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Tezer
Jul 9, 2001

Bobulus posted:

I could do something wacky like shim the entire wall, but that would be such a pain in the rear end.

Not wacky, that's the solution.

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NoSpoon
Jul 2, 2004

Bobulus posted:

- I could do something wacky like shim the entire wall, but that would be such a pain in the rear end.
Can you use the existing drywall as your shim and just go straight over the top (after cutting a slot around the pipe of course)?

BIG-DICK-BUTT-FUCK
Jan 26, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Tezer posted:

Not wacky, that's the solution.

yeah rip a bunch of 2x4 to a thickness of 1/2" or whatever and affix them to the studs w construction adhesive + a fastener. I see people just nail or staple it, figuring the drywall screws will hold it together, but I think the construction adhesive is a good idea

Slugworth
Feb 18, 2001

If two grown men can't make a pervert happy for a few minutes in order to watch a film about zombies, then maybe we should all just move to Iran!

BIG-DICK-BUTT-gently caress posted:

yeah rip a bunch of 2x4 to a thickness of 1/2" or whatever and affix them to the studs w construction adhesive + a fastener. I see people just nail or staple it, figuring the drywall screws will hold it together, but I think the construction adhesive is a good idea
Now this is getting slightly wacky - They sell furring strips premade.

BIG-DICK-BUTT-FUCK
Jan 26, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Slugworth posted:

Now this is getting slightly wacky - They sell furring strips premade.

good point, just sharing how ive done it in the past. its not a big deal to rip them yourself w a table saw but whatevers clever i suppose

e: double checking and furring strips nominal dimensions & actual dimensions are the same, so 1/2"x2" would be 1/2" wider than the studs which would drive me insane :D still a good option for the less neurotic

BIG-DICK-BUTT-FUCK fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Apr 30, 2022

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

devicenull posted:

I have to get around to calling a radon mitigation contractor and asking if they can do anything, but I'm pretty sure the answer is going to be "abandon the ducts in the slab and rerun new ones in the attic".

......or the standard radon mitigation of putting the slab under negative pressure with a tiny inline fan.

And if the only real answer is "don't use your cancer pipes" you may want to take that advice.

Tezer
Jul 9, 2001

In my market the pre-cut stuff you buy as furring is used perpendicular to the studs with adjustments made by shimming individual attachment locations.

If we are attaching parallel to the studs it is usually because stuff is way out of alignment and we cut strips out of 2x material tapered to fix the alignment, no shims needed.

EPICAC
Mar 23, 2001

EPICAC posted:

Our bedroom is a converted attic, and the closet as it’s currently set up wastes a good bit of storage space. The closet rod is located at the back of the closet, so the space in the front half of the closet is wasted, and it puts the clothes in an awkward position. I’d like to move the rod up and towards the front to make looking through clothes easier, and to free up space in the back half for a small set of drawers or some other storage solution for seasonal clothes etc.



I have a zircon stud finder and have located a stud on the right side of the closet about 12” in, indicated by the tape in the photo. If I put the rod here it seems like there would be room for the bulkiest items in the closet.



There seems to be a stud 3” in from the closet door, and one 15” in on the left side, but the stud finder only finds this in DeepScan mode. The stud is indicated by the vertical piece of tape in this photo.



I assume it’s best to tie the rod support directly into the stud on the right side. I had a few questions about the best way to handle the left side. This will probably be the most involved project I’ve done at this point, since we’ve only owned this place for 6 months.

I assume I’d want something more sturdy than a toggle bolt into the drywall. Is installing something like a cleat tied into the two studs the best option? Are there any considerations since these seem to be deeper behind the drywall? Do I need to do something to verify that those are indeed studs? What’s the best way to make sure the closet rod is level and evenly spaced?

I’ll probably have more newbie questions.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I managed to get this done. It took about four weeks to find the time in couple hour chunks, and a few trips to Home Depot to get everything I needed. I’m pretty happy with the results.





D34THROW
Jan 29, 2012

RETAIL RETAIL LISTEN TO ME BITCH ABOUT RETAIL
:rant:

Bobulus posted:

Doing a bathroom renovation, and it's been a lot more frustrating than I thought it would be. Basically none of the studs or the bathtub are plumb/level, so just a poo poo-ton of shimming and prep before I can even replace the walls, let alone put up fresh tile.

My current frustration is that that there is a 3" vent pipe in the wall that is actually sticking out past the studs by a quarter inch. They apparently dented the pipe during construction to fit the rim of the bathtub there. With the old walls, there was a slight bulge where I guess they just wrapped the drywall around it. I can't easily bang on it and flatten it, because some little 1/2" copper pipes are right behind it in the wall, and those would be crushed long before the 3" is. I don't have any brilliant ideas of how to fix this...

- I could cut the pipe and replace it with something smaller, but as it passes behind the tub in the wall, the union would just add to the thickness I need to deal with.
- Squashing the pipe seems tricky. Maybe if I used a clamp to do it, rather blunt force? Possibly in combination with some slight heat? But if the sweated joints on it came unsweated, the bathroom would stink forever.
- I could notch out the back of my wall material, but taking a 1/4" out of a 1/2" thick piece will significantly weaken it.
- I could do something wacky like shim the entire wall, but that would be such a pain in the rear end.

Make sure you notch the engineered I beams under the tub so that you can sink it to attract :females:

BIG-DICK-BUTT-FUCK
Jan 26, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

Tezer posted:

In my market the pre-cut stuff you buy as furring is used perpendicular to the studs with adjustments made by shimming individual attachment locations.

If we are attaching parallel to the studs it is usually because stuff is way out of alignment and we cut strips out of 2x material tapered to fix the alignment, no shims needed.

You fasten the furring strips horizontally on walls? Never heard of it, only seen that w ceilings

Tezer
Jul 9, 2001

Walls only get strapped when we are trying to prep a problem surface that will receive tile, and the variation is low (like, 1/8-3/8) so that shimming the furring can get everything right. It also gets used for things like a misaligned pipe poking beyond the plane of the wall because the carpenters know how to do it fast.

Strapping the ceiling happened 100% of the time when I was working in New England, it's a regional practice there for sure. I see it less often in the midwest, but almost all my work here is remodeling now which changes my exposure. There are minor reasons for doing it, but the biggest reason to do it is because it's expected by the inspector/other trades/clients.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

I want to replace these cheap handles that came with my home for the closets

https://www.acehardware.com/departments/hardware/cabinet-and-furniture-hardware/cabinet-pulls/5274428

however 4" center to center seems pretty uncommon. Do I have any leeway with this to fit the existing holes? for example I found a few that are 3 25/32" center to center

the other option, which I would definitely hire someone for, is this

https://www.mockett.com/dp137.html

however I'm not sure how it works because the door is 1 7/8" thick, and this is only 13/32" thick. Could someone simply cut it to the proper depth to fit? since it's >4" the new hole should "cover up" the current holes.

devicenull
May 30, 2007

Grimey Drawer

Motronic posted:

......or the standard radon mitigation of putting the slab under negative pressure with a tiny inline fan.

And if the only real answer is "don't use your cancer pipes" you may want to take that advice.

All the info I've been able to find suggests sub-slab suction is not effective when you've got ductwork in the slab as well. Everyone seems to suggest abandoning it.

If we do that, we need to move the furnance/AC into the attic, run all new ducts in the attic, and deal with the efficiency hit of having everything in the attic. Oh, and we probably need to replace the <5yr old AC/furnance, because it's a downflow system and can't really be converted to run horizontally in the attic.

It would be nice to do, but it's a lot of money for not a ton of gain.

Running the HVAC fan 24/7 keeps the radon levels to well below the action threshold:

erosion
Dec 21, 2002

It's true and I'm tired of pretending it isn't

devicenull posted:

All the info I've been able to find suggests sub-slab suction is not effective when you've got ductwork in the slab as well. Everyone seems to suggest abandoning it.

If we do that, we need to move the furnance/AC into the attic, run all new ducts in the attic, and deal with the efficiency hit of having everything in the attic. Oh, and we probably need to replace the <5yr old AC/furnance, because it's a downflow system and can't really be converted to run horizontally in the attic.

It would be nice to do, but it's a lot of money for not a ton of gain.

Running the HVAC fan 24/7 keeps the radon levels to well below the action threshold:



Kinda wish I had one of them radon measuring thingies, what is this?

hambeet
Sep 13, 2002

EPICAC posted:

Thanks for the advice everyone. I managed to get this done. It took about four weeks to find the time in couple hour chunks, and a few trips to Home Depot to get everything I needed. I’m pretty happy with the results.







Hey looking good. Nice work!

FizFashizzle
Mar 30, 2005







Hello friends. I just purchased my first house. It needs some love, but I'm very excited. I apologize for stupidity this is all new to me and goon opinions have never steered me wrong.

THE PREVIOUS OWNER drilled a hole from the outside to run a coax cable through into one of the extra bedrooms. Drywall on the inside, stucco out. I'm going to cut this and get rid of it today because it's hideous. They ran it under the front porch, over the sliding doors to the converted flat, then back up to a connection box. It looks terrible.

Do I just caulk the hole when I pull it out? Do I need to do something special for the stucco?





There's a decent little shed here but the door is just hosed. Ignore the mess, that was previous owner. Ive got to throw a lot of poo poo away. Any ideas with that? Possible just to take the door off and have it open? Not a lot of people are going to be walking by, and bears probably aren't going to be going for tools or whatever.





Do I need to weatherproof this overhang?



This is under the deck. Again, a mess, and again, the cables. My god, the cables. I have an electrician friend coming out probably next week to look at all this and figure out wtf they were doing. Ideas for what to do under here? Or is just always going to be a mud hole?



Going over today to kill some english ivy. There is.....a lot.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




FizFashizzle posted:

Hello friends. I just purchased my first house.

Welcome to hell that is home ownership and PO fuckery. It's pretty fun and satisfying to fix things though, sometimes.

wesleywillis
Dec 30, 2016

SUCK A MALE CAMEL'S DICK WITH MIRACLE WHIP!!

FizFashizzle posted:

Hello friends. I just purchased my first house. It needs some love, but I'm very excited. I apologize for stupidity this is all new to me and goon opinions have never steered me wrong.


This is under the deck. Again, a mess, and again, the cables. My god, the cables. I have an electrician friend coming out probably next week to look at all this and figure out wtf they were doing. Ideas for what to do under here? Or is just always going to be a mud hole?




I don't really know too much about the rest of the stuff, but under the deck, if I were doing it I would:

Get rid of the leaves. Rake them blow then, whatever. They'll be back next fall, but maybe you can do something about that before they return.
Next I would level out the soil underneath there. Fill in any low spots, dig any high spots. I would make sure that the soil slopes away from the house as well. Tehnically then, the is not "level" but you catch my drift right? Can you see the concrete footings for the deck? I'd also try to make sure that the bottoms of the vertical deck posts aren't buried and slope the soil away from them if possible.
Then I'd throw a bunch of gravel under there. Spread it all around, try to keep it level/flat/whatever, same thing, sloping away from the house. It will settle a little bit, but since you aren't really walking on it or driving on it, it shouldn't be too bad.
At some point in there I'd put up a bunch of lattice like you seem to have around part of the deck. That'll keep lots of crap out of there, but not everything. Lastly, I'd make at least a couple gates, or easily removed pieces of lattice that you can take off to get access when needed, and use all that room for storage.

PainterofCrap
Oct 17, 2002

hey bebe



FizFashizzle posted:

Hello friends. I just purchased my first house. It needs some love, but I'm very excited. I apologize for stupidity this is all new to me and goon opinions have never steered me wrong.
You're gonna love it!

FizFashizzle posted:

THE PREVIOUS OWNER drilled a hole from the outside to run a coax cable through into one of the extra bedrooms. Drywall on the inside, stucco out. I'm going to cut this and get rid of it today because it's hideous. They ran it under the front porch, over the sliding doors to the converted flat, then back up to a connection box. It looks terrible.

Do I just caulk the hole when I pull it out? Do I need to do something special for the stucco?
Caulk it with silicone. If it is in a highly-visible spot, you can get mix up a small batch of grout & fill the hole with that.

FizFashizzle posted:

There's a decent little shed here but the door is just hosed.
I wouldn't leave it open since it will attract critters, probably insects, and definitely wasps. Either repair the doors, get replacement doors, or (most likely) replace the shed ($400 & up). Comedy option: Design & build new doors, possibly out of wood....

Actually, they look repairable. If the track's bent, straighten it. I'd strip the rust & re-paint the doors. Lubricate the tracks.

FizFashizzle posted:

Do I need to weatherproof this overhang?
Install aluminum or vinyl soffitt. Again, to keep the critters out. No insulation - it needs to circulate air up there.

FizFashizzle posted:

This is under the deck. Again, a mess, and again, the cables. My god, the cables. I have an electrician friend coming out probably next week to look at all this and figure out wtf they were doing. Ideas for what to do under here? Or is just always going to be a mud hole?
Black anti-weed mat followed by two tons of river stone/marble/some kind of aggregate.

devicenull
May 30, 2007

Grimey Drawer

erosion posted:

Kinda wish I had one of them radon measuring thingies, what is this?

https://www.airthings.com/

neogeo0823
Jul 4, 2007

NO THAT'S NOT ME!!

Yo, DIY goons. I'm looking at making a thing, and I'm trying to find a bracket that'll do what I want before I have to fabricate one. In abstract, I've got a piece of perforated steel tube that I need to attach to a base plate. The tube needs to pivot on that base plate like it's a lever; back and forth on one axis. I need the tube to sit at a 45 degree angle on one end of its arc, and be able to take a lot of weight. Upwards of 250lbs at that 45 degree angle. The way I see it, I'm likely going to need to attach something to either a hypothetical bracket, or to the tube, to get it to stop at that 45 degree angle. I probably can't use wood, as it could possibly deform or crack under weight. Any ideas or suggestions?

wesleywillis
Dec 30, 2016

SUCK A MALE CAMEL'S DICK WITH MIRACLE WHIP!!

neogeo0823 posted:

Yo, DIY goons. I'm looking at making a thing, and I'm trying to find a bracket that'll do what I want before I have to fabricate one. In abstract, I've got a piece of perforated steel tube that I need to attach to a base plate. The tube needs to pivot on that base plate like it's a lever; back and forth on one axis. I need the tube to sit at a 45 degree angle on one end of its arc, and be able to take a lot of weight. Upwards of 250lbs at that 45 degree angle. The way I see it, I'm likely going to need to attach something to either a hypothetical bracket, or to the tube, to get it to stop at that 45 degree angle. I probably can't use wood, as it could possibly deform or crack under weight. Any ideas or suggestions?

A couple pieces of steel angle drilled so you can put a bolt through it and the tube, and welded to the base plate. Then a third piece of angle welded to the plate at the point where the tube sits on it when at a 45.

If I was doing it myself, I'd probably use some 2x2x1/4" angle for the pivot brackets and also for the "stop" that holds it at 45.

But I'm not an engineer just some guy. That might be overkill. Or maybe it wouldn't be enough, who the gently caress knows.

E: Which direction will this weight be ummm applied to the steel tube?

wesleywillis fucked around with this message at 02:27 on May 2, 2022

erosion
Dec 21, 2002

It's true and I'm tired of pretending it isn't

forgot to thank you for the reply. thanks!

Blowjob Overtime
Apr 6, 2008

Steeeeriiiiiiiiike twooooooo!

Shout-out to Motronic's offhand suggestion a few months ago to have a little snow shovel in the attic. Saturday was a scouting mission to figure out how to install a bathroom fan for our on-suite, and it was much less difficult with something so good at tossing around blown insulation. Today will be getting romex and flex duct in place, and hopefully not going back up there for a while. Working in attics sucks!

Guyver
Dec 5, 2006

A few quick questions. My oven won't heat up. I checked the element and it looks fine and so do the wires but there's a little scorch mark around a relay on the circuit board.

I looked up the board and it's $150-200 and the relay is obsolete but there's a bunch of knock offs on Amazon for $8-10.

Is there a way to test to see if its just the relay or the whole board that is broken?

And is buying a relay off Amazon to fix it a good idea?

Edit: Also everything else works. The oven function works too it just won't send power to the element.

Guyver fucked around with this message at 19:15 on May 2, 2022

Corla Plankun
May 8, 2007

improve the lives of everyone
I am a pretty new homeowner and there's a handful of things I would like to do to the house, but I find the task of picking a business to help me really daunting. Do you guys have any general rules of thumb for pricing home improvement tasks?

In specific, I'd like to replace the siding, windows, and a kitchen faucet this year. I don't know how much any of this costs and I will have absolutely no way of telling if I'm being taken for a ride. Is there a rule of thumb for this kind of thing? Should I just be getting second and third opinions all the time?

Xenix
Feb 21, 2003
My big rule of thumb for home improvement projects is do not pay everything up front and do not pay the final payment until you are satisfied with the work. Check your state's contractor license board so you know what is and isn't allowed. For instance, in California, a contractor, licensed or not, for permitted work or not, cannot charge you a down payment of more than 10% of the cost of the job or $1,000, whichever is lower. If your contractor is violating these basic rules, I'd avoid them.

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

Corla Plankun posted:

I am a pretty new homeowner and there's a handful of things I would like to do to the house, but I find the task of picking a business to help me really daunting. Do you guys have any general rules of thumb for pricing home improvement tasks?

In specific, I'd like to replace the siding, windows, and a kitchen faucet this year. I don't know how much any of this costs and I will have absolutely no way of telling if I'm being taken for a ride. Is there a rule of thumb for this kind of thing? Should I just be getting second and third opinions all the time?

You have two types of work here: Major multi-day work involving a lot of materials and labor, and replacing a faucet.

For the faucet style work you need to figure out a trade you trust for the work being done, in this case plumbing or handyman. Since you're new to this try and find a plumber - they are far more useful. Ask around, look around. Because you're doing something low stakes and easy to accomplish in this case, it's OK to just go with whatever Local Facebook Group / Friend Group suggests and see how you like them. Ask for a quote over the phone to replace your kitchen faucet if you supply the part. You should get a pretty easy number, or a promise that they will come out and tell you for free. You should get a good vibe from them, matter of fact answers, that sort of thing. Ask them where you should go to pick out your faucet - their answer should be a fixture store not home depot. Remember, these are the people you're going to call when your sewer backs up into your living room and your water explodes. Add sewer backup to your homeowners while you're at it.

What will it cost? An hour or so of labor, probably a bit of a trip charge, beer fee, owner boat payment fee, call it $200+parts? Might be half that if you catch a small shop on a slow day. Parts? $400-600 depending on what you want. Home depot sells $100 builder specials that last a few years and you cannot repair, in another section they might have the $450 models, but go to a fixture store if you can and tell them you want quality but not luxury. They will know what you mean. There are a handful of decent brands, the only two I can ever remember are Moen and Delta. Do not buy the $100 specials unless you LOVE buying hundred dollar specials and mopping.

Major work (Windows, Siding, Roof, "Bathroom Remodel") - Get Three Bids. Compare and contrast, ask here if you like, and go from there. You will start to see what makes sense and what doesn't. Windows in particular vary WILDLY from region to region, sales person to salesperson, brand to brand. Huge house with lots of complicated/large windows in a rich neighborhood can yield $100k bids from the really big brands. You should be prepared to spend 10's of thousands on windows if you want them to look amazing. Maybe your house doesn't command that or you don't care, start by getting three bids and asking neighbors with new windows.

Edit: Oh, and for any work that isn't "an hour or two" that can start today right now just thank them for their time and send them on their way. No matter the gotta start right now discount. Unless it's an imminent threat to life safety or property no one you want to hire has that kind of time on their hands. For example - your faucet call out they expect to replace the faucet then and there and factor it into their scheduling for the day assuming you have the part. They probably won't even come out if you don't have it, or you're getting what's on the truck for fantastic markup. There it's OK and expected to approve it on the spot. If someone is pushy about trenching a ditch under your house though? No sir, not enough time to pull a permit. Please leave my property and never come back.

H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 22:09 on May 2, 2022

Wallet
Jun 19, 2006

Corla Plankun posted:

I am a pretty new homeowner and there's a handful of things I would like to do to the house, but I find the task of picking a business to help me really daunting. Do you guys have any general rules of thumb for pricing home improvement tasks?

All good advice from H110Hawk, but I'll add that asking your realtor for recommendations (if you had one) is super useful, both because they will almost certainly know someone who does whatever thing in your area and isn't a complete scumbag (good luck figuring this out with google), and because if your realtor is any good they generate enough business for trades that no one wants to piss them off (make sure they know who recommended them).

Tezer
Jul 9, 2001

H110Hawk posted:

Major work (Windows, Siding, Roof, "Bathroom Remodel") - Get Three Bids. Compare and contrast, ask here if you like, and go from there. You will start to see what makes sense and what doesn't. Windows in particular vary WILDLY from region to region, sales person to salesperson, brand to brand. Huge house with lots of complicated/large windows in a rich neighborhood can yield $100k bids from the really big brands. You should be prepared to spend 10's of thousands on windows if you want them to look amazing. Maybe your house doesn't command that or you don't care, start by getting three bids and asking neighbors with new windows.

What gets missed in the 'get three quotes' advice is that the quotes need to be for the same work. The same materials, scope of work, attention to detail, work quality, cleanliness, etc. Some of these you will find hard to judge before the work begins (cleanliness, quality, etc.) but you should at least think about what kind of impression the company made that might give you an idea of how they will perform the work.

At the very least, the materials and scope of work needs to be the same. For windows - same brand, same options (even the hardware finish should match - white hardware costs less than chrome most of the time for example), same install style, same impact to interior and exterior, same treatment of trim (save and reinstall, new match existing, new stock profiles, etc.), same amount of drywall and painting repair, etc.

If you aren't comparing the same work, you're comparing apples to oranges. lovely contractors take advantage of people who can't tell the difference between a complete work scope and an incomplete work scope.

devicenull
May 30, 2007

Grimey Drawer

Tezer posted:

What gets missed in the 'get three quotes' advice is that the quotes need to be for the same work. The same materials, scope of work, attention to detail, work quality, cleanliness, etc. Some of these you will find hard to judge before the work begins (cleanliness, quality, etc.) but you should at least think about what kind of impression the company made that might give you an idea of how they will perform the work.

At the very least, the materials and scope of work needs to be the same. For windows - same brand, same options (even the hardware finish should match - white hardware costs less than chrome most of the time for example), same install style, same impact to interior and exterior, same treatment of trim (save and reinstall, new match existing, new stock profiles, etc.), same amount of drywall and painting repair, etc.

If you aren't comparing the same work, you're comparing apples to oranges. lovely contractors take advantage of people who can't tell the difference between a complete work scope and an incomplete work scope.

Good luck doing that for windows... every contractor near us has their own special "brand", which makes comparing quotes useless. We ended up going with a place who later told us their competitor used the same factory as them, just with slightly different locking hardware. This was from the guys sent out to measure, well after we had signed the contract (so no real reason to lie to us).

It's also going to be hard for him to estimate the scope of work if he's treating "replace a faucet" and "redo siding and windows" in the same category.

Tezer
Jul 9, 2001

devicenull posted:

Good luck doing that for windows... every contractor near us has their own special "brand", which makes comparing quotes useless. We ended up going with a place who later told us their competitor used the same factory as them, just with slightly different locking hardware. This was from the guys sent out to measure, well after we had signed the contract (so no real reason to lie to us).

You can kind of avoid this if you go for a window brand with recognition. That doesn't mean 'national' - just recognizable. Tamps down on the amount of pricing weirdness, but doesn't eliminate it.

I personally think that window replacement should generally only be done when you are refreshing the entire exterior (siding, water barrier, trim, windows) in one go to make sure you don't accidentally introduce an issue with your weather barrier. This means that the project cost is so high that going for a 'branded' window over a 'white label' window is a rounding error. However, i'm well aware that most window replacement projects are not like this.

The design-build firm I work for does a half dozen window replacement projects a year, it's not our main source of revenue.

quote:

It's also going to be hard for him to estimate the scope of work if he's treating "replace a faucet" and "redo siding and windows" in the same category.

Gotta start learning somewhere...

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

Tezer posted:

What gets missed in the 'get three quotes' advice is that the quotes need to be for the same work. The same materials, scope of work, attention to detail, work quality, cleanliness, etc. Some of these you will find hard to judge before the work begins (cleanliness, quality, etc.) but you should at least think about what kind of impression the company made that might give you an idea of how they will perform the work.

lovely contractors take advantage of people who can't tell the difference between a complete work scope and an incomplete work scope.

I think this is ambitious to get three contractors for a job to bid the exact same BOM as I assume most non-high end homeowners are also relying on the contractors to come up with the scope, materials, design, etc. I think there is a lot to be said for making sure you understand the features, quality, color, function, etc and asking various contractors to propose a solution to those needs. Anyone worth using on big jobs should have zero problem sitting down with you and going over these things to make sure you understand what you are getting. Once quotes start flowing in you can compare and contrast them, it's a bit of a learned skill but you will start to get a knack for sniffing out obvious bullshit. If you're hiring an architect to design your project, then you can take their outputs and have a given set of GC's bid them, etc but that is less common by default.

Also - Word of mouth. Seriously go knock on a neighbors door if you like the look of their brand new windows. Bring cookies or something. Ask blunt questions - what went poorly and how did they resolve it? What went well? How much did it cost? You want to know how they handle problems more than anything. Big jobs may run in to problems. How a given contractor handles it means a lot. Word of mouth is king.

Tezer
Jul 9, 2001

I think you're reading more complexity into my statement than I meant to imply.

I literally mean that you can't assume contractors are quoting the same scope of work unless you actually verify that they are (by reading the quote, asking questions - the 'sitting down with you and going over these things' part of the process that you mention).

My standing offer to friends and family (and their friends and family, and coworkers...) is that I will review any quote/scope of work that they want a second set of eyes on. About half the time I point out that contractors have quoted completely different scopes of work, and this comes as a surprise. A couple of weeks ago my sister in law sent me three exterior painting quotes, one of which didn't include siding repairs that the other two included and one that included an additional shed that the other two did not. She had no idea this was the case. Last year it was a coworker of my wife who got two window quotes - one full replacement and one using inserts. This was news to them.

Another way to put it is: beware of assumptions.

EDIT: this offer is good for people here as well. I am a residential estimator in the USA. Even if I'm not in your region or price range, I'm happy to read quotes and give advice on what questions are answered/not answered.

Tezer fucked around with this message at 01:35 on May 3, 2022

H110Hawk
Dec 28, 2006

Tezer posted:

I think you're reading more complexity into my statement than I meant to imply.

I literally mean that you can't assume contractors are quoting the same scope of work unless you actually verify that they are (by reading the quote, asking questions - the 'sitting down with you and going over these things' part of the process that you mention).

Another way to put it is: beware of assumptions.

EDIT: this offer is good for people here as well. I am a residential estimator in the USA. Even if I'm not in your region or price range, I'm happy to read quotes and give advice on what questions are answered/not answered.

I was - I know you do fancy high-end stuff. :v:

Thanks for the offer - and there are several others in here who are happy to glance at things. Please blank out the letterhead / personal information and :justpost: it's how I learn to read this stuff too.

What little I had learned prior to these forums was from idly reading quotes at the high end design/build firm I was computer touching at while waiting for autodesk to install or whatever living with my parents. Now I know why they are so very detailed.

I bolded the MOST important part of any bid - if something is important it's written on the bid. No matter how much you talk about it and point and smile at whatever you want done if it doesn't make it to the scope document then it's as good as gone.

Take some time to read the document cover to cover. It can be painfully boring but it's your house and your money.

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words
Can I just add -- a straightforward kitchen faucet replacement is 100% a thing you can do yourself. You can use it to audition a plumber if you want, but you can also just watch a couple youtube videos and save hundreds.

Eason the Fifth
Apr 9, 2020
Any estimates on replacing an oil-fired hydronic heating system? When I bought the house in December the inspector said we'd want to budget for a new one pretty soon.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

Eason the Fifth posted:

Any estimates on replacing an oil-fired hydronic heating system? When I bought the house in December the inspector said we'd want to budget for a new one pretty soon.

Don't listen to the inspector. Get someone who actually works on oil furnaces to service it and see what they have to say.

"looks old" is not a good reason to rip and replace an oil furnace. They are super serviceable and unless you've got a no longer available heat exchanger problem (which a home inspector does not have the equipment or ability to see even if they did as that would require taking the thing apart) it's probably just fine.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




Warning to fix it fast thread. I was installing a ceiling fan where the previous owners hogged out the drywall around the box to install a fan brace (yet there was still just a normal light installed there when I moved in ???) so I got a little decorative bezel to hide the hole instead of fixing the drywall. Turns out that you can't really tighten the screws that hold it to the ceiling because the loving bezel. A screwdriver can't get it straight on, and a 90 degree one doesn't have enough clearance. If you ever get one of these, get a big rear end ugly one instead of the smallest size (10" I think). I mostly got this done with anger and probably cross threading the final screw. :argh:

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CRUSTY MINGE
Mar 30, 2011

Peggy Hill
Foot Connoisseur
Flex-a-bit.

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