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Possibles:
-curing concrete: will outgas for over a year. Mostly outgasses moisture.
-pressure treated lumber: in your house, it’ll ONLY be in the basement, next to the concrete. Used wherever framing needs to rest on concrete, to make it tolerate the moisture from the concrete: every floor joist will rest on it, plus all walls. Some versions still use arsenic in the mix, newer versions use a variety of chemicals.
-Formaldehyde from any interior grade plywood, some expanding foam used to seal cracks, and I think from waferboard (OSB). If your basement is unfinished, some OSB will be exposed to the basement air, but not so exposed to upper floors.
I’m in a similar climate (typ humidity is 20%), and I doubt the humidity is high enough, even with curing concrete, to support much of any mold or mildew growth.
I’d see if anyone else can smell anything different about your basement. And see if you’re sensitized to what’s in others basements. And I’d look into what was in the pressure treated lumber, and anything that may outgas formaldehyde. Sometimes the lumber is marked. Again, if any of the basement is unfinished, the floor joists are glued in place with construction adhesive, and your builder should be able to identify what brand/model they used. You could get some and see if it bothers you.
A possible temporary help is to make sure you have lots of air flow in the basement. Keep basement windows open, possibly add window fans. Could help for the next couple of months without affecting your heating bill. You could run this scheme all year round, if the air flow is thru a heat exchanger. They’re efficient enough that you’d only lose 20% of the heat running thru them.
I used an AAV only when I had no other choice. And some local building codes don’t allow them. Kind of a neat invention, tho. Looks like they were invented in Sweden in the 70’s. And I see some of the cheaper models have had some failures. Better to use the ones with a lifetime warranty (such as a Studor).
My bad. Thanks for pointing out my mistake. When I looked up the thermostat model, it’s pretty obvious. One of the good things about this forum, is when you say something wrong, it’ll probably get corrected.
Looks like it could be either 120VAC or 240VAC, since that Honeywell thermostat is rated for either. Certainly enough to be lethal, so please don’t try this unless you’re sure you’ll be safe. Better to call an electrician.
Misc problems nonetheless, most of the problem dryers I’ve worked on had restrictions in the vent connection to the outside. Usually lint, sand, dirt, mouse droppings, etc either in the flexible vent hose or just inside the dryer in the same vent air path. Frequent enough that it’s always worth checking that it’s open.
Even tho many or most of the respondents are amateurs, I’ve seen extremely helpful responses. And apparent professionals that correct mistakes in my responses.
Hopefully the general mood of just trying to be as helpful as possible will never change. For one, if I had to assume liability for my responses, it’d be difficult to voice my opinions.
To the frequent an infrequent contributors here, thanks much. I enjoy learning from your wisdom.
I usually have an opinion, sometimes poorly thought out, but occasionally with a lot of experience behind it.
If you’d like to have a better feel as to whether an opinion is well qualified, well, you’re pretty much on your own. If you keep following this forum, hopefully you’ll see as I do that there’s a lot more good advice than bad. I’ve seldom seen bad advice here go uncorrected.
I’m building a house that will have ceramic tile most places over heated floors, so this problem is near and dear to me.
The real problem is figuring out what caused the floor (and tile) to crack. Will it get worse, will it repeat if you patch it, and most importantly, will the tubing in the heated floor leak. Depends on what is causing it, and how wide the gaps in the cracks get. Just patching the cracks won’t change the cause; it’d only be cosmetic.
If the subflooring structure is unstable, if the supports on the ends of the floor joists are moving, those need to be solved first. Lots and lots of possible causes for floor movement.
If your heated floor was done with PEX tubing, and that’s they way they’ve done it for a number of years now, it’ll tolerate some cracking without problems. If its older and done with rigid pipe, it won’t tolerate as much.
For thermostats, black is generally the common side of the transformer. White is hot. And it is AC, not DC. HOWEVER, it’s not unusual to find things wired wrong. If doing this by trial and error, try the conventions mentioned above.
Here’s a link for color conventions for thermostat wires:
http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/wiring.html
If it were me, I’d pull out a voltmeter, as Bink suggests. Put it on an AC volts scale, and check from the white and black wires to the bare one. If wired as I suggested above, the white wire will show about 24 or 26VAC.
I’m going to build one next year, and would like to follow the advice here. Please keep the web site up.
Thanks.BTW, I’d like to follow the example of the redneck mailbox, including the statue. Or at least I would if my wife would let me.
The best way to vent DWV (drain pipes) is to run the vent all the way to the roof. A little cheaper is to add a local vent that doesn’t go thru the roof (it’s a little one way valve, and stays in the room). The work then involves digging up several square feet of the basement floor, new ABS drain pipe and fittings, and the local vent. And pour new concrete over it all.
BTW, my wife designed and put together ALL the drain system in our house, including about 5 vents. She picked up the Sunset plumbing book from the local library and figured it all out. So, if you’re adventurous, you COULD do it yourselves. The worst part would be the basement floor demolition. The rest isn’t so bad.
Carlos’ solution is correct. Present code calls for smoke detectors that are hardwired AND have batteries. When the batteries get low, the detector starts chirping. And batteries are a little lower voltage when they’re cold than when they’re warm, so they’ll start chirping when they’re cold. If you ignore them long enough, and the batteries run down a little more, they’ll chirp when they’re warm, too.
See
http://www.jeld-wen.com/resources/installation.cfmThere you’ll find instructions for pocket and other windows.
More specific help would depend on what type of window you have.
Regardless of the price, it’d be hard to use for measuring windows. It’s a rangefinder, for Pete’s sake.
The lazy guy’s approach is to go rent an ionizer. The commercial, heavy duty, high output models (also known as ‘ozone generators’) actually oxidize the smoke particles. Even when they’re embedded in surfaces.
Cleaning with vinegar & albumen sounds like a good approach for solid surfaces. You can replace drapes, fabric furniture, carpet, etc, and clean the rest. Or you can try the heavy duty ionizer. Follow the directions. You’re oxidizing everything in the area, and that’s akin to aging & exposing to sunlight. Too much will be harmful to the exposed items. And don’t hang around while it’s running.
Also, here’s an article on the topic:
http://www.lasvegasnewspapers.com/realestate/REAug-07-Sun-2005/2763301.htmlAnd let us know here what you tried and how it works!
My Dad uses a mixture of sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide to bleach out stain and age from 90 year old antique furniture. You’d need to strip all the varnish first (such as with paint remover and a lot of gentle abrasion). There are other bleaches, with different properties. Chlorox isn’t one of them. See
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Bleaching_wood.htmlThiggy is right, tho. Not household chemicals. And there is a variety of stainable baseboard material that’s good quality. A lot of hardware stores carry oak, but if you look, you can also find ash and others. The yellow pages for my town has 12 listings under ‘millworks.’
