My folks house has developed step crack in the basement walls.  It is 30 years old.  Cement block foundation- these I don't think are anything to be alarmed about.  Last year a chimney liner was installed and the area where they cut thru the basement wall has developed cracks- almost to the floor.  The crack do not follow the mortar lines.  Any ideas if this is bad.  No water problems or dampness as it is on high ground.

Same house thinking about having a Honeywell 225/265 whole house humidifier professionally installed.  Good one or not?  Any help there would be great.

My house needs a basic dry well for water softener discharge.  Split level so only a half basement.  The sump works and dumps into the back yard.  Again no dampness or water problems at all.  I want to do it myself as I think it's got to be pretty simple.  Is the sump pump usually used- it seems odd to me to allow the softener to discharge into the sump and then pump it out into a dry well when I could maybe hard pipe the softener discharge into the same outlet as the sump pump.  Any basic diagram of a simple system which shows how to construct one from readily available materials?  Also, I found one Internet place selling a simple dry-well do-it-yourself kit but little else.