Shower Pan Liner DVD

Posted on by Tim Carter

 

Shower Pan Liner DVD
Order Now for Just $19.97 + $5.25 S&H
Total Cost: $25.22

Click Here to Order the DVD!
 

1. Are you positive you can create a leak-proof ceramic tile shower?
Yes
No

2. Do you want your spouse to talk to you after the liner is installed?
Heck Yes!
She Stopped Talking to Me Years Ago!

3. Do you really know the best liner and drain fitting to use?
Yes
No

4. Do you know how to avoid bulges at the inside corners?
Yes
No

If you answered No in two or more of the questions above, you need my Shower Pan Liner DVD.

 
Listen to what Gary Kinnett has to say about the way I explain things:

"Your instructions are so thorough it is amazing. You account for every question & issue possible. One can't fail following your instructions. Thanks so much!"

Kim Amster has this to say:

"We own both of your DVD's on Shower Liners. Thank you so much for making such a wonderful and clear DVD. It's out first house and we are very excited to be putting your concepts to work."

Minutes after watching this DVD you will be getting out your tools and unrolling your CPE liner membrane getting ready for your first cut. Your in-laws, spouse, friends, neighbors and co-workers will be amazed at your newfangled master ceramic tile skills.

This DVD was shot with High Definition television equipment by a professional film and video company. It is fast-paced and will show you step-by-step how I install a CPE shower pan liner in a standard shower stall with a seat. If you are considering another DVD product, be sure it is shot with high-definition camera equipment. It makes all the difference in the world.

Let me Teach You How I Install a Shower Pan Liner
 $19.97 plus $5.25 S+H

Click Here to Order the DVD!

My action-packed DVD is totally interactive and covers the following topics:

  • Required Tools and Safety
  • Different Liner Materials and My Favorite Liner Material
  • Framing Tips for the Wood Stud Walls
  • Creating the Sloped Sub-Base Under the Liner
  • Positioning the Liner
  • Forming Inside Corners
  • Forming and Sealing Outside Corners
  • Poper Solvent-Welding Techniques
  • Selecting the CORRECT Drain Fitting
  • CAREFULLY Cutting the CPE Liner to Fit the Drain Fitting

 

Shipping and Handling Info: The DVD is shipped Priority Mail with the US Postal Service. We have been getting superb 3-day service to the West Coast and 2-day service to the East Coast. Orders received by 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time ship the same business day!

Return Policy: This product has a money-back guarantee. Please read our Return Policy here.

Click Here to Order the DVD!

Wiring For Your House – Make It Cat5 Cable

Posted on by Tim Carter

Author's Note: Fiber optic cable is fast becoming the new standard in wiring. Ask the Builder is researching fiber optic cables and a new column will be written soon. Sign up for email notification so you know when this new fiber optic column is published. Click here to sign up.

Cat5 Cable - Wiring Information and Tips

I don't care whether you have a 100 year old home or a new one that is being built. All homes today need Cat5 cable. What is this? It is a new standard of wiring that can network computers and appliances and take care of telephone needs all in one.

Category 5 wiring is low voltage cable. It has 4 pairs of wires within one cable. The coloring of the wires is standardized. You will find a solid blue, green, orange, and brown wire. Twisted around each of these is a white wire that has a same color tracer on the wire. So you will have a solid blue twisted with a white wire that has blue dashes or streaks on it.

Cat5 cable allows you to network different electronic devices.

What is really cool about this wiring is that you can network a computer to another one and have two different phone lines all in the same space as you would normally have a regular duplex outlet! Not only that, there is actually space within the box and special outlets for three other connections.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. This is a photo of a special outlet system made by the Wiremold company. In this particular outlet, I have four different phone connections for the four different lines in my office. Notice the blank filler piece in between the phone plugs. I can easily remove the blank and insert a single outlet that would allow me to network my computer to another one. Cat5 wire should be extended to every location in a house where you think you might have a computer or an appliance. In the future, many things may be networked together. Use the right wire and make sure it says Cat 5 and has a UL stamp on it!

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Remodeling? Smart Upgrades To Make While Changing Your Roof / Attic

Posted on by Tim Carter

Remodeling - Open Structure

If you are doing major roof modification and you are up in the attic, now is the time to add insulation, add wiring, increase ventilation, etc. Since you are up in this space, you might as well get dirty and hot all at once. It is also a good idea to add blank conduits that might make adding future wire a breeze.

Think central vacuum while you are at it. Often the pipes for these devices are installed in an attic space and the power unit is put in the garage. That is how mine is installed.

There are two advantages to this. First, the noise of the motor is outdoors. This is a huge plus. My first vacuum was in the basement and it was loud! The second reason is that the dirt from the vacuum is outdoors. You can transfer the vacuum bag or the canister right to a garbage can. Central vacuums are great. I love mine and would never be without one.

Think ahead. Remember, insulation is the last thing to install! Be sure to exhaust all fans to the exterior, not up in the attic.

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Trusses – Gain Space with a Scissors Truss

Posted on by Tim Carter

Trusses - Avoid Wasted Space With a Special Truss

There is an enormous amount of wasted space in most homes that are currently being built. The primary reason I believe is that homeowners and builders alike are unaware of the many different trusses that can be used to frame the roof. A standard truss creates a large triangle of dark space up in the attic. What's more, this space is useless as a storage facility. Why? The truss web members are in the way and the truss has not really been designed to handle the weight of stored items.

Options

If you have ever been to a truss fabrication plant you will see a chart that seems to have over 100 possible truss designs. Some are highly specialized and would rarely be used on a residential home. But many others are strong candidates for your home. Be sure to look at how much space you can recapture from the common truss triangle when you use a storage truss, or an attic truss, or a scissors truss. Ask your builder to show you all of the options. The cost is well worth it in the long run.

Call a Professional Engineer

Before you think about changing a traditional roof into a vaulted ceiling, you better call in a pro. Get a residential structural engineer who is familiar with wood and roof framing. Many structural engineers commonly work with steel and concrete. You want to open your Yellow Pages and look under Engineers. Then see if there is a sub-heading called Structural. Ask questions to make sure you get a person who is a wood framing expert. The consulting fee will be several hundred dollars but it will buy peace of mind during the next wind or heavy snow storm.

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Skylights – Flared vs. Straight Shafts

Posted on by Tim Carter

Skylights - Flared Shafts

Skylights can make a dim space bright. Flared shafts add even more light by spreading the light beams to other parts of the room.

I goofed up many of the first skylight shafts I built. I simply extended the shaft down square from the roof-slope. You can get lots more light if you just expand the opening. It is easy to do and requires very little extra work. Look at the diagrams to see the humdrum shaft vs. the flared shaft. You can see why flared is supreme.

Notice the extra light gained by simply flaring a skylight shaft.

Notice the extra light gained by simply flaring a skylight shaft.

There are several easy ways to flare a shaft. You do not have to be an expert carpenter to achieve superb results. Commonly just the top and bottom are flared. This is often your only option if the skylight shaft is created within trusses. Remember you can't cut and rebuild a truss unless you do so under the direction of a registered engineer.

The more complex shaft is one that is flared on all four sides. This does take quite a bit of skill as you are basically building a complex hip roof structure beneath the skylight. In fact, if you flare it too much the sides actually get twisted into a slight helix. Be careful about trying to get too fancy! Most people are very satisfied with just the top and bottom flare.

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Dust Control in Homes

Posted on by Tim Carter

DEAR TIM: My seven-year old home is very dusty. After placing small filters on the bottom of each heating vent diffuser in all of the rooms of my house, I wonder if I made a mistake. Will these hurt the performance of my furnace and air conditioner? I have a standard vacuum cleaner and use it every day, but I still have dust problems. What is causing the dust? What can I do to minimize dust? Patti C., Lancaster PA

DEAR PATTI: Oh how I wish my editors would give me more room for this answer! Dust control is a very complicated subject and there are numerous ways to capture and control the pesky particles that are the source of your frustration.

Let's first talk about dust cleanup. Based upon my own testing and years of trying different vacuum cleaners, I have come to the solid conclusion that central vacuums are the best tool to use to vacuum dust. These machines take the dust and dirt and place it in a cannister or a bag that is often in a garage or basement. Any dust that makes it past the bag or cannister is ejected outdoors.

This electrostatic air filter does a superb job of capturing a high percentage of dust in the average home. PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Carter

This electrostatic air filter does a superb job of capturing a high percentage of dust in the average home. PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Carter

Traditional vacuum cleaners like the one you use, exhaust the air inside the room while you are cleaning. Even if you have a great dirt and dust filter bag as part of the vacuum cleaner, some dust may sneak past other parts in the machine and get blasted back into the air. On a sunny day you can often see this dust storm as you vacuum in a room that has sun beams streaming through windows.

Dust on flat and vertical surfaces needs to be wiped off with a damp rag with water or a dust collection liquid. If you use a traditional duster tool, you just broadcast the dust into the air and it will settle back down on the surfaces hours later.

The filters you placed in your heating and cooling vents may hurt the performance of your heating and cooling equipment. The powerful fans that move air through furnaces and air conditioners are designed to do so with minimal resistance to air flow. The filters you installed no doubt are offering some resistance to air flow. Just before you installed them, your system might already have been at the upper allowable threshold for airflow resistance.

The reason adequate air movement within the furnace and air conditioner is so important is simple: In the winter when heating your home, the air must move past the heat exchanger at a given speed to pull off heat; in the summer when cooling your home, the air must be able to readily flow over the air-conditioning coil, where its heat is deposited. If the speed starts to decrease and your system is not designed to sense this change, then efficiency and performance can drop.

I would consult with a seasoned heating and cooling professional about the filters you installed. This craftsman will have special tools and meters that tell him if the static pressure within your system is too high. Static pressure is a measurement of airflow resistance.

If the heating professional tells you to remove the filters from the vents, I recommend that you consider installing a washable electrostatic air filter in the filter rack within your furnace or air conditioner. These wonderful filters attract many dust particles and make them stick to the filter. Every 30 days you take the filter outdoors or into a large sink and rinse it with a high-pressure stream of water. When I do this with my electrostatic filter, the water streaming from the filter is always black and brown.

Many people wonder where dust comes from. The sources can be numerous. If you handle lots of paper in your home, paper fibers naturally become airborne as you read books, newspapers and some magazines. Dust from countless outdoor sources will naturally be sucked into any open windows.

Some inexpensive carpets create dust as fibers from the carpet, carpet backing and even some carpet padding become airborne from simple foot traffic across the carpet. Fibers and dust are released from upholstered furniture, clothes, hobby and craft activities and food preparation.

If you want to try to pinpoint the actual source of dust, take a sample from a surface with a piece of regular cellophane tape. Use a 10x or 20x hand magnifier and look at the actual dust particles. You will be shocked at how different each of the dust particles appears. Dust from newspaper or blank paper is vastly different from flour dust or wood sanding dust. Drywall dust looks completely different from carpet fiber dust. Once you determine what the dust source is, try to stop or minimize the activity that actually creates that dust.

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A Load Bearing Wall Can Be Deceptive

Posted on by Tim Carter

An Innocent Looking Wall

Here is an interior wall of my own home. Sorry about all of the clutter. As I took the photo, I was standing in the family room looking at the breakfast table and the adjacent window on the outside wall.

The average person would think the interior wall with the large opening and doorway is a standard interior non-load bearing wall. The truth is, that this wall has an enormous load upon it. Directly above the wall is a wall that supports part of the roof of my home. In addition, there is a major beam hidden in the ceiling that runs just above and a little behind the crown molding that you see in the upper left corner of the photograph. This beam carries one entire side of the roof, and one third of the second and third floor loads! The beam rests on a column within the wall about one foot to the left of the large pass-through opening. Above the large pass through and the doorway are triple 2 x 12 beams.

This load bearing wall has a large opening and a doorway. © Tim Carter

The point is, that there are large concentrated loads at the edges of these two openings. Beneath the floor, I placed blocking that transmits these loads directly to a 12 inch deep 12x31 I beam, that I work directly underneath each and every day.

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Load Bearing Wall Photos

Posted on by Tim Carter

Typical Load Bearing Wall Photos

These two photos are typical examples of what you have in your own home. The top photo is an exterior wall with a window opening.

The carpenters did a superb job as the second floor joists are stacked directly on top of the exterior wall studs. Note the double top plate on the wall.

The floor joist load and any roof load above the window are transmitted to the jack studs on either side of the window. The jack stud is the single stud you see just below each end of the beam. The king stud - or full height stud - next to the end of the beam does not really carry much of the weight even though the jack stud is nailed to it and nails pass through the king stud into the end grain of the beam.

The second photo is the top of a typical interior bearing wall. Note the double top plate. Once again, the floor joists are stacked directly above the wall studs. But, there is a double joist that falls between the wall studs. This is why you have a double plate!

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Affordable Cultured Stone® – The Real Stone Alternative

Posted on by Tim Carter

There is nothing quite like the look of natural stone. It projects a sense of stability and permanence. I feel part of this stems from the fact that many very old buildings around the world were constructed using different stones and rocks. As we know, some of these buildings (Great Pyramids of Egypt) and public works (Great Wall of China) are thousands of years old. The stones or rocks used are often in good shape, only the mortar that was sometimes used needs periodic repair.

Natural Stone

Natural stone used in residential construction can be very expensive to install. The cost to quarry the rock, package it and ship it to the construction site all contribute to the cost. Because many natural stones are heavy, the shipping costs can actually cost more than the stone itself. Once on the job site, the stone must often be extensively trimmed to fit aesthetically into a wall. This adds to the labor cost. Using natural stone also requires a foundation beneath the stone to support the weight. Steel lintels or archway forms need to be used to span over openings. The entire process is labor intensive. As you might imagine, this also adds to the cost of installing the stone. Current costs, here in the Midwest, for labor and material to install natural stone range from $20 to $25 per square foot.

The Alternative Product

About 30 years ago, someone figured out that you could get around the problem of heavy natural stone by using high quality, light weight concrete. This is how Cultured Stone® was created.

The first attempts at producing this product created durable materials, however, they were not very realistic. Necessity, being the mother of invention, spawned experimentation with different forms and colorization processes. In short order, realistic artificial stones were being mass produced.

The idea caught on, as evidenced by the numerous regional manufacturers that still persist to this day. There are many artificial stone manufacturers, however only a few produce large quantities and distribute throughout the United States and Canada.

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Cultured Stone® Tips

Posted on by Tim Carter

Cultured Stone® Tips

Making the Stone

As mentioned in another article, Cultured Stone® is nothing more than concrete. But for those who have seen this product up close and actually touched it, you know that it does not look or feel like concrete.

Some manufactured stone products cannot be distinguished from the real thing. The colors and textures of these artificial stone products are basically unbelievable.

These realistic results are achieved, in most instances, by using highly detailed rubber molds and special pigments to color the concrete mix. Some manufacturers apply additional pigments directly to the rubber molds for purposes of adding tones to the surface of the finished product. These additional pigments soak into the surface of the concrete so that they can't be easily washed off by the elements.

The key to the entire process is using small, light weight aggregates in the concrete mix. This keeps the weight of the artificial stone to a minimum. It is for this reason that no foundation is required to support these materials. They simply are glued onto the side of your structure, whether it be wood frame, masonry or a steel structure.

Long term durability should not be a concern of yours. This is due to the fact that these products are manufactured under controlled conditions. This allows the concrete mix to achieve maximum strength characteristics. Because the surface of the artificial stones is so realistic, water is not easily absorbed by many of these products.

Discoloration

Some people wonder about the long term effects of weathering on these products. That is a valid concern, as this material could easily have a service life on a building between 50 and 100 years. Just about every artificial stone product has solid color attributes. This means that the concrete mix is colored from the beginning. Secondary coloration achieved by applying pigments to the rubber molds should be the only area of concern. As long as the manufacturer uses high quality, non water soluble pigments, it should never be a problem.

Most manufacturers caution against the use of deicing salts near these products. The salts can hurt the artificial stone and cause surface disintegration.

Manufacturers also caution against the use of harsh chemicals, cleaning solvents or paint thinners. Some of these products can stain the stone products and cause discoloration. Simply use common sense.

The artificial stone products can be cleaned if they become dirty. You simply use a mild detergent and a stiff bristle brush. Never use a wire brush, as this may harm the surface.

"Long term durability should not be a concern of yours. This is due to the fact that these products are manufactured under controlled conditions."

It is also a good idea to avoid using these artificial stone products in swimming pools. The chlorine and other pool chemicals can discolor these rocks.

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