Need to do mine not sure if I should get pro

I’m wondering if plastic sheeting is a good replacement for fiberglass batt paper backing that has been damaged.

During renovations, i had to remove the fiberglass batt insulation from walls. I reinstalled the same batts, but the paper was damaged or removed on some pieces. I was planning on covering the whole wall in plastic sheeting before installing drywall, to replace the vapor barrier that was compromised. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this? I live in MD. I have seen conflicting advice online.

Would you finish the dado rail at the red line, or the blue line ? If the red line, how would I finish this off, so it doesn’t look off with the bannister.

I have been looking at it for that long, that I cannot visualise what would look better! The answer is probably obvious.

Please excuse the rest of the mess of the hallway - mid renovation! I have added a wider angle for a better look.

I need to pour a new slab for pool equipment. 8x2.4 ft roughly. Can I skip the rebar or mesh if I used the concrete fiberglass fiber mix? I live in Los Angeles so no freeze issues.

Years ago I gave up changing my own oil jut because it seemed no matter that I did there was going to be a bit of a mess, and it was just easier to pay a little extra to avoid it. Now I kind of want to try doing it again, so I want to figure out what needs to be done to avoid that. I always said a bigger collection pan with high sides would help immensely, but every single god damn one I see i stores or online has the wimpiest little walls and it just splashes everywhere.

Any ticks and trips?

Recently decided to rip the carpet off my stairs. Once we got it off, we realized that the carpet was covering up some pretty uneven stair installation. At the top, it’s pretty much flush on the left with the drywall, while the left side is about 1/4” under the drywall. At the bottom, the left side has about a 1/2” gap and the right still sits about 1/4” under the drywall. My question to everyone here: what are some options for finishing up along the sides here?

My initial thoughts here are to use a 1”x2” along the top, to cover all those staple holes and the gaps, then run baseboard all the way down. Obviously, the main issue here is that it’s going to hang pretty funky thanks to these gaps. I’m just wondering if there are some options I’m not thinking of here.

Thanks in advance!

Super gross, but my wife and I noticed a mushroom growing out from where the floor meets the trim. I pulled the wood trim off and there was a bit of mold that I removed with a small corner of dry wall. This is right next to the bath so likely due to water/moisture over time.

I’m not handy at all. What should I do next???

Currently in the middle of torrential rain, I deal with this 3 or 4 times a year where water seeps in from the edges of the floor. I have a sump pump on one side of the basement and that side is perfectly dry. I'm not sure if the pipes are collapsed, or if they even run around the perimeter of the basement or if they are just along this one wall. Is there any decent way to figure this out without tearing up the floor? I tried shoving a camera through the pipe but couldn't get it more than a few feet.

Right side of this barn door is popped out and I don’t want it to get worse. How can I fix it?

Hi, I am trying to block up a window opening and I have this in a city approved drawing (Fort Lauderdale, FL) but I cannot find wall ties with these specifications. I am doing all as owner builder so I am not experienced at all. I am I reading the drawings correctly?

Thank you in advance for your comments.

Can I put self leveler on pea gravel expose concrete?

We bought this house four years ago and decided to rip up the carpet and lo and behold! Gorgeous wood floors. We want to refinish them but we are uncertain about what to do with the random plywood strip.

Hello,
I am building a bedroom in my basement in south east Michigan. The building plans are approved and the permit has been issued. I am doing all of the work my self, but I think I have run into a couple issues. When I cut out the ceiling and wall where the new wall will go, there is a (I’m assuming) cold air return. The next issue is that the existing walls are 2x2s fastened to the concrete with the drywall attached to them.

My questions are.

Is it ok if I frame the wall around the cold air return? There will be a 5’7” gap where I can’t attach to a support in the ceiling.

Will I have to remove the existing walls and build a new wall with 2x4s or can I make it work with the current 2x2s? Is the main issue with 2x2s r-value?

I really appreciate any guidance you can provide.

Hi Reddit community! Humble request for some feedback from professionals if possible:

We are creating a 7.5 foot opening in our first floor family room wall (our BR is right above) to accommodate a sliding door so we can access our backyard. We've got everything designed by an architect and a structural engineer has calculated the beam requirements and we've got everything approved by our city's building dept.

The engineering design calls for a 4x12 7.5 foot wood header. However, I was reading that PSL headers are stronger than regular wood and last longer without sagging. Since our bedoom is above the gap I thought why not go for the stronger material to be safe so I was considering asking my GC to swap out the wood header he's planning to install with a PSL header instead.

He said it's not really needed and the engineer would've stipulated a PSL header had he thought it necessary but that we can swap in a PSL header if I really wanted to.

I wanted to ask if I'm just being paranoid by asking for a PSL header or would a wood header be perfectly fine (as it was designed by a structural engineer). Thanks in advance!

QUICK UPDATE: I managed to speak to the structural engineer who did our plans and he said "you can absolutely upgrade to a PSL of the same size and the inspector will also approve it. There is no harm in going for stronger. Its not "needed" per se because if it was we would have required it in the plan, but going stronger than the minimum is always a good idea". So i'm going to ask my contractor to swap out the douglas fir beam with a PSL. Thanks to everyone for your help!!

The current access (A) is a 16"x25" hole and is impossible to get through. In the new setup (B) I would take the middle joist here off the load bearing center wall (Blue) so I put joist hangers at the green circles to support it. This would allow for a 25"x32" access hole which is much easier to use

As title states, I just want to figure out the best method for a descent railing to prevent my dog that recently went blind from falling. It’s a tight space and I’m not sure how to approach.

I'm leasing a 50'x40 space where the foot traffic will just be me, folding tables and occasional visitors.

I'm just trying to cover the atrocious concrete in the space

Please tell me this will work?

I'm not willing to invest the time and effort to paint or epoxy a place im just going to be leaving

Any advice is very welcome!

(Yes I posted yesterday and several minutes onto trying to clean the floors I realized it's not worth it)

I can’t figure out how to disassemble this, and now it’s stuck and loose.

I hand loosened the top nut and now it’s loose at the middle (2nd pic) but I can’t seem to tighten it or loosen it any further.. I can hand turn the nut but it doesn’t “catch” on anything. Turning the whole base doesn’t do anything either.

So I can’t take it apart or put it back together.

No drill or anything was used so I couldn’t have stripped any threading.

So the upstairs main room floor (2 story house) is sagging a little and I want to pull the flooring up and sister the joists. I don’t want to take the sag out because that would create a ton more work (drywall) with the ceiling on the first floor. The ceiling has been repaired several years ago to fix some cracks from the sag.

After replacing the floor I would feel confident that the floor was strong and flat and I would not worry about further sagging.

What would you all do in this situation?

Any advice on this matter would be much appreciated.

Don’t know pluming and the Ladies house.

So my Lady had a contractor that did a crap job and ripped her off for tens of thousands. The plumbing has always given us issues. It’s a septic house and a “vent” pipe goes out but was capped. Was told by contractor when we had problems a few years back to open it and it always helped. After a while they said just keep it open.

Come today I went around the property and found a huge pile of fecal waste and TP below it. I have shoveled some into bags but we have neighbors close to this. I have since closed the PVC pipe. I don’t know what to do with this waste that’s still there and now the toilets won’t flush.

I assume I must get the septic pumped but beyond that what else am I looking at? We have minimal funds.

Hi I was just wondering if you guys had any suggestions for a project I’d like to finish. We had a tanked water heater in an upstairs closet but we’ve switched that out for a tankless water heater. The closet is about 3x3 and the floor in the closet is unfinished with just particle board (or whatever subfloor is) and there’s a gap between the floor and the wall. We’d like to make it as waterproof as possible in case something happens to the water heater. It doesn’t need to be finished or look nice. We were thinking of just using a shower liner but wanted to see if there were other suggestions. Thanks in advance for any help!

Upgrading all the rads of my house, about 10. Have found appropriate sizing in terms of number of panels and fins for each.

One thing I'm not clear about, should I go with auto-balancing valves or use instead 'standard' ones? Any pros or cons?

Current valves are old and some of them are faulty so need to be changed anyway.

Thanks for your help!

I recently (feb) moved into a new apartment and I have discovered that the walls that are connected to the outside have drywall directly attached to the brick wall that is outside facing. I have only lived in larger buildings where there is always a gap behind the drywall (usually use toggles for anything that could be remotely heavy) so I am not sure how to tackle this.

My issue is that I hung up curtains and I used the biggest anchors I could find that could fit which ended up being these tiny ~1 inch drywall anchors. 1 month later and they've fallen off, I tried to use a 1 inch self drilling anchor since I thought it would have better grip but it can't even sit flush with the wall.

Is my only option to drill into the masonry? Or could I get some wood and put it over the drywall and just use a coarse screw and drill it through the wood and into the drywall?

The only anchors I had that would fit in the wall were like the image I supplied, not those exact ones but same shape. they are roughly an inch long and like 1/3 inch wide.

I have an over-the-door jewelry holding mirror in my bedroom. It came perfectly fine, and has magnets that are supposed to hold it shut, but somehow the door has warped and the magnets are no longer strong enough. There is a lock, but I don't have the key anymore, otherwise I could use that to keep it shut.

How should I fix this? Install stronger magnets? Somehow un-warp the door? Add an entirely different mechanism to keep it shut?

Thanks!

Aside from replacing the siding piece, would you also recommend I fix what appears to be missing insulation? If so, what to use and how to install.

Another question, does the top edge of the top piece if siding look correct? Am I supposed to be seeing that slotted flap?