Last year I replaced most of my home’s old aluminum rain gutters with vinyl rain gutters (some people call them “plastic gutters”). My previous seamless aluminum gutters were at the end of their life, falling off my house and bent beyond usefulness after years of being dented and dinged by ladders, falling branches and even a baseball or two. I considered replacing my aluminum gutters with aluminum again, but after I weighed the pros and cons of aluminum vs vinyl rain gutters I decided to try something new. …

Okay, what is the photo on the right? Is it a photo from Africa’s Serengeti National Park? It is the remains of a foolish attempt to grow a lawn in the Arizona Desert? Maybe it’s a farm that specializes in growing hay?

Sadly, it is none of those things. It is, unfortunately, my back yard. I live in New Jersey where we’ve been suffering from a heck of a drought for the past three months. In March we had double the amount of …

It was while I was in the middle of framing and insulating my basement that I first found the mysterious leak in my basement. One sunny day I was happily putting up steel framing and when I returned the next rainy day I found a pie-plate sized puddle forming right where the basement foundation and cinder block walls met.

My basement has always been bone dry until I found this leak, which suddenly had me wondering if I should even bother to refinish …

A caulk gun is one of those tools that everyone can identify, but not a lot of people use on an everyday basis. Caulking guns can, of course, be used for much more than just caulk. They can spread out caulk, sealants, adhesives, and just about any other tacky chemical or material that is designed to be used with a caulk gun.

Most caulk guns have a nozzle cutter in the handle.Caulking …