Jim Katen

The roofer can't fix it. You need a stucco contractor to fix it. They'll need to cut back the stucco to about a foot above the roof, install building paper, lath, & weep screed, and lay in new stuco. The roofer did the best he could with what he was given.

Any decent wood shop with a planer and shaper could manufacture it from scratch for you. If you're lucky, they might even be able to do it without the planer if they can find off-the-shelf clapboards with the right bevel and thickness. Finding the wood stock will be the trick. You really want vertical grain for a product like this - preferably old growth.

What a fucking moron. Can I say that?

Water can wick up behind the stucco and rot the wall. The installation in your picture is dead wrong, but it's not the roofer's fault, it's the stucco installer's fault.

I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for letting us know, Jim.

Rational reactions to a rotten world.

I had something similar in my room when I was very small. It was from a later period - the '50s, with a cowboys & indians motif. Haven't thought about it in decades.

Ain't it the truth?

Those look like a lot of fun. I've got to admit though, the first thing I thought when I saw the cover was, "Jovrnal? What a bunch of pompous asses."

I'd love to see this site grow and stay relevant, I'm just not sure what that would look like. The internet has changed . . .

I can only speak for the way efflorescence behaves in my corner of the woods. When I see a band of it, with "uneffloresced" brick beside it (as is the brick at the upper left side of your 2nd picture) then it's a pretty safe bet that you've got water entry above that part of the wall. That might or might not be a bad thing, but it's definitely not a good thing. Quick tip to make your writing more engaging: Never start a sentence with "There is." When you do, that sentence is entirely unnecessary. Instead of saying "There is <thing>." Just jump right into whatever it is that's a problem with this thing. For instance, you might write: There is much efflorescence (white powder) at the east and back walls of the building. This is typically caused by excessive moisture coming into contact with the water soluble salts in the brick and/or mortar. You can brighten it up even more by getting rid of two-for-one phrasing and unnecessary modifiers: There is much efflorescence (white powder) at the east and back walls of the building. This is typically caused by excessive moisture water coming into contact with moving through the water soluble salts in the brick and/or and mortar. Finally, get rid of the passive voice: At the east and back walls of the building, water entering and moving through the brick has caused efflorescence (white powder).

If you hire the plumber and watch him work, you can write off the cost as "education."

With the exception of the clotheslines, that could be today's lower Manhattan.

I like all of them.

In the deep recesses of my mind, I recall something that Mike Casey wrote about this. Sadly, I don't remember the details, but I think it had to do with chlorine attacking the rubber on valve washers and O-rings. I'm also unfamiliar with that valve configuration, but I'd start by unscrewing the Phillips head screw at the base of that plastic stem and see if the valve comes out from there.

I totally agree with Les. For many years this site challenged and sharpened me. Interactions on Facebook and other modern internet sites dull my soul, so I avoid them.

What's the object in the left foreground, between the butter churn and the washtub?

You would have liked my old neighbor, back in Connecticut. She had a side business where she'd "age" other kids' new blue jeans by tying them to the rocks between high tide & low tide and leaving them there for a few days.

I suspect a cheap element. It's just a coil of wire that gets hot when a 240-volt current passes through it. There's not much the oven can do to make it fail. Try an OEM one next time.

Why do you put pneumatic tires on these things? The one that I had was constantly getting flat tires. No matter how often I patched the tubes, they kept leaking. My partner made one with rigid wheels - they never went flat.

Well, that should help with your "colon" as well, eh?

I used the metal versions 40+ years ago. In the early 2000s, I placed a garage slab at my own house and found that they had been changed to plastic somewhere along the way. The metal ones pretty much stayed put as the concrete was placed, but the plastic ones tended to bow outward when concrete was placed on one side, causing the finished joint to have a slight curve. Frankly, I'm amazed that these aren't used everywhere. I rarely see a concrete slab without control joints around here.

In the old days, I'd suggest Graingers. Nowadays, you can find pretty much anything you need on "the internet."

Whatever you do, don't remove it or the seller will accuse you of . . .

You're not supposed to rely on the yoke for grounding unless it's a self-grounding-type receptacle. The portion of the yolk in your picture doesn't show the self-grounding feature, but it might be present at the other end. Do you have a picture of the whole receptacle? Also, as John pointed out, the entire purpose of the mud ring is to bring the enclosure out flush with the surface of the drywall - or at least not more than 1/4" behind it.