Even if your BIL lives a long way away, you can always call him for advice. I’m pretty good with doing most of my own electrical work but if I have a question I just call my dad since he’s a retired master electrician. He can usually tell me what I need to know without even looking at the job.

This week’s project is improving the heat transfer from our massive double sided fireplace. It has a steel firebox with a very basic heat exchanger. Airflow through the heat exchanger is poor. I’m adding a blower in the basement to draw air from a nearby register and force it up over the firebox, out the vents on top.

Basically trying to squeeze every single bit of efficiency possible out of a very inefficient heat source since I don’t currently have the time or money to install an insert.

Will there be other drains from the same room tied in? Your drawing should work but it may need to be altered a little if there’s a toilet on the same branch.

They installed the new one in parallel with the old one? That seems like a terrible idea.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Then again, that’s probably what the first guy told himself while he was bending/kinking pipes to get around other fixtures. 🤷‍♂️

Thanks! I’ve already found a pinhole or two that I’ve had to repair. Long term, all the plumbing and electric needs to be replaced. Thankfully most of it is pretty accessible.

Depends on the model. I figure about 2 ft. X 2ft. X 2ft. Is about average.

Whole house humidifier. They’re great if you live anywhere where it gets dry in the winter.

Took me days to figure out what was going on, because it didn’t occur to me that the outside GFCI would be protecting my kitchen lights.

I hate that. Some genius was either too cheap or too lazy to wire it correctly and just tied it into an unrelated circuit.

Use a multimeter instead of a voltage detector. Those things are ok for a quick check but can be very unreliable.

Is it possbile that the light is on a three way switch and the other switch is off someplace else? Also, are you sure the light is on the same circuit as the outlets? Do you know where the light switch feed comes from?

This brings new meaning to the phrase, “Paddle faster. I hear banjos.”

You have my sympathy on the basement flooding issues. Been there. Thankfully not sewage backup in my case.

it’s definitely not an issue you want to let go for long. If there’s an obstruction, it will get worse quickly as more solids go down the drain. Easiest way is to just hire a plumber. Complexity and cost are going to depend heavily on the cause and location of the obstruction.

If you want to try to DIY it, you could try to snake the drain but on a 3 or 4" line you’d need a good sized power auger to make any serious headway.

If it were me, I would get a sewer inspection camera. Low end ones start at less than $150. This is really the only way you’re going to find out what the root issue (no pun intended) is outside of paying a plumber to come do the same thing. A large wet dry vac also comes in really handy in these situations.

How old is your home and what’s the sewer line made of?

The big gap looks like the mortar has just deteriorated to the point that it’s fallen out. It’s not ideal but not necessarily an emergency yet either. Most likely the ground under the foundation has settled a bit. How urgent it is depends partly on whether the crack continues to expand. I would check it every week or two for a few months and see if it gets any wider. You can use a deck of of cards and keep track of how many you can squeeze into the crack. That will tell you if it’s expanding.

I would also suggest making sure you don’t have rain water collecting anywhere next to the house. If you have downspouts, make they’re they’re diverted away from the house as much as possible.

If those are the right boots, what do you do differently to keep them from leaking?

Nice to see they’re still chugging the AI Koolaid after completely blundering their test rollout of AI search results.

This is great! Thanks so much for the advice.

That makes me feel better. There was no crown initially. The flue tiles terminated flush with the brick inside the chimney cap. The old cap made cleaning and inspecting the flues difficult. It also had a fair bit of water damage.

What would I use as a base for the new crown?

From what I can tell it goes all the way down.

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I suppose the decorative brick could be just considered a chase. I haven’t been able to find any similar examples so I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at.

Sorry, I suppose I should have clarified that. The right side is the “gap”. Both flues are lined with clay tiles. The left flue is not visible in the picture.