New subscriber? Greetings! Past patron? TNX, as we say in Morse, for your continued attention and trust!

Winter won't let go here in central New Hampshire. I woke up this morning to a fresh inch of snow. It will melt today, but that's not the point.

You may already be in flip flops and a t-shirt. That's why I'm going to start sharing tips about spring and summer.

Let's start with a fantastic gas can I've been testing for a month.

SureCan Gas Can

I've tried many gas cans looking for the perfect combination of features. I've finally found the Holy Grail of gas cans.

Here's what I don't like about other gas cans:

• spout is too short requiring a pesky funnel
• handle wrong orientation when filling - wrist bend
• spout in the way when not pouring
• hard to control flow

The SureCan solves all these. The spout ROTATES down so you can fill while the can stays in the same position ALL THE TIME.

The flow of gasoline can be controlled with ease by how much pressure you apply as you squeeze a lever. If you want a trickle, just give it a slight push. Full flow? Squeeze away baby. Look at the photo below. Note how the black lever is pushed down by the man's thumb and gas is now flowing.

That black lever has a NICE safety underneath it. You have to squeeze the safety before the black lever will go down.

CLICK HERE to order one NOW.

Remember, I only share links to products that I use myself. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my SureCan gas can!

On-Demand Radio Show 4

My good friend Chuck uploaded my fourth FREE on-demand radio show on Friday morning. Already without telling you just under 100 people have listened to it. It costs you NOTHING to listen.

What does that mean to YOU that so many have beat you to it? It means:

• my on-demand show is gaining traction
• others are getting FREE TIPS you're ignoring
• others are SAVING MONEY that you're wasting

I talked with Robert, Bob and Sue last week on the phone.

Robert's got a cracked floor joist under his bathroom. Bob wants to know if it's SAFE to use chemical weed killers and fertilizers on his rural lawn. Sue's got some rotten wood siding panels and wants to know the most cost-effective way to permanently repair them.

I end with a pretty funny story about my first job acting as a general contractor. I've uploaded a written TRANSCRIPT of that story should you just want to read it. Scroll down to get to it.

CLICK HERE to listen to my latest FREE on-demand radio show.

If you want to listen to my first THREE on-demand radio shows, CLICK HERE.

Attic Ventilation - The Real Scoop

A few days ago, I revised my past column about attic ventilation. There's lots of hocus-pocus out there concerning this topic.

I'm STUNNED by the amount of information that's not based in science I see at other websites. BE CAREFUL of following that other advice.

CLICK HERE to see how to COOL DOWN your attic. You need to do the work NOW before it gets too damn hot to be up in your attic or on your roof.

Clean Kitchen & Bath Cabinets

I had a subscriber contact me asking if our certified organic Stain Solver oxygen bleach was safe to use on kitchen or bath cabinets to deep clean them. This person had been ill and not been able to clean on a regular basis and things got a little out of hand.

The answer is YES it's SAFE to use Stain Solver on cabinets. This is because most painted cabinets are not damaged by sunlight. Sunlight breaks down the resins and pigments in paint.

Stain Solver will remove sun-damaged resin and color pigments. You WANT to remove these if you're repainting the outside of your home.

But if you're cleaning inside, you don't want to harm the paint. Stain Solver is SAFE on interior paints. Look at the stunning Before and After photos of these gorgeous cabinets:

The After photo is just below. What a difference. The subscriber just mixed up some of the Stain Solver powder with HOT water.

She stirred the powder for a minute and then poured the solution into a small hand-pump spray bottle.

She spritzed the painted cabinet and let the solution work for just ten minutes. Then she rubbed the surface with a nice sponge.

The dark line above the lower handle is not dirt. The paint has worn away here because fingernails catch on that groove. The woman shared this because she didn't want anyone to think the Stain Solver didn't work in that spot. CLICK HERE to order some Stain Solver now.

Spring Means WET Basements and Crawlspaces

My college degree is in geology. I had a focus on hydrogeology and geomorphology. Hydrogeology is the study of ground water and how it MOVES through soil and rock.

Geomorphology is the study of the surface of the earth. Think hills, valleys and other shapes.

Mix these two together with some common sense and you quickly DISCOVER how to STOP WATER from entering a basement or crawlspace.

CLICK HERE to see how it's done.

I'll Call You

Do you have a problem around your home you need help with? I'm now making no less than four or five FREE phone calls per week.

The calls are FREE. All you have to do is supply me with two or three decent photos so I can SEE what's going on.

If you want me to call you, take a few photos and then CLICK HERE and fill out the form. Or, just send them out of your phone to my email address - you've already got it if you're reading this - and send me a simple email with the photos attached.

I'd say that's enough for a Sunday.

Be SURE to read that story about my first general contracting experience. CLICK HERE for it.

Tim Carter
Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com
On-Demand Radio Captain Magic

Do It Right, Not Over!

New subscriber? Welcome! Existing one? TNX for your continued trust.

This is going to be a very interesting newsletter issue. Lots of moving parts.

Stick with me on this one, especially this first topic because it contains a much-needed reminder for you.

When Was the Last Time?

When was the last time you went out of your way to tell a business that you LOVED something they make, sell or provide? Be honest. Weeks or months?

Now, when was the last time you COMPLAINED about something - I mean go to the effort to write, call or speak with a manager? It's far easier to complain than to praise.

Here's why I'm asking you these two questions. Over the past month, you may be a NEW subscriber or an existing one that reads my weekly syndicated newspaper column in your local paper.

Hah! You may not even know I write a syndicated column! See how bad I am at sharing what's going on? Does my column appear in your local paper? If not, you can make it happen. See far below.

My weekly syndicated Ask the Builder column started in October of 1993 and still runs in about sixty newspapers around the USA. Some are damn big like the Washington Post, Orange County Register, Hartford Courant, Spokesman Review, Columbus Dispatch, and others!

For twenty-five years, I kept with the same boring format in my column.

CLICK HERE to see this old stale format. Seriously, please click that link.

About six weeks ago, I had an idea to change up the format of my column. I started to mention my website, videos, newsletter, podcast and other FREE things you could get at my website.

CLICK HERE to see one of these NEW format columns. I beg you to do this if you currently read my column in your LOCAL paper.

Pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the last two paragraphs in the NEW FORMAT and the last sentence in the column. Be sure you click that and get the FREE document I created! Tell me if you LIKE the new free document.

Here's what you need to know. I can see how many people subscribe to this newsletter each day. For YEARS, it's been about six or eight a day on average.

Guess what happened after my NEW FORMAT columns started to appear in your local paper?

You DISCOVERED all the free stuff at my website and you signed up for this newsletter. My signups all of a sudden jumped to 50, 60 and 80 a day!

That tells me you LIKED what you saw in my new format. Your local paper was not telling you about all the great free stuff you could get from me. But you know what? I've been wrong before.

Do you LIKE the new format over the old format? Do you LIKE that three topics are covered instead of one?

Did you like that the new column format revealed other ways you can get FREE tips from me other than the just my column in your paper?

If you do like the NEW format and you do read my column in your local paper, then you could help yourself and me by writing a short Letter to the Editor of your paper.

Tell her/him WHY you like the new format better than the old one and that you loved the fact that you discovered all sorts of new stuff at my website that helped you.

IMPORTANT TIP FOR YOU: Here's what I've discovered over the past twenty-five years of writing a syndicated newspaper column.

If you don't write periodic letters to the editor telling them what you LIKE in the paper - it can be a sports columnist, a recipe feature, a comic strip, a crossword puzzle - the paper starts to think NO ONE likes the feature and they CANCEL it.

It's easy for a normal store to judge how much you like a product. If your grocery store sells 500 jars of Raye's Sweet and Spicy mustard each day and it's the BEST-SELLING product in the store, do you think they'll stop stocking it?

It happens to be the best mustard I've ever had, but forget about that for now.

The fact the product flies off the shelves tells the store you love it. But newspaper editors have NO IDEA if you like something. They're not standing over your shoulder watching you read the paper.

Please consider going to your local paper's website and find the Letter to the Editor form. Just write whatever you want about my column or ANY feature and tell the editor WHY you like it/them.

I thank you in advance if you'll do this for me.

You need to do this for ANYTHING YOU LIKE at ANY STORE. Write letters, send messages, etc. to TELL the OWNER you like something.

Trust - It's DANGEROUS

Have you been burned before? You hire someone to do something and they do a crappy job. Sometimes you don't realize the job is bad because the mistakes are HIDDEN. The legal term for this is latent defect.

I know because I do lots of expert witness work.

It's important for you to realize I didn't build the house I live in here in New Hampshire. I'm currently working my butt off to build a new dream house for Kathy and I. But that's a story for another day.

Last week, I was in Portland, Maine, attending a very interesting construction conference - CSI Maine High-Performance Building Conference.

The event is over so don't try to buy tickets for goodness sake!

At the event one of the speakers, Steve Easley, talked about heat loss and the overall R Factor of walls in homes and other structures.

What overall R-factor means is what's the AVERAGE R-factor of a wall in your home? You may have R-19 fiberglass batts between your wall studs, but that doesn't mean you have a R-19 wall.

The windows, air leaks, solid framing members, etc. all have an R-factor much less than R-19. When you average out all the components in your walls, you may have an overall R-factor of 8 or less. GULP!

I decided to get out my FLIR thermal camera that connects to my smart phone this past weekend. It's such a cool tool to have. You can use it to spot all sorts of things around your home, including WATER LEAKS! Water leaks show up as blue or purple spots in thermal images because the wet surface is COOLER from the water evaporating.

Look at the CRAPPY job the insulation contractor did here at my house eighteen years ago:

What you're looking at is the east wall in our giant family room. That's an Andersen french door and it was 7 F outside when I took the photo. The blue and purple tell you it's colder than the yellow and orange areas in the image.

Pay attention to the sloped ceiling above the door. There's NOT supposed to be blue and purple there! That's telling you the insulation at those spots is inferior or the idiot contractors did NOT put in insulation baffles to STOP air from the soffits from migrating through the batts as it travels to the roof ridge vent.

You don't want air moving through fiberglass insulation! The air moving through fiberglass significantly reduces the R-value.

Here's a second image looking at the east wall in the dining room.

WTH???

Look at how much blue and purple is on that wall to the right of the dark-blue spot in the lower left of the image. That dark-blue patch is another Andersen french door so with all that glass, you bet it's going to give off a cold thermal signature.

I turned on the temperature feature of the FLIR thermal camera for this photo. The surface of the ceiling drywall right where it meets the wall is 57.9 F.

GIVE ME A BREAK! That ceiling should not be that cold.

Why is this important to YOU?

One thing I discovered at the CSI conference is that TOO FEW people are thinking long term.

How long will your home be a home for some family? It could be 100 years or more.

How easy is it to upgrade insulation or fix problems? It's NOT EASY.

If your home is going to be around for 100 years, how much ENERGY will be WASTED because some idiot worker did a half-baked job on your home?

How do you prevent errors like this?

It's NOT EASY - I'll grant you that.

You need to stop TRUSTING contractors. You need to STOP HOPING everything is going to go well. You need to stop cutting corners. You need to think LONG TERM.

Just yesterday, I shared in a podcast call with a woman that she needs to watch the carpet installers like a HAWK and be in the room when they nail down the tackless strip so the nails do NOT penetrate the electric cables that control the radiant heat mat in her floor.

Another tip is to install a thin metal plate over the wires so it's impossible for nails to penetrate the cables. But you need to make sure it's the RIGHT metal and placed in the RIGHT manner so it doesn't cut through the cables 30 years from now.

You need to be present or HIRE someone to be present to oversee workmanship in critical areas of your home that WILL BE COVERED UP.

If not, you'll probably just get screwed.

I'd say that's enough for today, how about you?

Please go write to your local paper editor now - it's so important!

If my column is NOT in your local paper, then by gosh TELL the editor to put it in the paper! They know how to get it, trust me.

Tim Carter
Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com
Captain Magic Podcast Man - CLICK HERE for Podcast 3

Do It Right, Not Over!

New subscriber? Welcome! Not new? Thanks for sticking around!

Kathy, the kids, and I want to thank you again for all your warm and heartfelt sentiments in this very difficult time for us. If you've subscribed since this past Tuesday, you're unaware that we had to send Lady the Dog back to Heaven.

I created that page for a number of reasons. If you visited the page on Tuesday or Wednesday morning, it's much different now. There are many more photos, memories and a song.

New Radio Show For You

Moments ago, I concluded a phone call with my very good friend Dan. He's so very smart about many things. Dan's been receiving my newsletter for over ten years.

CLICK this image and listen to Ask the Builder podcasts! Copyright 2018 Tim Carter

"Tim, don't use the word podcast with your subscribers. It's scary. Also, please just tell your subscribers to go to your website and click the play button on the player page. It's easy, it's fast and they don't need to do anything but sit back and laugh."

Good point Dan! How about calling it my new radio show since I do use radio waves to make it happen! In case you're a new subscriber, I'm a licensed amateur radio operator - W3ATB.

I use WiFi radio waves to do every aspect of the show!

How about you follow Dan's suggestion? CLICK HERE and have a listen. I guarantee you'll be amazed.

Oh, here's the BEST PART!!! DUH! I almost forgot to tell you.

When you CLICK HERE, not only do you get to listen to the show, but you also get to see ALL the photos of what I'm talking about!

Wait, there's more! I also have lots of other LINKS there for extra FREE information about what I'm talking about.

Here's what's in it for you when you listen to my latest new radio show:

• I talk with Vic about how to save perhaps $5000 by doing a concrete overlay on his patio.
• I chat with Tracey about where she can get traditional stair parts
• I share with Sandy about how she'll never have to repaint her brick home again: CLUE: Tom Sawyer
• I recall a story about how I avoided getting paralyzed by falling 20 feet to the ground.

New Building Technologies Conference

I was in Portland, Maine on Thursday attending a very cool construction conference. Lots of stuff I knew, but there was some great information shared about:

• vapor barriers MUST BE installed under all concrete slabs that are in ANY building - CLICK HERE for BEST ONE
• concrete should be in direct contact with the vapor barrier
• new emerging trend is to put solid foam insulation on the exterior walls of home plus traditional fiberglass batts in the walls
• repeated wet/dry cycles on exposed OSB panels GREATLY reduces their shear strength

I'll be sharing more of what I discovered in future columns so watch for those.

Roofing Ripoff Book 50% OFF SALE

Last year, I published my expose' book about WHY your asphalt shingles are falling apart.

While researching the book, I was the first person in the world to discover that copper ions react with asphalt molecules and prevent cross-linking.

Cross-linking is what causes asphalt to get brittle. When that happens, the colored granules come off, the shingles curl, and they crack.

This is the cover of my Roofing Ripoff book. CLICK THE IMAGE NOW TO ORDER IT.

But what if I told you that you can add some THIN copper to the top of your roof and significantly SLOW the deterioration of your shingles?

Adding the copper to a new, or newer, asphalt shingle roof can make the roof last 40, or more, years!!!!

I share in the book the best copper to get, how to install it, etc.

CLICK HERE to watch a video of me installing the copper.

You can now get a PDF electronic INSTANT DOWNLOAD copy of my book for LESS than $10.

It's an easy read. It's got GREAT COLOR PHOTOS, including the roof where I made the discovery about the copper!!!

CLICK HERE and use the following promo code to get 50% off Roofing Ripoff.

COPPER

This sale lasts only ONE WEEK. I doubt you'll ever get a better price than this. That promo code WILL EXPIRE next Sunday March 25th.

If you don't feel my book's worth it after getting it, just email me for a FULL REFUND.

If you want to read the first three chapters of Roofing Ripoff for FREE, CLICK HERE.

Stain Solver 9 Pound News

We finally have the 9-pound size of Stain Solver in stock.

Are you a new subscriber? Stain Solver is a product Kathy and I own/invented.

It's a certified organic oxygen bleach.

CLICK HERE if you LOVE the 9-pound size. We only made just under 7,000 pounds, and I guarantee you it won't last long.

You do NOT have to buy just the 9-pound size. You can buy anything your heart desires.

I just want you to know that there's a LIMITED NUMBER of the 9-pounders and when they're gone I can't tell you when they'll be back in stock.

Good luck. I hope we don't run out before you decide to pull the trigger.

That's enough for today. I'm starting to think too much about Lady the Dog.

Thanks once again for all your kind words about our loss.

Tim Carter
Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

Lady the Dog

Yesterday, Kathy, the kids and I lost a very dear part of our family.

Lady the Dog died of a massive heart attack just after lunch.

I may not be the same for a while and I wanted you to know why.

Thanks in advance for any sentiments you might send our way. I'm sure you understand I'll not be able to respond back to you.

I knew it would be difficult, but not quite this hard.

Yesterday, I started to build a memorial page for her because I didn't want to forget anything about her.

Lady the Dog's Memorial Page

RIP Lady the Dog

Love,

Your Mom & Dad