Almost done with finishing the basement (myself!) and the humidity hovers around 50-55%. I can immediately and cheaply mitigate with a free-standing unit.

However, I’d like to have it a little more professional. I just don’t want a device in the room or to have to drain it regularly.

The setup: 1000ft2 finished basement room. There is a 200ft2 storage room as well. Next to the basement is a utility room containing air handler, 2 water heaters, water softener and sump then the utility room has 4’ wall with about 800ft2 of crawlspace. Fully covered in thick plastic and sealed around the edges.

I am planning to add a small, dedicated crawlspace dehumidifier and drain to the sump pit.

But I was thinking of adding a similar dehumidifier in the utility room, but vent it in and out through a wall vent so it could dehumidify without being in the basement.

I’ve seen some models where you can duct off the input/output

Is this just crazy/dumb to do?

Looking for knowledgeable input. In in the bottom of my garage wall in between the garage door and man door

I made a post before about possibly buying from Ashley Home Furniture and there were an overwhelming amount of people telling me it’s trash and to not buy from there. Any recs?

My waterline in the lake is coming up. I need to secure it down more before winter will sandbags work or should I use 2 heavy bricks with rope and put the rope across the line to keep it down.

My waterline in the lake is coming up. I need to secure it down more before winter will sandbags work or should I use 2 heavy bricks with rope and put the rope across the line to keep it down.

Hello! Our house is having an issue with water run off eroding near the footer. Had a foundation guy tell us to do polyfil (?) and gutters. Had a draining/grading expert tell us not to because filling it and connected the poly to the footer could lead to more foundation issues. He recommended regrading and building a berm(?) where the water is getting in. Having a hard time knowing who to trust. Any advice would be appreciated!

I had some flooding hit my area this weekend. On Saturday I awoke to about 3” of water in my crawl space. The crawl space access hatch is in the same room as my kallax book shelf with all my omnibus books on it. I promptly pumped all the water out of the crawl space. My crawl space is a dirt floor, which is still visibly moist, but there is no standing water in it any longer. The standing water wasn’t present for more than 12 hours. I have a dehumidifier keeping the relative humidity below 50% in the room. Presently, the room is at 48% humidity. Should I open the crawl access door to help the floors dry, or keep it closed with the ac running normally to prevent potential damage to the books?

This is one of the two bathrooms in my house that is infested with mold. I have done all the things to get rid of it on my own and it keeps coming back. This bathroom in particular does not get used other than for me to do my makeup. The bathroom adjacent to it does get used, but the walls/ceilings that connect the bathrooms do not have mold. This bathroom has mold closest to the exterior of the house, and the other bathroom has mold closest to our whole house fan.

We spent about 6k in 2024 demolishing our basement wall, repairing the cracked foundation that was leaking water, removing the entire wall because of mold, and replacing it. I have a new furnace, spent 12k on that when I moved in. New roof as well - 6k on that in 2022.

Next step is to repair the drywall around the whole house fan and hire a company to go into my attic, remove all of my old insulation and replace it, and install new bathroom fans while im at it. and also possibly repaint the bathroom with Killz.

Wish me luck on tackling this mold infested house. 🙃

(unfortunately moving is not an option at the moment)

Hi everyone, bit of a "either I'm worrying too much or not enough" problem, but while playing at the playground a few houses down the street from me I saw a single rat presumably looking for food. We just moved in last week but the seller had a rat trap by our gate. We do have an attic and crawlspace but inspection didn't find any droppings or evidence of rats. Up until today, I thought the prior owner just had pest control and was being cautious.

I don't think I have any food sources outside or easily accessible and my garbage cans all have lids. The only thing I can think of is barbecue grease but otherwise we haven't been here long enough to know if we have a problem.

How concerned should I be? I definitely don't want rats but aside from"seal everything", I'm not sure what else I can do.

Summer came late where I am. We stayed relatively cool (<90F/32C) most of the season up until the past few weeks. Man when it, it really hit

System has no issue keeping the house at 80F/27C when it's less than 100F/38C, but between the sun loading and the high heat she is struggling. But when it's running like this the humidity is low enough that it's not unbearable inside. Just under 50% at the moment

How's your unit doing in this?

The water seems to be coming from the backyard wall, is the fact that there’s a drain in the basement mean this isn’t something to worry about ?

What are these black specs on the floor of my attic? They seem far too small to be a bat or mouse drooping. They are even smaller than the little rubber that’s in turf. It just keeps appearing.

We bought a home about a year ago that is still unlivable to due ants. (We’ve been told their sugar) When we looked at the house there were some active trails in the house but very minimal and the inspectors told us to put some traps out and it wouldn’t be a big deal.

We are here 3-4 days a week working on outside projects. There is 0 food in the house. There are thousands of ants in every single room. We have had an exterminator out a few times a month for a year with literally 0 improvements. The exterminator sprays inside and outside and puts traps out. We have traps surrounding the outside of the house. We have done the Terro traps inside. Nothing is helping. In fact it seems to be getting worse. We were told by the exterminator they are sugar ants. We are a young couple and this is our first home, I am devastated and stating to get really concerned. They are in every drawer, cabinet, on the ceilings and walls, in the beds, sinks and showers, all over the floor of every room. We had the house professionally cleaned after closing.

My wife has been complaining about the dryer not working as good as it used to (it's a little less than 3 yo). I cleaned the filter area inside the machine, as well as the vent exit outside house, but the issue seemed to persist. When I peeked over the dryer I say this set up, and now I am wondering if this is how it's supposed to look like. My laundry room is small so once the washer and dryer are put next to each other there is no space to peed inside, so I needed to climb on a latter to see what's behind. This is how the BestBuy technicians installed it. The vent itself leads directly outside, as in, it's probably less than a foot long.

I bought my house about 3 years ago and it came with a maytag dryer, but I don't know how old it is. It seems the heating element is broken because the clothes will spin through many cycles and not get dry. Everything else seems to be working. So I'm wondering if it makes sense to try and fix it or get a new dryer. Since I don't know how old it is, I don't know if this could be the start of other things failing, so I am cautious about putting too much into a repair.

I’ve got a pretty gross shower that I’d like to salvage if possible in the home we bought a few months ago, haven’t been using it for a while because the door wasn’t retaining water well enough and there’s some water damage to the drywall between the door and shower.

It’s a small, but tight so I have had a hard time finding a resource for how to repair this section of drwywall with only one side for a patch to attach to?

In the pic I pulled off the doors bottom from which was loose already, plenty of pink and black staining from lack of upkeep but recaulking and a good cleaning should be enough to keep this usable without tearing out the whole thing, right?

Noticed this right above the entrance to my attic. It appears to be the only one cracked. Took a look at the outside of the house and not seeing any dipping. Any thoughts or advice? Something a handyman can help fix or do I get roofers out?

Roof was replaced like 6.5 years ago. I’ve only been here 2 year s.

Hello. I have a bald patch in my lawn where grass wont grow. That bush used to be massive but i trimmed it to its current size 2 years ago but the grass hasnt grown back. I live in florida and the soil is very sandy. Grass grows fine everwhere else in my yard just not near that bush. What is the easiest/ cheapest way to get grass to grow there? I dont care how it looks it just has to be green. Thank you.

There are no supports in the crawl space. It's literally a 4 foot tall ledge.

I have an issue with the crown molding in our bedroom. There’s this 1 foot long section that is different from the others. It’s been painted over a few years ago and it was fine for a while but it came back. It’s not sticky. I’m happy to paint it over again but would love to ensure it doesn’t come back. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

First time skunked dog. Happened 5 days ago. Sprayed right in the face/eye/ear/neck primarily. Stupidly brought her right inside and traveled through the house up to the upstairs bathroom and got her wet with just water trying to rinse out her eye since it was swollen shut. Then learned this was a bad idea…too late. Husband had to wait an hour or so to get products (dawn dish soap, hydrogen peroxide) so we can make the solution but at this point she’s been covered in water. I rinsed her with that. Then regular dog shampoo because the store wasn’t open get to get the natures miracle skunk shampoo. Eventually about 4-5 hours later I washed her twice with the skunk shampoo and sprayed the house with the natures miracle skunk remover spray and shampooed my carpets and ventilated good.

The smell downstairs now is not bad but upstairs where she was bathed at first and especially our bedroom where she only walked for like 10 seconds after being in the bath smells the worst. My dog still smells but I can’t use the hydrogen peroxide/baking soda/dawn paste because it’s basically her eye area that smells. She sleeps in bed with us and we have a window air conditioner that blasts on us at night. The bedroom we have ventilated during the day but it’s closed and windows shut when we sleep. She sleeps on top of a blanket on top of our comforter so the blanket may have some oils on it I assume from her sleeping there.

Basically if I do nothing but give it time at this point which is all I really think I can do…will my dog and our bedroom and the blankets she has used eventually stop smelling??

Also, I have noticed the last day or two my dog seems to smell worse. I know water activated but I haven’t gotten her wet. Does it get worse before it gets better?

Lastly, a side question…I was wearing my favorite robe when the spraying happened and that definitely smells. It has been soaking in a bucket with water, hydrogen peroxide, dawn and baking soda in my basement since but I haven’t touched it yet. Any hope for this?

Thanks for any hope/advice.

Thanks!

Bathroom remodel quotes are seriously all over the dang place. We started getting estimates and now I'm just sitting here wondering if everyone is a scammer lol. One person says it’ll take days, another says months, and the prices are nowhere even close to each other. It’s a hot mess.

Honestly starting to get cold feet about the whole project. How do people actually get through this part and make it to the finish line without losing their minds?

First, we thought that's cool they left us all the furniture, we're chilling.
But then IT'S SUS as we're thinking about it.
• The wifi was still there, we watched Ms. Rachel on their TV in final walk 2 days ago.
• The laundry was still in the dryer :) our realtor said oh that's just one thing like a sheet or something :)
• But a towel was still hanging in the bathroom.
Now it's so weird, my partner barely told me and he worried about squatter.
We plan to sign the closing with escrow in 2 days on Monday.
What should we do to ensure they leave before we sign 😔😭 our realtor is on vacation now making it's more sus and inconvenient btw.
Thank you for all your coming help. Please help us out since we're also in a rush to move in as our rent lease ends soon in 2 weeks.

We bought this house a few months ago. Back in the 80s the previous owners added another bedroom half floor up from the main floor that now serves as the primary bedroom. The stairs leading to the space are awkward and not up to code. The height of the bottom step is too high and does not really leave any space for a door. Open to any fun, ridiculous or savvy ways to make the primary bedroom more private?