal on most channels, then you could very likely use that location even if there were better ones.


My neighbors have a dirt and rock yard and the run-off floods a shed. How can I inhibit this?

You can place a french drain on that side of the shed.

The other thing you should do is to find better material for those sole plates - I am thinking they are 4 x 4 all around - so you might try something like "Plastic Lumber" - there are many composites out there as well. This will eliminate your issues.   You can search for plastic lumber or composite wood 4 x 4  as well..

The real issue is as one commenter stated the runoff from your neighbors - I see a chicken wire fence (perhaps chickens - if this is in the county and not the city - you may not get the support to resolve the issue form your neighbor, as the requirements may be much more lax.


When pre-drilling for screws, how do you determine the correct bit diameter?

Here are some charts from Bolt Depot. Bolt Depot is a handy resource, and has lots of information about all different types of fasteners.

Pilot hole size:

Wood Screw Diameter:

****Major thread diameter** is measured on the outside of the threads.*


Can I shut off pump, stop chemical maintenance on pool that's going to be drained and refaced in 6 months?

Your best bet would be to drain the pool, flush your plumbing and then blow it out. Then leave your drain open for rain, etc... Resurfacing your pool with algae or other nasty stuff would require more steps to remove then first to make a clean surface.


Would replacing old mortar for new prevent water from seeping through brickwork?

It wouldn't hurt. looks like a lot of that mortar is just missing with holes and cracks. Looks like rain and a bit of wind could drive rain right through it.

That said, it looks like the brick is also damages. Brick with a damaged face will also take in water like a sponge. They do make spray-on brick sealant. I can't say it it works or not, but might be something to look into.


If the metal grid in the door is intact and the outer metal case it should be fine, one way I have seen used was to clip the leads off a neon lamp if the lamp flashes it is getting hit by microwave radiation. Or to buy a detector.  Depending on the amount of energy being released it can be a simple warming effect to burning, the eyes would be at the biggest risk of damage since they are the closest to water and are very delicate. If you have concerns it would be safer to not use it, but if the grid and case are undamaged there is no way for the energy to escape. Microwaves run at approx 2.4Ghz the length of a single wave would be under 6" and the height or amplitude is based on the power level.


Is ceiling fan missing grounding wire from the ceiling box, and is this safe?

In a perfect world, with perfect electronics, there would be no need for a grounding conductor.  It's there to deal with imperfections.  The most likely case for a ground fault in this installation would be if the black conductor lost some insulation and shorted itself against the frame of the fan.  In such a situation, the casing could become electrified, and a grounded person, touching the fan body could receive a shock.

If it were properly grounded, you'd get a short circuit to the ground wire, and the breaker would trip.

However, the fan is mounted to the ceiling, and the possibility of someone touching it is low.  (Unlike, for example, the frame of a fridge or stove, where human contact is part of normal operation.)

So, Is it safe? Quite likely.  For added safety, turn the wall switch off when changing bulbs.  Is it to code? No. -- Unless, as others have suggested in comments, the mounting box is grounded on the other side.

You can however, locate the breaker, and replace it with a Ground Fault Interrupt breaker, which would trip should a ground fault occur.  This isn't something you should do yourself unless you have experience working in the panel.

Another possibility, if your switch happens to be chained off of an outlet, which is quite possible, depending on the routing of the wiring on that circuit, is to replace the outlet with a GFCI outlet, and wire the switch to the load side of it.


Why do most home automation products only control incandescent light bulbs?

I know that a part of many home automation controls are built in dimmer switches to control the level of lighting.  You can't use a dimmer control with florescent light fixtures.  The alternative is to use an appliance control instead.  An appliance control is on/off only, and this will work with flourescent light fixtures.


Best practices for disposing of waste that is diluted in water? (paint, finishes/membranes, cement, dust/particles from wet saw, etc)

Drying paint out is smart.

Most cities have a hazardous household waste disposal service at the municipal landfill, likely as part of a strategy to encourage citizens not to simply pitch mineral spirits or motor oil or oil-soaked rags or consumer herbicides, pesticides, etc.

Have you checked there?


What are the must-have features for a Hackspace/Makerspace bandsaw?

I think you're on the right track, especially in considering TWO saws, one high-speed saw dedicated to wood and another very different low-speed saw for brass/steel. The wood saw will be fine (but messy) with alumin(i)um.

You should know a couple more more points.

First, the kerf on nearly all bandsaws (except sawmill types) is pretty much identical regardless of blade choice.

Second, a saw with a gearbox (don't DO this with a variable-speed motor!) for two very, very different speeds (wood and alumin(i)um require MUCH higher speed than steel will tolerate) will tend to be a very high-ticket item, generally much more expensive than two dedicated saws because of the dramatic shiftable gear reduction required for steel.

Now... to really answer your question of must-haves, we should know what - in particular - you plan to cut, and how accurately you want to cut it. What thicknesses of wood and metals? Do you ever plan to cut steel or brass (if not, you could do with one saw)? Do you require high-quality cuts in non-alumin(i)um metals... or could you do that work with a reciprocating saw? In wood, what are your goals? How large (length / breadth) a workpiece do you really plan to cut curves in?

For most steel I imagine you cutting, A small (4") vertical or vertical-horizontal bandsaw would suffice. I have one such from Harbor Freight in my shop, and it does everything I want a steel-sawing saw to do (which is really quite a lot).

A 14" bandsaw is the de facto standard for a "serious" woodworking shop. A wide array of manufacturers offer them, they all take one common blade size (unless they have a "riser" to lift the upper wheel another 6", in which case they all take a second common blade size).

You should know... that most bandsaws have a considerably smaller vertical capacity than the saw's "inch" size (which is a diametric measurement of the upper and lower wheels). Most saws have about a 6" vertical capacity, and that's really pretty realistic unless the saw is equipped with a very large motor; cutting material more than 6" thick requires a GREAT deal of power. A riser will gain more height capacity, but it's nearly always wasted capacity because the motor can't manage resawing stock that's much more than 6" thick (unless it happens to be balsa or basswood or tupelo or other very soft wood).

I like the 14" saws; they're generally built much sturdier than smaller saws, and have better blade guides. Blades are easy to come by. The basic saw, with no "upgrades" (some of which are glitz with no real practical upgrade value at all), works well for most tasks. Because they're so very common, there's lots of help available on the Internet if you should run into trouble aligning, maintaining, or using the saw.

I apologize in advance - I'm afraid I've rambled a bit here...


Is a threshold drain outside my laundry room and bathroom, draining to daylight, a good idea?

I see several problems with your plan:

It may allow mice, insects or other critters to get inside.
If it's below freezing outside, the drain will get blocked with ice.
The check valve (even if it works properly in the first place) will very quickly get clogged with all the debris that gets washed down into the drain.

If you want to have a floor drain, then it should drain to the sewer, not to the outside. I don't know what the building code in your area says about that, but you may want to check. And you don't really need a floor drain. It's nice to have in some settings, like a commercial kitchen or a public bathroom, but it's overkill for residential.


How do I install a 1st floor bathroom fan?

Probably the best solution in your case it to directly vent out.  Since you have two external walls one of the walls will allow you to vent out of it.  You need to pick the one that runs perpendicular to your joists.

There is not much downside in venting out.  It is easier.  By venting up you are actually causing an opening in your house for hot air to escape - hot air rises, will push open vent cover, and release.  With a side vent you don't have those issues.  The only issue is directing the moisture away from your house but this depends on the type of exterior you have.

You will pick a place for your fan - by the shower, in-between two joists.  You will point fan vent towards wall that you can vent out of.  You will run duct from fan to wall.  Cut hole in wall slight bigger than duct (usually 4-6" in the US).  You will cap it from the outside with a vent and secure vent to outside wall.  Spray foam the openings/cracks created.  That part of your fan install is done.  Still need to get electric up to it.

To cover your other points.  You can vent out the basement but you should not have a fan anywhere other than a ceiling.  Anything higher than your fan will get condensation and could eventually mold.

Edit: Forgot to mention.  Give your duct work a tiny tiny slope down so any moisture will drip out instead of back to your bathroom.


If the structure above this wall (the joists of the second level) is parallel to this wall, then it's highly unlikely that the wall is load bearing -- what load would it bear, if there's no structure present to bring a load onto the wall? The only possibility is that something like a joist lies directly on top of the wall and you haven't been able to discover it yet.

The planned renovation is going to involve quite a lot of drywall repair on the walls and at least a little bit of repair on the ceiling too. You've done all the due diligence that can be done. Now it's time to cut an inspection hole in the ceiling and visually confirm that nothing bears on the top of that wall. I suggest finding the locations of the nearest joist on each side of that wall and cut the hole on whichever side has more wall-to-joist space. You might also choose to cut the inspection hole on whichever side is easier to repair in case the project does not go forward, or whichever side will bother you less if the hole persists for some time until the project work does commence.


It's an intriguing concept.  But it's harder than you think. It's not only an engineering problem, but a manufacturing one too.

I think your best bet is to build a standard pre-engineered truss design that already has the strength to meet code.  And then, use the sheeting  for added strength.  That would take the engineering out of it.  There's still manufacturing.  By contrast, the guy in the link is using square trusses, which is the worst truss design possible.  He is betting the farm on the strength of the sheet material.

Dimensional lumber is not straight.  Even with well-chosen boards, you'll need to run it throught a jointer edgewise to straighten one edge, then through a planer to straighten the other edge and bring it to your standard width.  Since your standard width must be the lowest common denominator of all the boards you can get, be prepared for this to gobble as much as an inch / 25mm.  So you'd need to start with wider boards.

The good news is, with such a narrow truss, you could do a minimal jointing to get the long members straight on one side, then assemble the truss, then run the assembled truss through the jointer and planer to square it as an assembly.

To assemble the truss, you'll need to lay them all down on a flat reference table (where?) and frame them up.  I would construct the truss members to fine tolerance, and screw and glue to maximize the strength of the truss without sheeting.

Then plane the second side of the whole truss, flip it over and give the first side a last pass through the planer to correct any irregularities. Gluing the sheet needs to be near perfect.   And the manufacturing technique needs to be consistent.

Nails and screws will have no strength when affixing the sheet material.  All the strength of the sheet material depends on the glue.  This is no place for random hardware-store glue. I would probably go for an epoxy if I could keep it out of direct sun.

The people in the link used nails, but they used an awful lot of nails, and they are dealing in much taller beam sections than you are.  They also said "glue it too", I am saying "glue it well".  For you, space matters so precision and strength matter.

It's important the wood be fully dried when working with glues.  It takes weeks to stabilize kiln dried lumber bought off the lot, and months to stabilize wet lumber.


Can I add an additional outlet using an existing outlet that has no ground wire?

There are ground wires there, they're just buried in the back

In your photos, I can see some bare copper wires in the back of the box. These are the ground wires you are looking for, and you'll need to get them pulled out as far as they can go, then nut them to a box grounding pigtail screwed to the box and to another pigtail that goes off to the receptacle.


Primed wood and painted with white paint but looks yellow. Why and how to fix?

I have seen primers allow wood tannins to bleed through, I use a schellac probably misspelled but standard primers being water based allows the oils in the wood to bleed through. I have used zinser and kilzs with success over wood and rooms that had smokers to stop the bleed through.


Pull chain light sockets wired without pigtails

It's perfectly fine.  I don't do it because it takes too much work threading all that wire through all those holes/knockouts... but there's nothing wrong with the method.


Opening a light fixture that has plastic clips

One of those clips should be spring loaded and can be pulled out to release the glass. Try again to pull each one of them straight out.


Is it necessary to sand before the last coat of oil paint?

It depends ;)

I don't tend to do a final sand for the very reason you mention. However there have been times when the finish hasn't been to my liking so I have sanded - but in these cases I use the finest grade paper and sand very lightly to just take off the drips and/or dust flecks that have settled on the wood.

So if the penultimate coat is good you might be OK without sanding, but sanding does provide something for the final coat to bind to if the previous coat was applied some time ago, so ultimately it will provide a more durable finish. If you are painting the second coat as soon as the first coat is dry then you don't need to bother.


Purpose of mercury switch in old doorbell

I have this exact Friedland chime. It has the number 280-860 on the back. Here's how to wire it:

The terminals are numbered, clockwise from top left:
3, 0, 2, 1, 4.

The solenoid is internally connected to 3 and 4.

The upper 2 batteries go to 3 and 0.

The lower 2 batteries go to 2 and 4.

The mercury tilt-switch is connected to 1 and 3.

The front-door bell-push should be connected to 0 and 1.

This gives a continuous DING-DONG, DING-DONG, ... as long as the bell-push is held down, by striking the vertical plates at either side.

The back-door bell-push (if used) should be connected to 0 and 2.

This gives a single DING when the bell-push is pressed down, and a single DONG when it is released.

Operating with 4x 1.5V D-cells, that is all there is to it.

If you want to use a 6 volt transformer instead, be sure NOT to fit batteries as well.

Link 2 to 3 with insulated wire (be sure to remove the batteries otherwise this will short out the lower pair).

Connect the 6V AC supply from the transformer to 3 and 0.

When fixing to the wall make sure the mercury switch is at the bottom, as per the photo above.

Job done.


How do I install a "Lite in the Box" (brand) faucet?

This is very standard mixer tap setup. Basically you run the flexible piping through all the holes etc that you need to do to connect it to the main. You do this before you have fixed the mixer in place. Then, you feed the two small ends up through the mounting hole on the kitchen sink and screw them in.

There will be a long bolt with a slot for a flat-headed screwdriver. Make sure that is installed as well (tighten with a screwdriver so it's tight).

Then you put the mixer with the three attachments (the two flexible pipes and the threaded bolt) flush with the basin, and facing in the correct direction.

Then, using a tube spanner (available at any hardware store) you screw in a butterfly fitting and the nut from beneath. This will hold the mixer tight against the bench top. A tube wrench is important because otherwise it's typically impractical to do up the nut tightly, due to limited space and the length of the bolt.


What is the best way to trim edges off of hardwood floor where wall was removed?

I would probably also go for the circular saw.
Make sure to use a variable depth circular saw and to set it to the same thickness as the existing floor boards, so you only trim them and nothing beneath them.
Then for the last pieces next to the wall where the circular blade won't reach you could use a hammer and a chisel to knock the last bit off.

As to the blackness:
Assuming you'll want to have the "filling" boards blend in with the existing floors, I'd advise to sand the whole floor and re-varnish/wax the floor.
The blackness is most likely dirt or a moisture stain that has built up over the years, when sanding give these spots special attention to make sure you sand them off but just make sure not to go too deep.
My parents have a rosewood floor and once every couple of years they sand the whole floor and apply new wax to it, afterwards it looks brand new.


What is this toilet flush mechanism called?

Next by Danco FLT231T HydroStop Flapper Alternative

I've put these in all my toilets and they work great. I'm not sure about getting just the handle for it, but now you know what to look for. Try danco.com


Converting a timer switch to basic switch

To me it looks like your switch requires a neutral; if your new switch is a snap switch (aka regular light switch) cap the white wire off. The black and blue don’t matter on a snap switch and can be on either brass screw; one is hot the other is the load.


Why is my plumber suggesting that I replace the poly water supply line to my house?

I have a feeling that we're actually talking about polybutylene, which is obsolete and could account for the confusion. I think most of us assumed you're talking about polyethylene, which is commonly used today.
Your home was built during the window in which polybutylene pipe was used for runs from the street to the meter. It was discontinued due to lack of durability:

While scientific evidence is scarce, it is believed that oxidants in the public water supplies, such as chlorine, react with the polybutylene piping and acetal fittings causing them to scale and flake and become brittle.

This would also explain your plumber's suggestion, which seems reasonable in that case. Due to slightly different wall thickness, commonly available fittings cannot be used. Any plumber who cares to stand behind his/her work may also be reluctant to work on PB, since it's more likely to result in a callback. You might point out that SharkBite offers transition fittings, which can be identified by their gray plastic sleeves. So a solution may be at hand.
"Black poly" isn't really a thing, officially. It's a layperson's term for an unknown plastic or a tradesperson's nickname for polyethylene that happens to be black. Color is irrelevant with these materials, though.


Storage Bench Possible with 3/4" Plywood/MDF?

ideas to make it stronger

Resisting vertical forces
Add a rail front and rear, inset from front and rear edges. The rail would be 31" wide x 2" high. Make it taller for greater strength.
Resisting lateral forces
The greatest weakness is lateral collapse by lozenging. Adding metal corner brackets or adding a back panel would prevent that. With an inset back panel you wouldn't need a rear rail.
Minimum would be an unobtrusive triangular wooden brace centrally at each end of the underside of the top, glued with tenons or plenty of dowels.


I ran this through the sagulator, Assuming a shelf 36", 2x12 on side, supported at the ends (floating) with a center load of 1000 lbs, and got a total deflection of .07 inches.

1200 lbs still read as acceptable,  1250 went borderline.

So for supporting one or two humans within normal weight parameters, you should be good.  I'd be more interested in the legs and how they are connected.


Why does my freezer get a little warmer every 14 hours?

It is defrosting.

Frost free refrigeration equipment goes through a defrost cycle every few hours. This normally involves turning off the cooling compressor and activating a heat tape that is attached to the evaporator coil for about 20 minutes. This melts any frost and ice that has accumulated on the evaporator coil and keeps it from accumulating.

It is completely normal to the operation of modern frost free equipment.


Stay away from the 10A terminal.  That is for amp measurements ONLY, and creates a dead short between the 10A terminal and the common.  This will blow your fuse, burn up your probes, and/or destroy the meter.  Never use that unless/until you know exactly what you are doing.


Is there a way to remove a root from under a walkway to bring it back to level without getting the walkway redone?

Saturating wood with saltpeter produces an oxidizer, allowing it to burn while buried. In ancient days gone by you would drill a hole in the stump, fill it with saltpeter from the corner drug store, then light it after a couple days. The stump and roots would all burn. In these more enlightened times you're probably violating some civil ordinance by doing it.

If safety is the only priority you can cut out a section of the walkway directly above the root with a wet saw. (Either rented or a contractor) With the pavement lifted out of the way you can dig out the root with hand tools then pack the void with an appropriate base. If you've lived a virtuous life the original section will have remained intact, otherwise you'll need to repour the small section. This will leave a visible repair, but you can definitely do it below $2,500.

FYI, if you look in the Yellow Pages you should be able to find a masonry supply yard nearby. There's an excellent chance that they'll carry the aggregate used on your walkway.


Is aluminum wiring the cause of this strange electrical activity?

Do you know if any of the outlets in the house are newer or all original? Reason I ask is newer outlets are often designed for copper wires only. And mixing aluminum with copper wires is a no-no, it corrodes. Corroded wires can then lead to bad grounds (as if any house from the 50s even used grounds) or arcing.

If the breaker is getting warm, it could be a short somewhere causing that line to draw more power than it's designed for. The breaker is suppose to trip and prevent that, but something could be faulty.  I can only guess without seeing the type of box you have.

You should consider having an electrician come out and look at it.  Shouldn't cost too much just to have someone inspect the box.


Assuming that:

the screws are at least 1/4" in diameter
they penetrate at least 1" into the stud
the timber ends up snug to the drywall

... this should work fine. The key is that installation leaves the timbers with no gap to the drywall that would allow movement. If there's room for movement, the drywall will eventually be damaged and the screws could work loose.

Yes, it would do to install the dowel screws closer to the top of the timber, say 1" down, to reduce pressure on the lower edge of the cut. You might put waxed paper behind the timbers while you thread them in to act as a lubricant and to protect the wall.

You could simplify matters by installing each timber segment on a backer board (say a 16" segment of 1x6) using three or four 2-1/2" screws, then simply mount those to the studs over the drywall. The torque load on the timbers would be transferred to and distributed by the backer boards rather than through drywall, which is quite soft.


Disconnect the down spout.
This may require you to remove screws and/or rivets. Screws are easy, just use the appropriate driver and back the screw out. Rivets, however, will have to be drilled out. Select a drill bit just larger than the hole in the head of the rivet, place the tip of the bit in the hole and drill. You're not looking to drill straight through, you'll drill just enough so the head of the rivet comes off.

Inspect the drain
Now that you have access to the drain itself; using a flash light, inspect the opening looking for blockages.

Clear the drain
You might get lucky here and be able to clear the drain by hand, or blow the clog out using a garden hose. If not, you'll want to snake the drain out using either a handheld or drill powered drain auger.

Reassemble
Once the drain is running freely, reattach the downspout using your preferred fastening method.

Warning:
DO NOT use chemical drain cleaners. Some areas tie gutters into the storm sewer system, which may drain directly into nearby rivers and streams.


Is a multi-strand conductor better suited for house-hold wiring than a single-core?

Stranded
Flexibility
Stranded wire is more flexible than solid core wire, which makes it well suited in situations where there will be movement of the wire. It also makes routing the wire through a building a bit easier.
Higher resistance to metal fatigue
Where solid core wire will weaken and break, stranded wire holds up to being bent repeatedly.
Solid
Cheaper to manufacture
While this savings may or may not be passed on to the consumer, solid core wire is cheaper to make.
More rugged
Solid wire resists cutting and stretching damage better than stranded wire.
Lower resistance
Given a solid and stranded wire of the same diameter, the solid wire will have a lower resistance. This is because there will always be gaps between the strands of a stranded wire. A stranded wire of the same gauge, will have a larger diameter than a solid wire to compensate for this. When you buy wire, you'll always buy it based on gauge. Both solid and stranded wires will have the same resistance, the stranded will simply be a bit larger in diameter.
Easier to terminate
If you're not careful when stripping stranded wire, you can end up cutting off strands (usually only a problem with smaller gauge wire, or wire with lots of strands). Depending on the number of removed strands, the ampacity of the wire can be negatively affected. Though nicking a solid core wire while stripping can make the wire more susceptible to breakage, so this isn't a clear cut advantage.
Solid core wire can be used in push in ("backstab") terminals, more often than stranded. This can be a pro or a con, depending on who you talk to.
Stranded wire can be more difficult to terminate on screw terminals, as you can sometimes have escapee strands which don't end up under the screw. This again can affect the ampacity of the wire.
Because stranded wire has a larger diameter, it tends to fill up twist-on wire connectors faster (less wires allowed in the connector).

Unless there's a lot of movement within the home (RV, house boat, frequent earthquakes), or you're pulling the wire through conduit. I'd say there isn't much of a difference either way.


How to change lightbulb inside a fixture

It should unscrew counterclockwise if you put friction on the inner chrome ring with your fingertips.

If it does not unscrew, you can pull the whole thing out of the receiver by using your fingernails on the outermost edges and pulling down. You can then inspect it for how to remove the lamp.


Is it possible to fix a leak in PP-R piping by injecting some type of substance?

As Steven mentioned how do you know you've fixed it? Also, do you want to circulate sealing compound through your boiler?And damp under a house can cause a lot of problems. If you want to know the exact location of the leak and under the floor is totally inaccessible you could consider using a thermal imaging contractor to find the leak to localize damage to the flooring and [this site] (http://www.ekoplastik.com/?download=ekoplastik_ppr_mont_en.pdf) has information on repairing of PP-R pipe in page 27.


Best option - get an outdoor-rated fiber patchcord, SFPs, and switches with SFP slots for each end. You have the duct in place, this should be simple enough. Prices have come way down.

If you use the wired method, the wiring /surge device should be bonded to the house and garage grounding systems at the service entrance to each building. Using a shielded cable so you can ground the shield may be beneficial.

Typical cheapest, easiest, good-enough method for most homeowners (since fiber requires replacing your network hardware in most cases) is a point-to-point or mesh 802.11ac wireless link. This may also improve the heck out of your WiFi, depending what you have now. Not as fast as a wire or fiber, but faster than most service to the home.


Proper way to mount TV on wall that might be lath-and-plaster?

The wood that's visible around the edge of that opening is plywood. I would suggest opening up several other boxes throughout the apartment (or at least along that wall) to see if they're all like that.
If this wall seems to have a consistent plywood backing, you're in luck because all it takes is a few of the appropriate sized lag bolts (specified in the instructions of your wall mount) and you're good to go. You can hang that thing anywhere you want - plywood has a lot of strength and can take the weight of just about any TV/mount combo out there. So much so that the frequent recommendation is to attach plywood to the studs then attach the mount to the plywood. You just get to skip the first step.


When the boards having the heads are being discarded, a simple way to remove them is to cut through the screws at the joint between the board.

You can use a reciprocating saw (often called by a brandname, Sawzall)

or a multitool

In either case, you need to use a blade intended for cutting metal. Some blades are combination blades that work in wood or metal. Place the blades between the bottom of the decking and the supporting framing and cut just the screw. The small amount of wood taken out will not matter, but lean the blade toward the wood being discarded.

If you can't access the bottom of the deck, you can remove a section of the board to be discarded close to the screw and then cut the screw horizontally.

The stub of the old screw in the framing board will be covered by the new boards.

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


Could a pressure relief valve that drains up cause my water heater to explode?

A pressure relief valve does (or should) what it says: relieve pressure. That is exactly what you want - in the unlikely but non-zero event that a water heater overheats or has some other problem causing the water inside to get very hot (which leads to high pressure) or to get to much higher than normal pressure, the valve opens to relieve the pressure.
Normally I see the pipe from a pressure relief valve going down. It looks like the pipe in the picture goes sideways and then down, presumably to a drain outside.
If I understand the drawing correctly, the hypothetical part here is not "existence of the valve" but rather "pipe going straight up from the valve." That is not a good idea. Under normal circumstances, water pressure can handle any direction. But in the case of an over-temperature/over-pressure situation, you want the water to specifically go out the easiest path possible. If the pressure relief valve piping extends above other pipes, it is quite possible that even after the valve opens, the water will try to exit via other means - the pipes at the top of the water heater - which could lead to burst pipes or other problems.
One extra safety feature that may make sense is a water heater drain pan. This goes underneath your water heater to catch leaks. It is typically required when a water heater is not on the lowest level, but even on the lowest level of your house it is a good idea if there is no floor drain nearby.


Adding 50 amp breaker to 90 amp subpanel

Your panel has many "tandem" breakers... read here on what those are, how those work and  how they relate to panel spaces.
First, deal with  the fire-starters!
OK, there are at least three Multi-Wire Branch Circuits in here that are catastrophically miswired. They will overload neutral, putting  30A on a 15A wire.  "The last guy" did exactly the thing we warn people not to do: put MWBCs on tandems.
What's more, the installer violated the "handle-tie" rule of MWBCs, which would have prevented the blunder.

You will need two of (in order of preference) Eaton BQ215215, or BQC215215. Either one will do. You need two.
Pull the 8 wires off the bottom 4 left-side breakers.
Now, identify the three cables coming in that have  black-white-red.
Pick one cable.  Follow its black and red wires.  Stick them on the inner terminals of one of the breakers.
For the second cable, stick its black and red on the outer terminals of that same breaker.
For the third cable, stick its black and red on the inner terminals of the other breaker.
The two single-pole 15A circuits that are now dangling, go on the remaining breaker terminals.
Remove the bottom 4 breakers altogether, and snap these two quadplex in their place.
OK, so that's fixed. They have mandatory handle-ties, and they are correctly phased so you won't get a neutral fire.
Install the 50A breaker.
Now, get a BQC2502120, or a BQC220250, in order of preference.   This has 50A in the middle and 20A outside.
Remove the 20A single breaker.  Replace it with the above breaker.
Put the existing 20A wire on the bottom terminal of the big BQC breaker.
Put the 50A load on the middle terminals.
Now you have 1 spare 20A breaker, and one full slot still free.
Plan on replacing that panel with something much bigger soon.  As expected, you ran out of spaces before you ran out of amps.
Fix the markings on that panel.
They are a code violation for two reasons: First they specify rooms by things only you know like Karen's room, and second, they contradict each other.
Obviously someone rearranged this panel, and that's how the MWBCs got dangerously placed on tandems.
Also you are required to identify breakers by marking that will be obvious after you move out -- "northwest bedroom" not "playroom" and definitely not "child's name".
Just get some acetone or something and wipe off all that Sharpie (not that easy)... better yet, scrub it with a Scotchbrite pad (so the paint will stick), clean and dry it, then hit it with a can of Krylon. Great time to match it (roughly) to your walls - you are better off using an "oil paint" like is in spray cans, than a latex which doesn't work on machinery.
Number all the spaces the same way -- 1A-1B through 12A-12B is fine, or 1-24, whatever. If an AFCI breaker is sitting on 23 and 24, people will figure out what you mean when you say "23 NW Bedroom" or whatever.


What are insulated screwdrivers for if you’re not supposed to work on a live circuit?

The idea is to not rely on any single point of failure. For you to be planted six feet under, you want at least three things to have gone badly wrong at the same time.

Your lockout padlock fell off.
Someone didn't realise you were working on the circuit and switched the breaker back on.
You forgot to turn off the isolator switch.
You didn't notice the puddle of water you were standing in.
You were not using an insulated screwdriver.
Your dog barked at a squirrel and startled you.

Its kinda why you bought a car with seatbelts, airbag and ABS - Does having those items tempt you to jump red-lights in front of large trucks or freight trains?


Mineral spirits not drying on unfinished hardwood floor (12 hours later)

No, sanding will not do any good. Warm air is likely the only thing that will eventually evaporate the excess, which probably soaked deeply into the wood if it was poured onto it. You are supposed to put it on the cleaning rag, not directly onto the surface, for this very reason. You can usually rent the kind of blowers used to dry out flooded areas. If not, get some duct tape, a hair dryer and a pole lamp or a chair and duct tape the hair dryer to the pole/chair so that it is pointing down at about a 45 degree angle (not straight down or you may burn out the dryer).


There is nothing about this condition that by itself suggests a leak.  Common causes are your cold water pipes run near heating ducts or the furnace, or water from your hot water heater expanding back into the cold supply.

Likewise, a warm spot on your floor could be from ducting, a light below, the sun hitting it through a window, etc.

If there is a leak, sooner or later you will see signs of water - drips, stains on the drywall.  If you do don't see any of these, I wouldn't worry.


As discussed in the comments the cause of the white dry rot had something to do with water and moisture.
Since the damage was only on the surface, there should be no reason for grave concern as long as the area can stay dry in the future. To prevent further potential rot this terpentine based lead-free paint was used to treat the three reachable surfaces of the beam. This should be enough to prevent future rot.


AFCI trips when adjacent breaker is switched on

Neutrals were crossed in the breaker panel.  AFCI is happy now.
Many many thanks  to everyone who took a few seconds from their busy day to help me.


A 10.8V/12V battery-powered combi-drill with switchable hammer action will satisfy most of your occasional DIY light-duty tasks and will not be heavy to hold for extended use. It will probably struggle a bit with larger holes in masonry but if you only do a little of that it will be adequate.

Usually there is a three position switch:

screw-driving (with variable torque-limiting clutch)
drilling (with variable speed controlled by the trigger)
drilling with hammer action (masonry bits recommended for this)

Most drills will have a speed switch with two positions. Use the lower speed for larger drill bit sizes.

Example name-brand "pro" product available in UK for around £75, The Lidl "high performance" brad-point drill-bits are a real bargain too

If you expect do a lot of drilling into masonry, a mains-powered hammer drill is probably a better choice for a low-cost tool.


How does water supply enter into a pedestal house in cold climates?

Typically in an insulated chase, with heat tape. A more minimal install may just use heat tape and insulation without a chase, but it does not last well - but that's usually what you'll find under mobile homes that are not "on a foundation" in Maine, for example. A high-class operation will use internal "heat tape." A low end operation, or one with a gravity pressure water system (well higher than the house) may simply have a faucet they leave dripping all winter.

For a second home or cabin, the water may just be shut off for the winter. Drain everything, put some antifreeze in the toilets and sink traps.


How do I stop water from coming under my multitrack sliding doors?

First does the patio roof have eaves drops/gutters?  If not I would recommend installing them.  This will help divert some of the rain water away from the deck and keep water from splashing on the deck. If you still get a lot of water at your door after the eaves drop/gutters you can then try one of the following:

1) Re-grade the deck away from the doors (as Tester101 suggested in the comments). This would be the best solution.
2) Install a trench drain system (flush with the deck) to divert water away from the door.   Some issues with would be making sure the locations of drains catch and divert the water away from the doors.

3) Use a leaker blocker dike (http://www.newpig.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10651&catalogId=13007&productId=141454&langId=-1&cm_vc=vc_fast_finder) to divert the water away from the door.  Some issues with this method would be installing it before it rains, slight leakage between the dike and floor, installing in the correct location to divert the rain, and getting rid of the water after the rain.


Installing WiFi Light Switch - No Neutral

Option 1: Steam or smart switches, cable change

Replace the cable run between garage junction box and switch.  To wire this old school, you need three active wires in the cable:

neutral (neutral must be white, white isn't necessarily neutral)
always-hot, so the switch has something to switch, preferably black
switched-hot, the output of switch, ideally red

And voila, /3 cable contains those exact colors.

When buying cable, look at the breaker on that circuit.  15A breaker: 14AWG is acceptable. 20A breaker: must use 12AWG.

Option 2: Certain specific smart switches, no cable change

In this scenario, you re-task the black and white wire to the switch to actually always-hot and neutral.   Switched-hot is no longer in this cable.

At the switch, you install a smart-switch "remote" that is designed to communicate wirelessly or via power-line signaling.  It needs only always-hot and neutral.  In the garage junction box, you install a smart-switch "master" (or faceless module which does the same thing) and pair it to the remote.   The master takes always-hot, neutral, and switches a switched-hot or load output.

Shopping assistance or product recommendations are off-topic here, so I cannot advise you on any particular models.


Sourcing and installing a stainless steel backsplash

Don't bother patching the holes in the drywall.
Backsplashes are usually 304 stainless steel. In the US, you could order that from onlinemetals.com. (No, I don't work for them. I recently replaced my range hood and have the same problem as you.)
You should get a metal shop to cut the metal with a jump shear. It is very unlikely that you can get a nice edge for less money using hand shears or a jigsaw.
I'm not sure about the glue. My old backsplash has some kind of adhesive padding behind it. I'll probably try Liquid Nails LN-203.


Sink pivot rod is stuck, appears to be attached to sink stopper

It may have a chunk of hair on it wiggle up and down while pulling out. Be prepared to pull the trap as everything stuck on this shaft will possibly slip down 1 wife , 3 girls , 6 granddaughters and all but one has very long hair , I have to clean drains in my current house all the time I liked my 3 bath house better I did not have to do it so often.


GFCI/AFCI Trips With No Load And New Wire

AFCIs and GFCIs operate on totally different principles.

You may recall the wiring rule that all wires must be grouped together.  This is so magnetic fields cancel each other out, since currents are equal.  Likewise if 2 wires together are wound around a relay, and currents are equal in the two wires, then they would cancel each other out and the relay would not pick up.  This is essentially what a GFCI is.

Submarines detect enemy submarines using passive sonar - they listen to sea noises and use signal processing on powerful computers to pick out artificial noises.  If you've ever hooked up old fashioned speakers with speaker wire, you may have heard the crunchy sound of a loose speaker wire.  If you washed out the normal 60 cycle hum, that is what arcing sounds like.  An AFCI has a digital signal processor listening for that sound.

If a GFCI trips with no loads attached

Then the GFCI is defective.  That shouldn't be happening/possible.

If an AFCI trips with no loads attached

Then the AFCI is hearing the sound of arcing.  Because of the way wires are all interconnected at the panel, it's possible the AFCI hears arcing that is occurring on a completely different circuit.  Sometimes it hears arcing that is intentional or not really arcing - I could see it being caused by an old-style fluorescent light that uses a starter, since its action is intentional arcing.  For that matter a fluorescent light starts by striking its arc, but a modern electronic or even old magnetic ballast will buffer that "sound".

Silencing a warning device isn't really solving a problem, so I would focus on the root cause of the arc fault, if any.


Attaching toilet flange through tile and uncoupling membrane

You should be fine going through the Ditra and tile into the wood. You don't really need to be concerned about the waterproofing under the toilet as it's open around the closet flange anyway. The uncoupling aspect will not be affected. The process of uncoupling is to allow the subfloor to shift without cracking the tile. A few points fastened down won't hurt. If you are still concerned, use a high grade construction adhesive and hope it's not you who works on it next.


How to supply air in 2 rooms through a single joists cavity?

Without being there to visually see just what you have to work with is almost impossible. Try looking at an 8"X 6"X 6" WYE duct at Lowes, Home Depot, or on-line to see if that will solve your problem. Can't think of anything else without being there. Don't forget to add a return air grill mounted near the floor if you want to add heat to the game room.
One possibility would be to install a heat duct for the game room and a small electric wall heater for the bath room. A better drawing or even a picture or two would also be helpful.


How can I pour a concrete pad with a circular hole in it?

Metal landscape edging (the kind that's held in with stakes) should work fairly well. You could either just leave it there or cover it in plastic and remove it after the concrete sets (personally, I'd leave it).


How do I remove a small amount of water based concrete sealer from a painted floor?

This is a film sealer, as opposed to a penetrating sealer (bare concrete, grout).  I know of no solvent/stripper that will remove an acrylic finish that won't remove (or damage) a latex undercoat.

I would try a reverse progression of grits, until you get to the paint.  You may need to wait weeks for a hard enough/dry enough sealer surface.  Start at 600 over a sanding block.  Only go rougher if you make no progress (320, 220, 120).  Only sand enough to get TO the paint, then recoat with the sealer.  If you have access to a sprayer, it will make blending the areas easier (to hide lap marks)


Before you do that, try turning off the breakers to these devices, wait a couple of minutes, and turn them back on. The re-application of the lost leg when it was still connected to the other one may have set off some internal protective features that need to be powered down to reset.


Installing a shelf on a stucco-covered wall

I'd agree with the masonry bit (as well, stucco is rough on drill bits anyway) of whatever size is recommended for the wall anchors you're using.

I'd been reluctant to post a response, as I had no idea what do do for the wall without flattening down that section, but I have a completely untested idea --

If the stucco isn't too extreme in its texture, and you're not going to be putting lots of load on the shelf, you might be able to cut a piece of foam to use as backing, and then tighten it to the wall to compress the foam so it's not too bouncy.  You're likely going to want extra (or heavier) bolts for this; there won't be friction against the wall, so the bolts are going to be taking the whole load in sheer.  Also, you won't have the same support against moment.

I was thinking some of the stiffer spray-foam might work, but if you wanted to make it removable without damage (and if you didn't, you'd just flatten the wall), you'd need to add some release agent, which might stain the wall, or go through some hoops to pull this off:

Make a frame the size of the bracket, open on the side against the wall, and an extra hole (see below).
Figure out where you want to mount the bracket.
Tape a plastic bag large enough to full the frame on the end of a can of spray foam.
Stuff the bag in the frame through the hole.
Hold the frame where you want to mount the bracket, and inject the spray foam.
Wait for it to set up.
Repeat steps 2 through 6 for each additional bracket location.

You might be able to do something similar with other products to mold to the wall, but all of the ones I can think of have slower set times which would make it really slow going.


Patch small holes in an internal stucco wall

Matching the texture of an existing surface (any textured surface, not specifically stucco) is an art form that takes years of trial & error experience and rarely if ever looks exactly the same.

The composition/material used is not an issue considering the (small) size of the repairs you describe. Stucco can be textured infinite ways (sand finish, spanish lace, rough, etc.) and you did not describe or attach a pic depicting yours. Your best bet is to experiment (on a sacrificial surface) with different materials/products: mortar applied with different techniques, stucco patch, acoustic ceiling patch, drywall mud, plaster with sand added, etc. The options are limitless, start trying.


How to plug in a Philips Low Pressure Sodium Bulb using a Ballast

This is a bunch of random junk.

Stop buying things this way.  You can't just throw random electronic bits together and have them work.  But don't feel bad, this happens a lot. We get a steady stream of people buying random dimmers and smart switches and wanting to configure them 3-way to control some cheap LEDs they got off the bottom shelf of Walmart, or other equally random things.

School up

You just need to get some magazines, good "how I built it" sites on the Internet, or whatever, and read up on how others are doing what you are trying to do.   By the way, low pressure sodium is the best for some applications.

Buy used

From time to time, low-pressure sodium fixtures come up on the used market: Craigslist, eBay, etc.  See what you can find. Good chance though if you are trying to do home herb farming, the best lamps may be in high demand, especially now that many states have made one particular herb legal.


How to skim (plaster) a tight corner under stairs?

You can use a mason's trowel. Or you can cut and modify a low cost 6 inch putty knife to fit the angle. When using either, drag the point out from the corner and keep the point of the tool in contact with either adjacent surface.


Why my samsung washer and dryer takes too long to dry?

Maybe the problem is not the dryer but the washer.
Your machine is both washer and dryer and you have thoroughly investigated the dryer.  Maybe your washer is leaving clothes too wet.  I had trouble with my washing machine when it would not spin enough and clothes stayed wet.  They were too wet for the dryer.
Run a load but do not dry them - have it stop after wash cycle.  Are clothes dripping wet?  Sometimes a washer thinks it is unbalanced or for other reasons does not finish the cycle like it should.


Yes, you can replace the 30A breaker with a 20A breaker so long as you change the receptacles to 15-20A.  The breaker must match the receptacles.  The only exceptions are 15A receptacles are allowed on 20A breakers (and 50A receptacles on 40A breakers, not relevant here).

It's OK to use oversized wire.  It's not OK to undersize wire.  If it doesn't fit on the receptacles, use a short pigtail of a smaller but still appropriate wire size.

It is illegal to re-designate a neutral (white or gray) wire to be a ground,  say, by taping it with green tape or painting it green.  NFPA's logic is that a future repairman might get confused, and wire is cheap so why not use the right colors in the first place.  A wire which is bare its entire length can only be a ground.  I'm just gonna leave that there.

NEMA 10 receptacles are obsolete and dangerous.  The correct receptacle for "240V, ground, no neutral" is NEMA 6.


Is a rotary hammer with an impact energy of 2.7J suitable for household projects?

That is not a huge area to break up. I would say if it is not reenforced you should be able to drill a series of holes and break it up,

I might get a masonry blade for a skill saw and cut channels then a sharp smack with a hammer it will crack into blocks.

I have wedged the edge of 6” slab off the ground then used a lead cannon ball (down rigger lead ball 35 lbs) over my head and slammed onto the slab to break it up with no drilled holes or saw cuts. Concrete is very brittle if not supported.

A few drill holes will help to guide the breaks and then you have manageable sized blocks to work with And possibly reuse.
I have 3 or 4 hammer drills and to tell the truth they all work about the same except the hilti that is really not a drill / hammer drill but a hammer drill only. So if you purchase the Bosch you have a tool with multiple uses around the house, makes sense to me.


Vertical lift mechanism or push to open system for a cabinet lid?

I would consider two threaded rods in the back two corners that are rotated together and can drive up the lid.
They probaly need to be about 1/2” diameter as the lid length will cause a bending moment on the rods, unless you have extra sliding rods as well.
For initial testing a car wiper motor may be sufficiently slow - but that is easy to adjust when using toothed belts...


Is a plug with a repaired ground prong safe?

No, that's not safe, Epoxy will not make a strong conductive bond to the ground wire in the plug. While the replacement prong may good contact in the outlet, you also need to be sure that it will make good contact to the ground wire in the plug. A simple multimeter test may show that it's connected right now, but the wire and/or replacement prong may shift over time, making the extension cord unsafe due to the lack of a ground connection.

Instead, replace the whole plug with a replacement plug, such as this Heavy-Duty 3-Wire Replacement Male Electrical Plug (there are many other varieties or replacement plugs available):


Which type of site tool box/vault is most secure

I agree with @ Aloysius defenestrate. Video your tools, but next get drill prof locks they do exist or ones that cannot be drilled by normal hss, or titanium nitride coated bits , there are even locks that are resistant to cobalt bits designed to cause the bit to break but any tool vault can be opened, never trust anything that sits on the bed rails of a truck that is aliluminum or even light gauge steel a torch can open most any steel box in a few seconds and aluminum is a joke , not easy to cut through but a rose bud tip on a small torch will turn the aluminum into Jello in 10-15 seconds , I know this as my family business lost several tool boxes full of tools in the 70's in the north bay area of California. Today there are wireless low power systems than can detect intrusion and provide a GPS location using a simple 12v battery and about 1500$ system but that was a few years back maybe much cheaper today. Insurance and documentation of your tools including your initials and last 4 of your ssan engraved on each tool is the best way to identify your tools, after a lifetime of having boxes on work sites unless there is live security your tools can be taken it has happened to my family business growing up and when I was in other states. To tell the truth I found engraving tools and all my tools painted in the same ugly color(think ugly Flouresents) has been my best way in small towns, but insurance or on site security was the only way in larger cities , Several of my friends that have trailers have told me about the mobile GPS systems but they were expensive.


Replace the downspout with a decorative downspout chain. Then water only drips inches to the next link, rather than all at once, the height of your downspout.


The protections do totally different things

Seriously, you do not understand the purpose of RCDs in Europe. All our attempts to make electricity safer are based on compromises between what is possible and what is affordable/implementable. These are greatly swayed by accident data which tells what kinds of accidents actually happen there. Which in turn reflects on housing stock and culture.

Parallel arc-fault protection is about arcing faults between Hot-Neutral, Hot-Ground or Neutral-Ground, which make heat.
Series arc-fault protection is about arcing faults inside an intended connection on a hot or neutral wire, which make heat.
Ground fault protection is about wayward (residual) current returning through some alternate current path, e.g. a human.

Europe's goal is to as cheaply as possible provide parallel arc-fault protection...  while providing some very limited degree of personnel anti-shock protection.

America's goal is to protect human lives from electrical shock where small-appliance receptacle outlets are near water.  Arc fault protection doesn't even enter into it.  GFCIs are usually in the wrong location to provide any sort of effective arc-fault protection; but they provide excellent parallel H-G and N-G protection (and none at all for H-N).  Arc-fault will come later as a separate initiative.

Let's try it Europe's way

You can put American, human rated GFCI on a whole-house if you really want to.  Easy enough; just get a 60A GCCI spa subpanel and power a larger subpanel from that. 60A@240V is large enough for every load in an American house except the fixed 240V ones like water heater, A/C, EVSE, range, electric dryer, etc.  Spa panels are about the price of a 2-pole GFCI breaker, so you won. Congrats.

snap

Wow, all your lights went out.  What happened?

Well, you know those six smart switches you insisted on installing on your old switch loops, where they had separate green and bare wires, and the instructions said put the green on neutral if you have it, otherwise put it on ground?  Each of those returns 0.5 ma on ground.  Your bathroom fan, that has a 0.4 ma leak to ground. Your cheap PC power supply has a 0.9 ma leak. The coffee maker, 0.4 ma. The fridge, 1.5 ma.

"But wait.  I have these exact same appliances in Chateau TooTea in France.  Why don't they trip the RCD there???"

Since US breakers are focused on human safety, they trip at 5 milliamps.   Europe only is after parallel arc faults, so they threshold at 30 milliamps, precisely so these numerous micro-faults do not "stack" to cause the RCD to constantly nuisance-trip.  30ma gives enough headroom that such trips aren't a problem.  The downside is it sucks at human safety.

"But they're spread out! There isn't more than 2ma on any one------ Oh... right. Curse my whole-house GFCI!"

... And that's why Americans use per-circuit GFCIs.  It allows our detection threshold to be low enough to protect humans.

Alright, lesson learned, let's try a 30ma whole-house

Yeah, that would actually work, but it would work in the European way, being a watch dog for H-G and N-G arc faults in in-house wiring.

Now one problem in American homes is that you have a few very large appliances that don't really benefit from GFCI or AFCI if they're grounded - range, A/C, water heater, dryer, EVSE, electric emergency heat on heat pumps, etc. If you recall before, I excluded them from the 60A GFCI panel because they're too big - they'd gobble up the GFCI capacity without benefiting from it. So I'd recommend doing the exact same thing here.

OK, what did this buy you?

Very weak GFCI protection on the circuits that don't already have it
Parallel H-G and N-G arc fault protection
No H-N parallel arc fault protection
No series arc fault protection.

For a grandfathered house that will not have per-circuit Combination AFCI protection anytime soon, would that be an improvement?  Sure.

For a modern house with 2017 tier GFCI+AFCI protection, probably a complete waste.

Dat wascally wefwigewatah

  One could also say that it's safer, because it forces people to actually fix the fridge that trips the GFCI instead of removing the GFCI.

How is it safer exactly? What a silly thing to worry about.

Mind you, you must consider perspective: Americans are after human safety, where GFCI'ing a grounded fridge accomplishes nothing.  In the European perspective, it reduces fires caused by >30ma parallel arc faults on the wiring to the fridge, or inside the fridge.  Which is a thing that could actually happen.  And, the ordinary fridge ground faults that vex Americans are almost never over 30ma.  So they would never trip a European home at all.

Keep in mind, when you hear about fridges tripping GFCIs, the fridge may not be faulting at 5ma.  It may be on the same circuit with that coffee grinder, those two smart switches, etc. which all stack to 5ma.

  The main advantage of this solution (apart from being cheaper) is that it's trivial to retrofit to older houses without having to disentangle all the neutrals first.

They're not supposed to be entangled in the first place.   And one thing you'll hear me say a lot (to newbs) about GFCI receps is "Stop using LOAD. Seriously. For wizards only."  And the reason I say that is so novices can avoid issues with the downline, such as ground-faulting hardwired appliances and crossed neutrals that the novice is really not prepared to fix.  It would be marvelous if everything got fixed 100%, but that is not going to happen.

Also the vast majority of so-called "entanglements" are actually intentional multi-wire branch circuits.  Those are fine. They need 2-pole AFCI (in most cases) and either 2-pole GFCI or per-receptacle GFCI.


Tube Fitting vs. Flare Fitting vs. Compression Fitting

1- NO

2- NO

3- YES!

Swagelok fittings are different than compression fittings and will not work. Both are very different than flare fittings, which have a tapered nut and require the tubing to be formed in a "flared" taper at the end (using a special tool) and do not use a sleeve (ferrule). They also use a different thread:

You may find that regular compression fittings are labeled "tube" fitting in your locale. Home Depot Canada has them, they include a brass insert (for plastic tubing) and ferrule (for all tubing applications; for your purpose do not use them.

Why don't you take your connectors down to the local mom & pop plumbing / hardware shop instead of going to the "big box", they likely have the part and will be full of good advice as well.
here's the link to the part at HD: 3/8 comp. x 3/4 mip adapter


Should I extend existing furring strips or remove them and start fresh?

Those 2x2s are fine as furring strips over block. They are really more a part of the wall finish. The block is the structural wall, it can stand alone without the 2x2s and drywall.

If you are going to mount cabinets on these furring strips, I think I'd top the furring strips with 3/4" plywood.

If you want a deeper wall for insulation, plumbing, etc., @manassehkatz mentions it would be smarter to sister 2x4's side by side with the 2x2's than to extend the 2x2s or try to attach 2x4's on edge.  However it may be even easier and stronger to just remove the 2x2's and build a full 2x4 wall with top and sole plates rather than just furring strips.


How to fix a crack in laminate countertop

There is a seam filler to hide a seam not sure if this will work well on a crack. The other thing I have used are solvents acetone and MEK. The problem with solvents is they can really make a mess (I have only tried a few times to use solvents acetone gave the best results but the seam filler gell did work the best for me.

I have never hammered laminate. After fitting a pieces and pre-gluing, I use window blind slats they allow the pre glued sheet to be put in place then I pull the slat closest to a Seam and make sure it fits then pull the slats and use a roller to push the top down into the glue. The filler gell I have used is designed to seal but it comes in colors to match as the gel has a little volume I don’t know if it will work for a crack in the material but I would check it out. Acetone may help but I have not had results that looked as good as the filler /sealer made by the laminate manufacturer. If you use a solvent a syringe or eye dropper will help control the amount put a drop in the crack and it will run down the crack (I understand this is horizontal) don’t add two much or it will make a mess as I did in the past.

Use a couple of small scraps to practice I got to where I could hide a seam but not as well as the filler that matched. Two much will pull the contact cement / glue up and that’s when it has to be redone.


Incandescent Equivalent for Bathroom Fan/Light

Isherwood's comment is certainly valid, but here's a rundown of the possibilities (that I am aware of).

It has an Edison socket

That's one of these

It will likely be an E26, which is your standard light bulb size. Anything that fits will work fine (unless you find an incandescent that exceeds the wattage rating on the fixture).

It has an orange connector thingy

I don't actually know what they're called, but they look like this

Since these are mostly used in downlights (recessed lights) you can find LED trims for recessed lighting in the appropriate size (4", 6", etc.) for your vent fixture.

It has a built-in LED

You simply need to wire it. No replaceable bulbs are required.

Other

You could find something that uses a GU10 or another type of bulb that isn't an Edison socket, but this category is largely the same as the Edison socket category. Simply find any matching bulb with wattage equal to or less than the rating.


It sounds as if the vent is completely open - hope that isn't the case. It could be dangerous.
Assuming you have some type of vent cover on it I would cut and attach a piece of wire or even cloth mesh over the top or just under the vent cover. The wire would probably work best under the vent cover. You could attach it to the cover itself or the ductwork.


How can I immobilise a non-T&G subfloor?

While t+g might have been a bit better, as long as your sheets landed well (1/2 on, 1/2 off) the joists, it'll be fine.
If you're still concerned AND you can get underneath, you could install solid blocking (2x4 on the flat) perpendicular to the joists under the seams.

Edit to reflect new information (seams not on joists):
Soooo... this isn't great, but still not the end of the world. If you run 3/4" t+g pine flooring perpendicular to your floor joists, you'll get a little flex, but your plywood underneath won't saw itself to death.
If you really wanted to fix this, you'd cut out the ply in the joist bays where the seams are. Cut next to the joist, so that the plywood that stays behind is on the entire joist. Attach something (could be as small as a 2x4, and doesn't, strictly speaking, have to be continuous) to the sides of the existing joists, and set a complete section of plywood on that. Glue/screw/etc. Use a 2x4 on the flat if you have any seams perpendicular to the joists.


Are these foundation issues significant?

-#1 This seems a little odd.  Not sure how old the house is but all houses will settle.  But it seems like there is a crack and one side raised a little.  I would have to see pictures to give you a better answer.

This is an issue.  If this house is 50 years old and it happened 45 years ago and there is no moisture concerns then not a big issue.  You could fix it by taking out tile, leveling floor and retiling.  Not a small job but not "major" either.  Now if this crack is new or there is a possible water issue because of the crack (given your area probably not but you never know) then yea maybe it is an issue.  Also if there are land changes and the concrete is being pushed the buckling/crack could get bigger.  This still might not be a "major" concern but could cost a few thousand to fix.  I would need to see a few pictures and more details on house.

-#2 This is nothing.  Minor cracks in ceilings are from movement and can also be caused by drastic changes in humidity or temperature (that is why popcorn ceilings were used in desert areas).   The fact is if the house humidity levels get too low the gypsum becomes more likely to fracture - and at the same time the low humidity levels would cause the structure to shift slightly.  This is nothing.

Would I buy the house?  I would need to see pictures of floor to give you a better answer.  Also if I was already thinking to myself either of these I would probably get it - the floor issue is barely noticeable and looks fine or the floor is old anyway so I could level it when I rip it up.


It should be replaced with a modern exhaust fan. The roof vent should also have a cap or shield to keep water from leaking down the duct. I would recommend removing the entire exhaust system and start anew.
It will take less time than trying to adapt a fan motor to a outdated and unprotected roof vent than installing a new system. The roof is already opened as is the ceiling. You'll need to cut the drywall to accommodate the new fan box.
Installing a new duct to the roof and connecting it to a new roof vent  is not hard.


Just Googling around a bit, it looks like there's some options.

Disclaimer: These are just search results, not brand or store recommendations. I used the search terms: faucet to 1/2" hose barb adapter.

  Brass Quick Garden Water Tap Connector 1/2 Inch to 3/4 Inch Universal Pipe Fitting Adapter Easy Connect Home Yard/Washing Machine Thread Water Faucet

https://www.amazon.com/Connector-Universal-Fitting-Adapter-Connect/dp/B078JP7HWS

  1/2 in. Drip-Lock Hose Faucet Adapter

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-1-2-in-Drip-Lock-Hose-Faucet-Adapter-67495/301043975

This one looks to need a standard faucet to garden hose adapter to meet what you're looking for.

  1/2" ID Hose x Swivel FGHT Nylon Swivel Female Insert

https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?sku=63003&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6v7UnPr24wIVhsBkCh2h8wqIEAQYCyABEgIJmvD_BwE

This one also looks to need a standard faucet to garden hose adapter, but at least it's brass.

  Brass Fitting - 3/4" Male Garden Hose X 1/2" OD Barb | Compact

https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/Brass_Fitting_3_4_MGH_x_1_2_Barb_Compact_p/brass-3-4-mgh-x-1-2-barb-comp.htm

I can find plenty of faucet to 1/4" adapters, but not a many to 1/2". There's also plenty of adapters to a standard garden hose, but that doesn't seem to be what you're looking for either.

Normally shopping suggestions aren't a good fit for this site, but I think trying to find a non-standard part might be. If people disagree, please vote on the Question, not my answer.


How can I remove the service cover on my refrigerator when the process stub is in the way?

Okay so the process stub is the location of where vacuum is pulled and the refrigerant is pumped in. The stub is then pinched off tight enough to seal it and then the line is cut and brazed. The copper is very flexible. The braze is stronger than the copper. The weak point is the steel-copper joint.

If you must bend it, do so at the copper portion. I personally would cut around it depending on what the condition of the joints looked like and the age of the unit. Copper work-hardens and the vibration of compressor and pressure changes from cycling is enough to harden the copper.

With all that in mind bending it and kinking it is not a concern because it no longer has any use.

Edit

Guangdong

As you can see here the stub is intact on replacement compressors. What happens is the suction and discharge lines are connected and the stub is used to pull vacuum, leak check and charge the system. It's then pinched off very tightly, the line is cut and pinched again at the tip and welded shut using silver phosphorus (SilFos). At that point it's a totally useless vestigial appendage. As long as it doesn't crack open, you could bend it over out of the way. Again the weak point is the connection at the compressor where the copper is fused to the steel. Disturbing any part of the refrigeration system is ill advised but as a last resort it is acceptable. It could result in a leak at which point you buy a new refrigerator because repairs on a refrigerator compressor are stupid expensive and likely to fail prematurely.


Are there ways to minimize the area of my septic leach field?

I know you said "However, I insist on a simple system relying on gravity and no pumps", but I am going to ignore this and suggest you consider a mini-sewage treatment works.

We used to own a house with a Klargester biodisc, and it ran without problems for the 10 years we owned the house.  The outflow was clean enough to discharge into a ditch.  One of the advantages of the Klargester is that there is no leech field to get blocked, and if the pump does need to be worked on, it is reasonably accessible.

We did have a problem with the electrical supply (which I fixed by replacing the wire with an armoured cable).  Before I did that, we had to switch off the Klargester when the ground was very wet (otherwise the RCD/GFGI tripped); this means I know that leaving the Klargester without power for a couple of days every so often is not a problem.


How to Apply Decorative Exterior Trim When Trim Width Exceeds Side Casing

If you want those type of details, you need t protect those type of details with the proper methods.

At the head of the window the crown detail will be cut back to the subsiding. This means the siding that is around the window now will need to be removed to make the proper cuts and for proper layering in for weatherization. After the head trim is complete, it will need to be covered with flashing, which in you case most likely will need to be custom bent. It need to be bent so the drip edge is about a 1/4" if possible, 1/2" at most. The flat, which really isn't flat needs to be bent so when it is set in place it will have a slight slope away from the building so no water has any reason to set on top. then the vertical leg to the subsiding needs to be about 2" tall.

The neck band, or parting bead as some call it can be set to the face of the siding, no need to cut the profile into the siding, since most vertical meeting places are caulked only. There are other details that are used nowadays that require the use of a peel and stick around the perimeter of the newly set window, but that will go around the new windows, under the trim you will apply.

The sill needs to be set at an angle, 7 to 12 degree has been the range in the past. The vertical trim meeting the top of the sill needs to be cut the same degree and sealed very well with primer and when set in place, bedding it in a high quality water based caulk and wipe off the excess with a damp sponge. Before all that is done the sill needs to be cut to size, checked for fit, back primed and set in sealant as well since it will most likely be set only on the face of the wall and will not be set in the traditional fashion, as in running into the rough opening and the window set on top.

The sill needs particular attention to the caulk bedding, since the fasteners used to hold it in place will be in critical areas that will allow water in if not dealt with properly and will lead to rotting the framing if not done well.

Its rough, but I hope it gets the idea across


Dense-packed (and only dense-packed, not loose-blown) cellulose is better in walls than fiberglass batts, for a couple of reasons.

It has a slightly higher R-value per inch.
Is is hygroscopic, meaning that it can take up moisture; in doing this, it can protect the structural wood should it ever get wet.
Dense-packed cellulose can improve the airtightness of a stud wall; Fiberglass cannot, and is very strongly negatively affected by a non-airtight wall (furnace filters are made of fiberglass, which shows you how much air can move through them!).
Cellulose is loaded with borate, which makes it pretty much mold-proof. Fiberglass can, paradoxically enough, grow mold if it gets wet and stays wet, especially with the kraft paper facer.

That said, unless your fiberglass batts are wet or moldy, it's probably not cost-effective to remove them, especially if leaving them in means you can avoid tearing off perfectly good drywall. The kraft paper facer on most batts is not a vapor barrier, it's a vapor retarder, which is fine. Very few batts have foil facers, which are vapor barriers. Even if your batts have vapor barrier facers, I see that you live in Wisconsin, which is a place where you can get away with having a vapor barrier without it being too bad (most of the time you don't want a vapor barrier in your walls). I'd leave the batts in.


How to minimise the amount of concrete needed for a shed foundation?

If you'd like to minimize use of concrete, don't use any. I have 4 sheds that have been sitting for 14 years on sections of pressure treated wood, set on top of the ground - and a 5th that's on 4 pressure treated wood posts set into the ground. No concrete at all. Wooden floors (not pressure treated - only the ground-contact wood is PT.)

Nice and dry.


Paints, in order of shininess from least to most, go:
Flat-Matte-Eggshell-Satin-Semi Gloss-Gloss-High Gloss

10+ years ago:
The reason shinier paints are shinier is because they have a greater concentration of binding agents (adhesives). Because greater amounts of adhesives provides a sturdier paint, glossier paints are more durable and washable than flatter paints.

Satin is generally considered a good middle-ground. It's flat enough to not show tiny imperfections but strong enough to endure washing.

Today:
As the chemicals in paints have evolved, flatter paints have become more durable and washable (provided you're dealing with a quality paint).  I'd wager the adhesives in matte paint today do a better job of binding the material than the adhesives you could find in a gloss paint from the 1990s.

Today, it's just a question of:
How shiny do you want your paint to be, keeping in mind that the shiner it is the more imperfections it will show?

(Personal note: I'm pretty thrilled by this development. I never liked shiny paint and just a few weeks ago painted my kitchen with Sherwin-Williams Duration matte turquoise.  Duration is one of their lines that offers washable mattes, and S-W has a very good track record to their name.)


2 load centers under 1 meter: do you need bonding and main breakers at both?

You must buy lugs either way.  Do it right.

You can't double-tap a lug.  You can buy "staircase" lugs that are 1-lug width but provide 2 lugs, but you can't torque one without removing the other.  And they may not fit on your breaker.  In that case, you'd use 3-lug Polaris connectors.

Regardless, these don't come in small-large-large, so you'll have enough for dual 200A connections.

Since you're stuck buying the lugs anyway, it's cost-neutral whether you tap the bottom or top of the main breaker (e.g. Service side or breaker-protected side).  Tapping the service side is a) Very Super Mega Bad from a safety and Code POV, because it's sending power to the subpanel totally unfused, and even worse (if that's even possible) b) since the sub is main-lug, it has no protection whatsoever for the buses - another show-stopper.  Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, c) it will have worse issues with bending radius due to the smaller area there.

So "on the breaker-protected side" is the non-exploding answer.

The breaker protects the wires

Given that the cost of wire is not critical when only going a couple of feet, use wire rated for 200A, so the breaker protects this wire.  (Failing to do so is a codevio).

As long as you tap the breakered side, and use 200A wire, the subpanel doesn't need a main breaker if it has 200A+ busing.  Your baby panel doesn't, so it would need a 100A main breaker, plus likely another pair of 2-lug Polaris to step the 200A wire down to something that will fit on a 100A lug.  Therefore, for this and so many other reasons, I recommend this baby panel go back to the store, and spend a few dollars more on a 200A-bused panel - main lug is fine.

Not least, you won't be back here going "My panel is full, what do I do now?"  Spaces are cheap; regrets are expensive.

Oh, snap: 310.15(B)7

There's one other wrinkle.

Right now, all your service's wiring goes onto the mobile home via those wires.  That qualifies you for an 83% friendly "De-rate" based on NEC 310.15(B)7, since NEC is basically calling this an extension of your service drop, and letting you use service-drop sized wires.

Once you split it to two different destinations, you lose your 310.15(B)7 discount. That means adding this subpanel may make your long-existing cabling to the RV too small.

First, check if that is so.  If it is, this is where you'd want to throw yourself on the mercy of the local permitting authority, and ask them to "grandfather" it.

And if they won't, then you could pull the meter, replace that 200A main breaker box with a 200A main-breaker service panel (as small as you can get it), add a 150A? 175A? breaker feeding the mobile home on its existing wires. Then, this "main" panel will have gobs of extra spaces for whatever you're trying to do here.

Heck, a wise choice of panel might even make a generator interlock both feasible and affordable.


How does National Electrical Code section 300.4 (D) apply in this situation?

I’m not a NEC attorney nor did I stay in that fancy motel last night but one of the “intents” of “the rules” is to reduce the number of material casualties suffered during construction.  A sheetrock craftsman won’t use 16-penny nails to mount sheetrock and is highly unlikely to miss the studs or furring strip with a standard drywall nail or screw, hence the 1 1/4” (and metal plates) rules.   Mr. Homeowner, while installing a shelving unit for knickknacks might use a 16-penny nail but I’m confident wiring a house with EMT would turn expensive in a hurry.


At what height should I install chair rail?

Although this is sort of an arbitrary question, and might get flagged, I'll pen a few thoughts.
There are no real rules to chair rails, I've installed them from 28 to 38 inches. Traditionally, some feature, like a window sill or a side board dictates the height so the lines flow around the room. But I always say, "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder". If you decide to go higher than your sill, be sure to back cut the rail 3 or 4 degrees so it will fit snug to the window trim, no gaps.

Finishing at an outside corner is pretty straight forward. The rail should meet the edge of the outside corner perfectly with a 30 degree miter cut. I think cutting short of the corner makes it look unfinished, especially finishing with a straight cut at the inside corner.  The end miter cut needs to be sanded really smooth so no cut off wood grain shows through your paint. I use a fixed rotatory sander for that job, but a delicate touch with a decent palm sander will work.

Just my humble opinion, hope your job looks great when your done.  Good luck.


Is there any reason (code or otherwise) to not vent one room into another?

There is no code against ventilating your closet into the other room.  There are all kinds of crazy things I have seen to take a room that has great ventilation and move it to another room.   If you go in the south of France you will see fans between the living space that has outdoor access in the connecting rooms.

The only issue becomes if you had toxic fumes (which you wouldn't in another interior room) and this is common with a work area or garage (cars).

As far as going through the attic well attic fans exhaust attic air into your living space and attic air probably isn't as clean as the other air you are breathing as attics often have mold, dirt, and open insulation.  You are just tunneling through using appropriate piping which should be metal ducting or PVC.

Let me tell you why what you are doing is a good idea - since we should all look to make our houses energy optimal - but very flawed at the same time.  It is flawed because during the periods of the year that are cold and you want the next room warm you will be going through a cold attic.  The output of whatever your server generate is no way a furnace, the ducts will get cold and you will end up spitting out cold attic temperature air to the next room.  The fact is the fan plus cold air will cost you energy money.

Really you want to just vent right to the attic when it is warm out.  When it is cold out you want to vent right to the other room.  You could do this with decorative grating/cover between the rooms and possibly the use of a fan in the grate itself.  There are probably a lot of unique ways to create airflow between the rooms, with pipe/duct being an option but not an efficient one as it will not necessarily capture all of the heat and if it does will require a lot of power from a fan.  Nothing wrong with using a fan but it shouldn't need to be on all the time and shouldn't need to require that much force.


Replacement or repair to the wheels of Sliding doors?

I have had issues finding wheels because the MFG went out of business. I found other sets that did not fit but I was able to use the wheel itself by drilling and grinding to remove the damaged wheel on my original hardware and install the wheel from a new piece using a 4-40 screw as the axle since it was ruined on removal, I don’t know how long it lasted as that house was sold a year or so later but it worked and the adjustment still worked a Dremel tool was really handy on that fix.


Why can I see roller marks after I painted?

Most likely, you tried to cover too much area between dunks of the roller in the paint.  The later strokes have less paint, so you're seeing some of the underlying color come through, whether it's primer or another layer of paint.

Some tips that might help:

go back to the roller tray more often.  FWIW, I generally do four to five strokes with the roller between dunks, and do three overlapping sections over the height of the wall, so maybe 10-15 sq.ft. per dunk.
I always count on doing a second coat.  I prefer a couple of thin coats to one thick coat; after the first one has dried, it gives you a chance to see where you need to pay special attention on the next coat, and (for me anyway) it's difficult to get an even coat.
with a freshly-dunked roller, I will start a couple of feet over from where I stopped the previous time, roll back towards that point until I overlap, then change direction and roll until I've gone a couple of feet past where I started.


Where should I dispose watered down, VOC latex paint?

I know the proper way of disposing latex paint is to let it dry and harden and take it to the disposal centre. In this case, it will take years to dry since it's mostly water.

That's your answer. Why do you think it would take years for water to evaporate? How much are you talking about?


Water backup on new double vanity/both sides

I might be wrong, but I'm "Picturing" (hint-hint) that you have a Regular T which has both drains aligned with each other & gravity's supposed to drop the water down the drain that's perfectly in the middle of both sinks. Like this.

 This might be what was previously there & was fine. But, did you change anything like the vertical heights of anything? However, this is actually the wrong setup & allows for a lot of debris build-up & sometimes very poor draining.

-

The correct setup is to actually connect to the P-trap off to one side & straight down from one of the sinks. Then you turn your T side ways (but preferably a WYE fitting...see last picture) to accept a long pipe from the other sink.

-

Here's the best setup, using a WYE. See how the fitting starts the gravity drop.

-

Anyway, I do realize this is likely an Off-The-Shelf Kit & you won't be doing any of the above permanent type of setups. But, stoppers shouldn't be the problem if water's normally exiting the sink. I would take another look around the store & ask about other or better double sink kits. Or, even see if they can help you screw one together of individual parts.

I think you just need to either match exactly what you had before or get a better kit & even a different kit if another setup can work under your sinks. I have run into your problem a number of times before & it was completely remedied by the 2 offset setups above.


Why does significant condensation gather on my bedroom windows overnight?

I would guess that the problem is not a draft from the windows, but moisture in the room, probably caused by having two people sleeping in a closed room.

The warm, moist air in the room will hit the cold window and water will condense.  To eliminate the problem, get more air circulation - open the door, or open the window a tiny bit.  At least try it for a couple of nights to see if that solve the problem.


Wiring diagram/configuration for 8 outlets with 1 GFCI

Whether or not the GFCI is the first as far as proximity from the panel, it would have to be the first if you want it to protect the other receptacles. However, since you're going the route of covering so many receptacles. I'd recommend just getting a GFCI breaker to cover the whole line.

Do you want to have all of the receptacles GFCI covered? You would follow this wiring diagram if so (and continue it on like normal to add in all the rest):

However, with a GFCI breaker you would just wire all standard receptacles like normal and add the breaker in the panel:

If you want the GFCI to only cover itself, then you would connect it as such and then again connect the rest as usual:

(NOTE: For this last image, do know that you need to pigtail off of the receptacle screws in the left side setup. Do NOT connect two wires to a single terminal.)


Why is my cooker tripping circuit breakers?

Based on the timing of your post, English style, and the way you describe your circuit breakers and outage... I am guessing you are in the UK.  You did not mention any blinding, destructive explosion of arc and fire, which says this is not a "dead short" type overcurrent trip.

That all correlates. It's quite common in the UK to have the entire house protected by a RCD, or Residual Current (ground fault) Detector. Your stove has a ground fault.

It's possible it has a single ground fault somewhere in the stove's wiring, possibly in the return (neutral) wiring.

It's also possible it has four separate ground faults, one in each burner, owing to a pattern of use, cleaning or maintenance.

Or there may be a fault in the building wiring.


Will enclosing my porch keep my house warmer?

An enclosed porch can act as an oversized "storm window" for the part of the house it covers, so there is some insulation benefit. How much depends on how well the porch is air-sealed and insulated. It's probably a relatively small part of the surface of the house (unless it's a wrap-around porch), but it certainly won't hurt and, depending on prevailing winds and lighting conditions, might help.

An enclosed porch can also act as an "airlock", reducing how much warm air you lose each time you go in and out by preventing winds from blowing straight into the house. Again, probably not a huge effect, but it's there. And gives you a sheltered place to leave outdoor stuff like bicycles, or muddy shoes that you don't want to track into the house.

I doubt energy savings alone justify it. Those combined with increasing the year-round usefulness of the porch space might.

(Mine just has storm windows all the way around. It definitely does work as windbreak and airlock and so on. Its R-value for the rest of the house is probably negligible, but I still find it useful -- and it gives me a screened porch in the summer as well. Someday I'll upgrade it into a three-season space, but there's no rush right now.)


Replacing outlet; found one white wire hot. How to connect?

I would go with # 2 "Wirenut all three black wires with a pigtail, run the pigtail to the top brass screw; repeat for white running to the top white screw."

That has the advantage over the other methods that if you ever need to replace the outlet again, you can turn off power, remove the outlet, cap the pigtails and turn power back on so that the rest of the circuit has power until you replace the outlet.

However, as you already know, you need to figure out why one of the white wires (which should be neutral) is showing hot. There are two possibilities:

It is  an actual hot wire. That would be very strange, unless it turns out that this outlet is switched (and then actually a switched hot). But if that's the case then the original configuration doesn't make much sense.
It is actually a neutral and is NOT hot, but really a false positive. This can happen if you are using an overly sensitive non-contact tester. A good non-contact tester should be able to distinguish between the neutral and the hot. However, if it is a little too sensitive then it may show the neutral as hot due to induced current over the length of the cable. So the question then is: How are you determining it is hot? If it is using a non-contact tester, then get a multitester and see what voltage reading you get between that white wire and the other wires - black hot should show ~ 120, other whites and grounds should show ~ 0.


Tips for removing stuck screws from bottom of shower door?

Use a manual impact driver to break the screws free. You hit the back of this tool with a hammer and it creates up to 200 lbs/ft of torque.

Alternatively, you can grind a line through the center of the screw with a Dremel grinding disk and use a slotted screwdriver to loosen it if you strip out the Phillips drive.


double wired circuits and grounds and neutrals sharing the same bus bar. Is it OK?

No on several counts.

This looks like a subpanel.  Neutral bars and ground bars must be rigidly separated in subpanels. Period. If there is groundless feeder coming to it, you still need to separate neutrals and grounds for that happy day when you retrofit ground, which is legal anytime. (well, since 2014 for almost all circuits).

Note how the main lugs are double-tapped.  You cannot do that unless the lugs or the equipment they come with says in the labeling or instructions that you can do that.  Because the UL listing depends on following the instructions.

To fix that, see if the lugs are replaceable.  If they are, see if they can be changed to duplex lugs (lugs with 2 voids).   If they can't, then get a 3-hole Polaris connector and a short pigtail for each hot.

Often the small holes in the neutral or ground bar can accept up to a #6, and often those bars have some holes intended for larger wires.  Using those is fine.

Another way to avoid double-tapping on that panel is to move one pair of wires over to a circuit breaker of appropriate size. That's  a $10 solution.  This can double as a subpanel breaker (if needed) or outbuilding shutoff switch (if needed).  For what it's worth, they do make double-stuff breakers in CH.

Speaking of that, you cannot double-tap the neutral bar (2 neutrals on one lug) again unless the labeling or instructions say you can.

Ditto ditto grounds, though I have heard of panels saying you can up to triple-tap a ground lug.


Can I damage my water heater by turning the gas valve to the off position?

No it wont hurt the water heater. Turning the gas on and allowing the burner to operate with an empty water heater would damage it, but no gas, with or without water in the tank will not hurt anything.
Be aware, water left in the tank may smell like rotten eggs until flushed for 10 mins or so prior to use.
It would be ideal to shut off water supply to water heater, shut off the gas on the control valve itself, and drain the water heater.
When youre ready to start using it again, simply open the hot side of a faucet, turn on water supply to the water heater; faucet will spit and blow as the air purges from the hot water pipes. Once faucet is flowing normally, shut off hot faucet, set w/h control to pilot, and light pilot flame per w/h instructions, then follow w/h instructions for setting water temp.

Just NEVER operate a water heater,  gas or electric, with no water in the tank.


Will a 1" thick granite countertop span 22 inches?

The granite should span this without any problems.  But there are a lot of variables, including how thick the granite is, as well as what loads might be applied, and whether the granite is truly free of invisible cracks.

If the granite is easy and inexpensive to replace, I would "go for it".  On the other hand, if you want to play it safe, a good underlayment or some support ribs would strengthen it.  The most important thing is it needs to be evenly supported everywhere it is supported.  Just a speck on a support that prevents it from evenly seating can cause it to crack when a load it placed on it.  So it needs full contact on all supports to prevent this.

Granite is usually placed over plywood or particle board.  Many people prefer plywood, claiming it is stronger.  That is partially true, but the fact is particle board is stiffer, and makes a better underlayment.  People will argue this all day long, but I have seen it demonstrated.  MDF is puported to be stonger, but it is less stiff.  The demonstration was a simple apparatus that measured how many pounds of force are required to flex a board to a small deflection, and the particle board was the most stiff.  The particle board will eventually fail in ways plywood won't, but to support granite, the less flex the more effective the underlayment.


Can I use my old radiator valves when replacing the radiator itself?

From my experience, those valves usually have a shorter lifespan than the radiators they are connected to. I would recommend you replace the valve as many times old valves like leaking once you start messing with it.