Daily Home Renovation Tips

Today, we would like to provide you with some of the contributions to the Guide made by our site’s visitors in our first contest of 2010 relating to reducing clean water usage inside the home which were not previously included in the collection of money waving energy and water conservation ideas.

460, Wash Dishes in Basin In Sink vs Sink. The suggestion made here is that if you first put a plastic or metal tub in your kitchen sink, and then place the dishes therein to hand wash them, it will take up less water than if you simply put the water directly into your sink. With the basin or tub being less wide and shorter than your sink it will hold less water.

461, Use Water From Meal Glasses For Plants.If you drink water with your meal and have some left over, rather throwing it down the kitchen sink’s drain, why not use it to water your plants? That way it is being put to good use.

462, Listen for Running Toilets to Repair. As long as you can hear, you can usually tell if a toilet is leaking water. That is how we found two toilet leaks in our own home in the past year or two. One was leaking so much that the water level in the tank behind the toilet was dropping beneath the refill line, causing the water to pour into the tank and then stop … repeating this every 20 minutes or so.

463, Use Hot Water Tap To Brush Teeth Before Shower. I use this tip myself in the morning. I brush my teeth before my shower. By using turning on the hot water tap to rinse my teeth after brushing it causes the cold water out of the same pipe which brings hot water to the adjacent shower. That way, it takes less time for the hot water to enter the shower. Same for when I shave after I brush my teeth.

464, Scrape All Paint Before Cleaning Brushes. For latex paint which needs simply water to clean up, this is a great, great idea. I don’t know about you but I use a lot of water typically to clean pain brushes. This is caused by my not doing a good job to first remove as much of the paint from the brush before I try to rinse it out with water. Now that I have been reminded of this, I think I will do a better job of removing much more paint before cleaning my paint brushes in the future.

465, Put Food Coloring In Toilet Tank; Leak If Into Toilet. Several people mentioned this in our water conservation contest this year. True, some leaks cannot be heard, yet they waste a lot of water and thus your money. This test was also recommended to me by one of the customer service representatives of my local water utility.

With the crack in the foundation wall repaired and the opening in the floor completed, today we start to look at the techniques he used to repair the hole in the drywall.

If you recall the first part of this task he had already performed; that being applying the clear space waterproof membrane on top of the urethane sealant overlay to prevent the insulation from adhering to this still wet overlay.

At this point he proceeded to repair the part of the horizontal wood frame he had to remove a few hours previously in order to apply the FlexiSpan crack repair system.

As there was no mold anywhere on this piece of 2 by 4, he began by simply putting the piece of wood he had removed back into place.

This was then followed by placing small pieced on top of the replaced piece of 2 by 4 to hold it in place.

Each of these pieces were screwed into position to both hold the replaced piece of 2 by 4 in place.

As well, the existing vertical 2 by 4 piece of the wood frame was also screwed to these support pieces of wood so that it would remain vertical and provide the necessary support.

Next, fresh pieces of insulating bats were placed onto the exposed foundation wall within the opening. Here, Fitz is pointing out that he purposely left excess of the original vapour barrier when he made the opening in the drywall.

The purpose for this excess vapour barrier is that he would have something to use to place and adhere the replacement vapour barrier once he had finished placing the replacement insulation.

That was a simple yet very handy approach. So once he cut and put the replacement vapour barrier into position he then used tape to hold it against the wood frame so that there would be no air spaces or gaps between the existing and vapour barrier patch.

Next was to install the replacement piece of drywall into the opening. The technique used is very useful when you do not have two vertical 2 by 4’s part of the wood frame to hold the drywall. How often does that happen? All the time, right?

To continue to the next article in this series, simply select this link to installing the drywall insert.