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1500 questions
19
votes
3 answers
Is this "asbestos siding"?
My insurance sent me a letter today that they are cancelling my home owner's insurance, because I supposedly have "asbestos siding" on my house.
I don't really know what counts as "asbestos siding", but I'm 99% sure my home is using wood shingles…
mitchkman
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19
votes
5 answers
Precision in Home Improvement, or: How to Trust a Laser Level?
Even though I enjoy DIY, I also suffer from a certain amount of anxiety about it, especially when tolerances have to be tight. If the Internet's advice is that a certain thing needs to be square, or level, or plumb, I am never confident that I have…
GogTheGuilder
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19
votes
1 answer
Mystery wall plate by front door
Our neighbors have this mystery wall plate by their front door. We have the identical house (both built in 1929) and we don't have one. The fire department was there today to investigate a smoke alarm and they were apparently very puzzled by it.
It…
jeguyer
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19
votes
7 answers
Disassembling IKEA furniture—how can I deal with broken dowels?
IKEA furniture often has wooden dowels that are used to hold pieces together. The problem is that these wooden dowels break easily when you're trying to disassemble IKEA furniture:
In the first picture I could just use pliers to pull the broken…
neubert
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19
votes
4 answers
What does that mean if my LED light bulb starts blinking when I turned it on?
I have an LED light bulb: Philips 60W incandescent equivalent
I've owned it for about a year and have been very happy with it. This morning when I turned it on, it started blinking. Not flickering, but a very deliberate one second on, one second…
Stephen Ostermiller
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19
votes
6 answers
Why is my background energy usage higher in the first half of each hour?
I have a smart electricity meter, which reports half-hourly readings to my supplier.
I’ve noticed that when I’m not in the property, there seems to be an oscillating pattern to my energy usage: the first half of each hour often has a higher power…
DavidH
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19
votes
3 answers
How do I unscrew this screw to disassemble a dresser?
As you see it looks like it should just unscrew, but it doesn’t turn. I guess the little arrow on one side should point up/down — but even when I do that, the screws don’t slide out. The other side of the wood doesn’t have a s
Tim
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19
votes
2 answers
Asphalt or concrete, which job first?
I have an asphalt driveway with a concrete sidewalk meeting the edge of it. They both need to be replaced. Which job needs to happen first?
Carol
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19
votes
2 answers
Why not put pipe dope on female thread?
What is the risk of having pipe dope in natural gas line? Not blobs of dope, but a thin layer or bead on inner (female) thread.
Most instructions on using pipe dope on gas pipe says to put pope dope on male threads with no reference to female…
codechimp
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19
votes
7 answers
Why is my house energy efficient only in winter?
My electric utility company sent me a graph of my home's electricity usage over time as shown in the picture below. My home beats what the company considers as efficient homes in the neighborhood when the average temperature is below ~50F. As the…
Fijoy Vadakkumpadan
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19
votes
8 answers
I've released a lot of lead-paint dust in our house. What to do?
We hired some contractors to help us re-paint our 1.5-year old kid's room. They started this morning by scraping several parts from the walls. A few minutes after they started, I thought I should test it, so I ran to the store, bought a test-kit…
M -
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19
votes
1 answer
What type of tool has rings of teeth that spin freely on a shaft?
All "gears" spin independently of each other. Stumped my pops, hasn't happened in my lifetime. Thanks!
Pete
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- 3
19
votes
9 answers
I live in an older home without ground wiring. Is it safe to install 3-prong GFCI with only a hot and neutral?
I live in an older home that doesn't have any ground wiring. Is it safe to just install 3-prong GFCI outlets and use devices and appliances that expect a ground wire connection when I just have the GFCI outlet and no actual connection to…
Dan
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19
votes
4 answers
Make a built-in desk level with uneven floor, or true level
I'm making a 13 ft-long (4 m) built-in desk along one wall of a room. Adopting the engineer's creed that anything worth thinking is worth over-thinking, I used my neighbor's tripod-mounted optical level to make level marks on the wall. It turns…
RustyShackleford
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19
votes
7 answers
What are some cost-effective tips for reducing external sound from entering a room?
I have a small office room that shares a wall with our living room. When we have guests over, their voices travel fairly well; they sound somewhat muffled but are still audible. As I work from home occasionally, I'd like to reduce any/all noise as…
Mike B
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