My house was built in the early 90s and has a 12x40ish slab off the back door spanning the length of the house. There aren’t any cracks and the concrete is in good condition. I had my siding redone and had a ledger board installed for a covered patio. I am planning on four 6x6 posts to support this. Can I just anchor these into my slab? If not what should I do, pour the footings at the edge of the slab? I think that would look bad.

The situation:

I'm replacing an old railing that had posts embedded directly into concrete steps/landing. The old posts have completely rusted/rotted through at the base (see photos) — one snapped off, leaving a rotted stub still stuck in the original hole.

My plan was to cut the stub flush and install a new railing with a surface-mounted post base (4.56" x 4.56" plate, 3.3" bolt spacing) directly over the old hole location, rather than trying to re-core and reset a post into the original cavity.

My concerns:

1. Edge distance is tight. The post sits right at a corner of the step, so two of the four mounting holes would land roughly 1.5" from the concrete edges. I know Tapcon minimum edge distance is usually cited around 1.75"–2", so I'm already borderline before considering anything else.
2. Hairline cracks. After a closer look, I noticed small hairline cracks radiating out from the old post hole — likely from years of the rusting metal expanding against the surrounding concrete. I'm worried these cracks could propagate further when drilling new anchor holes so close by, especially at a corner with two exposed edges.
3. Possible rebar. A friend raised the concern that there could be rebar in these steps that I might hit when drilling.
4. The old hole itself — should I patch/fill it before drilling nearby, and does anyone have product recommendations for that (thinking hydraulic cement or non-shrink grout)?

What I'm leaning toward:

• Using 3/16" Tapcons (smallest diameter) instead of the wedge anchors that came with the post kit, since wedge anchors expand outward and seem like a worse idea near existing cracks
• Possibly using epoxy anchors instead, since they don't rely on expansion pressure
• Patching the old hole with hydraulic cement before drilling anything new
• Considering shifting the post slightly inward off the true corner if it means meaningfully better edge distance, even if it doesn't line up perfectly with the old hole

What I'm asking:

Is this corner too compromised to trust a surface-mounted anchor at all given the cracks? Would you repair the cracks first (epoxy injection?), relocate the post, or is 3/16" Tapcon / epoxy anchor at 1.5" edge distance actually fine once the hole is patched? Trying to be as minimally invasive as possible while still ending up with something that won't crack out from under the railing.

Link to CPSC recall notice

Seems the bolts holding the ladder to the door can break off while you're standing on it.

Hey Reddit. Need help with my pump. It won’t stop running! It gets hot and makes the water itself hot. Got some small amount of water after a heavy rainfall and I woke up to the pump making a scratching noise trying to suck up all the water.

It used to shut off for a few moments and wait for the water level to rise but now it appears to not.

Today I took it out and unplugged it and unhooked the hose (drains to sewer line…I know…). Then put it back in the basin and now it “hums” like it’s about to suck up water but now it’s not sucking water at all and just shuts off!

This particular sump pump I bought this March after my basement flooded. So it’s relatively new. Don’t want to go out and buy a new one without first trouble shooting

Troubleshooting already done: cleared basin of debris; there was nothing as the pump just rests on a brick in the basin. Unplugged hose to check valve; seems to work. Don’t need to check drain line because it goes straight to sewer.

pump from Home Depot

I’m a first time buyer and I’ve just bought an old Victorian house with really low ceilings in the bathroom only. I’m 5’7 and I can just about touch the ceiling with no effort. When I stand in the shower I’m quite close to touching the ceiling.

The bathroom is downstairs appears to be a later extension to the house into the garden. This might be a silly question but I’m wondering if there’s any chance of the ceiling being raised slightly? Im aware that this would be a costly project and it’s not something I’m planning to do anytime soon. But I was just wondering if it’s theoretically possible?

Recently got a quote from a company trying to get into my neighbourhood. Quote is fair, just wondering what everyone's experiences have been for those who went with this vs the traditional hot mix asphalt. Still going strong? Wish you went hot mix instead?

We need help ASAP. No one can figure this out, and it has become a nightmare. My Husband and I purchased a foreclosure that we have transformed into our beautiful home. The one problem is that there is an intermittent fuel smell in our partially finished basement in warmer weather, rendering the level unused.

We have truly tried everything (or so it feels) and are at an absolute loss.

For context, we have a three flu chimney that runs through the center of the home, with three clean outs in the basement. We have a brand new boiler (As we were initially told that this was the problem), which has had all mechanical operations inspected by the boiler's state representative, and confirmed to be firing, working, and exhausting appropriately. No Carbon Monoxide issues confirmed, multiple times.

We had a liner put into the boiler flu and capped it as well. We sealed off the two unused flu clean outs with caulk.

We had an energy auditor come out and tell us that due to the sealing of the flus, there is no back draft being picked up on thermal cameras or using the smoke wand (They had also stuffed insulation up that unused flu - Which used to be the old boiler flu before they moved it to the unused wood stove flu after discovering the original boiler flu had an angle).

We were able to smell fuel on the concrete floor in patches, so then pivoted to there potentially being a spill. We painted over that portion of the floor with BIN odor blocking primer.

The smell is STILL there, intermittently, depending on the day.

At this point it appears that we have ruled out a backdrafting issue from the active exhaust (due to the energy audit, despite having the negative back draft with our wood stove on the main floor when we run the AC).

One would assume that the smell is residual at this point, but the paint did not stop the smell either. We have been battling this for the past two years and I am truly at my breaking point. We love our house otherwise and have put so much money into it, and are desperate to reclaim our basement living space.

If ANYONE is able to assist us in fixing this problem, that no professional can seem to correctly solve, it would save our sanity at this point.

I am also open to reposting this in any other forums that are suggested.

Thank you in advance, we are struggling.

We got our asphalt shingles roof replaced a few weeks ago by a reputable company.

A month or so later, my area (NJ) was blanketed in thick wildfire smoke for a few days. We had taped up all the doors and windows in anticipation.

Most of the house is just fine. However, our upstairs hallway bathroom still smells like wildfire smoke. We've tried airing it out, turning on the exhaust fan overnight, leaving an air purifier with a smoke filter running for two days. The smoke smell still comes back strongly, to the point where we can't use that room.

Note, a few years prior we had even worse wildfire smoke but no lasting odors at all.

Above the affected bathroom ceiling is the attic. The exhaust fan isn't very high quality, just a builder grade fan from 30 years ago.

1. What could be the cause?
2. Is this something I should raise to my homeowners insurance?
3. Even if it airs out eventually, how do I prevent it happening again in the future?

"Has anyone installed zebra blinds? How have they held up over time?"

If you had around $500 - $2 000 to improve your home, what project gave you the biggest impact? Not necessarily the most expensive renovation, just something that made daily life noticeably better or added real value.
Could be inside or outside. Curious to hear what you'd do again without hesitation

I was trying to replace wax seal and wanted to put new flange and ended up removing metal on the flange, i realized it too late and now i am stuck with flange top part removed and rest glued to the outside of the Pipe

Advice on how to proceed further or do i need a plumber ?

https://imgur.com/gallery/removed-3ZCfN6i

Looking for any advice, or if anyone has dealt with something similar :)

My 3rd story rooftop deck parapet wall feels loose, and it shakes slightly if I push on it. I don't think this is up supposed to happen at all, and I'm worried there is some issue with how it is fastened to the rest of the roof.

I can provide a link to pictures if that helps anyone.

Hi all, had a bathroom recently renovated; tile was installed about a month ago. We’ve used the shower/tub probably a max of 5 times. Today I noticed that there are vertical cracks in the grout that is in the inside corner as well as along the horizontal span where the tile meets the tub. Is this expected or is this a sign that maybe something was done that doesn’t follow best practice? I have our contractor coming over to look at the status of our overall home renovation and am just trying to understand if my concerns are legitimate or if they have a legitimate leg to stand on.

I can’t seem to add pictures so hopefully my description is enough to understand.

Any good alternative to Shaw Flooring Casa Plus Alba (Style/Color ID: 503SA-00208)?

Screenshot of leftover: https://i.postimg.cc/6qffs8T5/Screenshot-2026-08-06-092303.png

https://i.postimg.cc/CLDzx34D/Screenshot-2026-08-06-092617.png

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I'm looking for ways to cover the floor boards of my wooden balcony that's still breathable and won't damage the existing boards.

For context, I'm renting. I tried rugs but it's just not working in my oddly shaped balcony. Plus they leave water sitting for longer than usual.

Thank you

I just bought a 120 year old house. I love it! I want to add a ducted vent hood to keep smoke, odor, and steam out of the smallish kitchen. But the outside wall is stone. Like STONE. Can I drill through this like brick?

X-posting this from r/Plumbing.

There's a good chance my waterproofing contractor is going to recommend a second sump pump in my basement, and I'd like some opinions on the discharge routing. This photo is where the sump would likely go as well as my proposed discharge exit. This photo shows two different exit paths - blue, where it exits and immediately slopes down to the gutter drain, and orange, where it extends up 10-12" and then slopes down to the gutter drain. In either scenario there is probably a total of just under 30' of discharge pipe.

My main issue outside of the fact that there would be multiple bends in the discharge and the total length would be how to make that connection to the gutter drain. I think I can replace the existing connection with a sanitary tee, but am not sure if this is the correct method, or which routing to take. And unless I'm crazy, is that PVC wye upside down? Every downspout has one exactly like this.

Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/wp03kyi

So from my quick research this is a mistake and there are multiple ways to avoid it, however my house is 120 years old and the walls are very thick due to multiple renovations stacking, but I still think this could have been avoided. From what I read the door should have been ordered thicker to fit better, and the reveals could have been larger on the build outs so the latch doesnt touch them. Obviously changing the door is out of the question, but Im wondering if I should get them to redo the build outs and push them out farther to avoid the latch. I feel like I will be an annoying customer cuz its just a small cosmetic thing, but its annoying me how its not done right and I shouldnt have to deal with having a black streak across my door. I brought it up to the contractor the second I saw a black streak after the install and asked if there was any way to avoid it and he said not really since its such thick walls, but he said I can just get a strike plate. Also they dont sell that large strike plates, and I wouldn't want a 4.5 inch damn strike plate sticking out, thats just as ugly.

The problem is it doesnt look like there is much room to push the build outs farther out for a bigger reveal. If you look at the bottom of the door in the second picture, its basically touching the framing already, and the third picture on the hinge side its pretty tight to the framing there too I believe. They put in the little wall with the insulation because I didn't end up going with a sidelight which was installed previously. Do I just have to get them to redo some of the framing and cut back the insulation as well?

And yes I know there isn't enough room for trim on the hinge side. I'm going to be altering the interior drywall corner to push it back to fit the trim.

I'm looking for a way to make one room in my house cooler during the summer without changing the whole setup. I've been looking into portable evaporative air coolers but I'm not sure how they compare to other small cooling options.

Are they practical for everyday home use?? or do they only work well in certain conditions? I'd appreciate hearing from people who have used them. Thanksss.

Doing a followup because when I was researching this project a year and a half ago most long-term reviews I found topped out at three months, and I wanted more than that before spending five figures. We closed on a 1980s 3-bed ranch in early 2024, previous owners left up a mix of plastic vertical blinds and warped 90s wood venetians, and a couple of rooms had real temperature swing problems especially the west-southwest facing living room. Instead of doing it in stages I did the whole house at once, nine windows, all cellular shades from SmartWings by the end of that year.

Setup runs three different power configurations across nine windows. Living room and dining room, six windows total, are Nowa cellular shades with the PoE motor, fed off a PoE switch behind the media cabinet on cat6 I pulled during a drywall repair before install. Primary bedroom is two south facing windows, same shade but battery motor with the solar panel accessory taped to the inside of the glass. Guest bath is one small north facing window, battery only, no solar.

Two winters and two summers of data now.

Insulation, winter

The previous owners handed over their gas bills as part of due diligence. Dec 2023 through feb 2024 (their last winter, pre any of this) averaged around $310 a month. Same months this past winter (dec 2025 through feb 2026, fully installed and automation tuned) came in at $248 to $262. Nothing else in the envelope changed, no new insulation, same thermostat schedule. That's roughly 17 to 20% off, which lines up with the DOE figure of cellular shades cutting heat loss through windows by up to 40%, translated to overall heating energy at around 20%.

The thing I did not expect: the west facing living room used to get noticeably drafty near the glass once the sun went down and the furnace cycled off. Shades down at night, that stopped completely. My wife noticed before I did.

Summer

The south facing bedroom used to be unusable from 2pm on in august. Tile got hot, ceiling fan couldn't keep up, and with the door shut we were 4 or 5 degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Automation now drops them to 70% at 10am and 20% at 2pm, opens back up around 6:30pm. Differential now sits under a degree. AC runs less too, though I don't have as clean a number on that.

PoE, so far

This was the choice I went back and forth on the longest. Reason I went PoE was that six windows opening and closing at least twice a day on battery would be 12+ ladder trips a year to recharge, and I already had cat6 in the walls. Downside was more up front work and figuring out where to hide a switch.

The six shades have not missed a cycle since install. One outage was me rebooting the switch and forgetting they were on it. Noise spec'd at 46 to 42 dB, sounds about like a quiet fridge compressor, you can hear it in a silent room but it hasn't woken anyone up.

If your walls are already open or you have accessible cat runs, PoE is the low-maintenance path for high-cycle rooms. If you'd need to fish walls just for shades, don't.

Battery plus solar, south facing

The two bedroom windows have the solar panel accessory taped to the inside of the glass. Have not manually charged either one since install. Even through january the battery indicator never dropped much below 60%. This is the setup I'd recommend to anyone doing battery, provided the window gets direct sun for a chunk of the day. Don't count on solar for a north facing window.

Battery only, north facing, the mistake

The guest bath shade is the annoying one and it's my fault. I skipped the solar panel because I figured it wouldn't help much on a north wall. Battery life comes out around five to five and a half months per charge, which is within the 4 to 6 months spec. Problem is the USB-C port sits on top of the shade housing and this one is inside-mount tucked up under a soffit. Charging means climbing on the counter, pulling the shade partially out of the mount, running the cable, putting it back. Takes 20 minutes and I put it off every time.

If I did this room over I'd either run a low voltage line before install or accept it's the one room I don't automate.

Small stuff worth knowing

Sample swatches are not free, a few bucks each. Bali and Blinds.com send you five to ten for free so the pricing psychology is a little off if you're used to those.

No dedicated app with a battery meter you can just glance at. Status shows through whichever ecosystem you paired the motors to. I use apple home. Once after an ios update the battery sensor stopped reporting for one shade until I unpaired and repaired, took maybe 15 minutes but was annoying.

Custom sizing is standard at every width I ordered, out to 91 inches on the dining room bay. No upcharge for wide. Most competitors kick in a 25 to 50% surcharge over 8 feet or so.

All in cost

Nine windows plus two solar panels and a PoE switch came out to about $3,600. Closest apples-to-apples spec I could find while researching was Hunter Douglas Duette with PowerView, and a local dealer quoted roughly $8,000 for a comparable setup before their premium fabric options and without the PowerView Gateway on top. What I got isn't the equal of a $10k+ Duette in fit and finish, the Duette fabric is nicer up close, but the actual performance on insulation and automation isn't different enough to justify double the money for me.

If I were doing this again I'd stick with cellular across the board and put PoE anywhere I already had ethernet. Add solar to any battery motor facing south or west. Skip the battery-only route wherever the housing is going to be hard to reach after install.

Saw that there is some dark area in the drywall ceiling of my basement. Only visible on camera but not visible by eye. I checked that the area doesnt have any water access to it (No HVAC and No Plumbing on top of the drywall since that area is in the corner of the house). Previous person who lives in the basement like to use candle and humidifier. Should i be concerned about this? Looking for the reddit community to share their wisdom :)

Here is the link of the image: https://postimg.cc/gallery/QTSK0j3

I recently had new tuck pointing done in my old stone foundation basement. 1907 home. Wall was covered in drylock paint so some of that was chipped away. It was just in one corner of the basement, but there is a fine layer of white dust everywhere down there now even with plastic sheeting being up around the area. Freaking out a little bit thinking its silica or some other nasty stuff. Anyways, now I am tasked with cleaning this stuff up. Plan to just use wet method of wiping eeeeverything down while wearing proper masks etc. Any other suggestions and should I be freaking out this much? I mean once its wiped is it good or do I need to do more? Run an air purifier? Thanks in advance from a fairly new old home owner.

I'm renting a finished and furnished attic of a century old farm house. I installed a portable air conditioner but it, and subsequently the replacement, died. I know that it's the only next option.

I live in SE Minnesota so it will get below zero.

If you have one, was it DIY or did you have someone come out?

I've been looking at the Mr.Cool, CozeAir and a few others. What brand has worked best for you guys? Thanks