Homeowner Forum / General / August 2004

I have a Kenmore electic dryer that went on the blink this weekend.
I set the timer (which I can hear running) and push the START button.
I hear a humming sound whilst pushing the button but nothing happens.
I took the back off and wiggled the wires. Still doesn't work.  I

I need to sell my house (Spring TX) within the next month FOR SURE!
What do I need to do? The problem(s) is/are: (1) I have almost no
equity in the house  (2) I have nearly no cash either so I can't
afford to lose more than a couple of grand!!

My wife is remodeling her office.
It is in a 100 year old building on pier & beam.
We are located in the South Texas Coastal Plains. High humidity, high
summer heat, mild winters.

Remar Sutton seems to have done a good job of exposing the usual scams
pulled by car seller on their customers. Is there any similar
information out there on how to avoid unnecessary costs when buying
homeowners insurance? I'm not saying insurance agents are dishonest,

Sears-Craftsman's Web site is pretty useless unless one just gets lucky,
and Google searches haven't helped.  I need a 7" wheel for my Craftsman
rear bagger (walk-behind) and I can't even find a reference to the
particular mower I have, much less identify a replacement wheel.

Will someone tell me if I can drop low voltage wires (cat 5 and
coaxial) into different bedrooms.  The builder 'Capital Pacific homes'
will charge $140 for each drop per cable.  There will be 5 drops, two
cat5 and one coaxial in each room.  Some people say that if you speak

After we closed on our new house, we noticed that several phone jacks were very
shoddily installed -- the previous owners had essentially cut a ragged circular
hole in the drywall, pulled wire through (without a junction box), connected it
to the jack, and tried to screw the jack ...

I need a hose which has an end setup for sourcing from a standard
threaded household faucet.   In days of yonder, I've seen them sold as
houseplant accessories.
I need to buy by postal mail order, if at all possible.....

Our electric water heater started making occasional groaning noises
last winter, but still worked well.  Lately, though, the water has
been much hotter than usual and only lasts about half as long.
Although it has been useful in shortening teen daughter's time in the

I now have 3 quotes on replacing my roof, with a 4th to come later
today.  They are as follows:
1) $6,200 for re-roof and gutters.  Includes any wood that may be
needed.  Local, independent guy with 20+ years experience.  20-year

I'm looking for a source for polyurethane type spray foam insulation. I have
a 12 year old hot tub that is still very nice and in very good condition,
especially the fiberglass shell and solid mahogany frame. However,
underneath, the shell only has a few inches of spray foam ...

While pulling weeds today my foot fell into a hole.  I jumped back and poked
around it finding it "hollow" underneath.  I got the shovel and started
digging, and found a void about 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep.  There is no
evidence of animal life in it, nor is there any debris.

We just moved to a new house. We never had a sump pump before. I can
hear the water running where the sump pump is located although I
didn't hear the sump pump working (maybe just didn't catch it yet
since I didn't spend much time in a basement). There was no rain

I recently had my 1 1/2 year-old sump pump break (a cheap one that the
plumber installed).  I'm looking for a decent sump pump with a battery
backup system built in, something with 6+ hours of constant run-time.
I've read up on the Basement Watchdog series pumps, which Home Depot

I have a newly built house and was told the windows are E windows.  I know
very little about these types of windows, but recently found out that the
window company had to come and replace one of the windows to make it an E
window.