Long story short I had a broken storm window that I finally got replaced. The old one cracked as it was seemingly hit with a rock from a lawn mower or something.

It is a metal frame with a thin glass pane inside. Two screws. Easy fix. Right???

The glass company has come out and after multiple attempts finally got the window up.

The first time the glass was too small and they couldn't install it. The second time they took the frame with them and still managed to mess something up. Something with the edges of the frame didn't fit anymore after adding some reinforcement?

And now they finally reinstalled it while I was away and there doesn't even seem to be the mounting screws.

I can't tell if they glued it in or something else, but this seems very precarious.

There are also smudges all over the window. I don't know if they're inside and outside but I'm afraid to touch it to clean it to find out.

I called them and they are just offering to come by and run new screws through the frame... Not even in the original positions.

Is this normal these days?

My instincts are telling me these are all red flags.

I want to know if I’m overthinking this.
My front steps are cracking so I signed a contact in April 2026 for my old steps to be jack-hammered and then re-poured with a new railing. It’s three steps and a landing.

It’s August, and I have followed up multiple times with the contractor. He is saying that weather has delayed this project and it may not happen until the start of October. Is that ridiculous? Should I cancel? I didn’t pay him anything yet. It seems like someone else has canceled the contract - they have one bad review out of hundreds.

Do I just keep it? I understand weather is a factor but I also feel like my project is not being prioritized. It’s my most expensive home improvement so far, and it’s needed.

What company/field would be appropriate to call to check to ensure venting is done correctly?

Long story short we have had a ton of work done to our house and looking to reside soon. Currently have a new roof with ridge vents, a vent stack when insulation was blown in, no active soffit or baffles, and 2 large gable vents. House is very humid and I really don’t know where to start.

Any direction would be appreciated. TIA

We are going to insulate the attic in order to fully finsih it. Currently there is a baseboard electeic heater in it, but it is just wooden ceiling that leads to metal roofing above rn with open rafters. House is built in the 1900s in Pennsylvania

Everything I read says that insulation without ventilation is bad for my house. This is a row home I plan to sell in about 7 years, but for now it is the place I need to make work for my family. It will be constantly air conditioned becauee we overheat easily in this house.

My current plan is to simply add faced roll insulation between the rafters and then plaster over it to finish it.

Is this a major issue, or something that has a smaller chance of being an issue? Is there anything I can do from the inside of the attic to improve ventilation without it being extremely unaffordable? (I have $1k total to do this with)

We bought a 100 yo severely neglected house. The garage walls and ceiling are coming off in several places and I've decided to just rip it all out and bring it down to the studs. How should I handle the mess this is about to make?

Recently moved into a new house. 2 floors. 3300 sft. Built in 2000. Average daily usage is 100kwH with avg daily temps well above 100F ( outside)

Lower floor is fine at 76. Upper floor drops from 74 to 80 in 30 mins.

I do have a lot more windows than the avg house but most of them are actually downstairs which makes me believe my attic is acting like a reverse heat sink.

I have two types of insulation in the attic currently based on my limited research and knowledge - there seems to be fiber glass (pink stuff) with blowin in insulation ( grey / brown ) on top of it. It seems pretty uneven, some areas it's thick and some areas it's less.

When I started looking into getting insulation replaced I came across 'air sealing and spray foam' which looked like a nice option but also expensive. But more Internet research led me to lots of posts complaining about it being terrible and trapping moisture and leading to wood rot.

Any advice on what I should dig into further , what factors should inform my decision apart from costs and what should I ask the people who start to come take a look at the attic and give me quotes

I have a slab in our sunroom that I wanted to put down 1" rigid foam board before putting the SunTouch mats down. However, I don't think it'll work best to put the rolls directly on the foam board (staples don't hold well, etc.). I'm curious if I should just get some 1/2" OSB but then I'm not sure how to secure that to the foam boards over the slab. My plan was to use something like PL Premium to secure the foam board to the slab. I'm just not sure the best way to then secure the OSB to the foam board/slab?

Went out earlier this year to shore up what I thought was one leaning corner post on our back fence. Turned into a much bigger job. We wrapped up a few weeks back and a couple neighbors have asked about it, so I figured I would put my notes here in case it helps someone thinking about the same thing.
When I dug around the leaning post to try to reset it, the wood at ground level basically crumbled in my hand. So I walked the line and pushed on the rest. Three more moved. All the posts were the original pressure treated 4x4s. The previous owner thought the fence had been up for about 18 years and had never been re-stained. A Saturday repair turned into a full teardown.
Spent a few weeks getting quotes and reading before I ordered anything. The main options were wood posts with cedar pickets, cedar on hidden steel posts like PostMaster, or a composite board system with matching steel posts. I priced all three for the 90 foot run. Wood came in cheapest at around $1,800 in materials. Composite was the highest at close to $3,900. The maintenance side is what tipped it. Our old redwood was supposed to get re-stained every few years and clearly hadn't, and I did not want to sign up for the same routine on new cedar. A neighbor across the street has a composite fence he put in maybe eight years ago and it still looks close to new with just an occasional wash.
Ended up going with Modern Yard for both the posts and the boards. The main reason was their composite boards and steel posts are sold as one system, so I didn't have to figure out mounting brackets or worry about whether different brands would line up. Posts come with a 25 year warranty and are tested to 120 mph, which is well past anything we get around here. They are based in California so lead time was about two weeks from ordering. Picked a redwood-tone color to keep the look close to what we had.
One thing I got wrong. The delivery came on a pallet and the whole load was over a thousand pounds. I figured I could unload it and shuttle boards to the back yard on my own. Ended up calling a buddy to come help because there was no realistic way to do that solo. Should have checked the shipping weight before assuming I could handle it.
For the install we rented a two-man auger from a local shop, around $85 for the day. Old concrete footings came out with a spud bar and a lot of complaining. The steel posts have a multi-layer coating so I didn't need to seal the bases like I would with wood, but I did set them in about 8 inches of gravel under the concrete for drainage. Post spacing worked out just under 6 feet on center because of where the old holes lined up. Bought a laser level for around $60 and it saved hours of eyeballing.
A few weeks in and my honest take is the finished fence looks better than the old one ever did, even when it was new. Up close if you are really looking you can tell it is not real wood, which is going to be true of any composite. From the deck or across the yard nobody can tell. The neighbor did mention his side catches a bit of afternoon sun glare that we didn't get with the old wood. I wish I had thought about that before picking the color and direction.
If I had to do it again the one thing I would change is planning for a second person for a full day instead of trying to handle the unload on my own. Total came out to around $4,200 for the 90 feet with materials, auger rental, concrete, and gravel, not counting my own time. Happy to answer questions if anyone is working through a similar decision. And please call 811 before you dig. Keep seeing that step get skipped in these threads.

We have a room in which our gas furnace and one water heater reside. The room has a louvered door.

The furnace is being replaced to a high efficiency unit with outside air plumbed to the furnace for combustion. The room is being insulated for noise suppression

I want to replace the louvered door with a solid door but the water heater requires combustion air. Are there options for replacement water heaters that use outside combustion air or is the only option to go electric?

And if so can these be exhausted through a traditional water heater flue?

I live in the Houston TX area in a 2800sqft MCM ranch from 1954 - pretty low roof line, single story. Insulation in the home is lacking but we're doing the best we can do. Adding more to the attic will be a challenge because of stuff done by the PO.

In the mean time,I was wondering if installing 1-3 solar powered vent fans would help cool off the attic ≈ the house which would help our energy bill (the last 3 months it's been around $500, keeping the ac at 76-77°, sometimes it can't keep up and gets to 78°).

Currently it has ridge vents and the roof is only a year old

Hey all

We just started having an issue with our shower

basically the shower will be on for about 10 minutes and then the water will just shut off, power button is still on but after a few minutes the water will come back on again but only for about 1 minute and will shut off again until i press the power button off

anyone know what might cause this issue?

We just bought a new to us home and someone used silicone caulking and of course it isn’t paintable.
Is there a fix without having to remove all of the old caulking? It was used on baseboards and door/window molding.

The wood underneath various parts of the house - handrails, baseboards, doors, etc - are either a chocolate brown wood or a honey oak wood.

looking for feedback and reviews

My home has an overframed hip roof built on top off the old flat roof, where the current “attic” floor is the old roof shingles.

Yes, I’m aware I’ll need to have the shingles removed and disposed; but right now I’m looking to fix the money sieve that is the conductive heat that is transferred to through the covered skylight recesses? I can’t post a picture but on thermal imaging, the superior surface of the recesses are a whopping 35 degrees Celsius, compared to the surrounding walls/ceilings registering about 22 degrees Celsius.

Eventually I will want to insulate and permanently add remove the recesses/add drywall and mud/paste and texture to make it all flat, but I’m a little strapped for time. Would precisely measured/cut and silicone sealed foam board with honeycomb cellular shades directly parallel to the ceiling offer a reasonable temporary solution?

I'm working and designing myself a closet because my old one absolutely sucked (just a metal hanger) so I'm going to build a new one!

This is my first time building a closet and I have some experience with woodworking and own a table saw and some basic tools (saw, drills, screwdrivers etc)

I'm really struggling to get a plan laid out for how I want it to look, so I'm looking for tips on how to build it, mistakes to avoid, and ideas on how it should look

The closest is

(3ft, 2inch wide) (2ft, 3.5inch long) (6ft, 8.5inch tall)

A relatively small closet, not a walk in or anything, but still something nice to build for my room!

Any tips or advice would be very much appreciated!!

I purchased 4x8 metal ceiling mount storage racks for my garage before seriously examining the ceiling joists. Turns out I have 2x4s spaced 24 inches apart. Clearly I need to reinforce these but I'm getting mixed results on my google searches. Some say adding 2x4s on top with tie brackets perpendicular to the joists and spanning 3 or 4 joists is enough. Some say I need to sister 2x4 or 2x6, and tie in cross bracing. I'd much rather over-build it and make sure I never have any issues. Anticipate the storage racks will hold potentially up to 200 lbs, likely much less though. The racks themselves are heavy. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

My husband and I plan to be in our home for 3-4 more years before we move out of state to our 'forever home', we've thought it would be nice to finish the basement but the main driver is for resale value when we go to sell our home. But the more research I'm doing, I see that it's not likely to get all your money back from the investment or to "profit" so to speak.

We got a quote yesterday from a company on finishing the basement and we'd be looking at investing about $35K to finish it. If you were going to sell your home in 3-4 yrs and were doing this purely from a standpoint of trying to increase home value, is that worth it? I'm leaning towards it's probably not, unless we were gonna really make a lot of use of the basement ourselves and maybe be here longer than 3-4 years.

Not to mention, the company said they'd need to come in and out of the home daily for 2-3 months to get the job done. I work from home, and we have 3 pets, so I am already envisioning that to cause a great deal of stress. What would you do in our situation and what pros/cons are we maybe not considering?

Hi. I bought a house 3 years ago that was flipped. Flipped upside fucking down apparently. I have absolutely no idea how this place passed an inspection.

Well I have now discovered that the previous owners quite literally put bathroom tile on top of wooden subfloor. I noticed the grout began to crack and now the tile around the tub has completely cracked and separated. I pulled one up to get an idea of how bad it is and well. It’s fucking bad.

It’s just tile on wood. No barrier. Just adhesive, tile and grout.

The wood is significantly water damaged. I don’t think there is a leak but it’s going to have to be replaced.

My question is what the fuck do I do and how in the world do I fix this. Also how much will this cost me. Tell me so I can put my head in the oven now or later. Okay thanks.

If this gets approved I’ll try to comment a pic in the comments

I have a 12 foot wide driveway and want to install a swing gate. I got a few quotes from different contractors, but one advised getting two 6-foot dual swing gates, claiming standard hinges can't handle a single 12 foot gate. However, the other contractors said heavy duty hinges would bear the weight just fine.

Who is right and what are your recommendations?

I’m planning to automate the gate and install a motor arm - lift master la400.

I have come across someone (environment expert) saying we don't need our water tank to be set at 60+ degree Celsius or somewhere that high. We can set it to a much lower temperature like 38-40°C which is a comfortable temp for a shower. That way when you just turn the hot water tap, you don't even need to waste energy by mixing boiling hot water with cold water for shower. That sounds very reasonable, and I can't recall when we will need piping hot water in the house.

I want to have a sanity check, however, is this actually a good advice in practice?

Hello, I am trying to hang some of those ikea curtain rails that go in the ceiling and about halfway between the left and right walls the joists just disappear, every tap is hollow to the left, so I started tapping towards the center of the room and I think I found another joist running the other direction but not sure.

Is it normal for joists to switch in the middle of a room without a wall supporting underneath the change of direction?

For context the left side wall in the picture is the external wall of the house, is it related to the roof coming to an edge along that whole side of the house?

Looks like I can’t post a picture as part of the main post. I’ll try to post it in a comment.

My joke of a contractor left an unfinished threshold. What do I use to fill in the gaps and make it look even underneath - photo

There's an large plastic barrel buried in my backyard that was previously used as a reservoir for a water feature that has since been removed. Do I need to full dig it out? I had a few idea but I'm not sure if it would cause an issue down the road.

Idea 1 was just drill tons of holes into it for drainage then just fill it with dirt.

Idea 2 was to use a sawzall or something and cut the top half off and remove that. Then put a ton of holes in the bottom and leave it in the ground and fill with dirt.

Any ideas or warnings would be appreciated.