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H110Hawk posted:That is one fancy door you have there. They've become pretty standard on new doors these days. If you're particularly interested, I replaced the unit in mine in my thread somewhere last year when I flipped from left to right handed. H110Hawk posted:I got nothin for the letterbox havers. My MIL has a mail slot and quarter turn lock, I hadn't considered that attack surface. I definitely couldn't reach up there and undo it given my arm is thicker past the elbow than the slot. I assume some special tools could get it done. The letterbox is at the same level as the handle, which is where the cylinder is, so that's where the turn would be. Maybe 6" of reach needed. H110Hawk posted:I am generally entirely adverse to Io(shi)T things. We don't have an "alexa" or "nest" or similar device in our home. It makes me mad I can't buy a TiVo or Roku without the voice features, and cannot force them entirely off if I accidentally hit their stupid button on the remote even if they allege they are not always listening. This lock has the features you want (it's a lock) without the features you don't (lol wifi): That one doesn't look bad at all, but again unfortunately I can't use it since the multilock is all one piece and takes up the whole height of the door, so I'd have to get a smart eurocylinder, or replace the entire locking mechanism. H110Hawk posted:This goes back to "how secure" do you need the door to be given the other weaknesses in your home? If someone clones your nfc tag that's a very sophisticated attack akin to picking the lock, if there is an NFC vulnerability AND a thief drives around looking for your exact lock that's getting pretty out there in terms of burglar sophistication. A lot of RFID chips, even ones used to secure offices, don't have hardware encryption, so they can be skimmed quite easily. But yeah it's not a concern I have right now, I just don't want to introduce something where a lazy programmer could have hosed it up, without doing my due diligence first.
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Aug 15, 2020 21:51
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Jaded Burnout posted:They've become pretty standard on new doors these days. If you're particularly interested, I replaced the unit in mine in my thread somewhere last year when I flipped from left to right handed. I'm curious to see the locking mechanism on your door, I didn't google hard at all I just wanted to show you an example of something "not awful" to let you know there is hope in the world for smart locks. Is the mortice portion not modular from the security bars that go up and down? I still have 1400 unread posts in your build thread. Jaded Burnout posted:A lot of RFID chips, even ones used to secure offices, don't have hardware encryption, so they can be skimmed quite easily. But yeah it's not a concern I have right now, I just don't want to introduce something where a lazy programmer could have hosed it up, without doing my due diligence first. I believe I covered that in my door being secured by kwikset.  It's the equivalent skill and tools to lockpicking. You just want your neighbors house to be more convenient to rob than yours, aka unlocked. $50 in parts to skim and write an nfc tag. $100 if you want to do it at a distance. All fits nicely in a messenger bag or medium/large purse.
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Aug 16, 2020 00:13
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Personally we went keyless with Yale Assure Smartlocks, the stripped down model that's missing the wireless module and which doesn't even have a keyhole. After seeing how easy most conventional locks can be bypassed I figured a keyhole was just a liability and it does mean there's no backup if the battery dies but A. it warns you soon as the battery gets low, and B. we have other exterior doors with the same lock but batteries changed at different times even if we somehow miss it. I'm sure they messed up something when they made them so some silly vulnerability exists but it'd hopefully be obscure enough that it doesn't matter barring specifically being targeted which is even more unlikely than being casually targeted.
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Aug 16, 2020 00:40
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H110Hawk posted:That is one fancy door you have there. I got nothin for the letterbox havers. My MIL has a mail slot and quarter turn lock, I hadn't considered that attack surface. I definitely couldn't reach up there and undo it given my arm is thicker past the elbow than the slot. I assume some special tools could get it done. When I locked myself out of my apartment in Stockholm, the locksmith had a special tool that went in through the mail slot and turned the knob. Thieves definitely have them as well in Sweden, you can buy them online. After that I started flipping down the cover over the quarter turn knob.
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Aug 16, 2020 04:33
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H110Hawk posted:I'm curious to see the locking mechanism on your door, I didn't google hard at all I just wanted to show you an example of something "not awful" to let you know there is hope in the world for smart locks. Is the mortice portion not modular from the security bars that go up and down? I still have 1400 unread posts in your build thread. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3824923&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=21#post492284949 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3824923&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=22#post493053735 Basically there's a long strip of steel with three boxes riveted on. The top and bottom boxes contain hook latches and are actuated by rods that run the length of the bar. The rods are actuated by a gearbox in the center, which also contains the normal latch and deadbolt. The spindle bar goes from one handle, through the gearbox, to the other handle, and actuating the handle(s) actuates the normal latch (opening it when turning downwards) and the rods (closing them when turning upwards). The gearbox also contains a receiving lever which both shoots out the main latch and prevents turning of the spindle, thereby locking the door. This is actuated by a sending lever that is present on all euro cylinders. So effectively in order to lock the door you need to rotate the spindle receiver anti-clockwise (turn the handle upwards) and rotate the receiving lever anti-clockwise (turning the key towards the frame). Anything which is able to fit into the channel for a euro cylinder and do that second operation would work as a suitable lock, with the multipoint system (and the user) doing almost all the work to engage the bolts. This is an example of a euro cylinder, with a thumb turn on the inside. You can see the black sending lever in the middle.  This is where the cylinder sits in the handle.  This is why the "smart" ones wind up either built into the handle (which is where the euro cylinder would go) or with a big bulky nodule hanging off one end of the euro.  There's a lot of garbage of this style out there so I'd have to do my research.
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Aug 16, 2020 06:51
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I installed a new showerhead, and since it's considerably larger than the one I removed, it's sort of dominating the shower space. Is it safe to cut back the pipe extruding from the wall by a several inches and rethread it? SpartanIvy posted:I'm the mad man who looked up crime statistics, sex offenders, 100 year flood planes, nearby railroad tracks, airplane flight paths, and upcoming city developments before buying. I got a lot of looks when I mentioned looking up ANY of these things, let alone all of them. I get the impression that most people see shiplap on a wall in a nice neighborhood in their price range, and mash buy-it-now.
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Aug 16, 2020 07:04
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The Wonder Weapon posted:I installed a new showerhead, and since it's considerably larger than the one I removed, it's sort of dominating the shower space. Is it safe to cut back the pipe extruding from the wall by a several inches and rethread it? And yeah, market is real weird right now. I just listed my house last Friday and had 2 offers by Monday morning, with a ton of requests for showings through the rest of the week. It's a nice enough house, but not one that should be making people go nuts. Pretty nice to only have to do 4 showings to sell the place though. Slugworth fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Aug 16, 2020 |
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Aug 16, 2020 13:08
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Same here in Winnipeg. It's a madhouse right now in the 250-399 range. Sister-in-law was outbid $10k with no-conditions and apparently that's the norm for some. People getting into insane bidding wars here.
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Aug 16, 2020 14:09
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Speaking of housing being wierd, I got this spam text yesterday, with accurate information for my name and address. 
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Aug 16, 2020 14:36
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My MIL is a mess of anxiety and freaked out the entire time she was selling her house, paranoid it wouldn’t sell. She maintained that anxiety even though she had 5 offers at or above listing price within 24 hours of her only open house.
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Aug 16, 2020 15:16
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It’s seriously kind of crazy. I sold my decent house in a not great neighborhood for 40% more than I paid for it in 2017. It got listed 1pm on a Friday and we had 27 showings in the first two days, with 9 offers.
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Aug 16, 2020 15:30
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My dad knows a few realtors and was telling me about properties out in western-ish MD counties selling sight unseen. Any idea what’s driving this? I personally suspect more white-flight nonsense from urban areas as this seems to have started around the time of the BLM protests and COVID, but I have nothing to back that up.
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Aug 16, 2020 16:33
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The feds are injecting a trillion dollars into assets and that money is chasing any outlet: mortgage based securities, REIT, owner occupied to rentals, etc. They’re taking car loans as collateral. Also mortgage rates are incredibly low.
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Aug 16, 2020 17:02
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:My dad knows a few realtors and was telling me about properties out in western-ish MD counties selling sight unseen.
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Aug 16, 2020 19:02
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So my leaking porch slab? Called a bunch of places, only one bothered to return my call. They quoted me a minimum of $750 to fix, said gently caress that, made an attempt: Before:    I learned that the "j channel" used under the siding and up against the slab was just old siding they flipped upside down and slid behind the bottom course. There was a bunch of caulk squeezed into the top part of it, but absolutely nothing between it and the slab. During: The piece of trim under the door sill was totally rotted at the top and bottom, the only reason water wasn't coming in here constantly is it was protected by the porch roof. There was no attempt at flashing or caulk here.  You can see that they just poured the slab up agaisnt the wood trim, which was sunk in about 2". That's just a hole right into my basement. Stupid.    After:   The bottom piece is just the backside of some aluminum flashing to make it look better and yes I will be painting it to match the siding. This project made me real mad due to how sloppy of a job these concrete guys were. Not only was there just no real attempt at a proper flashing job, they couldn't even be bothered to smooth down the slab at that joint, so I had to take an angle grinder to it before putting down my flashing tape. There is concrete sprayed all over the siding and the storm door- the siding I will have to repaint, I am not sure yet what I'll do about the door. I washed the siding in this area as my test and still had a loving leak at which point I discovered some holes in the concrete around and below the edge where the slab meets the house. Filled that with a concrete sealer and slathered on some butyl sealant too for good measure, leak is fixed. While finding THAT I also learned that there was no attempt to seal the slab to the top of the foundation wall inside the cold room underneath, there was about a finger-width gap all along the front of the foundation.  I sealed that with mortar repair and will be spraying in some foam from the inside to get it air tight. I now know why my basement was always full of spiders.I washed the siding over the porch but it still looks pretty bad, so I'm going to patch and repaint this section up to where the downspouts are so that it doesn't seem so obvious. I want to change the color of the door trim but don't know to what. The house roof is a rusty red and the trim/shutters/ramp banister are all different shades of red that I hate. Gray maybe...? Anything I pick has to be approved by the historic district commission. :/ Kind of an annoying way to spend a week off, would not recommend
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Aug 17, 2020 15:31
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Speaking of caulk: there's a hole in my shower. Specifically there's a tiny crack where the corner meets the ceiling, which is where ants are getting in. The landlord sealed a similar hole in the living room bay window for the same reason, with silicone caulk. Is it a good idea to put caulk over this to seal the hole? and if so, how far back should I caulk to make it not look like rear end? On the right side, the rightmost tile visible is the last tile at that level, but going to the left and down it's tiles all the way. 
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Aug 18, 2020 19:02
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:
Economy was very good until covid and millennials were finally hitting the stage where they could buy houses. Lots of people kept their jobs through this, and there is prob even greater desire to have a single family detached home post-covid. Fed pumping money has helped keep interest rates low, great time to buy or refinance.
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Aug 18, 2020 19:13
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luminalflux posted:Speaking of caulk: there's a hole in my shower. Specifically there's a tiny crack where the corner meets the ceiling, which is where ants are getting in. The landlord sealed a similar hole in the living room bay window for the same reason, with silicone caulk. The length of where the tile meets the ceiling should be caulked with silicone, it's no different than if they continued tiling on the ceiling. You should be able to get a caulk to match your grout color. EDIT: That corner between the tile needs to be caulked as well, as you can see the grout is cracking. Any change in plane with tile needs to be caulked as grout will eventually crack.
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Aug 18, 2020 21:05
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:The length of where the tile meets the ceiling should be caulked with silicone, it's no different than if they continued tiling on the ceiling. You should be able to get a caulk to match your grout color. Thanks. Since I'd need to caulk the whole way, I went and took a look at the rest of the walls (It's a shower we don't really use).  This is what happens when you live in earthquake land. I'm gonna get the landlord to handle this
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Aug 18, 2020 21:47
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luminalflux posted:This is what happens when you live in earthquake land. Nope. That's what happens anywhere tile is improperly installed.
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Aug 18, 2020 22:37
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I build some monkey bars. Later this fall or next spring I plan on adding on to it - my kid wants a fort of some kind too. Next project is partially finishing my basement. I want to move my office down there (currently using a corner of my daughter's playroom, which is.. distracting), so I want to finish about 12-16 feet of exterior wall in one corner and put down some vinyl plank flooring.
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Aug 18, 2020 22:52
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Gotcha, I attributed it to earthquakes since there's a hairline crack elsewhere in the tile that the owner attributed to earthquake damage. What was done improperly that made this happen?
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Aug 18, 2020 22:52
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luminalflux posted:Gotcha, I attributed it to earthquakes since there's a hairline crack elsewhere in the tile that the owner attributed to earthquake damage. What was done improperly that made this happen? The big thing is grouting the corner. That window(?) trim on the edge of the photo looks suspect as well. They make metal edging pieces to transition outside corner and edges like that nicely. It just looks like they went heavy on the grout instead. I can’t speak for other cracks, but it could be improperly done substrate though that’s usually a bigger problem with floors since you’re walking on it.
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Aug 18, 2020 23:52
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:The big thing is grouting the corner. That window(?) trim on the edge of the photo looks suspect as well. They make metal edging pieces to transition outside corner and edges like that nicely. It just looks like they went heavy on the grout instead. Also remember from the earlier post "crack where the ants are getting in". It's leaking, everything behind the walls is mold, and it's probalby because somebody slapped tile on drywall.
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Aug 19, 2020 00:04
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The mold is load-bearing
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Aug 19, 2020 00:41
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There should be caulking not grout wherever there's a transition from one face to another including horizontal transitions not just the vertical corners. Any grout joint is subject to cracking due to the natural movement of the structure. We lost nearly our entire laundry room ceiling when the grout line at a vertical to horizontal transition cracked. Shower head was spraying right at the crack and cascading down the back of the cement board wall, which we could see after the ceiling below collapsed.
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Aug 19, 2020 01:35
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Spoke to the landlord and the handyman is coming out to fix it - should I mention to them to caulk instead of grout? since it's some random handyman i'll assume theyll do the cheapest thing I should probably also get a mold test kit, right?
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Aug 19, 2020 04:02
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luminalflux posted:Spoke to the landlord and the handyman is coming out to fix it - should I mention to them to caulk instead of grout? since it's some random handyman i'll assume theyll do the cheapest thing Caulking will 100% be easier and cheaper than trying to regrout, but I would make sure he does that. And uses silicone caulk. And honestly I wouldn’t worry about mold or anything. What part of the bath is this crack? If it’s that close to the ceiling there’s nothing visible yet there’s probably no issue.
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Aug 19, 2020 04:20
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:And honestly I wouldn’t worry about mold or anything. Why would you? It's not your house. The only thing you have to worry about is what other hole the ants will pour out of.
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Aug 19, 2020 04:44
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Motronic posted:Why would you? It's not your house. I mean it’s not his house either technically, it’s the landlords problem to fix. And good luck getting him to demo the shower to check for mold. If it’s in an area of the bath that doesn’t get hit with water directly I would bet there’s nothing to be concerned about.
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Aug 19, 2020 04:51
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It's a walk-in shower and the long crack is on the same wall as the detachable showerhead. I can definitely see some water getting splashed there but it's not like water is normally beating down on it.
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Aug 19, 2020 05:10
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priznat posted:The mold is load-bearing A job for the ants if you ask me.
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Aug 19, 2020 16:39
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The saga of DIY: Rewiring light in basement. Needed bigger wire nuts, so I ran to Home Depot. Come home, bigger wire nuts work. While reconnecting everything I managed to drop and break the new lamp socket I was trying to install. Now I have to make another trip back to Home Depot for a new one. ☹️ This kind of poo poo happens way more than I'd like to admit.
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Aug 20, 2020 01:48
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Sirotan posted:This kind of poo poo happens way more than I'd like to admit. I have occasionally gone to Home Depot three or four times in a single day. Luckily it's less than 5 minutes away. I am also in the middle of rewiring lighting poo poo in my basement (they were all on pull chains so I put in a switch etc) and I made the mistake of ordering new fixtures and bulbs from Home Depot online. They said it was going to take like 15 days to deliver the bulbs but the fixtures said that they came with some (lovely) ones that I figured I could use until the replacements came in. The fixtures did not come with bulbs. The bulbs were delayed in shipping. Ugh.
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Aug 20, 2020 15:39
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I'm working on my buddy's place and was wondering if anyone has experience painting over taped sheetrock and whether or not I should get it textured or whether it'll show through if we paint over it. here's a photo for reference. i'm specifically talking about the ceiling
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Aug 20, 2020 17:52
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Depending on how good your taper was, you shouldn't have a problem. Every sheetrock wall is taped and spackled as part of a standard installation. If you're worried about seeing the joints, sand and respackle if necessary. If you're worried about the difference in color showing, use a primer before you paint.
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Aug 20, 2020 18:09
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That ceiling is looking sanded and ready for primer/ceiling paint/MasterHide. Roll two or three coats on there and you should be good to go with a nice smooth ceiling. Looking at the sanding of the mud, texturing the ceiling is a matter of preference. Textured ceilings have gone out of vogue, although some still like the look.
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Aug 20, 2020 18:13
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Wallet posted:I have occasionally gone to Home Depot three or four times in a single day. Luckily it's less than 5 minutes away.
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Aug 20, 2020 18:15
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Assuming the tape job and sanding/feathering is good enough for your liking it would be fine. In my eyes it doesn't look like they really feathered the tape joints out far enough that you won't see them unless you texture, but it's hard to say. Assuming you're not hoping for it to look like a level 5 finish (full skim coat), it's all up to you. Make sure to use a PVA sheetrock primer before you hit it with paint.
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Aug 20, 2020 18:32
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ROJO posted:Assuming the tape job and sanding/feathering is good enough for your liking it would be fine. In my eyes it doesn't look like they really feathered the tape joints out far enough that you won't see them, but it's hard to say. Assuming you're not hoping for it to look like a level 5 finish (full skim coat), it's all up to you. Thanks for the replies. Yeah that's an older photo (had other elec work done since so more joints) but I figure as long as we sand it down and prime it right we should be good. The guy doing the finish work was trying to sell me on using him for texturing and I wasn't so sure it was necessary.
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Aug 20, 2020 18:34
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