The HTRC

The Homeowners & Trades Resource Center

You are here: Home / Home

Essential Security Tips for Home Based Businesses

This week we have a guest post from Cassie Phillips of Secure Thoughts. Secure Thoughts is based on helping everyday people make sure their information and loved ones are protected online. Cassie is a writer and blogger who likes to focus on internet security issues, technological solutions, travel, and business security. She particularly enjoys writing for small businesses […]

OSHA’s New Confined Spaces Rule – The Who & What

If you have been in construction for any length of time, you are bound to have one story about working in an attic or crawl space; maybe it is the 140° degree heat or coming face to face with some animal or snake. Unfortunately for some, they don’t get to tell their tale… Say hello OSHA – On […]

Building Semi-Floating Shelves with Hidden Fasteners

A traditional “floating” shelf looks like the shelf (or slab of wood) simply sticking to the wall with no visible support. In most cases this is done with a specialty metal hanger mounted to the wall with two or more pins mortised into the shelf which are held in with a few screws from underneath. […]

Illinois GreenBuilt Home Tour 2015

This July 25th & 26th, marks the third year that the USGBC of Illinois has hosted the Green Built Home Tour & my second year participating. Just like last year there are 16 houses on the tour ranging from simple remodels, to custom houses integrating different “green” features. Looking for more cutting edge, some are achieving “net-zero” usage to one that is still […]

SkillsUSA 2015 – TeamWorks the Pics

This last week marked SkillsUSA 50th year with the Nationals (NLSC) now being held in Louisville, Kentucky. One of the nice things about this is that the TeamWorks event (a team of 4 – one carpenter, an electrician, a plumber & a mason work to complete a project in less than 2 days) isn’t being held a few miles […]

Condensed Gardening Checklist

This condensed checklist is derived from Monthly Home & Garden Maintenance checklists much like our Condensed Home Maintenance checklist. The catch as many know is that there are 15 “planting zones” in the US & our checklist was for Zone 4. In order to combat that issue we broke this up into specific zones – like pre & planting […]

BS4D: Breathing & Drying Out- two most overused terms

On the good news front it appears that the “but my house needs to breathe” argument is finally dead for most… Unfortunately though, a new “the wall assembly needs to breathe” &/or “dry out” are now becoming vogue. Shoot I am even guilty of using the term in the DER (Deep Energy Retrofit) Conversation piece I […]

FAQ: How quickly will my water heater…

I just drained my tank, how long will it take to heat up? How much hot water can I expect with my shower running? Will I have enough hot water with three teenage girls… These are just a few questions that revolve around just how well a water heater will actually perform based on your needs. In order […]

Droughts, Lawns, & Reducing Use

For four years most of California has been in drought status and yet they never instituted any reduction strategies until now. This has left many scrambling to not only see how much they are using now but also how to reduce. One of the quickest methods for most is to stop watering altogether or changing […]