The hot water supply line that feeds into my kitchen and bathrooms has decided to burst. Because it's buried under the foundation and is 51 year old galvanized pipe, repairing it would be impractical. Instead, I have to run new pipe through the attic to all of the fixtures. This means cutting through plaster walls, removing new tile in the ( Read more... )

I hired a general contractor to do an addition to my house and various other projects I couldn't do myself. He thought from day one (as did I) that we'd be able to tie into my existing heating and cooling system - but he didn't bother to check if my unit was capable of handling the extra square footage of cooling space we were adding. Well, as soon ( Read more... )

I'm thinking about putting one of these waterless urinals in my laundry room. Adding a toilet is far too expensive due to the drain I have being inadequate size-wise -- but one of these would be fairly easy and cheap to install. What do you think ( Read more... )

I took a chunk of my pointer out last night when I was trying to get a door back on its hinges. What a pain in the finger.

I got the first of nine new doors installed tonight. It's much more difficult a job than I'd thought.


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I bought a tankless water heater today to replace the old tank filling my hall utilitty closet. It has no standing pilot or electrical needs. Instead, it ignites the gas burner with a spark created by water flow. It should be much more efficient than my old water heater since it doesn't have to keep a tank heated 24/7. The other cool part is I'll ( Read more... )

I played an electrician today. I took out the three recessed lights that aren't rated for direct contact with insulation and don't fit the new airtight trim I got - and put in three new ones that do. Part of the job required crawling into my attic with my jigsaw. The rest of the work was done inside the house standing on a ladder. So far my house ( Read more... )

I received a letter and invoice from my neighborhood association today for its 2006 dues: $10 due on receipt. This is the first I've heard of such membership dues, and I've lived here over a year. The letter wasn't clear whether or not I actually have to pay, or if it's just an optional fee for using the community pool. I decided to call the ( Read more... )

http://www.archive.org/stream/boys_beware/boys_beware_256kb.mp4

I hate people. Some asshole was tailgating me on my way home from work. I was going 10mph over the speed limit already, and wasn't about to go any faster. And come on, it's rush hour... it's not like he'd get anywhere any faster even if he were in front of me ( Read more... )