The good news is that you can, most of the time, get your existing HVAC system to work more efficiently with simple, more affordable ductwork improvements.

According to our friends at Climate Partners, “a faulty ductwork can cost you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in wasted energy. The US Department of Energy estimates that home heating systems can lose as much as 30 percent of their heat because of leaks and insufficient insulation in the ductwork.”

For your HVAC system to work properly, your ducts must be clean, sealed, insulated and there must be a proper balance between supply and return ducts, so that the temperatures are comfortable and even around the house, and your heating and cooling system is not working harder than it should.

Start by having the ducts professionally inspected, cleaned and checked for leakages. A good professional will be able to detect and fix any problems in the ductwork. Things like duct sealing and duct insulation go a long way in terms of keeping the air that you pay to cool and heat from leaking out, loosing or gaining temperature, and not reaching all the rooms evenly;

If your energy bills are too high, if you have rooms that are too cold or too hot, get a good HVAC contractor to take a look at your home’s ductwork. You might not need a new HVAC system after all!

A little background. Our kitchen cabinets are original to the house (and made to look like the dark, rather tacky looking Tudor design which was popular back then), which was built in 1972. Made of 1/2 inch particle board, they were covered in this sort of industrial grade contact paper stuff, which had shrunk and was bubbling and peeling in places. We pulled all this off the face frame and the doors, but not the cabinet interiors, sanded off as much of the remaining sticky residue as possible, then painted over everything.

The old doors were plain and flat. Not frame and panel. Some of them had warped over the years and wouldn’t close all the way.

But our budget did not include buying new cabinets or even just cabinet doors, so we lived with things the way they were.

For the heck of it, I took as stab at making a simple shaker-style frame and panel door, with rails and stiles of common pine and a piece of floor underlayment for the panel. The rails and stiles were joined with a spline made of the same material. I later learned that the knots in the pine might bleed pitch through any paint I applied to them, unless I used special (and expensive) primer. Also, cutting the slots for the panel, and especially the ones in the rails for where they would join to the stiles was a bit scary. I attempted a jig for cutting them, but the fence on my DeWalt jobsite saw wasn’t really substantial enough for the jig to ride on.

So cabinet doors went on the back burner.

Then I found Ana White’s plans for simple Shaker-style frame and panel doors, though strictly speaking, they are faux frame and panel. The rails and stiles are joined with pocket screws, and the panel is exactly the size of the center opening and does not fit into a slot. It is held in place with pocket screws as well. The center panel was of half inch plywood and was flush with the back of the door, rather than inset.

The idea intrigued me, though I was skeptical about cabinet doors held together with nothing more than pocket screws.

So I came up with a variation. My original intent was to substitute dowels for joining rail to stile, and rabbet the center panel into the rails and stiles.

I made a homebrew doweling jig with 3/8 ID metal spacers from Lowes, based on some described in Youtube vids.

I purchased a piece of 3/4×2 1/2 wide poplar from Home Depot to use for my initial attempt, but didn’t get around to making that attempt until several weeks later. When I went to use it, I discovered it was so warped and twisted so as to be unusable.

So, plan B.

I bought a sheet of 3/4 birch plywood, also from HD, and a sheet of 1/2 inch birch ply as well. I had them cut up both in to manageable sections.

I ripped half the 3/4 inch ply into 2 inch wide strips. These were to be used for rails and stiles. My piece of warped poplar was to be cut into 1/4 inch strips to use as edge banding. I figured the warp/twist in it wouldn’t be an issue with such thin strips. The 1/2 inch ply was for the center panels.

I cut all my rails and stiles from my stock of 2 inch wide strips.

I had an improvised router table built for a previous project and set that up to cut a 1/4 inch wide rabbet exactly the thickness of my 1/2 inch plywood (which, of course, wasn’t exactly 1/2 inch). I figured the rabbet and some glue would be loads better than having the panel simply fit into the center opening, plus the rabbet would give it something to register against. Each rail was fully rabbeted. The ends of the stiles were left un-rabbeted for the rails to join to.

I figured I was good to go. I drilled the holes for the dowels using my jig. I was as careful as possible.

I made three of the smaller cabinet doors. With none of them would the rails and stiles line up in the same plane. They were out of alignment as much as .050. I kept hunting for the cause and finally determined there was too much slop in the diameter of the metal spacers used to construct my jig. I fixed the alignment issues in the three doors with the judicious application of some 80 grit sandpaper.

So decided to bite the bullet and switch to pocket holes for the remaining eleven doors. Also, it was too much hassle to drill the pocket holes to attach the center panel in place, so switched to using my Ryobi brad nailer with 5/8 brads spaced every 2 inches or so to glue-nail the panel into the rabbet.

Both changes in approach worked well. The rails and stiles lined up near perfectly. the panels went into the center with no trouble.

Finally the edge banding was applied. It was slightly wider than the 3/4 plywood was thick, so tried to get it so that it was a little proud of the surface on both sides. I also cut some 1/4 inch by about 5/16 inch strips to edge band the center area. The outside edge band was glue nailed in place. The inside strips were held in place with some improvised clamps made of 3 inch PVC pipe. Blue tape was put in place to catch some of the glue squeeze out.

With the glue on the edge banding dry, everything was first planed with a block plane to get it close to being flush, then sanded down until everything was even.

Lastly, liberal amounts of Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty were applied to fill in the pocket holes and the gaps left from routing the rabbets. Then more sanding, and re-puttying any areas that needed it.

Finally, the doors were painted.

Fourteen doors, total cost of materials was less than $150, plus another 20 or so for paint. Hardware is going to be another $90.

The cause of the burnout is caused by burning the earth wire.
1. Change the earth wire first.
2. Remove the neutral wire with the red mark.
3. Replace the two burnt communication wires.

Last time we suggest that the earth wire must grounded well.
Please check attached picture. We marked yellow is ground terminal block.
On earth wire must be settled under the ground 1.5 meter with a metal bar.

View on YouTube

Video Recap

When I went to the client’s house to measure I took some poster board with me to trace the shape of the arch. Which I used to create a plywood template
All the shelves are going to be lit up with LED’s so to make a place to hide the LED strip, the outer trim needs to overhang the edge of the drywall about an inch so I measured in from my scribe to account for that inch and then measured for the thickness of the trim
Once I got the sides drawn in I used a compass to transfer the shape of the arc down an inch and then again for the thickness of the trim.
Then to find the angle between the arch and the straight leg of the molding I used my straight and connected the inner and outer points.
I used a razorblade to cut the whole thing out so I could apply it to my plywood so I could cut out a rigid template.
I transferred the shape to my plywood and then went to cut it out. Since the miter is the most critical angle I cut it first before heading over to the band saw. At the band saw I made sure I left the line so I could further refine the shape by sanding to the line
Since the shape of the arch is the focal point of the bookshelf I took my time to get it as smooth as possible and to just the right shape. To be sure I got out all the bumps and dips, I used a little chalk on the edge to highlight where the low spots where and sanded until they all disappeared.
Then of course give it the thumb check at the end. If it feels smooth it is smooth.
If I would have cut the arch out of one piece of wood it would have needed to be a really wide piecev, so I built it out of segments.
As I put them together I paid attention to grain direction so it would look like the grain flowed across the top of the arch, and before cutting the joinery I did a test fit to be sure I had the right general shape.
To join the pieces together, I used my domino and epoxy. In general I find epoxy on a mostly end grain joint is a bit stronger over standard wood glue.
And of course on anything that is a difficult shape to glue up I use my favorite method, soft pine glue block with a little CA glue.
When clamping it up I clamped both sides to keep even pressure so it would dry straight and flat.
A little tape and those glue blocks pop right off.
I sanded off any excess glue and headed to the band saw to rough out the shape, being sure I left the line
I stuck the workpiece and template together with a little double stick tape and chucked a pattern bit in the router.
Even thou I’m using a compression bit that is less likely to catch, I still start off cautiously away from the corner where it is most likely to , and ease my way into the cut.
So now I am on to making the sides. I milled to thickness ripped it to width and cut the corresponding miter for the arch.
To measure the length of the sides, I clamped a 90 degree scrap to the inside edge of the miter so I would have an accurate place to hook my tape to, to do the layout.
I glued the bottom in on my layout line and then with more pine glue blocks I glued the arch to the top.
Once the glue was dry I cut it to length.
Now on to building the shelves. I used 8/4 material and cut it down to the width of the alcove.
Then I cut a dado down the side of each shelf that would act as a channel to slide over a cleat that will be attached to the wall to support the shelf.
Finally I glued on a front trim piece to create an overhang to hide the LED’s on the underside of each shelf.
While I was in the shop building all the components The client had their electrician come in and chase some wire for the lights and have their painter come in and paint the walls of the alcove with a metallic paint and plaster mix to reflect the light.

Custom made by Brian Benham of Benham Design Concepts

If you are interested in how it was built feel free to read about it or watch the video

As with most every project, I started out rough cutting the parts to the general size, usually just a little bigger than needed so I can let the wood move before milling and jointing to final thickness and size. I used my shop made tapering jig to cut the top and bottom rails to start the angle for the trapezoid shaped glass accents. I have been thinking about getting the micro jig version. If anybody has one please let me know what you think of it in the comments below.
Once I had the angle figured out and the space divided into three equal parts, I cut the middle rails to fit, using my Incra HD1000. I used the Domino XL with the largest tenons available for the joinery. I know some purists are going to have a fit because I used a Domino instead of traditional mortise and tenons, but on a project this size where I needed to build the built in bookcase as well. I needed a fast and accurate way to get the job done, and not hold up the rest of the site construction. I lost some footage and photos of routing out for the glass panels, but basically I used a rabbeting bit from Rockler to create a rabbit for the glass to rest in. I went back and chiseled out the round corners to match the trapezoid angle. Then when I install the glass, it will be held in place with glass stop tacked with brad nails. The jam is a custom size to fit the structure of the bookcase. However, I did plan it out to use a 1 3/8” standard thickness door so I could use standard size hinges and templates. I used a porter cable hinge template #59381 to rout out the mortises for the hinges on the jamb and door. This template worked great to be sure everything lined up. When I was deciding what jig to use for this project, there was several reviews stating that this jig was not accurate. However, I found it to be accurate and worked great. After using the jig, I think those reviews may be based on user error not product quality, as there are some details to pay attention to when using this jig. The Porter Cable Hinge template came with a corner chisel for square hinges To rout out for the strike plate and mortise for the door latch I used the Porter cable Strike and latch template #59375. It was a good thing that this template was plastic, as do to me not paying attention I routed into the plastic on more than one occasion. To drill the hole for the door knob I used the standard hole saw kit which is available just about everywhere. To hold the door on edge, I used a shop made jig comprising of a 2×4 base and plywood triangle supports screwed to the 2×4. It was surprisingly stable Then when I finish the jamb I build it around the door to be sure that the reveal was the same all the way around. And finally stained with the customer’s choice of color and installed into the bookshelf.
If you would like to see more completion picture, or order a custom bookshelf or door. Please check out my website for custom built in bookcase with trapezoid door

More info on my Design Build Website or Blog