The HTRC

The Homeowners & Trades Resource Center

Quick Maintenance Tip – Faucet Aerators

An aerator is most commonly attached to a faucet to not only catch particulates in the water (no one likes sand in their water glass) but more importantly creating a non-splashing stream of water which is generally done by mixing water and air. If you are like most people you don’t think twice about them until the […]

Illinois; The ERI, the IECAC, & RESNET – The Final Push

UPDATE: By a margin of 4 to 1, the ERI is being recommended to stay in the codes, basement’s only need the top 4′ & the 62.2.10 spec still stands. Monday April 6th (10 AM to noon) will decide whether the ERI aka as the HERS option will be part of Illinois new Energy Code or […]

Getting ready for Spring: Your deck & grill

Hopefully, this last snow storm was it for spring (really?) meaning most of us can start getting ready to grill and get back to enjoying the great outdoors. Needless to say for the last few months our decks / patios have been left to the mercy of mother nature, while our grills not only had […]

The Fight over the ERI & … Return to Sender

Yesterday the full IECAC committee met to hear the commercial and residential sub-committees recommendations. Many items were approved with 4 items being referred back to the appropriate sub-committees. Here is a recap of that 2 1/2 hour meeting, what passed, what is still being debated, a few new objections, & a big you have to be kidding me (can you […]

Illinois & the Fight over the ERI Path

Tomorrow, Wednesday March 18th, the Illinois Energy Conservation Advisory Council will hold session to hear various sub-committee recommendations and possibly move to vote on the their final recommendations for the adoption of the 2015 IECC. Originally there was a huge fight to simply skip this code cycle due to the “limited performance gains” making it seem largely […]

Creating a Box Beam Work Bench / Desk Top

One of the lessons we quickly learned was when one builds a work bench and you don’t want issues with sagging, it is best to utilize a box beam (aka torsion box) type design. While I didn’t have a work bench that needs to be built, we decided that we needed to add a built in desk in […]

BS4D: Redlining plans

Just what is a “redline?” Well yesterday Bob Borson wrote a great piece on Architectural Redlines (which included some great pictures like this one) and how they should be used. One of his comments about “making them bleed” got the wheels spinning as the fact is most people only know about the redlines that the […]

Wacky Weds: Sliding Snow on Shingles?

While it is common to see snow draping off a roof, most only see that as a metal roof issue. To prevent sliding snow from damaging property or the building itself (as some of these shelves can get into the hundreds and even thousands of pounds), snow guards are installed on metal roofs. The reality […]