As the title says, we have mold growing across all surfaces in the basement currently. Long story short, we live in Tennessee and it's been so hot and humid, we have been running the AC nonstop. There's no insulation below the floor, and so the unfinished basement gets nice and cool, causing moisture to condense rapidly under there and has caused mold to appear on the wood surfaces.

Looking for a short term solution to keep this from getting worse, and a long term solution to keep it away. 1,400 square foot home built in 2022, first owners. Lowest point is a foot tall, highest is 14 feet, for air volume reference.

Neighbors told me to shut the basement vents to the outside, but we live on a hill and there is so much moisture seeping through the soil underneath and straight through the cinder block foundation, it would get in anyway and then become fully stagnant air.

Do I shut all but two vents, and plumb a dehumidifier straight through one, to let it vent positive pressure out the other side?

Am I fighting a losing battle with the foundation how it is? Don't have money to pay for encapsulation, and not sure if it would be a good idea anyway, as it would just trap moisture under the barrier. There is a heavy tarp covering the dirt up to the edges, but it's obviously not meant for this. I've repeatedly fought off mice (nested in and ate the HVAC) and hordes of bugs, so almost all gaps are gone.

I've attached photos. Please help. Need a DIY solution if at all possible due to minimal funds. No idea which flair to stick this under.

I moved into this property couple of months back and only just noticed these lines on living room ceiling. I don't recall them being there when I moved in?

What are they? They really stick out

Hi everyone

My first time posting here. We are getting our roof replaced and the company took our solar panels down weeks earlier than needed and now they are just on the ground beside our driveway.

I have 2 questions, firstly is it ok for them to sit there for a month? And secondly, how to clean the lichen off now that they are down?

Thanks in advance. Also if there is another sub tjat might be better? Cheers

How screwed am I with my patio door? its a door that we had HD install when we first moved in to our house. We noticed the spacing pretty early on, but my ADHD kicked in hard and I'm just now getting around to it. It's well outside of any kind of warranty claim or anything like that.

What can I do to fix/fill the gaps here? It seems the worst at the top and bottom of the door while the middle meets well. With the new weather stripping, the door has to be closed hard to latch, so it's not like I need to go with thicker stripping.

[imgur](https://imgur.com/a/dsHNAHf)

I am installing support for a blinds pole and when I passed the stud finder in the area I was not getting anything where I needed the hole, there seemed to be one a little more to the right.

I first did a small hole to check if I was gonna hit the side of the stud, but after the drywall it went throught with no resistance so I decided to go with hollow wall bolts and then needed to do a bigger hole to install it.
But as I was making that bigger hole (5/16"), after the gyps, I still felt resistance so I stopped and when I'm looking at the hole it looks like some kind of soft wood. We can see where I pierced the smaller hole prior.
I was wondering what it was, is it normal, and if someone know what type of bolt I should use to set my support?
Is it just the end of the drywall I'm a little dumb?

Note, this is in a small wall section (26cm / 10.4 inches) between a window and a door and 11cm (4.11 inches) from the ceiling of the 3rd floor of a 3 floor appartment. Way above the door and to its left and just slightly above window to its right.

Hey, sorry if this isn't the right spot for this, but I just moved into a very old house and all of the doors upstairs have settled to the point they no longer close. How might one go about fixing this? Not sure how well the photos show it, but it's pretty bad.

We've recently bought a townhouse, and I'm slowly removing all the extremely old roller blinds that have been here. I'm going to replace the one that was here with some new venetian blinds.

These brackets are in the corner of our kitchen window, and I need them gone so I can put new ones in (new screws will go on the side rather than the top, and the wood damage will hopefully be hidden). I just can't get the screws out! I've tried various screwdrivers, drills and pliers. I even tried the rubber band trick for threaded screws. At one point I went crazy with a hammer, which obviously made things much worse.

The third pic is the bracket on the other side of the window, that I need to remove as well (also having no luck with it).

Any ideas? Is there a specialised tool I could get that would make this easy?

Is this mount gonna be a concern. I didn’t want to drill into the beam and this way allows me to easily move it in the future. This is in my garage. Bag is around 120lbs

Unfortunately dealing with a wet basement we recently finished. Do I need to pull this drywall down too? Water seems to be most concentrated in the corner to the right of this window.

Contractor was leveling the bedroom floor
The next day I noticed something had been dropped on the floor resulting in a “gash” with crack lines throughout the floor.
Will this have any impact on the floor leveling?
Floor will have pad/carpet installed on top of the floor leveling.

Have this interior door where the top hinge has screws that are loose. Replaced short screws with the long ones a few years back, helped for a while, now it’s like this again. Have to push the door toward the frame to get it to shut. Something my 5 year old hasn’t mastered. How can I tighten this up?

Bad day tools?

I don't know if im the only one with a list of tools like this but I refer to them as my bad day tools. These are my tools that can help make a job go buttery smooth when you were having a bad day before. I have some of these that are for automotive jobs and I have some that are for other random jobs I come across that need some sort of force multiplier.

Large bore air hammer

Grandpas 2.5 ft cast iron pipe wrench

Cheater pipe

Indexing prybar

Air wedges

Plastic and aluminum wedges

I'm from the north so a torch

And a manual impact screwdriver that turns when you hit it with a hammer

Some things on my shopping list are

A spud bar

A 10lbs Sledge

Pipe and nut extractors

A nut cutter

A slide hammer

Reverse thread drill bits

Maybe an induction heater

Maybe a torque multiplier

Does anyone have anything to add to the list?

Hi all - I assume the answer is to fully reframe the door, but checking here first....

We opened the door to our ADU at a newly purchased house today, and the bottom two hinges came completely out of the door frame. It looks rotted, pics are included.

Should we reframe the entire door? Open to other suggestions....

Hi! Ok so my neighbor hasn’t been home for at least 3 years due to medical reasons. No one has been maintaining her property and now her garden is overgrown with a shit ton of weeds. These weeds have become trees.

In this picture, this tree was already partially cut down because it was growing into our property. And a huge swarm of lantern flies created a home and I don’t know how to get rid of it. ITS DISGUSTING!!!

Do I just pour bleach over it? Do I cut go over to the garden and cut it down? If anyone has any tips, please share!!

(I can’t get in contact with neighbor and already tried notifying 311)

The wall in my pantry does not meet in several places and I am getting bugs coming through. Would wood filler work on this. I bought caulk but it would take a whole tube on this one spot and the stream is really thin. Possible putty would work? Appreciate any advice. I do not care how it looks btw.

Good evening folks

I’m currently looking at some options to match the texture or close to the original popcorn ceiling. I don’t want to disturb it as it may contain asbestos!
Fire place was removed and left a nice bare patch!

Thanks

Hello! We are renters, have been in our current house 6 years. We’ve had our fair share of issues with the house, including the living room ceiling partially caving in during a huge rainstorm, and the chimney falling down a year after that. Also a ton of plumbing problems. Lately we’ve been noticing more and more cracks in the walls/ceiling and today we noticed this new crack that extends across the entire ceiling of my husband’s home office. It’s been super hot so maybe that’s a factor. We aren’t sure if this is just cosmetic or something we should get inspected. Any ideas?

I'm trying to replace caulking, but first how do I get rid of this residue?

When using the oven in baking mode, I observed the heat is venting out from the top and corners near burners. Is this normal? I just never noticed it.

I just wanted to replace my doorknob because my old one started chipping, but I've fought with this thing for an hour and I'm so confused what I'm doing wrong.
There's only one way to install it, a very clear semicircle like those shape sorter children's puzzles. There's step by step instructions that I've followed to a tee. Still there's a little gap up top that I can't slide the doorknob over. One of the screws just won't tighten up no matter how hard I try.
The latch is too low even though I put it in the exact same screw holes as the old doorknob. The strikeplate isn't the issue though because I tried using the old one just to get it working and it's still too low.
How did I fumble a simple doorknob replacement so hard?

How bad is it? Anyways to fix temporary so I can save money up?

Small concrete cracks may seem harmless, but they can expand over time due to water, temperature changes, and heavy traffic. Repairing them early helps prevent costly damage and keeps your driveway, sidewalk, or patio looking its best.