Estate House QTA

Archive for the ‘Home Improvements’ Category

With rough weather conditions, your home will definitely experience cracks on the exterior.

Stucco cracks are very common in older homes and they allow a ton of moisture to seep into the home. You need to fix the crack in the stucco if you want to stop the water from getting into the siding of the home.

Leaving the problem as is would only make it worse in the long run, so getting down to fixing it is the best solution. Some cracks are smaller than others and the fixing method will differ for small and large stucco cracks. Using the wrong method in either case will result in a larger crack yielding a huge leak in the siding.

To begin, you will need a hammer, medium sized paint brush, putty knife, stucco compound, cold chisel and a hard brush.

There will be stucco behind the crack, so you need to use a chisel and a hammer to get it out. Place the cold chisel in the crack and using a hammer, slice it down. This would remove the stucco from the back of the crack. Now, make sure to clean out the crack so that it is ready to be repaired. There will be a lot of debris in the crack, so this is where you would need to use your hard brush. You can use both brushes alternatively to get the area free of any light or heavy debris.

Fixing Small Stucco Cracks

When we say small stucco cracks, they are usually about half an inch wide or less. As mentioned before, small and large cracks will have a different repair method, so make sure you know the extent of the crack. To start, open up your stucco tube and get it ready by opening the hole. Take the stucco tube and align the opening with the crack you are trying to fill up.

Simultaneously, squeeze the stucco tube and run it down the crack. Using the putty knife, you can even out the stucco so that it gets into all the cracks. If the stucco has dried up too quickly, add some water to your putty knife and smooth it out again. In most cases, stucco should take about five hours to dry up, but depending on the moisture level it could take longer.

Fixing Large Stucco Cracks

Estimate the amount of stucco compound you would need for the crack and mix it up using some stucco patching compound. A small bucket or pan would be enough to mix up some stucco for the job. Using the putty knife, swipe some compound and smoothly apply it to the crack. Again, the compound will take about five hours to dry off.

If you feel that one layer has not helped you can go back and add more stucco for a stronger finish. All your tools that have stucco on them could be cleaned using water and some soap.

No matter how small or how large the crack is on your window, you will definitely need to replace the glass.

Some people choose to replace the entire window with the frame, but that could be quite costly and it would require lots of time, as you would need to find a similar window frame.

For this repair module, we will be considering a glass window that it is built with a four sided frame, rather than double-paned glass which you see in high efficiency buildings. Before you begin with replacing the broken window, you will need some tools for the job.

The tools needed for the job is; a firmly fitting glass, glazing points, paintbrush, chisel, paint, primer, silicone caulk and a measuring device with a square edge.

In order to begin working with the window, you need to get it removed from the entire frame. Simply take out the window frame from the rack and place it on a flat working surface. This would now allow you to remove all the glass from inside the frame. Thoroughly chisel off the remaining pieces of the glass and work on removing the glazing compound.

Old glazing residue will be tough to get out, so you may need a razor to get through it. Alternatively, you could use a putty knife to remove the glazing compound from the window frame.

Using your paint brush, run a thin layer of primer on the exposed portion of the insert where the glass will be displayed. This is to ensure that the opening will remain open and not let in any portions of oil or glazing compound. Once your window frame has been fully setup for a new installation of glass, you can use a measuring tape to measure the length and width the window will cover.

Also, don’t forget to measure the thickness. For the thickness, you could bring in a small piece of the broken glass so that the glass cutter knows exactly what you need.

The glass should be cut so that it is about an eighth of an inch smaller in length and width. This would allow for the glazing compound to set in and hold the glass in place. If you have a larger piece of glass that just needs cutting you could certainly do it yourself.

Cutting Your Own Glass Piece

Keep your glass on a flat working surface that is stable. Using a squared ruler, align the portion that you are going to be cutting along. Use a glass cutter to cut the glass piece from one edge to another. Run the glass cutter on the same line several times, so that you are getting a deep cut into the glass. Take the entire glass piece and place it on the edge of a table and snap off the cut pieces with a quick firm motion.

The next step is to apply a thin strip of caulk on the exterior portion of the frame, so that it keeps a tight seal. You could also use glazing compound as it would keep a tight seal around the glass.

Use a small chisel to apply the compound evenly around the frame. Now, take your glass and insert it into the opening while firmly pressing it into the compound solutions on the side. Use glazing points on the frame by inserting them on the bottom just five centimeters from the side.

Finally, run the glazing compound around the four sides of the glass to ensure that it will stay as is. Use enough amounts of compound to keep the glass in a secure fit. When you are done applying the compound, remove the excess with a chisel and let it dry. Let the compound to dry for at least a week and paint over it, allowing a tiny layer to sit on the glass itself. By allowing a portion of the paint to sit on one eighth of an inch of the glass, you will be giving the window a full tight seal.

How to insulate an attic….there are two general types of attics; vented and unvented attics. An unvented attic wouldn’t have any vents running through the attic, whereas a vented attic would have.

If you don’t have any vents running through your attic, it would beneficial to insulate it. Insulating your attic would prevent any dry air or moisture that would otherwise arise. Tons of home built today are very energy efficient because of the added insulation.

Insulation is very easy to get done, but you need to know what you are doing because there is a right and wrong way to getting the job done. Some of the tools you will need for the job are safety goggles, foam insulation, respirator and a blower.

Before you begin working in the attic with the insulation, it is recommended that you take care of your health first. Wear the right safety equipment and only then should you climb up into the attic. The respirator will help you with all the insulation foam and dry air in the attic. The attic is known to have a lot of freely hanging nails, so make sure to wear a hard glove.

You don’t need to worry about the dust in the attic as its going to be coming back again. You want to get an insulation blower with a long enough tube. The tube will used to reach the ends and corners of the attic. If you can’t get a long enough tube, you will be required to move the blower around in order to get the insulation in all the regions of the attic.

Your attic should be completely empty, so no furniture’s, supplies or boxes. Anything that you may have put up in the attic for storage needs to be removed. This is to ensure that enough insulation is added to the roof of the attic. If your attic is finished, the floor of the attic would have a completed flat floor.

If your attic is not finish, you will simply see thick wooden beams. If the beams are still there, you will need to use a flat board to be able to stand up in the attic while spraying the insulation. There have been many mishaps of where people have fallen through the attic floor and damaged the next ceiling.

Getting your insulation blower prepared is very easy. Begin by adding the spray foam into the machine and then add the insulation. Depending on how much insulation you need, you may need to refill the machine a few times.

The roof of the attic will have beams known as rafters, so you need to be able to spray the insulation in between them. Continue spraying the insulation until you form a three inch layer. Three inches of insulation should be perfect to prevent water from seeking and other moistures from being built up. If your attic is vented, you need to make sure that the vents are free from any insulation. Some people usually add polyurethane netting above the ventilation to allow the insulation to stay on the roof.

There’s a lot of waste in the world. When things start to pile up, we move them into dumps. When dumps get full, we create more dumps!. Recycling helps to reduce the amount of waste in the world, which helps keep things cleaner, and hopefully, at some point, everything made will somehow be recyclable.

We haven’t reached that point just yet, however, so we have to be conscious of the types of things that can be recycled. And there’s a lot of things we can look at.

Paper is one of these things that can be recycled. Add enough water to paper and it becomes pulp, which can then be mashed and mixed and turned into paper again. The paper comes out a little bit different, but it’s still very usable.

Glass is also reusable. Glass can be reheated and melted and used again & again. Glass is one of the cleaner reusable objects because it returns to its pure form and can be used over and over again.

Metal can be recycled at will, but different metals go to different places. For instance, tin cans can go to a regular recycling plant, but heavy metals such as refrigerators and metal cabinets will have to go to smelting centers. Things such as refrigerators, by the way, aren’t totally recyclable, because certain parts have chemicals running through them that need to be disposed of safely, and if the metals have been corroded it’s really not safe to recycle them.

It’s best if you can separate recyclable material from your regular garbage. It makes it easier to separate later on. In some areas, garbage isn’t sorted, and no one sifts through it to see what might have been recyclable or not. That wastes resources that would be used again. All it takes is a little bit of effort to help make the world a cleaner place for all of us to live in!.

Babies and small children come with a lot of packaging and it can be a challenge to even think about green living when you are lost in a sea of disposable diapers, wet wipes and laundry!.

Unless you are a committed eco-mommy and have already embraced cloth diapers, you probably have a guilty feeling that it isn’t possible to be truly green and energy efficient with a baby in the house and a busy lifestyle.

But disposable diapers aren’t the beginning and end of an eco-friendly family lifestyle. Nobody said it has to be all or nothing. Even if they are essential to the smooth running of your household, there are still plenty of other smaller green living measures that you can take to help the environment. In doing it you will also be raising your kids to be aware of green issues, which is an important part of building a sustainable future. After all they are the ones who will inherit the earth from us, so energy awareness is essential to their education from an early age.

Try a few of these simple green living tips to increase the efficiency of your energy use and reduce the impact your home has on the environment. Remember the green mantra: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. Reduce the amount of resources you consume, re-use things like paper, plastic and cloth wherever possible and only then recycle what you can no longer use. This saves you money and makes the best possible use of precious resources.

1. Use both sides of the paper – Kids love drawing. Before you know it they can have accumulated a complete stack of artworks equivalent to a small tree. Encourage them to use both sides of the paper. Re-use office scrap paper for drawing on before you re-cycle it!.

2. Switch to cloth table napkins – Disposable paper table napkins not only use up an immense number of trees to produce, if you count up how many each household can get through in a year, but they also end up in landfill sites. Get your family a bunch of colorful cloth napkins, or make some from leftover fabric scraps or old soft cotton shirts, and use them at family meals. They take up little space in the laundry and can be used several times before washing; just give each family member a different color or else an individual napkin ring to identify their own napkin.

3. Recycle – If you’re not already re-cycling find out about options in your area. There may be a local pick-up scheme if you separate out your garbage or you may have to find a drop-off point. Kids will catch on quickly if you have separate bins for re-cycled paper, glass and plastics and it’s a great start to educating them about the environment.

4. Hang out your laundry – Whenever the weather allows, hang out your laundry on the clothes line rather than using the tumble dryer. Older kids can help with the pegging out and folding afterward. Your clothes will last longer and you’ll save a whole lot on electricity.

5. Use energy saving light bulbs – Replace your light bulbs with the curly energy efficient bulbs, as the old ones give out. Switch off lights when you leave a room and make sure any lights left on at night, for kids that are scared of the dark, are of a low wattage, energy saving variety.

These may seem like small measures, that won’t do much to save the planet, but think about it this way: “if every household in the US were just to switch to cloth napkins for a year, millions of trees would be saved, plus the colossal amount of energy and water consumed in turning them into paper. Each small measure adds up!”.

Once you have incorporated these green living tips into your family lifestyle, you could gradually introduce a few more, greening up your home and your kids one small step at a time and saving money too!.