Homeowner Forum / Repair / May 2006

I guess it goes without saying I'm not an engineer or contractor.  A
friend who's an unbelievable DIYer asked me if a (small) bathroom wall
I plan to tear down is load bearing.  I couldn't answer.  He asked if
my home is stick-built and if the attic has trusses.

I'm working on a 120 yr old house for myself.  I'm going to have to
completely reframe the windows from scratch.  I already have the insides
down to studs.  What I need is recommendations for new install (not
replacement) windows with the following features.  Double hung, tilt in ...

I am building a closet in my family room which has a concrete slab
floor (on ground level) covered with linoleum tiles (think 1960). Do I
need to use pressure treated 2x4 for the bottom plates? Thanks for any
ideas.

I have a small house (18' wide) that has a small bathroom The odd
thing to me is that there is a stall shower and a separate tub without
a shower. I can't understand why they wasted space by not combining
them, and I have another thread going about replacing the tub and

Standard single bay ovehead garage door.   One spring snapped.
Spring's body is 26" long x 1 1/2 inch diameter.
How does one goi about replacing these things?
Thanks in advance.

A friend of mine is considering adding a gas heater to his outdoor pool.
Without getting into too many parameters (size, location, usage etc) I just
want a few price points to get an idea of the magnitude of the cost others
are paying for energy (not the equipment).

are you still able to see the lines where taping and floating was done on a
ceiling of a house after texture and paint were applied?

I want to install new recess lights in my living and family rooms.  My
ceiling is vaulted ceiling.
Is there any good way to reduce the number of ceiling sheetrock cuts
for wiring besides the number of holes for the recesses light fixtures?

I have an ancient 2-cycle Lawn-Boy mower (model 7086) that uses
gas/oil mixture.  It doesn't run very smoothly anymore, and the
spark plug fouls pretty easily/frequently.
The other day I shut the main gas line off and let it run until the

I have a 5 year old Whirlpool Gold washing machine.  It has been
working pretty well for years.  As a matter of fact it is still
working, however, it vibrates horribly when coming out of spin cycle.
It sounds like a large rig when they use the Jake brakes (hope i

My AC is not working.  I tried switching the breaker and tried
replacing the fuses on the outside box.  The key to all of this is that
the thermostat refuses to even turn on.  It is digital, not batter
powered, and it does not have a read out.  Does this mean a simple

Are the International building codes available online somewhere?
I'm in the process of building a 2-story  5-plex in Ocean Shores, WA
and the city says I have to place a staircase on the second floor
balcony ( I disagree).  As I understand, you only need this second

I need to replace several broken valence clips of the mini-blinds on
our back porch. I checked several online sites, but could not find a
match, so the make of the clip I require may no longer be available. I
can email you a JPEG file of the clip; dimensions of the clip are part

Everytime this unit heats up the water it makes a loud a bang and I am
trying to figure out what is causing this. Almost as if there is a
little gnome inside there with a wrench smacking the inside panel. Is
this normal? If not I am assuming this will require a service call?

We just bought some prefinished bamboo flooring. It comes in 8"x6' planks.
So What up with the Expansion gap if you are nailing the floor down??  I can
kind of under stand it more with the floating floor, but if you are nailing
it down every 6" to the subfloor, how much is it ...