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" Termites Stay for Dinner Q:  My house is built on a concrete slab, and I thought this made it impervious to termite damage. Now I&amp;#039;ve found pinholes in the drywall surfaces of the dining room. I suspect that termites are inside the house. What do I do? A: You need to have a pest control contractor conduct a thorough inspection inside and outside the house and determine what should be done. As you have learned, termites can find their way through almost any kind of construction--concrete slabs included. They can enter through a crack as small as 1/64 in., about equal to the diameter of the period at the end of this sentence. That&amp;#039;s just enough space for one termite to squeeze through. Once inside, they will attack wood, the paper face on drywall, cellulose insulation, books, cardboard, leather and even animal furs. Your natural instincts are to protect your house and to take action as quickly as possible. This can cause you to make a snap decision that you may later regret. Although termites can cause serious damage, they work slowly, so you have time to do your homework, interview contractors and come up with a plan. &amp;quot;When homeowners panic, they set themselves up for unscrupulous contractors of any type,&amp;quot; says John Fasoldt, owner of United Exterminating in Cherry Hill, N.J. The pest control inspection and treatment may require that carpet be taken up and baseboard trim removed (perhaps along with the drywall behind it) so that the base of the wall can be inspected. There are several ways to treat for termites, though they&amp;#039;re not all available in every area. The method you settle on will depend on local conditions and how the industry is regulated where you live. For that matter, the pest control company may suggest a combination of methods. Whatever the contractor suggests, your best bet is to be thoroughly informed about your options. BAITING: Baiting stations are implanted in the ground close to the house and in other areas termites are expected to be. This system&amp;#039;s advantage is that it uses very little termiticide (in the bait) and does not require disruption to your home, such as drilling holes through the foundation slab. One disadvantage is that it works more slowly than other processes. Also, it&amp;#039;s more expensive than other methods since it requires the stations to be monitored several times a year. SOIL TREATMENT: This involves drilling through concrete slabs and foundation walls outside the house, and sometimes inside, so that chemicals can be placed next to or under the foundation (see above illustration). The specifics of this treatment depend on how the house is built. Soil treatment may involve using repellent or nonrepellent termiticide. Repellents kill but also repel termites. This treatment method depends on forming a continuous chemical barrier--sometimes a difficult proposition, depending on soil types and building characteristics. Nonrepellent termiticides work differently. Termites can&amp;#039;t detect the chemicals in the treated soil as they move through it. They then carry the termiticide back to the nest where it kills other termites. For more information, click here. An old house can be long on charm but short on electrical capacity. By hiring an electrician to handle the parts of the job requiring pro skills, but doing grunt work such as pulling cable yourself, you can make extending the house&amp;#039;s electrical capacity more affordable. 1: LET DOWN Sash chain is lowered from the attic to the basement.  2: LIGHT UP  A flashlight is wedged between the floor framing and the soil stack. It shows a clear path around the stack or one that needs to be cleared. 3: LONG HAUL  Unroll enough cable to allow it to be pulled into the attic. Wires in the cable are exposed, bent through the chain and smoothly taped to it. 4: X MARKS THE SPOT Drill a hole in the ceiling above where an outlet or switch will be installed. Poke a 14-ga. wire through the hole and bore through the top wall plate next to the wire. 5: PANEL DISCUSSION The cable runs to the service panel, but work in the panel is best left to a pro. Bill Lego is a licensed electrician in Rockford, Ill. Hit the Deck Q:  I plan to build a house and I want to increase the service life of the roof deck by applying a waterproof paint to it before installing the roofing. Is there any reason why I shouldn&amp;#039;t paint the deck? A: Don&amp;#039;t waste your money or your time. Oriented strand board and plywood rated for roof decks won&amp;#039;t be improved by paint. If sufficient moisture vapor or water attacks a roof deck from above or below, paint won&amp;#039;t help and you&amp;#039;ve got bigger problems to worry about than just whether the roof deck is going to delaminate.  The way to ensure that the roof deck lasts as long as possible is to install it correctly, cover it with a properly installed underlayment (felt), and then install shingles or other roofing. As we have said here many times, the attic should be properly ventilated and insulated.  For ice-dam protection, consider installing a self-adhesive membrane such as Grace Ice &amp;amp;amp; Water Shield (graceathome.com). Although this material is not a substitute for sound construction, it provides protection at the eaves from water penetration. Door to Door Q:  I have a recessed basement entry door that is a nuisance because its stairwell fills with leaves in the fall and snow in the winter, rendering it useless for much of the year. I want to place a sloping cellar door over the steps leading to it. What advice can you give me? A: You&amp;#039;ll be glad you undertook this project. New cellar doors can be attractive and long lasting, and they are a big step up (if you&amp;#039;ll excuse the pun) from the type of basement entry that you currently have. Some can be equipped with a gas-piston hinge that makes lifting the door much easier compared to hefting the steel or wood doors of years ago. Most cellar doors are made from painted steel, which is certainly durable, but these doors need to be repainted from time to time. One alternative is a high-density polyethylene plastic door, such as those in Bilco&amp;#039;s Ultra Series (bilco.com). It&amp;#039;s designed to never need paint.  Also, most people are familiar with cellar doors installed so that the door&amp;#039;s long axis is perpendicular to the house wall, but there are types that are installed parallel to the wall and in a corner where two walls meet. Steelway Cellar Doors makes typical doors but it will also custom-make a door for unusual installations (cellardoors.com).  Installing a cellar door is well within the means of a mechanically experienced homeowner. As to how much it will cost, $750 to $800 would be about typical. A large door, one that includes factory-built steel stairs or has such options as an exterior-keyed lock or a gas-piston lift-assist, may cost in the range of $1100. My 4-year-old son and I found it difficult to talk to each other during our bike rides because he was seated behind me, so I built this sidecar that lets him ride next to me. It has a unique independent suspension system that enables me to lean into or out of turns, and keeps the sidecar&amp;#039;s self-tracking wheel on the ground. The system consists of a Schwinn-type springer fork assembly with an expansion spring. The spring expands and contracts to offset the weight of the sidecar rider so his seat doesn&amp;#039;t drop to the right; it also gives me a kind of &amp;quot;neutral buoyancy&amp;quot; so I don&amp;#039;t have to lean against his weight when I turn. The neck of the springer fork assembly goes through a hole in the side of a 2-in.-sq. piece of box tubing and is held in place by retaining nuts. A mounting flange at the end of the tubing is attached to a piece of flat weld steel that I cut to shape and bolted to my bike frame with 1/2-in. Allen bolts. I bolted a child&amp;#039;s seat to a bike rack mounted on top of the 16-in. wheel. The sidecar took three days to build and cost between $100 and $150. My son outgrew the child&amp;#039;s seat, so I recently replaced it with a bike seat and handlebars. The sidecar is detachable, but we always ride together. To learn more, click  here. Cabinet Door Fix Q:  The laminate has come off the corners of my kitchen cabinet doors. How do I fix this? A: Have a careful look at the corner of the door where the laminate is peeling up. If the core of the door appears to be sound, then the repair is simple. Use a fine-tooth hacksaw blade or a putty knife to spread some moisture-resistant adhesive under the laminate. Then, use masking tape wrapped from the front of the door and around the edge to pull the laminate down. Remove the tape once the adhesive has set, and use a razor-sharp chisel to pare off globs of adhesive that squeeze out from under the laminate while they are still soft. I&amp;#039;ve used this technique a number of times with good results.  On the other hand, if moisture from cooking or cleaning has caused the core of the doors to crumble or otherwise fail, you&amp;#039;re better off replacing those doors, or replacing all the doors in the kitchen. You will find it very difficult to make the laminate adhere properly to a deteriorated substrate.  Kitchen cabinet doors can be ordered at some lumberyards and home centers, and on the Web through sites such as cabinetdoordepot.com. Got a Problem With That? Q:  I want to make my concrete walkway about 2 in. higher. Is there a problem with pouring concrete over the existing walk? A: No. However, the concrete walk that you top over must be clean and in good condition so that the 2-in.-thick topping bonds to it. If the existing concrete is severely cracked or has settled unevenly, you are probably better off tearing it up and replacing it with a new walk that is the correct height. Before placing the new layer, which is called an overlay, thoroughly clean the existing concrete using UGL&amp;#039;s Drylok Concrete Cleaner &amp;amp;amp; Degreaser. The next step is to use a broom to scrub a thin coating of bonding grout to the concrete surface (one part portland cement, one part fine sand and enough water to make a creamy texture). It&amp;#039;s important that the grout not be allowed to dry before the overlay is applied over it. If you are applying the overlay on a hot day, dampen the concrete before applying the grout but make sure there&amp;#039;s no standing water on it. Concrete overlays shrink as they dry, and this can cause the overlay to lose its bond with the slab below. You can minimize shrinkage of the overlay by using concrete with a low water content. After pouring the overlay, float and texture it as you would any concrete surface (see  &amp;quot;The Joy of Concrete&amp;quot; ). Cover the overlay with plastic sheeting or damp burlap for several days after it&amp;#039;s poured to ensure that it cures properly. Finally, it&amp;#039;s important to put control joints in the overlay in the same locations as the walkway below. And if there are freezing and thawing cycles where you live, order air-entrained concrete for the overlay. This material has additives that form microscopic air pockets. The air pockets improve the durability of the concrete&amp;#039;s surface by providing space so that when surface moisture turns into ice, the expansion does not damage the concrete. For additional information on air-entrained concrete, visit the Web site of the Portland Cement Association (cement.org). A Nasty Look Q:  Is there a stripper that removes urethane paint from a concrete floor? The stuff looks nasty and is peeling up all over the place. A: Yes. The gel paint stripper Peel Away 5 is ideal for this. It&amp;#039;s expensive, about $70 per gallon (enough for 60 to 70 sq. ft. of floor), but the labor involved with thoroughly stripping a tough coating from concrete makes the product cost-effective. It can be ordered through Sherwin-Williams paint stores or from paintremoval.com. Q&amp;amp;amp;A Avoiding DIY Disaster Karl Champley is host of DIY to the Rescue on the DIY Network and HGTV. A construction industry veteran on two continents, he&amp;#039;s a licensed and award-winning Master Builder in his native Australia and a home inspector in the United States. What&amp;#039;s the most common mistake homeowners make when they start a construction project? They fail to organize and don&amp;#039;t do the necessary research. We had a couple on DIY to the Rescue that almost had a real disaster. While the husband was on a business trip, the wife used a sledgehammer to tear out two load-bearing walls. Now, I salute her for having the guts to do it, but it caused the roof to sag and her kids were swinging on live electrical wires that were left dangling. She should have talked with a structural engineer who would have explained how to install temporary bracing and replace the wall with another load-carrying member. On the show, we installed a beam to carry the roof load safely to the outside walls, and we got an electrician to relocate the wiring. What DIY project do people usually get wrong? Crown molding. Because it&amp;#039;s cut upside down, compared to how it is attached to the wall, it always confuses people--even carpenters who are out of practice working with it. Another is hanging a door in an existing doorjamb. I&amp;#039;ve seen doors hung upside down, hung with 2-in. gaps and hung so that they couldn&amp;#039;t close.  What can hurt a DIYer?  Almost anything, especially when they&amp;#039;re not thinking. As far as power tools are concerned, I think the most dangerous is an angle grinder equipped with a metalcutting or masonry-cutting wheel. These wheels can shatter if you twist them as they cut, and that&amp;#039;s exactly what happened to a friend of mine. He was working on a ladder using one of these tools when the wheel shattered. The flying debris struck him in the chest. I was there when it happened, and I can tell you that it was an extremely painful injury for him. Other tools such as circular saws, miter saws and reciprocating saws can also be very dangerous--both from their cutting action and from the debris they throw. That&amp;#039;s why I always wear safety glasses. Injury is bad in its own right, of course, but it also robs a person of the DIY initiative and the sense of accomplishment that he experiences. Illustrations by Flying-Chilli.com "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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