On Bathtub Replacement - Prep Work

There are any number of situations that lead to people wanting to replace their bathtub. Maybe the black grime and tarnish in the grout and sealant, no matter what you scrub and rinse it with, won’t go away. Maybe you have a crack in the tub. Maybe the very sight of your bathroom makes you feel stagnant and you very simply need a change. Maybe the way you prefer to treat yourself is a deeper tub with more room to soak or some water jets. And these are just some of the more common ones I’ve heard over the years. The reasons are endless but are ultimately moot to the actual work, unless it’s an entire overhaul of the bathroom itself.

As a local friend pointed out over the weekend, what is really important is the prep work and knowledge. What I might consider common sense as a contractor are actually things people forget in the rush of picking out new designs and colors and budgeting the project. In fact, the very first thing that should be done is extensive measuring of the tub and the space around it.  In this case, mark down all the dimensions of the bathtub itself, as you will want a bathtub the exact same size as your current one – length, width, height and depth.  You’ll also want to note the length between your fixtures, such as the length from your bath faucet and your showerhead, the curtain (front of your tub) to the ceiling and other such measurements. Have these at the quick and ready when you go to buy your new bathtub.

You should have as many measurements as possible really, for your plumber and for when you actually pick out the unit you want. Just as important, however, is remembering which side of the rub your faucet and showerhead are on. Any plumber or handyman or contractor will tell you that the plumbing for your bath is one of the first things to get done during home construction, as far as the interior goes. So, unless you’re looking to spend a great deal of money to switch the side of your bath’s plumbing, it is essential to get a design where the cuts for the overflow, drain and faucet are on the same side as your old design. Again, this might be seen as common sense to some but when prepping a sizable job such as this, the devil is in the details.  

On Tile Repair

Just two days ago, I wrote about how you might go about fixing squeaks in carpeted and hardwood floors, a common, pestering and often ignored problem in the home. A friend of mine was good enough to point out that I left out a few other types of flooring, the most prominent of which being tiled floors. Damage to tiles is often done with the most minor and ignorable of actions: Erosion from constant wear, scrapes from furniture and other harsh edges, dirt rubbed and ground in, dropped items both weighty and sharp, and certain chemical cleaners. Naturally, replacing damaged tiles is something that comes up frequently, especially in kitchen floors and bathrooms. You’ll need the following items:

·         Colored Masking Tape

·         Replacement Tiles

·         Nails & Hammer

·         Chisel

·         Trowel

·         Grout & Grout Float

·         Sponge

·         Set Mortar

·         Gloves (optional)

Begin by taping off the surrounding area of the tiles with the masking tape, being sure to cut the tape before the grout, as that will be getting replaced as well. So, the damaged tile(s) and the grout directly surrounding it should be taped off. Take a nail and hit it into the center of the damaged tile(s) to shatter the tile and make it easier to pick up in pieces. Use a chisel to clear out every last trace of the old tile, so that you can lay the new tile on an even surface. (You might want to use gloves while picking up the small shards to make sure you don’t get cut.)

Once the space is clear, take your replacement tile(s) and put a very thin layer of thin set mortar on the bottom of the tile with a trowel. Make sure it is just enough to set the tile in place, as you don’t want to have any mortar squeeze up around the sides of the tile. Let it dry (six to eight hours, to be safe) and then lay down some grout using a grout float to make sure it gets deep into the surrounding area.  When you’re done, use a sponge to clean up any unwanted grout on the tile(s). Let the grout dry and pull up the tape to take a look at your brand new tile(s). That’s enough about flooring for now. 

The Advantages of "Custom"

If you are unfamiliar with what exactly makes a custom window treatment (or any other custom-made fabric product for your home) so different from its store bought counterpart, this article might be useful to read before you start the custom design process.

The following are some of the most important advantages of purchasing custom, not store bought:

See it to believe it. We all know the old saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Unfortunately, with custom window treatments, that saying doesn't quite apply. Many of the factors that make a custom window treatment so extra special can't be seen in a picture. Custom draperies, for example, are fully lined, making them fuller and heavier. Our custom draperies weigh about 2 - 2.5 pounds per panel on average, whereas the same size, unlined store bought curtain weighs less than a pound. Of course, there are some store bought curtains that are lined. Unfortunately, most are lined with cotton percale fabric, which is a thin sheeting fabric with a low thread count. While it may help to block out the sun and prevent fading to some extent, it does little to add fullness to a drapery.

Lining makes the difference. Custom draperies are lined with a thicker poly cotton fabric that blocks the sun in the best way possible (up to SPF 50). The polyester component in the lining gives a drapery more strength and fullness. Lining is especially useful in rooms that experience more moisture and evaporative fumes. That's because cotton captures and releases these fumes much easier, making lined window treatments a must in busy kitchens and bathrooms. As you see, the ideal lining is made of both cotton and polyester.

Tailored to your needs. Custom window treatments are made especially for your room the way you'd like. Store bought curtains are designed to please the majority of consumers. These include curtains that are made with solid, neutral colours and standard sizes. If you need to dress a very wide nursery window in pink and brown toile fabric, you will have a hard time finding the perfect window treatment that you want. Decorator fabrics come in a wide range of colours, prints, and sizes, giving you endless custom options that most store bought curtains don't offer.

A wise investment. On average, people who purchased custom window treatments keep their custom drapes on their windows for seven years. Store bought curtains are changed every one to two years. The quality of custom window treatments is better, but going after the look that you really want instead of the look that is available will also keep you happy with your room for many years longer. Many of our clients tell us what a relief it is to finally see a custom window treatment on their windows. Unique window treatments are not easy to find if you're looking for a specific look to fit your room. Most consumers start designing their rooms with matching furniture, pictures, walls, and little accents, only to see their designs come to a screeching halt when they realize that they can't find a matching curtain.

There are many more reasons why custom is better than store bought, but the most important one of them is simply value. Custom window treatments pay for themselves throughout all the years that they gracefully cover your windows.

On Squeaks

Squeaky floorboards are one of those things that most people consider a necessary evil of homeownership. Some people think it’s a sign that the entire floor is about to give way, or that a poltergeist is secretly creeping around, or that they really need to hit the gym. In reality, this is a natural deterioration of the floorboards that have dried out after awhile and are now sliding and grinding against each other; there’s also the factor of unstable subflooring. Bare hardwood floors tend to be the main culprits but the squeaks are still perceivable in carpeted areas and tiled areas.

Fixing these common annoyances is an easy enough project for an active home improvement weekender. In any situation, the first thing to do is locate the squeak and mark it with some electrical tape. Now, the toughest situation is when you have no way of getting under a bare hardwood floor and must fix it from above. This will require a drill, breakaway screws, matching screwdriver bit and a depth-control fixture. (O’Berry makes a handy Counter-Snap Kit for this sort of job, which you can usually find for less than ten bucks.) Drill a pilot hole (approximately 3/32 in.-dia) and use the depth-control fixture provided in the kit to drill one of the provided screws into the hole until it snaps off. To conceal the work, fill the hole with wood putty.

Carpeted floors that need to be looked at from above can be similarly fixed. In this case, I highly suggest O’Berry’s Squeek-No-More Kit, which contains everything you’d need for this job, including breakaway screws and a pilot screw for locating joists. If you have a joist locator, it’s a bit easier and quicker. Using either, locate the joist that is in closest proximity to your squeak and mark it. To ensure your carpet doesn’t get damaged, wrap the special breakaway screw with scotch tape when you drive the screw through the fixture. Screw it in and then use the fixture’s side to break off the top of the breakaway screw. All of the work you’ve should be concealed by the carpeting.

The more common and easier task is fixing squeaks from underneath, through a basement. Have a member of your family or a friend walk over the squeaky area while you’re below. Take a thin wooden shim, cover it with carpenter’s glue and tap it into the area between the closest joist and the subfloor. Follow this up with a drywall screw driven through the joist, the shim and into the subfloor at an angle. This is an easy enough fix, but for a more secure fix, get your hands on a hold-down bracket – the most popular one is the Squeak-Ender. This usually consists of a steel mounting plate being held next to the trouble-spot’s closest joist, screwed into the subfloor and then tightened via attached nuts so that the joist and the floor are brought closer together. This should cover most squeaky situations but if you have more questions, feel free to ask.

        

Home Composting: 10 Ways to Make it Successful for You

Gardening is a fun and invigorating activity. It keeps one busy and productive and brings the creativity and ingenuity in everyone. Gardening beautifies our homes but it also produces a good deal of yard waste. What better way to make this waste work out for you than to use it to enrich your garden through composting? You'd be making your soil more fertile for the health of your plants and at the same time, you'd be helping you community dispose of waste in the cleanest, cheapest and easiest manner. Here are some simple ways to make home composting successful for you:

1. Select the best compost material. Composting is simply simulating, if not imitating nature's natural process of breaking down dead matter and using it to replenish the soils nutrients. The best source would obviously be your own yard waste such as the dried leaves, straw and wood chips from your own vegetation. Experts recommend using browns and greens. Browns are rich in carbon while greens are rich in nitrogen.

 2. Correct combination of compost materials. To make home composting successful, it is better to combine different compost materials that to use just one type. Combine some of the materials mentioned in the above tip and shred them into small pieces to make them easier to store in case you might want to pile them later.

3. Use of manure can also mean successful home composting. Manure is also a rich source of organic materials and may come from a variety of animals such as chicken, ducks, pigs, sheep, cow and goats. They are rich sources of nitrogen which plants need in building up their tissues. It is best to layer this manure with dried leaves and to not simply add it into the pile s that it is effectively decomposed and incorporated into the compost.

4. Cold composting. Cold composting is easy enough to do which involves piling all the materials you have chosen as compost materials. Put them up in a pile and give them time to decompose, after months or a year, you'd have a rich compost from the decomposition of these materials.

5. Hot composting is more systematic and laborious than cold composting but it works. The pile should be at least 3- feet deep and is made up of alternating materials. Water is sprinkled regularly on the pile keep it most for microbial growth and action. Once in a while, you may mix the pile to expose the lower layers to oxygen and promote further decomposition of organic matter. This should generate some heat in the compost as gases are produced with the breakdown of organic matter.

6. Stink management is also a key to successful home composting. If the pile is not aerated enough, it begins to give off a bad odor. To resolve this problem, turn and mix the pile once in a while. Do not allow your compost pile to simply stink up.

7. Keep moisture level up but not too much. Adding too much water will waterlog your microorganisms which will not be good for them too and will inhibit their decomposing activities.

8. If the pile is dry and is not heating up, one has to do the entire pile all over again and this time cut the materials into smaller pieces. Add enough water also to make the entire pile moist to stimulate microbial activity.

9. No matter how you are promoting the decomposition of organic waste, you compost should not be a breeding ground for flies and ants that can be sources of diseases and may hard your plants in the long run. Another key to successful home composting is management of these insects by covering the pile with dirt. It does not do if these insects would proliferate in your compost because they may do more harm than your compost may do you good.

10. For a successful home composting, keep your compost pile within your yard. It should be contained within a particular space so it does not look like a dumpsite of some sort. Building a simple fence may do the trick. Your enclosure should also allow some air to get in through the sides.

On Replacing Light Switches

Last week, I wrote about diagnosing flickers and it made me think about one of the simpler things homeowners can do in terms of electrical work: replacing your light switch. It’s something that shouldn’t come up too often but it is both important and a relatively easy for a novice to take on.  You’ll want to have the following items when you go about replacing the switch:

•         New Switch
•         A Screwdriver (Multi-head may be needed)
•        Circuit Tester
•        New Switch Cover (optional)

Of course, working with electricity always carries an inherent risk, but replacing your switch cover keeps you relatively far from any risky wires and currents. Still, as always, the first thing to do is go to your electric panel and turn the breaker sending a current to that area to the Off position. Go upstairs afterwards and flick the switch to make sure it doesn’t work, ensuring you turned off the right breaker. Unscrew and remove the cover plate before unscrewing and pulling out the old switch.  While doing this, be weary of the wiring and be careful not to pull it out too much or crack the wires.

Be on the look out for black wires, which should either be uniformly black or should be marked by black electrical tape. (On occasion of a lazy electrician, the wire connected will be an unmarked white wire, which you can fix by simply wrapping the end of the wire with black electric tape.)  Disconnect these black wires to fully remove the old switch while leaving any white, green or copper wires alone. (You might want to also mark which black wire goes to which terminal with markers or tape.) Grab your new switch and connect the black wires to the brass terminals on the backside of the new switch and put it in the exact same space as the old switch. Screw the box back into the space and then screw the cover plate back over it. Switch the breaker back on and test it to be sure.    

A fun thing to do, as part of this whole rigmarole, is paint or add a design to your cover plate. It’s especially a fun activity to do with kids who will respond better to bold, unique colors; it will keep them occupied while you are completing the task. The entire task, not including the buying of the new switch, should take you less than an hour. And be sure to test your circuit to make sure that the switch is the problem, if this replacement is in response to a light not working. When it comes to electrical work, the reasons for currents being interrupted are myriad.  

On Flickers

The first thing most people do (rightly) when they see a bulb flickering is try to replace it, or just chalk it up to bad weather or a momentary dim from a momentary glitch. Most of the time, this is all a flicker denotes but some flickers (think a three-to-four-second flicker) can become annoyances and represent a fault that requires either immediate or forthcoming repair.  Now, to be sure, we’re not talking about the expected dims that can come from CFL bulbs (the twirly, spiral energy-saving ones) connected to dimmer switches, but rather repetitive flickers that usually coincide with other electrical usage.

Consistent flickers are usually due to a poor connection in your wiring, affecting a singular part of your circuit. If an entire circuit is affected, the source of the problem will likely be in the breaker or, less frequently, the panel; the panel is a regular source for flickers on an entire circuit. But we’re talking about consecutive flickers coming from a single source. For an example, let’s say an overhead light is flickering every time you turn it on at night. The source of the problem will almost always be spotty connections coming from the light fixture, the switch box or the outlet. To help diagnose which one it is, one should mark when the flickering occurs and for how long. For instance, if it starts immediately as you flip the switch, the likely culprit is the switch box. It’ll make for an easier project, whether you’re trying to fix it yourself or you’re hiring a professional.

Though this seems like a minor issue, these problems almost always cause arcing, which can heat up connections or wires and lead to further problems either with the single fixture or the overall circuit if it goes unchecked. Smaller, fickle outages will likely be unable to be diagnosed until they erupt in an outright open. In any case, the rule of thumb here is to trust a professional electrician with these problems though, if you do go DIY, be sure to shut off electricity to the entire circuit if you’re attempting to replace or repair the wiring or connection.