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We just bought our first home and made a tiny huge mistake. The house was built in 1940, and not grounded! Inspection found this out and the owners were like “we’re at the corner of gently caress and you” they gave us the equivalent of 2 tickets to itchy and scratchy land for our problems and we took it. The electrician said it would be between 30000 and 16000 to ground it. Or we could do the first floor and the bathroom for 8000…the kitchen and basement are already grounded. I can feel the electricity on the bathroom light switch….weird. Tried to get a 2nd opinion from another electrician who scolded me for not using this to knock down the price of the home (they were not gonna budge). Said the house hasn’t burned down yet and said those prices are accurate for that kind of work and wouldn’t trust anyone that would do it for less. Said 2 out of 100 people actually do it. Thinking of putting efci myself into all the outlets or looking into an efci breaker to be installed by a professional. New old home! Yay!
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Aug 23, 2022 21:51
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You don’t have knob and tube right?
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Aug 23, 2022 21:55
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On a scale from 1-10 how bad of an idea is it to buy a 300 year old house (say 1730-1780 timeframe or so)? What kind of problems will I run into that I normally wouldn’t? Are there any specific resources people know about which would be useful to read? Current place was built in 1910s in a major city so I’m a bit out of my depth
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Aug 23, 2022 22:31
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Sweeper posted:On a scale from 1-10 how bad of an idea is it to buy a 300 year old house (say 1730-1780 timeframe or so)? What kind of problems will I run into that I normally wouldn’t? Are there any specific resources people know about which would be useful to read? Current place was built in 1910s in a major city so I’m a bit out of my depth It entirely depends on what condition the house is in, where the house is (i.e., are there similar homes around there meaning there are contractors who know how to work on them and materials they will need) your expectations and your budget (particularly annual maintenance). It also matter a LOT if it's in some sort of historic district where you will be under specific conditions and very likely a capricious board of elected busybodies that will tell you what and how you need to maintain it. It's not uncommon to find homes of that age around here. There are enough that we have stone masons, carpenters and roofing people who know EXACTLY how to maintain those places. So it's no big deal - I mean, providing you have the kind of money it takes to maintain something like that.
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Aug 23, 2022 22:34
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On a scale of 1-10 probably a 2 or 3 so long as you're willing to accept there will always be something that needs repair All the stuff that was going to fail has been replaced twice over already, everything else was built to survive at least 300 years Downsides: electric system might still be knob and tube ($$$ to replace), plumbing probably sucks but is probably at least 1910 era updated Pull the plat map, find out all the right of ways, do not skimp on the title insurance Do not skimp on the inspections, get someone who comes with a strong recommendation, who specializes in pre victorian homes
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Aug 23, 2022 22:42
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Seriously my house is only 100 years old but thank god it’s in a neighborhood of a thousand similar homes because there are entire businesses dedicated to servicing these homes with niche trades (masons, flat roof specialists, slate roofing, transom restoration, HVAC companies who can retrofit air and ducts, furnace specialists) that I am now intimately familiar with.
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Aug 23, 2022 22:42
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Motronic posted:It also matter a LOT if it's in some sort of historic district where you will be under specific conditions and very likely a capricious board of elected busybodies that will tell you what and how you need to maintain it. "You need to bring it up to code, but using period-appropriate materials." 
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Aug 23, 2022 22:47
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Sweeper posted:On a scale from 1-10 how bad of an idea is it to buy a 300 year old house (say 1730-1780 timeframe or so)? What kind of problems will I run into that I normally wouldn’t? Are there any specific resources people know about which would be useful to read? Current place was built in 1910s in a major city so I’m a bit out of my depth Pros: Assuming it's not a current tear down it also has survived 300 years. Likely made with extremely old growth wood and is cut to true dimensions. If the wood is in good condition it's going to last another 300 years with proper maintenance. Or is it a masonry house? If so, what condition is that masonry in? We might need to move on to Cons now. Cons: I hope you dislike money because repairs are all bespoke by real trades people who are good at their craft or done poorly. You cannot buy that wood anymore, and you certainly can't treat it however they used to treat it. (Though I just learned arsenic treated wood was 1970's to 2003! Holy christ USA we knew arsenic was poison!) Expect if anyone did additions that they're likely not to style unless you found a similarly money hating person, etc. Historical preservation boards that hate people who don't share their vision even if it's historically accurate. You get the idea.
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Aug 23, 2022 22:50
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Is it crazy to look at installing a ducted heating/cooling system in my 1000 sq ft single-story house? I was getting bids of around $8k to install a single head ductless unit in the PNW, and I am not confident that a single unit will help with the bedrooms which are down a hall from the living room which would hold the duct. The house currently only has baseboard electric heaters.
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Aug 23, 2022 22:54
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$8 seems outrageously expensive to air condition one room, have you looked at getting 2-3 mini splits installed You definitely need a way to move the cold air to the bedrooms, it won't flow on it's own. I lived in a 100 year old house that had ducts roughed in using drywall in the corners of the ceiling, painted to match, looked fine
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Aug 23, 2022 22:59
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H110Hawk posted:You cannot buy that wood anymore Oh, yes you can. There is an entire boutique lumber industry based around this. Ever notice most of the old barns in the southeastern US have disappeared? They didn't fall down: they were disassembled by lumber companies. Some of them got moved as an entire unit up to the northeast to be reassembled and turned into huge main houses, leaving the original farmhouse on the site to be the guesthouse. One of my clients was a large lumber producer in the southeast. They would literally buy properties just to disassemble the barns. I was offered one of these properties outright because it wasn't worth selling once they were done with that because the house was a mess. I didn't take it because it was far enough away that you had to drive an extra 2 hours past the proverbial middle of nowhere to get there. Like I seriously didn't know there was poo poo that far away from everything near the coast in NC.
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Aug 23, 2022 23:02
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vs Dinosaurs posted:Is it crazy to look at installing a ducted heating/cooling system in my 1000 sq ft single-story house? I was getting bids of around $8k to install a single head ductless unit in the PNW, and I am not confident that a single unit will help with the bedrooms which are down a hall from the living room which would hold the duct. The house currently only has baseboard electric heaters. That $8k for one head in one room quote is quite the gently caress you unless you have some sort of insane over the top hard to install in house. And just like a window unit - it will do nothing for rooms that aren't where the head is located. Get some bids on ducting, if you have an attic it shouldn't be insane. A whole new system tied to existing ducts is often "$10-15k" (depending on gently caress you factor, features, luxury, difficulty, whatever.) Adding on ductwork to that in an attic should be at most doubling that amount, but I bet it makes it 1.5x. Also bid minisplits, but you really need a head per room. Without a central return duct drawing air nothing is going to force the rooms to mix. Motronic posted:Oh, yes you can. There is an entire boutique lumber industry based around this. Sorry, you cannot buy non-salvage/new wood.  I basically meant - it's all boutique and bespoke. Your builder says they need qty (8) 12.5' 2"x6.25" true-dimension blah blah blah (it's what they were cutting when old great grand-daddy johnson ran the mill you see) to do a rafter repair or whatever and then you call around to these places hoping they can find something close enough that someone is willing to cut to your dimension.
H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Aug 23, 2022 |
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Aug 23, 2022 23:03
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H110Hawk posted:Pros: Assuming it's not a current tear down it also has survived 300 years. Likely made with extremely old growth wood and is cut to true dimensions. If the wood is in good condition it's going to last another 300 years with proper maintenance. Or is it a masonry house? If so, what condition is that masonry in? We might need to move on to Cons now. Thanks for all the opinions/info! It is all in line with what I would expect. Our current house is landmark/historic so I’m well aware of historical district nonsense, we had to source custom curved glass for our multi level exterior window once, because it can’t be flat if it once was not… I’m looking in/near Portsmouth, NH (if anyone knows the area) and there are a bunch of old houses in the area, so I would hope there are craftsmen around… I guess my main concern is generally how hard it might be to find an inspector I can trust to be extremely thorough for a house this old, since I’m most certainly not an expert on the details. vs Dinosaurs posted:Is it crazy to look at installing a ducted heating/cooling system in my 1000 sq ft single-story house? I was getting bids of around $8k to install a single head ductless unit in the PNW, and I am not confident that a single unit will help with the bedrooms which are down a hall from the living room which would hold the duct. The house currently only has baseboard electric heaters. Thirding the mini split thought, ours work great for ~1k sqft and three rooms with one per room. Sweeper fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Aug 23, 2022 |
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Aug 23, 2022 23:06
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If you need the name of a really top notch manufacturer of historically accurate wavy glass I know a guy.
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Aug 23, 2022 23:14
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Sweeper posted:I’m looking in/near Portsmouth, NH You're fine. And the local inspection companies should all know what they're doing/which subs to call in. You want to tell them "call all the trades you need" and expect to have a big bill. But it's worth it.
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Aug 23, 2022 23:14
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vs Dinosaurs posted:Is it crazy to look at installing a ducted heating/cooling system in my 1000 sq ft single-story house? I was getting bids of around $8k to install a single head ductless unit in the PNW, and I am not confident that a single unit will help with the bedrooms which are down a hall from the living room which would hold the duct. The house currently only has baseboard electric heaters. Unless you have an unfinished basement to run duct (and maybe even then) you almost certainly want to go with a multi-zone mini split system -- that is multiple indoor cassettes that run to a single outdoor compressor. You can size the indoor cassettes for each room, so a 30k BTU outdoor unit can have 6K + 6K in the bedrooms and 18k in a larger living space. They're pretty badass for comfort.
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Aug 24, 2022 00:00
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Sweeper posted:On a scale from 1-10 how bad of an idea is it to buy a 300 year old house (say 1730-1780 timeframe or so)? What kind of problems will I run into that I normally wouldn’t? Are there any specific resources people know about which would be useful to read? Current place was built in 1910s in a major city so I’m a bit out of my depth Oh, the wonders you will see
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Aug 24, 2022 00:07
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300 years worth of PO fuckery does sound like an interesting time, that for sure
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Aug 24, 2022 00:37
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KS posted:Unless you have an unfinished basement to run duct (and maybe even then) you almost certainly want to go with a multi-zone mini split system -- that is multiple indoor cassettes that run to a single outdoor compressor. You can size the indoor cassettes for each room, so a 30k BTU outdoor unit can have 6K + 6K in the bedrooms and 18k in a larger living space. They're pretty badass for comfort. Thank you poster (and posters above) for the information. My house has a wide open 3" crawl space, and wide open attic which needs to be properly insulated. I'll try getting more quotes for ductless systems, the last quotes came around that PNW heatwave of 100+ degrees.
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Aug 24, 2022 01:04
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Upgrade posted:You don’t have knob and tube right? That’s the first I heard of that. Got another electrician my wife set up coming tomorrow so I’ll ask. Got the wobbly leaky toilet fixed upstairs. The other owners just painted over the stain in the living room. Got another guy coming over to see if it cause any actual damage. That bathroom is tiny and terrible with pink and white title that probably was put in 1940. There’s also a small closet in there! Next up is painting. Then carpet installation! Then we can move our apartment furniture that really doesn’t work in this home! Woot woot.
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Aug 24, 2022 01:38
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Once again, trying to weigh the pros and cons of my existing boiler. It’s a 34 year old single stage oil boiler with a tankless heating coil to provide hot water. I’ve done the repair on some pipes that were corroding and here are my two/three options moving forward: 1) leave it as is. Continue to pay ridiculous oil prices year round for hot water (this month was about $80 just in hot water). 2) install electric water heater. Probably about $1500 or so. Electricity in Connecticut isn’t cheap but it’s cheaper than $80/month. 3) install hybrid electric water heater. $3-4k with a $750 rebate right now. Cheaper than the other options to run and it dehumidifies the basement! Con: need to keep about 800 square feet “open” in the basement per code, which infringes on potentially finishing the basement at some point. Our basement is about 1500 square feet. Another con: it cools the space…great for the summer, not so great for the winter since I work out down there and if we ever finish the basement now I need to look at heating options. Any thoughts?
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Aug 24, 2022 01:41
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nwin posted:Any thoughts? Do whatever makes you stop spinning on this. It doesn't matter what makes financial sense.
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Aug 24, 2022 02:23
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The normal electric hot water heater seems to have the advantage because it's reasonably modern and does not have weird space or heating tradeoffs, it's just a big tea kettle and cheap.
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Aug 24, 2022 02:44
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Hadlock posted:Don't weld galvanized metal not even once It's easy to remove the galvenized layer on flat plates at least. It's only about .002"~.005" thick and doesnt spark when hit with a flap wheel. I've used galvenized bits of steel, e.g. roofing ties, several times for projects/patches that need welding after removing the zinc with a flap disc. It's also really easy to see in the finished product if you missed any. I use a fan with a home air filter taped to the front to catch the bits and direct fumes that may exist away from me. No probs yet. This is only for patches and what not and only on flat plates. Tubing would be a diff story because of the ID, obvs.
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Aug 24, 2022 02:47
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H110Hawk posted:(Though I just learned arsenic treated wood was 1970's to 2003! Holy christ USA we knew arsenic was poison!) In the 1990s, those playgrounds had to be expensively torn down because unsafe, splinters, and pressure-treated wood. They were really gorgeous playgrounds, a lot of them, with satisfyingly dangerous stuff.
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Aug 24, 2022 03:19
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Not only that! It was a thing for neighborhoods to get together and collectively design and build playgrounds out of pressure-treated wood. There was a lot of interest in local solutions, in involving people whose kids would use the playground. Username / post combo here.
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Aug 24, 2022 04:09
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Quaint Quail Quilt posted:In case anyone thinks they are joking.. You can also get hexavalent chromium poisoning which can cause cancer and open boils on your skin, so yeah, just don’t weld stainless. CarForumPoster posted:It's easy to remove the galvenized layer on flat plates at least. It's only about .002"~.005" thick and doesnt spark when hit with a flap wheel. I've used galvenized bits of steel, e.g. roofing ties, several times for projects/patches that need welding after removing the zinc with a flap disc. It's also really easy to see in the finished product if you missed any. I use a fan with a home air filter taped to the front to catch the bits and direct fumes that may exist away from me. No probs yet. This is only for patches and what not and only on flat plates. Tubing would be a diff story because of the ID, obvs. I’m sure this practice is pretty widespread but I feel compelled to note that you still shouldn’t weld galvanized steel even if you think your visual indicators tell you there’s no zinc left. That’s not a risk I would take, at least.
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Aug 24, 2022 13:55
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Lawnie posted:You can also get hexavalent chromium poisoning which can cause cancer and open boils on your skin, so yeah, just don’t weld stainless. Your anxious approach to a problem with known risks and simple engineering controls precludes making anything that transports hot/oxidizing/corrosive fluids like exhaust systems and many decorative things that'd use stainless. Things people regularly want to build. This is a simple, solved problem with known effective engineering controls findable through google. You're not going to get hex chrome poisoning welding austenitic stainless MIG/TIG like most home users. You can weld galvanized with proper PPE and engineering controls. Here's a paper that evaluated hex chrome exposure from welding processes in a shipyard. The risk of hitting the OSHA exposure limit is moderate at best, even welding stainless (as indicated by the use of high Cr electrodes). Prob no one on SA is welding stainless for 8 hours/day.  Y-axis is 8 hour time-weighted average exposure. Upper bars are 95th% exposure. PEL is permissible exposure limit. AL is action level (point where a workplace is required to do medical surveillance and exposure monitoring). Paper | OSHA Fact Sheet So to put a really fine point on it: you suggest to never weld stainless even though the average home user would not hit 1/5th the exposure limit after 8 hours of MIG welding with stainless electrodes in a ventilated space. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Aug 24, 2022 |
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Aug 24, 2022 14:16
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Yeah I’ll still suggest that unless you’re very familiar with your materials, PPE, and engineering controls, avoid welding stainless. It’s not the kind of thing that someone who’s a hobbyist welder should just pick up and try out on a whim. If you are familiar, great, you do you.
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Aug 24, 2022 15:02
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CarForumPoster posted:Your anxious approach to a problem with known risks and simple engineering controls precludes making anything that transports hot/oxidizing/corrosive fluids like exhaust systems and many decorative things that'd use stainless. Things people regularly want to build. This is a simple, solved problem with known effective engineering controls findable through google. You're not going to get hex chrome poisoning welding austenitic stainless MIG/TIG like most home users. You can weld galvanized with proper PPE and engineering controls.  in refuting FUD.
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Aug 24, 2022 15:04
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Lawnie posted:Yeah I’ll still suggest that unless you’re very familiar with your materials, PPE, and engineering controls, avoid welding stainless. It’s not the kind of thing that someone who’s a hobbyist welder should just pick up and try out on a whim. If you are familiar, great, you do you. The future you anticipate if welding stainless seems to involve one of injury including death from cancer and boils on the skin. This causes you to avoid that material and to advise others of avoiding that material. Are those beliefs based on facts? Incomplete facts at best. Does your belief fit with reality? No, many people weld stainless daily without issue. Are you jumping to the worst possible conclusion? I'd suggest yes, cancer seems like the worst possible conclusion. It is life threatening. While its true welding stainless can produce hex chrome, you now have evidence its below levels that will cause injury. Stainless welding is something many hobbyists do without injury, and the amounts produced are well below injurious levels in circumstances that you'd do that activity in. Of the many health risks, such as eye damage and burns, associated with welding, its very low on the list. In other words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJnZBm6Y51Y
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Aug 24, 2022 15:31
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High-Cr SMAW is off the scale on that graph and seems like it would be the most common hobbyist process. It all still looks like it's well within what you'd get from a standard respirator, which you should really be wearing for any dusty fumey work anyway. CarForumPoster posted:The future you anticipate if welding stainless seems to involve one of injury including death from cancer and boils on the skin. This causes you to avoid that material and to advise others of avoiding that material. Can we not try to perform therapy on other posters? He's providing a pretty technically correct answer. Chromium levels with common products are potentially above where in a workplace environment you'd want a lot of assessments and controls in place. While in real life a hobbyist with a respirator, working outdoors, for short periods is likely to be fine, there are no measurements, he's not in a fit testing program, etc. and so if the poster comes from an industrial background I see the reason to hesitate. slurm fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Aug 24, 2022 |
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Aug 24, 2022 15:59
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Please take a class on welding before welding stainless or other zinc containing things. They can teach you about hidden hazards in every day items that convert into potentially fatal exposure from seemingly small quantities of materials. Yoloing babies first welding arc is a great way to injure yourself. Lots of things around your home decompose into truly awful chemicals when exposed to the high heat high uv environment of welding. Zinc, chlorine (some brake cleaners), etc.
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Aug 24, 2022 16:27
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I think I'm just about ready to stop using chlorinated solvents altogether tbqh. The real "right" answer to all of this is to never dabble in any industrial process, anything with flames or burning, anything with chemicals, you name it. Live to 105 with soft hands while hiring it all out to people who will die screaming at 58. slurm fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Aug 24, 2022 |
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Aug 24, 2022 16:34
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If you want some casual reading Google phosgene. It's not fud to say that you need proper training and ppe BEFORE you start playing with industrial manufacturing processes.
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Aug 24, 2022 17:00
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KS posted:Unless you have an unfinished basement to run duct (and maybe even then) you almost certainly want to go with a multi-zone mini split system -- that is multiple indoor cassettes that run to a single outdoor compressor. You can size the indoor cassettes for each room, so a 30k BTU outdoor unit can have 6K + 6K in the bedrooms and 18k in a larger living space. They're pretty badass for comfort. speaking of mini-splits, do they need a dedicated circuit / 20 amp circuit breaker / 220 volt circuit? just wondering if I decide to install one of these myself, if I'll need an electrician to come and do something to my panel to handle it. I currently have an in-wall AC unit that's 15+ years old. I want to replace it and also do a multi zone to get the bedrooms too. 3 bed 1500 sq ft house. I'm sort of waiting until October to start getting quotes so I don't get the "gently caress you" prices as stated above. trying to figure out how feasible it is for me to do most of the work myself
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Aug 24, 2022 17:12
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Poopelyse posted:speaking of mini-splits, do they need a dedicated circuit / 20 amp circuit breaker / 220 volt circuit? just wondering if I decide to install one of these myself, if I'll need an electrician to come and do something to my panel to handle it. Yes they need a dedicated circuit. The amperage depends on the equipment selection/capacity. Yes you will need an electrician.
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Aug 24, 2022 17:28
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slurm posted:Can we not try to perform therapy on other posters? He's providing a pretty technically correct answer. Chromium levels with common products are potentially above where in a workplace environment you'd want a lot of assessments and controls in place. While in real life a hobbyist with a respirator, working outdoors, for short periods is likely to be fine, there are no measurements, he's not in a fit testing program, etc. and so if the poster comes from an industrial background I see the reason to hesitate. Appreciate this. I do suffer from mental illness but that’s not why I appear to be relatively conservative on industrial safety. It’s because we’re discussing doing something at a hobbyist level without industrial safety training and management. Anyway, I shouldn’t have said never weld stainless. I should have said to avoid it if possible (engineering control) and wear properly fitted PPE in a well-ventilated outdoor space (process control). I’m not an idiot, but I did make the mistake of over-simplifying to an audience that doesn’t always need everything dumbed down to a binary. My bad.
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Aug 24, 2022 18:39
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Lawnie posted:I did make the mistake of over-simplifying to an audience that doesn’t always need everything dumbed down to a binary. My bad. So what I'm hearing is to always weld galvanized steel. Sweet.
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Aug 24, 2022 18:49
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slurm posted:High-Cr SMAW is off the scale on that graph and seems like it would be the most common hobbyist process. They're 8 hour levels and the mean is the base dot. I'd be surprised of most posters ITT are stickwelding stainless. slurm posted:Can we not try to perform therapy on other posters? Yea this is my bad I personalized this out of frustration dealing with anxious people in my own life. Sad/frustrating watching someone say no to risks until they say no to everything.
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Aug 24, 2022 18:54
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