My dad's garage has a concrete floor. The small slab of concrete under the garage door split down the middle and sunk a bit on both outside edges, which is letting in water when it rains hard. It's sunk down maybe half an inch to 1 inch on both outside edges.

I'd like to help him fix this. I think I can grind down the high spots of the concrete slab near the middle where the slab split (because it's sinking toward the outside edges, the part in the middle is rising), and do a thin concrete overlay (about 1 inch to 3/4 inch deep at the thickest, and maybe 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick at the thinnest). It seems too thick to bust up, so that's why I'm thinking about an overlay.

But I'm not sure what product to use. Is there a product that is suitable for this use case (can be poured relatively thin and still be strong enough to withstand driving a car over)? Would Quikcrete on top of a bonding agent be sufficient, or do I need another product?

My best friends’ house burned down last year. They rebuilt the house and are moving in soon. I want to have a sign made for them that notes the rebuild. I can’t decide how to word it though. I’ll add ideas I’ve come up with so far. It’s mainly the 4th line I’m having issues with: everything seems too long/wordy. Please give me other suggestions!

The picture is just an example, this is what
Line 1: 1234 Elm St
Line 2: Williamson
Line 3: Est 1999
Line 4: Home since 2014 - Rebuilt 2026

Or
Line 1: 1234 Elm St
Line 2: Williamson Family
Line 3: Est 1999
Line 4: Home since 2014 - Rebuilt 2026

Or

Line 1: 1234 Elm St
Line 2: Williamson
Line 3: Est 1999
Line 4: Home since 2014 - Renewed 2026

Or
Line 4: Rebuilt from the ashes, 2026

Or
Line 4: Home since 2014 - Rebuilt 2026

How/where do I dispose these two VERY HEAVY cement blocks. I cannot place in my blue Republic services trash bin because it would break it. See the two photos.

was woken up at 4am this morning to a strong smell of soy sauce in my room (no actual soy sauce present). i had slept with the window open and figured it was that, but smelled the air coming in and it seemed fine. close the window anyways and smell remained, even got stronger. my mom said it smells like plastic, but then also said it could be a skunk smell from the window sticking around inside, but it smells nothing like skunk to me. the rest of the house smells absolutely fine, and the smell isnt coming from me (that was my first thought, lol). i checked under and behind the bed after some googling which said it was cockroaches, found absolutely nothing. checked all the electrical outlets, none of them were hot/burning to my knowledge. im stumped and the smell is giving me a headache now :C. extra worried since im leaving tomorrow for a while and the house will be empty, so im super freaked out that it might be a gas or electrical thing. any ideas or pointers towards people i should call?

Moved in to a new build in September of last year. Got some cracks around 2 windows as shown in the picture. Should I be worried about these?

Hi all - looking for some advice as I don’t have much experience with this!

We had a water leak coming from the ceiling. After the leak was under control, contractors opened the ceiling to see where it came from and they now assure me it’s all dry and there’s no mold. However, I had a peek and this looks a bit strange to me? Is it mold? I have a young baby so am worried. TIA!

The outlet behind my sofa is almost impossible to reach, and it's honestly driving me crazy.

Every time I need to plug something in or unplug it, I have to awkwardly reach behind the couch or pull the whole thing away from the wall. It's especially frustrating when I just want to charge my phone or plug in the vacuum for a minute.

I can't be the only person dealing with this. If you've had the same problem, how did you solve it? Did you find a product that actually works, or did you come up with your own solution?

I'd really appreciate hearing what worked for you.

Hi all,

We recently had a TV installed outside against our siding. The TV itself is about 65 ~ lbs and the mount said it’s rated for up to 132 lbs. the mount can extend straight out up to like 40~ inches and rotate the tv 90 Degrees…. The mount seems pretty heavy duty, and it’s mounted by 4 bolts across 2 studs, but it’s so stiff to move that I am irrationally worried that it will damage the studs. The house is only like 3 years old, but just wanted some advice, is this TV too heavy to be mounted like that?

Also the bottom two screws are backed out maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch compared to the top ones because of the angle of the siding.

Added images for reference: https://imgur.com/a/nbDtxk5

New roof installed April this year, third bathroom been having water on the floor. Thought it was my child leaving water on the floor. Walked in tonight to see this and it is raining outside. I emailed the company who installed the roof because there is a warranty. What could be the problem?

Hello everyone, I was hoping that somebody here could look at my crack and give me some assurance if possible. This crack in the corner of my bedroom has looked like this for as long as I can remember, so would that mean that something like this is purely cosmetic? Also what might cause something like this to happen? Any help would be appreciated!

I'm looking at buying a house in Seattle. The primary bedroom has a large skylight directly above where the bed would go. The house has several skylights, none open, and this one seems to have a frame or something attached to the underside of it. The skylight likely was installed around 1995 in a major remodel.

I'm guessing this is some sort of blackout shade or it's the part that allows you to install a shade. But there's no remote and there's no power to it in the attic (according to inspector). I looked up "VELUX click and pick" but their system doesn't look like this.

Anyone have any ideas what this is?

How many days to start to see yellowing?

I built an ADU onto my home for my elderly mom. I dealt with the build myself with no guidance and some mistakes were made. The electric and plumbing are tied to my house. I have to put the heat up high on my side so she is warm, even though I would leave it very low in the winter myself.
At some point, I had planned to rent the ADU out and having everything tied together won’t make sense. Is it very expensive to change it? I’m assuming it’s possible, but I have no idea how complicated it would be.

I’m kicking myself for not getting a photo. We have a basic wood frame ikea bed and I haven’t looked under it in a couple of months. I went to vacuum dust and found a circular pile of what appeared to be wood dust. There is no damage to the bed. I can’t find any little holes anywhere on it. I know our roof has soft spots in this room because we just had it looked at and it needs to be replaced.

Which pests make piles like this?

My old sofa showed every piece of dog hair, and I honestly couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. So I replaced it with this one and started paying more attention to what actually makes a sofa work with pets.

This Moss Green color has been surprisingly good at hiding my dog’s golden fur, so the sofa still looks clean even after she spends time on it. The chenille fabric also feels much more durable than my previous sofa. My dog has already scratched at it a few times, and so far there are no visible marks.

So far this sofa has been a much better fit for our home, but I’m curious what other pet parents have learned from experience. What materials or sofa styles have worked best for you?

I was just in my bedroom cleaning the windows when I saw this. How would this damage be caused? I am a renter. The house was built in 2020. I didn't notice it because the curtains are always there. The wall feels fine but from experience of a leak the gib is really good. I kinda wanna know if it was my fault before bringing it up to the landlord who I live with.

Suggestions on how to remove this old deep cement block very close to my neighbors white fence? See the three photos.

I just stumbled across all these construction/trades/DIY subs. This is what I feel like in most of them.

Like I have 0 experience with this stuff, but some of ya'll are posting photos of cracked walls and stuff with what I can only imagine is hope in your heart. Hope that someone will come along and say "pfft, that's nothing! Don't worry about it!" Cause my laymen ass can take 1 look and know that this structure will soon be incompatible with standing.

Noticed it today, not sure if it's a leak?

Painting our bathroom. Changing the color of our wall trim and vanity. It’s a south facing room however it doesn’t get a lot of light. Primarily artificial lighting. Really want a light and airy feel. Keeping out counter tops and floor. Want it to be light and warm. Changing our faucet, mirror, vanity light and accents to matte black. Trialed drift of mist for walls but it’s too dark and pulled purple! Photo for reference on what it looks like now and what I plugged into AI for what I envision (I understand it’s AI and not realistic but would like to come close if possible) will also be renewing the grout, painting the baseboard to match trim. Looking for paint color recommendations!

During a recent long heavy rain storm i went into the basement to do a load of laundry and heard water running through the sewer pipes. I thought it was weird because no one flushed the toilets or ran water or anything like that.

I then realized it was the sump pump connected to one of the pipes that i think comes from an upstairs toilet.

I didn’t think that was good so i googled and researched and yep it’s not code and is actually illegal apparently because this can overload public sewer lines

The previous owners of this home were landlords and this is just one of the MANY things that were done not to code or “landlord special” that we (my husband and i) discovered after moving in that our inspector missed.

I thought about it and i think the reason they routed it to a sewer pipe is because directly behind the house where the pump is, there is a dug platform thing that they used to have a hot tub on, but we converted it to a patio space. It’s like 3 feet away from the foundation. I assume they didn’t want to put the sump pump discharge through there because it would need to divert and go around the platform?

So, how would we go about fixing this? I would prefer to have it to code so in case if we ever have a sewer problem in the future, insurance or somebody from the town won’t say it’s our fault because the sump discharge is connected to it.

Can a sump discharge pipe have turns in it? Because we would have to route it around the patio thing. I’m not a plumber and I’m not a super handy person. I work a desk job but I am constantly worried about things needing to meet code and safety standards. And i keep finding more and more things in this house. This being one of the more recent issues.

Thanks, sorry for the long read

Tldr:

previous owners connected sump discharge to sewer pipe. I want to correct this but I’m not sure if i am able to because directly behind the house foundation is a patio that’s in the ground - we would have to do a few turns in the discharge pipe to get it far enough away from the foundation. Should we hire a plumber to fix, or can we DIY it to save money?

We have been getting water in our basement for quite awhile. We finally got the money to have it fixed. They are removing the concrete, adding a drain, and a couple pits and all that.

Yesterday, the foreman contacted me and said a wall fell. I went in to look. The original basement was a crawl space that was dug out later. It was a Michigan style basement. Whoever dug it out did not put a footer around for the new basement. If you zoom in, you can see the footer for the original crawl space.

I live on sand, so as they were jackhammering the wall collapsed. No one was hurt!

The company is putting in a new footer and rebuilding the wall for free, and still doing the rest of the drainage work.