Which is better to use for securing a TV to the wall?
20369
I have some plasterboard screws like this:     However, without a drill I have a job getting them into the wall. Am I safe to use normal screws on hangings that aren't going to be taking a great deal of weight? In this case it is a rack of coat hooks.
67292
Having electrical outlets, USB charging ports, night lights, etc would be nice to have on some pieces of furniture, like side tables. Several receptacle manufacturers make combination fixtures with USB and power, for instance, or power plus a night light.   I've thought about nailing an electrical box to a (hidden) portion of the table and putting one of those receptacles in it, but what things do I need to consider doing this? Is it as simple as it sounds,  and then just fashioning some kind of plug out of 12/2 or 14/2 wire? Does the answer change if the box is concealed (though still accessible) vs it being completely visible?
58932
I am having some contractors build a window well for an egress window at my house. I have the option of doing solid concrete walls for the window well, or cement blocks (which he said he will fill with cement anyways). The concrete walls are significantly more expensive (about 1k more) so I am thinking of just going with concrete blocks, but are there significant reasons why I should choose the concrete walls instead and suck up the extra cost?   Also, do people typically put some type of drainage system in the bottom of the egress window well (sump pump or otherwise)? Is it necessary?
96043
I probably have this diagram for my project. Or problem.  Facts:   a) only 2 wires out of wall, B &amp; W;  b) switch ON, lights ON  Ceiling electrical box:   One black and one white connects to the ceiling light fixture.     Project: I need to add a combo switch/outlet  UPDATE after suggestions  Grey= Neutral Is this right? If it is, it seems to me receptacle will be ON at all times, right?
89111
I'm trying to come up with a WiFi solution for an industrial building, 100 ft long by 50 ft wide, with 3 main areas. See image below  Concrete walls separate the rooms, and the one long room is a semi-corrosive wash-down area. Staff use mobile devices that require a strong, uninterrupted WiFi connection, and they are often moving throughout the building while using the devices. I don't want repeaters or extenders or any other mechanism that would result in multiple SSID or channel connections for a tablet to contend with (dropouts for reconnection, or failure to switch to a stronger signal, etc). I just want to use one access point, but just with better coverage. Instead of trying to buy the most powerful access point on the planet, using brute force to blast through those walls, I was thinking of using extension antennas. So I'd take a consumer-grade access point with 3 standard antennas, remove 2 of them and replace with coax extension cable (green in the image) and keep 1 original antenna (blue). Especially for the wash-down room, I was envisioning drilling a hole in the concrete wall and slipping the antenna cable through, so in the end, only an antenna would be exposed to the corrosive environment, and still provide good signal strength to staff in that room. My ultimate question is: will this work? Is there something I'm not aware of, like perhaps that access points with multiple antennas aren't designed to work with their antennas separated by 10-20 ft? Thanks
20730
I've always had the question of how much weight can a single screw into a drywall withstand?  For instance, I would like to do things like this:    It's hung with 5 screws. The whole thing weighs approximately 50kg (110 pounds) so we can say that each screw holds approximately 10kg (22 pounds).  The person who installed it said it was fine, but is it really?  Do somebody know a study or some numbers regarding how much weight this material can stand?  EDIT: Just to clarify, it's not screwed to the studs. It's screwed to the drywall.
22533
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but it doesn't seem immediately obvious how a thin strip of paper tape actually helps the taping process in drywall installation except for perhaps reducing the amount of mud needed between panels. This, from eHow:  Embedded in a layer of drywall joint compound, drywall tape creates a physical bond between adjacent sheets of drywall. Although the bond does not significantly contribute to the structural support of the drywall sheets, the bond reduces the movement and cracking of the sheets.  Wouldn't simply mudding between the joints have the same strength without the tape, albeit requiring more mud?
106294
I was wondering as it's getting cold : is it better for my electricity bill to shut down completely my (electric) heater during day, and to turn it on again when I come home (then it will have to heat the room from something like 5°C to around 20°C), or should I keep the temperature around, say, 15°C while I'm away ?  I would naively guess it's better off, but I'm also wondering about inertia of the walls for instance...
118578
Other than -Wall what other warnings have people found useful?
88303
I'm a Electrical Engineering student and I want to sense and sample the voltage signal  coming from a wall socket (110V - 220V). I came up with the following circuit using a voltage divider with high impedance and a diferential amplifier. I would like to avoid using a transformer because of weight constraints.  Is there a better way to solve this problem? Should I use a capacitor divider instead?
78989
I want to install electrical outlets in my unfinished basement that has block walls.  It is my understanding you can't have cable on the walls--that whatever cable used must be protected by conduit.  My idea is use NM-B cable from the breaker box, run cable through joists down 3/4" conduit to box with GFCI outlet. Then run the 12/2 cable back up the same conduit and thru joists until it goes down conduit on wall again to an outlet and so on.  Is there any issue with taking cable down and back up the same conduit due to heat?   Trying to do this with the least conduit installed as possible but safely.
71227
My new mini refrigerator is plugged into a 50 ft extension cord that is plugged into my house. Does it cost more to run because of the cord?
69118
What would be a good solution for hooking up the satellite TV box (Dish network) in my room to be able to watch it on my PC and possibly record video from it?  Please share with me the best cards, cables, software, anything else needed to do this in the most efficient way?  I am looking at the WinTV-HVR from Hauppauge.  I am not sure, for performance, what would be the best to go with, PCI, PCI express, USB2.0?  Also on the Hauppauge website I saw this note: "WinTV-PVR products will not work in PC systems with 4GB or more of memory."  The new PC I am building will be 12-24gb of DDR3 RAM, does that mean their products will not work at all with my memory?  So confused now!
27693
I have  which I use for my computer. It currently holds two 27&quot; monitors. The monitors are too low for my eyesight, so I bought  to hold them up and free some space underneath. I was reading a bit about how strong the desk is, and it looks like the desk is likely too weak for the weight to be put on one 5cm x 5cm spot on the desk, due to the wooden panel's structure:  So I need something to distribute the load across a larger surface of the desk. Probably something that's tough enough to actually distribute the load as opposed to something weak that will bend and just pass the load on the spot. I'm not very experienced with DIY projects, any idea what I could use? (I'm in London, UK, if it helps)
30547
I'm replacing a one piece fiberglass tub with a two piece (tub + surround) unit.  In the bathroom right now, there's just drywall, no special material.  Should I replace the drywall with greenboard, or with a cement board material (i.e. Durock)?  How many feet adjacent to the but should be replaced with one of those two materials?  Should I also replace the material behind the vanity with one of those two?
93688
I am building a mini pinball machine, which is about 10x22cm.  To drive the flippers I plan to use this 5v mini push/pull solenoid:  , along with momentary SPST buttons and a 5V 2A wall power adapter.  Those are the only electronic components in the machine. I am not using an Arduino or any other controller.  In this scenario, is it advisable to use a diode (or any other components) to protect the power supply?  If diodes or other components are advisable, I will be grateful if you could explain at a very basic level why they are needed and where they should be inserted into the circuit.  The schematic below is pretty much the current extent of my electronics knowledge.  I am interested in expanding my knowledge but find many of the technical terms used on this site overwhelming.  Here is the circuit that I have so far:
25017
My new home is almost done being built, and one of the extras I asked for was for two of the rooms to have junction boxes in the ceiling suitable for hanging a ceiling fan in the future.  The light fixtures haven't been installed yet so I can see inside the junction boxes but can't really distinguish between the braced boxes and the regular boxes.  The attic is extremely limited access so I want to avoid crawling around up there to look for a brace.  Is there a quick or easy way to distinguish between a junction box that is able to carry the weight of a ceiling fan safely versus one that is not?  I could just take their word for it but they haven't had a very reliable track record so far when it comes to following through with my requests even when they tell me they will do it.