Home Improvement

Home improvement projects I’ve completed and thought I’d share with other folks. Perhaps someone can learn from my mistakes and successes.

Vent a Clothes Dryer Inside Your Home

November 20, 2011 1 Comment

First and foremost, this blog entry refers only to electric clothes dryers. Do not vent your gas clothes dryer inside your house. This is extremely dangerous and can be fatal! I cannot stress this enough. It is not possible to vent a gas dryer inside your house under any circumstances. We live in Colorado where the humidity levels are very low. Especially in the winter when the furnace heats the already dry air, lowering the humidity even lower. Most people add a humidifier to their furnace, but they are messy…
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Green Power, Home Improvement

Floating Wall Basement Remodel

February 28, 2010 0 Comments

Colorado has what are called expansive soils, in that the clay will expand when it gets wet. This can cause the concrete floor of the basement to heave vertically an inch or two should the soil get wet. Therefore, when framing a basement, one must utilizing a floating wall construction. While and inch doesn’t sound like much, it’s enough to cause some serious problems if you don’t take it into consideration. Imagine a section of your concrete floor rising an inch, then also lifting the first floor of your house…
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Home Improvement

Is a Home Security System Worth the Money?

January 25, 2010 0 Comments

Home alarm keypad

I’ve seen a lot of advertisements for the ADT and Brinks home security system on TV lately. Both companies have rather comical commercials because in each of the advertisements, the home invader kicks down the door, makes a face like a gorilla, then immediately run away when they realized someone was home. Sad thing is, that’s not how it works in real life. Those are examples of home invasions, which are more violent and different than burglaries. A burglary is defined as a non-confrontational property crime in which items are…
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Home Improvement, Ramblings

Wasted Electricity – Vampire Power

November 20, 2008 0 Comments

Vampire power is a way to describe the electricity wasted by some electronic devices even when they are not in use. Examples include TV’s, DVR’s, automated coffee machines, printers, power bricks for laptops, iPhones, iPads and much, much more. So, just how much electricity are these devices really using, even when they are supposedly turned “off”? In the old days, when you turned something off, it really turned off. There was no more electrical draw from the wall outlet. But in the new world, turning something “off” doesn’t necessarily mean…
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Green Power, Home Improvement

Insulating a Garage: Is it worth the money?

January 15, 2008

Garage Insulation

Saving money on energy bills is a good thing, especially in very warm or cold climates where the AC or the furnace have to run a lot. It can costs hundreds of dollars a month to make the living space comfortable. However, the garage is a different story. Trust me, I found out the hard way. I will never recoup the money I spent insulating. On very cold days, the paint and other supplies still get ruined. Here in Colorado, temperatures regularly drop into the single digits. I just wanted…
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Home Improvement

Cleaning Refrigerator Condenser Coils

December 12, 2007 0 Comments

Refrigerator Condenser Coils

The other day, my 4-year old son was playing in the kitchen and accidentally launched a brand new $1.50 Ferrari under the refrigerator. It was imperative that I retrieve this Ferrari immediately so I popped off the lower front grille and started swooshing a ruler back and forth. In the process of trying to retrieve the famed car I was stunned to see that the underside of the refrigerator had turned into a fuzzy dungeon off lost receipts, pieces of food and a crap-ton of dust. As I slid the…
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Home Improvement

Rain Barrel Illegal in Colorado

June 27, 2007 0 Comments

Colorado has the most screwed up water rights laws of any state in the Union. Some call them unique, I call them inadequate and based on a concept of when the state was young and had relatively few inhabitants. The process of acquiring water rights is very expensive, complicated, inefficient and bureaucratic. Water officials have already put too many straws into the glass of coke and not everyone is getting anything to drink. This will get worse unless things change. So, what does this have to do with rainwater harvesting…
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Green Power, Home Improvement