Retaining walls are designed to handle heavy loads… Well it appears that the cold maybe winning this fight. Not only does the wall appear to be leaning, it is showing other signs that there might be more issues. Fortunately the driveway set 15 feet back from the edge still looks to be in good shape. If […]

It can suck when there is no heat, temps dip into the negatives & no one can find the shutoff at the street…. Fortunately it was so cold that the place didn’t flood and the pipe didn’t burst just the meter & compression fitting. To help prevent this from happening to you: Preventing or Fixing Frozen […]

I got water coming in through my basement windows, I think it is because of my new window well covers not being installed properly…. Nope, your issue is you need to clean out the drain in the bottom of the well along with… For those following our Monthly Maintenance Series, you should be covered (see March […]

Nails are an amazing invention that were simply designed to help hold items together. There main strength – to resist shear forces. Now as for pull out forces, well not so much (yes even rink shank nails – especially todays version – aren’t so hot at it) which is why they invented screws & specialty hangers. So what happens […]

Ever wonder why some vinyl siding looks really wavy? Besides the oops I shouldn’t have used my grill so close to the siding, one of the biggest issue is shown below… The issue, there is no room for the vinyl to expand so it starts bowing out. Just as a reminder, all materials do expand & contract […]

Sometimes it amazes me the shortcuts some people take… One of the biggest things that has come out over the years is when installing a product make sure you read & follow the manufacturers directions. Bah, this way is faster & we have never had a call back… This is from a window with a nailing […]

There aren’t to many things that will surprise me, but I also know I haven’t seen it all either – with that imagine my surprise as I pop my head into the attic and see this… Well now that is an interesting flue… Yep, believe it or not someone took an oil drum (in this […]

What is it with newspapers & duct work… or in this case hydronic heating lines? No folks this does not qualify as proper insulation & does very little to help & even if it did, you really should insulate the whole line.

Ever wonder why they say if you are not going to use a can of foam for over 30 days you should remove it & clean the gun – well it isn’t because of the foam gun… In this case the seal inside the can would not seal all the way when it came off and […]