Solar Energy

Posted on June 29, 2006 by Tim Carter

DEAR TIM: Soaring energy costs have me thinking about solar energy for my new home. Have there been significant advancements in technology with respect to solar energy and residential applications? What kind of systems can be installed and are they really cost-effective? Would you consider solar energy if you were building a new home? If so, what kind of system? Are there any negative issues with respect to solar energy? Pamela D., Montgomery, AL

DEAR PAMELA: The time for solar energy has arrived. In my opinion, solar energy is absolutely the belle of the ball when it comes to long-term solutions that solve many of the energy needs of the typical residential home. There is not a doubt in my mind that solar energy systems in a vast majority of future homes will be as common as balloons at a child's birthday party.

This large solar panel produces enough electric power on sunny days to supply nearly all of the electrical needs inside this large home in Colorado. PHOTO CREDIT: Kit Cassingham

Solar energy makes sense for a number of reasons. First of all, the sun' output of energy is constant or nearly so each and every day. Clouds can block sunlight, and the change of seasons creates a varying amount of available sunlight on any given day. But you and I can count on the sun. Natural resources like oil, coal, and natural gas are being used faster than they can be created by natural geologic processes. When you start to factor in the consumption rate of these finite resources with respect to a growing world population, you see why solar energy starts to make sense.

But these issues aside, when the sun is shining on south-facing lots in the northern hemisphere, massive amounts of energy can be captured and harnessed for use by you and your family. In fact, you might capture excess energy that can be sent backwards through the power lines to neighboring houses. I have friends in Colorado who do this with their solar energy system on a routine basis.

On sunny days, their electric meter actually spins backwards indicating they are selling electricity to the local utility company. This appears as a credit on their monthly bill against electric they purchase from the grid when the sun can't create enough electricity for their needs. Because they live in an area where there is abundant sunshine, their electric bill is sometimes zero or a very small amount of money.

There have been significant advancements in solar energy technology. In my opinion, the biggest effect has been the consistent lower-cost of the equipment. The cost of photovoltaic cells and panels continues to drop like a rock falling from the sky. These lower costs translate to faster payback periods which increase the likelihood of a positive return on investment while you still own the house. Photovoltaic panels and cells transform sunlight into electricity by a natural process common to certain crystals.

There are two primary residential active-solar energy systems. The photovoltaic systems create electricity that you use in real time. If extra electricity is produced, it is stored in batteries. If the batteries get fully charged, you can then send the electricity back downstream into the electric company power grid with their permission.

The second solar energy system is one that captures the radiant heat from the sun. You can use this heat to raise the temperature of air or water in your home. The solar energy water heating systems can be open or closed looped. An open loop system takes the actual water that will be used, and sends it to the solar heating device. This system works best in areas where freezing temperatures are not experienced. An open loop system could easily freeze up in the dead of winter on a bitter cold night.

The closed-loop systems contain a liquid in the piping system that will not freeze. This liquid is heated by the sun, and the heat is transferred to the domestic water supply lines via a simplistic heat exchanger. I intend to use one of these closed loop systems in a new home I am planning to build in New Hampshire. I also intend to install a photovoltaic system to help lower my dependence on the existing electrical grid.

Smart architecture can also help capture solar energy. Passive solar energy practices allow you to capture the strong solar rays that can heat up interior surfaces in your home during daylight hours. Dark natural stone flooring or other dense materials that can absorb the solar heat work very well. As the sun sets, these heat sinks then slowly release the stored energy back into your home. Mother Nature gives freely her solar energy, so be sure not to waste that which comes your way.

In my opinion, the biggest negative issues with solar energy are the financial ones. You need to take the time and do the math to see when you will get paid back in full the extra money the solar energy systems cost. They are more expensive than conventional heating systems, that is a fact.

But the good news is that the federal and state governments are helping reduce the initial financial pain via healthy tax credits. These tax credits vary, and they expire at different times. Be very careful about trusting the advice of a solar-energy salesperson when it comes to these tax credits. Get information directly from the Internal Revenue Service and your local state government. Obtain the facts in writing, and keep the circulars along with all receipts in a file. If you ever get audited, these documents will help you if the auditor happens to question your deduction.

Some solar energy systems need periodic maintenance. The solar panels may have to be cleaned regularly to ensure peak performance. The tilt of certain panels may have to be adjusted several times a year to get the maximum benefit from the sun's rays since the sun tracks across the sky at different angles from summer to winter and then back again. You may also have to check batteries and perform maintenance on these to ensure you have power when the sun is not shining.

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Moen Faucets

Posted on June 25, 2006 by Tim Carter

Moen faucets are fantastic plumbing products. In fact, I just made the decision to install Moen faucets in all of my second-floor bathrooms. The new ShowHouse collection of Moen faucets offered the exact finish, style, durability and functionality my family desired.

Moen was an easy choice, since our basement recreation room bathroom sports a unique Moen ShowHouse faucet that looks like it was made with pieces of bamboo. This faucet gets compliments from every person who uses it. They especially like how the water gently cascades from the bamboo faucet shaft. If this faucet had been available when the Gilligan's Island TV series was filmed, I am quite sure the show producer would have had one installed in Gilligan's grass hut!

I have installed Moen faucets for years for many customers. Plumbing faucets are like cars. People seem to like different makes, models and styles. I found as a builder and remodeler that certain customers just loved the look and functionality of Moen faucets over other major brands. The best part about their choice was I never had a malfunction or service call traced to a defective Moen faucet. Ask any builder, remodeler or plumber, and they will tell you that is music to their ears.

What sets one faucet apart from another? In my opinion, it depends entirely on what you are looking at. If you are shopping by price alone, you will discover that Moen is not the most expensive faucet. It is also not the least expensive. Talk to people who own Moen faucets, and you will quickly discover they are spectacular value for the money spent.

If you can install faucets yourself, this may not be an issue. Since your labor is free so to speak, you can install a cheap faucet every year or two as they fail. But many people do not possess plumbing skills, or the skills they have are not refined. Plumbing leaks can turn into plumbing nightmares, and this fear drives many homeowners to call plumbers for faucet installations.

Plumbers have traditionally garnered a high wage for their work. If you have a new faucet installed, you will discover the labor charge alone may run into the hundreds of dollars. For this reason and others, you want to be sure the faucet installed will perform flawlessly for many years.

Another distinctive comparison point to consider is ease of repair. The internal parts in faucets do wear out. How hard or easy is it to perform repairs? I can tell you that it is simple to install a new Moen faucet cartridge. Remove a wishbone-shaped retaining clip and the cartridge pulls out instantly. Not all faucets offer this ease of repair.

If you choose a faucet based on styling, then Moen faucets will absolutely captivate your attention. The sleek designs and finishing details set them apart from other faucets in their class. If you were able to see all of the faucets displayed at once like I see each year at the International Builders Show, you would instantly discover why many people buy Moen faucets.

Keep in mind that faucets are not the only fixtures in bathrooms and kitchens. Often there are accessories such as towel bars, soap dishes and toilet-paper holders. Moen offers a complimentary series of accessories with many of their faucets. Be sure to consider this before you make your final faucet decision.

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Delta Faucets

Posted on June 25, 2006 by Tim Carter

Delta faucets have played a very large part in my career as a builder, licensed master plumber and homeowner. The name Delta faucets brings a smile to the face of any experienced marketing manager or progressive university professor whose field of study is marketing. Over the years massive sums of money have been poured into marketing campaigns to build the Delta faucet name so that consumers like you and I equate Delta with quality and style.

But great marketing can only carry a product so far. If the Delta faucets were not made well, they would have fallen by the wayside. When you buy a faucet, you expect it to last. If you have to pay a plumber to install a faucet, you only buy a cheap faucet one time. I can tell you for a fact, I have never had to replace a Delta faucet on one of my jobs because it failed prematurely. Each Delta faucet I have ever installed has performed just like an athletic workhorse.

I was first exposed to Delta faucets in the mid 1970's. Keidel Supply, a plumbing supply house in my city, was a stocking distributor for Delta faucets. They still are, and my guess is they sell thousands of them each year. When I first saw Delta kitchen and bath faucets, they were affordable, and appeared to be a good value to me at the time. After installing several, I knew they would work well for my customers. It was an exciting time to be a young plumber, as the switch from traditional rubber and plastic washers to washerless cartridges was in full swing, and Delta was at the head of the pack.

Delta faucets have always had well-engineered internal parts. It is not uncommon for a faucet cartridge to last 10 or even 15 years before the faucet starts to drip. In my own home, I have a kitchen faucet that is nearly 20-years old. It still has the original factory cartridge in the cold water handle. The faucet shuts off completely, and there is not a leak. That faucet handle has undoubtedly been turned on and off well over 250,000 times, and it still works just as it did when I took it out of its cardboard box.

Some older Delta faucet models have a small spring that is part of the faucet cartridge assembly. Many a homeowner has failed to replace this small part when installing a new cartridge. It is wise to replace this spring as they do wear out. Furthermore, different water systems throughout the nation have varied water chemistry that can weaken the metal used to make the spring.

The cartridges that control water flow through the faucet are fairly inexpensive. If you have a Delta faucet that you love and want to keep it for years, it makes sense to buy several replacement cartridges now while the parts are easy to come by. Store these parts in a plastic bag stapled to the inside of the sink base cabinet. In the event the faucet starts to leak, you have the original Delta replacement part handy. Once you discover how easy it is to install a new replacement cartridge, you will enjoy that feeling of satisfaction of a job well done.

Delta faucets have come a very long way. The styling and selection is now five or ten times what it was thirty years ago. The assortment of finishes is also astounding. I can clearly remember when polished chrome was the only real option my customers had. No one would have ever thought you could get polished nickel, oiled bronze and tarnish-free polished brass faucets back thirty years ago.

If you want your Delta faucet to last for 20 or 30 years, carefully read the installation manual, and follow the simple instructions. Pay attention to the cleaning instructions that come with the product. Avoid the use of abrasive cleaners, as they will scratch the finish of any faucet. To avoid water spots, take a few seconds to wipe the faucet with a dry dish towel as soon as you are finished using the faucet. A soft, cotton cloth will keep the finish looking perfect for years.

If you do have a hard water problem with the ugly white spotting, use a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water to remove water spots from your Delta faucets. Never use harsh chemicals that say they will remove hard water deposits. The chemicals in some of these products may permanently damage your Delta faucets.

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DIY Heating

Posted on June 20, 2006 by Tim Carter

DEAR TIM: I need to replace my existing furnace, and am convinced I can do it myself. I looked at how the furnace connects to the metal ductwork, and I don't see any real challenges. Even the solder connections for the air conditioning seem simple. What obstacles do you feel I will encounter? Is it realistic for me to complete the job with no major problems? I am a serious do-it-yourselfer (diy'r), and have tackled all of my past diy projects with success. Patrick N., Laconia, NH

DEAR PATRICK: Your confident attitude reminds me of a real estate developer who requested a zoning change in my village a few years ago. I listened to him tell our planning commission how he got every other zoning change he had ever asked for from other local government bodies. He was proud of his 1.000 batting average. Unfortunately for him, my village spoiled his perfect record. I predict you are about to strike out as well.

Installing a furnace requires great skill, specialized tools and experience. This ultra-high-efficiency York furnace with a gas modulating valve took Richard Anderson, the BEST HVAC craftsman in greater Cincinnati, OH, several days to install. PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Carter

Diy heating is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks I can think of when it comes to projects around a home. I can think of more physically demanding ones, like placing and finishing 20 yards of concrete in one day with just two helpers. If you want a formidable challenge, install a traditional post-over handrail with newel posts, volutes and goose necks. This master carpentry task is a photo-finish second place to heating, when it comes to precision and technical difficulty.

The skill sets you need to professionally install a new furnace are many. Furthermore, you need many specialized hand and power tools, especially when it comes to connecting the new furnace to your central air conditioner. For example, I doubt you have a set of refrigeration gauges sitting around to measure the high-and-low-pressure sides of your air-conditioner refrigerant. You will also need a two-stage vacuum pump to remove all air and moisture from the inside of the copper tubing after it has been brazed, not soldered. Don't forget to flow pure nitrogen through the copper tubing as you braze the copper connections.

I will assume you are installing a high-efficiency furnace, as they will give you a fantastic return on investment. The newer gas furnaces that sport gas modulating valves are state of the art, but my guess is that unless you have a heating and air conditioning contractor who will secretly buy the equipment, you may not be able to get your hands on the furnace you want. Heating equipment manufacturers often demand that their top-of-the-line equipment be installed by factory-trained craftsmen. This policy is a good one, as they do not want their furnaces and air conditioning equipment to become lab rats for people who feel they know more than they really do.

Once you remove your old furnace, you may be surprised to discover the shape and size of the new furnace and the interior air-conditioning coil that sits on top of many furnaces is quite different from your existing one. Connecting the ductwork above the existing furnace to the new one will require precision modifications. If you have not worked with sheet metal before, you may be in for a surprise. You need to learn all about s-hooks, drives and custom-offset ductwork.

One of your most serious challenges will be reclaiming the existing refrigerant that is in your system. Those of us who want to protect our planet's fragile atmosphere would sincerely appreciate it if you would not vent the high-pressure refrigerant into the air. Professional heating and cooling contractors have specialized equipment that allows them to reclaim the gas so it can be properly recycled.

If your existing furnace is fueled with natural gas, oil or propane, you will need to conjure up your best diy plumbing skills. You may be working with black iron pipe that needs to be custom cut and threaded. If you have all of the needed pipe-threading dies, cutters and the pipe vise, I am duly impressed. These expensive tools make sense for a plumber to own as he uses them frequently.

Diy heating is one of those tasks that homeowners need to avoid. There are many things that can go wrong, and worst of all, you may put yourself and your loved ones at risk. Furnaces and any fuel-burning heating device generates deadly carbon monoxide. Installing heating equipment improperly can be a recipe for disaster.

If you still think you want to tackle the project, absolutely take out the required building permit. Call for timely inspections to ensure all of the equipment is installed to code. You may need two different inspectors, as some municipalities may have a separate electrical inspector who looks at all of the electrical connections, fuses, switches and disconnect boxes.

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Kitchen Islands – Small 2×4 Ones Work Really Well

Posted on June 20, 2006 by Tim Carter

DEAR TIM: Kitchen islands have been in vogue for years, but I do not have one. I believe I have the space required but am not sure. What is the minimum size one needs for a kitchen island? Is there a maximum size? What keeps the islands from moving since they are not attached to a wall? Is it hard to install a sink in a kitchen island? Do you have other kitchen-island tips? Margo P., Valparaiso, IN

DEAR MARGO: Kitchen islands grew in popularity as the size of mainstream kitchens started to expand in the 1970s. I can clearly remember seeing my first kitchen island in a contemporary landominium housing development. Not only was the island enormous, the kitchen felt to me like 30 or more people could fit in it with ease.

How Do You Determine the Size of a Kitchen Island?

For planning and design purposes, kitchen-island sizing is a function of the amount of space you must provide around each side of the island. Different designers may tell you different dimensions, but 3 feet is always a good distance to allow between the edge of any side of the island and any other adjacent wall, cabinet, or appliance.

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This kitchen island has worked well for 19 years, but would have done a better job had it been 1 foot deeper. PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Carter

The 3-foot zone around the island means that you need open floor space that measures 8 feet by 9 feet for a tiny kitchen island that measures just 2-feet deep by 3-feet long. An island this small is virtually worthless.

What is the Smallest Useful Kitchen Island?

My personal building experience leads me to believe that a kitchen island size should be no smaller than 2-feet deep by 4-feet long. There is not a doubt in my mind that others feel differently.

For sake of example, I have a kitchen with an island in my own home. The island is just 2-feet deep, but it's 7-feet long. My wife and I love the length of the island but wish it were deeper. This island fits easily lengthwise into our kitchen which happens to be 20-feet long by 17-feet wide.

Why is Your Island Only 2 Feet Wide?

You may wonder why the island couldn't be deeper when the kitchen is 17-feet wide. My kitchen sports a 4-foot-wide walkway on the other side of one set of base cabinets that has a 1-foot overhang. This means for kitchen-island-planning purposes my kitchen is effectively only 12-feet wide.

What is the Maximum Kitchen Island Size?

The maximum island size, in my opinion, would be one that is 6-feet deep and perhaps 10-feet long. This is a massive amount of flat space, or even multi-level space, for an island. One of the things to keep in mind is how the top of the island will be cleaned. Each part of the top must be reachable by hand so spills, food, and dirt can be cleaned with ease.

Should All Islands Be Attached to the Floor?

Some islands may not have to be attached to the floor. The weight of the cabinets, top, and all of the things stored in the island cabinets may reach close to, or over, 1,000 pounds for a massive kitchen island. Smaller kitchen islands should be secured to the floor so they do not slide or tilt if someone leans or pushes against the island.

If you turn a standard kitchen island base cabinet upside down, you will discover a void space about 4-inches deep. This void space allows plenty of room so a carpenter can attach solid framing lumber to the kitchen floor. If this lumber is placed just inside the inner surfaces of the sides, front and back of the cabinet base, the cabinet will nest over the blocking. When done correctly the cabinet will not slide when pushed. To keep the cabinet from tilting over, the carpenter needs to install thin fasteners through the cabinet sides into the solid blocking.

Should I Install a Sink in an Island?

Consider installing a second kitchen sink in your new island. You will be shocked how much this second sink gets used. Kitchen island sink plumbing is very unique. You need to install a loop vent. Avoid using AAVs, because they will fail and allow sewer gas in your kitchen.

Be sure to install plenty of code-approved electrical outlets in the sidewalls of the island. These outlets will give you greater flexibility for days when lots of cooking is happening or for parties and gatherings. Consider a different countertop material than what you currently have on the rest of your kitchen cabinets. You might be able to get a complimentary top material that allows your island to become both the physical and visual center point of your kitchen.

Are Bookshelves a Great Island Accessory?

Bookshelves and other fancy island accent cabinets are widely available. You can also get special trim that finishes off kitchen island cabinets. Some kitchen island cabinets can be made to look like a piece of furniture. The possibilities are often endless.

Should I Hire A Kitchen Designer?

Visit a special store that just sells kitchen cabinets and consider working with a certified kitchen designer. These individuals have completed extensive course work and testing to ensure they are true kitchen-design professionals.

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A certified kitchen designer is well aware of the best options for your situation, and they are often up to date with the latest design concepts and options offered by kitchen cabinet manufacturers.

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DIY Underfloor Heating

Posted on June 18, 2006 by Tim Carter

DIY underfloor heating is a popular project, because many people hate walking across cold floors. There is often nothing more comfortable than soothing heat generated by a diy underfloor heating system.

Some diy underfloor heating systems are easy to install, while others require the touch and skill of a professional. The electric diy floor heating mats are very popular, because you simply unroll them, connect them to the electrical system and then cover them with the flooring material. Ceramic tile, granite flooring and any other natural stone product work very well with these electrical diy underfloor heating mats. The reason for this is simple: the underfloor heating mats are very thin.

The hot-water diy heating systems are more of a challenge. To produce enough heat, the diy underfloor heating water systems must have a pipe size with an inner diameter of nearly one-half inch or larger. These larger pipes can't be easily covered with flooring materials, so they often are installed within the concrete slab on under a wood subflooring system.

It is possible to do a diy underfloor heating system on top of a wood subfloor, but the pipes often must be covered with a liquid compound that looks like pudding but sets up and hardens like concrete. This is a very difficult multi-step process and many do-it-yourselfers are not equipped with the tools and skills necessary for a professional installation.

The hot water systems also require boilers or water heaters to generate the heat transferred by the heating pipes under the flooring. It takes great skill to size, install and connect these heating plants to the piping systems.

The biggest mistake a do-it-yourselfer can make while installing radiant heating in a floor is undersizing the system. It is very important to make sure the correct amount of heating is being installed to offset the cold or heat loss. Not all houses need the same amount of heating elements. A floor space that gets colder in the winter will require more Btus than a house in a mild climate. Pay attention to the sizing guides produced by the heating product manufacturers.

Electrical-wiring methods are very important when it comes to diy underfloor heating systems. Many do-it-yourselfers are not qualified electricians, and they can overload circuits if not careful. This grave mistake can cause deadly electrical fires.

An electrical underfloor heating system can draw significant electrical current, and you must make sure the mat is on its own circuit if the instructions or electrical code require it. Adding new electrical circuits is not a hard diy project, but it can be very intimidating.

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Ants

Posted on June 18, 2006 by Tim Carter

DEAR TIM: Two days ago, I ate a piece of watermelon before I went to bed and accidentally left the rind on the kitchen counter overnight. I woke up to find my kitchen invaded by small, black ants. They were everywhere! The little devil ants were crawling all over my counters and in my sink. The melon rind had several ants on it. I killed them all, and immediately took the rind out to the trash. It is two days later, and I am still seeing black ants. What can I do? I am fighting a losing battle here on the Outer Banks of NC. Teresa P., South Nags Head, NC

DEAR TERESA: The ants are just a nuisance. They can't harm your home, and they are just simply unwanted house guests much like some of my relatives and in-laws. The small ants were simply looking for some food, and were attracted by the sugar in the watermelon juice.

Ants are amazing insects. They have very structured colonies, and certain ants have very distinct jobs. All ants need to eat, and certain ants within the colony are the primary energy providers. Their responsibility is enormous as they are charged with finding food for the other colony members. These ants scout randomly for food, and are attracted by fragrances and food particles. Once they locate food, they communicate the findings to other ants within the colony.

These ants that explore the land around the colony were looking for food and knew to come to your house. There is a good chance they had been in your home before, and my guess is they found some small crumbs on the kitchen floor. The reason the ants came back is because they had left a chemical marker trail behind. These marker chemicals are called pheromones.

But this time they struck gold with the sugar-rich watermelon juice. This high-energy food source caused them to scamper back to the colony to announce the find while you were sleeping.

My guess is that once you killed the visible ants, you washed the countertop off. This would have removed the chemical pheromones from the counter, but the chemical trail was still on the floor. The survival programming within the ants kept telling other ants to come to your kitchen to get more watermelon juice. After all, they were unaware you had thrown it away once you decided to get up out of bed.

If you sweep the floor well, and then mop the floor with a solution of ammonia and water, you will stop the invasion of ants. The ammonia will remove the pheromones, and it will act as a powerful repellent to the small ants. Start with a solution of one part ammonia to one part water. If the odor of the ammonia is too strong for you, then cut the solution back to one part ammonia to two parts water.

Ants aren't the only creatures that love watermelon juice. Read Tim's story about the juice in his September 29, 2019 AsktheBuilder Newsletter.

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Diamonds

Posted on June 14, 2006 by Tim Carter

Diamonds and home improvement have much in common. At first blush, you may not think so. But there are hundreds, actually thousands, of instances where a diamond wedding ring or a diamond engagement ring has disappeared behind a wall, slipped into a floor crack, dropped into a sink or worst of all, been flushed down a toilet.

Talk to a seasoned plumber and my guess is he will tell you a few stories about successful treasure hunts where he has found a diamond or two. The hardest diamonds to recover are ones that have gone down a primary drainpipe. The water flow from a toilet flush can easily carry a diamond ring out to a sewer line. But if it ever happens to you, immediately call a plumber who has a camera scope he can send down the drain line. If the toilet was flushed just once and no other water goes down the plumbing drains before the plumber arrives, the diamond ring might still be in the drain line, and can be recovered.

I have a personal interest in diamonds because of my geology degree. A diamond is simply a mineral that we mine for its gemstone quality. There are plentiful deposits of diamonds in the world, and the supply that is released annually is tightly controlled. This low supply boosts the price of this gemstone.

If you want to discover more great tips and facts about diamonds, sapphires, rubies and other interesting gemstones, you should visit a cool new website I have discovered. It is called ExpertJewelryTips.com. I am convinced you will uncover many fascinating facts when you read the columns at ExpertJewelryTips.com.

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DIY Heating Plumbing

Posted on June 7, 2006 by Tim Carter

Diy (do-it-yourself) heating and plumbing is an ambitious goal to set, and one that is achievable if you have great comprehension skills, a boatload of tools and are mechanically inclined. In other words, diy heating and plumbing is much harder and far more complicated than painting or rough carpentry. Do not be lulled into a sense of empowerment by the countless diy books, radio shows and television shows about diy heating, plumbing and other topics. Certain diy projects require years of experience to achieve results that are close to that of a professional.

Diy heating is by far the most complicated. For sake of discussion, diy air conditioning should be included in the discussion about heating. The heating and cooling system in a standard home is by far the most complicated mechanical equipment found in a residential house. Not only is the equipment itself highly complex, but the calculations required to properly size the furnace, boiler and air conditioner are not easily performed by a do-it-yourselfer.

Many people are probably unaware that furnaces and air conditioners are like shoes. They come in all different sizes and styles. If you try to wear a shoe that is the wrong size, you are very uncomfortable. The same is true for furnaces and air conditioners. Put the wrong size in your home, and I guarantee you will be highly uncomfortable.

The tools needed to install air conditioners are expensive and complex. You need special gauges, a high-quality vacuum pump, special soldering equipment and a wide variety of other specialized hand tools.

The skills to install air conditioning equipment properly are not learned in a classroom or over a period of one week. It takes years of on-the-job experience to become qualified to deal with all of the unique situations one encounters when installing air conditioning in a home.

Diy heating requires that you know about furnaces and boilers. Furnaces are slightly less complicated than air conditioners, but they offer unique challenges. Fitting and working with metal duct work is not a job for a rookie. Boilers are more complex than furnaces, and you must be an expert pipe fitter to produce good results.

Many of the manufacturers of heating and cooling equipment will not sell their products to diy heating buffs. They know the challenges that face trained professionals, and realize it is beyond the scope of do-it-yourselfers to install their products.

Diy plumbing is another field that looks far easier than it is in the real world. Plumbing is directly related to public health, and the installation of both water supply lines and wastewater drainage lines must be done in certain ways to protect the health of communities and individuals within your own household. A rookie diy plumbing installation can send contaminated water backward into a public water supply system. A good-intentioned diy plumber can sicken his own family by installing drainage pipes that clog or emit sewer gas into a home on a regular basis.

Diy plumbing has been glorified on many cable television shows. It takes great skills to install plumbing in accordance with all codes and industry standards. Pipe sizing is important, as is the proper venting of plumbing fixtures.

If you are still in the mood to attempt your own diy heating and plumbing jobs, then be sure to research all methods, tools and codes with respect to your tasks at hand. Take out the necessary permits, and have the inspectors check your work. If you succeed, congratulations. If you fail, be prepared to open up your wallet a little further while you step aside for the professional to straighten out your work.

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Kitchen Sinks

Posted on June 6, 2006 by Tim Carter

Kitchen sinks are far and away the most important component found in kitchens anywhere in the world. The reason is simple to understand when you think how important water is in both the preparation and cleanup of food. The basic function of a kitchen sink is to serve as a waterproof receptacle for liquids and mushy solid foods of any type.

Kitchen sinks differ from bathroom sinks in both size and sometimes the material that makes up the sink. A kitchen sink needs to be robust in size so it can easily accommodate large bowls, pots and pans, and any other utensil that one might use to prepare food.

The kitchen sink must also be able to withstand the abuse these large, heavy objects impart on a sink. Most people know that smaller objects like glasses, plates and silverware can create scratches and nicks in kitchen sinks. Larger objects can do serious damage to sinks that are not made to withstand a certain amount of daily wear and tear. For this reason, heavy-gauge stainless-steel kitchen sinks are a favorite. Porcelain-coated cast iron should be considered if you want a vintage kitchen sink.

A bathroom sink can be smaller and made from vitreous china, since it is not exposed to the wear and tear of a kitchen sink. Cast-iron sinks are frequently used in bathrooms, as are porcelain-coated steel sinks.

Ever-changing trends put pressure on kitchen-sink manufacturers to explore other materials for kitchen sinks. Solid plastic is still available, and these sinks can be bonded to solid-surface countertops so the sink looks to be sculpted from one solid piece of plastic. Granite kitchen sinks, and those made from marble and other hard stones, make for a dramatic look.

Copper, brass and any other corrosion-resistant metal can be used to form a kitchen sink. Copper and any copper alloy offer a unique characteristic not found in any other sink material. Copper kitchen sinks have a built-in natural chemical mechanism that kills many bacteria and viruses within minutes of contact. This hidden quality can help keep you and your family healthy.

When looking at kitchen sinks, pay attention to the depth of the bowl. Not all sinks are created equal. Many kitchen sinks offer extra depth to make cleaning large bowls and pots a very easy job.

If your kitchen is large enough to handle two sinks, give serious consideration to this possibility. Many kitchen sinks are available in a double or side-by-side configuration, but these can only be used by one person. If you have two separate sinks in two different locations in a kitchen, two people can work independently without getting in each other's way.

The mounting method of kitchen sinks is also an option. The bowl can be placed under the countertop so that water and food can be pushed into the sink like water flowing over a waterfall. A second design is an overmount lip where the top of the sink is higher than the surrounding countertop. Over and undermount kitchen sinks are available in a wide variety of colors, sizes and material choices.

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