One of our friends asks about building a dog door on an exterior wall. They live in a suburban community and have a medium sized dog. Their rear yard is fenced in and they are considering a dog door to allow the dog more freedom.
They are asking if it is a bad idea or a really bad idea to put a dog door in an existing wall.
Most of the time dog doors are cut into …
Casement windows are great options for many homes because they allow you to open your window and get good ventilation however there are some problems with this design. They normally can not use screens and additionally you are dependent on a mechanical crank to open and shut the window where sliding windows don’t have this problem. On the other hand they are pretty secure and weather tight so many homes do use them.
A friend writes …
If you own a home with a front door that is away from normal traffic and a side door that might be at your garage and used as a primary way for you and visitors to enter your home then you may want to install a doorbell that gives you the option to know which door someone is at.
This type of doorbell is called a two tone or multi door chime and you can …
One of our friends is having a problem… it seems that the molding around their window has been deteriorated for many years and finally it gave away and their blind has fallen off.
The problem is probably bigger than they think it is. The way the previous repairs were made were just beyond bad workmanship it seems that they just threw some caulk or spackel on the molding and didn’t even care to sand it …
This Guy I was talking with told me that he had been looking into replacing his old windows in his house because they are single pane and the house is old enough that they might still have lead paint on them. He and his wife are expecting a kid in the next few months and he wanted to get it done before the child was born.
This probably is a good idea if they need …
In this How To we will look at the option of repairing verses replacing an interior hollow core door that looks like it was cracked at the door lock area when someone decided to force it open.
You know things happen in houses. You lock your pants or the cat in the bathroom and instead of thinking sanely about finding a door push key you force the door open and then pay the price.
The price …
In this How To we will look at the difficulties of dealing with materials that are attached to concrete with Concrete Nails. It is important to deal with hardened nails of this type correctly or you could find yourself with a costly repair.
A friend asks: I have these ramps leading up to my house and I’d like to remove them, but they are held in with concrete nails.
Most likely these ramps were installed to …
One of the last jobs we usually get to in the house is cleaning the windows but the chore doesn’t mean that you have to buy special or expensive cleaners to get it done right.
If you have read some of our previous posts we have described how to formulate some of the household products that you use every day at pennies on the dollar. Now sometimes there is good reason to buy store brand …
One trick that I learned when working on cars was that you …
There are times in a home’s life when you need to change the locks. This can be when a crazy person you were dating moves out or it could just be that you bought a new home and would rather the old owners didn’t still have working keys.
You have a few options and maybe if the locks on the door are over 10 years old it might be a good time to think …