Vintersorg posted:

I didnt take a picture yet but is it weird to have 2 floor vents side by side?

Devor posted:

One is the return

NoneMoreNegative posted:

Bedroom 2 does not have a door

Sloppy posted:

Would like to read this rant, got a link?

AFewBricksShy posted:

Sorry, I can't comment on the contractor issue because I don't know your area. However I can comment on the waterproofing.

If your house is anything more than 15-20 years old, no waterproofing on shower walls isn't exactly shocking. Neither is the tile directly adhered to drywall, I would hope it was at least greenboard, but I don't think I started seeing durarock/hardibacker specified on jobs until about 15 years ago.

As recently as 2009, we did a hotel in Philly that was just thinset on greenboard, no waterproofing.

The idea is that you really only need waterproofing where there is standing water. Tile itself is inherently waterproof, and on a vertical surface, the water is just running down the surface. Add that to the typical usage a home shower gets and you don't really need it. However in this day and age, especially with the liquid applied waterproofing, it's often just easier to do it as a just in case. Also grouts are far more than just standard cement now, and they also tend to have water resistant properties.

Even today we will often just run the waterproofing about a foot or so up the shower walls and just go tile on backer board, and it is all perfectly to code. This isn't small jobs, so taking the extra half day to waterproof the entire shower adds up (2 hours per shower x 250 units = $80,000), so it's often not done.

That said, when I do my own house later this year, I'm going to be waterproofing the floor, 4" up the walls around the perimeter of the room, and up to the level of the shower head.

Regarding liquid applied vs. schluter.

gently caress schluter waterproofing. I have no idea how they have gotten it out there that they are the be-all/end-all of waterproofing that everyone must have or you're all going to die.

Laticrete developed a sheet based waterproof membrane back in the 70's called 9235. You paint this black latex poo poo on the ground, lay out the sheet, then paint over the sheet. The sheet provides strength and also allows the membrane to flex and act as a crack suppression membrane.

In the early '00's they developed Hydroban, which wasn't great when it first came out. It was a fluid applied waterproofing, but had no sheet. It still met all the specs of the 9235 waterproofing. Mapei, Ardex, Custom, and I think bostick, all rolled out their own versions, which got much better over the years. Our shop will pretty much use redgard as a default, unless we're going for the mega-warranty. Aquadefense is just as good as Redgard, we haven't used ardex's very much and considering I'm not 100% positive that bostick has one, you can infer how much we use that.

Redgard (and the others) work by painting a layer, waiting for it to dry, then painting another layer. You end up with pretty much a 1/8" thick latex sheet that stretches and holds water, but the mortar still sticks nicely to it. You only need a sheet membrane in corner transitions, we will also tend to use it if there's a particularly nasty active crack in a concrete floor (this will rarely present itself in a home unless you're tiling a basement or it's a condo).

If you're going down over durarock, the seams between the boards should be mudded and taped by the taper (or your installer) prior to installation of the redgard.

Now on to schluter.

They are an awesome company. They dominate the market of transition strips in this area at least, and their products are ingenious. I absolutely love their shower curbs, their prefab pans are awesome, they just rolled out these awesome decorative shower shelves, and their linear drains are loving great because you can do 1 plane pitch to a drain, which allows you to have gently caress off huge tiles on the shower floor without worrying about lippage (even though the drains make it interesting union-wise, because the plumbers want to set the drains but they tie into the tiling system, so who does what...). Their waterproofing and crack supression, on the other hand...

Putting down kerdi sucks.
First off, you're stuck with using unmodified mortar.

Ok. Mortar tangent. Most of your mortars are what are called latex modified mortars. The latex generally improves work-ability, adds flexibility (on a microscopic scale), water resistance, and strength.
When you add water to the mortar, it allows all of the powders and such to mix up, and as the moisture evaporates out of the mortar, the cement crystallizes and grows into itself. The latex helps strengthen this bond.

One of the issues with the larger format tiles now is that the moisture takes far longer to exit the tiles. If you set a 24x24 porcelain tile on a waterproof membrane with a 3mm/~1/8" joint and pull it up a day later, you'll have hard mortar around the first couple inches of the tile, and the mortar in the center of the tile will still be "Green" (wet). It can take a long rear end time for the mortar to fully dry out/cure. The reason for this is that the air has pretty much no outlet other than the absurdly narrow grout joint. The tile is impermeable, the waterproof membrane is the same, and your grout inhibits airflow as well (which is the point) The latex not only helps to add strength during this time, but also can have other additives to pretty much self cure and not rely solely on evaporation to do the job.

Unmodified mortars don't have the latex, and don't have many of the other fun additives that can be added. They are pretty much sand, portland cement and maybe lime. Unmodified mortars are perfectly fine to set a mosaic or something, but pretty much anything over 8"x8" (20cm) you should be using a modified mortar, as the long curing time (in the center of the tile) can lead to a weakened bond and cause the tiles to pop.

Ok, detour over back to schluter.

Schluter (in the States) only allows you to use unmodified mortars when setting ditra and kerdi. So right off the bat, you're using a crappy mortar. So now you have to comb out the mortar to where you want the sheet. Then you lay the sheet out, and dry trowel the sheet into the mortar to ensure it adheres. Then you lay out your next sheet, comb it out, rinse and repeat, and this would require 2 guys to be able to do it quickly. Contrast this to a guy dipping a paint roller into some red goo and just going hog wild on a floor.
The one plus is that once your kerdi is down you can start tiling right away, vs. having to wait with the fluid systems.

So now you're setting your 24x24 porcelain tile on the wall, and you're still stuck with having to use unmodified mortars. You can bite the bullet and use the proper modified stuff, but now you don't have a warranted installation.
Conveniently they (schluter) sell modified mortars that will work with kerdi, but you can only use their mortars and that's bullshit because there are way better mortars out there to use.

Ditra is even worse.
You've got your unmodified mortars, but now you also have to trowel the mortar into the little voids 4 different ways to ensure the mortar keys into the little trapeziod voids that hold the tile down. You also have to do this prior to when you start setting the tile, so you're combing out mortar 3 times before your tile is able to be laid down.

Also both of them are expensive as gently caress.

As a point to point: (all pricing with no markup/taxes)
RedGard Per SqFt: ~1.65/SqFt
Material - $.45
Labor - ~1.20 (depends on the installation). This is union wages.

Schluter Ditra - $6.10
Material - 1.80/SqFt
Labor - ~4.30

Kerdi's labor would be slightly less, but the material cost is the same. That's true numbers, by the way. $1.60 a foot with my discount, plus .20 a foot for the mortar to stick it on the wall.

The only place we use Ditra or kerdi is Princeton U. I have no idea how Schluter got as entrenched in there as they are, but they accept no substitutions.

Sentient Data posted:

Watch one of the floor vents actually be hooked up to a gas water heater's chimney

AFewBricksShy posted:

I talked a lot of these points over with the schluter rep the last time I saw him. According to him the Kerdi can go in just as fast or faster than redgard. I’ve still yet to do the race with it though but if I get the right job I will.
Their mortar explanation makes sense to me. (If another company changes their formula it might not work and then they would be on the hook for the warranty issue). The all set is actually a pretty fantastic mortar overall so I’m much more comfortable using it.
We just did a 2k sqft lobby with the ditra underlayment and it went well.

AFewBricksShy posted:

I talked a lot of these points over with the schluter rep the last time I saw him. According to him the Kerdi can go in just as fast or faster than redgard. I’ve still yet to do the race with it though but if I get the right job I will.
Their mortar explanation makes sense to me. (If another company changes their formula it might not work and then they would be on the hook for the warranty issue). The all set is actually a pretty fantastic mortar overall so I’m much more comfortable using it.
We just did a 2k sqft lobby with the ditra underlayment and it went well.

NoneMoreNegative posted:

It was right there on the blueprint!

edit:

Yes you can come crash in my spare room, Fortunato

Smithwick posted:

What's up with the two rooms that share a wall, but don't share dimensions?

Smithwick posted:

What's up with the two rooms that share a wall, but don't share dimensions?

My Lovely Horse posted:

You'll find out if you manage to fold through spacetime just the right way to enter.

Smithwick posted:

What's up with the two rooms that share a wall, but don't share dimensions?

Vintersorg posted:

So I think it’s a return air vent there.

Vintersorg posted:

So I think it’s a return air vent there.

Vintersorg posted:

devicenull posted:

Why do you have ductwork from your HRV going into the floor?

devicenull posted:

Why do you have ductwork from your HRV going into the floor?

Sirotan posted:

Condensate drain?

Blistex posted:

Took this photo today. . . not my handiwork.



Owner was wondering why any water use results in massive temperature changes in the shower.

Pekinduck posted:

NEC 240.21(B) "you'll put someone's eye out": Dangling live romex must have all ends capped including ground.

Sirotan posted:

Condensate drain?

Wasabi the J posted:

Airoboros

titty_baby_ posted:

Just got flashbacks to being forced to help my dad in the attic as a kid. Being 12 and crawling on my hands and knees dragging rolls of fiberglass insulation under rafters to lay out above the new garage. Being a bit older helped bring things down for a move, stubbing my toe, then hitting my head on a nail sticking down when I jerked up as a reaction. Mouse poop in various places.

Blistex posted:

Owner was wondering why any water use results in massive temperature changes in the shower.

Wasabi the J posted:

Hardhats are like $10 at home depot holy gently caress lmao

Dareon posted:

https://i.imgur.com/X7NtTtG.mp4
Aw, nuts.

Dareon posted:

https://i.imgur.com/X7NtTtG.mp4
Aw, nuts.

Dareon posted:

https://i.imgur.com/X7NtTtG.mp4
Aw, nuts.

3D Megadoodoo posted:

Acorn Archimedes

titty_baby_ posted:

Time to go find some hogs to feed these to