Robert, Thank you for your response. I must admit I have had oil techs service my furnace in the past but I have never watched them carefully enough to learn anything. But I will next time. BTW, the CMF80 Miller furnace I have has given me many years of reliable service...I make sure to keep the fil...

Hello Robert, I've been a member of this forum for quite some time and spend most of the time lurking. I know that oil-fired furnaces are not your forte, but I have a general question on maintenance. As a DIYer, can I remove the burner to change the nozzle and check on cond. of electrodes and heat e...

Ron, That's what I did (i.e. applied a coat of paint to the plywood)when I installed self-stick tiles to my bathroom floor. Mine have held up quite well after several years, although in some places gaps have formed between the tiles esp. noticeable during the winter months when frost heaving shifts ...

We have vinyl skirting with vented pcs every so often. The vents are open. We live in Iowa. Last week we were down to -34 with a wind chill of -45 below. I have a wireless thermometer under our house - the coldest it got was 19 above zero! Usually it has been stayin around 32 or 33 with an occasion...

Wow, all this talk of hard water destroying water heaters is making me paranoid. I must have one of the finest electric water heaters ever constructed 8) . I know I have hard water and I have no water softening system hooked up. But my water heater is at least 13 years old and has never missed a bea...

Very nice Mark ...I hope you have great success with your latest endeavor. I wish we had one of these stores in Maine...mobile home parts are rarely found in the big box stores. In these tough economic times, let's hope lots of people discover the economy and good value of owning a mobile home!

Do you smell sewer gas coming from the floor registers? That would be odd :shock: ...I'm thinking that perhaps there is a p-trap(s) that may be void of water and the negative pressure created by the furnace sucking air from the house is pulling sewer gases through the drain pipes, hence the odor. Ch...

Sounds like your drain vent may be partially clogged/blocked. When the washing machine drains it is syphoning the water out of the toilet P-trap. This probably also accounts for the sewer gas smell in your next question, since the reason for p-traps is to block sewer gases from entering the home. Wh...

Strangely coincidental, but I just heard on the local news tonight of our state's largest manufactured home builder (after 14 years) closing its doors for good after laying off 80 workers in December. Reason for closure cited: "the lack of orders for manufactured homes probably stems from the n...

I hear ya Audie, I see that same thing all around me and everywhere I've lived :( . I think the real American dream belongs to us mobilehome-owners who can actually afford to pay for our homes and therefore can better enjoy life because we live simply and don't have to work like madmen or slaves to ...

Just proves that besides fire, a mobilehome's worst enemy is moisture :cry: ...it needs to be addressed immediately. First line of defense is a roof in tip-top condition. Get that snow off in the winter and don't let ice dams form, and seal and reseal in warmer seasons. And plumbing leaks need to be...

Thanks for all the ideas guys...something to think about over the long cold winter months. Hopefully I never have a catastrophic plumbing failure :( ...if that happens, then I will seriously consider a design upgrade. I am mostly curious about how my plumbing is laid out and where the troublesome fi...

Hello All, In light of the previous post by Haggs...it seems to me that the underbelly of our mobilehomes is terribly under-designed and causes a lot of headaches when problems occur :cry: , esp. during winter months. Has anyone redesigned the "underside" to make things more easily accessi...

I have Qest plastic shut-offs at all my faucets...mine don't leak, but some don't stop the water flow when turned off . I may replace some of mine also...might be a good way to become acquainted with PEX pipe, fittings, and crimp rings. That way I'll be ready if a major PB failure occurs

Like Greg said, most problems with polybutylene pipe is with the fittings, which have a tendency to crack and leak :cry: ...chlorine in the water may lead to degradation of fitttings. PB pipes are quite serviceable in straight runs...may be problems where the pipe has been bent/elbowed. Don't think ...