He's coming. Is that why you're huddled with Pashi, Kandee, Rob, Paula, Mary Lee, Bruce and about 80 other new subscribers who've signed on in the past seven days? Yes, Old Man Winter is about to plop his arse down in the great Northeast Kingdom for at least four months!

I do like the four seasons, but there's a big difference in the length of winter between Cincinnati, Ohio and New Hampshire.

Winters in central New Hampshire can be longer by a good six weeks. Back in Cincinnati, while rare, there were warm t-shirt days in December. You could also have some very nice warmth in mid-March.

Here in New Hampshire, we often have our cover snow the first week of December. This means you don't see the lawn or grass again until April! It's not uncommon to have cold weather until the middle of April! Oh well, at least the snow away from the roads stays nearly pure white all winter long.

CLICK or TAP HERE to see how cold it was a few years back in mid April! You need to watch the BOTTOM video on that page. Hang in there as the wind dies down after about 15 seconds.

Kathy and DaVinci Reviews

Early last Sunday morning Kathy was intrigued by the photo of the Brava faux slate and the video I shared about my Davinci Roofscapes faux slate roof. She decided to do some digging. After completing her research, I received this note from Kathy: "I think you should read the reviews of customers who bought the Davinci Roofscape shingles. You might not want to recommend it."

I immediately sent back, "Where are these reviews? I've had my DaVinci roof for six years now and there are zero defects. They actually look better now than the day they were installed because they look even more like real dusty slate."

Kathy sent me a screenshot of the website and I immediately went there to do my due diligence. I'm not sharing the website because I think it's got a hidden agenda and I don't want to promote it.

I feel this is an excellent teaching moment. You need to engage your critical-thinking skills and separate the wheat from the chaff when reading online reviews.

Once at the website, I discovered some negative reviews that talked about leaks. Roof leaks are almost never a product issue, especially with DaVinci virgin-polymer shingles for goodness sake! Leaks in new roof installations are almost always traced to a workmanship flaw.

Since I have a DaVinci Roofscapes roof, I decided to leave a truthful review. The invisible website owner - that was a huge FLASHING WARNING LIGHT TO ME BY THE WAY - did have wording that said it could take up to two days for a review to be published.

It's now been a week and my review is not visible. Does that mean the website owner has a hidden agenda and wants to make DaVinci look bad???? Maybe, and maybe not...

When you stumble onto a website and you can't see a photo, a name, or a physical address of the owner, you should immediately be suspect of ALL you see at that website.

I share this because if you stumble across a site that's not publishing all the reviews, and you have no way other than to test this yourself by writing one, you might not be getting all the data you need to make the right choice. Getting just one side of the story is never good.

Never forget in reviews you're hearing one half of the story. You know this to be true if you've raised children. Be careful of reviews filled with vitriol. Pay attention to reviews that are objective and filled with facts, not opinions.

Don't ever forget, a half-truth is a WHOLE lie.

If you were about to invest in a top-of-the-line product like DaVinci or Brava, it's best to reach out to the manufacturer and see about obtaining addresses near you where you can view the product and walk up and talk to the owners.

In the case of DaVinci, they are forthright with this information. All you have to do is read any number of their blog posts.

Put on your Peter Falk Columbo trench coat and do a little digging to find out where the roofs are. It's not hard, for goodness sake, because in most of the blog posts they identify the owner of the building and give you the city and state too. How hard is it to reach out to the owner?

Live Streaming Video

My son convinced me to get back into live streaming video. I did a test yesterday afternoon:

The live stream test from high atop my perch in my man cave was a huge success. I did it completely unannounced and within minutes quite a few YouTubers were watching live, one from Thailand!

CLICK or TAP HERE to watch it. The live stream is recorded just as all live TV is so it can be played back at your convenience.

Those viewing could ask me questions in the chat box to the right in real time. You'll see me in the replay read the chat questions. It was a boatload of fun.

I'm happy to answer your question on LIVE video. CLICK or TAP HERE to ask the question. BE SURE you say that you want me to answer it on the live video feed.

I'll send out an email blast to you here when I intend to go LIVE again. It will be this coming week. It's all up to you and you submitting great questions.

Electrical Fires in Your Home!

Each day houses catch on fire because of electrical issues. The causes are many and it's why the National Electrical Code was developed years ago by the insurance industry. The insurance companies were looking for a way to stem the tide of their losses and exposure.

Look at this infrared photo taken in my own basement:

The black arrow is pointing to two cables stapled one on top of another that are significantly warmer than the others nearby.

Do you know what's causing this to happen? The heat is caused by friction. The alternating current flowing back and forth through the wires inside the cable create heat just as when you rub your hands together. It's okay for a cable like mine or yours to get warm. It's not okay for one to get so hot the insulation melts!

This friction is not an issue if you've matched the wire size to the load. Circuit breakers and fuses are designed to prevent wires from overheating. They stop the flow of the current if too much is happening at once. CLICK or TAP HERE to discover so much more about circuit breakers and old-time fuses. Investing this time could SAVE YOUR LIFE or that of your loved ones.

Fancy Lock

My good friend Mike, who's been a subscriber for many years, sent me a video about a lock that's almost 350 years old.

CLICK or TAP HERE to watch a short video that demonstrates all of the clever features of this lock.

Then ask yourself: How many people are left on the planet that can make a lock like this using 1680s technology?

How To Do Less

Each week, I receive lots of emails from people who want me to share news about what they're doing. Believe me, I've had my share of unusual pitches. But I got one mid-week that had me shaking my head. Here's what Peter sent me:

"On Nov 5th at 8/7c, I will be airing on Shark Tank with a product I built in my college dorm room to help other students skip their Zoom classes.

Would you want the story? Let me know and I can send over a press release."

Great - just what we need. A product that helps young future workers LEARN LESS. What am I missing?

That Time of Year - Leaves

I stopped having to deal with leaves, pine needles, tiny twigs, pieces of bark, etc. in my gutters years ago. Lookie lookie:

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover how you can have the same peace of mind I enjoy each autumn. No ER visits for me after falling off a ladder! Get the BEST gutter guard!

That's quite enough for a Sunday.

Tim Carter
Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com
BEST DARN Cleaner - www.StainSolver.com
Winter Field Day Approaching - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Do you know all you need to know about plumbing drain pipes? CLICK or TAP HERE and let me know if you discovered something new. Come on, tell the truth for goodness sake! I know you didn't know about sweep 90s!!!! Come clean!

BOO! Happy Halloween! I'm going trick or treating tonight festooned as a telegrapher! Pretty good alliteration, right?

How about you? All new Ask the Builder subscribers are supposed to wear costumes! Are you dressing up in a flouncy skirt popular in the 50s and early 60s? Or maybe you've decided to be a train engineer or a hayride driver with bib overalls and flannel shirt.

If you're a seasoned subscriber, you know autumn is my FAVORITE season of the year. Everything about autumn is amazing. The colors here in New England can take your breath away. Here's a photo I captured just three days ago.

If Bob Ross were alive, he might take that photo and create a painting of it in about 25 minutes! I loved his show. He had the most soothing voice! My son got me Bob Ross socks for Fathers Day. Fun!

I marvel at the ability of any painter who can take a blank canvas and create scenes like you see above in minutes with maybe a few happy accidents! I have poor artistic skills. CLICK or TAP HERE to see what I mean. If you want to use the above photo to create an oil, acrylic, or watercolor painting, feel free to check out the high-resolution version.

The Golden Hour

Are you aware of the golden hour? It's that magic time of day just after sunrise and before sunset that excites painters and photographers alike. I'm sure you've noticed that reds and oranges look more vibrant during this short time span.

That said, if you wanted to experience the most vibrant blues and greens, when might be the best time of day to do that? More importantly, what's happening? What's causing this color shift?

It's all about color temperature. CLICK or TAP HERE to get your head all around how the color temperature of light sources AFFECTS the colors you see!

For example, you may be out shopping for a fleece. You select one that appears to be a nice light green but when you get home, it's gray! Yes, this can happen if the overhead lights at the store have funky bulbs in them completely different from your light bulbs at home.

Gray & Black Water

Several days ago, Dori ordered one of my plumbing isometric/riser diagrams for her new house project. She was the first customer ever to request two separate building drains - one for black water and one for gray water. Look at her drawing.

Here's a riser isometric drawing showing the separation of gray water from black water in a home.

If you're building a new home, you absolutely should consider installing at least one gray-water sink. I'm talking about the slop or utility sink you find in many laundry rooms or sometimes in a garage that doesn't get below freezing.

Use these sinks to clean nasty things like paint brushes, greasy items, etc. You NEVER WANT this polluted water to enter a septic tank. If on a city sewer, your city sewer plant manager will appreciate you not sending him a bunch of goopy latex.

If you're about to build a new house or do a major remodeling and want to SAVE THOUSANDS of dollars, you should consider doing your own plumbing rough in using one of my drawings. Zoe in New Mexico did it this past spring. As she got close to installing the pipes, Zoe scheduled two phone coaching sessions.

When her inspector showed up to look at all the below-rough plumbing, he said, "Zoe, this is the best DIY install I've ever seen in my thirty years of inspecting. It's even better than what some plumbers do." Zoe got it right using my drawing and with me looking over her shoulder in the phone calls.

I also draw water-supply-line drawings and gas-line ones too. It's really important to get the size of gas lines correct. You don't want to starve a gas-burning appliance of the fuel it needs!

DIY Interior Walls

How about building a new interior wall in your home? You can do this. I know you could easily figure out the angles on this one.

This is a new interior wall in an existing home. The angled ceiling makes the job a bit more difficult. Copyright 2021 Tim Carter

The door opening still needs to have the jack or trimmer studs installed but for the most part it's complete.

CLICK or TAP HERE for a quick primer on how to save yourself lots of sweet moola building your own walls. Don't worry, the carpenters in your area are busy. You'll not take food off their tables.

BTW, there was a mistake made building that wall in the photo. It should have been built two feet past that large 4x8 piece of cardboard leaning against the wall!

Faux Slate Roofs

Would you like to have a roof that gets "Ooooos" and "Ahhhhhs"? I've got one. Mine is made with DaVinci faux old world slate. It's the light-gray roofing in the photo below. When visitors or delivery people see my roof they almost always say, "Wow, real slate! It looks fantastic."

The piece of faux slate in the center is one made by Brava. As you can see, it's got very interesting variegation going that resembles real multi-colored slate. There are other more-subtle colors in the Brava palette that don't have so much contrast. I decided to show you the one with the most color variation.

If you want a roof that will last 100, or more, years and you want the WOW factor, faux slate is but one way to go. These shingles are easy to install.

That's the voice of experience talking. I hand-nailed every one of the ones on my house - all 42 squares of them! Oh, and the roof pitch was 12/12 and 9/12. Watch this payoff video of my roof. I only almost fell off four times.

Inflation is REAL

Are you feeling the burn of inflation? Kathy and I sure are. When you sell products like we do - STAIN SOLVER for one - and offer FREE SHIPPING, you get emails like this:

When the shipping cost of your product is the MOST EXPENSIVE line item for all the costs that go into getting the product in your hands, emails like this are especially troubling.

A 5.9% increase? Are you kidding me?

What's this mean to you? If you want STAIN SOLVER at the current LOWER PRICE, then you better order before we have to RAISE our PRICES once more because of things out of our control.

I'd say that's more than enough for a Halloween Sunday.

Tim Carter
Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com
Stocking Stuffer - www.StainSolver.com
Zombie Shuffle QRP - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. You've got rust on your concrete steps like this. Climb these steps in Cincinnati and behind the doors, you can light votive candles. How do you get the rust off? How do you PREVENT the rust in the first place? CLICK the photo for the answers, silly!!!!