Sue

As a professional market researcher, I sometimes run across questions that are answered differently in different areas of the world.

I am looking for information about diapers (nappys) and their use in Egypt, and throughout the Middle East. Answers from those who live in, or have spent time in the area are most welcome, especially from mothers!

What do you use on your child? (Cloth or disposable?)

What brand are they?

If cloth, how do you fold them? Do you use anything to make them more absorbant?

Where do you buy them, and how many do you purchase at a time? (Individual diapers or an entire package?) Are they hard to find?

At what age to your children stop wearing diapers? Do you use diapers at different times (at home or away, at naptime or overnight) and other clothing at other times?

We have a full wii Rock Band, guitar, drums, microphone. We want to use the guitar purchased separately for Guitar Hero (also for Wii).

The Rock Band seems to recognize the Hero guitar as a second microphone, and not a guitar. Is there a way to help the system recognize the elements correctly?

Nobody wants to sing, but we all want to add a bass to the band.

After a bathroom wall repair, it is time for new colors.

I purchased a beautiful wallpaper border that looks like a stained glass panel. The 'glass' sections are shades of very light and medium/dark blue. I have purchased 3 shades of paint -- light, medium and dark from the same color card, so they match well.

The bottom section of the wall will be the darkest shade. Above the wallpaper strip (at chair-rail height) I want to mimic the streaky, stained glass look.

Once I have painted it dark, how do I apply the two lighter shades? What tools should I use?

A sponge or dabbed-on look won't work -- the glass look is streaky.

A portable humidifier that has worked well for about 5 years is failing.

The fan engages and runs at both speeds. The filter is clean. The digital displays are working, and appear correct.

However, the air exhausted is only cool (not cold like I expected), and the drain line is dry after a couple hours of operation.

When I removed the back cover, the black canister (condenser?) is very warm to the touch, although there are no scorch or burn marks. All the wires appear to be intact, with no frays or kinks.

The copper line from the black canister to the 'grill' in the front are cool, but not cold.

Thoughts? Would a freon leak be visible? Are there retailers who can recharge the freon (or just A/C repairmen?)?

It is a Maytag, manufactured by Fedders. I can't find a manual online to troubleshoot.

Upstairs bathroom toilet is sluggish. It flushes very slowly and gurgles when it reaches 'empty'. The slow empty and fill is drawing water out of the nearby bathtub P-trap, allowing sewer smell to back up into the house.

One plumber suggested that it was a vent clog -- but re-routing the venting and snaking the roof stack didn't resolve the issue.

Another handyman suggested that the wax seal/ ring has an air leak, that doesn't let water out, but lets air in somewhere. I'd like to try snaking the drain before I pull the toilet (its HEAVY!).

I have a hand-auger, not one on a drill. I know the drill-mounted one could tear up the porcelin, but don't know the risk with the hand-auger.

We have been experiencing sewer gas coming back up the bathtub drain, even after being snaked and treated with drain cleaners.

The situation -- when there is water in the P-trap under the bathtub, sewer odor doesn't come in. (I can pour a few cups of water down the drain and stop the smell).

However, when the nearby toilet is flushed, it seems to pull the water from the trap under the TUB out, and the odor comes back. As long as there is water in the trap, no smell.

Both the tub and toilet (and all other sinks and drains) work fine. There is no odor backing up from any other drain. The household water smells fine.

The trap under the tub (I've seen it) is below the level of the floor. It is probably a foot below the bathtub, off-set from the tub drain. The tub drain goes 90-degrees to the head of the tub, then drops 12" to the trap.

Where is the blockage? Why is there suction? Where else can I look?

Teenage son was running leaf-vacuum near the shed in the back yard, and scared up several (5 or 6) slender brown snakes with vivid yellow stripes down their bodies. We are thinking garter snakes. Confirm, please?

Where would they have wintered? Should I worry about finding them (or other more dangerous ones) inside the shed? It has a plywood floor and walls, and the door doesn't close tightly.

In south-east Ohio (Cincinnati) in a sub-division. Are there likely to be many dangerous snakes around? What can I do to discourage them?

The bathtub drain had been draining slowly and smelled sour. I removed the strainer, and pulled WADS of slimy hair out of the drain. The water drains smoothly now, so I think I got at least most of the hair.

I've tried bleach, but the smell returned immediately after the shower stopped running. Also tried baking soda and vinegar. Smell stopped only as long as I ran water down the drain.

1) What could it be?

2) How to kill the smell for good?

My garbage disposal isn't grinding up debris correctly. When I investigated, I found that one of the rotating 'hammers' moves freely, the other is stuck in place. When I try to move it, it seems that the whole inner unit rotates, so I don't get any leverage.

I'm not sure if it's been torqued on the screw, or if something has gotten wedged under the moving part.

Does using the allen wrench to 'back up' the motor do anything for the individual hammers? (The wrench is missing, so a hardware store trip is required in any case).

The instruction manual offers no help.

We spent an hour setting up four profile characters (clothing, left/right handed, gender, age) and then tried to play the game.

The game defaulted to the 4 versions of Tiger (just different shirts) NOT the profiles we had created and saved.

How do we get back to the profiles? Can we do it mid-round?

And, if one player gets tired (or pissed) and wants to quit, can you delete them and continue the round without them?

Bathtub has a twist-open drain plug - you twist the cover and it pops up. There is not a lever mechanism at the overflow opening, just the twist-and-lift kind of plug.

The tub drains slowly and has a sour smell from the drain.

How do I remove the plug mechanism to clean hair and yuck out of the top of the drain? My next step would be a snake, but I'd like to try the drain itself first.

A leak of clean water (overflow from sink) seeped through the ceiling of the room below. As soon as it dried (over the next day or two) a brown ring appeared.

I know the water was clean. The drywall itself 'should' have acted like a filter, right? Not allowing 'dirt' to leak through... but why is the stain brown?

Is it color from the brown paper backing from the drywall board? If it is, then why are brown stains also on real plaster (that doesn't have paper)?

I know the solution is bleach, Kilz/primer and fresh paint - I am just curious to know the cause of the brown stains.

The previous owners of my home used gooey construction adhesive to fill holes in the drywall.

One bathroom has drywall damage repaired in a variety of ways -- all bad. I need advice on each repair!

1) Screw/ nail holes filled with gooey/ stretchy construction adhesive (like from a caulk gun). These were painted over, but are now soft buldges.

2) Doorknob hole, patched with mesh. However, they didn't mud (and sand) over the mesh, just painted it. The mesh is dented, too, and pulled loose.

3) A towel rod (I think) was hung, and re-hung. There are a variety of metal anchors and the plastic screw anchors, but I can't manage to pull any of them out of the wall cavaties -- unless I damage more of the wall. Do I bite the bullet, yank them out, and then repair the larger holes -- or hammer them in, and patch over them?

Overtop all these bad repairs, has been applied a chocolate brown shiny latex paint. Needless to say, brown is NOT a good color for a bathroom!

My concrete slab patio has started to settle. I think it is about 10 years old, is about 8x12 feet rectangle, and (remarkable) has not cracked. It does have a sawn 'joint' in the middle.

BUT, it has settled toward the house, allowing the rain water to drain between the corner of the slab and an inside corner of the house. (The house forms two edges of the patio.)

I know that I can have it jackhammered out, re-leveled and re-poured, but would rather know more about concrete lifting.

1) Do they have to drill holes thru the concrete slab?

2) Does the jacking process crack the slab?

3) Because the low spot is in a corner, how dangerous is this to the house itself?

Educated responses, please. I appreciate the feedback from people who do this for a living, have priced it (and either did or rejected it), or other people who have worked with concrete.

Bought a home that is 10 years old, and had been empty for the last year/ year and a half.

I remembered that draining my water heater to get the sludge out was a good, idea... so I turned down the heat, waited a couple hours, and then hooked up a short garden hose and opened the drain out...

The water ran smoothly, with no crud or debris that I could see (I drained it down the floor drain). I had not turned off the inlet water, so don't think I drained it 'dry' (I was worried about any heating elements, even tho I had turned the heat way down.)

How long should it have taken to drain the tank completely? (Its a standard house sized heater, and based on the small amount of rust on the bottom isn't brand new).

How long to let it drain?

Turn off the inlet water, or not?

Worry about pilot light? Turn it off or let it be?

2001 Toyota Corolla, with just over 100K miles. I keep it maintained, and it will last another 100K, for sure.

But, it's ready for spark plugs (the oil change place showed me the plugs, and they are getting dirty).

I am fairly handy with fixing things -- not afraid of power tools and getting dirty... but need kind of STEP by STEP instructions.

What tools do I need?

Recommend brands of plugs?

Hints for getting them out, inserted and set correctly?

I was advised to unplug the cap, so that I can draw them out straight. To work on a cold engine if possible. And, most important, to be careful not to cross the threads - either in or out.

But, how difficult is it to set (is it called gapping?) them correctly so that the currently smooth-running engine, keeps running smoothly?

And, last, if I do something wrong, how do I trouble shoot?

My breaker box (fuse box) is on an exterior wall of the garage. I want to install both an inside AND and outside outlet on that wall.

1) How to add a circut to the breaker box

2) How many outlets can I put on that circut? Can both new outlets be GFI protected? (One box facing inside, one facing outside)

3) Do I cut the exterior wall from the inside or the outside? (How?)

I've done some basic wiring, outlets, installed fans, fixed lamps, etc. but nothing that involved bringing NEW wire from the box to the outlet site.

I am preparing a garage floor for epoxy paint.

There are old grease stains that I cannot remove. I have used a garage floor degreaser, with scrub brushes and a pressure washer. DIYnetwork suggested dishwasher detergent, laundry pre-treater, etc. but I am concerned that putting too many competing chemicals might cause toxic fumes.

After pressure washing, there is a large light brown stain remaining (the oil/ grease had been so thick we actually scraped it away before degreasing).

Is there a way to test the surface to see if the stain still contains oils that would keep the epoxy from sticking?

The garage kit includes an etching chemical, and a two-part paint (pigment and activator).

There are also some shiny black paint stains (drips) that even the pressure washer couldn't blast off. I actually pitted the concrete attempting it, so more pressure isn't an option.

This weekend, a teenage boy and his mom (me!) will be on the roof cleaning leaves out of gutters, scrubbing the gutters themselves (algae) and using a powerwasher on siding.

We have a multi-level roof, and will be standing on a lower portion while cleaning the upper-level gutters at about head-height.

What safety equipment should I consider?

A friend who worked as a painter would set an empty bucket at the end of his scaffold platform, so that he would kick it BEFORE he walked off the end. So, I'll do that, but what else?

Home is 10 years old, was vacant for a year before I bought it.

One shower has cold water only, no hot. The single knob turns on the water, with decent pressure. As you rotate the knob to get more hot water (mixing in hot with the cold), it does not warm up. When you dial it all the way to hot, there is no water flow at all.

It appears that the hot water is not able to get through 'somewhere'. How to diagnose?

1) other showers and adjacent sinks all have warm/hot.

2) second floor bathroom, no easy wall access

3) no apparent leaks currently

Could the hot water to JUST that one fixture have been turned off? Where? (If there was a leak, and this was the former owners way of dealing with it.)

The hardware store guy said it might be the 'stem', and showed me a couple of $15 parts that could be bad.

Is this the kind of repair that a semi-handy person could complete? (I have completed a variety of different home repairs, but would not call myself an expert!)