Home Improvement Ideas

Archive for February, 2011

Nothing cuts cleaner and faster than brand new planer blades, but after repeated use, they can wear down. Once time takes its toll, the blades will revert from cutting to instead chipping and tearing at the wood. This will create more work and may even cause a project to be ruined. There are a few simple steps to help keep the blades cutting like new for a very long time.

The first is to dress the edge before or after each use by using either a leather strop or sharpening stone. The strop method only works if done after each use of the planer. This helps to keep the edge at its original sharpness, much in the way a barber strops a straight razor during a shave.

The sharpening stone should be used sparingly so as not to alter the original edge too much. The blade itself should be kept against the stone at an approximate 22-degree angle to maintain the original chisel edge that was put on at the factory. Use oil when sharpening the planer blades to assist the stone in doing its job and use a stone that sharpens to a fine edge.

The roof truss, forms the core and stability for a home or roof of a building. The truss pattern itself is used extensively in engineering applications related to bridge and other civil building construction along with other critical infrastructure like power pylons. The most common truss used for a roof is the pitched or common truss which is shaped like a tetrahedron-which represents the overall simplest shape of a truss.

For a roof, the truss is used to frame the actual shape itself. The trusses are usually pre-fabricated out of wood and are ultimately what holds the roof up. The advantages of trusses are that they are very strong, are less expensive because they are typically produced in shorter sections of lumber, any shape or style of truss can be built, the load bearing characteristics are such that long sections will distribute the load to the walls rather than onto the interior walls, and finally trusses can be quickly built and assembled.

A lot of the normal configurations of roof trusses encountered are named according roughly to their shape such as the W truss, M, Scissors, and Gable. Once the roof trusses are up they are fastened with metal plates and then a sheet of plywood covers them. Because of the fundamental shape of a truss, there usually is not much room for an attic.

You roof is leaking and you need a roofer, but how do you know which roofing contractors are good and which should be avoided?

Here are some important consumer tips to help you avoid mistakes when hiring a roofer.

Use a prescreening service. Don’t request a roofing bid from just anyone listed in the phonebook. Anyone can be listed in the phonebook if they pay for it. Before inviting contractors into your home to give you an estimate you ought to seek a recommendation or referral from a trusted source such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB) or a contractor’s association in your area. Better yet, consider using one of the popular services that prescreens contractors and schedules free roofing estimates for you. Typically contractor prescreening services evaluate contractors located in your area for State contractor’s license, proof of insurance, and customer references. They do this at no cost to you with absolutely no obligation. These free services have become very popular because they take the headache out of the process and make it very simple for the homeowner.

If you are in the market for a cool roof to save you money in energy bills and to do your part in helping the environment, there are many options out there for you. Here are just a few products that are likely to grant you the best energy savings possible, while offering the greatest protection for your home or building.

Flat Roofs

If you own a flat roof, you are provided with convenient energy saving resources. Flat roofing membranes, unlike tar and gravel roofs, are reflective and are designed to save you energy and money. A flat roof membrane’s high reflectivity will help to reduce the amount of energy required to cool a building and keep it cool throughout the hottest points of the year. This decreased amount of energy consumption causes a lower amount of pollution to be generated back into the atmosphere and directly contributes to a cooler and cleaner environment, all while you save a little money. Some roofing membranes that are energy efficient include:

• TPO
• EPDM
• TOPCOAT

Like everything else in your home, a brick fireplace needs to be maintained. Since it is generally the focal point of your room, when it gets grimy or dirty it is likely to be very noticeable. So it is important to keep your fireplace looking crisp and clean so your room will always look its best. You can clean your fireplace, and if you have an old brick facade on your fireplace, you may want to update its look as well.

Assess the Firebox
If your fireplace has been properly maintained, and the bricks are just a little grimy, then you can give it a good cleaning before you decide what else you may want to do with it. To clean your fireplace, begin by giving it a good sweeping. Remove all of the ashes, and you then give the firebox a good scrubbing. Even after all of your elbow grease you may not be able to get all of the black soot marks off of the firebox walls. If this is the case, you may wish to simply paint the firebox a uniform black with heat resistant black paint that is designed just for this purpose. By making the entire area the same color, even though it is black, it looks planned, not grimy.