You don't want to fuck around with water leakage; you can do tens of thousands in damage before you notice anything is wrong. If you can't figure out the factory-correct way to do this, don't improvise. There is no overkill or underkill, only correct and incorrect.

What you see is salt. Water is in the concrete and there is salt dissolved in the water. When the water evaporates on the surface of the concrete, salt crystals remain.

More ventilation just means that the drying happens faster, but does not change the amount of water and salt that is in the concrete. So no, ventilation does not help. You need to prevent moisture from getting into the concrete in the first place. This may mean fixing leaks, grading around the foundation, sealing, etc.

No one can tell you what is happening without inspecting the property. Is there are reason you doubt the professional? Seek a second opinion if so, a professional opinion not reddit.

The mold is a concern, but the white fluffy stuff is mostly allergy issues that develop over time. If no one has respiratory symptoms it's not any acute threat.

But in general, moisture/vapor problems are quite serious and absolutely need to be addressed. It's worth taking the effort to really identify the issue and fix them properly. It might take a lot of effort finding an appropriate inspector and contractor.

Use a wire brush to scrape off any loose or flaking paint. Ask SW what product they recommend and use that. Any light color is fine, that's totally up to you.

As others point out, nothing is going to stick especially well. But if the old paint took many years to degrade, you may find it acceptable.

Zinsser BIN

You should strip the wires such that the nut has good overlap with the insulation, and no tape is needed.

FYI: you're right and you're wrong.

WD-40 isn't a very good lubricant, so recommending other things is totally justified. But it is a lubricant. It's a mix of light oils, along with the water-displacing solvents and corrosion inhibitors. It was designed as a multi-purpose product. One of those purposes absolutely was lubrication.

Newer openers are a lot quieter. It's quite possible that you could make your current one quieter with a relatively simple repair, but even in its best shape, it won't have the performance of newer models.

Given your home office situation, I think that would be well worth it.

Oil will yellow. Waterborne poly will be alright.

What's the goal with this repair? If you're just prolonging the life of this piece of equipment, epoxy no doubt. Good chance of working and it's easy.

If you need it to keep running for ages and ages, you want something that can be maintained going forward. That's where epoxy is a bit of an issue.

Vapor barrier is an issue.

VB is placed on the interior side for cold climates because this will be the warm area. It will not provide a cool surface for vapor to condense. When you insulate over the VB, you cool it off. It is now insulated from the conditioned interior. Now the cooler VB can act as a condensing surface for warm and moist interior air.

This is not some killer issue, but it's not good practice and could certainly lead to some issues. In practice, it's very hard to say what will and won't lead to failures.

Just keep in mind that many people are incredibly confused about moisture issues and will very confidently say all kinds of bullshit. Even - really especially - professionals that understand some things well and other things poorly. In reality the problem is simple, but the solutions are complex. Empiricism rules the day.

You should figure out what's going on.

First I'd check what voltage you're getting at the panel and at the fixture. Sometimes you're at the end of a run and it's on the low side at the hookup. There could also be an issue with a connection somewhere that's causing voltage to sag. These are simple sanity checks that you can do with a multimeter or have an electrician check it out. If the voltage is below nominal, it exacerbates flickering/dimming issues.

If it's just a one or a few circuits, you need to figure out what else is on those circuits that could be causing the issue. Lights should be on their own circuits, simply so the lights don't go off when a breaker trips, but older homes tend to share. Like I have a room that dims whenever I go to print something. Some devices feed back 'noisy' power back into the circuit which can mess up the little DC power supplies in LED bulbs. You may have some circuits on inadequate wire gauge.

Fixing the circuits is ideal, but better LED bulbs will help a lot. They have more sophisticated DC power supply designs that are less sensitive to voltage sag and ripple. Also, consider dedicated LED fixtures vs. bulbs. The fixtures can have much better thermal designs and don't need to cram the power supply into tiny spaces. They are fundamentally better designs.

Compatibility is a complicated issue. Their toners are based on a precat lacquer AFAIK. They should be alright on a fully cured stain or finish, but you can always ask the manufacturer, being sure to specify what you've used. A coat of shellac will often solve compatibility issues. As for top coating, they sell rattle can pre cat lacquer that you should use, in the sheen of your choice.

Not even remotely close to pine. It's 'rubberwood', 'acacia' or whatever catch-all term they use for generic import hardwood.

The key issue is surface prep and finishing method. First, your sanding isn't even. Whether you haven't gotten the original finish off, or we're seeing bits from your previous attempts, you can clearly see how the surface varies across the top and especially the side profile. Going this dark with stain alone is extremely demanding in terms of surface prep. There are also fundamental limits to how much stain different woods will accept.

Shellac will help with evenness, but not with darkness. The opposite, in fact. But that's not a bad thing.

What you need here, if you insist on a dark finish with wood that doesn't want to go dark, is to do what the factory did: tint. They don't stain, they use tinted finish (toner) to get the color in the finish itself, not the wood. Then the wood doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that they used a grab-bag of scrap hardwood that never matches, you just tint it to hell.

Problem with this, and a fundamental problem people have refinishing commercial furniture, is that it's not easy to use toner. You can't apply it by hand without getting some streakiness. It has to be sprayed. What you can do, however, is find rattle-can toner. See if there's a Mohawk dealer near your, or consider ordering some. A couple cans should do a top like that.

Watch some pros if you need to understand more about how colorwork is done: John's Furniture Repair and Tom Johnson Antique Restoration

Particle board or OSB? Pics?

New openers are cheap, quieter, and won't waste hours of your time trying to troubleshoot. Unless you just want to tear into it for fun, I wouldn't consider trying to fix it.

What you need to do is figure out what caused it to fail in the first place. These things do wear out with time, and if it's been a long time perhaps there's no issue, but usually there's a cause.

When was the last time the spring was replaced? They wear out with time, putting the door out of balance and making more work for the motor. Tightening the spring (a very dangerous operation if you don't know what you're doing) is not a real fix. It can lessen the most severe strain on the motor, but it will not balance the door. It will just cause too much return force when the door is raised. Also check that the tracks are straight and parallel, clean and lubricated.

Basically, you don't want to put a new motor on only to have it break in a year or two. Make sure the door is in good shape. You should be able to disconnect the motor / drive chain and move the door with your arms. If it's very hard to open or close, that's a problem that needs to be addressed.

Since you have living space above the garage, I would strongly suggest you keep the insulation installed. There is a reason the previous own installed it, and that is most likely inadequate insulation between the garage and living space. You will have increased comfort and reduced energy bills by keeping the insulation.

The actual question you need answered is whether the spring is designed to work with that door. Garage doors are engineered systems that carefully balance the spring force to equalize the door weight as it is lowered. A well designed system does not need a powerful opener. If the last owner replaced those panels, it is not balanced and needs to be corrected.

Tightening the spring is a stop-gap measure, which hopefully they explained to you. It will help the motor work when the door is mostly lowered, but it will in turn cause too much return force when it is raised. There is no balance. You can install a more powerful motor to try to brute force it, but even that will get more wear and tear than it should, leading to more noise and reduced service life.

Furthermore, motors are cheap. It makes zero sense to replace panels at around ~$200 each, when you can replace the motor for less than a single panel. Not only that, you're paying more to downgrade your garage. It's .. not sensical. I don't know what set you on that path, but you really should reconsider.

What you need to do is find a legit garage company that will come out to spec and replace the spring with the correct gauge and number of turns. If, when properly balanced, you still need a bit more oomph on the opener, that's trivial to do. That can be a DIY job because changing that isn't dangerous. Changing the spring should be done by a pro, though, and if they're out there anyway, they should give you a good deal on swapping the motor.

You have not been advised well. That may be due to their incompetence, or your misunderstanding, but consider finding another garage door service.

Counterweights do not work on garage doors. They don't 'weigh' anything when rolled up because they're horizontal.

The whole point of springs is that they vary the return force in proportion to how far the door is lowered. They are engineered balanced systems.

Oslo from Costco. $800 around the holidays.

Yes, it's a pretty simple job.

First, get a pair of channel locks / slip joint pliers. I like the Knipex style, and think that's a great tool to have in a small toolbox. e.g. https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/pliers/single-pliers/adjustable/12-in-fast-adjust-water-pump-pliers-56749.html You want to to be firm with them while not crushing them, and make sure you're turning the right way. But generally they aren't difficult. And those parts are cheap to replace, worst case.

Second, someone has already messed those up. Those fittings do not need teflon tape, but there it is. Those make a flared seal with a gasket. It's either 1 1/4" or 1 1/2". Example: https://www.homedepot.com/p/OATEY-1-1-2-in-Sink-Drain-Pipe-Plastic-Slip-Joint-Nut-with-Rubber-Reducing-Washers-HDC2698C/316622089 Chances are fair that the gasket is missing. If you have a bit of water under the sink from time to time, getting a gasket in there will fix that.

Have a good basin to put under all that for the stuff that will pour out. It's important to get one that fits reasonably well with high enough sides, or it's easy to make a mess.

Don't fuck around with pressure. Even at modest pressure, if you're talking about the size of a bucket, that makes quite a bang when it lets go. Enough to cause serious injury, permanent hearing loss, etc.

The only suitable glass would be those designed for carbonated drinks. And all of those will have narrow openings precisely because they're designed to hold pressure.

A 10" opening at 10psi will have 2500 lbs. of force on it. Only an engineered product like a pressure cooker can withstand that sort of pressure at reasonable cost. Plumbing parts can also be suitable, but you need to make the joints/seals properly. It's not hard, but it's also easy to screw up if you don't know what you're doing.

I doubt there's enough heat in your basement to pull that much out of it to be useful. If it's conditioned, you're just moving that heat twice, and if you're relying on the ground/walls, the heat flux is pretty low.

Simple resistance heating is likely your best bet here. Gets you off oil and is likely only marginally worse performance than an expensive HP heater.

And some contractor could be sitting on old stock they want to use up. It makes sense to test well into the 90s.

A sheetrock wall can be a fire barrier if it's made properly. But you want to verify that it functions as such, both for insurance but also because you don't want to kill yourself/family.

You likely caused the leak by using the valve. That's very common with old gate valves. There's usually a packing nut you can tighten down to stop it, but ultimately the valve may need replacing.