dirkfaegre

Let me get this straight. He might be up for removing the insulation UNDER the slab to create a heat sink to dissipate the heat from the humidifier? Am I missing something here??

The expense of removing the slab, then the insulation and then replacing the slab is less than stopping the moisture from entering the basement in the first place? I doubt it. And the embedded energy expended to do this won't be trivial either.

Seems like the owner is not facing the REAL problem: The moisture. Tell us more about that issue. Where's it coming from?

A lightweight dehumidifier can be found by installing a hybrid domestic hot water heater (it actually heats cold water not hot, but ignoring that ...) Mine doesn't remove lots of water from the air but it will do some.

The homeowner shouldn't lose sight of his original idea: To save energy. Running a dehumidifier uses lots of energy if it runs much.

Methinks this whole idea needs rethinking from square one.

What's wrong with some simple logic instead? It's all well and good that there are laws regarding the removal of lead paint -- but those are just the laws, not necessarily any common sense. You can argue about the law but reality isn't much interested in that train of action.

For instance: If those lead chips fall onto the ground and are left there, 1) do they pose a threat to drinking water; 2) do they pose a threat to growing plants intended for eating; 3) do they pose a threat to children playing about in them; 4) what happens when the homeowner goes over them with a rotary mower? I suspect that fancy mulching mower does an efficient job of converting them to breathable dust. Ain't that just peachy?! (but legal)

Seems to me that we owe it to ourselves, our posterity and our environment to go to some effort to collect those lead chips and dispose of them properly regardless of the 'laws'. That's not asking too much for our future health now is it? If you think it is .... check back in a couple of decades with us, OK? You may be feeling a good bit different then.

What's special about Canada and USA? Maybe 120V 60 hertz? Sometimes they (manufacturers) screw up the most obvious things -- and hate to admit it. Regardless, I take it to be a good thing that they backed off. Way too many manufacturers take the attitude that they must meet the deadline, the heck with whether it works right or not. Sears Craftsman has a dado blade (a wobbler) that cannot stay "set" no matter how hard the user tries to lock it in place. (Amazon buyers gave it the lowest rating -- 11 of 11 users report exactly the same issue). It's a disaster ... but will they pull it off the market (or fix it)? Nope. Probably not enuf people have been stung yet and the sales justify leaving it alone. Bah.

Seems to me that the thin kerf design may be more valuable than the "slot". Cutting back on waste (wasted power to get the job done) and keeping the blade from burning might well be worthwhile on the next purchase. Now to see what portion of first-born I have to give up to get one.

I thought better of April's idea and improved on it. Don't use a claw hammer, use a ball peen hammer instead. It's so much easier and faster to sharpen the 'ball' end, considering that it's already in the general form and this way you don't lose the ability to pull nails with your main hammer. And no curve in the 'nail set' means less target practice to get to 'Sharpshooter' level. Smart, eh?

I'm confused. There's a nice isometric drawing of the Ultimate Miter Saw stand. But that's it. No comments, no notes, no nothing. Can we get a bit more info? Something to tell us about it's features and reasons for whatever it is that the design incorporates? That'd be nice. Thanks.

Buster's not sleeping. Buster's contemplating a better way!

I purchased their 8-1/2" sliding compound miter saw in 1988 and have been pleased beyond belief. Great little saw and still running perfectly. I also purchased a large (and very heavy) 1/2" corded drill shortly after the saw. It gets little use but I like it and it still runs just fine. But when Hitachi went to the gaudy flame graphics on their tools -- well, it was too much for me.

I say, do what you have to do to protect your readers. If a product line is failing ... then it is. It's your job to report it and now you have. Thanks. We owe you one for saving us the grief.

This is NOT what you'd call "Fine Homebuilding". In fact, it seems to be more a "How to hurt yourself by following my example"! FineHomebuilding should take this video down before someone gets injured and sues them for sloppiness and bad example. The dope in the video touches two live wires (the feeds by the electric company that cannot be shut off by the homeowner) by his own admission. Shame on FineHomebuilding.com --- they can do better and usually do. This was awful. Do everyone a favor and leave a comment here telling FH to kill off this site -- quickly.

To those of you who have the right to your opinions and defend this monstrosity, shame on you. You search for good reasons to support this mess -- like: it creates jobs, it harkens back to The Great Gatsby, etc. Phooey. It's ostentatious waste - pure and simple. We could create more jobs by having more car accidents too. And making kids sick. And using poor construction materials in our bridges. If you Google this home you'll find that: The basement is so large it has it's own "home" within it with bedrooms, baths and a kitchen. That there's a place for a 'concession' and .... oh why bother? Pure and simple it's way over the top and stupid. Mr. Chase and family don't need an overblown show-off castle of these dimensions and we all know that much of it will go unused. And some day it will have to be torn down or turned into condos to support it's huge costs. (Just visit Newport RI to see how this works!) No one has spoken to the imbedded energy in constructing it and the effect on foreign oil. This is a monument to middle eastern oil and the sheiks luxuriating in their income from it. It's all well and good to lean on it's green 'features' but there are huge environmental costs in all those PV panels and the miles and miles and miles of wiring, 13 bathrooms worth of fixtures, and huge inverters and what-all. The heat pumps will have to be replaced one day at big imbedded costs (manufacturing, shipping, waste disposal). Consider the amount of fuel used just to excavate the place, and then the fuel used to import all the materials. No ... methinks, the Chase family could have done a damn site better than this in spending their huge sums of money that was earned on the backs of the working class. It's just plain pathetic and a clear message as to the insecurity of the owners.

It's all well and good to put down the R-value of windows. And you're all correct. But you forget one thing. Every doubling of the R-Value (or halving of the U-factor) cuts the energy loss by 1/2. So going from a single pane window that's R-1 to some solution giving you an R-2 cuts the energy loss by 1/2. If you get to R-3 then it's cutting the losses by 2/3. And so the losses add up quickly if there's much glass around.

We recently put a double sided plastic interior 'storm window' over a large single-pane window in the cathedral peak of an old home (where all the heat hangs out) and the homeowner reports marked changes in comfort and fuel use (it may have cut air leakage too).

That said, it's generally better to go for the hidden air leaks than to deal with windows if energy savings is the only consideration (and it probably isn't!)

Who's falling for this?? Notice how they didn't show the mark afterwards. That's because he was MORE than a 1/16 off! You call that a carpenter? I don't THINK so. And there's the question of what happens when he gets an itch at the last moment and MISSES the whole board?? Nah. Stickin with me handsaw.

I LIKE the weatherization idea. Within the year I've learned just how much houses leak .... and they leak a LOT. A heckofa LOT. Even brand new ones! And that represents foreign oil (or natural gas or coal) used by us for heating the outdoors. What a stupid waste.
RENOSTEINKE says: Tightening up houses causes rot. Sure, if your home is full moisture that shouldn't be there. But it seems a bit silly (if not criminal) to solve it by using twice the fuel to keep the house warm. The problem of moisture is now well known and fixable. See www.buildingscience.com for good technical papers on the subject.
It's time we quit paying the foreign oil producers for us to heat the outdoors and in the process contribute mightily to the carbon footprint. We can do better.
Example: We recently did a major "caulk" refit (including moisture remediation, insulation, caulking air leaks -- lots of 'em, etc) on a typical Maine house with a couple living there for 35 years. In Maine most of us burn #2 fuel oil. They were burning 1900 gallons per year. By the time we fixed up their home they were down to less than 900 gallons per year. Yup ... less than half. At about $3 per gallon they are able to pay the monthly payment on the home-improvement loan and have money left over ($110/month) that is saved from oil not purchased. Think about it: They got a more comfortable home (less drafty), cut the use of foreign oil by a 1,000 gallons per year (every year) and have an increased cash flow of $110 per month. And they've reduced their carbon footprint. What's not to like about that??????
Cash for Caulk? GO FOR IT.
We need the Federal Govt involved because the public is too slow to move on this. With a cash incentive to wake people up I suspect many, many more people will get moving and stop heating (or cooling) the outdoors and feeding caviar to the kids of middle easterners.

I have a 1970 Montgomery Wards RAS and I LOVE it. The adjustments are easy and extremely fine (very accurate). It can drum sand, route, dato, compound miter, rip, cross cut and more. My greatest complaint ... it's noisy. Very noisy. But I keep my headphones on the arm, easy to grab. All power tools are dangerous. I expect that more guys have lost thumbs on table saws than there are RAS's out there (either neatly slicing them off or busting them from kickback). You need to use some good common sense and stay aware of what you're doing - no matter what tool you're using. I've never had an accident with mine (yet) and I use it a lot. To each their own. (If you want to use a dangerous tool, that's extremely effective, try a crooked knife! It's one of the finest hand tools ever invented.) I'm keeping my RAS and dreading the day it fails. And yes I bought the first sliding miter saw (Hitachi) that I could find, many, many, many moons ago. It gets lots of use too.