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Imasalmon posted:We had a power outage at our place, and when the utility provider said they fixed it, our lights were very dim, and the major appliances weren't functioning. After cycling every breaker on or panel (at the recommendation of my dad) nothing changed, so I called the provider, and 8 hours later I have power. Yay. Incandescent bulbs are dimmer when the voltage is lower. It sounds like you had a bad connection on one leg, that has been getting steadily worse over the years. A bad connection is higher resistance, causing lower voltage. It sounds like they repaired it. Now, that's assuming that the "brightness" is steady. If it's going dim-bright there is another issue, but I think you would have noted that.
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Jan 2, 2021 16:51
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Imasalmon posted:
As angryrobots said, congratulations now you're getting all the voltage you're paying for. If you previously haven't been upgrading to led lights because they keep blowing out I bet you have better luck now. I would get on that with some decent brand (Cree?) bulbs and stop paying the poco so much money.
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Jan 2, 2021 17:59
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Pardon me for my relative ignorance but I’m not insanely handy even though this is a simple task: How the hell do you get a good level when hanging something with two self-drilling threaded drywall anchors? I’ve been wildly unsuccessful at this—I’ll even drill pilot holes and still end up about 1/8in off between the two. Unsure what I’m doing wrong here—maybe my level sucks and it’s not completely straight (it’s a composite and they get a little warpy)? Or else it’s just that the anchors are not going in straight and end up a little wonky? No loving clue.
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Jan 2, 2021 18:52
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one of these helps. You can drill right on your markings, but if you're cocked at an angle, the anchor will be out of alignment. I also don't like those anchors but that's personal opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHb-Tcvkn7M
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Jan 2, 2021 19:19
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life is killing me posted:Pardon me for my relative ignorance but I’m not insanely handy even though this is a simple task: Use tracing paper and a level. Put the paper on the thing to be hung square and mark the corners and anchors. Remember to pull anything taut as needed. Now tape the paper to the wall using your level. Drill straight through it and hang your items. Once happy tear the paper out or leave it for future generations. If you do not have the upper body strength for the angle of attack get on a ladder so that the fastener is shoulder height. Take your time and press straight through the fastener, remember that sometimes your drill has an angle to it. Practice on a scrap of wood with a wood screw or something if you aren't great at drilling straight in. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jan 2, 2021 |
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Jan 2, 2021 19:27
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In my quest for better basement lighting, I learned that at least 5 lights, and 12+ outlets, in 4 seperate rooms are on the same circuit. I.e. the lights on the rafters connect to circuits in the rooms above. In fact they route those circuits and each wall outlet has a split off a light bulb at some point. The lights are just standard single bulb lights that are also acting as junction boxes , that I can tell. Not surprising as its an unfinished basement from the 60s. I'm a bit mad at my dad now, who did re do the walls in the basement and could have fixed the outlets down here when the drywall wasn't up. Anyway, that seems bad, basically 5 of these, 3 of which are on the same circuit down the basement.  Also its old 2 strand so no grounds. So I want to run a line all the way across to make a new circuit, is there any magic to this other than connecting at the breaker box and using the right junction boxes etc ? I would have no problem running the line but I think I would do a poo poo job keeping it neat in the breaker box.
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Jan 3, 2021 03:42
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Wasabi the J posted:one of these helps. H110Hawk posted:Use tracing paper and a level. Put the paper on the thing to be hung square and mark the corners and anchors. Remember to pull anything taut as needed. Now tape the paper to the wall using your level. Drill straight through it and hang your items. Once happy tear the paper out or leave it for future generations. Thanks! Sorry for a late reply—I managed to get it done. It feels like every time I hang something with drywall anchors I search for a stud with a finder, it hits on one, I do a knock check, and then there’s a stud wherever I try to place one of the anchors no matter what I do because I get a false positive. But, it got done. These studs are unevenly placed though it seems.
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Jan 3, 2021 04:07
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Get a decent stud finder. Some people really like a magnet, I like the Franklin Sensors ones I have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWMJhfMPWn4 The Franklins just show you where the stud is with no fancy functions to remember and no knocking, just slide it over the walls and see what's behind it. One shortcoming is it doesn't have a conduit sensor so you have to do some secondary checks before drilling but I usually know where my conduits and pipes live in my walls.
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Jan 3, 2021 04:22
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life is killing me posted:Thanks! Sorry for a late reply—I managed to get it done. It feels like every time I hang something with drywall anchors I search for a stud with a finder, it hits on one, I do a knock check, and then there’s a stud wherever I try to place one of the anchors no matter what I do because I get a false positive. Do yourself a favor and buy a few boxes of screws. If you hit a stud just switch to a screw and call it a day. (Unless your anchor screw is long enough, then just toss the plastic anchor part.)
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Jan 3, 2021 04:25
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I always start my drywall anchor pilot holes with a small enough bit that I can use a regular wood screw. That way if I screw up on stud location I can easily swap instead of having a giant anchor hole in the drywall. Has the dual benefit of keeping your drywall anchor centered where you want it for level/positioning purposes.
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Jan 3, 2021 04:54
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H110Hawk posted:Do yourself a favor and buy a few boxes of screws. If you hit a stud just switch to a screw and call it a day. (Unless your anchor screw is long enough, then just toss the plastic anchor part.) The drywall screw was long enough so I did just that, but eventually it will need spackling. Wasabi the J posted:Get a decent stud finder. Some people really like a magnet, I like the Franklin Sensors ones I have. Thanks for this. The one I have as mentioned is poo poo, lots of false positives—but it’ll be hard not to get suspicious of any stud finder and what it hits on. I’ll give the Franklin a look. tangy yet delightful posted:I always start my drywall anchor pilot holes with a small enough bit that I can use a regular wood screw. That way if I screw up on stud location I can easily swap instead of having a giant anchor hole in the drywall. Has the dual benefit of keeping your drywall anchor centered where you want it for level/positioning purposes. At least with the threaded ones there’s no need for a pilot hole, but I wished I’d drilled one anyway because I’d have known there was a stud there pretty quickly.
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Jan 3, 2021 06:48
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Awesome, thanks to the both of you. I have a basic level of electrical understanding from AP physics in highschool, but I have no understanding of it from a practical and home owner standpoint. I would have called an electrician, but everything around me was closed or charging insane amounts thanks to the holiday and the weekend. After losing my job thanks to COVID, I was really freaking out about spending money I don't have to ensure that my house doesn't burn down. I appreciate the input! Imasalmon fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jan 3, 2021 |
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Jan 3, 2021 09:08
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Imasalmon posted:Awesome, thanks to the both of you. I have a basic level of electrical understanding from AP physics in highschool, but I have no understanding of it from a practical and home owner standpoint. I would have called an electrician, but everything around me was closed or charging insane amounts thanks to the holiday and the weekend. After losing my job thanks to COVID, I was really freaking out about spending money I don't have to ensure that my house doesn't burn down. I appreciate the input! Before you do anything, go to local library and check out a copy of The Black And Decker Guide to Home Wiring Also very well worth picking up as a reference volume, and can be had stupid cheap on Abe Books or Thriftbooks. It basically walks you through understanding home electricity, and has lots of charts and diagrams, and is very simple to understand. Same thing for the Popular Mechanics Home How To, though that covers high level of everything. I think it’s out of print, so again thriftbooks and the like are perfect for picking up a cheap copy. The updated home fix it guidebook Amazon recommends is trash, I accidentally bought that for a friend and you can’t read the drat thing. Instead of being organized into logical sections like plumbing, and electrical, it’s organized alphabetically so you have to look up everything from the index, because the editors think that it’s better in a search engine format. It really isn’t, and you can’t get a high level understanding of the correct way of doing something and then go watch some YouTube university, which is my typical approach when doing something new or some I haven’t touched in awhile.
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Jan 3, 2021 16:24
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Imasalmon posted:Awesome, thanks to the both of you. I have a basic level of electrical understanding from AP physics in highschool, but I have no understanding of it from a practical and home owner standpoint. I would have called an electrician, but everything around me was closed or charging insane amounts thanks to the holiday and the weekend. After losing my job thanks to COVID, I was really freaking out about spending money I don't have to ensure that my house doesn't burn down. I appreciate the input! If you're down on income make sure you're signing up for the various utility programs for low income folks they might have. It should be a good way to catch a break. You probably have to be down at some small multiple of the FPL but if you have been out of work all year you might be there. You're definitely there in 2021 to date. (Depends on if they use rolling average income or annual income. I have no clue.) Look around and see if there are low income energy efficiency grant programs too which might get you a box of led lights or something which will permanently reduce your electricity bill (assuming they don't die sudden deaths, which if your service is now fixed should be reduced.) Turn those 60w bulbs into 10w bulbs.
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Jan 3, 2021 18:51
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OSU_Matthew posted:Before you do anything, go to local library and check out a copy of The Black And Decker Guide to Home Wiring Thanks for posting these recs, I picked up several of the Black and Decker guides and the Popular Mechanics one for about $40 between AbeBooks (has tons of used copies of various editions for less than $5) and Amazon for the wiring book. My dad used to have pretty much an entire library of the Black and Decker references, probably from the late 80's or early 90's, that I was planning on inheriting until my parents' tinderbox of a garage was destroyed in a fire early last year.
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Jan 3, 2021 22:37
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I currently have a single socket in my bedroom and I want to upgrade it to a double socket. I've looked online and it seems relatively straight forward? Kill power from main fuse board, double check to make sure wires aren't live (with a socket checker or multimeter). Then it's a simple case of removing old housing and putting a double housing over it, and wiring the new double socket up. Is there anything I'm missing or anything I can potentially gently caress up? I've got all my computer stuff connected to this single socket and I can't plug in my electric heater. Found out that it was a very stupid thing but thankfully didn't get any electrical fires (I'd smell a very strong fishy smell and assumed it was my old electric heater, but buying a new one still caused the smell and I realised it was the socket outlet). Will putting in a double socket let me have computer equipment plugged into one with a multiplug and the electrical heater plugged into the other without overloading the sockets? Or is it a case of the wiring at the socket not being rated for the amount I'm trying to draw, and a double socket setup won't fix that?
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Jan 4, 2021 05:12
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Qubee posted:I currently have a single socket in my bedroom and I want to upgrade it to a double socket. I've looked online and it seems relatively straight forward? Kill power from main fuse board, double check to make sure wires aren't live (with a socket checker or multimeter). Then it's a simple case of removing old housing and putting a double housing over it, and wiring the new double socket up. How old is your house that it has simplex outlets? Is this an old knob and tube setup? Do you literally have a fuse box, not a breaker box? If you're getting an acrid smell from the outlet then you need to replace it regardless as you said, but if it's knob and tube and you don't find and obvious issue in the outlet then you may have a much more dangerous condition with degrading wiring. Depending on the draw on your computer, the space heater, and whatever else is on that same circuit then you may well not be able to do this without a much more extensive upgrade to your homes wiring.
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Jan 4, 2021 05:18
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Qubee posted:Or is it a case of the wiring at the socket not being rated for the amount I'm trying to draw, and a double socket setup won't fix that? We can't tell over the internet, but there is a reasonable chance that the socket is not the only component that needs to be upgraded, especially with an electric heater. There is an electrical thread somewhere, they might have more advice.
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Jan 4, 2021 05:20
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Just crunch primes or mine Bitcoin when your room is cold
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Jan 4, 2021 05:35
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Qubee posted:I currently have a single socket in my bedroom and I want to upgrade it to a double socket. I've looked online and it seems relatively straight forward? Kill power from main fuse board, double check to make sure wires aren't live (with a socket checker or multimeter). Then it's a simple case of removing old housing and putting a double housing over it, and wiring the new double socket up. Here’s the electrical thread which can answer your question. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3090739&perpage=40&noseen=1&pagenumber=357
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Jan 4, 2021 06:28
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H110Hawk posted:How old is your house that it has simplex outlets? Is this an old knob and tube setup? Do you literally have a fuse box, not a breaker box? I've no idea what most of this means. I used the term fuse board because I'm a layman and don't know the correct name for it. Quick Google shows that it's a breaker box setup. I've posted in the electrical thread, cheers for the help though, I appreciate it.
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Jan 4, 2021 06:45
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Getting ready to do the countertops in my kitchen and I'm nervous. I've watched videos but any other tips y'all can provide? How viable is it to just use a jigsaw with a downcut laminate blade? Orbital setting on 0?
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Jan 4, 2021 19:11
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Delta bathroom sink faucet was leaking around the hot handle a little when the water was running so I grabbed the Danco brand cartridges, seats, and springs to go ahead and do both sides. Well, the hot side handle no longer leaks, but now I've got a super slow drip at the faucet coming from the cold side, which I guess is what I get for replacing stuff that wasn't leaking before. I pulled everything out and reseated it all several times and have the retaining nut tightened down as much as I dare. I've replaced a ton of stems, seats, springs, washers, etc over the years and have never had new stuff leak at all. What do I do now? Find an oem Delta replacement to try? Grab another new seat and spring to try? It's a super slow leak, if I dry everything off and watch for a minute there's no water dripping but come back in 30 minutes and the bottom of the sink is a little wet.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:16
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regulargonzalez posted:Getting ready to do the countertops in my kitchen and I'm nervous. I've watched videos but any other tips y'all can provide? How viable is it to just use a jigsaw with a downcut laminate blade? Orbital setting on 0? When I built shelving out of 3/4” plywood with Formica glued on, I used a router with a laminate cutter, rough-cut the Formica, glued it on the wood with 3M, and ran the router along the profile of the wood. Worked beautifully. Plunge-cutting with a laminate blade should work. Use a new blade.
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Jan 4, 2021 21:57
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Ah I should have mentioned that it's an off the shelf countertop with the laminate already on. Would you still recommend a router? I also have a jigsaw, circular saw, and mini circular saw. I'm probably overthinking it and it'll be fine.
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Jan 4, 2021 22:17
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What kind of cuts are you making? Edge cuts? For the drop in sink? Both? Use clamps, a straight edge, and the circular saw to cut the edges. Depending on how good you are with the circular saw, plunge cut the straight runs and use the jigsaw on the curves for the sink. Or drill starter holes near the corners and jigsaw out the sink drop in--the sink flange will cover less than perfect lines. Tape all your cuts to prevent chipping--shipping tape is nice and flat with the bonus of being able to see through it.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:17
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regulargonzalez posted:Getting ready to do the countertops in my kitchen and I'm nervous. I've watched videos but any other tips y'all can provide? How viable is it to just use a jigsaw with a downcut laminate blade? Orbital setting on 0? e: for straight lines
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Jan 4, 2021 23:23
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Thanks all. Yeah, doing both the edges and a sink cutout. Total of 5 edge cuts for all the countertops. The walls in this house aren't very straight so I'm worried about the backside too. I'll pick up a laminate blade for the circular saw and do the edges with that.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:32
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So I'm trying to remove a countertop soap dispenser (to install an air switch for my garbage disposal), but I'm having a hell of a time doing so. Here's a top view:  and here's a bottom view:  (The hex nut is about 1.25" in diameter.) I just have a regular wrench and not a basin wrench, but I can manage with getting a grip and twisting. However, I think the main problem is that the nut is 'stuck' to the bolt, so when I try to twist it, the whole thing moves. I can try to have someone else grip the top with another wrench, but it's circular so I don't know if they'll be able to hold a grip. Would penetrating oil help here? What do y'all think?
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Jan 5, 2021 01:00
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If you're not trying to save the soap dispenser just bite down on it hard with a vise grip and I'm sure it'll grab. As a bonus it will stop against that backsplash when you turn in and you don't even need to have someone hold it from the top.
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Jan 5, 2021 01:09
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regulargonzalez posted:The walls in this house aren't very straight so I'm worried about the backside too. That's what caulk is for. Seriously, don't go chasing the wall cutting up the back of your countertop - that's madness. And what do you intend to do about a backsplash?
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Jan 5, 2021 01:11
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Motronic posted:That's what caulk is for. The backsplash will come after I've moved in and taken a little break -- other than Christmas day I haven't had a real day off in months. Point taken though. There was a Lowe's how-to vid that talked about using a (geometry style) compass and pencil to get the back flush
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Jan 5, 2021 01:30
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Final Blog Entry posted:If you're not trying to save the soap dispenser just bite down on it hard with a vise grip and I'm sure it'll grab. As a bonus it will stop against that backsplash when you turn in and you don't even need to have someone hold it from the top. Thanks, that sounds like just the tool I need!
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Jan 5, 2021 01:54
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regulargonzalez posted:The backsplash will come after I've moved in and taken a little break -- other than Christmas day I haven't had a real day off in months. Point taken though. There was a Lowe's how-to vid that talked about using a (geometry style) compass and pencil to get the back flush When I replaced the countertop in my kitchen four years ago, I left the wavy plaster wall alone...but at the corner, it was straight because there was a chimney in that corner that I removed & then drywalled. The run-out at its worst was a little less than a half-inch...so, when I glued in my backsplash (construction adhesive on the back; silicone adhesive on the counter) I solved the wall wave by doing this:  (before): 
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Jan 5, 2021 02:58
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In the next couple of weeks I'll be having a couple pictures professionally framed. Are there any guides or resources out there about choosing picture frames and framing materials (mats etc.) to complement the picture? Or are those the sort of things that are better left to whoever is framing it?
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Jan 5, 2021 03:40
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Do you have a Michael's anywhere near you? They have a huge selection of frames & also do custom framing. You can get a lot of inspiration.
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Jan 5, 2021 03:41
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PainterofCrap posted:Do you have a Michael's anywhere near you? They have a huge selection of frames & also do custom framing. You can get a lot of inspiration. I'm in Australia so I dont think there are any close by. e. Apparently there's one in Sydney e2. Sydney, Nova Scotia 
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Jan 5, 2021 03:53
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Michaels is just a craft store. There may well be some Aussie equivalent that's slightly closer. 
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Jan 5, 2021 04:14
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So there's a crack in my new sliding door sill. Apparently the materials are covered by warranty, but not the labour. Classic. Problem is they want $800 to fix this crack:  Ouch. I did not have a great experience with these folks during initial install, so I'm considering any other options, including obtaining the parts and doing it myself/paying a different installer to tackle it, if that's even allowed under warranty. Any tips or tricks for repairing/masking cracked vinyl? My budget is $799 lol.
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Jan 5, 2021 16:44
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regulargonzalez posted:The backsplash will come after I've moved in and taken a little break -- other than Christmas day I haven't had a real day off in months. Point taken though. There was a Lowe's how-to vid that talked about using a (geometry style) compass and pencil to get the back flush So if the backsplash is thicker than the runout in your wall (like in painterofcraps example) there is literally no reason ever to do something as insane as your big box store video: it's going to be entirely covered by a different material, never to be seen again. And if the runout is MORE than that - you need to fix the wall. It boggles the mind why they produce such garbage.
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Jan 5, 2021 16:52
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