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This is what the drywall looks like around my ducts. I think it should be better, both for looks, and to keep leaks out, but I don't know what to use. Caulk? Duct sealant? Drywall mud? The ducts are odd shape, so a round trim plate won't really fit.

No, and what's more, the same roofer ripped the peak open all the way to the end, as if he was going to run the vent the whole way, but then didn't install ridge vent all the way to the end. Further supporting the "ran out of material" hypothesis. You sound like a good builder that uses common...

My plans specify "Continuous ridge and soffit vents", but the builder didn't extend the vent all the way across the ridge. Before I push back on the builder for this, is there a legitimate reason to do this? If not the full length, how did he decide what length to install?

The beginning points are various locations I thought I might want speakers in the future. The end points are all in a central closet. I didn't do a lot of planning nor did I want to break the bank... just told them to put in speaker wire and run them to the closet just in case. Looks like I got...

This is how the contractor ran the wiring in my addition. The grey wires are all the speaker wires for what may become a home theater some day, and the blue is CAT6 ethernet cable. I don't think there's any problem bundling CAT6 cable, because I see it done all the time. I'm not sure about...

Can't expect any floor to stay looking new. A well-used floor is just a sign that you do work in your garage.

During construction of my addition, we had a downpour before the roof was on. Water was pooling in the second floor with nowhere to go, and it was starting to run into the house. The contractors drilled several holes to allow water to drain down into into trash cans on the first floor. It was...

The setup is still basically working perfectly. Shed lights work, my mower and tools stay charged no problem. The single flaw is the ecoflows won't solar charge during cold winter periods. I'm barely using power in the winter so it's actually a non-problem. But just to prove a solution, I put...

I just went through this myself. Tried to find an outswing door for my addition, gave up and bought an inswing because it's all I could find. Between $450 inswing vs. custom-ordered $1000 outswing, I'll live with inswing.

I'm a huge fan of 4" furnace filters ever since I swapped one of my systems from a 1" filter to a 4" filter, and did some testing. I found a brand-new 1" filter was about 1/4" WC of restriction when new, creeping up to almost 3/4" WC after 3 months. By contrast, the 4" filter I replaced it with...

The refrigerant treadmill is a scam perpetuated by chemical megacorporations. They continuously create new refrigerants and either patent them, or they tool up one of the only production lines in the world to make a new refrigerant, then make that refrigerant mandatory by corrupting industry...

I live in Idaho and have a Pioneer Quantum. It's actually not even one of the super-low-temperature ones -- the super low temperature ones use vapor injection -- but still it keeps my shop warm into the well below freezing temperatures. It builds up ice in the pan and even around the coils, but...

The building is not built and hasn't even broken ground yet. I specd storage trusses which have open spaces and specifically spec loading. The plans call for a pull down attic ladder. I told GC I wanted a 30" ladder and he said no problem. The GC ordered the trusses, and that's when I asked...

Well I was asking for the $3000 worth of trusses I have on order with them. This must be a regional thing. I swear back east all you had to do was ask and the truss companies would give you a pre-engineered framing plan for an attic staircase. But things generally get more lawyerfied over time...

I want to put a big ladder to my attic, which uses 24" on center prefab trusses. I thought you could cut the bottom chord of a truss, as long as you frame it properly. I expected the truss company to tell me how to do this. They must deal with this all the time, right? Instead, they said it's...

So, the answer to the original question seems to be "yes, absolutely PoE cameras and an NVR is still the way to go". I don't have time or even the electricity in place to set up a system like that yet, so my plan is to buy two cheapie wifi battery-powered cameras, like TP link Tapos like these...

It seems like the world of consumer-level security cameras gets re-invented about every 2 years and I'm out-of-date again. Previously I always planned on running CAT5 to my camera locations, so I could run PoE cameras, and have a DVR on-site. Figured total system coust would be 2k+. That's what...

But why would there be a maximum breaker? The circuit breaker is matched to the load and wire size. So a minimum breaker size makes sense to handle the load. If the breaker isn't big enough, it will trip. But assuming the wire gauge is appropriate, why would there be a maximum breaker for the...

My mini split has the following specs: Rated Current: 6.1 Amps Minimum circuit ampacity: 16 Amps Maximum circuit breaker: 25 Amps Based on this, I should be good to run a 20A circuit and 12-guage wire, but I don't quite understand why there is a "maximum circuit breaker". Based on my...

So far this seems to be how it stacks up: building penetration and air sealing: no advantage one way or other. Either way, it's a hole in the house. risk of accidentally punching lines when somebody hangs a picture inside: external wins risk of noise from lines creaking in the wall: external...