Richard C

I hit a concrete dumpster enclosure. No damage to concrete, but one estimate put the damage to my car at $1700. My deductible is $500. Can I call my insurance company and talk about whether or not I should claim it? Will my premiums go up significantly?

I bought a Makita 10.8 V Ultra-Compact cordless drill. It has a 1/4" hex shank. How do I put drill bits in it? Do I need to buy a separate chuck?

The grout in our new tiled shower was cracking in the corners, so I removed the grout with a grout saw and put caulk there instead. Within 24 hours, the caulk had a crack down the middle of it in some places. Can I put a thin bead of new caulk where the crack is, or do I have to cut out the caulk and reapply?

What did I do wrong to make it crack?

My electronic air cleaner broke. Until I fix or replace it, can I just stick a paper filter in the electronic cleaner's housing? The paper filter isn't quite the right size on one end, so I was thinking I could just plug the gap with wood cut to size or something. Will that be ok?

All the casing will be MDF, but I've heard concerns moisture issues with the sills. Should they be hardwood?

The advantage seems to be that it fits in tighter spots. Are there disadvantages? Are the nails more expensive?

I'm refinishing a table. I'm staining the top and painting the legs. I'm planning on using a polyurethane with a satin sheen for the top. Should I get paint with the same sheen?

I know there's probably not a right or wrong answer here. I'm just looking for helpful opinions.

What uses more power: doing the timing (using quartz) or physically moving the gears that control the hands (including a second hand)?

My parking garage at work has a stairwell. If you started at the top floor of the garage and walked down the stairwell, you'd have to go through a simple swing gate before going down the last set of stairs to the bottom floor.

The gate doesn't look like it locks or anything. It's just a gate. It seems like many other commercial buildings I've seen have gates to the bottom set of stairs.

The only reason I can think of for the gate's existence is that it would serve to discourage people from going below grade during a fire emergency or something.

Any other ideas?

What's the difference between sandpaper and a drywall screen when sanding joint compound? I've been using sandpaper to sand it. Would I get better results with a drywall screen? Less dust? More even finish?

Aren't you really just "renting" the office? Is there any difference, other than the residential vs. commercial difference?

I'm putting new baseboards in my house. I'll be buying a miter saw to help do the job. I'm getting tall baseboards (5 1/2" or so), so I'm trying to figure out what size miter saw I need to get.

If I cut the baseboard flat (horizontally), a 10" saw would work. But miter saw manufacturers always list the height of baseboard that can be cut vertically against the fence. So if I did it that way I would need a 12" saw.

Does cutting vertically provide for a cleaner cut, or is it just marketing? Do I need to buy a 12" saw?

I am doing some minor remodeling on a house. I wanted texture on the walls but didn't want to deal with the mess (and expertise required) of spray texture, so I'm creating a custom texture on the walls by hand using lite joint compound and a 12" taping knife.

My question is: what do I do on the ceilings? Can I do the same thing on the walls, or will I kill my back (especially if it needs sanding). I've heard of people wrapping a small piece of plywood in plastic and using it to apply joint compound to the ceiling such that it creates little stalactites that you knock down after they have hardened slightly. That sounds difficult to get uniform across the entire ceiling.

What should I do?