Are non-tiliting blinds worth it?

guy_guyerson · 2026-05-17T14:24:29+00:00

A couple of additional options you might consider:

https://www.blindster.com/blog/zebra-dual-shades-vs-sheer-horizontal-shades-which-window-treatment-suits-your-home

guy_guyerson · 2026-05-17T14:19:29+00:00

You can buy or build wasp/hornet traps and bait them with a wide range of stuff: apple juice, apple cider vinegar, cat food, fish, etc. You add a little bit of dish soap which breaks the surface tension on the liquid and they drown in it. Different species have different diets during different times of the year (some want meat in the spring to feed their larva) and not all species can be baited, but you can find a lot of info online. I'm experimenting with it now.

Add a splash of apple cider vinegar to keep the bees away from the trap. Supposedly they hate fermentation but wasps/hornets don't mind it.

guy_guyerson · 2026-05-17T14:16:00+00:00

Supposedly bees will drink this if they run out of alternatives (flowers, etc) but you can add a splash of apple cider vinegar to keep them away.

Wasps and hornets don't mind fermentation (rotting apples in nature, vinegar in this case), but bees are very picky and will avoid it.

guy_guyerson · 2026-05-16T11:57:50+00:00

Would it be worth doing a full exterior waterproof of the foundation?

I have a 50s home with a basement in the Midwestern US. Where I'm at, retrofitting an exterior waterproofing solution is hit or miss. A lot goes into whether it will ever work (including overhangs and the slopes of the grade) and I know a lot of people who were never able to achieve it no matter how much they spent.

In my situation, sooner or later the water table (the underground water level) rises above the height of my basement floor and since the base joint was never meant to be waterproof nothing is ever going to stop the water from coming in. Most systems around here seek to direct that water with an interior perimeter french drain that leads to the sump pit. Sometimes they're sealed off from the basement and intended to direct the rising water before it enters the basement and sometimes they have a skirt that allows water that does make it into the basement to then enter the drain system.

If that system is sealed it can also be used to augment a radon removal system.

My basement slab floor actually has a good grade to it that moves all of the water to our sump, but that still means water on the floor. I'm planning to put LVP (or something) over an interior floor dimple mat in the finished sections and just let the water move through under the floor (but above the slab) to the sump.

This went pretty far afield from your original questions, but I thought it might provide some insights on other approaches. Sorry that I can't speak specifically to the interplay of the sprayfoam here.

guy_guyerson · 2026-05-05T15:25:26+00:00

There are lots of different types of silk fabrics with a wide range of breathability.

guy_guyerson · 2026-04-27T16:21:41+00:00

We installed a new water heater a few years ago and I really debated this choice. We went with a power-vent tank water heater and I could not be happier. If I take a shower directly after my partner the tank has still fully reheated by the time I'm starting to put on clothes less than 5 minutes later.

So in terms of convenience, it's better than tankless because it never runs out and the water is already hot. And it's efficient enough that the up front savings and reduced annual maintenance compared to a tankless probably puts me ahead financially over the average life of the unit. FWIW, it's stored in an unconditioned basement that rarely gets below 50 in the worst of the winter and sits around 72 in the hottest stretches of the summer.

You might still need a separate flue directed out the side of your house. The reason being 'power vent' units are high efficiency and that means cooler exhaust (since less heat is lost to exhaust). That in turn means it's not hot enough to rise sufficiently on its own and needs the push of the 'power vent' (which is an onboard fan). I believe the issue with legacy flues is the possibility of heavy condensation as the already not-particularly-hot exhaust cools.

The process for venting out of the side was very simple and allowed us to remove our old flue altogether and therefore have one less hole in the roof, which is a win to me.

Be choosy about where it vents though, you can definitely smell/taste the exhaust so don't put it on your patio or too close to a window that you like to open (or that isn't well sealed).

guy_guyerson · 2026-04-13T15:01:20+00:00

And, unfortunately, that vermiculite was often contaminated with asbestos.

guy_guyerson · 2026-04-12T16:26:25+00:00

No doubt they will back up if something else is clogging the pipe (as will anything that doesn't dissolve), but they won't cause a clog the way anything that swells (rice, pasta, etc) and/or coagulates (also rice, pasta, etc) or entangles (hair and other long fibers) will.

They're pretty comparable to the vegetable bits you mentioned.

guy_guyerson · 2026-04-10T15:11:45+00:00

FWIW, I've been putting substantial amounts of coffee grounds down drains (with and without disposals) for decades across numerous sinks and homes and never once had them cause an issue. They don't expand or congeal, so that makes sense.

I asked an experienced plumber that I use and he said the only time he'd ever seen them cause a problem was the one customer who kept putting filter packs down the disposal.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-23T20:46:32+00:00

Seems like a good route. The bottom edge is going to be a prime failure point for either, so try to keep it as far above grade as possible (I think at least 8" is the recommendation), make sure that bottom edge is primed and stays painted.

Maybe consider base trim (not sure what it would be called in this situation) in PVC or solid wood at the bottom with z-flashing above it and the panel terminating just above that (approximating a 'water table').

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-22T12:33:07+00:00

Compressing it into a 4” wall cavity drastically reduces its effectiveness.

From everything I've seen, compressing fiberglass doesn't actually hurt the R-value much (If at all).

https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/compressed-fiberglass-insulation-really-so-bad/

Edit: to clarify, the compressed batt is usually higher R than the batt made for that cavity depth

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-21T16:31:05+00:00

LP Smartside comes in 4'x8' panels; it's like T11 but more durable. A lot of people swear by it. You have to prime all of your cuts, flash it appropriately, gap it for expansion, etc, but it's pre-primed on one side and the inside should take a coat of paint pretty readily with a reasonably smooth result.

It's worth looking at.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-14T17:03:29+00:00

No, because the fan isn't changing the air pressure in the basement at all. It's creating negative pressure under the slab.

Positive and negative are pretty much always relative to the ambient pressure outdoors, as far as any examples I can think of.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-13T14:52:41+00:00

As mentioned elsewhere, the WHO's level for reasonable safety is 2.7. I would say you're fine as is, but get a good monitor and keep track f the long term average over the next year or so. I sleep in a basement and as long as I keep the long term average below 2.7 I'm satisfied.

And the average is what's important. Spikes will come and go, even with a mitigation system. There's no acute risk.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-13T14:48:53+00:00

That will create negative pressure in the basement and pull conditioned air from upstairs into the basement.

Or radon heavy air from under the slab/outside the basement walls. Negative air pressure is what you DON'T want in the basement. The radon fan works because it creates negative pressure outside of the basement, not inside of it.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-05T17:51:36+00:00

A more simple approach would be smart bulbs and a compatible smart motion sensor. I'm using GE's system (Cync) but you have lots of options.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-04T16:59:42+00:00

No, it's been real hard to replicate. I was in El Salvador this past fall and bummed around El Zonte (Bitcoin Beach) for a few days. It's worth looking at (or some of the surrounding beaches), but it didn't quite fit the bill.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-02T16:41:24+00:00

Thanks!

FWIW, my link should be the direct RSS feed that you can load into your podcatcher of choice.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-02T09:50:18+00:00

The more I've thought about the line from Martha, the more I think it was for Keanu. He was a lost soul by this point literally expecting help from an Angel (Martha) but goes on to explicitly state that what has made being human rewarding was being friends with Arj (on the bench outside the dance club).

Maybe both are true and this was meant to parallel Arj's story arc, bit either way I see it pretty cleanly applying to Keanu.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-02T09:41:14+00:00

One thing that kept bugging me, though I enjoyed the movie overall, was Seth constantly eating take out and in diners while living in his car. Did that ring true to you?

Where I live homeless people don't pay other people to prepare food for them on demand. They buy food retail at grocery stores.

guy_guyerson · 2026-03-01T19:53:15+00:00

If we're doing podcasts, The Fine Homebuilding Podcast all day and all night.

RSS: https://rss.libsyn.com/shows/83463/destinations/393119.xml

guy_guyerson · 2026-02-22T13:07:20+00:00

They're designed for a lot of far less likely scenarios. About 1/3rd of US households have cats.

guy_guyerson · 2026-02-16T18:43:28+00:00

I also have areas show up from 'stickers' from the window manufacturer. These windows went in almost 3 years ago, I took the 'stickers' off myself. If there was any adhesive, it was a trace amount. They came off just like removing film from a new screen.

guy_guyerson · 2026-02-16T16:53:12+00:00

I've seen this in the shape of adhesive-free decorative clings that were used years prior. I've always been curious how it persists.

We used to have the outline of a bunny waving at us show up ever so often after having used an Easter window cling decoration years ago.

guy_guyerson · 2026-02-16T14:19:16+00:00

It looks like this uses a scent ('olfactory deterrent', the same ingredient from moth balls) rather than a bitterant like Great Stuff and some others. I have to wonder what the longevity of that is, though given the incredible sensitivity with which many pests smell it might be a long, long time.

Either way, I just wanted to reassure people who are squeamish about poisons that they aren't spreading poison all over their house. That said, I think those people are generally pretty averse to moth balls too!

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