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eddiewalker posted:I spent all morning dethatching, fertilizing and over-seeding my front lawn with stupid-expensive coated seeds. Then I watered it in heavily so the ground was real soft. Holy crap the rage building inside me 
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Sep 20, 2019 00:37
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I live in a ~roughly 100 year old house with heart pine floors. The main floor is all straight grain, I had them refinished earlier this year and they look beautiful. Upstairs they’re of a much lesser quality, which is to be expected for the period. They had also been under carpet for probably the last 60 years. They are mostly fine aside from a few water damaged boards from a radiator that I have patched temporarily with fir boards, and the general grime from being under carpet forever. The boards are also directly on top of the joists. I would like to get them refinished however I’m not in a situation (nor do I have the time) to move bedrooms around for the multi day process of sanding, coating, buffing, coating, etc that it would take to get it done. So this brings me to some other options. I’ve ruled out 3/4 hardwood since my radiators only have so much wiggle room to meet the steam pipes coming out of the floor, and introducing almost an inch of space beneath would certainly require me to refit some of those pipes. Then there’s luxury vinyl. Some of the options seem really nice, though I’m generally hesitant of the faux wood look that most of them have. However install seems simple and it’s cheap. I’ve also discovered that they make 5/16 solid hardwood boards, which I could install over the existing floor without loving up my radiator placement. I’ve heard bad things about engineered floor so solid would seem like the better choice, despite being thin? Does anyone have any experience or recommendations between those two? I’d be doing two bedrooms and a small hallway with whatever I end up picking.
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Sep 20, 2019 12:55
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I finally got around to combining a double gang (light switch and outlet) and single gang box (garbage disposal) right next to each other in my kitchen. When I took it apart, i noticed all the grounds were tied together but only connected to the outlet's ground screw. The switches have a ground screw but nothing connected. I am going to replace all of my switches with rockers soon, so I just hooked it back up how it was until I get around to it. Is it bad that these switches aren't connected to ground? Also can anyone answer this one that went unanswered last time? Faustian Bargain posted:I’m about to replace our carpet/linoleum with vinyl plank flooring. This is the first house I’ve had that has a subfloor with crawlspace instead of a slab. Do I need some kind of secondary subfloor? I ask because the linoleum is on a second layer of ply but I’m thinking it’s just to raise it to the same level as carpet and pad.
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Sep 20, 2019 23:14
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Ungrounded switches aren't super bad (most of the old ones never even had the option) but it isn't expensive or hard to ground them when you replace them so I'd do it. I'm guessing you are right about the subfloor. I'd check the thickness of both layers of ply and make sure the bottom layer is thick enough for your joist spacing. You might consider adding plywood to thicken the floor to the existing linoleum level though, since the loss of height from the carpet/pad removal will make all your doors bottoms higher.
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Sep 20, 2019 23:29
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Nevets posted:Ungrounded switches aren't super bad (most of the old ones never even had the option) but it isn't expensive or hard to ground them when you replace them so I'd do it. quote:I'm guessing you are right about the subfloor. I'd check the thickness of both layers of ply and make sure the bottom layer is thick enough for your joist spacing. You might consider adding plywood to thicken the floor to the existing linoleum level though, since the loss of height from the carpet/pad removal will make all your doors bottoms higher.
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Sep 20, 2019 23:58
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Not sure if best thread for this but any good dishwasher recommendations for $700 or less? Under counter standard size. Just wife and I so super high volume / max noise reduction is less important than outright reliability.
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Sep 21, 2019 01:49
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That Works posted:Not sure if best thread for this but any good dishwasher recommendations for $700 or less? Under counter standard size. Just wife and I so super high volume / max noise reduction is less important than outright reliability. Bosch with the third rack. I think ours was right about $700.
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Sep 21, 2019 02:49
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+1 on Bosch
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Sep 21, 2019 03:16
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Apparently Bosch has some newer drying stuff too, for those who are shying away due to their lack of heated drying. Ours (an older model) does get pooled water on some things at times (largely plastics) but it's still a great dishwasher.
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Sep 21, 2019 09:49
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$3,000 trailer update: Found a shed snake skin in the master bath. I've not started interior work yet but I'm happy to know there's a snake or snakes inside. I was gonna thoroughly fumigate before I started inside, will that drive out my new tenants?
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Sep 21, 2019 13:32
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H110Hawk posted:Bosch with the third rack. I think ours was right about $700. Sweet. Any places to catch them on a particular sale? Black Friday etc? We can baby along the current unit for a while. It's a 14 yr old Kenmore 665 and it's either the panel or the board gone bad, $140 just for the parts. Given its age I doubt it's worth spending that much on it. It works but only one cycle type and no wash delay function now etc. Seems a common failure state.
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Sep 21, 2019 14:01
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That Works posted:Sweet. Any places to catch them on a particular sale? Black Friday etc? We can baby along the current unit for a while. It's a 14 yr old Kenmore 665 and it's either the panel or the board gone bad, $140 just for the parts. Given its age I doubt it's worth spending that much on it. It works but only one cycle type and no wash delay function now etc. Seems a common failure state. Around us I would check Pacific Sales, but basically look at everyone who sells them and price track them. It seems they're up to around $900 MSRP right now but I know they knocked off money just for saying I wanted one. Seems the fancier models now have a leak detection system. I regret getting front controls and wish I had gotten "top" controls. I only use "auto" and "sanitize" (lots of raw-chicken jous, baby bottles). I strongly suggest using rinse aid (cuts 30 minutes off the cycle time) and brand name pods (I use cascade platinum, the mid-range ones work fine but the platinum ones really knock the grease off the baby bottles.) I would not suggest screwing around with any other cycle. Half-load can shave 30 minutes and *1* gallon of water off of the 5-6 gallon load, but sometimes I swear it leaves a little soap on there because it's still the same amount of input detergent.
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Sep 21, 2019 17:15
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Just about done with phase one of “keep water out of the basement” in our new home After buying the house in feb, we were dismayed to see it had a persistent leak in the basement which is common here in Michigan. It wasn’t hard to pinpoint the cause but there wasn’t anything we could do in that room of the basement until it was resolved.  The last bit of the driveway was cracked and slipped towards the house, which made for standing pools of water after heavy storms above the problem area in the basement. Replacing the driveway would be pretty dang expensive, and sealing the area didn’t work out too well and wasn’t permanent enough. So we decided to tear it up.  It took a while to get a sledgehammer and crowbar rhythm, but once we did, it wasn’t so bad.  One of the things we couldn’t do ourselves was haul it away, although we did price out what it cost to rent a trailer. Ultimately, we had a dumpster delivered.  The idea here would be grade the side of the house to direct water away, but we figured since we have the area exposed, and perforated piping is cheap, might as well dig a trench and lay a pseudo French drain for the downspout. We also dug 3 ft down in the problem area next to the house and put a fresh coat of tar and a sheet of high density plastic to direct water away.  This is connected to the downspout and ends in a 36 inch dry well of sorts. We had the slag delivered this morning, after spending an hour leveling the surface out.  We just kind of assumed we had enough of the leftover concrete chunks to go the whole way, so we had to improvise.  The goal is to let the slag settle for a week, then put topsoil and grass seed down to go for this sort of look.  It’s rained a bit since we dug the trench and tarred the exterior and the basement is dry so far. It’s also been fairly cheap, with the dumpster being 300 and the slag being around 150. How bad did we gently caress up? meanolmrcloud fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 21, 2019 21:45
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Edit: nm
Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Sep 21, 2019 |
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Sep 21, 2019 22:12
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H110Hawk posted:Around us I would check Pacific Sales, but basically look at everyone who sells them and price track them. It seems they're up to around $900 MSRP right now but I know they knocked off money just for saying I wanted one. Seems the fancier models now have a leak detection system. I regret getting front controls and wish I had gotten "top" controls. I only use "auto" and "sanitize" (lots of raw-chicken jous, baby bottles). I strongly suggest using rinse aid (cuts 30 minutes off the cycle time) and brand name pods (I use cascade platinum, the mid-range ones work fine but the platinum ones really knock the grease off the baby bottles.) Thanks! Do you prefer the top controls because of little kids or a different reason? We don't have kids so if that was the only reason the front control models seem a tiny but cheaper vs top.
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Sep 21, 2019 23:15
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Untrustable posted:$3,000 trailer update: Found a shed snake skin in the master bath. I've not started interior work yet but I'm happy to know there's a snake or snakes inside. I was gonna thoroughly fumigate before I started inside, will that drive out my new tenants? No, get rid of their food source and they will leave on their own. Fumigation won’t get them. Big sticky traps will. Also identify the species. If its just a black snake ohh well.
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Sep 21, 2019 23:27
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That Works posted:Thanks! Do you prefer the top controls because of little kids or a different reason? We don't have kids so if that was the only reason the front control models seem a tiny but cheaper vs top. On mine (and friend's, sample size 3) the buttons are flimsy plastic bullshit which I can feel getting weaker and will eventually snap and fall inside. The other 2 have already done this repair. I assume it's made from the same plastic as BMW cooling systems. If they use different style buttons on the front then it's fine. Oh and don't just go by the in stock stuff. Go to a dealer and make them get out the big glossy brochure of options. You can encode basically any combination of options into a model number then tell them to order that one when the sale you want hits (or they are otherwise willing to discount it to the price you want.) it's a bit like car buying but the seller is nicer and there isn't a skeezy feeling.
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Sep 21, 2019 23:32
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Buy an expensive German appliance filled with plastic parts they said, it will have superior German adhesives they said,  It's a little hard to see but the plastic little teeth/clip things on the left of the picture are chewed/ground down significantly compared to the other side. Tried just re-seating it and running it on rinse, fell off again. Not sure if my toddler closing the door on the open basket caused it to fail the rest of the way or if it was already in the bottom of the basket before, either way it's toast. $31 shipped from some random parts website for the whole assembly to the back of the basin.
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Sep 22, 2019 18:55
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Motronic posted:I've never done it on anything big, but I just redid the bathroom of the old house in LVT. Holy poo poo is that stuff really nice. Update on this: We've been looking a couple weeks and we've decided to go full 3/4 hardwood, probably oak. That's not the end of things, though. It is impractical to have finished-in-place flooring, since it's an enormous amount of furniture to relocate/store outside for all of the time to coat/cure. So we're looking at prefinished, which may be good, since a lot of the manufacturers are using aluminum oxide, which was one of our objectives. But there's shakeup in the hardwood floor world. Armstrong sold their hardwood flooring segment to a private equity firm and looks like that's dead now. We found a Bruce color that we really like, but have read terrible things about Bruce, both on install (lovely milling leaving boards of varying thickness and a LOT of waste) and longevity of finish. The upside is that it's only $6.50sqft at big box stores. We also found that we really like the look of some reclaimed flooring. The upside is that the wear is part of the look, so no worries on that front. But it's more than double the price of the Bruce oak. We have ruled out LVT and engineered. Looks like the industry is going that way (because individual full-depth boards can be veneered into 20 engineered boards??? ) and LVT has come a long way. But it's still vinyl that looks like wood instead of wood. Super cheap and good for some applications, just won't work for us. With all of that, I think the decision will come more from the installer. I'm going to start looking for a seasoned pro that can give us some idea of what they've seen and what the "best" choices would be with prefinished 3/4 hardwood. Spring Heeled Jack posted:I live in a ~roughly 100 year old house with heart pine floors. The main floor is all straight grain, I had them refinished earlier this year and they look beautiful. Hopefully that helps with seeing some of our experience. I'd stick with the pine and refinish, but I understand how daunting moving everything for a full-level refinish is.
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Sep 22, 2019 19:31
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EVERYWHERE 
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H110Hawk posted:Buy an expensive German appliance filled with plastic parts they said, it will have superior German adhesives they said, Ours is similar to this and had the same problem (made worse my by mother in law constantly putting things to tall in the top shelf). I eventually just used loctite to keep it connected and hasn't failed yet.
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Sep 22, 2019 19:57
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H110Hawk posted:Buy an expensive German appliance filled with plastic parts they said, it will have superior German adhesives they said, You guys aren't making a great case for a Bosch dishwasher...
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Sep 22, 2019 20:06
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I’ve been pretty happy with mine I’ve had for 10 years other than the handle getting loose after about 3-4 years.
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Sep 22, 2019 20:07
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couldcareless posted:Ours is similar to this and had the same problem (made worse my by mother in law constantly putting things to tall in the top shelf). I eventually just used loctite to keep it connected and hasn't failed yet. This happened to your "top shelf" (the middle basket in ours, where glassware and stuff goes) and loctite helped it stay in? Which kind - the usual blue or something more exotic like red? Would you mind drawing where to put it on that picture or describing it? That Works posted:You guys aren't making a great case for a Bosch dishwasher... This thing has seen probably 2000 cycles so far, and we don't exactly take tender loving care of it, we've definitely run it where things on the bottom rack wound up blocking the middle basket sprayer. We run it 7-8 times a week normally, and when we're doing baby bottles 2-3x a day.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:31
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meatpimp posted:Update on this: Or maybe they got a stupid finish but please make sure and look at some finished product before you buy.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:38
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H110Hawk posted:This happened to your "top shelf" (the middle basket in ours, where glassware and stuff goes) and loctite helped it stay in? Which kind - the usual blue or something more exotic like red? Would you mind drawing where to put it on that picture or describing it? Ours isn't exactly the same, it is a Frigidaire, but it has a similar clip on part for the sprayer head that attaches static to the sprayer and spins free on the holder at the top. I used blue loctite because that's what we had.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:47
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couldcareless posted:Ours isn't exactly the same, it is a Frigidaire, but it has a similar clip on part for the sprayer head that attaches static to the sprayer and spins free on the holder at the top. I used blue loctite because that's what we had. Can you post your part number so I can lookup a diagram? I think ours might go together the other direction. Only one way to find out. (I haven't had a chance to go futz with it since your suggestion.)
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Sep 22, 2019 22:28
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Here's a close approximation to mine
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Sep 22, 2019 22:50
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That Works posted:You guys aren't making a great case for a Bosch dishwasher... Bosch dishwashers are crazy overrated. Especially recently, as like most products, their quality has dropped. Maytag and Whirlpool both make decent DWs (as long as you get a stainless tub) that are $200-300 less than an entry-level Bosch, and equivalent quality. The Maytag MDB4949SHZ is a good choice at about $250 less than the Bosch 300. Slightly louder, but I can't hear it operating in a room 15 feet away. I have this model, and it replaced a Bosch, and I don't notice any difference besides saving almost 50% over the Bosch brand.
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Sep 22, 2019 23:18
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Hm so while on floor chat, is there any sort of mid-tier when it comes to ‘floor maintainers/buffers/etc’ between big gently caress-off rental types you get at the hardware store and just scrubbing by hand?
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Sep 23, 2019 03:51
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I was getting sick and tired of my very tiny laundry room being a cluttered mess so I finally went out and bought a 30"x30"x15" cabinet (and way too expensive doors to match the kitchen) from Ikea. I built the table, with inspiration, but much poorer execution, from Matthias Wandel, to have a place to hide the cats' litterbox. I'll install the cabinet pulls tomorrow, but I'm so happy with how much more organized it feels, now.   
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Sep 23, 2019 08:45
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tangy yet delightful posted:My parents got some sort of pre-finished wood flooring installed and all the boards are bevelled just a little on the edges so you end up with a floor that has ridges instead of a flat smooth floor like wood that's been finished in place. That's how absolutely every pre-finished floor I've ever seen has looked. I can't imagine there is another way to do it. If you every seen/installed actual hardwood flooring you will understand why. Sanding after install and before finishing is NOT optional - and it's not just for the sake of prepping the surface for finish. It's simply not level enough to look good. To obscure that, the pre finished ones bevel every board, which just screams out "this was pre finished" to anyone who knows.
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Sep 23, 2019 09:18
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:Hm so while on floor chat, is there any sort of mid-tier when it comes to ‘floor maintainers/buffers/etc’ between big gently caress-off rental types you get at the hardware store and just scrubbing by hand? I see cheap chinese floor polishers online for around a hundred bucks.
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Sep 23, 2019 09:29
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Motronic posted:That's how absolutely every pre-finished floor I've ever seen has looked. I can't imagine there is another way to do it. If you every seen/installed actual hardwood flooring you will understand why. Sanding after install and before finishing is NOT optional - and it's not just for the sake of prepping the surface for finish. It's simply not level enough to look good. To obscure that, the pre finished ones bevel every board, which just screams out "this was pre finished" to anyone who knows.
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Sep 23, 2019 12:42
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I replaced the WTF rat's maze of drain pipes under my sink this weekend, and replaced the faucet: Before:  After:  If anyone saw my plumbing questions post, I did have some sort of weird black crud coming out right after the install...still no idea what that was. It was definitely not mold, but there's no more of it, and no other faucet/fixture in the house had that coming out, so it was definitely something from the faucet, IMO. But, the bigger point here, is that I discovered something really stupid about my house...I have no shut offs for any plumbing fixture except my two hose spigots. Not the kitchen or bathroom sinks, or the tub, and no shut offs to the washing machine other than the shut off valves the hoses connect to. To replace my faucet, I had to shut off the hot water from the hot water heater outlet, and shut off the cold water but literally closing the house's main shutoff valve (as you can maybe see in the before post, my old faucet didn't have standard 3/8" stop valves, so I had to cut off the copper to install them.) The weird thing is even after shutting off the cold water, a little bit still dribbled out. I had to work very fast with rag under the pipe, and it was a good thing I decided to go with a Sharkbite fitting since there's no way I could have soldered anything in there...and with the water coming out even with the main shutoff closed, what more could I have done to stop the water? So I have two theories.. 1) The master shut off is faulty and letting water leak through even when closed. To fix this I'd have to find out where the shut off is coming into my house from the street, right? Then I could replace the valve (I'd probably get a plumber for something at important.) or 2) The hot water heater had some kind of back-pressure after I shut off the hot water outlet, and it came back out through the cold water inlet? Not sure if that's a thing that can happen, but I'm not sure what else it could be.
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Sep 23, 2019 13:42
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DrBouvenstein posted:I replaced the WTF rat's maze of drain pipes under my sink this weekend, and replaced the faucet: If you have an old/original master valve (especially a gate type valve) that's totally possible that it is faulty -- happened to me. My house has no end-point shut offs on anything that hadn't been remodeld since the 1950s, so that's not suprising, either. To replace it you need to shut off the water at the meter/street cut out the old one, and have a new one soldered in place. Given that failure means full street pressure water flooding into your house without any way of shutting it off it's worth hiring a pro to do it. When I had my issue I got the plumber to install a quarter turn shutoff valve and a pressure regulator, which you should consider doing if you don't already have one.
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Sep 23, 2019 14:11
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meanolmrcloud posted:Just about done with phase one of “keep water out of the basement” in our new home Getting the grass to fill in May be tricky. If I were you I'd install some of the circle/hexagonal in ground supports first, which will keep the soil from being compacted around the grass and allow it to grow healthily. I am guessing that a bluegrass variety would do best there, given that it doesn't mind being mowed low and can spread to fill in any wear gaps. How much sun does that area get?
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Sep 23, 2019 14:14
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rdb posted:No, get rid of their food source and they will leave on their own. Fumigation won’t get them. Big sticky traps will. Thank you for the advice. This area, this time of the year, I worry about copperheads. My wife's suggestion was to take the .22 over and hunt them. Awesome idea, shooting a rifle into the walls and floors of a house I'll be renovating. Thread probably going up next week because I will have power and can start the actual work and you can all have a good laugh as I go insane.
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Sep 23, 2019 14:20
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DrBouvenstein posted:The weird thing is even after shutting off the cold water, a little bit still dribbled out. Did you drain all the pipes in the house? You might still have had a lot of water in the pipes above the level of the supply for the faucet.
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Sep 23, 2019 14:22
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Untrustable posted:Thank you for the advice. This area, this time of the year, I worry about copperheads. My wife's suggestion was to take the .22 over and hunt them. Awesome idea, shooting a rifle into the walls and floors of a house I'll be renovating. Thread probably going up next week because I will have power and can start the actual work and you can all have a good laugh as I go insane. Your wife sounds awesome
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Sep 23, 2019 14:26
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Hubis posted:Getting the grass to fill in May be tricky. The only reason I'd see that being "tricky" would be due to lack of soil - doesn't look like there's much space to fill to the top of the stone. I suppose is depends on what "slag" is - if it's literally slag or the more common (in my area) screenings. I'm assuming slag is.....literally slag, while screenings are crushed stone.
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Sep 23, 2019 14:29
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