contractors

Photo by PoPville flickr user Pablo Raw

“Dear PoPville,

Mold has formed around some of our air conditioning vents in the ceiling. I once bought a Groupon or livingsocial coupon for mold prevention services and they upcharged us for everything (not surprising). DIY is an option too I suppose, but I’m not confident I’ll be able to tell if it’s more pervasive than the area’s I can see. Let me know if you can help!”

“Dear PoPville,

I’m wondering if you can put a request out for recommendations for exterior wood window painters. I’ve tried to search for companies via our neighborhood listserve, but did not get any responses. I also have memberships in Angie’s List & Checkbook, but I’m having difficulty zeroing in on reviews for exterior painting, and specifically wood windows. We hired painters about two years ago to do paint work on the trim who had great reviews, but they ended up getting so much paint on our brick home, that I would never hire them for actual window painting.

I should also specify that we want loose paint at least scraped and/or removed with a heat gun/infrared heater, but this is also lead paint and we have a baby in the house, so we definitely need someone who will take the necessary precautions.
Thank you.”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Erin

“Dear PoPville,

My wife and are looking to put a small parking space behind our tiny Columbia Heights row house. Ideally it would be paved brick with a sturdy gravel foundation, but we could settle for a cement slab.” Any recommendations on who could do this and what the approximate cost would be?

Photo by PoPville flickr user Rukasu1

“Dear PoPville,

We’re having some trouble selecting what kind of floor to install in our condo and I was hoping the PoPville community could offer some advice. We need new flooring in the majority of our ground level condo. During a particularly brutal heat wave last summer, the old laminate buckled in numerous places. It was so bad that I was convinced there must be water under the floor, but once we pulled up a piece of the flooring we found the concrete sub-floor bone dry. This past month we had a shipment of bamboo flooring delivered and stacked to acclimate only for the installers to find out the material had bowed already and was impossible to install. Both of these failures happened during a heat wave, but we have central air conditioning which was on constantly so the heat and humidity couldn’t have been too bad.

Have other people in the area had similar experiences with laminate or engineered wood flooring? Are we just experiencing the consequences of poor quality materials or could something else be going on? Should we resign ourselves to installing tile so we can stop thinking about floors?”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Jordan Barab

“Dear PoPville,

We have a condo in Shaw (townhouse conversion and we have the basement and first floor). During the past two big storms, we have had clear water come through the floors in one of the basement rooms. We have tile floors, not wood, and have mopped up the water quickly and ran a dehumidifier. I know the solution is likely $$ but two questions: 1) any recommendations for a contractor or plumber who we can trust to give an estimate and do a good job and 2) should we be investing in a sump pump?”

Photo by PoPville flickr user washingtonydc

“Dear PoPville,

I recently bought a 110-year old rowhouse that appears to have some original interior wood trim around the window frames and baseboards. I’m interested in finding someone to repair/replace the old baseboard and interior door frames, interior staircase handrail, other assorted woodwork. Any recommendations for carpenters or woodworkers?”