Recent content by dscheidt

Probably a siloxane sealer. As noted, brick is supposed to be porous, and sealing one surface doesn’t keep water from getting in the other five, but can block its escape. Depending on climate, and lots of other factors that can cause problems. Around Chicago, there are lots of idiots that...

Too small is a lot easier to deal with than too big. Caps have gotten smaller as technology improves.

This is the sort I've used. (I don't know if they were this exactly, but they were similar). different from the fixed sort of radius gauges that machinists use. https://www.trick-tools.com/Arc_Master_Small_Radius_Gauge_Set_RG_750_955 No kidding. The number of amazing machines and...

There are adjustable radius gauges, which you adjust to match the radius you're copying, and and then read the result off the scale. They're not cheap, and you need an inside and outside, but they're very handy.

No, you said you don’t believe in manual J. Manual J is heat loss/ gain. Manual S is sizing, based on manual J, some building considerations, and equipment type. Manual D is ductwork. If you don’t know that, then clearly you’re not a professional, and any who held themselves out as one would be...

Heat load is entirely independent of the technology used to manage it. If a contractor gave me that line, I’d show him the door before he started the next sentence, because he’s clearly a hack who wants to sell more expensive equipment than required. I will believe that the assumptions in a...

this is exactly what the utility told me when we upgraded from 60A to 200A service. My 4/0 looks pretty silly connected to #6 triplex, but since I doubt we've been over 100A, it hasn't melted....

Laugh all you want, but the plastic works. Most slabs don’t have problems because there is no bulk water in contact with them. The entrance to my walk in basement is below my back porch, and is enclosed, though it is outside the building envelope. When we bought the house, it would flood...

Essentially all the mechanical energy used by a compressor pump is used to heat up the air. Some of it is rejected into the pump, and into the room from there, but most of it goes into the air. You're basically connecting a X horsepower heater to your air piping. How much heat you dump in...

You have ground water coming through, probably via a defect in (or missing section of) the vapor barrier plastic under the concrete. The fix for that is cut out the concrete, repair the vapor barrier, and repour. I'd start by improving the drainage around the garage. Where do the gutter...

You can replace the factory installed main breaker with a 100A one, though. SE list one for HOM and QO panels, I'm sure other brands do, too. It wouldn't surprise me if SE has a listing for a QOM2 panel that comes with a 100A breaker, though it's probably not commonly stocked. If the service...

The only part of the back the blade that needs to be flat is the bit behind the edge. Doing more doesn’t hurt anything, except for time.

It’s 1.5”, center to center, with zero gaps.

Mid grade gas is made by mixing regular and premium in the dispenser, it’s not a standard refinery product. No reason you can’t mix it in the tank.

It's not hard to build a system that can supply the correct supply temperature to the radiation in the zone. If you have high temperature radiation, you might have to run the boiler out of the ideal condensing range when it's cold, but it's probably not that much of your heating season. You...