* Forced air: This is the cheapest way to install a heating system with the poorest way of heating the objects in the house. With some manual and electrical parts running the system.  When the furnace fan turns on it blows cold air for a couple of minutes until the ductwork gets warm. Then it delivers the needed warm air for warming the ambient air in the room. Once the room temperature is reached, the air passively warms the items in the room. Starting with the ceiling and upper walls of the room working its way down to the floor.
* When it comes to cooling the forced air system works the best. I takes a powerful fan to drive the cold heavy air to the top floor allowing it to cascade downward cooling the item’s it come in contact with. This means the floor will be the first large surface to be cooled than slowly it works it’s way up to the level of the thermostat. You will still have a lot of hot and humid air at the ceiling if the heating contract did not install a high wall return air duct.
*  It’s also the best and I think the only way to really clean the air, removing air born allergens out of the air. You can use secondary air filtration units but the biggest one I’ve seen only does 1 room at a time trapping a person with allergies in 1 room or in 1 area of a house. Using a high quality air filter on your furnace (they can be Paper) about 5” thick do a great job of cleaning all the air for the entire house.

* Hot water heat: Is a good way to heat a house. With a boiler you convert fuel into hot water. With this type of system you can do multi-tasking of different types of jobs at the same time.
* Such as using radiators to heat the air, in-floor heat to heat floor surfaces such as front & back entry floors to melt the snow and evaporate the water or heat the bathroom floor and even heat the sidewalls of your shower to make your shower a better experience for you.
* With in-floor heat you can heat the basement floor that is the hardest surface to heat, while using hot air blows above the floor it will never actually heat the concrete floor. But having the pipe in the floor, the floor becomes a large radiator heating the room, making the enjoyable, instead of saying well we have a basement. Whats so nice about in-floor heat you have no moving air or cold drafts moving across the floor.
* The next area to heat with the hot water is the garage floor your car will love it the snow and ice melt off of it quickly taking with it the salt. Using a forced air blower in a garage is nice but the floor all ways stay cold and if you in your garage a lot you differ projects on till the warmer months of the year.
* And finally you can heat your driveway and sidewalks, think about you newer have to lift a shovel again.

Let’s look at the actual working of installation of said law, install a 6-mill poly on the dirt before you lay out rebar or wire mess. The steel being inserted onto the concrete keeps 1 the concrete floor from cracking, separating, shifting, or shrinking 2. It reinforces the floor incase the dirt under the floor settles. Rebar comes 1/2” x 20 feet long and is heave and flops around like a fish out of water. You will have a number of holes in the poly liner before the rebar is laid out and tied together.  If you use wire mesh this comes in rolls of 5 foot wide x 20 inches diameter about 100 foot per roll, when you unroll this little monster it acts like a slinky wanting to recoil the only way to straighten it out is to flip it over and re-bending it by hand. Resolutes at each end of 1 row you have just punchered the poly membrane 10-12 time.
The code says you must take a new piece of poly and over lap the hole by 1’ on all sides no a basement of 22 x 38 (24’ x 40’ House) a minimum of 120 holes. Now its time to pour the concrete (concrete is a mix of sand small rock, portland and water) you can install it 2 ways; wheel barrow it to the location and dump it, or you can pump it in with a large pump truck add $800.00 to the bill. Did you fix all the holes the wheelbarrow made and the guys pouring the floor, well that’s a radon leak.
After the floor has harden up you walk around the floor sealing all joints between the floor and wall and floor and any protrusions through the floor. About 1 –2 years after the house is done because you chose not to install reinforcing in the floor your floor have at least 3 and up to 10 large cracks big enough to put a tooth pick in it. Oh that’s right you laid carpet on the floor you’ll never see the cracks where the radon is getting in the living space and where Johnny and Amber likes to play and sleep on the floor.

Let’s look at the collection and exhaust system. Remember in this collection area there is standing water as well as an electric pump to pump out the ground water. Facts undisputed radon gas is heavier than air. So radon gas builds up in the collection tank it never leaves the tank and the vent pipe because it’s to heavy now the ground water comes into the collection tank what happens to the radon gas it rises and falls according to water level in the collection tank.  In fact the radon gas in the tank will increase in the parts per million making it more toxic I feel bad for the plumber that must change out the sump pump, he has to get down in there to fix the problem.  Note when the radon gas moves up into the exhaust vent, it’s now looking for an easier way out, that crack in the floor has a lot less pressure and a bigger area to expand into.   Solve the problem (the states view point) Just add a fan and blow the radon gas out of the house. The problem is it does matter how small or big the fan is if there is no air coming in to the drainage system you will never blow any air up the pipe, let alone radon gas which is heavier than air. The state say’s all you need is a small fan, may be rounding about 10 minutes per hour. 1st the state don’t have a clue how much air in cubic feet of air per minute or per hour is going to ventilate the radon gas from below the floor to solve the problem.

Let’s say it’s possible to vent this gas out of the house, well you don’t want to see the pipe from the front side of the house, let’s vent it on the back side of the roof, great or is it. On the backside of the house are the following screened, porch, deck, sand box, swing set, and other toys to play with. Radon gas is heavier than air it’s pumped on to your roof and taken away with prevailing winds and if there is no wind it rolls of the roof and into your backyard.  Looking down at your house from the sky we see the following a pipe sticking out of the roof with no cover over it and you can not cover it by law, that means when it rains water goes down the pipe so what it goes into a sump tank if water can go down so can cold air in the winter time, when this happens it will freeze the surface water in the sump tank or the ground in the collection area and if there fan is installed water will be dripping and getting the fan soaking wet. Well we no longer can use a cheap fan we must put in a stainless steel fan with a concealed shaft with a water bypass system in it. ”$” Now to make this system work we must bring in air into the drainage system. We cannot take inside air just for the fact if the power went out the radon gas has an easy way back into the house. We can us outside air it 20 below or greater in the wintertime freezing the sub soil under your floor and leaving the opportunity to heave your footing.
The only air available to you is in the new law that no one has thought about, you must have an exhaust fan run 15-20 minutes per hour. Blow this air under you floor and the radon fan pumps the radon gas filled air out of your house.  Now you are running 2 electric fans and praying the power never goes out.

Or Just excavate and other 24” lower and install an angled concrete slab 4” with rebar cover with epoxy paint than build on top of it for your house the radon gas will come in contact with the lower slab and slide upward to the surface level on what ever side you choose to bring it to the surface

Adding more insulation on the exterior of the wall if done right will save you a boatload of money. On the exterior of a building you best results are going to be from a rigid insulation board. There are at least 2 types 1st is just an insulation board and the 2nd has aluminam foil on both sides you must choose according to the siding you want to install as to what insulation board is best. For example; horizontal cedar lap siding does not like aluminum for behind it. Before installing any type of rigid insulation on to an exterior wall surface you must make a way for the water vapor to escape to the outside air.

I recommend 1 product “mortairvent” Made by Benjamin Obdyke, it’s only 1/4” thick installed over the tarpaper, than you install you insulation board next and finally your siding. It’s made of woven plastic with enough rigidity to keep 1/4 inch air gap to allow the water vapor to escape either by going down the wall to be vented at the foundation line or vented at the soffit line of the house.

Rules for hiring a contractor:

General Information
1. Does the contractor have a state license to do the type of work needing to be done?
2. Does the contractor have liability insurance? If something goes wrong who will cover your loss.
3.  Does the contractor have worker compensation insurance?
If a person falls or get hurt in any way while on your property (grass, sidewalk, inside your house, etc.) you’re at fault. Unless the contractor has workers comp. insurance.

4. Make Sure All Subcontractors and/or Any Person Coming Onto Your Property Has Legal Workers Compensation and Liability Insurance.
5. Does this person have the brains to pull off this type of job?  Watch out there a lot of cons out there calling them contractors only wanting to separate you from your money.
6. Can he/she prove what is being said in writing; a contract that protects you the Homeowner?
7. A lot of people have go good intentions but no knowledge or life experience to draw from.
8. There are 3 classifications of quality of work
A.  Poor and well below sub standard workmanship
B.  Just Average on workmanship
C.   Excellent work- any worker just above average ends up excelling to excellent static because of the person himself, I’ve seen this time and time again.

9. 2nd Classifications of motives.
A. Money is a good motivator
B. The lack of money is a poor motivation
C. Lack of time for said job or out of on contracts personal bills
D. The only job available this one, actually scores just above average
E. Actually caring for his work and the client.

Now is the contractor your hiring going to hire subcontractor with substandard work or money problems? Remember this your project is to be a work of art not a novel of science fiction.

Now with insulated flex pipes the air moves swiftly through the pipes with little to no hindrance the pipe walls are made of a spiraling piece of wire in beaded in the poly tubes pipe wall than covered with insulation and a 2nd poly to keep the cavity air space that the pipe is passing through. Sorry to say the inexperienced installers use this ductwork a lot and in places that it was not intended to be used. Granted this pipe is very flexible but bending the pipe in a hard 90° or even 180° and/or squeezing it down to fit a 3.5 inch space cavity. When the inside pipe measures 6” and the out side measures 8 1/2. A 6” round duct has 28.26 Cubic inch of open area when you crush it down to 3 1/2” on the exterior; the interior only has 5 cubic inches of open area. The bad thing about this ductwork is if too much air pressure and vacuum is used in the pipe run and the connections come apart and contracts to the vacuum side of the cleaning.

When you need this type of ductwork cleaned, many things can go wrong 1 the joints can come apart. The compressor hose can puncture the inner poly wall of the pipe, or if there is a restriction in the pipe and there is debris in the pipe it could clog. Remember these entire ducts are running in concealed spaces between your ceiling and 2nd floor or your basement ceiling and your main floor. If they disconnect there is no way to re attach them with out remove 1 of your finished surfaces.

Using an exhaust fan below 300 Cubic feet per minute, most houses have areas that leak this much air into these houses. Newer homes leak about 150 cfm around windows and doors.
If an exhaust fan is turned on blowing out 300 cfm, your short 150 cfm and it will draw it from a bad source. One of the easiest places for the air to come into the house is by sucking the air out of the chimney either the fireplace or the furnace chimney.

We remodeled a house along with the kitchen; we installed a 1280 CFM exhaust fan. We told the homeowner that he need makeup air he refused Than came thanksgiving, the family was there the owner has a 5’ wide and 4 tall open wood fireplace the fire was going for about an hour when the wife turned on the kitchen fan. Instantly the fireplace chimney reversed bringing the smoke into the house the fire in the fireplace was still burning but the flames were blowing horizontally into the room. He wanted a quick fix so he had a 12” fresh air intake installed into the cold air return on his furnace. This did fix 1 problem the fireplace now works properly while the kitchen fan runs on full speed.

If the furnace is running it was not sided to handle super cold air coming into the heat exchanger. With this much cold air coming into the furnace, the furnace cannot heat the house because now it has to heat the incoming cold fresh air. The other problem is that the heat exchanger is being stressed with 400 ° on the burner side and -10° on the other side this shortens the life of the heat exchanger by years.
If the house is warm because of the fireplace the furnace won’t turn on. With the fresh air dumping in to the return air plenum, the super cold air is now coming out all the vents cooling down your floors making a draft along the floor to the fireplace and the kitchen stove.
The proper way is to bring fresh air into the house and run it through a furnace designed to temper the makeup air.

Awning; With this type of window the operating devices are located at the bottom of the window that makes it easy to operate. These windows are hinged at the top and swing outward. The problem is that the kitchen countertop is 36” tall than the window is about 24-36” tall. IE the top of the window is between 5’to 6’ off the floor so when you are looking out the window at the sink all your eyes are looking at the top of the window jamb, you must duck to look out the window.

Glider; With this type of window the operating devices are located half way up the window that makes this window hard to operate when you lean over the sink and faucet.

Casement; This is a great type of window the operating devices are located at the bottom of the window that makes it easy to operate, also if the wind is coming from the left and you want to bring the air in open the right window and it will hook the wind and bring it into the kitchen.

Double Hung; This is a good looking window but it has a draw back you must on unlock the window, the lock is half way up the center of the window opening it from the bottom is adequate again the sink and faucet is the way.

Hopper; A hopper window is a cool design of a window but it swings and tilts into the room in the swing mode the window can not open the faucet is in the way.

Transom; Having a transom window over the regular kitchen window is great unless you have a ceiling under 9’ again the bottom of the transom and the top of the regular is in your line of sight.

1. Who does the cooking? Who does the cleanup?
2. How is your eye sight? If your eye sight is poor you may need more lighting in the kitchen.
3. Is the cleanup person left or right handed? The placement of the dishwasher is vital for ease of loading and unloading dishes.
4. At what height do you like to work at tabletop height (30”) or counter top height (36”) workbench height (42”) or a height in between? Having improper work surface height is bad on your back, hips and legs. You may have a new kitchen, but hate to go into the kitchen not really knowing why.
5. What size is the family are you cooking for? This tells me what size the refrigerator has to be for breakfast. This also tells me what size cook top you will need.
6. How many different types of parties per year? Do you need a 2nd refrigerator for short-term storage? They make great under the counter refrigerators and freezer with pull out draws.
7. How much cooking do you do everyday? Every meal, or is there a lot of prepared foods, or do you eat out a lot? This tells me what volume of dishes you will be keep in the kitchen. IE if you cook a lot you will be baking cakes, pies and fancy items. This mean you will need a lot of preporation storage of mixer, food processor, etc., in easy reach of your work surface.
8. Now let’s look at your house and see the architecture of the home so we can match the
kitchen to the house. IE never put a modern kitchen in a house designed as an Amish or 1900’s bungalow home.
9. Are you going to feed the family in the kitchen or at a different area? If in the kitchen where?
10. How much square footage are you going to give to the kitchen area? If you need more can you take a little from another room or can we add on an addition.

Having it warmer also helps your vehicles start faster as well as better engine oil viscosity, because the engine block is starting warm.

Using a compact ceiling gas heater works great. We have installed several of these units. You can bolt them to the roof framing members and or floor joist system. You can mount them up tight or drop them down to a lower height if you have a 9’- 14’ high garage ceiling. By installing the unit at the back of the garage and blow air cross the garage to the far front corner this will get the greatest way to stabilize the temperature in the garage. This will also dry your car off and the floor. By keeping your garage temperature at or above 38° you should never have the garage floor flaking or popping of concrete from the winter weather.

This furnace also can be vented both out the wall and/or through the roof of the garage. Giving is a way to really maximize your opportunity for the best installation.

Low Maintenance
Permacast columns are cast from a proprietary fiber-reinforced polymer composite with exceptional strength-to-weight characteristics and requiring minimum maintenance. They are weatherproof, insect-proof and highly durable. They look best painted, and repainting when the color looks out of date.

Low Maintenance
PermaCast columns are cast from a proprietary fiber-reinforced polymer composite with exceptional strength-to-weight characteristics and requiring minimum maintenance. They are weatherproof, insect-proof and highly durable.

Capitals & Bases
Tuscan style capitals as well as the five differenttypesof ornamental capitals also follow the guidelines of Greek and Roman architects. Attic bases, copied from those of ancient Attica, are also available.

Plain & Fluted
Permacast columns are available plain or fluted in the widest variety of sizes in the industry. Deep, sharp flutes and smooth, easy to finish surfaces set Permacast apart from wood columns.

2 types of Solar thermo panels

Home made solar collectors have a couple of problems: They are not sealed and filled with inert gas (argon gas) there by missing a key way of collecting solar heat. Improper way of winding the tubing inside the panel is another problem.

Flat panels commercially made are a great way to collect heat. You can set the collectors on most any type of roofing system. They also can be joined together for a greater Btu output. The maximum output will yield you any where between 50-70% of your domestic hot water. Having extra cash to go green is great but if you need this to be your main heating unit for hot water or limited location for hot water storage, this is not the system for you at this time I’ll check these systems out every couple of years for better results.

heat loss calculation we can look at the different types of fuels vs. the costs of a geothermal system.
But before we can start we must enter some of the basics:
#1 the location of the house for the average winter low temperature.
#2 the location of the house for the average summer high temperature.
#3 what do you keep your thermostat at in the wintertime.
#4 what do you keep your thermostat for A.C. in the summer time.
#5 The Calculation is written for 67° ambient temperature.
#6 in your area how many heating degree-days are there in Mpls. there are 8000.0
Duluth 9818.0
#7 in your area how many Cooling degree-days are there in Mpls. there are 743.0
Duluth 180.0

#8 what is the efficiency of your furnace
#9 what is the Seer rating of your Air Conditioner.
Now with these parameters plugged in the numbers than tell a story
In the
There are 3 heat loss charts for 1988, 1998, 2008 the first line down is the cost of the fuel the 2nd line is the if your furnace is running at 100% Eff. The 3rd row down is per year to heat the house. The 4rth row is the cost savings per month if you have Geo thermal heating installed instead of the fuel you have. But notice the 5th row down this one is important, this tell you if you are a wise steward of you money. If the pay back in years is 10 years or less you could save a lot of money. In 1988 if you had an Electric furnace and changed it in 88 by 1997 the system would have been paid off and today you would have $37,015.00 more in your pocket. This price is based on the electric price in 1988 and we all know that the price has risen for electric energy. In the 2008 Chart look at the pay back on all 4 types of fuel. The price of LP gas is 4.03 dollars per gallon now, and is going up – I heard it could reach 8.00 per gallon by spring. If it only goes up only an additional $2.00 it will cost you 1500.00 per month on a budget, can you afford it.

#2 If a person needed to add and outlet on an existing circuit and opened up and an existing outlet box cover and saw the white wire he would automatically think black with black wire, the white with white wire and ground, with ground wire. 98% of the time you would be right, but if the white wire is not labeled properly in the panel as a 220-volt, at the same time the outlet box is also improperly labeled you would cross wiring a 110-volt appliance with 220-volts and burn it out that is if it doesn’t start a electrical fire.

The 3rd problem is this panel is a 2nddairy sub panel. When you wire a sub panel the neutral wire must go to the neutral bar and the ground wires must go to the grounding bar. They cannot be mixed it the law.

On this next photo this electrical panel was done properly. The high voltage lines are labeled properly as well as the 220-volt circuits and the neutrals and grounds are supported properly.

A cheap exposed tread system looks like this photo. What makes it look cheap is the skirt board. The reason is that it does not match the baseboard joining up with it.

If you have to put in an inexpensive knee wall over a handrail this is a quiet but elegant way of going about it.

If you have a smart carpenter use a 1”x 8” board and a piece of 5” tall base to make a custom make skirt board. Join them to together with a biscuit jointer and glue. Than run it through a surface planer and bring them down to the same thickness. A few minutes of light sanding, and your new skirt board is ready to be custom cut.

Not only can it be custom cut into the base, but you can make it follow up the staircase to the 2nd floor enhancing the look of staircase.

Osha requirements for a stairway;
From a design standpoint, the specified design loads (e.g., normal live load and moving concentrated load of 1000 lbs.) must be placed where the maximum stress is experienced by the individual structural components of the stair system.

Looking at a framing section of a stairway the sawtooth cut boards are called stair jacks. Looking closer at a jack the deepest cut of the notch for the step into the jack to the bottom side of a jack if your using a 2” x 12” will be 3 1/2” to 4” of uncut material is equal to a 2” x 4” with this understanding we can calculate out what a 2” x 12” stair jack system can carry. With all lumber we do not measure the length of the steps from the top to the bottom but instead from the front edge of the step to the load bearing point that supports the top of the step. A wall height of 8’ and a floor joist of 9 1/2” will make the run of the stairjack 12’5”.

A single 2”x 4” spanning 10’2” can only carry 10 Lbs. per running foot times 3 jacks a total of 300 Lbs. Nailing a 2×4 on the side of the jack doubles the working load to 600 Lbs. But on the problem above we are short 2 1/2 feet. Going to a 2” x 14” stairjack will leave a 2” x 6” amount of material left this will carry a 20 Lbs. 12’9”
With 3 Jacks the total dead and live load for this stairway is now 12.75 x 20 x 3 jacks= 765Lbs. adding 3- 2” x 6” on one side of the Jack doubles the load 1530 Lbs. This is now a legal working stairway for wood steps.

The problem now comes in when the homeowners want stone on the treads and risers. The weight alone is 32 Lbs. per SF or 1153.1 Lbs. for this stairway. And it only leaves 377 Lbs. for live load. Changing and using a LVL or a micro laminated beam works much better. Using a 1 3/4” x 14” LVL beam with a 12’9” span will carry 68 per SF. X 3 Jack you a total working load of 2601 Lbs. this passes with flying colors. This gives you a live load of 1448 Lbs. Or in other words, you can have 6 adults sitting or standing on the stairway for a group photo and it will not wince.

Columns make a person take note of their surroundings that something has in the past, present, and/or near future will be happening in this place.

Going back to theses homes I have installed these columns, It bring me back to the meeting that I had attended in these rooms over the years.

Installing cheap columns or ones that are improperly built cheapens the room, which sends a massage to the people coming in seeing them actually ignore the fact columns are there, even thought they have to step around them as they walk through the house.

Think long term 5 ,10, 15 ,or 20 years and/or 2 or 3 different types of jobs or hobbies you might have in the future.
You may spend 10 minutes and up 2 hours a day in this prep room. Doing things right in this room will set your mode for the rest of the days you live in this house.
Thing to think about when you design a bathroom;

Number of people needing to use this room at the same time; 2 or 3 kids, a couple, 2 or people staying over IE relatives and friends, room mates, etc.
With these things in mind your now ready to start answering questions.

a. Think about cleaning
B. Bathing
C. Midnight strolls
D. Getting your makeup on
1. Lighting
2. Putting on makeup
3. Storage
4. Accessibility to storage, and left or right handed people
5. Accessories- hair driers, curling
6. 6. Room accents

We had some fun with personal area we installed quarter sawn white oak with accent walnut strips in the corbels, top rail of the panel system and the desktop edging.

The 1st element is copper, and then 2nd element of brass is zinc. The amount of zinc varies between 5% and 40% by weight depending on the types of brass required.

EPA
“The 1991 rule aims to minimize lead and copper in drinking water by reducing water corrosivity. Lead and copper enter drinking water primarily through plumbing materials. Exposure to lead and copper may cause health problems ranging from stomach distress to brain damage.”

“Everyone must absorb small amounts of copper every day because copper is essential for good health. High levels of copper can be harmful. “Breathing high levels of copper can cause irritation of your nose and throat. Ingesting high levels of copper can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Very-high doses of copper can cause damage to your liver and kidneys, and can even cause death.”

“A wide range of clinical symptoms have been associated with zinc deficiency in humans (Abernathy et al., 1993; Prasad, 1993; Sandstead, 1994; Walsh et al., 1994). The clinical manifestations of severe zinc deficiency, seen in individuals with an inborn error of zinc absorption or in patients receiving total parenteral nutrition with inadequate levels of zinc, include bullous pustular dermatitis, diarrhea, alopecia, mental disturbances, and impaired cell-mediated immunity resulting in intercurrent infections. Symptoms associated with moderate zinc deficiency include growth retardation, male hypogonadism, skin changes, poor appetite, mental lethargy, abnormal dark adaptation, and delayed wound healing. Neurosensory changes, impaired neuropsychological functions, oligospermia, decreased serum testosterone, hyperammonemia, and impaired immune function (alterations in T-cell subpopulations, decreased natural killer cell activity) have been observed in individuals with mild or marginal zinc deficiency.”

“Lead does not noticeably alter the taste, color or smell of water. The effects of low levels of lead toxicity in humans may not be obvious. There may be no symptoms present or symptoms may be mistaken as other illnesses. The only way to know the concentration of lead in water is through sampling and laboratory testing which is described in greater detail in a subsequent section.”

Another job site the homeowner had a new roof put on 6 months earlier and had the attic reinsulated. The first cold morning about –15 below 0 with a hot shower the ceiling fan started dripping water. So he called out the roofer to fix the problem, it was not the roofing but instead the exhaust fan piping again was not insulated. While the high humidity was being blown out and the metal piping was below 0 the humidity was condensing rapidly on the piping, then run back into the ceiling fan, through the vent louvers and end up dripping to the floor.
You have to insulate the entire exhaust vent to the exhaust point.

The answer will move to action. A person will breathe in and vent per breathe 1/2 liter in quiet breathing to 6 liters or 1.58 gallons per minute.

Each person takes between 4 and 10 million breaths per year. The max volume of air that we take in and breathe out is called vital capacity. It’s about 4800 ml or about 5,000,000 gallons of air.
Each day, a person takes between 11 thousand to 28 thousand breaths per day per person or in other words about 13,698.6 gallons.

Calculates to 1,831.23 cubic feet per person must come into the house per day.
With this understanding, by tightening up our houses we need to bring in fresh air or we are going to poison our selves with our own exhaust air (CO2).

Installing an air exchanger into a new home is not an extra item that the state is forcing on us to do, but instead it is for our protection.
Having the Air Exchanger running 1 minute per hour per person in the house plus running it to remove humidity in the bathrooms while showers or hot tubs are running help stabilize the humidity in the entire house.

Location of the deck is very important.
Are you trying to use this deck for multi purpose or a single event place?
Example: Do the kids play in the back yard and you use the deck as an outpost watching the kids?
Or do you sun bath on the deck and need a little more privacy?
Do you like or hate the summer heat?

Is the deck next to the driveway, and all your friends migrate to the deck. Or is it a private getaway four the 2 of you.

After answering these questions you will see an Idea immerges as to the kind of deck you are looking for.

An other example; If your a party animal your going to want to barbeque on the deck with extra seating as well as a lot of accent lighting around the deck to call the bugs away from the guest with see through rails to the other parts of the yard. Installing steps or a stairway to get to the lower yard helps cut down on traffic thought the house.

Where if it is just for the 2 of you your going to want it a little smaller size deck with romantic accent lights and no steps to the ground and may be a more defused viewing area though the railing system.

Load bearing walls exceeding the 9′ height fall under a new law. The higher the wall, the better quality the wall this may mean thicker the studs.

Included in this new law you no longer can use Utility grade, Standard grade, No.#3 grade or Stud grade lumber of any species are not permitted. The change in law is because of wind resistance against the exterior tall walls.

Using a better species of wood than SPF (Spruce, Pine, Fir) will make a stiffer wall. SPF is the cheapest wood species that you can buy.

Classification of common grade lumber. Common grade boards generally contain more knots than the select grade. Common grade is divided numerically from 1 to 5 with 1 being the best in appearance. No. 3 and No. 4 common grades are most frequently used for such applications as sheathing or sub-flooring.

Lumber grade numerical system changes title when it is shipped to large discount stores. Having changed to names the consumer has know idea what he or she is buying. Changing the name the discount stores are able to sell more product to unsuspecting customers.

Economy is the lowest grade available. This is usually junk wood, damaged material taken off of railcars. You can get a lot of twist, wane, and huge loose knots with economy grade lumber.

Utility is the next grade up in quality from economy. The discerning consumer can usually find a few useful pieces of lumber at this grade. One of the functions in large commercial lumberyards is buying utility grade lumber in bulk and upgrading it to ‘stud’

Stud grade, as implied by the name, is the most common grade used to build the framework of houses. Thus, the electronic device used to find lumber under drywall in a house is called a stud finder. Since the primary purpose of stud grade lumber is to hold up a house, very little twist is allowed, although you can have large amounts of wane and large knots.

Standard and better grade is similar to stud grade. The difference between the two is not so much in the size of the knots or the amount of splits or wane allowed, but in the fact that standard and better grade is used for lumber that is 12 feet and longer while the stud grade is used for 10 feet and 8 feet pieces in grading.

No.2 and Better grade. This grade usually allows for smaller-sized knots and a minimum of wane and splits.

An even finer quality of wood is 1 and better. This is the crème de crème of lumber and should consist of small, sound and tight knots, only inches of splits, and practically zero wane.

Above 1 and better is select grade lumber. This is an even higher quality than 1 and can be used for high-end decorative purposes. Examples of this would be western red cedar, spruce shiplap, and tongue & groove wall paneling. Having mentioned that as an example, great effects can be had using lower quality cedar as paneling, incorporating its defects to achieve a western, weathered look.

These foundation walls were built good but they were not designed for your soil type and/or hydrostatic pressure of your lot.

In the 2nd picture it shows that wall is buckling inward, with a closer look a the picture we see 3 problems.

1. The ground is almost level with the top of block wall. This creates other problems that we will talk about on another post.

2. The yard next to the house is flat- when it rains where will the run off go?
If the soil you have is poor or unsatifactory; silty clays, organics, or peat,etc. these types of soil make great lakes, they don’t drain, they pond. Because there is no place for the rain water to go then it seeks the next available spot -loose soil. This type of soil has a lot of voids or air pockets. Every house that has frost footings and /or a basement has loose soil from 2′ and up to 8′ away from the house. The rain water runs into the soft soil and around the foundation of building. This inturn compounds the problem pushing hydrostatic pressure on the foundation walls.
3. Remember the wall has a horizontal crack it now lets water into the house

1. Remove the dirt next to the house
2. Push the block wall straight
3. Install 3/4″ Rebar in block and fill the block with concrete
4. Install a drain tile system
5. Water proof the wall with Black dog Waterproofing system
6. Put a Geo grid system to keep the dirt from mixing into the rock
7. Install any size rock from 3/8″ up 1 1/2″.

With box cabinets you have face frame of 1 1/2” wide per box, when you join 2 boxes together it becomes 3” wide with a vertical seam between all the boxes. Custom cabinets have face frame of 1 1/2” –2” wide allowing more room for access as well as wider drawers.

Most box cabinets have a 1/8”-1/4” overhang on the face from the cabinet box. This makes it hard to put crown molding around the top of the cabinet, as well as toe shoe around the base cabinet. These box cabinets have no extra material to custom fit the boxes to the wall. There will be a gap between the back wall and the cabinet. If the person installing the cabinet followed the bow of the wall now the front face of the cabinets are no longer straight. Installing a counter top on these boxes will have to custom made to get a big enough overhang on the counter top to make it look good. If there is a bow in the wall this could be hidden with custom cabinets.

The only time a box cabinet looks above average is when it has a full over lay door covering most of the face frame.

All the quality in box cabinets is located in the appearance of the cabinet, not in the operation, structure, or functionality.

This closet was designed for more internal storage, but it uses up 18 square foot of floor in front of the closet that cannot be used for storage and or any thing else.

Installing Lockers in the same place where you would put a closet, it will hold more items as well as being able to organize your items or your kids.

A walk-in closet laid out right yields more and better quality storage as seen in the next 3 pictures.

The foundation wall and the framing walls was set at 12″ apart. Adding the siding to both the garage and the addition walls, the space between is now 9″.

The house’s foundation was down 7′, while the garage only had a floating slab. To get the foundation in, we had to dig down 7′ and remove the soil. The soil we were digging in was sand. Digging this close to the garage the sand under garage will slide out fast and up 7′ away from the garage under mining the garage, then the garage floor will break, this will bring the broken slab and some of the garage wall framing into the excavated hole. to solve this problem we built a shear wall to hold sand from shifting and sliding, keeping the garage safe.

The house was built in 1950 on a nice lake. The new owners decided to remodel it before moving in. We updated the whole house from electrical,plumbing, heating, phone, security and millwork.

We make our own pillars to fit each house. Buying factory pillars the heights are wrong for the jobs as well as are the fluting. factory flutes are done with a tables saw blade instead of a router giving a shallow look (cheap look).

On this photo we are building up the bases of the pillars.

Applying crown and bed moldings to make up a 6 ply cornice look.

The final look of the front entry with a siting bench.

Putting equipment above ground level often results in wasps and fowls finding a place to make their nests.

Putting equipment on roofs becomes a pill for the maintenance person and the equipment now has an opportunity to leaking into the home.

Putting the equipment at ground level opens up the opportunity for small animals to chew the wires and make their home in it.

Installing the equipment in the home or a mechanical room keeps the wildlife out of the equipment and makes the environment safe for the technician to maintain it.

Electricity has been the most costly in the past 30 years, but with energy costs jump on oil it may be the way to heat and cool the home.
• Gas

Next to electricity gas would be the easiest product to maintain.
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Simple concepts and the largest number of contractors work with this type of equipment.
Gas has long been the leader in affordable heat.
• Oil

Oil is a good option, the concepts are simple but there are very few contractors who really understand how to fix the equipment when it needs maintenance.
• Solar

Some solar systems are very easy with little to no maintenance.
However, the investment and size of the equipment is often large for the small return of investment.
• Wood

Wood, appears to be cheep, but requires vehicles, chain saws, a huge source of wood and teenagers.
• Hybrids

Dual fuel, Water source heat pumps, and much more are good options.
The concepts are simple but there are very few contractors who really understand how to fix the equipment when it needs maintenance.

With direct conditioning of the air, you will get the quickest response from the equipment onto the air that is possible.
I.E. Coming home to a cold house the air will warm up faster because you are directly heating the air. More…

However the furniture will feel cold for some time.

You can moisten, clean and condition the air.
• Radiant Heat

With radiant conditioning of the air, you will get the slowest response from the equipment
Onto the air that is possible.

I E. Coming home to a cold house the air will warm up slower because you are directly heating the objects that will in turn raise the air temperature.

However the surfaces facing the radiant heat warm before the air gets warm.

This type of heat comes in varieties of forms, standing radiators, in floor heating slabs and tubes, Radiant panels and tubes, and even the old European wood stove which is covered with ceramic tile.

There is no way to moisten, clean and condition the air
• Convection Heat

With convection conditioning of the air, you will get an intermediate response from the equipment onto the air that is possible.

I E. Coming home to a cold house the air will warm up somewhat faster than radiant heat because you are directly heating a medium that then needs to heat air.

The objects will in turn become warm because the air temperature is rising.

There is no way to moisten, clean and condition the air.

Well when he was done sheetrocking!

When gentlemen came into the house that did the taping called the house from Hades.

The gaps in the corners were bigger than the narrow part of my framing hammer 1 1/4″ (the maximum gap of ¼”) the rock job was so bad they textured sprayed the walls and ceiling to cover problems.

The basement looked like the Greek parathion.

15-20 steel posts making it hard to finish the basement. The trim work was poorly done.I was approached by a couple that wanted to build a large new 2 story house. They already had bought a house kit all they wanted me to do is frame roof and side the house. What was missing in this house package; A permit, City sewer and water, the driveway, basement foundation walls, Excavation, the wrong size sheet rock for the ceilings that have to hold up insulation.
The house package came with a large 3ring book tell you how to frame shingle and side. The illustrations were horrible there was no background information explaining why the house must be framed in a certain way. The house packages this company sells was really designed to sold to a carpenter who know how to frame, side roof and trim. All this person had to do is supply the labor but with no understanding of any of the trades. He was over his head, than came the time to sheetrock the house. Well when he was done sheetrocking, the gentlemen which came into the house that did the taping called the place “ house from Hades”.

The gaps in the corners were bigger than the narrow part of my framing hammer 1 1/4″ (the maximum gap of allowed 1⁄4″) the rock job was so bad, they textured spray the walls and ceiling to cover problems.

The basement looked like the Greek parathion.

15-20 steel posts making it hard to finish the basement. The trim work was also poorly done.

This was to tell which type of sewer system is required.

On this lot because of high level of ground water a mound system was required.

When it was time to build about 3 months later being a dry summer they dug 3 1/2 feet below the drain field system, to set the footings.

The next 2 years were dry. But the spring of 2003 was a couple of wet months above average rainfall that spring and they had 3′ of standing water in their basement.

Saved about $20,000.00 on construction fees, and lost about 26′x 42′ area in a lower level or lost about $54,600.00 resell value.

Saved about $20,000.00 on construction fees, and lost about 26′x 42′ area in a lower level or lost about $54,600.00 resell value.

Did you know that the roofing manufactures will not warranty their products if the shingles are installed improperly?

The warranty does not warrant that your roof shall not leak. But instead they warrant that their product “shall not fall apart over normal weather conditions”.
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The contractor is responsible for the rest.

1. To make sure that the roof decking is structurally sound, solid and uniform (no damage, loosening, lifting or sagging), for a better roof deck plywood sheathing is better than Norboard/oriented Strandboard.

Moisture inside of the attic freezes on to the roofing nail on the attic side of the roof sheathing.
This moisture works on the Norboard sheathing.

In time the sheathing breaks down much quicker than using plywood sheathing.

What does this mean?

In about 6-10 years down the road when a high-wind storm comes your shingles are no longer fasted tightly to the roof deck and portion of your roof will blow off.

You say “No problem – insurance will pay for it.” and you pay a higher premium for that privilege and keep paying for years to come.
2. The code requires Ice & Water Shield to be installed 2′ beyond the inside surface of exterior roofs at the eve line.

The material is designed to keep water from getting to the roof decking.

The problem is the water sits between the shingles you see and the Ice & Water Shield.

Moisture on backside of the shingles makes the shingle break down and crumble leaving you with exposed Ice & Water Shield and gutter flashing.

Now the water is no longer going into the gutter in this area and instead is going between the gutter and fascia board and getting into your overhang.

Easy solution – install 15# tarpaper above Ice & Water Shield. It wicks water away from an area to a place it can evaporate.
3. The best way to make a roof last the longest is to keep the attic air temperature and out side air within 2° degrees of each other.

1. This keeps the shingles from baking in the summer or creating ice dams in the winter.

   To achieve this, have a well ventilated roof.

   Continuous Venting in the soffits, and/or roof venting – as in ridge vents or metal roof vents. Gable end vents are great if you can in corporate them in the design of the building.