About Me
Hi, I'm Mel, and welcome to my site on construction! I hope you can come here to learn about a variety of construction topics and apply them to your life. But first, a disclaimer: I am not a professional. In fact, I've never even been on a construction site.
However, construction has been a huge part of my dreams since I was a little girl. I grew up in a big city and never lived in anything larger than a 2-bedroom apartment. I spent my free time designing my dream home and finding out what it would take to make that dream possible.
Now that I'm older, it's going to become a reality soon, and so I started doing some actual research. I hope this blog can help you achieve your dreams, just like it's helping me! Brick Repair
If your home is sided with brick, you enjoy a number of advantages. Brick provides superior insulation, looks great, and lasts for ages. Brick is not indestructible, though, and so requires regular maintenance. If you own a brick home that shows signs of deterioration, you need to take immediate steps. Ground Moisture If you have a home where the brick is actually touching the ground, you can experience problems with the mortar crumbling and the brick actually falling out. When this happens, it’s often because the brick wicks moisture from the soil up into the siding, sometimes causing serious damage. Fixing this issue requires digging down about three feet and applying foundation sealer. Once this job is done, you will need to have someone tuckpoint the damaged area. Tuckpointing When your brick crumbles or the mortar starts to fall out, you will have to hire someone to tuckpoint it, otherwise, you risk losing having bricks tumble to the ground. Your home may also end up with moisture inside the walls, leading to even more extensive damage. Although brick is quite durable, every twenty-five years are so even the best-constructed brick will need to have the mortar replaced. For older homes, you’ll need to have the mortar professionally analyzed so that your contractor uses the correct blend. Using the wrong mortar can further damage your brick. Cost Foundation sealing can cost you an average of $3800. Although you may be able to manage this task yourself if you have some construction experience, most people will want to hire a contractor to do the work. The cost of tuckpointing depends on the size of your home and the extent of the deterioration. You may pay approximately $3–6 per foot for work that is done on the first ten feet of your house. When experts have to go higher, they will charge you more due to the added difficulty. You can expect to pay approximately $5–10 per foot above that height. The cost is a significant one, but ignoring the signs of deteriorating mortar will lead to even more damage and a far greater cost. Brick siding is an excellent investment that can pay off for decades. It still requires regular upkeep, however. If you own brick, you need to watch for signs of moisture damage and call in the professionals if necessary. If you do, your home’s exterior can last for a century or more. Talk to a professional like Mara Restoration, Inc. for more...
read moreThree Features To Include In Your Horse Barn
When you build a horse barn, you want it to put everything you need to take care of your horses close at hand. While building a basic horse shed—nothing more than a roof and stalls—is probably the easiest way to go, spending a little extra money to build a full-featured horse barn will be worth it in the long run. Automatic Watering Troughs One thing you want to make sure that your horses never run short on is water. If you leave it up to a human to fill watering troughs, there will always be the risk that the human gets occupied doing somethings else, or simply forgets. An automatic watering trough will make sure that your horses always have a ready supply of water at hand. You can even place one watering trough in each horse stall so that each horse will always have plenty of water. Rubber Floor Mats Rubber floor mats are a feature that will make life better for both you and your horses. As for your horses, standing around on hard or uneven ground can be painful. Rubber floor mats have a little give, so they are more comfortable to stand on, and they will protect the floor so that your horse does not create holes simply by pawing at the ground. As for you, it is a lot easier to clean out a stall with rubber mats than a stall that does not have them. A Grooming Stall Making every stall large enough to make it easy to groom an animal adds a lot of extra money to your build. If you just design one stall with all of the features you need for grooming, you can save on cost and put more features into the stall as well. For example, you could run hot and cold water to the stall, add storage space, and put in a medicine cabinet so you have a place to store any medications your horses may need. A dedicated grooming stall can be used to provide medical care for your horses, as a sheltered space for saddling your horse, etc. Once you build one, you will wonder how you got by without one. If you are contemplating a horse barn, don’t rush into it. Take some time to think about your horse’s needs as well as your own needs. You can then design a barn that has everything you and your horses want. Building a horse barn that will keep both you and your horses happy will be something that you thank yourself for for years to come. For more information about horse barns construction, talk to a construction...
read more2 Important Water Heater Metrics To Help Choose The Most Energy Efficient Model
Choosing the best hot water heaters comes down to a variety of factors including your water usage, how much you want to pay upfront, and finally the energy efficiency. The energy efficiency comparisons vary across different types of models – a tankless water heater, for example, is more efficient than a tanked heater – but you might also need to compare the energy efficiency between similar models to ensure you get the best unit for your needs. There are a couple of key water heater efficiency metrics that can help you choose between otherwise similar units. The ratings should appear in an easy to locate information box on the box and the unit itself plus in the manufacturer’s information. First-Hour Rating First-hour rating refers to the maximum amount of water that could be available at the busy time of the day or the hour of highest usage. In a tanked water heater, the amount is typically the amount that can fit in the tank unless the unit can very quickly heat up incoming water to lengthen the supply. A larger tank can help but the recovery rate, or how quickly the tank can produce new hot water, has a larger impact on the first-hour rating and the unit’s overall energy efficiency. Choosing a model with the highest first-hour rating can ensure you will never run out of water at a busy time. But going that route only makes sense if you have multiple people in your household who all tend to use water at the same time. If you live alone, or use water at vastly different times of the day, prioritizing first-hour rating could leave you with an oversized unit and actually cost you energy efficiency. Energy Factor The energy factor is a measurement that represents the overall energy efficiency of the water heater. A higher energy factor means the water heater is more energy efficient. The measurement takes into account the recovery speed of the heater and any potential losses that happen when the water sits around in a tank waiting to be used, called a standby loss, or circulates through the tank and the pipes, appropriately called a cycling loss. You might think that simply picking the water heater with the highest energy factor would automatically provide you with the best buy. But you need to also take your fuel or electricity costs into account. An otherwise more efficient water heater that uses gas rather than electric-only, for example, could end up costing more to operate due to the fuel costs. Energy efficient units also tend to cost more upfront so you need to factor into account how much energy savings you will receive per year and how long it will take that heater to “pay for itself” with the energy savings. Need more information? Contact a plumbing supplies company....
read moreOwn A Vacation Home? 3 Ideas For Remodeling The Kitchen With Guests In Mind
If you’re the owner of a vacation home, it’s likely that you want to do your best to make the space as inviting for guests as possible. Not only will this allow you to get more positive reviews from your guests when it is being rented out, it can also help you earn more money for the rental. If you’re looking for ways to remodel your vacation home, the best place to start is often the kitchen. Since the kitchen is likely going to be used multiple times a day, it’s a good idea to get remodeling with your guests in mind. Keep Some Shelves Open for Your Guests While you want to keep the kitchen stocked with all the essentials, it’s best that you leave some space open specifically for their needs. Your guests will likely will bring some of their own food and cooking supplies along, making it important that you have shelving readily available for them to use. This can also help ensure that your guests will like the kitchen and it won’t become cluttered with food and other items they bring along for the vacation. Make Sure to Include All the Basics Since you want the kitchen to be easy for your guests to use, it’s a nice gesture to keep the kitchen stocked. While you don’t need to bring a bunch of food to the rental home every time guests are renting it, it’s best to keep some of the basics, such as some decent coffee, sugar, and of course cookware and dining items. With all these basics included in the kitchen, your guests will be able to cook in the rental home with ease. Consider Adding Childproof Locks for Families if you intend on your vacation home being rented to families occasionally, it’s best to get childproof locks installed on the cabinets. This will help ensure that families can rest easy knowing that their children can’t get injured or get their hands on anything that they should not be allowed near, such as alcohol or cleaning supplies. If the childproof locks are difficult to handle, make sure you provide instructions for the renters so that they can utilize your kitchen without a problem. By taking your time learning about what kinds of kitchen remodeling projects should be done specifically for your vacation home, you can know how to provide the best space for your guests. Contact a business, such as Family and Friends Builders LLC, for more information....
read moreLive In A Hot Climate? Go Through Preparations To Have Your Roof Painted
In hot areas, it is common for homeowners to have their air conditioning system running for most of the year. This makes it popular for people to invest in energy efficient improvements such as replacing windows, doors, or adding insulation to the walls. But you may have already made these upgrades. If you also have a metal roof that you know is going to last a long time, you should paint the roof due to the improvement in energy efficiency it can come with. This only works well in hot climates as doing this in areas where it gets cold actually increases winter heating costs. Before diving into this project, you will need to go through some preparations to ensure you get lasting results. Clear the Area Surrounding the Roof If your roof has a major pitch, it may not be realistic for painters to scale it safely. This makes it more challenging to paint by hand, but there is another option: spray painting the roof with a wand. It will require painters to traverse around your entire property to gain access to the entire roof. So, you need to clear the area where the painters will be setting up ladders for painting. Some things that you may need to do include trimming nearby trees, trimming overgrown shrubs, and cleaning up any debris. Pressure Wash the Whole Roof Any time you paint a surface, you want to make sure it is clean beforehand. The same rule applies for the roof, but the roof is not the easiest surface to clean. The most effective solution is pressure washing, but you may not want to put yourself at risk by renting a pressure washer and using it on a ladder. An alternative is to just hire a pressure washing company to take care of the cleaning for you. Make Your Color Choice To enjoy great results, you need to use solar-reflective paint that pushes the heat away from your home. Although you may think that white is your only option, you actually have quite a few colors to pick from. White is the most effective with a Total Solar Reflectance (TSR) percentage of over 80%, but you cannot go wrong with other colors such as yellow, gray, beige, tan, brown, or blue. If performance is not your highest priority, you can still get anywhere from 34% to 70% TSR with the additional color options. Painting your roof allows you to improve your home’s energy efficiency, especially with proper planning. For house painting, contact a company such as J Maintenance...
read moreWhy Your Office Building Needs To Replace Its Heating System
Are you the new owner of a small office building? Are you wondering how best to maintain your new acquisition? There are many different aspects of building maintenance. While you have almost certainly hired a building manager to take care of everything, it’s also important to have an idea of what may be needed and what can be set aside for later. One of the most important pieces of a building is its heating system. Here are some reasons why you should consider replacing the system before next winter: Age: With commercial heating systems, building owners are sometimes reluctant to replace a system that seems to be functioning properly. However, while heat may be delivered to various rooms in the building, age may mean that it’s not doing so very efficiently. If you have a system that is more than a few years old, chances are good that newer systems will be more efficient and use less energy than the one you currently have installed. Depending on the size of your building, the savings could add up to a significant amount. Improper installation: Time can also play a part in whether or not commercial heating systems are properly installed. Although the system may have been installed perfectly to begin with, a previous building owner may have performed one or more remodeling projects on the building itself. Depending on the nature of the remodeling, airflow within the building may have been changed to make the heating system work incorrectly. Once winter arrives, you may find that certain areas of the building are hotter than expected while other areas are freezing cold. While your furnace is being replaced, the HVAC professionals can reroute your ductwork to make sure that the temperature is what you expect. Money: When you own commercial heating systems that don’t function as expected, there can be a high financial cost. Not only do you have to consider your higher energy bills, you also have to think about things like lost productivity in your workers. Workers that are too hot or too cold will be constantly trying to adjust the thermostat in a vain attempt to get more comfortable. Instead of focusing on their work and making money for you, they’ll be focused on the temperature and trying to warm or cool themselves. Some of your workers may even grow frustrated enough to seek employment elsewhere. A new heating system should restore efficiency enough so that this is no longer a problem. Click here to continue reading more about...
read more4 Tips To Help You To Decide Whether To Buy A New Custom Home Or Remodel
Buying a new home can be a great investment, but there are also options for buying existing homes and remodeling them. Depending on your needs, you may want to choose one or the other. You could choose a custom home to meet special needs of your family or an existing home remodel to be in a more desirable area. Here are some tips to help you decide whether to buy a new custom home or remodel an existing one. 1. Getting Everything You Want With A New Custom Home One of the biggest benefits of a custom home is being able to have all the features you want. When you think about your dream home, do you have a perfect visualization in mind? You can talk with a custom home builder about adding custom features like a home cinema, custom home office, and renewable energy. You can also have the design made exactly like you have always imagined. 2. Remodeling To Cut Costs On Your New Home Purchase Are you trying to keep a budget for your new home? Maybe you are planning a family and do not want to go overboard on a custom home. Buying an existing home can be a great choice to keep your home purchase on a budget. With an existing home, you can still do a minimum amount of remodeling to make sure the home meets your needs. A contractor can help you with renovating a kitchen, remodeling bathrooms, or adding space by finishing a basement. 3. Buying An Existing Home To Be In A More Desirable Area There are many families that want to be close to communities such as churches, religious centers or schools. You may want to also be closer to your work to reduce commutes and spend more time with the family. Are you considering a home in a new area where there are no new homes being built? Consider buying an existing home and remodeling it. You can even get a custom home builder to help you with extensive remodeling to get everything you would have if you had a new home built. 4. Building A Custom Home To Meet Any Special Needs Of Your Family Buying a custom home can also be a good solution if you or a family member has special needs. When the home is built, you can have features like ramps added for mobility as well as doors and other openings that are designed for people with mobility problems. You may also want to consider options for other needs, such as lights for the hearing impaired or sight cameras, or braille labels and sensors for the visually impaired. These are some tips to help you decide between remodeling an existing home or buying new. If you are ready to get your family in a new home, contact a custom home builder and they can help you with whichever project you choose for your...
read moreThree Commercial Driving Careers You Can Have In The Shipping Industry And Why You May Want Them
With jobs in their scarcity, you may be looking at an entirely different career path than you intended when you left for college the first time. If you never went to college, then your options are probably more limited than you had expected. However, there are some jobs that only require a little training and a commercial driving license. The following three driving careers in the world of shipping may be just what you need. The reasons why you may want to work each of these also follows. Local Delivery Truck Driver With a commercial license in hand, you can drive local delivery trucks for shipping magnates and the post office alike. You usually have a very predictable schedule with little to no flexibility, but you are also paid very well and you almost always have weekends and nights off. If you drive for the post office, you will also have several federal and national holidays off, which are often paid holidays. Long Distance Delivery Driver A long distance delivery driver may work for some of the same companies as the local delivery drivers, except the long distance drivers will drive the bigger box cab trucks greater distances and be on the road almost all day and possibly half the night as well. You may have to work some holidays and weekends, but usually your rate of pay is more. If you drive long distance round trips in single-day shifts, then you may be looking at twelve- to sixteen-hour days, driving shipments between major airports and company delivery hubs. While that may still put you at home to sleep in your own bed at night, you probably will not see much of your spouse, significant other or children. Still, the pay and benefits are often very good. Really Long Distance Driver Driver careers of this sort will put you in a truck that drives from your employer’s location to other hubs several states over. You may have to spend several nights in hotels or sleeping in the truck before you get to your destination and make your deliveries. This kind of commercial driving career is more popular with single, unattached people who really enjoy traveling and seeing the country while they do their jobs. You may also have to become a licensed semi truck driver if you want work with certain shipping companies. The salary or wages for this kind of job are comparable to a long distance driver who drives only within his or her home state, but your salary could also be much more depending on the company you work...
read moreTired Of Your Energy Eating Hot Water Heater? Two Better Options
The water heater in your home uses about 14 percent of your energy throughout the month, and if your energy bills are high, it may be time to replace the unit. If your water heater is a traditional tank that fills up with water when the hot water is used and works to heat the water all day long, you are wasting money constantly. Here are two efficient alternatives for your water heating needs that you’ll want to look into when you’re tired of paying for high water heating bills. Tankless Hot Water Heater A tankless water heater is heated by gas or electricity at the time the faucet is turned on, so energy isn’t wasted when the water isn’t needed. These units are very efficient since the unit isn’t running at all times, and you can get as much hot water as you need, even for different appliances at the same time. This unit could be up to 34 percent more efficient than the unit you already have in the home. These units can easily be installed under a sink, and you can get more than one unit to improve efficiency more. Geothermal Water Heater The geothermal heat pump water heater works up to three times more efficiently than a traditional water heater by transferring heat around to heat the water for your use. The heat is pulled from the ground, and sometimes by water, depending on where you live and what system will work the best for you. These units can be standalone and installed to solely support your water heating needs or used with a traditional water heating system. The climate where you live will determine if you can use this type of system independently to heat your water, since the soil has to maintain a specific temperature. The professional HVAC contractor will look at the layout of your house, and take into consideration the weather where you live, to decide what type of water heating system is going to work the best for your home, and what will be the most efficient. Replacing your old hot water heater with a new water heating option can help you earn a federal tax rebate, or a state tax rebate, depending on your state and what model you choose. The HVAC contractor can let you know which models they can install that will help you qualify for a tax credit. For more information, check out this...
read more4 Features That Turn Your Hot Tub Into A Party Tub
Hot tubs are not only good for personal relaxation but also entertaining. If you are thinking about purchasing, you may already be thinking about the hot tub parties that you can invite your friends to. If entertaining guests is one of your main goals when purchasing a hot tub or upgrading your current tub, you should consider the following features that can be added onto most hot tubs. WiFi Connectivity WiFi connected hot tubs allow you to monitor and control the chemical levels and temperature of your tub from your smartphone or other internet-enabled device. This is important if you plan to have a party tub because it allows you to be more spontaneous when entertaining. For example, you can invite friends back to your place after dinner or drinks without planning in advance or waiting for the hot tub to heat up once you arrive. Instead, use the WiFi connectivity to make sure your hot tub is ready when you and your guests arrive home. Waterproof Sound System If you set up a sound system around your hot tub, you either have to exit the tub to change the music or risk your remote control falling into the hot tub. Instead, you can install a waterproof system directly into your hot tub. This not only gives you a more immersive sound experience but also makes it easier to control you music throughout your party. Mood-Lighting Many hot tubs feature underwater LED lighting. However, to turn your hot tub into a party tub, you should consider opting for a more advanced lighting package. Lighting that changes color or pulses can be a nice effect. Also, lighting in places such under the cup holders and along the steps of your tub can allow you to safely dim the lights at night for a more intimate party setting. Fog Effects In the winter, your hot tub may generate steam that creates a dramatic effect. However, in the summer, that natural effect is usually lost. A fog machine added onto your hot tub can create that mysterious, fun environment any day of the year without temperature constraints. It can also increase dramatic lighting effects. Whether you are looking to purchase a new hot tub or simply upgrade your current model, consider these four features to turn your hot tub into a easy, natural party spot for you and your friends. Visit a store like Anchor Pools & Spas to see some options in...
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