Recent content by jtprettyman

Strange, I used it exclusively back when I was building houses and never had an issue. Granted this was several years ago, but I really liked their product. Sometimes material is only as good as the people who stand behind it.

Built one for ourselves, and this led down the path to becoming a GC and building many others, ultimately buying an entire phase of a subdivision. As said above - 99% of the people who tell you they are 'building their house' are just writing checks to a builder, actually building yourself is an...

Those built-ins look awesome - great work. And congrats on getting away from working for someone else and on to working for you.

Not blown in, but in the last house I built I used 2 1/2" thick rigid mineral wool board in ALL interior walls, and the ceiling / adjoining wall of the garage on the conditioned side of the FG batts. Loved the sound control - that place was an absolute vault, and the fire resistance was an added...

Harbor Freight Jack Stands, Round 2 HARBOR FREIGHT To the Harbor Freight Community: I'm writing to apologize. I often reach out to tell you about Harbor Freight's commitment to quality and all the investments we've made to deliver quality tools at the lowest prices. Your trust matters deeply...

Clark Iron and Metal is my go-to, but I live in Murfreesboro. Their scrap yard can be fun, and their prices on new are not bad at all for the amounts I am buying.

Why don't you ask the landlord about adding an insulation kit to the existing door? They may even kick in a little for the kit or give you credit if you did the labor as you'd be improving the property.

I worked for an environmental consulting company back in the 90's that did 3rd party testing and monitoring. Bulk analysis testing was like $35 per sample back then, best to have like a 1"x 1"x 1" sample. They are still around..... https://www.aaglo.com/inspection

My house was a model home for the development builder, and the garage was finished as the sales office. When the development was done they converted back to a garage, leaving all the well finished details, including the mini-split. Heat and AC, more than large enough to maintain whatever temp I...

Nice space, looks like you have plenty of power already in there, and the trolly is a big plus.

My garage buddy. Technically her name is 'Zora', but her nickname is just Doug. If you have seen the Pixar movie 'Up', you'll understand. She is half golden retriever, half lab, 100% clown. She is my shadow every second I'm home.

Not a tool I lost, but one I found with a cool back story. I was working for my girlfriends father's company (future FIL) at one of his shops, and digging outside I pulled up an old pick ax blade. This shop was at an industrial park that was built as part of the atomic bomb development in WW2...

Amateur welder here, but I started with a HF 120v flux core welder, and recently moved o to their Titanium 140 true mig (120v gas) welder when the last sale hit. Working on a car resto so lots of sheetmetal work necessitated the move to a real mig. I'm a CSOB and I like to tinker, so the old...

For sound control, I have used the 2x6 top and bottom plate with staggered 2x4's and insulation run horizontally between them. This was an interesting project I did at a previous company - added an extension onto the back wall of our QA lab, further into the manufacturing floor. Was ~50' from a...

Go with the Lincoln NR-211MP wire, much better than the HF stuff. You can get it about anywhere (Lowes, Northern Tool....). I took one of those HF flux core welders and modified it with a bridge rectifier and capacitor bank to run DC electrode negative (actually an AC welder stock). You would be...