Home Improvement Today?

I wasn't as good back then, so luckily the trim was being painted an oil based white. I used a good bit of caulk on that job


I have stained trim in my house now, so I gotta be more precise now.

 

Caulking & Paint.....make you the carpenter you ain't.

 

That house had 2 layers of drywall everywhere so instead of making a proper jamb extender I just notched my trim. Made more work for myself and didn't realize it at the time

 

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I’ll probably never use the speaker!

 

and

 

How can I tell if I have lead water pipes or lead solder?

City sent a letter that we have high concentrated of lead in the water.

 

It's the solder. If you're concerned about it then you'll have to do a re-pipe with copper pipes soldered with lead free solder or convert to PEX. However some old towns still have lead piping out in the street so there's nothing you can do about that.

Honestly I grew up in a house with lead soldered copper pipes and I turned out just fine... Wait, they may be onto something with that...

 

is this deck not like 10' off the ground?

 

You could unsweat the fittings and use crimp on copper fittings. You don't have to convert to PEX or entirely re-copper.

 

The way that the deck boards are laid out in the pic- they run parallel to the house.

Not quiet that bad, but it's not just a short hop to the ground. I'm 6' and I can touch the bottom of the joists from the ground underneath. The yard slopes away from the foundation, so it looks taller on the far end of the deck vs the part that's closest to the house.

 

That will get ungodly expensive though. Plus you gotta have the pro-press tool.

 

Can you post a wide view photo of that end of the deck?

 

You would save on replacing the straight runs of either material.

 

This, kinda confusing only seeing a small piece of the board. I do see the gap

 

I got copper pipes coming in through the basement floor. Into another pipe, not copper, then back to copper. I don't know what's buried in the yard and tied into the city water lines.

The water department is marking up the streets with blue arrows/lines.

Is there away to tell if I have lead solder?

 

Maybe it's there, but the end rim/band joist seems to be missing??

 

I'm sure there is a test you can buy. I'm also pretty sure that before a certain year, you can almost guarantee the use of leaded solder.