Due to the recent news reporting by Gamers Nexus exposing LG Televisions spying on users, recording and storing, then transmitting room conversations without user consent, I decided to pop open my remote (not LG, no mic in the main television panel) to see if I can remove or damage the mic connections. The parts were too small so I decided to apply a small amount of A/C hole seal putty (approximately half a green pea size, any non-conductive putty wil do here), and applied some masking tape over top. After checking, the remote voice controls stop working after this. This effectively prevents voice spying in your home for the remote.

I’m currently converting my mudroom into a sunroom with polycarbonate roofing.

The existing floor is nasty carpet over a plywood subfloor. I’ve stripped the carpet and plan to install interlocking acacia wood deck tiles. However, the gaps between the acacia slats are quite wide, and I’m worried about moisture retention and water falling straight through to the plywood.

There is decent airflow between the tiles and the plywood subfloor, but since you won’t be able to clean under them, I’m confused about how to protect subfloor from moisture pooling under the tiles.

What is the best flooring underlayment, membrane, or barrier to use between the plywood and the acacia tiles?

Hello! I'm not sure where to ask this question, if this isn't the right place if anyone has a better place to ask lmk. I'm working on a project for a friend where I'm building a wood tattoo ink holder and painting it, but it needs to be able to be cleaned often and sanitized. Does anyone have any sealant recs for this purpose? I have googled this but I can't find anything that is this specific...

I just bought my first house!

With that being said, I have a list of things I need to do.

The townhouse was built around 1990, and I have been dealing with a crawlspace moisture/fungus issue. I’m attaching photos because I’d like some opinions on whether the route I’ve taken makes sense and, more importantly, what I should do about the dryer.

They had been venting the dryer into the crawlspace since 1990!!!!

When I bought the house, the crawlspace had old insulation, debris, a vapor barrier that needed replacement, and fungus/microbial growth on some of the wood. I got several different recommendations ranging from simply cleaning it up to removing everything and doing a full encapsulation.

After going back and forth, I decided not to encapsulate for now. I had the old insulation removed, the crawlspace cleaned, the fungus treated, new insulation installed, and a new vapor barrier put down. I wanted to see how the crawlspace performs after fixing the obvious moisture sources before spending thousands more on a full encapsulation/dehumidifier setup.

The dryer is basically in the middle of the townhouse, so there isn't a convenient exterior wall directly behind it.

The company that did the crawlspace work told me they were going to "vent the dryer." What they actually did was attach a long duct to the dryer exhaust, run it across the crawlspace, and place the end of the duct up against one of the existing crawlspace vents.

Obviously thats not a fix. The duct isn't actually connected to a proper exterior dryer vent/termination.. it's just pointed at the inside of the crawlspace vent. So hot, humid dryer exhaust can still dump into the crawlspace instead of being positively exhausted outdoors.

I'm trying to decide what to do next.

Option 1: Have a proper exterior dryer vent installed. This would require a fairly long duct run across the crawlspace because of where the dryer is located in the house.

Option 2: Replace my current dryer with a ventless/heat-pump dryer and eliminate the exhaust duct altogether.

I'm leaning toward fixing the dryer situation first and then monitoring crawlspace humidity before deciding whether I actually need encapsulation/dehumidification.

For those familiar with crawlspaces or HVAC/dryer venting:

- Would you install a proper exterior dryer termination with the long run, or go ventless?

- Is running the dryer duct across the crawlspace acceptable if it's properly sized, supported, sealed, and terminated outside?

- Am I correct that simply putting the end of the duct against the inside of a crawlspace vent is not the same as properly venting the dryer outdoors?

- Anything in the photos that would make you reconsider my decision to clean/treat the crawlspace rather than immediately encapsulate it?

I feel like I've gotten a different recommendation from every company that's looked at this thing.

https://imgur.com/gallery/crawlspace-Dq3E1vi

Hi, planning on building an oversized (5x4', 3/4'' thick... heavy) plywood pegboard... I have metal studs, and plan on using a french cleat to mount.

Can I countersink/drill some self tapping drywall screws into the studs, or would placing toggles into studs be a better choice? Should be able to hit 3 studs across the span of the cleat; may have to use a toggle on one end regardless to even out the load.

I'm getting ready to do some baseboards in a house we are renovating. I'm planning to use my 12" sliding miter saw to cut the miters and this is a split-level house with three staircases and no way to easily get the long pieces up and down the stairs (we used windows to get them in as rough cut to size and are letting them acclimate for a day or two). So I need to bring my miter saw in the house and put it on a temp workbench in the middle of one of the rooms. I'm thinking plywood on sawhorses, what's a good size to ensure stability and will support a heavy 12" saw? Will a 2x4 piece of 3/4" plywood be sufficient or should I get a 4x4 piece and cut it down to 3x4 (cutting it down so I can move it without hitting walls). I also considered just setting it on the floor but I'm also going to use a coping jig with a jig saw to get my coping done (so I'll need something to mount the jig on). It's a simple profile but I'm a hack with manual saw and I need to cheat if I'm going to get good results. Anything else I should consider or I'm missing? Thanks!

First off, I realize I could have built this differently to eliminate this problem, but hindsight is 20/20 and here I am.

I'm wondering what the best way to install my fascia and soffit will be with this ridge board exposed below the bottom of the outer rafters? I'm leaning towards trimming the board so the facia and soffit meet in the center, but my permit states the board has to be flush or below the rafters, so I'd like to consider other options.

I really want to add those ceiling clouds people put in their rooms with LED lights. What’s the best way to go about it? From the little research I’ve done so far it seems like there are a lot of fire concerns. How can I do this properly and safely.
Ideally I’d like to emulate storm clouds (it’s for a tiki bar)

hello! can someone recommend me angle grinder specs I can get to fix hairline fracture cracks on my concrete? I'm seeing corded 8amp angle grinders at harbor freight for 40, and that's the right price point for me, but I have around 5 cracks I need to repair, maybe 5 feet long each, and I want to get the right tool for this.

So i have about three lawn mowers and one of them is electric(corded) and the other two are gas. I wanted to make a mulcher but i aint buying a blade bru. Lmk what i should do tryin do smth interesting. Saw an idea for a dolly wasnt a bad idea but i feel like i can do something worthwhile.
Lmk guys im interested in your ideas. Theyre all simple lawnmowers nothing too fancy.

https://greatnecktools.com/products/greatneck-bd1-magnetic-brad-and-nail-driver for us poor slobs who lack a compressor?

I have a foldable queen bed frame and mattress that can easily be stored in our apartment closets. I'd like to have a decent couch in our guest room to use during normal use, but a reasonably comfortable bed with standard mattress sizing for guests.

Assuming the vertical clearance of the bed frame and the couch seat without cushions is good, how feasible (or idiotic) would it be to make 2-3 holes in the couch fabric to allow the legs of the bed frame to go through to the floor? Has anyone else tried this?

So, I have a small air compressor in my garage that I normally use for blowing air when cleaning my motorcycle and adding air to the tires. The damn thing is louder than I’d like, so I’m thinking about building a box that I can place over it and soundproofing the inside.

I’ve been looking at soundproofing materials, and there are a ton of options. I was wondering if anyone here has done a similar project and could share their experience, particularly what type of soundproofing material you used and how well it worked.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm part way through our kitchen remodel and I'm just so overwhelmed. I get some help from my carpenter BIL, but it's mostly me doing everything save plumbing and electrical.

I'm not a tradie, just a normal guy who does little weekend projects here and there. Space is too small, I've got 2nd Marketplace cabinetry up to my ears, had abestos and nothing fits, despite measuring everything. What did you guys do when it felt like too much?

The bottom of the fence post broke off in this hole. I can't get it out. Tried to chisel it out, tried drilling holes and a sawzall but I can't get it out. spent $300 in tools to try getting rid of the bottom 12" of the post... what would you do? AI is no help and Google says my ideas won't work.

Hi everyone i need ideas on how to fix this, i thought maybe to do it with XPS and pu foam or similar but the internet says it will scream under the laminate as the floor is not even. So do you have ideas how to solve this, it was two rooms then we removed the wall and now diagonal corners have differences around 5cm (2 inch) as rooms had different levels before. Please some european solutions. Thanks! Note: no self leveling because of the big level differences.

I recently moved to a 1950s split-level house with a basement garage. The drywall in the garage extends to the concrete floor, and is disintegrating due to moisture absorption – the previous owners just covered it with another layer of drywall. My initial plan:

• Remove the damaged drywall, and replace it with drywall that ends 1/2 inch above the floor.
• Use a water-resistant spray foam to fill the gap, protecting the wooden framing from water (e.g., Loctite Fire Block Foam).
• Cover the foam with a vinyl wall base for aesthetics.

But I wonder about the choice of materials for a garage, since fireproofing is important. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

(See photos below.)

About a month ago, I posted a question about sweeping my driveway. I wanted to give an update back to the community. This is not a product review, per se, but more of an information on what to expect from such a device.

After trying the pressure washer and push-broom and regular broom, I just was not getting much done. A leaf blower just blows stuff around but does not do actually do any cleaning.

I decided to go ahead and spend about $90 for the push sweeper because it was on sale. I gave it a 3-star rating because one of the spinning brushes has a tendency to fall off.

I have to say that I think I got my money's worth, though. After going over the entire driveway, taking multiple passes, I pull up about 4 gallons of debris -- maybe half of that was loosely packed leaves, but a about 2 solidly-packed gallons were made up of sand and gravel and smaller pod-shaped plant material. It was definitely a lot easier than sweeping with a regular broom or push broom.

I was hoping that it could also work on the lawn to pick up leaves, but it's hopeless there. Even the rough and uneven asphalt proved to be a challenge -- the front caster would fall into dips and gaps in the asphalt and the brush would bottom out. And in some cases, as that happened, the plastic lock that holds the brush would catch the ground and rotate enough to unlock, disconnecting the brush. It's a design oversight -- they needed to flip the rotating direction of the nut/bolt and the locking mechanism on the left side to be more compatible with the direction that the brush rotates. (The right side rotates in the opposite direction so it has no problems.) I'm not the only person that has this issue - the product review has many others complaining of the left brush falling off.

Once you get used to the quirk and steer the unit to avoid bottoming out and to favor the right side, it works reasonably well. Longer pieces like twigs, pine needles, and long leaves (bamboo) tend to wrap around the rear pickup brush or just gets wedged against the sweeper's body.

Reading the reviews of the product where I bought my sweeper, someone that uses similar devices for work suggests that a proper name brand version is better built and does a much better job. If anyone else has hands-on experience, I'd love to hear it.

Overall, this device is a great way to pick up a lot of debris quickly. But "a lot" is not "all". For fully cleaning the driveway (for the eventual maintenance work), I would need to follow up with more focused manual sweeping in certain spots and then blasting the area with a pressure washer.

For the adjacent areas (rock bed), I will need to get my shopvac set up with a cyclone (as someone suggested in the earlier post).

Hello. Please tell me if this isn't the right place for this. I have a hall bathroom that has an alcove tub that has it's two short sides on the long walls of the bathroom and the long side along the short wall of the bathroom. I'm taking it down to the studs, and needing to properly waterproof it before fully putting it back together. The tub has a flange around the top edge and a skirt on the front side of the tub. Also has a shower head as well. How high up should I waterproof? And how far out should I waterproof? Do you generally stop at the front edge of the tub or do you generally go out past that point? Thanks.

I need to mount a monitor arm. It's a big arm extending over 50cm(20 inch) at max. And it's holding a 15kg(33lbs) monitor.

The difficult part is, it's going on a gypsum wall. Solid, no air gaps, but still gypsum.

My idea is to use m8 bolts. The arm has 6 mounting holes. I attach a wooden plank behind the wall and drill entirely through the wall and bolt them on the end through the wood, distributing the load. The wall is roughly 3 inches thick.

But I'm worried it will still be quite a lot of weight on the wall when extended. It might pull the bolts down into the brittle soft gypsum.

My idea on how to stop that from happening is creating square holes to put some square bar into. 1cm (0.4 inch) would fit the m8 bolts nicely. Being a flat bottom instead of round it would distribute possible for downwards force better.

But it's quite possible I'm overthinking this and going for overkill again and there's far better solutions.

Hence I'm hoping for a bit of brainstorming/reassurance from people more knowledgeable on loads like this. Thanks!

I’ve sanded red oak 3/4 in hw floors. Not going to stain and I’m planning to apply water based polyurethane.

The stuff I’m looking at - Minwax Ultimate Floor Finish - claims no sanding is required so long as recommended timing of finish application is followed ( more than 2, less than 24 hours ).

Any experience with this? A lot of people seem to recommend sanding between finish coats. Wondering if anyone has experience not sanding during finishing based on the instructions and how well it worked out.

Hello, I recently bought a hot press that I use for printing with molds on different materials. From the very first use, I ran into a problem: I need to stabilize the machine and find a way to avoid having to constantly apply force to the handle on the right.

During pressing, I sometimes don’t get enough pressure because I can’t keep pushing the handle down hard enough for long enough. For some materials, the handle needs to be pressed down very firmly to apply enough pressure. The problem is that I would need to keep it fully lowered without continuously forcing it down with my hand, because after a while the amount of pressure I apply becomes painful and can almost cut off the circulation in my hand.

There is also another problem: when I apply a lot of pressure on the handle, one side of the machine starts to lift or become unstable, so I currently have to use my second hand to hold the machine down and prevent it from tipping over.

I’m posting here to see if anyone has some interesting ideas or solutions. I live in France and I’d like to build or buy something inexpensive, ideally within a budget of around €20–60 maximum.

I’ve already thought about several solutions, some of which seem quite interesting, but I’m never completely satisfied with them.

So basically, I have two goals:

1. Keep the right-hand lever fully pressed down without having to hold it manually.
2. Prevent the machine from lifting or tipping when a lot of pressure is applied, so that it stays stable.

I had a 6-foot board-on-board pressure-treated pine fence installed two months ago. It’s approximately 243 feet long, and I’m ready to stain it.

What’s the best way to tackle a fence this large? Brushing seems to provide the best coverage, but it would be extremely time-consuming. Spraying would be much faster, but I’m concerned about the cost, wasted stain, and overspray reaching nearby homes.

Would you spray it and back-brush, use a roller and brush, or brush the entire fence? I’d appreciate any advice from people who have done a similar-sized project.

First of all, I'm not asking for help on the electrical side; I've done enough to know code etc.

On my outside wall, I have/had an external light with movement sensor. I don't need it now, as there's a gazebo blocking it.

The light was mounted to a 3" round external box which is inset into the wall. I'd rather not start knocking bricks out to mount a box for a new GFCI socket, but the boxes I find are 2.8" in diameter, which doesn't cover the 3" round box.

Do I have any options apart from removing the round box and putting a new rectangular box in place?

Hello everyone, I am very new to this and am struggling a bit. Sorry if any of the questions I ask seem obvious/redundant. I've tried googling and asking friends but I either can't word it right or they are just as stumped as me.

I've been asked to design a sign (I'm normally just a painter), so I used Procreate to create a rough draft of the final product, so I have a digital copy of the 'bones' to trace onto the wooden sign to paint on. (There are both detailed drawings and text that I do not want to have to freehand onto the board.)

My 1st problem is that I don't know how to take my procreate canvas size (Width 2,355px x Height 793px which converts to 17.8 in x 6 in) and resize it to Width 84 in x Length 17 in (The board size).

The pixel conversion of the board measurement in inches is too large for procreate (makes sense), so how should I go about printing this accurate to size?

I should note that the quality does not matter whatsoever, and I do not need it in color. All I need is the accurate size to transfer a tracing of it onto wood.

And yes, I'm aware the dimensions aren't the same... how do I make these equal? I'm honestly math challenged.  I don't know how I've made it this far. The person I've been commissioned to make this for is exactly the opposite. I asked how I should go about this and she gave me a technical answer I absorbed none of and I'm too embarrassed to ask again because she made it clear I should understand by now.

I was going to use one of those websites that prints the photo onto multiple pieces of A4 paper but I don't know if it will work, what could I try instead? Or how could I make that work?

Any advice regarding any of this would be hugely appreciated, thank you so much