Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with homerepair

How to treat a basement sewage backup?

Clambone — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:39:38 -0800

What treatments, if any, are available to a homeowner whose basement has been flooded with sewage? My parents' home in Ohio suffered from a backup in the sanitary sewage line. The basement was flooded with two inches of sewage. The damage was considerable, and apparently the smell is horrific. (I say "apparently" because one of us live in Ohio anymore. They've been renting the house out.)

My father is saying things like "the house is worthless," and that it will never again be approved in a building inspection. Can that be right? An expensive treatment would still be cheaper than writing off a whole dang house. Heck, even if the only effective treatment was pumping in three inches of concrete, that would be better than writing off an entire house.

Their insurance company says that this damage is not covered by their policy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Why is my sump pump bone dry?

Waldo Jeffers — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:42:53 -0800

Why is my sump pump bone dry? My sump pump, which I am certain works perfectly well, is completely dry in the middle of a rainy November in Seattle! What the heck? We had an extremely dry summer, but for the last few months it has been a typical Seattle fall. Why hasn't the water beneath/around our house worked its way into the sump pit?

I know the pump works. I've tested it, and I've had a plumber test it. The GFI at the outlet it's plugged into was tripped for a long time during the hot summer (probably not related to pump), so it was down until the beginning of October. However, isn't that enough time for the ground to get soaked enough for water to work its way into the pit?

Can you fix my fridge?

lholladay — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:53:19 -0800

Got home from work, found my fridge is not working. Any troubleshooting I can do while waiting for the landlord? I'm not great with appliances, but I have checked the outlet, and it works fine. So the problem is internal to the fridge. Are there any basic troubleshooting things I can try? I know this is the landlord's responsibility, but who knows when they'll get to it. I realize I should go ahead and move food to a neighbor's place, and I'm working on that. So I'm looking mainly for things I can check/try to get the thing running again.

One note: Before this happened, the fridge had been regularly leaking water onto the floor for a few months. I'm not sure if that's at all related to the current problem.

How to repair a leaking water valve?

cedar — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:44:38 -0800

I have a cast iron valve on a basement water (cold supply) line that is leaking. It's an antique so there is no repacking it and in a fairly inaccessible location so cutting it out and replacing it is bound to be an expensive nightmare involving a real. This valve is redundant and does not need to be functional. I was wondering if there is a product (I'm thinking a gooey oakum type thing) that I can wrap around the valve stem to form a seal? This will have to work in a wet environment as there is no way to turn the water off before the leaky valve.

How should I fix this towel bar?

Bokononist — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:11:44 -0800

How should I fix this Towel Bar that's coming off the wall in my bathroom? I think the linked picture pretty much poses the question. Here's another one that's closer up (it could be used as one of those "what is this a way-too-close-up picture of?" puzzles). There's a plastic anchor it's coming out of the wall, I have to carefully hang all my towels on the other side. Eventually I'm sure the whole thing is going to come crashing down in a towel bar disaster! So please help.

Rusty Roof, Rusted.

SirStan — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:22:16 -0800

House help! What kind of metal; and how do I stop it from rusting? The porches on my home have a metal roof that is rusting. Can you please help me identify:

1. What kind of metal these are.
2. What course of action should I take to un-rusty them.

The paint store dude said I needed to sand it down, and prep it and then paint it.

The home inspector said there was some stuff you could paint over it and it would take care of the rust, and keep it awesome.

The very special guy at the hardware tried to sell me cans of rustoleum.

Photo of roofing in question:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirstan/3781685731/

Slow faucet needs more pressure.

backseatpilot — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:13:23 -0800

I need some plumbing help with regards to a slow faucet. The landlord is dragging her feet on getting this fixed, so I thought I'd try to do it myself as long as it turns out to be a minor problem. Our kitchen sink has terrible water pressure - it takes about a full minute to fill a pint glass with water, which makes the sink difficult to use. I had just chalked it up to generally low pressure in the entire apartment until a plumber came out for a burst water heater and mentioned that the sink pressure was abnormally low.

The sink is just a standard stainless steel job, one basin, with a sprayer (also low pressure). The dishwasher and plumbing in the bathroom seem to be fine. Hot and cold are equally slow.

Where should I start looking? Any ideas what might be causing it?

Ghost faucet

cgs — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:29:11 -0800

Plumbing filter: When I'm running the shower, the cold water handle creeps up by itself until the water is tepid. How do I fix it? When they are off, both the hot and cold point down (90°). When I turn the cold on, it creeps up from 45° (just right) to horizontal (chilly). Do I need to replace a washer or something? Is this a landlord job?

Thanks for your help-
cgs

Shaka, When the Walls Fell

anti social order — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:26:05 -0800

Leaking something in an upstairs bathroom leads to ceiling falling in. Now what? Last night the ceiling under an upstairs bathroom in the townhouse where I am staying collapsed with a torrent of water. It's cleaned up and not currently leaking. I think the water is coming from the toilet or close to it. I shut the water off on the tank, I don't see any other water flowing or dripping. The drywall around this new hole is wet and sagging and the wood above looks wet/rotted/gross/moldy. Now what?

I am clueless with home repair, but it looks fairly serious. There's the leak to be fixed, drywall to be repaired, and god knows what else if the wooden floor beams are damaged. I'm especially worried about mold in the walls and hidden damage elsewhere.

My question is what kind of person do I want to take a look at this? Bonus points for recommendations in Montgomery county maryland.
Also what should I expect or ask of them? do we talk costs upfront or after they've done stuff. The house is insured - do we call an inspector like when it was storm damaged? Is it better to eat a grand or two repair bill or make an insurance claim?

I'm at a bit of a loss about what else to add. Ask anything that you need. Thank you.

It's like a sandblaster.

WowLookStars — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:32:55 -0800

Will our high water pressure work well with a low-flow shower head? We've just moved, and our new home has insanely high water pressure. The water comes out our shower head so fast that our water heater runs out of hot water very quickly. Can we switch our shower head to one that restricts the flow, or are those only for under-pressured situations? Is there anything else we could do?

The water heater is turned up all the way already. We've tried just turning the taps minimally, but turning them on at all gets a blast of water, so that's not very effective and difficult to do as well. This is in Eastern Texas, if that's relevant in any way. Thanks!

I want to make dark stains on my marble bathroom counter!

kgn2507 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:33:31 -0800

What can I use to intentionally stain a dark cultured marble countertop? I have seen plenty of advice on how to clean stains from marble countertops. Well, what if I'd rather just stain it a little bit more? I have a mediocre house, several kids, and soap stains, or lightened areas, on the soap shelves of my sinks. Why did they make soap shelves on marble sinks anyway? This is like doctors that give out lollipops. I put out soap dishes, but the soap ends up there anyway.

So what stains marble? And what color is the stain? You guys are so great!

My hot water heater is leaking.

hazyspring — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:24:46 -0800

My hot water heater is leaking a very small amount of water. It looks like it only happens when hot water is used. Who do I call about this and how serious is this? A few questions related to this:

What could be causing this?
Who do I call about this?
How soon do I need to take care of this?

(I only say this because I am insanely busy at work and would like to put this off as long as possible.)

Did I break my house?

bitteroldman — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:12:05 -0800

No power to a specific receptacle in the house. Changing the receptacle doesn't work. Now what? Here is the story thus far:

We used to plug in a baseboard heater in a standard 110V wall outlet and stupidly, used to "turn it off" simply by unplugging it from the outlet (while it was still on). And "turn it on" by plugging it back in.

Considering that the heater probably sucks up a lot of power, this act of plugging and unplugging the heater while it was still on, probably did something to the wiring, because now the receptacle doesn't seem to work for anything.

It's not the circuit breaker - other receptacles that are linked to the same circuit breaker as that of the now-faulty one work fine.

In fact, there seems to be some power going to this faulty receptacle - I have two voltage testers - the one that detects voltages as low as 50 V detects something, but the one that detects voltages as low as 80 V doesn't.

So I changed the receptacle thinking maybe I busted that, but even with a new receptacle I can't get anything to work when plugged into it. The wires looked fine when I inspected them.

So what else could be the problem? Was this related to the plugging and unplugging? Is there anything else I could try/do before I call the electrician?

FWIW, I tried plugging various things in, including a clock radio that works elsewhere, but no dice.

Help me insulate my air conditioner!

kmtiszen — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:17:38 -0800

lI have a through-the-wal air conditioning unit. How do I stop the cold air outside from coming in through the cracks? I have a Friedrich WallMaster through-the-wall air conditioner that's great during the summer, but leaves my apartment exposed to the elements during the winter months. It's one of those sleeve models, so the back is just a grate that lets the cold air flow in with only the structure of the AC to stop it. The unit came with this foam wadding to help seal the edges, but it just doesn't do the trick. Is there some other insulating practice that I just don't know about?

THANKS!

What to do about an old doorbell?

gleuschk — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:54:29 -0800

What can I do about my doorbell? The button part of the doorbell is rotted away, so people don't like to use it for fear of getting shocked or whatever. I've asked around at Lowe's and Home Depot, and nobody knew anything about buying just the button part of a doorbell. Replacing the whole doorbell plate is tricky, since it's that funny shape (for which whoever installed it had to take a chip out of the molding next to it to make it fit). Any ideas most welcome.

Help my refrigerator remember its purpose in life.

grapefruitmoon — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:14:12 -0800

Appliance Repair For Dummies Filter: Is there anything we can do to get our fridge to, y'know, refrigerate things? Our fridge is stuck at 50F. (You may or may not know that 40F is optimal for keeping food, y'know, COLD.) No matter what we do with the little fiddly-knob, this is the coldest we can get it. Our landlord has been contacted, but this seems to be pretty low on his priorities list.

Unfortunately, bugging the landlord is pretty low on 'moonMan's priority list as he has a paper deadline looming this week. I would happily bug the landlord myself, except that he has displayed a lot of "pat-on-the-head oh, you're a cute girl, here just hit this button, pat-pat" dismissive behavior. I'll continue bugging him anyway, but in this aspect of the situation, it's going to take some prodding from 'moonMan for anything to get done.

So. My question. Until we can wrangle our landlord into doing something other than turning the volume up to 11, is there anything we can do to make the fridge COLDER? It's just cold enough to keep milk from spoiling (we go through milk pretty quickly, but I've noticed milk that's been opened for 2 days being just fine), but the ice-cream in the freezer is melting and I would really like to be able to have perishable food in the house without worrying that it's going to be spoiled the next day. (We've had a lot of fancy cheese turn green with alarming speed.)

THNX!

how do we get rid of a lemon of a house?

KirkJobSluder — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:54:24 -0800

What can we do to get out from under a lemon of a house? About 10 years ago, we bought a house that was a DIY fixer-upper with some serious issues. 10 years of graduate school poverty coupled with a couple of major illnesses that limited physical activity hindered our ability to make more than just the basic repairs. Now the house is even worse, and a new job has forced us to make an out-of-state move. We are not at risk of default, but on the other hand, we don't have the savings or income to sell at a loss, or make more than cosmetic improvements. What are our options?

How to green my leadpainted siding?

gofargogo — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:38:38 -0800

Green Construction Filter: What's the best way to fix my lead painted siding? I have a house with shiplap redwood siding, built in 1947 and the paint is failing. I assume the paint is lead based (the paint in the kitchen was lead base so...) and the siding has shrunk leading to lots of little (1/8") gaps between the strakes. The house has little to no overhangs, but I'm in Sonoma County and don't get a lot of rain (compared with the Pacific NW, or Florida). I want to fix it in the most cost effective, greenest way possible (but I'm on a limited budget, of course).

Ideally I'd like a solution that limits the risk from lead paint exposure, looks good, and will last a very very long time with minimal maintenance. I was thinking of unpainted shingles, because they should weather, but remain sound for decades, right?

Are there other options I'm not thinking of? What are the details I should be looking for in shingles (e.g. species, fastners, sub-surface prep, etc.)?

Can anyone help me find the unfindable phone jack?

Teira — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:25:48 -0800

The phone jack of myth and legend: I'm looking for "A 4-conductor jack with Type 43A mounting bracket attached." In white, not hideous horrible old school beige. I've been searching for this damn part for about a month now. I'm fairly certain it does not exist in this universe, but just in case one of you has some deep dark telecommunications supply knowledge, I figured I'd ask.

My apartment has old school 4 pronged phone jacks. They have been painted over, they are destroyed. I'm renovating this place by hand. There was ONE updated jack in the entire place, which is why I know this part semi-exists, but this one jack was in ivory, and for aesthetics' sake, I'd kind of like it in straight up white.

The faceplate... it's all one congruous... thing. I'm not about to stick a standard phone jack faceplate next to a horizontal power outlet plate it just would not be right. The hole's 1.406" and the wiring'll work for RJ11/14/25. I already searched granger and mcmaster and leviton and the last one's the closest I got. Except: ivory! ugh! no! white!

Am I just going to have to bite the bullet and ivory it up?

General Window Repair?

kalessin — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:37:47 -0800

Home Repair Filter: Does anyone know of a window repair contractor in Baltimore who'll do spiral sash balance repair? I'm trying to sell my home, and the buyer's making this a post-home inspection request, and I'm at loose ends trying to find such a contractor.

We'll see what further negotiation offers, but I'd like to be prepared if it really is a deal breaker for the buyer.

The main problem lies in the fact that most window "repair" folks in this area don't service windows they didn't install (preferring instead to sell you entirely new window), and I'm not replacing entire windows because the sash balance is non-functional. That's what sticks are for.

Alternately, should I try the repair myself? Reader's Digest and the New York Times both seem to rate this sort of repair as "minor".

But HOW do I do it myself?

dersins — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:22:38 -0800

What's the best home-repair / fixit manual for someone with little-to-no experience in such matters? Also, web sites and / or blogs in the same vein? So I'm buying a house. It's an old house. I anticipate many things in it needing repair over the coming years-- some small, some large. I'm perfectly happy hiring a knowledgeable contractor to make major repairs, but if a doorknob falls off or a window pane cracks, I'd prefer to be able to make the repair myself.

The problem is, I've always been a renter. My version of do-it-yourself has involved calling the landlord or super and telling them something's come unstuck, or stuck, or fallen off, or busted, or whatever.

A brief perusal of the home repair section at Powell's has revealed to me that there are hundreds of books available for the novice home-fixit-person.

Some of these books probably suck. Others are probably OK. But some of them must be great, right? You might even say that some of them are indispensable? Which ones? How can I tell?

Also, any good / great / indispensable home-repair web sites or blogs you can suggest will be very useful to me as well.

Thanks in advance.

need a new chimney?

Salvatorparadise — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:06:53 -0800

Looks like leaking around the chimney - roofer says it is the chimney itself, what to do? hey all, i posted a question awhile back about my roof, finally getting around to a new one! I have water leaking down the sides of my brick chimney, and it shows up in the basement. Have inspected it from the attic several times, and it very clearly appears to come from around the chimney and then down the sides of the chimney. Over the years this seems to have caused wood sheathing planks surrounding the chimney to get quite damp and to rot. SO - i definitely figured i needed new chimney flashing - and i'm due for a new roof too. anyway, the roofer upon coming out for an estimate says this to me:

I inspected your roof today. Were you aware of the condition of the actual chimney itself? You said you thought it was the flashing that was causing the leak.

Check out the brick. This chimney needs torn down and either covered over or rebuilt to prevent your leak.

Do you use it for venting a furnace or hot water heater?

then he attaches these two pics: here and here

The chimney is for the furnace. I paid only about $50K for this house, and it is generally in good shape - i definitely do NOT want to pay a fortune for repairs up there. A new roof w/flashing was about all i had planned for in terms of a big investment around here. I had another reputable roofer up there awhile back and he inspected everything and made no mention of the need for a new chimney! he said they'd flash it and do a new roof and be good to go. Of course, the latest roofing company also does chimneys - and would be happy to do mine. He included nothing else in the email though, no estimate, no explanation of why this would cause the leak. it DOES NOT appear to be leaking from inside the chimney out, but down the sides...

The chimney looks like it may need some work - i'm no expert so can't tell - but i'm reluctant to spend big bucks, and am not sure just what he was trying to say in the email. He never explicitly said this is causing water to come in - or what it would cost - i feel a bit wary.

anyone have experience in this? How does it look to you? What sort of costs am i looking at if i do need to repair - or heaven forbid - replace the chimney...this is not something i want to do!

thanks all!

Stuck on you

bda1972 — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:51:43 -0800

Best way to remove year old masking tape from plastic and glass? I bought a house and the old owners put masking tape (the standard off-white type) on the glass panels of several cabinet doors (one side flat and the other etched) and 4 replacement window frames (plastic). Apparently they began a painting project and then either gave up or ran out of money. I considered putting the tape removal as a condition to close on the house but they screwed up so many other things I need to fix I figured they would half-ass it and ruin the windows (and they were being foreclosed on in 30 days so time was a factor). Anyway, the tape is really on there and I'm afraid of damaging the surfaces if I use any type of razor blade or scrapper. Some sections of the tape will come off if pulled very slowly but even then a lot of hard residue is left. The guy at my local hardware store suggested applying a product like Oops and then using a scraper. I can't imagine that would work on the etched glass. Any other suggestions?

What electrical event killed my wife's laptop and printer?

ransom — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:04:06 -0800

What electrical event killed my wife's laptop and printer? We connected the printer to the laptop and...fireworks! Here's what happened: she plugged her Dell into an outlet (no surge protection) on one side of the room and plugged the usb connection from our printer into her usb port (the printer was on a surge protector). Power connection at the computer sparked, popped, and smoked, the breaker was tripped, and both laptop and printer will not power up.

We're in an older home that we just moved into and i have some suspicions about the wiring but have no electrical knowledge. Can anyone help?

basement cracks

Salvatorparadise — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:29:22 -0800

anyone have experience dealing with basement cracks? I have some cracks on the wall of my basement, just on one side. The wall has been painted over with sealer many times over the years. It is a block wall. The one main crack was there when i bought the place, the inspector said it was ok, and that as long as the wall didn't bow out over an inch or so, i'd be OK. I think it bows maybe 1/4-1/2" now at the worst, where the big crack is. that crack is maybe 5 mm wide. I get no water in my basement, except a bit coming up from the floor when it rains for like a month straight.

Anyway, there are some other hairline cracks, which really seem to be cracks in the thick layer of sealer. I can't tell if they're new or not, but i think they are. I was just wondering how concerned i might be about the cracking down there...There are hairline stair steps, and horizontal, then of course the big one. I suppose the big issue is whether the wall is moving right (or how much it is moving)? If it is stable then I don't want to screw with it. I only paid $50k for the house, and it has been great so far, had it 14 mos. No problems. So, i don't want to put much money into serious and expensive foundation repairs! Planning on selling the place in a few years or renting it out. Anyway, what should i look for? Are these cracks a big problem? I put some sealer in the cracks, or over them, and that should help me see if they're opening up more over time....

Pics here, here here here here here