I'm so glad I found this thread because I have a similar problem. We just bought our house a month ago. There's a window in the shower, above the tub. The previous owners had sealed the window shut with silicon caulk. I knew the grout would need touching up but this morning I tried opening the window to see how secure it was, and it opened right up. It wasn't even locked let alone sealed. There also is no extractor fan in there (having one installed this month) so now I'm really anxious that the wall is full of water. We can't afford a reno right now. Can anyone recommend the best stop gap solution to limit damage while we save up for a reno?

We will be obtaining estimates in the next few weeks for our hardwood flooring project. We have approx 1000sq ft of 20 year old existing hardwood that will need sanding and refinishing. (this is the original job finished 2.25" red oak installed at the time of our home construction) At the same time we will be replacing carpeting from 2 large rooms and a stairwell with new hardwood installation to match existing which will be approx another 800sq ft. We have never refinished flooring or lived in a house during installation before. One concern is that my husband is in a wheelchair and the whole kitchen, entry foyer and hallway to the bedrooms will be included in the refinishing process. How long would this project be anticipated to take? Will my husband need to find a hotel room if his access to bed and bath will be unavailable? Are there ways the installation process can be segmented to limit his loss of access for the fewest number of days? Other than the access issues, I would also like to hear general tips on questions to raise with the flooring contractors during the bid process. What are the issues I don't want to overlook when deciding on which contractor to go with? I am currently using Angies List to locate highly recommended contractors in our area. I have my first on-site estimate scheduled for this coming Friday and plan on getting at least 2-3 other bids. I have choices of small owner run companies with 3-4 employees up to large business' which have 60 employees or more. We just had the interior walls, wood trim and baseboards in these rooms painted over the summer so have some concern about how to best protect them during flooring installation. Our old floors had an oil based Swedish finishing process called Glixa which we loved for its durability and smooth finish, but we are hearing that such finishes are no longer available and everything has moved to water based for environmental reasons. Are there certain finish products that would be recommended over others? My main concern is that we get enough finish coats of poly to really protect the floors. We had a small room done a few years ago in which they said the initial stain coat counted as the first poly coat and then they just added 2 more coats of poly for their "3 coat" finish. That room still has wood grain texture that can be felt with your hand or catch threads of your socks when you walk on it. I was not happy with the final finish in that room as compared to our 20 year old finish. What do I need to know about the grades of hardwood to make sure we get quality wood that will closely match the grain pattern of our existing wood? I am hoping to get basic information here to help me avoid the common pitfalls with hardwood installation. I am in the process now of doing searches on older posts here and trying to get up to speed. If someone has a link to a helpful post that would be great too. The kitchen forum was such a tremendous help during our remodel. I am now looking forward to getting to know all the flooring experts here on this forum! Thanks for any input or suggestions!

He came out to look at it before hand so it was included in his bid, just not written on the contract he gave us. It was a regular 4x4 post that had rotted near the ground and made the entire section weak. Nothing else unusual about it, it was easy to get to, etc. it just wouldn't budge. We ended up filling the hole with water overnight (a trick I learned in this forum :) and with a little more digging we got it out ourselves. It ended up being set in what I would estimate to be about 18" of concrete. I guess what really rubbed me the wrong way was that one, he left and took his tools without telling us anything then later texted that it would take another hour and he'd need another $100 to complete the job. Before that, I didn't even know this post was any more difficult than any other post. Then he made it sound like he did us a real favor in the first place with his bid. It was within reason of other bids, so I don't think it was any real steal.

It should have been spread in a more uniform pattern out. Most guys use a special roller with randomly spaced indentations which create salt rock pattern to produce a nice coverage. That said you can bring it up but not much can be done at this point. In addition, not sure if they told you that "if you live in the region where you get winter season" the indentations in concrete fill up with water and freez and that could cause spalling. So if you deal with winter it would be a good idea to seal the driveway to prevent that from happening. This type of finish is more popular in the warmer climate region.