I’m quite certain you’re a new subscriber who joined us this week. Welcome!  Each day I’m able to see all new subscribers and it warms my heart that you trust me to share useful home improvement information. This issue has quite a few fun prizes. Be sure to pay close attention to the Tony Hseih story below.

 

You, on the other hand, might remember the column I wrote about insulation installation. I’m talking about the one where a contractor admitted to installing it WRONG each day of his entire career. OUCH!

 

CLICK or TAP HERE to read this fascinating story.

 

SUPER STOCKING STUFFER - SPY GEAR!

 

This is a SPY CAMERA for your house or office. It's masquerading as a common USB charger that actually works!!!!

 

This is a dandy thing to have to catch all sorts of nefarious activity inside your home or office without the evildoers knowing you're recording.

 

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover how to start your CIA training.

 

Prevent My Newsletter From Disappearing

 

Each week I get at least three emails from subscribers asking me if I'm still alive or sick. Here's a typical one. It came from John overnight:

"I don’t receive newsletters from you anymore. Don’t know if I was dropped from your list or if there’s a different problem. Sincerely hope all is well with you."

 

I've been publishing this newsletter each week, sometimes twice a week, for years now.

 

Do you want to make sure it shows up each time in your INBOX? Then do these three simple things:

 

1. OPEN each issue. Don't look at it in the preview screen of your software.

2. CLICK at LEAST TWO LINKS in each newsletter - Seriously, this is IMPORTANT.

3. CLICK HERE and READ this great article from my friend Leo who's an email EXPERT. He shares all the cool tips about what you need to do to keep getting important email.

 

While you're reading Leo's article, I URGE YOU TO SIGN UP for his helpful newsletter. He can solve just about ANY tech issue you may have with your computer. You'll discover one of Leo's pet peeves is backing up data.

 

Leo's a tech jeanyus! :-)

 

Christmas Shopping Reminder

 

When you’re shopping for Christmas gifts at Amazon.com, you can help make sure this newsletter CONTINUES to arrive in your Inbox. How, you might ask?

Please use my affiliate link to do your shopping. I get a tiny piece of each sale for brokering the deal. It doesn’t cost you anything. Jeff Bezos just ends up with less money to buy fuel for his huge private jet.

 

Water Hammer Fix

 

Consider this. A cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds. Visualize water pouring out the end of your garden hose as if it’s a small clear freight train chugging down a track.

 

What happens when you shut off a valve FAST, like your dishwasher or washing machine fill valve? That freight train of water crashes against the valve. BOOM! CRASH!

 

How do you STOP the resulting water hammer?

It’s not hard. CLICK or TAP HERE to see what I’d do if I came over to your home with my tools. You did invite me, right?

 

Tony Hseih and You

 

Did you see the news story about the tragic death of Tony Hseih the week before Thanksgiving? You may not be familiar with Tony, but there’s a great chance you bought something from him. He was the founder of Zappos.

 

As we all know, you can’t trust what you read or see in the news today - I say this and I’m a member of the working media! I don’t have the exact details or autopsy report of what caused his death and even if they were in a news report I’d want to read the coroner's autopsy report myself.

 

But I can speculate because my anesthesiologist father-in-law helped treat many of the survivors of the historic 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. 

 

Here are just a few of the victims in the temporary morgue that was set up in the Ft. Thomas, KY Armory that fateful night.

The 165 souls who perished in that horrific fire died of smoke inhalation. But it wasn’t just any smoke. 

 

It was highly toxic smoke generated by burning plastic and synthetic materials. 

 

You have countless things in your home that will create this same poisonous deadly smoke as soon as they start to burn.

 

My father-in-law worked 36 hours straight in the ICU treating people whose lungs were permanently damaged from this fire. He shared that the people who perished took one, maybe two, breaths of the thick black smoke saturated with toxic chemicals and died instantly.

 

My guess is Tony died from the exact same thing.

 

Why should this be important to you? I maintain that Tony is screaming at you from up in Heaven right now that you need to be hyper-aware of fire safety in your home.

 

You need to make sure you have great smoke detectors that are NOT worn out and have lost their early-detection capability. Yes, smoke detectors SHOULD BE switched out every few years. CLICK or TAP HERE to see ones that I prefer. 

 

You need to have an ESCAPE plan that gets you out a window, and not running through a smoke-filled house to get to a door. Remember, one or two breaths and you could be in a body bag.

 

When traveling, you need to know how to quickly get out of the place you’re staying. Once again, not necessarily crawling down a long hallway.

 

CLICK or TAP HERE and check out the vast number of helpful FIRE SAFETY tip sheets produced by the NFPA.

 

Sewer Gas In Your Home, Apt, or Condo?

 

Have you had a sewer gas issue that drove you crazy?

 

I need your help to create an authoritative guide about sewer gas.

 

Can you answer just two questions for me?

1. What is the MOST IMPORTANT question you have about sewer gas?

     2. If you’ve had a sewer gas issue, I’d like to know what was the SOURCE of the sewer gas?

 

If you’ll take the time to answer those two questions, I’ll make sure you get a FREE COPY of the guide once it’s complete.

 

Please CLICK or TAP HERE and just answer those two simple questions to qualify for your FREE COPY. Thanks in advance!

 

Arecibo Radio Telescope Collapse

 

Did you hear about the other tragedy in the past week? The one in Puerto Rico?

I just came across this terrifying video of 900 tons of steel falling about 500 feet to the ground. The first half of the video is from the ground. The second half is from a drone hovering over the steel cables as they stretch and fail. WATCH the entire short video. Pause the second half of the video every second to see the cables EXPLODE as they fail.

 

CLICK or TAP HERE to WATCH THE VIDEO and think about this the next time you cross a suspension bridge. You better hope your state DOT is doing their job making sure the cables are in great shape!

 

My First Company Ad

 

I’m in the process of scanning hundreds of old family photos to share with my relatives. I'm then uploading them to cloud storage so they're safe. Future generations will be able to look back at these digital images to see their ancestors.

 

CLICK or TAP HERE to see the bakery my grandfather and grandmother operated in Cincinnati, OH.

 

I’d guess this photo was shot in the early 1920s. My grandmother is the woman on the left in the white dress standing next to her oldest child, my Aunt Clara.

 

Scanning the photos is a fun project. You might consider scanning your old photos especially if you’re housebound this winter.

 

Mixed in with the photos, I’ve found some other treasures. My mother in her infinite wisdom, SAVED a copy of an ad that I’d put in everyone’s mailbox in my neighborhood. This would have been the summers of 1972 and 1973 when my good friend John Pendery and I painted houses. It was my first foray into entrepreneurship.

 

What’s FUNNY about this ad, looking at it now, is how much could I possibly have known about installing concrete, finishing drywall, and hanging wallpaper at that age? I was 20 or 21 for goodness sake!

 

It’s laughable! Keep that in mind when you hire an industrious but wet-behind-the-ears contractor!

 

Thanks, Mom for being a packrat!

Do you want  to get FREE BIDS from LOCAL contractors that have FAR MORE experience than I did when I walked around my neighborhood all those years ago?

 

CLICK or TAP HERE NOW to get FREE BIDS.

 

That’s quite enough for a lazy Sunday.

 

I’ll have lots of great revised columns for you on Wednesday.

 

Tim Carter

Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com

Clean Organically - www.StainSolver.com

Morse Muff Time - www.W3ATB.com

 

P.S. What's 100X STRONGER than concrete? I’ll bet you don’t know the answer!!!!! CLICK or TAP HERE to see if you guessed wisely.