Tom Raymond

You can't adjust a torsion spring. The spring is sized to the weight of the door by altering the wire size, the diameter of the spring, and the number of coils. The spring gets wound 1/8 to 1/4 turn beyond 1 full turn per foot of door height to balance the door. That is a small door, adding a strut or perforated angle to the top rail won't add enough weight to make a difference to the spring or the opener. Add a strut per panel and the door will no longer balance but the opener will likely still work fine, though the plastic gears will have a slightly shorter service life. Greg, there is a bracket for doors that don't have a center stile, but it doesn't work on doors with windows in the top panel. [] Mike is right about the down force, it's too high, and the bottom limit is probably wrong too. With a torsion spring that opener can be anywhere but above a vertical stile is preferable. I have a client that has one opener centered between two doors, it's been opening both for over a decade.

Well, when any idiot can buy a can of spray foam and air seal something, sure it's got potential to be dangerous. It takes a fair amount of training to do it right. Hell, BPI doesn't even have it down right.

I have Paslode guns, they're junk. The OP specifically mentioned finish nails, and those are not available dipped.

Where I live there are so many underground NG leaks you can smell them driving down the road, sometimes for miles. One of my clients works for the local provider and carries a bound book more than 1/2" thick of the known leaks in his territory.

Collated nails for guns are dipped in an adhesive, not hot dip galvanized. Finish nails rated for exterior use in your Paslode are either EG or SS. They might be acceptable for a little fix, but they won't hold that siding on for very long.

There was a similar explosion in Cheektowaga or Depew (suburbs of Buffalo) in the 90s. Two people died and the adjacent houses were destroyed. I couldn't find a link to the story, but that neighborhood is closer to Julie than it is to me. I'm sure she'll remember it.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend an alarm. We are required by our SOPs to point out far sillier stuff. My camper has a smoke detector and CO detector that run on AA batteries and a propane detector that is wired into the inverter. Seems to me the manufacturer is far more concerned about propane leaks.

If you deal with people long enough you develop radar for assholes. It's just that simple. I apply a PITA percentage for every little tingle of the spidey senses. Most of the time I price myself out of the job, and on the rare occasions I don't there is some (not enough, but some) compensation for the extraordinary headaches.

That's the big flaw in the system; roofs leak. I wouldn't worry about condensation.

I wish I had an $800 competitor. I really do. It would be far better for my bottom line than the $150 moron.

There'd be a flat lintel a course or two above the arch.

I like Jim's description better.

Great pic! I'm very tempted to snag him for my wallpaper.

The AHIT inspector makes 76k gross. They forgot to mention it cost him 70k to do it.

Except that he specifically asked about shakes. By the time each course is interlaced there is so much felt on the roof the plywood is pretty inconsequential. Shingles only perform well over plywood when the slope approaches plumb.

That's funny! Last year I earned enough to cover my hard costs, and lost enough on my soft costs to recoup most of what I paid in taxes. Is that what you mean by break even?

Time to recommend a new electrician.

We had a party line in the mid 70's. Can you imagine having so little use for a phone that you could share a line? Ah, the good old days! Edit I was so busy answering phones while trying to type this that three of you managed to post first. Kinda ironic.

Tell me about it. I got myself overbooked and skipped my '30 minute charge before a scan' routine. After sitting for only a few days the only battery was stone dead, and the damned thing won't run when plugged in. Luckily it was just a scan and I could rebook it. Even luckier; it was for the day job, so they looked dumber than I did.

Phones had wires on them, really?

If you already have the Ipod, you can get an Extech bluetooth moisture meter or multimeter instead. You can freeze an image and import data into it via blueteeth and capture it all at once. They not only bumped the pixel count, they cranked the sensitivity too. It's a much nicer tool than the Bcams for the same money, but they still come with only one stinking battery.

I really like the fact that there is a trade association producing that fine manual, but it lick 'em and stick 'em stone ain't masonry. They really should have chosen a better name.

Just steal one from the 30s below it. That'll fix it[]

We can't buy it here- it hasn't yet made it to the East coast retailer's shelves. It will be as soon as one of the local supply houses figures out who to talk to. My Certainteed rep just had his products pulled from Lowes in Springville and a Home Depot in Hamburg. Seems a distributor wanted to up his volume a bit.

TNR in 12 point. I can't read anything smaller on my laptop screen, and I like the way it looks. My contract is 10 point, but that was to keep the page length to a minimum.