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We're building a soldier pile retaining wall. So, we're digging 15 foot deep holes, then inserting 25 foot long H beams into the holes, then pouring in concrete. It seems to me that the very best way to do this would be to suspend the beam 6 or 8 inches from the bottom of the hole and then...

We're pouring a new pad and I want to cure it as nicely as possible. To that end, I am going to keep the concrete wet - perhaps for a week after pouring - and not allow the surface to dry out. However, last time I did this (with some concrete curbs) even a very low pressure misting / spray...

I have a 20x24 barn loft that is suspended over empty, unconditioned (outside, basically) space. Right now it is nothing but 3/4 plywood subfloor over 2x8 joists. I would like the finished floor to be heated hardwood and I wonder how thick the eventual "sandwich" of flooring is going to be on...

New home plumbing and we are properly home-running everything to a nice mechanicals room under the house. Two design goals are: 1) Isolate the house into "zones" that I can shut off with a valve 2) Each zone cannot tell the other zone is using water - no pressure drops ... and so I have the...

I have a 24x12 foot room with a sloped ceiling - starts at 7' and rises to about 11.5' across the narrow (12 foot) width of the room. I installed a simple "panel" heater of this type: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00865K0BA/?tag=atomicindus08-20 (600 watt / 2000 BTU convective heater)...

Over the past 4-5 years I have had to do a *lot* of PVC piping for barn, garage, livestock and irrigation. The accepted, conventional wisdom is that although PVC solvent is toxic (it is not "non-toxic") after it cures, the VOCs evaporate away and all that is left is *actual PVC*. However, I...

I plumbed in a nice air outlet on the exterior of my shop but my air compressor manual says not to leave it plugged in and powered on ... I believe a fire and safety issue if the air is bleeding and the compressor is allowed to run forever. Fair enough. However, if someone is at the point of...

My woodshop looks out on one of my pastures and there are no other houses for miles so it seems to me that instead of a fancy HEPA cyclone dust system ... I could just blow the dust outside and forget about it. The thinking is that I don't care how leaky or fine/course the air exhaust or the...

I would like to learn more about filters ... It is my understanding that a drinking water filter needs to be changed because it collects pathogens and the more water you pass through the pathogens, the more it can pick up toxins which pass into your water. So, as far as I understand, drinking...

Finishing up my woodshop and I have two 30A circuits in the subpanel - one is inside the shop for a larger tablesaw or other future needs and one is on the outside wall for relatives that come with their RV. The RV outlet should be a 4-wire 18-30R, correct ? (30A/120V) ? I don't currently have...

I have a new-ish concrete slab in my barn that was poured about 22 months ago. Our sections were too big (12x12) and the contractor neither used curing compound nor did he water the slab as it cured - he told me to just spray it down twice daily for the first week and everything would be fine...

I have a woodshop. I am going to have a long (23 foot) countertop covering one whole wall of the shop and in the middle of that long countertop will be my mitre saw, sunk in so that the counter is flush with the working surface of the mitre saw. It's a very standard configuration and I see...

I am putting a radiant panel wall heater into my shop - it is the Amaze-Heater Wall Mounted Room Space Heater (120V, 600W): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00627SZWA/?tag=atomicindus08-20 ... and the instructions clearly state to NOT install the heater over an outlet ... However, that was...

I thought I understood what this was for: http://www.gettent.com/images/hwflange34gal-galvanized-floor-flange_l.jpg ... but I think now that I don't. Let's say you have a plywood exterior wall ... and you have a 3/4 pipe sticking out of that galvanized wall ... threaded, male end sticking...

Hello, After reading a lot of threads on this forum, I am still not sure what my options are regarding wooden cabinetry in my shop. Goal: I have a 24x12 shop and I want one entire 24 foot wall to be an unbroken line of lower, standard depth cabinets. On top of that long 24 foot length of...

New concrete slab. Shrinkage cracks. We only watered it 4x per day instead of running sprinklers on it continuously the first 5-7 days, like we should have. Not such a big deal and I can live with it, BUT the very first 12x12 section of concrete, just as you walk into the building, front and...

I have some tricky connections to make from a water inlet into my barn and have tried, and failed, three times to build a PVC pipe contortion to make the connection. So I thought about water heater connection lines - the ones wrapped in steel braids - but I know those fail regularly and are...

We laid some PVC[1] water pipes underneath the new concrete slab of our barn. I built a little pressure gauge/valve rig and pumped the water line up to 28 PSI of air and closed it off. 72 hours later, I came back, and it was steady at 28 PSI. So far so good. But what does that tell me for...

Well, here's the forum post I hoped never to make. We poured a 50x60' pad, 6" thick, under our pole barn. I did TONS of research about the makeup of the pad ... the rebar, the mix, the chairs, etc. But I didn't really understand the curing. As soon as the pad was poured I asked my concrete...

I have some long run (80 foot) data conduits (1 inch) that (for now) only have a single ethernet cable in them. This means that there's a LOT of length, and space, for mice to go die in and fill up with bugs and god knows what else. But I plan to run more wires at some point in the future, so...