Chicago Duplex Down Rehab

 many breweries in my neighborhood

 I had some time over winter break, family decided to tile basement floor in our utility room.  I used the Mapei floor tile mortar, only $5 a bag, seems to work well on concrete subfloor.  I would probably use something better (like Laticrete) for a wood and hardiboard subfloor.   

returning cement mixer to home depot, had to walk it from our house finishing the concrete 'platform', where the steps will start about to start mixing concrete, platform form in place ancient water level, tube has windshield fluid in it measuring for square with building, Pythagorean theorem! Roldolfo triumph, old concrete pier excavation old concrete pier in ground, where the new one goes, delayed project 4 hours dumping old concrete at Ravenswood transfer station Eric's fine deck drawing (1 of many) the stairs before demo stairs after complete demolition sidewalk and stairs during demo brick under porch, hasn't seen light of day in a LONG time

After watching a number of youtube videos, I discovered there's a commonly worn out cover under the windshield cowl.  The rubber piece covering this hole (called the fan access) was completely damaged and sunk into the hole.  Water was just pouring in from windshield, then under the hood, then into this hole right into the passenger side behind the glove box. access hole under windshield cowl replacement cover with silicone seal installed cover, hopefully no more leaks here A terrible side effect of having water pour into the access hole is damaged HVAC fan and its resistor.  The 'resistor' enables the fan to have different speeds.  So, it looked like in the end, the water started leaking in, damaging the resistor and the fan would only run on high setting (no resistor).  Then after time, more water would cause the DC motor to fail (rusted brushes, bearings, etc.).  The last symptom was a soaking wet passenger floor carpet. ...

I don't like to be agitated, but our clothes do. If your clothes washer agitator is not spinning and just making clicking noises, it probably needs new 'agitator dogs'.   Yes, funny name, don't know the origin.  Research is an exercise left to the student. You'll first have to find the exact model number of your washer.  Its on a metal tag mounted on the inside of the housing just below the lid.   Once you have the part number, you can go to Appliance Part Pros and type in the model number, then all of the replacement parts will come up.  Once you find the manufacturer part number you can type into Amazon or other online retailer to get the best deal.  I found the same part number on Amazon here , for $4 with free shipping. Yipee!  Do not go to local appliance parts stores if you can avoid it. Their markup is insane, and i'm pretty sure they're working on commission.  I want to support local businesses, but not when they're setup...

Does your oven not warm up, and you smell some gas?   You probably need to replace the 'igniter'. I've had do this twice for 15 year old oven.  Its under the oven, accessible once you remove the bottom cover.  You don't even need to pull the oven out of place to do this.

After letting the glue dry overnight, I applied 1 coat of primer to the unfinished pine.  After letting that dry for a day, i applied 2 coats of Sherwin Williams Pro Classic paint. wet primer coat I let the paint dry 24 hours for each coat.  The paint was ok to touch after 4 hours, and I was able to move the piece indoors for the remain dry duration. using two outdoor chairs to raise piece The piece was about 130 inches long, so 4 stair rail hardware mounts were need to support at every 3 1/2 feet.  There's no hard and fast rule for how many mounts are needed, but definitely not just one at top and bottom in this case. Make sure you orient the hardware in the same direction at the return.  Also, double check the distance from the wall mount to the rail is greater than the return.  If you, you'll be fighting the return piece against the wall while trying to mount, which would be terrible. Also, the screws are left out of the wood just enou...