Chimney Might Be Roof Leak Location

Posted on by Tim Carter
stone chimney with leak and efflorescence salts

This chimney is not watertight. Look at the huge efflorescence stain. Water is entering the chimney higher up and then leaking out just above the white salt deposits. Copyright 2024 Tim Carter

Your Chimney Might Be Your Roof Leak Location

Roof leaks plague countless homeowners each year. Talk to experienced roofers and they’ll be the first to tell you the vast majority of leaks happen at flashings. A roof flashing is a transitional material. It connects your roof to something that’s not your roof.

Plumbing vent pipes, dormers, turbine vents, chimneys, pot vents, powered attic ventilation fans, solar-array-panel brackets, etc. are all examples of things that are not a roof but found on roofs. Experienced roofers know how to flash around all these things. What’s more, they know the best flashing material to use.

Flashings should be made from materials that will last longer than the actual roofing material. Caulk is not in this list. Tin-coated steel used to be the flashing material of choice by roofers for well over 100 years. But restrictive EPA laws have kicked that wonderful material to the curb because it contained lead. Sheet lead and copper are excellent flashing materials and I find it quite curious that sheet lead is readily available while tin is not. Go figure!

Brick Chimney Mortar Joints

Two weeks ago I had a business conversation with a peer. She owns two homes, one on Cape Cod and the other one in Connecticut (CT). At the end of the conversation, she told me her CT home has a roof leak. “Tim, I have this pesky leak seven or eight months out of the year. The ceiling area near my brick chimney gets wet. I never see moisture in the deep winter months. A roofer looked at the chimney and found two small holes in the counter flashing where nails had rusted away. Perhaps that’s the source of the leak.”

Her simple statement of the facts gives all sorts of clues as to what the source of the leak might be. Did you pick up on any of them? My leak radar was immediately set off by the fact it’s a brick chimney.

This smart woman is also a semi-professional photographer. She used a telephoto lens to take close-up photos of the chimney from the ground. I could see she had a very nice metal chimney surround that appeared to be in very good condition. For me, this meant the leak was probably not caused by the chimney crown.

Think of your chimney as a tiny house that sits up on your roof. It needs a roof of its own. Chimney crowns are roofs for a chimney and the vast majority of them are installed incorrectly. The Brick Industry Association (BIA) developed years ago the most authoritative set of instructions that show exactly how to make a chimney crown waterproof. Go here to see the full index of all the BIA Technical Notes. Scroll down to locate any that deal with chimney crowns.

I shared with this woman my thoughts about her roof leak based on the evidence she provided. Keep in mind this is a 200-mile-away diagnosis since I wasn’t about to drive to her home and get up on her steep roof in the middle of winter to do an on-site inspection. A drone with a high-resolution camera could do this inspection and I can assure you if I was still in the home repair business I’d own one.

I told my friend that my money was on her chimney bricks and mortar. Based on the three-little-pigs fable, you may think that brick is the ultimate building material. While a brick home can resist the powerful exhalation of a wolf, it’s no match for wind-driven rain served up by a wicked Nor’easter.

Water Passes Through Brick Mortar

You can view videos on YouTube showing water pouring down the backside of brick veneer. A house just one mile from my own house has a stunning stone chimney. It’s leaking water. Each time I drive past it I see the growing snow-white patch of efflorescence salts. These salts show exactly where water that is entering the stone above is seeping back out to the surface. The water evaporates and leaves behind the salt it dissolved from the mortar used to cement the granite stones together.

Think of wind-driven rain like a hammer and nail. Each time a raindrop slams into the mortar between the brick and stone, it drives the water from the previous raindrop deeper into the chimney. Add to this the force of the wind blowing against the chimney face and you can have pints of water entering a chimney during an extended storm.

The vertical joints in between two bricks are called head joints. This is the primary place water enters brick in modern brick-veneer construction.

The best way to prevent water from entering a chimney from wind-driven rain is to make sure the mortar is in great shape. You may have to tuck-point the chimney first. I suggest you read these two past columns:

Matching Mortar

Secrets to Match Mortar Color and Texture

on my www.AsktheBuilder.com website about tuck-pointing. I share how to ensure the new mortar you use matches the existing mortar.

You should also inspect the chimney crown. Be sure it is in great shape and is constructed per the BIA guidelines. You may discover it makes more sense to purchase a high-quality chimney crown surround.

Finally, apply oil-based silane/siloxane water repellent to your chimney. Read the label instructions. Wait too long in between coats and the first coat may prevent the second coat from seeping into the mortar.

The sealing process works best with two people. One person applies the sealer using a hand-pump garden sprayer. A second person operates a backpack leaf blower aimed at the chimney. The air from the blower drives the sealer deep into the brick and mortar.

Column 1544

How Much Electricity Does an EV Consume When Charging

Posted on by Tim Carter

How Much Electricity Does an EV Consume When Charging?

The following was published in the January 21, 2024 issue of the AsktheBuilder.com newsletter. You can get your free subscription by clicking here.

Future Electric Brown & Blackouts at Your Home or Business

I'll bet you think of electricity like you do oxygen. It's just there. Your lungs go back and forth and you live because there's air all around you.

It's the same with electricity. This magic invisible power source is alive inside the walls and ceilings in your home or business.

Your refrigerator works without you doing a thing. Your electric oven bakes delicious cakes and blueberry, pumpkin, and pecan pies without you hoping it's going to heat up. It just does each and every time.

How would you feel if your utility company took away your electricity?

You know, they make it scarce.

What happens if it is 0 F or 105 F outdoors when they decide they need to give your electricity to someone else?

You couldn't go online to complain as your Wifi would be dead. It needs juice to work in addition to being connected to the cable or phone company.

You could use your cellphone, but do you think the utility company is going to magically restore your power because you complain?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Without electricity, your life GRINDS TO A HALT.

Events swirling around you right now that could make brown and blackouts a real possibility in your life. Not just one, but maybe several a day or many each week.

I want to thank John, Doug, and a handful of other fellow subscribers who have supplied information about this topic.

How Much Juice Does Your Home Consume?

Do you know how much electricity you consume each day? I'm willing to bet you don't.

This past Friday, January 19, 2024, my house gobbled up 54.13 kWh (kilowatt hours) in twenty-four hours. A kWh is a unit of energy. Utility companies sell energy. To determine how much energy you use measured in kWh, multiply kilowatts by hours.

Here is a bar chart of the usage per hour:

bar chart of tim carter electric usage in one day

You can readily see that between 3 and 4 PM we used the most electricity. In those 60 minutes, we were sucking about 3.2 kW per hour from the grid.

A considerable portion of that is being used by the many grow lights my dear sweet wife Kathy has on to keep her hundreds of orchids blooming and growing.

She also has four humidifiers running. What's interesting about the chart is you can clearly see when the grow-light timers turn on and off. Those lights are responsible for half our usage each month!

Happy wife happy life!!

Other than that, the refrigerator and freezer are chugging away and two desktop computers are sending massive amounts of blue light into our eyes. I do have a small oil-filled radiator up in my man cave to keep that tiny room warm.

My guess is you consume about 1.5 kW per hour(kWh) at your home on average.

Keep in mind that kW shouldn't be confused with kW hours (kWh). A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. If you turn on ten 100-watt light bulbs, you're consuming 1,000 watts at that instant of time. Keep those ten bulbs burning for an hour, and you'll get charged for 1 kilowatt hour (kWh) of power usage by your utility company.

How Much Electricity Does an EV Consume When Connected to a Fast Charger?

Do you own a Tesla, Ford Lightning pickup truck, or similar electric vehicle (EV)? Just a few days ago I saw my first EV Rivian pickup truck.

Have you seen any news reports about how much electricity it takes to recharge the massive batteries that are under the seats in these vehicles?

I know I haven't.

To be honest, I never gave it much thought but my gut told me massive amounts of electricity were required to recharge those huge batteries in a short amount of time.

What I'm about to tell you will stun you. I know because it made my eyes open as big as silver dollars. A subscriber sent me a short video of a man charging his EV at a typical charging station.

Look at this screenshot taken from the video. The video was created while an EV charging station was injecting electricity into the battery of an EV like a 2.5-inch firehose spews water on a fire:

ev charging station screen showing kW demand

Assume to get a full charge this car will be there for about an hour. If so, it's going to suck 137 kWh from the grid. That same amount of power could have kept the lights on and refrigerators running for one hour in 91 houses.

That SINGLE charging station, not unlike the ones you see in your city or town, is capable of delivering 350 kW PER HOUR.

In this situation, the charging station was dispensing electricity into the man's EV - a vast amount of electricity. If the 137 kW charging rate stays constant and the car stays connected for one hour, 137 kWh worth of electricity will be dumped into the battery.

This is just ONE charging station for ONE EV. There were six stations, I believe, at this charging location.

Has that 137 kW number bounced around in your tiny gray cells like a shiny silver ball in a pinball machine?

The electricity being SUCKED from the grid to charge that ONE EV would power 91 houses like mine if the grow lights weren't on.

If there were six EVs at that location all charging up at the same time, those SIX CARS would take out of the grid the electricity that was destined to go to 546 houses.

One of those houses could be yours.

Do you see where this is headed?

I have five Tesla charging stations in my town of Meredith, NH. Here's the label from one of them:

tesla charging station label

I was taught volts x amps = watts. If that's the case, this charger is capable of delivering 175,000 watts. If it does that for one hour, the amount of energy put into the vehicle would be 175 kWh. Copyright 2024 Tim Carter

A Texas Congressman does. WATCH THIS 60-second video where he exposes how you are being bamboozled.

Watch this video to see Andrew Boyle, an expert, share stories about how planned projects would require more power than an entire city:

What happens if you try to charge 100 EVs at once in your city? How about 1,000 EVs?

How many cars and pickup trucks are in your city or town?

Do you live in a big city? Have you seen how many cars fly down the interstate highway in an hour?

How many millions of cars are in Los Angeles?

How much POWER would it take to charge just 10 percent of them at once?

If you're already awake, fantastic. If not, please

WAKE UP NOW!

How Many New Power Plants are Being Built Across the Fruited Plain?

You don't have to be an Einstein to realize that if this EV unicorn-and-rainbows panacea the government is ramming down your throat comes to fruition there WILL BE brown and blackouts.

Numbers don't lie.

Each small city or town would have to have its OWN power plant! Do the math yourself. Just imagine that 10,000 EVs need to be recharged each day in your city or town.

I'll do the math for you. Without new power plants being built to handle this vast demand, 910,000 houses would NOT GET electricity.

That smart meter out on your exterior wall would remotely SHUT OFF your power.

Too bad so sad.

I can hear some of you now, "Tim, you're a fool. Solar and wind will save the day."

Please don't patronize me. I'm not an idiot.

Solar panels don't work here in New Hampshire 16 hours out of 24 in December. It's pitch black outside!

The wretched windmills in Rumney, NH that ruin the view often are not spinning.

Power plants MUST OPERATE 24/7/365.

Have you had enough?

STOP TRUSTING the government.

STOP TRUSTING your NEWS sources. They are LYING TO YOU about EVs, climate change, Russian collusion, etc.

They have not been telling you the whole truth about EVs.

A half-truth is a whole lie.

START questioning everything.

START USING YOUR GOD-GIVEN GRAY CELLS.

The following was sent to me after this page was published. Judi, one of my subscribers, packed lots of other information about EVs into a very small space:

"Thank you for this article on EV's and the power grid. The current Administration's shortsighted mandate on EV's (among other things!)  is ridiculous and out of touch with the cross-section of America!

We simply don't have the infrastructure in place to support it, not only from the perspective of the power grid but from the very fact that most Americans cannot afford an EV and don't have the luxury of having an in-home charger. Think of the number of apartments, condos, and townhomes that lack personal parking spaces and the ability to just plug in their vehicles!

And think, too, of the cost of installing these charging stations and who will pay for them! Does anyone pay for my gasoline or provide me with a personal gas station? My HOA has looked into this issue and has found that older homes often don't even have the electrical capacity to support these chargers.

And let's not forget the time component needed to charge these vehicles! We live in a fast-paced highly mobile society where time is money! How many times have I looked at my fuel gauge and realized my gas was low? But with a myriad of gas stations in my area, it was no problem. I could stop and be on my way in 10 minutes! Not so with an EV charge!

There's also a ton of other EV considerations that nobody wants to talk about: the weight of the vehicles, which drags down the distance one can go in a charge and makes it difficult to locate a repair shop that can lift it.

Here's a short list of other issues with EVs:

  • The weight of the battery wears down tires (all tires need to be replaced in only 30-40k miles), an issue for Goodyear is currently trying to develop an EV-specific tire
  • There is a lack of space, especially in urban areas, for the necessary number of chargers
  • The cost of replacing an EV battery (several thousand dollars) after a rather limited number of miles
  • The fact that mechanics aren't needed for these cars, results in job loss across the country
  • The fact that our auto industry is built on service, which is where the dealership makes its money;
  • The fact that getting technicians skilled in EV vehicle maintenance will lag behind the mandated demand

I could go on and on but you know the issues...

We can only hope that many souls who are asleep wake up soon!"

Geologic Hazards When Building

Posted on by Tim Carter
topographic map west paris ky quad karst topography

This topographic map should get your attention. The red arrows point to sinkholes that can cause serious structural damage to the average home. Copyright 2024 Tim Carter

Avoid Geologic Hazards When Building or Buying Land

You probably don’t give much thought to the ground under or around your home. What follows are a few true stories that may change your perspective. If you’re in the market to purchase land to build your dream home or are looking to move to purchase an existing home, what I’m about to share could prevent financial ruin. My college degree is in geology and the knowledge I attained allows me to look at building lots through a different lens than you might use.

Less than a week ago a woman hired me to do a one-hour video call. She recently purchased raw land in the heart of the Bluegrass region of Kentucky just east of Lexington. I happen to know this part of Kentucky is one of the top places in the USA for Karst topography. This translates to sinkholes that can cause serious structural damage to homes.

Before the call, I asked for the address. I wanted to locate her land on a US Geological Survey topographic map. You can get high-resolution PDF copies of these for free online for any land in the USA. Sure enough within a half-mile radius of her land there were no less than ten sinkholes. You can clearly see these on a topographic map as circles or ovals that have small lines pointing to the center of the circle or oval.

Does this mean her new home will sink into the ground? Not necessarily. That said, it might be a good idea to chat up the local building inspector or folks at the Kentucky Geological Society. I’d also inspect the land to see if there was evidence that a sinkhole had been filled in to disguise it.

Building on Buried Trees

Topographic maps can shed light on many things. My friend Ed purchased a lot in a new subdivision in Cincinnati, Ohio about twenty years ago. The developer had to do lots of cut and fill. Ed’s lot was land that was fill dirt. The dishonest excavator dumped dirt on fallen trees to bury them. Within a year after Ed’s house was built, it started to crack in half. The basement floor looked like a dough bubble on a pizza. The entire foundation was dropping but the floor was not falling at the same rate. Ed now knows to never again build on fill.

Flash Flood in Amberley Village, Ohio

About thirty years ago neighbors of mine were almost killed in a flash flood. They purchased a home in a nice subdivision nestled on rolling land. Their home was right on top of an old dry creek. Under their driveway was a hidden 5-foot-diameter storm sewer that was installed when the farmland was converted to residential property. My neighbors had no idea this pipe was in the ground.

One day a huge storm caused storm water to completely fill the pipe and then run across the land to a depth of 8 feet in my friend’s driveway. It completely flooded their basement in a matter of minutes. Had they studied a topographic map before buying this home, they could have seen from the contour lines how much land above them collected water and then funneled it to their lot.

New Madrid Earthquake 1811-12

Active geologic faults can be found all over the western USA. The center of the USA is not immune from tremendous earthquakes. In 1811-12 the New Madrid earthquake caused massive damage where western Tennessee touches southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas. If you live near here or intend to build there, talk to your insurance agent about an earthquake rider on your homeowner’s policy.

usgs earthquake hazard map for usa

This is the 2024 US Geological Survey earthquake hazard map. CLICK it for a bigger version and more information. You can see the risk of huge earthquakes is high in the western Tennessee area. Public Domain Usage - Created with US taxpayer $$$

Landslide Causes a Propane Explosion

Landslides can also cause nightmares and death. Just three years ago two friends of mine died when a propane explosion destroyed their home. CLICK HERE to read one story about the tragic event.

propane explosion jim and audrey landford

A propane explosion leveled this home in less than five seconds killing Jim and Audrey Landford. They were friends of mine. Copyright Boone NC Police Department Fair Use Doctrine Public Property

Heavy rain caused a landslide that dislodged their propane tank resulting in a gas leak in their home. This was preventable to a large degree but the average person would never think about the relationship of a propane tank to a hillside.

Cincinnati Landslides

Humble Cincinnati, Ohio is the epicenter of some of the highest landslide damage in the USA. The media darling for landslides is California where each winter we seem to see houses falling into the ocean during fierce winter storms. But in Cincinnati, the bedrock geology is such that thousands of homes are built on unstable clay soil that can be found on the hillsides all around the Tristate region. Watch this documentary film about Cincinnati Landslides.

Dry Land - No Water

How disappointed would you be if you purchased raw land only to discover there’s no water? Yes, this happened to friends of mine in Washington state. They had to stop drilling after boing a hole 700 feet. This might have been avoided had they talked to well drillers before buying the land. The drillers might have told them land to avoid and the places where water is discovered at a shallow depth.

You may place your trust in government officials in situations like this. That would be a grievous error on your part. There are neighborhoods in many cities in the USA that get flooded in periods of heavy rain. These old creek beds should have never been allowed to be developed by not-so-wise government officials.

You can make the best decision when buying land by hiring a professional geotechnical engineer or a professional geologist. These folks can look at raw or developed land and produce a report indicating any potential issues that could affect your major investment. I wish you the best of luck!

Column 1543

How to Stay Warm in Cold Weather

Posted on by Tim Carter
electric radiant floor mat

The gray fabric mat contains electric heating cables. Finished flooring is installed on top of the mat after it’s covered with a thin coat of sand and cement. It’s but one way to keep your feet warm. Copyright 2024 Tim Carter

How to Stay Warm in Bitter Cold Weather - It's So Easy

You may be one of the tens of millions of folks like me that live where it gets cold in the winter. If you’re blessed to live in the south or southwest, I do know there can be some cold waves that force you to put on a sweater. With inflation raging out of control, it’s so very important to spend the least amount of money to be comfortable. I can help you do just that.

To be honest, I could write a book about this topic. I know I’ll get emails about leaving this or that idea out of this column. Right now I’m going to serve up to you slices of juicy low-hanging fruit. Let’s get started.

As crazy as this sounds, the easiest way to save money and stay toasty warm inside your home is to wear more clothes and turn down your thermostat. I do this each winter. I’ll wear flannel-lined jeans and sometimes insulated coveralls. It’s not uncommon to find me donning a hoodie sweatshirt. I often put the hood up to keep my head and neck warm. I wear wool socks. You may think this is nuts, but when I’m dressed like this indoors I’m toasty warm with my thermostat set between 62 and 65 F.

Think about how you can compress your lifestyle in the winter. Can you close off rooms and just direct your heating to a few rooms instead of your entire house? If you were lucky enough to have a zoned heating system installed, it’s easy to send heat to the rooms you live and sleep in as well as the rooms that have plumbing water lines that must remain above 35 F to prevent them from bursting.

Several years ago I converted some attic space above my garage to a man cave. I decided to heat it using a fiberglass mat that has electric cables built into it. The mat was custom designed at no extra cost to match the size of the room and the heat loss of my space. It’s vital you do this. If my man cave was in southern Tennessee instead of central New Hampshire, far fewer cables would have been installed in the mat.

Another simple way to take the chill off a room is to use an oil-filled portable electric radiator. I’ve tested several that cost less than $100 and they do a remarkable job of heating an unheated space. Many of these are programmable so you can turn them down when you’re not in the space. Then, have them turn on magically 90 minutes before you come into the room so it’s up to temperature.

The largest source of heat loss in the average home is air infiltration. Check all your doors and windows to make sure they’re locked. Locking them pulls the sash tight against the weatherstripping.

If air is leaking under a door, consider using a felt weatherstrip that attaches to the bottom of the door with small nails, screws, or adhesive tape. You have the skill to install this in minutes. Stopping cold drafts can significantly lower your heating costs and you won’t feel like you’re in a wind tunnel.

Keep in mind that the placement of insulation is vital to ensure all the heat produced by electric coils or radiant heat tubing is directed into the living space. Years ago while I was helping build my daughter’s new home I educated an insulation crew leader. He was the rare person that listened to me and hours later admitted he had been installing insulation wrong in hundreds of houses for over twenty years.

When he arrived at my daughter’s house to install the fiberglass batts under the radiant floor tubing he asked me, “How much air space do you want between my insulation and the tubes? We normally do 1 to 2 inches.” I responded, “I don’t want any air space. Put the insulation in direct contact with the radiant heat tubes and do whatever is necessary to ensure it never falls down.”

This middle-aged man just looked at me and said, “Okay, but we’ve never done it that way before.” I politely said, “Are you the same crew that put the insulation in the walls here? I see that there’s no air space between the warm drywall and your insulation. If an air space is so important, then why did you eliminate it in all the walls?” He just blinked at me and walked away. Hours later he came up to my son-in-law and said, “Your father-in-law taught me something. I’ve been installing insulation under radiant tubes wrong my entire career.”

The reason you want the insulation to be in contact with the tubing or the OSB subflooring under an electric mat is simple. You want to drive all the heat up into the living space. If you have an air gap, some of the heat goes down not up.

If you’re planning on building a room addition or a new home soon, you have a unique opportunity to design a zoned heating system that will allow you to keep your heating bills to a minimum. If you can’t find a pro to talk to about this, I’m happy to consult with you.

Imagine using a simple water heater to create all the heat you need for a simple room addition. I can’t begin to tell you how comfortable a floor is that’s heated by hot water. It’s dreamy heat. If you lay down on the floor, you don’t want to get up.

Column 1542

Cork Flooring is Marvelous

Posted on by Tim Carter
jesup memorial library bar harbor maine

This is the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor. You can go there next week to see and walk on its cork flooring. The flooring has not been maintained as well as it should have been, but it's still in service. It was installed in 1911. Need I say more? Copyright 2024 Tim Carter

Cork Flooring Should Be on Your Radar - It's Magical

What I’m about to share with you might amaze you. I’ve heard it said before that one doesn’t know what they don’t know. To me, that infers you may be unaware of something that previously had been hidden from you. It’s happened to me numerous times during my life.

One odd example happened to me about twenty years ago. For decades I spent all my time in the USA. A business trip had me travel to Toronto, Canada. It’s a huge city and while being driven to a television station, I looked at the traffic signals at a busy intersection. Much to my surprise there was no separate green light turn arrow. After several seconds, the green light began to flash. Instead of having an extra light, the clever Canadians told their drivers to turn against traffic when the light started to flash!

I’m about to do the same with you right now. I’m willing to bet you two cheese coneys that you’ve never seen cork flooring and what’s more had the pleasure of walking on some. Tell the truth. Did you even know cork flooring existed?

When I saw cork flooring for the first time, it put my head on a swivel. It was the most unique flooring I had ever seen. My father-in-law took me one day to visit Carl, his investing partner. Carl had built a stunning ranch home on a bluff that overlooked the great north bend of the Ohio River.

The cork flooring was in his kitchen of all rooms. It was plank flooring about 8 inches wide. The color was a rich medium brown and the pattern or grain was mesmerizing. I had never seen such material before in my twenty-three years on the planet.

“What in the world is the floor made from?” I asked. “Why, it’s cork.” Carl responded. “Aren’t you worried about the water from the kitchen ruining it?” Carl just chuckled. He knew that cork was waterproof. He also knew that under typical residential use installing cork was like putting sheets of iron on your floor. It’s nearly indestructible.

As time passed, I discovered cork was the flooring material used at the main public library in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its closed-cell structure contains about 100 million air cells in each cubic inch of material. This allows it to absorb shock as well as sound. It’s the perfect flooring material for so many rooms in a home, church, busy office space, or other place where peace, quiet, and comfort are commodities in high demand.

I decided to try cork flooring in my own home. It was the perfect material to use in my basement recreation area and office space. It glued down with ease over the smooth concrete floor. I wanted a waterproof material in case the basement flooded. I also wanted flooring that hold up to rambunctious teenagers and office chairs. It excelled at both challenges.

Visit a home center big-box store and you’ll see them pushing luxury vinyl plank (LVP) flooring. I just had my first hands-on experience with that this past summer. Cork, in my opinion, is a superior material. It’s not as fussy as LVP with respect to humps and bumps in the floor. Cork is quieter and doesn’t expand or contract to the extent of LVP.

If you’re all about the environment, you’ll love cork. Cork is a renewable resource. The material is generated by harvesting the bark from cork trees. The bark grows back after ten years or so and the average cork tree lives for 150 years.

My most recent experience with cork was in Bar Harbor, Maine of all places. Several years ago I was in town to meet my sister. I had some time to kill before meeting her and decided to visit the historic Jesup Memorial Library.

This stunning building was built in the early 1900s. As soon as I walked through the front door I saw it. A magnificent cork floor covered the entire main floor of the library. Master craftsmen were installing it in the late winter or early spring of 1911 as the library was dedicated on August 30, 1911.

I was walking on a floor that was installed 107 years earlier! While it was in need of a little tender loving care, the floor was still in remarkable shape after all that time. Imagine how many people had walked across that flooring in all those years! You can install it in your home knowing that it will outperform any other flooring you can purchase.

If you want a flooring material that is easy to maintain, will get you compliments from your friends and visitors, is easy on your back and legs should you have to stand up on it, cork should be on your radar. When you see the different styles, sizes, patterns, and colors, I’m convinced you’ll then say, “What other building materials don’t I know about?” Well, keep reading me each week and I’ll do my best to share them with you!

Column 1541

Storage Boxes for Hardware and Parts

Posted on by Tim Carter
assorted plastic storage boxes for hardware and parts

Storage Boxes with Clear Lids - These are just a few of the innovative parts storage boxes I use to keep everything organized in my workshop and garage. Are you a fisherman/woman? Do you make crafts as a hobby? These boxes are perfect for anyone who has lots of small things they need to have at their fingertips. Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

Storage Boxes for Hardware and Parts - Innovative & Useful

Author's Note: This column appeared in over 60 USA newspapers. If you read it there and are looking for all the photos of the many boxes, CLICK HERE. This opens to a new page. CLICK HERE for DeWALT organizer boxes. CLICK HERE for the orange Klein Tools Organizer Boxes.

I need you to be honest with me. In the past few months, how many hours have you spent looking for some nut, bolt, screw, wire nut, or any other small part that you KNOW you have somewhere in your garage, basement, or workshop?

How angry or frustrated did you get as each moment passed? In the dim light above your cluttered workbench you were opening and closing five, ten, or twenty small cardboard boxes, old plastic 35mm film canisters, or glass baby food jars, weren’t you? I know as I used to do the same thing.

Do you do crafts or partake in a hobby that has lots of small parts? Do you have lots of small beads, spools of thread, or electronic parts stored in poorly marked boxes? How much time have you wasted looking for something you need now?

Clunky 1x6 Pine Storage Boxes

Decades ago when I was a young carpenter/remodeler I discovered that each day I needed an assortment of nails and screws with me each day. Back then, you purchased these at a hardware store or lumber yard. They were often put in paper bags. If you bought 50 pounds at once, they came in a large cardboard box.

I decided to build my own storage containers that had segregated compartments. I used 1x6 pine lumber for the sides and 1/2-inch plywood for the top, bottom, and inner compartments. Empty, these boxes were somewhat heavy. Once you loaded them with assorted screws, nails, nuts, and bolts they were comparable to dumbbells used by bodybuilders.

A few years later, I was building a room addition for an engineer. He saw my boxes and said, “I think there’s a better way. Look at these plastic bins we use where I work.” The open containers were marvelous. They measured about 4 inches wide, 7 inches deep, and about 3 inches high. They were stackable. The best part is they fit perfectly on the inside shelves of my utility-body truck.

Akro Bins - Storage 2.0

I bought 100 of them and one weekend I transferred all my hardware, plumbing fittings, electrical connectors, etc. into the back of my truck. I was a traveling hardware store and always had what I needed, even in an emergency. I rarely had to stop work to go get the perfect part or fastener. The bins increased my productivity and added to my profitability.

But the bins had a drawback. If you knocked one over, the parts would scatter. If you needed multiple fasteners or parts, you’d have to carry into the house multiple bins. Dropping them was always a risk. Going over bumps or hitting deep potholes caused parts to jump out of the containers inside the back of my truck.

Modern Clear-Lid Storage Boxes

The good news is modern parts storage boxes have eliminated all of the above problems. Over the past few years, tool manufacturers have introduced a wide variety of storage boxes that I could have only dreamed of having.

The best design feature, in my opinion, is the tough crystal-clear top lid of these storage boxes. You can immediately see the exact part you’re looking for. Inside these boxes are small plastic bins that allow you to store different fasteners and parts. The inner bins come in all sorts of sizes too.

It gets even better. The lids of the boxes are designed so the things stay in the small bins. You can tumble the boxes around, tip them over when closed, or throw them down a hill and the contents inside each of the plastic bins stay put. The underside of the lids creates a seal encapsulating each of the parts bins.

Oh, did I say that many of these boxes are designed to interlock one on top of another as a system? Did I share that some have the ability to connect to an integral two-wheeled hand truck to transport them to a job site?

What astounds me is that each month or so a manufacturer unveils yet a newer model that fixes tiny bugs that might have been present with an earlier model. In the past two months I’ve outfitted my truck with two boxes that work perfectly to store plastic fittings I use to install PEX water tubing.

Just last week I took ownership of a very unique storage box that’s less than 2 inches thick. It’s about the size of a white-collar worker’s briefcase. It's the Klein Tools Short Component Box Full Width. The link opens in a new window. It’s perfect for tiny screws, fasteners, electronic parts, colorful beads, or any other small part or widget you might use in your hobby or craft.

There are so many of these cool and useful storage boxes it’s impossible to list them all here. I’ve created an exhaustive list of many of them with photos on my website. Just go to www.AsktheBuilder.com and type “storage boxes” into my search engine. You’ll be stunned at the variety. I guarantee you your days of frustration and anger will be over. Your workshop, hobby room, etc. will be so well organized and you’ll find things in seconds, not hours.

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Opening a Remodeling Can of Worms

Posted on by Tim Carter
missing piece of osb subflooring in attic trusses

This unfinished space will soon become a man cave. Installing plumbing pipes, electric cables, and other mechanics often requires floors to be opened up like you’d do to a can of beans or worms. Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

Opening a Remodeling Can of Worms - Start with Great Plans

My start in the construction business happened in Cincinnati, Ohio in the early 1970s. The knowledge I obtained in those first few formative years doing remodeling work made me, in my opinion, a better builder.

Early on I deconstructed houses that were 100 years old. I was blessed to see how master craftsmen of old built things. Many were so proud of their work, they signed it. What a shame I didn’t take a photograph of each signature I uncovered on a wall stud or up in an attic!

With a new year on the threshold, one of your resolutions may be to start a remodeling project that’s been on the back burner. High housing prices may have shoved you out of the market and instead of moving to a bigger nicer home, you’re now forced to fulfill your dreams using your existing home.

My goal is to prevent you from suffering emotional and financial pain should you be on the cusp of starting a major remodeling project. The following tips should prevent sleepless nights, arguments with contractors, and anguish caused by cost overruns.

Each week I do consult phone calls with homeowners just like you. Often their remodeling projects have gone off the rails. Each and every time I perform an autopsy, I discover the root cause of the problem is a set of inferior plans. Bad plans open the door to a host of problems not the least of which is a lack of communication between you and the contractor.

You probably know what you want in your head. You’ve dreamed of the perfect new bathroom, kitchen, room addition, or whole-house remodel. You’ve looked at hundreds of stunning inspirational photos on different websites. But your plans are two-dimensional line drawings that communicate only a small part of what you want. Your first, and most important, job is to take the time to create an accessory document that contains the necessary photographs that show the contractor exactly what you want.

The plans and the photographs should be so good that the contractor never has to ask you any questions. It’s possible to achieve this goal. The best part is these two simple documents form the core of the contract between you and the contractor.

Your contract simply states that all the work will be done in accordance with the two documents and that you’ll pay the contractor in stages as the work progresses. Nothing about this is hard. Contracts can be simple one-page documents for the most part.

It’s important to realize remodeling work is messy. You should think about all this in advance. Lead paint should be on your radar if your house was built before or just after 1978. Demolishing, sanding, or scraping painted surfaces that are coated with lead paint can create serious health issues. Don’t rely on lead-paint test kits as you could get a false negative result. Lead paint may be lurking underneath coats of non-lead paint applied in the past forty years!

Are you doing a major kitchen remodeling job? If so, weeks before the job starts, I want you to do your dinner dishes in your bathtub. You’ll quickly discover that you’ll want to ask your contractor to set up a temporary kitchen in your garage or some other place in your home. This can be a bare-bones galley like you see on a commercial jet or in a submarine. The last thing you want is to be on your knees doing dishes in a tub.

What about a bathroom remodel job? I clearly remember one of the first jobs I ever did was a bath remodel for a friend. His wife was quite pregnant and we set up a temporary shower and sink in their basement over the floor drain. Fortunately, the original builder back in the 1920s had installed a toilet in the basement. This makeshift bathroom sufficed until I presented them with their spiffy new bathroom.

A major remodeling job may offer you a rare opportunity to make your home more comfortable. Many older homes had inferior heating systems that lacked sufficient return-air ducting for modern air conditioning. Currently the rage is the mini-split. While these work well with open floor plan homes, they don’t work well for isolated rooms. I know this for a fact because I slept in an ice-cold bedroom in a brand-new apartment building equipped with a mini-split.

A seasoned HVAC mechanic can cut a hole in the wall above bedroom doors and create a return-air pathway that connects to ductwork in a hallway soffit. This return air can often make it back to the air handler via a chase in a corner or in a closet. Talk to several different contractors, or me, if you need help figuring this out.

Good luck with your remodel and remember, you can’t invest too much time in great plans!

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Electrical Hacks for Your Home

Posted on by Tim Carter
smart plug outdoor electric outlet and christmas lights

The odd white rectangle is a smart outlet. It is able to turn on and off via the WiFi in your home allowing you to control when power flows through a cable to lights, a fountain, or any other object powered by electricity. Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

Electrical Hacks for Your Home

Eight months ago a woman hired me to be her virtual general contractor. She was about to start to rebuild a home in remote northern Maine at the south end of Moosehead Lake. She’s the boots-on-the-ground person and we communicate via email, video calls, and texting.

Last week we started to discuss the rough-in electrical work on the large home. She intends to help the rough carpenter install all the boxes and cables. I knew she had never done this work before and I was unsure of the skill level of the carpenter. I’ve come to understand that many tradesmen in that part of Maine are cross-trained in several disciplines. It’s not easy to find skilled labor in a place where the closest road east of the main road leading into town is over 100 miles away!

I decided to share much of my conversation with you in case you plan to build a home soon, build a room addition, or do some remodeling. What you’re about to discover might make your life easier and safer.

It’s important to realize you can wire a house according to all the tenets found in the most recent edition of the National Electrical Code but the wiring job may not be perfect. This code is a standard published by the National Fire Protection Association. It’s all about your safety and reducing insurance losses. Keep in mind that this code, like all building codes, is a set of minimum standards. You can always exceed the requirements of a code.

Early in the discussion with the homeowner, I shared how I had incorporated a simple trick when wiring my daughter’s home four years ago. She lives in Downeast Maine where wicked Nor’easters cause frequent power outages. Having been through quite a few of these myself in central New Hampshire, I know that one of the most miserable aspects is the lack of lighting in an outage.

Did you know you can safely wire the light fixtures in your home on a few separate dedicated circuits? When the power goes out and your generator starts up, you can have light in all or many rooms. Lights don’t draw that much power and you’ll stop using flashlights or dangerous candles.

The woman and I next discussed the gauge of the wire in her new home. I suggested she consider using nothing but 12-gauge wire for all the normal circuits. In her case, it would cost less than $400 for this invaluable upgrade. Twelve-gauge wire is rated for 20 amps giving you an abundance of power on circuits that normally would be strained or pop the breaker when you plug in a tool such as a table saw.

I then shared all sorts of stories about how electricians and homeowners don’t think through the placement of switches and outlets. For example, my lovely wife is left-handed. She holds her hair dryer with her right hand and brushes her hair with her left hand. Placing the outlet on the right side of the sink prevents the dryer cord from crossing over the sink.

Next up I told her about my son-in-law’s command-center closet in the entrance hall of his home. This turned out to be a perfect place to hide his WiFi router, Internet modem and the controls for his interior sound speakers spread throughout the house. We placed outlets up high in strategic locations where we knew the electrical equipment would be on shelves.

I also installed three blank 1-inch-diameter conduits from the basement up into the closet terminating in blank 4-inch-square boxes. This allowed the cable TV technician to run his cables with ease. It also allows for fiber optic cables to be installed in minutes when it becomes available.

My son-in-law and I also installed two extra circuits in his attic and two down in his basement. The junction boxes were out in the open as required by code. Can you imagine how happy a future homeowner will be to discover they already have power installed for some future purpose? It took less than one hour to install all four of these circuits.

You may love to do holiday lighting but dread having to deal with the extension cords that might snake all across your lawn and the front of your home. I’ll bet you grumble each autumn wondering why an electrician didn’t install boxes at key locations. Imagine having a few switches inside your home that allow you to turn on and off outdoor lights without having to go outdoors on a cold night to plug in an extension cord.

The switching problem was solved several years ago with smart outlets. These very handy devices allow you to control outdoor and indoor power without having to use the old-fashioned timers. Smart outlets work via your WiFi and an app on your smartphone. You can program each outlet to follow different on-and-off schedules. Smart light bulbs are also available that do the same thing.

Think about all the things in your home you wish the electrician had done differently. I’d love to hear back from you. I can share your complaints in my latest book all about things your builder and subcontractors forgot to do. Just visit my Ask Tim page at www.AsktheBuilder.com to share your story.

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Open Web Floor Trusses

Posted on by Tim Carter
open web floor trusses

These are open web floor trusses. Can you see how advantageous it is to use them? Do you see how they save time and money when installing ducts, pipes, and electric cables? Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

Open Web Floor Trusses - They're Superb

I’m sure you’ve driven across or seen large steel truss bridges that are made by combining any number of huge steel beams into right triangles that interconnect. When viewed from the side they look like open boxes with a diagonal piece of steel extending from one corner of each box to the opposite corner. Imagine how strong this design is to be able to hold countless tons of concrete roadways, cars, trucks, and even giant train locomotives!

Did you know this same technology can be used in your home, room addition, light-commercial building, etc? You can have these same trusses built using wood. I had my first experience with open web floor trusses made from standard 2x4s about forty years ago. Ever since that day when we installed these in a room addition, I was sold on the many benefits.

These magnificent trusses spanned almost 24 feet with no bearing walls beneath them. The homeowner wanted a giant basement recreation room with no silly support posts in the middle of the room.

The homeowner got involved in the design early in the planning stage. He was a giant of a man. He insisted that there be no bounce in the floor as he didn’t want to feel like he was walking on a spongy trampoline. The room above the basement recreation room was his master bedroom. He told me he wanted that floor to feel like he was walking on a thick concrete floor.

open web floor trusses home on mdi

These trusses are almost identical to the first ones I used back in the mid-1980s. These trusses form the second floor of my daughter's home in Downeast Maine. Copyright 2023 Tim Carter

The software used by the engineers at the truss manufacturing plant allowed the designer to make the trusses stiffer than an old-fashioned starched shirt collar. To achieve the desired strength with virtually no deflection, the trusses ended up being about 26 inches tall. The homeowner had a huge grin on his face when he walked across the plywood subfloor and there was no bounce whatsoever.

Another advantage floor trusses bring to the table is their flatness. Each one is a clone of the other. Normal dimensional floor joists are not always the exact same dimensions and often they have crowns in them. A crown is a hump in a floor joist. Problems arise when you install one floor joist that is flat next to a floor joist that has a 1/2-inch-tall crown. All of a sudden the floor is not flat once you apply the sub subflooring.

All of the mechanical trades love open-web floor trusses. You never have to drill any holes. HVAC installers and plumbers are able to install pipes and ducts just about anywhere in the trusses since the vast majority of the cross-section of each one is wide open space.

You don’t have this flexibility with other engineered floor joists. I draw plumbing riser diagrams each week for homeowners, architects, builders, and plumbers. Several times in the past year I’ve had to call the customer and tell them that it’s virtually impossible to pipe a bathroom as drawn by the architect. The plan calls for wooden truss joists and these products don’t allow holes to be drilled in specific locations close to where they rest on a bearing wall. You never ever have this problem with floor trusses.

To put some of this in perspective, allow me to share a more recent story. Months ago a woman hired me to be her virtual general contractor for a house that’s being rebuilt in the northern forests of Maine. I was able to get involved in the early stages of planning and recommended using floor trusses for the lower level of the house.

These trusses were very long and rested on the foundation walls and two huge steel i-beams. Because she couldn’t find a plumber she trusted, she talked me into installing all the plumbing in this house. The vast majority of the plumbing is on the first floor and the required pipes are nestled within the trusses.

I can tell you that the trusses have saved many days of labor since I didn’t have to drill through any joists. The open design allows for faster installation of the pipes. What’s more, without the tall trusses, many of the pipes would have had to hang below the ceiling in the garage. Normal dimensional lumber or i-joists wouldn’t have provided enough room to accommodate the pipes and the required pitch to get them to drain.

Using trusses saved this woman thousands of dollars and she gets to have a nice smooth drywall ceiling in the garage with no exposed pipes. The alternative would have been clumsy soffits built at an extra cost to hide the pipes that hung below traditional floor joists or engineered floor joists. The radiant heat installer and electrician are extremely happy. The trusses will allow them to work much faster.

Fire Fighters, Trusses, and Engineered Lumber

Firefighters dislike floor trusses, roof trusses, and just about all engineered lumber. Houses built with any engineered lumber product are frowned upon by firefighters because they fail and collapse much sooner in a fire than traditional dimensional lumber. When these products fail in a fire, firefighters can become one with the fire. The Internet is littered with sad stories of those who have died when floors and roofs have collapsed.

My suggestion to them is to stay outdoors and do their best to fight the fire. Everyone knows just about all firefighters would go into a burning home to save a person still alive even if the house had engineered lumber products. That said, sound judgment needs to be used to risk more loss of life if the fire is roaring and the chance of survival from heat or smoke is minimal or non-existent.

Fire departments can have the building department notify them each time a new house has these products. If it takes longer to extinguish the fire using a defensive posture, it just becomes a greater loss for the insurance company.

Firefighters know they have a moral obligation to rescue someone who is alive and trapped inside a burning building built with engineered lumber products. Should they do this, they do it at great personal risk.

Building departments are aware of all engineered lumber in new houses. They should notify fire departments of what is in each new home. This information can be logged and as a fire crew is in transit to a fire, they can check the database to decide how they're going to fight the fire to ensure the firefighters are as safe as possible.

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