July 6, 2010 AsktheBuilder News And Tips
What’s in This Issue?
Latest News
Metabo Cordless Drill
Pocket Door Photo Could Be Worth $100
Paslode Tools and Breast Cancer
Ceramic Tile Over a Stained Concrete Floor
Deck Construction & Maintenance Checklist
Remember, Do It Right, Not Over!
I do product reviews frequently. Please read my Disclosure Policy to understand the relationship between me and the companies that make the products or offer the services I review.
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Latest News
I started to write this newsletter on June 22nd. Then life got in the way. My daily life is starting to seem like one of those spinning rides you see at county fairs. All the details in and about the upcoming move, I'm moving my wife and daughter up from Cincinnati, OH to NH, are consuming me. Each day the mental vertigo seems to get worse.
Tomorrow I drive back from NH to Cincinnati the second-last time to load up the truck and trailer with many special outdoor plants that Kathy wants up at the new house. The moving company has clearly communicated no guarantees with moving plants. This means I move them as Kathy treats many of them as if they were her babies. In many respects they are, as she's nurtured them for years.
I'm only in Cincinnati for a week, back to NH for perhaps 12 days then drive back to Cincinnati to attend the closing on the house sale and the final packing. The moving van arrives at the Cincinnati house on August 17th.
As I type this, it's July 5th and I can see Provincetown off in the distance as I look across Cape Cod Bay. It's my first time ever to this magical place. I've always wanted to come here, but never made it.
I'm on the beach a guest of some great friends of mine who have inherited a legacy 104-year-old beach house up on top of a dune in Truro, MA. The breeze is amazing, but it's hot as Hades in the sun today. I just scorched my feet walking up the wood steps from the beach. Earlier today, I was at a house two doors down doing a wood-deck consult. More on that later in this newsletter.
Here's the original open for the newsletter I wrote over two weeks ago:
Last week I was in Washington DC for a two-day event about Internet Advertising. On the second day I met with the Senior Policy Advisors of five US Senators. It was a fascinating civics lesson to be sure. The meetings were an attempt to convey to the advisors how a proposed bill might affect you and small businesses like me.
There's a draft bill in the House about Internet Privacy. If passed in its current form, it could potentially shut down websites similar to AsktheBuilder.com that allow you free access to information. If you haven't already figured it out, I'm only able to give away this newsletter, all my columns, and videos to you for free because of the advertising revenue I'm able to generate.
The privacy issue is complex and one aspect deals with information you pass on to third-party networks such as the IP (Internet protocol) address of your computer. Each computer has an IP address much like your social security number. When you visit a site like mine I'm able to use your IP address to serve you with highly relevant ads.
Here's an example. Let's say you have a clogged sewer line any you live in Scranton, PA. You come to my website and read my columns about clogs. Lo and behold, in that column are ads for drain-cleaning companies and plumbers who are based in Scranton PA! That's exactly what you need, not ads for tennis rackets, shampoo, or plumbers in Sacramento, CA.
Can you see how targeted ads help you solve problems around your home? I thought so. Make sure you contact your representatives telling them that you feel the Internet works just fine right now and they should concern themselves with creating jobs, lowering our budget deficits and our national debt, etc. Right now the Internet and technology sectors are one of the few things in our economy hitting on all eight cylinders and some politicians are trying to muck it up.
Metabo Cordless Drill
I just tested another cordless drill while constructing a storage loft in my garage here in New Hampshire. It was the Metabo BS 18 LTX cordless 18-volt cordless drill. This powerful tool comes with two batteries, an air-cooled charger and swivel handle.
It was comfortable to use and didn't disappoint me with respect to power and torque. For a full list of features and a great photo of the drill, you can visit the Metabo website. Run your mouse over the photo of the drill and watch what happens. That's a clever use of Javascript!
Your Pocket-Door Photo Could be Worth $100
If you've been a subscriber to this newsletter for any length of time, you know I love pocket doors. These are the doors that disappear into walls when you open them instead of swinging on hinges. Pocket doors take up less floor space and open up interior design options in your home.
L.E. Johnson, the manufacturer of the pocket-door hardware I use, is willing to pay you $100 if they decide to feature a photo of your pocket door in their online gallery. If you'd rather have a credit to purchase more hardware from them, they'll give you a $200 product credit. All the details are at their website. Be sure to take a great photo. You'll see examples at the website.
Paslode Tools and Breast Cancer
If you own a Paslode framing nailgun tool, you can trick it out and help Nail the Cure by purchasing stickers that go on the gun. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds are given to the Susan G. Komen For the Cure organization. More details are here:
Ceramic Tile Over a Stained Concrete Floor
Tameka Jones from Kilgore, TX wrote to me asking:
Tameka, great news for you young lady. You don't have to do anything to the floor other than make sure it's in the same plane. This means fill in any low spots so that the floor has no humps or dips in it.
To get the best results, you should install a crack-isolation material over the concrete and then apply your thinset mastic on top of that. This eliminates the bonding issue between the stained concrete and the thinset you're concerned with.
Deck Construction and Maintenance Checklist
As I said earlier, about three hours ago I was consulting with an older woman who has a gorgeous beach house on the dune just south of where I'm staying. I met this woman at dinner last night. Somehow she discovered I was the Ask the Builder guy and we got to talking about her worn deck.
She's got rusted nails that are protruding from the deck and wondered what her options were. I went over and showed her how easy it is to hammer the nails back in and set them below the wood surface with a nail set. I also presented her with more costly options that would make it so she never had to get a hammer out again.
On top of that, I'm getting ready to paint the exterior of my home in NH. The builder who constructed my home did a pretty good job on the entire house, but he totally fell down when constructing the huge deck on the back of the house and the small one at the front door. He didn't flash them correctly, and this is causing some rot problems with the wood trim around the windows and doors below the deck.
Maybe you're getting ready to build a new deck soon or in the future. Are you sure you know many of the pitfalls? To help you prevent problems like I have plus avoid all sorts of other deck nightmares, including sealing and maintaining wood decks, I recently did a massive revision to my Deck Checklist. If the older woman I just visited had this checklist years ago, I wouldn't have had to go see her. There would be no protruding nails. Had the builder of my NH house had my deck checklist, there'd be no wood rot at my house and he wouldn't have a list of angry customers.
The revised checklist has 50 percent more questions than the original. I've included links to all my existing deck construction and maintenance columns and videos, and photos of my existing deck connections. I've also included an illustration and a detail I've drawn that will show you how I'm going to install flashing to solve my deck problem. In other words, this checklist is a pretty good roadmap that will help you construct the deck you want, or it will help you find the pro who will end up doing it the right way.
In a couple of weeks when I'm back in NH, I'm going to do a first-ever promotion with this checklist. Not only are you going to be able to get this checklist for an enormous discount, there is going to be an added bonus I've NEVER done before. Wait until you discover what it is. The sad part is that only 1,000 people are going to be able to take advantage of this special live event.
Watch for more details about this in the newsletter next week. Yes, I promise to have a newsletter next week - even with the insanity going on in my life right now.
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