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Do you have a picture? What is its texture (i.e. hard or rubbery)? Things that come to mind are standard silicon or a dark kind of filler, but ive only seen white stuff here.
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Jan 16, 2009 03:29
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Melonhead posted:In my walls there's some power cables running up from an outlet into the attic through a hole in a 2x4. The builder put some sort of grey/black putty to plug the hole around the wire. What is this stuff called and where can I get some? It's called "duct seal" or "mastic" and is sold with the HVAC stuff.
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Jan 16, 2009 04:12
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I've got a toilet that keeps running for up to 5 minutes or more. Easy to stop it running by lifting the floater out of the water a bit, but what's the long-term or permanent solution for this?
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Jan 16, 2009 18:55
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A
slow crow fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Jan 16, 2009 20:35
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FordCQC posted:I've got a toilet that keeps running for up to 5 minutes or more. Easy to stop it running by lifting the floater out of the water a bit, but what's the long-term or permanent solution for this?
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Jan 17, 2009 12:55
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I want to repaint this room today. It's got this trim piece that goes around the room, and it looks like whoever put up put some light caulking on the topside seam. I wouldn't mind it at all except that the wood is warped and droops prominently in a couple places. Most notably in the corner I'll post here. It makes it look like that corner of the house is sagging. I'm wondering if it will be a disaster to pull this thing off. How damaged will the wall be underneath, and is it likely that it is hiding something? If so, how much repair and patching can I get away with without the paint looking awful on top of it (I think we want to use an eggshell finish, so it will have a moderate sheen to it). Also, color recommendations if you have a "vision" here. Right now I'm thinking khaki with white trim.
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Jan 17, 2009 17:20
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Local Yokel posted:I'm wondering if it will be a disaster to pull this thing off. How damaged will the wall be underneath, and is it likely that it is hiding something? If so, how much repair and patching can I get away with without the paint looking awful on top of it (I think we want to use an eggshell finish, so it will have a moderate sheen to it). Depends on what they did. If it's just a piece of wood nailed to the wall then hopefully you're not dealing with a lot of damage. I don't have a lot of experience with it but I would imagine the caulk will come off with a bit of hassle. After that it should be mostly patching, sanding, and then painting. Personally I would go for it.
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Jan 17, 2009 17:33
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I threw up the laser level to show the problem better. It is quite obvious in person. The 1x4 trim will be coming down today. Check out the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mrbardolph/Jan172009 And when I pull off that trim - yuck. I'm going through with it though. I'm depending on you guys to carry me through this, and have a good looking result.  
Local Yokel fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jan 17, 2009 |
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Jan 17, 2009 18:21
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Local Yokel posted:I threw up the laser level to show the problem better. It is quite obvious in person. The 1x4 trim will be coming down today. Oh you'll be fine. It's gross but it looks like it should patch up okay. If it comes down to it you can just put some new trim up, you don't have to be that much of a handyman to cut 1x4's to the right length and nail them to the wall.
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Jan 17, 2009 21:17
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I am in a house built by an electrical engineer (not an electrician) in the early 50's. Many things about the construction and wiring in the house are weird, but in this case it might just be that I am doing something completely wrong. I am trying to replace a ceiling fan/light combo with just a regular light on the ceiling. The ceiling fan was hooked up to a dimmer switch that controlled the light but if I recall correctly the fan itself could be turned on with the pull chain regardless of the position of the switch. I got the ceiling fan down, and marked the wires. Coming out of the ceiling there are 2 pairs of white and black wires. Both black wires were connected together with a black wire from the ceiling fan. One of the white pairs was connected to the white from the fan, and the other white was connected to the red wire from the fan that was clearly labeled "light". I left the black pairs together and hooked the black wire from the light I was installing to them, and then just hooked the white wire from the light to the white wire that originally had the red wire marked "light" on it. I capped off the leftover white wire from the ceiling. Nothing. The breaker doesn't pop, the dimmer switch does nothing. The light stays off. I then tried hooking both white wires together, and both black wires together with the corresponding wires from the new light. Uh-oh, this pops the breaker but gives me light for about half a second before the breaker popped. So then I tried hooking the pair from the ceiling that had the white wire that was NOT marked "light" to the corresponding white and black wires on the light I am trying to install. Of course, I capped off and isolated the leftover pair from the ceiling. Now, the light stays on, regardless of what I do with the dimmer switch on the wall. I believe this makes sense, because that's probably the pair that enabled the ceiling fan to stay on regardless of what I was doing with the wall switch. Unfortunately, my goal here is to get the new light wired to the dimmer switch. So, what am I missing here? I would assume that the first thing I tried should have worked since it's basically how the light on the ceiling fan was hooked up to begin with. edit: I forgot, I also tried just the pair that I am fairly sure go to the dimmer switch with no result. nominal fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jan 18, 2009 |
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Jan 17, 2009 21:29
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Ok, all the trim is off the walls, I cut the caulking off, and there's a lot of paper showing. I've sanded the wall along the base of where the trim was, evening out any of the nail holes, peeled paint, and ripped paper. I'm going to start throwing up some finishing compound to cover and even out the scars and nail holes. The sanding helped the paper, but there are still some small loose edges on there that I hope don't poke through the compound/primer/paint. I went to Lowes and dumped some money on more supplies. Actually didn't buy any paint, but bought everything else I thought I'd need. I'll post some pictures tonight.
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Jan 18, 2009 02:54
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So I guess "Joint Compound" is the item of choice to try to cover up our scarred walls. Picked up some gear to get going. I'm excited to use that slick roller handle. Much of this I already had though.  I've got the room quarantined. I used to have some nice canvas drop cloths, but...they must have been left with some other project. They are nowhere to be seen.  I've got the compound on here. This step took me a long time, but I think it satisfactorily covered everything I needed it to.  A little sanding in the morning, then the primer will go on.
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Jan 18, 2009 05:25
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nominal posted:I am getting my rear end kicked by a switch... There's a black wire and a white wire that come from the panel. There's a black wire and a white wire that go to the switch. The black and white that keep the light on 100% of the time go to the panel. Connect the black from that pair to the white from the other pair. "Permanently re-identify to indicate its use by painting or other effective means" i.e. mark it with electrical tape. Then the black wire from that pair goes to the black on the light, and the white from the panel goes to the white on the light. In the switch box, make sure the white from the ceiling is marked black (with tape or whatever) and goes to the top screw and the black goes to the bottom screw. Good luck. The reason you popped the breaker with black-to-black and white-to-white is that you created a short circuit through your dimmer to your panel with your light in parallel. Note that even with a direct short circuit drawing a significant number of amps (probably on the order of 50-100) it took 30 seconds for the breaker to pop. babyeatingpsychopath fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jan 18, 2009 |
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Jan 18, 2009 05:40
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I'm sorry if this has been posted already, in 25 pages I could've missed something... I have a clogged bathtub drain. It does drain eventually but takes hours. I tried a couple of applications of crystal drain cleaner - didn't work. I tried a coat hanger and didn't find a clog as far as I could run the wire in. Anything I can try before a plumber needs to be called in?
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Jan 18, 2009 06:35
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Xoobee posted:I'm sorry if this has been posted already, in 25 pages I could've missed something... You could try a plunger with water in the bathtub. Might be enough to get it moving. Where I am, it was considerably cheaper to get a plumber with an eel than it was to hire an eel. (Plumber cost $90, eel cost $150 a day).
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Jan 18, 2009 07:30
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Xoobee posted:Anything I can try before a plumber needs to be called in? If it's totally clogged, get one of those air blast plungers. I thought they would be a gimmic, but my god they work wonders. You just have to figure out a way to completely cover the overflow for the tub (plunger held over it might work)
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Jan 18, 2009 12:47
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Fire Storm posted:Snakes can be fairly cheap. I'm kinda lucky. The drain from my tub to the main sewer pipe is plastic and goes into a cast iron pipe, so it just slides right off. I take the pipe outside and flush it with the hose. I do the same with the drain for my bathroom sink. Please be aware if your house was built in the last 20? years and the builder cheaped out you may have push-fit plastic plumbing, which could be blown apart by the air-blast. Though this applies more to canned blasters than accordian plungers.
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Jan 18, 2009 17:01
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Fire Storm posted:Snakes can be fairly cheap. I'm kinda lucky. The drain from my tub to the main sewer pipe is plastic and goes into a cast iron pipe, so it just slides right off. I take the pipe outside and flush it with the hose. I do the same with the drain for my bathroom sink. I can't imagine how I would get at the drain that way... As for the following question, I doubt it was built in the past 20 years. I've been here 10 and it looked old when I got here. Btw, I'm renting but the owners/landlords are incompetent, so they don't know how to fix anything and are reluctant to hire someone, but I can get them to buy me a snake or air plunger.
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Jan 18, 2009 20:56
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:(explanation about how to wire a switch edit: Yep, I toasted the old dimmer. The new one works just fine! nominal fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jan 19, 2009 |
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Jan 18, 2009 23:41
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DIY Arts and Crafters, I have a question. My room mate and I are both looking for a hobby, she wants to make her own cell phone charms and I want to make small sculptures about 6 in. tall. What's the best kind of clay to use for both of these things? We wanted to try different kinds of clay out and see which worked best for us. I've had some people tell me Sculpey is great for both of these types of crafting, but how well would they stand up to constant knocking around as a cell phone charm? Any other threads discussing clay modelling/sculpting, I'd love to be pointed in that direction.
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Jan 19, 2009 10:12
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BLUNDERCATS! noooo posted:DIY Arts and Crafters, I have a question. My room mate and I are both looking for a hobby, she wants to make her own cell phone charms and I want to make small sculptures about 6 in. tall. If you can bear the nerd stink, head on over to the warhammer thread and ask this question there.
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Jan 20, 2009 19:36
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My well pump keeps clicking on and off rather frequently when the water softener is charging, is my "capacitor" shot?
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Jan 21, 2009 06:11
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I just looked at a house today that has an ancient electric stove but a propane fireplace (with tank out back). Would it be possible to replace the stove with a gas one and just run it to the propane tank?
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Jan 21, 2009 06:47
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jackpot posted:I just looked at a house today that has an ancient electric stove but a propane fireplace (with tank out back). Would it be possible to replace the stove with a gas one and just run it to the propane tank? In general, yes. You do have to make sure that whatever gas oven you get has the proper orifices for propane. You may also need to find a 120V outlet nearby to plug the oven into for ignitors and clocks and whatnot. A competent electrician can turn that 250V 50A outlet behind the stove into a 120V pretty easily; if you post a picture of the plug, we can tell you if you can convert it yourself even more easily.
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Jan 21, 2009 13:21
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:if you post a picture of the plug, we can tell you if you can convert it yourself even more easily.
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Jan 21, 2009 16:50
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Jackdonkey posted:My well pump keeps clicking on and off rather frequently when the water softener is charging, is my "capacitor" shot?
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Jan 21, 2009 18:33
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Richard Noggin posted:Define "rather frequently". The backflushing of the softener takes a fair amount of water. It will click on and stay on for about 5-20 seconds, then about a minute or two later it does it again, and it cycles like that for quite some time, 30-60 minutes when the softener is charging. Also it clicks off almost immediately after I'm done taking a shower. I looked some stuff up and if it's a certain kind of tank it might be as simple as pumping more air into it. But I'm thinking if it's not the kind or pressure tank I can pump more air into I'll probably go ahead and replace it since it certainly seems like it is not working properly.
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Jan 22, 2009 00:52
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That doesn't seem too bad. I know mine uses a lot of water to flush. Your shower head is putting out a pretty small amount compared to this.
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Jan 22, 2009 01:10
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I'm having some refrigerator trouble. Since living in my apartment for over 6 months, my fridge has worked fine. However, after loading it up with tons of food and drinks [including many gallon bottles of Gatorade], it slowly got warmer and finally was about as warm as room temperature. After all my food either rotted or was consumed, I inspected the two air vents in the top and discovered ice blocking the air flow. I've tried clearing the ice out several times with a knife, but the condensation from the broken ice always seems to form another blockage. Another important thing to note is that my freezer has and continues to work fine. I would just have maintenance from my apartment complex come and fix it, but I still have some carpet to repair from my digging buns. Please help. I really miss cooking things that don't have to be frozen.
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Jan 22, 2009 22:25
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OOP Rabbit posted:I'm having some refrigerator trouble. Since living in my apartment for over 6 months, my fridge has worked fine. However, after loading it up with tons of food and drinks [including many gallon bottles of Gatorade], it slowly got warmer and finally was about as warm as room temperature. After all my food either rotted or was consumed, I inspected the two air vents in the top and discovered ice blocking the air flow. I've tried clearing the ice out several times with a knife, but the condensation from the broken ice always seems to form another blockage. Another important thing to note is that my freezer has and continues to work fine. Have you considered turning off the fridge and letting all the water evaporate before turning it on again? It would be messy (especially if your freezer has a lot of ice in it), but it might solve your problem.
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Jan 23, 2009 05:50
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Blowupologist posted:Have you considered turning off the fridge and letting all the water evaporate before turning it on again? It would be messy (especially if your freezer has a lot of ice in it), but it might solve your problem. Yeah. The problem is almost certainly a blocked drain tube. Letting all the ice melt will get rid of it, and likely show you where the drain tube hole is. Find that and run a piece of wire through it, pull all the crud out, and see if your fridge works again.
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Jan 23, 2009 13:23
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Alright, thanks guys... I figured I would end up having to do this, but just wanted to make sure there wasn't another way out. Thanks though.
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Jan 23, 2009 17:41
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My pressure tank for my well had a Schrader valve on it so I shut the well off and opened up a faucet and pumped air into it until the faucet stopped running water and the well doesn't cycle on and off as much anymore, so problem fixed for now.
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Jan 23, 2009 21:12
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To take care of slow drains in my house, I took a 4" pvc pipe cap, and drilled a hole in the center of it that my air nozzle fits into. Anytime a sink or shower drain gets slow, I just shoot a bunch of air down into it. No problems yet.
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Jan 25, 2009 01:07
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I have a wiring question for you guys. I'm doing a 3-way switch in my house, one switch at the top of a stairway, one at the bottom. All the diagrams I've looked at are linear: power to switch to switch to light, power to light to switch to switch, whatever. Mine is wired such that the power goes to the first switch which goes out to the light AND the second switch. It looks like this: edit: figured it out. Comeau fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jan 26, 2009 |
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Jan 26, 2009 01:17
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How easy/hard is it to fish wires behind walls? From what I now about framing, it seems like fishing a wire vertically would be easy. For example, I'd like to wall mount our tv, and tucking all those cables through a hole at the top, and a hole at the bottom would be simple. Is it possible to get wires behind the wall horizontally? I'd love to have my speakers mounted without visible wiring, but that may be a pipe dream.
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Jan 26, 2009 05:23
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Local Yokel posted:How easy/hard is it to fish wires behind walls? From what I now about framing, it seems like fishing a wire vertically would be easy. For example, I'd like to wall mount our tv, and tucking all those cables through a hole at the top, and a hole at the bottom would be simple. You like patching drywall? If so, use one of these!. If you have a chair rail, you can make all your holes on that line. If not, you're going to have to patch every 16" or so. That little crooked tool is to make the drill bit roughly horizontal so you don't go sideways through the stud and out the back of the wall; it really works! That little basket is so once you're done drilling holes, you can unchuck the bit, attach that basket to the bit, attach the wire to the basket, then pull the bit out and pull the wire in with one operation. Pretty clever. So lots of holes in the wall, or, if you can go into the attic, go up the wall, over in the attic, then down into the space you need. Replace attic with basement if you can get into a basement/crawlspace.
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Jan 26, 2009 13:29
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Is there any way to remove a screw with a stripped head? I installed a baby gate over the weekend. In the process, I managed to gently caress up a couple of the mounting screw heads in the process, so they can't be unscrewed. The place is a rental so I don't want to destroy the door frame trying to get them out.
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Jan 26, 2009 22:18
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You can take either a dremel tool or a chisel, and make a slot in the head of the stripped screw so you can unscrew it with a flat head.
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Jan 26, 2009 22:25
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ease posted:You can take either a dremel tool or a chisel, and make a slot in the head of the stripped screw so you can unscrew it with a flat head. Not quite the first thing I would try. Are you using a manual or power driver? You'll do less damage with a manual screwdriver. Also most hardware stores have various types of screw extractors, some of them are just super grippy normal bits, some are those crazy gator-grip style things that look like those toys you could make shapes out of pins with. The standard first attempt is to get a manual screwdriver and tap it in deep with a hammer and use all the grip you've got to try and do it that way. If it's completely, 100% stripped out like a bowl it's kind of your fault for loving it up that bad without looking it up first so I don't know what to tell you. If you can get it backed out a little bit to where you can get hold of it, some locking pliers and a lot of patience will let you twist it out as well.
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Jan 26, 2009 22:38
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