SAN FRANCISCO — When starting a home remodeling project, one of the most important things you can do is choose your materials and products early. For example, with kitchen remodeling, picking out cabinets is crucial. Cabinets take approximately six to eight weeks from the time of ordering to delivery, so you don’t want to wait until a week before the work begins to order. Likewise, when remodeling your bathroom, you’ll want to choose your vanity and tiles well in advance.
Ideally, you should decide on all products and materials during the beginning stages of the project—that way, your contractor can make sure they’re a good fit for the remodel and order them in a timely manner. Work with your contractor to ensure accuracy with things like measurements and quantities. Your contractor can also suggest alternative options in case a certain material or product won’t fit the design or is too expensive.
If you’re having difficulty choosing products and materials for your remodel, consult remodeling websites or magazines for ideas. Collect your favorite designs and share them with your contractor—this will help them understand the direction you want to go in. Remember, your contractor is there to help you make decisions, so don’t hesitate to rely on their professional insight.

Choosing Products and Materials for a Remodel

Discover essential tips for selecting the best products and materials for your home remodel, ensuring quality, durability and style in every project.

Choosing Products and Materials for a Remodel by Merlyn DeLeon

By Merlyn DeLeon of {BR} AMS Construction

4 Tips for Auto Maintenance and Repair

Is Your Car Worth Repairing?

Rethinking DIY A/C Maintenance

Video: Advice For Brake Issues


I think we all can agree that breaks are
an important safety component on any
vehicle and important for the overall
health of the vehicle there's a few
signs that your brakes may need
attention it could be a sign of a leak a
hydraulic fluid leak could be noise
first thing in the morning as you back
out of your driveway could be General
noise while you brake or pulsation
what I would stress is try to look for a
shop that's going to be transparent you
want somebody that's going to do an
inspection first so they can give you a
comprehensive quote and an accurate
quote inspections are important overall
vehicle inspections as well as brake
inspections so we can maintain the
health of your vehicle it's also
important to use Quality Parts try to
look for somebody that's going to use OE
or better Parts OE stands for original
equipment and that is something similar
or equivalent to what your vehicle left
the factory with this will improve the
performance of your vehicle and the
overall longevity of those parts
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Video: Filling Your Tires With Nitrogen

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we've all been there
it's early morning just got in your car
started it up back now the driveway you
look down and you see that that tire
light's on
well one way to eliminate that is to
swap out your tires with nitrogen peel
your tires with nitrogen that way the
air pressure doesn't change as much with
the temperature therefore that'll
eliminate that light coming on when
those tires down three or four pounds
usually we see this in the winter time
right when the days start getting cool
that's the time to get those tires
swapped over to nitrogen most tire and
automotive repair shops are going to
have a nitrogen Filling Station whether
they either recycle the air that's in
the tire or they actually have nitrogen
on board where they're going to fill the
tire fresh with fresh nitrogen so
whether it's maintenance and you want to
just swap your air in your tires or when
you get new tires insist on getting
nitrogen filled

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Video: Is Your Car Worth Repairing?


if your vehicle is in need of
substantial repair work you'll need to
determine whether repair or replacement
is a better option
today we're in Danville with diamonds
certified expert contributor KC Copeland
of Auto Tech Blackhawk to learn more so
one of the questions I get asked quite
regularly is is my car worth repairing
and what I have to tell everybody is
that it depends you know there's a
you've got to figure out what it's worth
to you and not necessarily market value
and then what kind of types of repairs
are actually needed so we've got three
different potential customers that we
that we deal with we've got the customer
number one would be someone who is
driving a car with sentimental value it
was their fathers car their father
passed away and every time they drive
this car it's it's something that
reminds them of him and it's definitely
something they want to get repaired and
to keep on the road customer two would
be someone who yeah it's a they like the
car it's a great car but they want to
make sure that it's practical and
cost-effective to repair the car and the
customer three would would you know run
along the lines of yeah it's a good car
but take it or leave it I you know I fix
it if I have to but I could easily
easily get another car so let's say
you're at your mechanic and you're in to
the mechanic shop for the second time of
one year and you need brakes again
mechanic goes and drives the car and
figures out that the actual cause of the
problem is that the suspensions worn out
so when you're hitting the brakes the
cars dipping down in the front so all
the energy of the car is being absorbed
by the brakes and not being absorbed by
the suspension at all therefore you're
needing brakes more more often than you
actually should excuse me it should so
the cause of the problem is actually the
struts the symptom is the fact that you
need new brakes again so you Delp
they'll put a quote together for you and
the things that you need to you know
figure out or the checklist you'd want
to go down would be you know what's it
what's it actually worth so when the
resources that I recommend would be
Kelly Blue Book comm so you can go on to
Kelly Blue Book you put in your your
make and model of car you put in all
that
options the trim does it have a sunroof
does it have alloy wheels do you have a
lift kit on it and that'll give you a
private party value and a dealership
trade-in value so you can take those
numbers and add or subtract the cost of
the repair and then figure out what the
actual value of the car is if you fall
in a category 2 or category 3 so those
are the kinds of questions that were
we're helping customers out with quite
regularly
to learn more from local top rated
companies visit our diamond certified
expert reports at experts diamond
certified org


Video: Maintaining Your Car’s A/C System


thinking about doing your own
maintenance on your car's air
conditioning system you may want to
think twice today we're in Danville with
diamond certified expert contributor
Casey Copeland of Auto Tech Blackhawk to
learn why a couple tips about air
conditioning first one refrigerant lasts
forever it doesn't go bad second one the
do-it-yourself repair can end up costing
you big time and if you rode example
being customer goes to or the
refrigerant stops blowing cold so they
go to the parts house and they get a can
of that you know do it yourself and they
do it in their driveway they fill it
back up the problem that happens is that
when they had that leak the refrigerant
escaped obviously but they lost oil in
the same time so they added refrigerant
got the compressor working again but
they did not add oil so now that system
is running low on oil it can only run
like that for so long so a four dollar
ring let's say may take out a compressor
because when the vehicle was recharged
with refrigerant there was no oil at at
at the same time this is why we highly
recommend that these kinds of services
are done by a certified professional
with the right automotive air
conditioning equipment
to learn more from local top rated
companies visit our diamond certified
expert reports at experts diamond
certified org


Video: Preparing for a Home Remodel


a few important tips for you to take
into consideration when starting a build
or a remodel for your home
is picking your products ahead of time
and this goes for your kitchen remodel
for example
to pick out your cabinets it's going to
take approximately six to eight weeks
for them to be delivered to you
so you want to jump ahead of schedule
and get that picked out select the color
select the style you want to have so
that you have this ready to go for your
contractor
as far as your bathroom remodel goes if
you're going to have your bathroom
remodel super important it's for you to
select
the type of vanity that you want to have
the type of tile that you want to have
work alongside with your contractor they
can help you with measurements for the
tiles with measurements for your
vanities
with color selecting if you're unsure
about something you can go over pictures
of styles or designs that you might have
in mind
and that you want your contractor to
help you pick alongside with you
always count on them rely on them is
super important
that you work alongside with them so
that you make the right choice
not only for yourself but also for the
contractor so that your job gets done
properly on a timely manner
you

Video: The Truth About Oil Change Intervals


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a lot of original equipment
manufacturers are pushing oil changes
upwards of 10 000 miles these days I've
seen certain vehicles with 20 000 mile
intervals this is a concern to us
because no one's looking at your vehicle
for 20 000 miles it's good to change
your oil for synthetic oil every 6 000
miles that way somebody's at least
looking at your vehicle every now and
then the tire rotation interval is
generally six thousand miles so those
two things kind of go together it makes
it easy on the consumer to remember get
my tires rotated at the same time it's a
good idea to get your vehicle inspected
more than every Twenty Thousand Miles
that's a long time to wait without
having somebody inspect your vehicle for
traditional oil you're going to want to
get your oil changed generally every
3000 miles or six months or full
synthetic oil you're going to want to
get it changed just about every 6 000
miles or 12 months
remember oil is cheaper than a new
engine so it's always better to replace
parts and oil and fluids to ensure the
longevity of your vehicle

everything

Merlyn DeLeon: A Constructive Role

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