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OK I've got a real fun question. I bought a house in September 2021. It was flipped, with the work being done in the summer of 2021. As is common with flips, there's some stuff that's done well, and some stuff that was done poorly. Some of the stuff that was done poorly wasn't caught by the pre-purchase inspector; for example, I'm pretty sure the finished basement doesn't actually have any concrete under the vinyl flooring. There was also This is where the story is "yeah buddy don't ever buy a flip". Having said that: they got permits for the work requiring permits, and the city inspector found it passed code and I got an occupancy permit. I have also recently learned from talking to some contractors trying to remediate some of the deficiencies that, in my city, during the pandemic, occupancy permits were given out on essentially the honor system, as the permitting department was short staffed and also maybe didn't want to send people to get sick in the field. So my question is... has anyone heard of something similar happening in other cases? Given some of the lack of care in some places, I can't help but think "is there anything that's not up to code"?, but I have a certificate of occupancy saying it is. So this isn't necessarily a case of "yeah you should have worked with the seller and inspector to get that fixed", because the city gave their seal of approval on the basics, possibly site unseen. Is there anything to do other than talk to a lawyer in this case? Get another inspector to specifically focus on things up to code to assuage/prove my worries? Sigh deeply and realize a flip was a bad idea? SgtScruffy fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jan 12, 2024 |
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Jan 12, 2024 23:55
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Attic insulation will help keep your house cooler in the summer too. According to my home energy audit guy that's the #1 bang for the buck improvement you can do in most cases. Exactly. Last summer was so goddamm hot. Our electricity/utilities bill was about $400 for several months, and we don't keep the house /that/ cold. I'm sure more insulation would lead to some visible savings. I wish the home had been designed from the start to have a conditioned attic instead of vented... Because I also want to run Ethernet but I hate balancing on trusses and digging through insulation.
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Jan 12, 2024 23:59
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SgtScruffy posted:Is there anything to do other than talk to a lawyer in this case? Get another inspector to specifically focus on things up to code to assuage/prove my worries? Sigh deeply and realize a flip was a bad idea? Once you've exhausted that avenue you're on to mitigation. It may not be as bad as you think if you're handy/willing to learn. Most flips are largely relegated to hiding existing defects with quick finishes. So you just hope the defects aren't that bad and triage your way through making them right.
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Jan 13, 2024 00:04
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SgtScruffy posted:for example, I'm pretty sure the finished basement doesn't actually have any concrete under the vinyl flooring. This I would like to know more about please.
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Jan 13, 2024 00:23
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SgtScruffy posted:OK I've got a real fun question. I love the trailing sentence "there was also" because that is correct for a flip.  Basically unless they intentionally hid something and then disclosed the opposite ("They very obviously didn't test for asbestos but the permit required them to and there is asbestos everywhere") most of this is caveat emptor. Especially 2 years on it would need to be a very material defect and intentional fraud to rise to the level where you're going to get any value from a lawyer. Especially if the flipper wasn't the contractor - if there's a contractors license on that permit and it's not the flipper they can just say "I didn't know. I paid them to do this job and they did it." As for your floor - isn't it... spongy? Wasn't it spongy when you bought it? That seems like it would be so very obvious.
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Jan 13, 2024 01:20
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Nothing good can last. Got some water squishing up from under the LVP in the bathroom where a toilet got reseated. Praying it's a quick fix (plumber is headed out here now). It's unfortunately also in a corner of our house that heaves and I just discovered a crack in the foundation today about 7 feet from the wet floor area. Please don't be in the slab. Please don't be in the slab.
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Jan 13, 2024 17:01
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LVP is not good
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Jan 13, 2024 17:50
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Yeah they refloored the entire house in it before we bought. Not a fan. It *is* higher quality at least but I still don't care for it. However I don't give a poo poo about LVP at the moment. I want to know where the water is coming from. Plumber reseated toilet and noted it needed a new seal. He's not charging since it's a call back but.... In his opinion it's not coming from the toilet. Oh no. The soil sits and full foot below the top of the foundation around that area so hopefully it's not a wall incursion.
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Jan 13, 2024 18:37
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StormDrain posted:This I would like to know more about please. For starters, it’s lumpy in places. Like “a ball wouldn’t roll straight if placed on it”. There’s also parts of the flooring that have a millimeter or two gap, and I’m not POSITIVE the stuff I can see is dirt is under, but it sure doesn’t look like a gray slab. Basically, the house opened up to viewings as they were working on the basement, and this was in 2021 when the market was hot, so we put a bid on day one of it being open. Theory then being the team went “great, no need to do anything other than make it look good!” What started this questioning is that there was a heavy rain last month, and in one of the rooms, if you stepped on certain parts, it’d go “squish” and a little brown liquid would come up through the floorboards. Turns out we do have a sump pump but there’s nothing that routes water to it, so we’re going to rip up the flooring, get a second sump pump, route pipes along the perimeter to feed the pumps, and then, assuming there isn’t good concrete below it, just get a proper floor job. SgtScruffy fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jan 14, 2024 |
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Jan 14, 2024 14:03
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Is there a good brand/model of microwave these days like how y'all sing praises for Bosch dishwashers? Just had my barely over a year old GE countertop microwave poo poo the bed.
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Jan 14, 2024 21:57
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Anecdote: We had a Panasonic Genius microwave that lasted over 20-years. Replaced with with the updated model about 4-years ago, and no problems so far. This is the latest iteration: https://help.na.panasonic.com/microwave-multi-ovens/microwave-ovens/nn-sn65k/ PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jan 14, 2024 |
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Jan 14, 2024 22:17
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tangy yet delightful posted:Is there a good brand/model of microwave these days like how y'all sing praises for Bosch dishwashers? Just had my barely over a year old GE countertop microwave poo poo the bed. Buy one with 'inverter' technology. Panasonic owns the patent iirc. It allows various grades of power to actually just heat at X% of power rather than cycling on/off full power.
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Jan 14, 2024 23:54
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tangy yet delightful posted:Is there a good brand/model of microwave these days like how y'all sing praises for Bosch dishwashers? Just had my barely over a year old GE countertop microwave poo poo the bed. I bet it's the main fuse inside.
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Jan 14, 2024 23:58
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extravadanza posted:Buy one with 'inverter' technology. Panasonic owns the patent iirc. It allows various grades of power to actually just heat at X% of power rather than cycling on/off full power. Why is that superior? Duty cycling is a perfectly valid way to reduce effective power. So what does the inverter actually do better?
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Jan 15, 2024 00:02
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SgtScruffy posted:For starters, it’s lumpy in places. Like “a ball wouldn’t roll straight if placed on it”. There’s also parts of the flooring that have a millimeter or two gap, and I’m not POSITIVE the stuff I can see is dirt is under, but it sure doesn’t look like a gray slab. The flooring is probably on a underlayment, not direct to concrete. Perimeter drain piping to the sump is a good idea. You dropped a word or more in the last paragraph so it's unclear what you mean.
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Jan 15, 2024 00:14
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First winter in this old rear end house and I'm pretty sure the boiler/radiator system has very low water pressure but I have no idea how to confirm that and/or fix it. Last house I lived in just had a valve you opened for a bit and I assume this system is similar, but anyone know how I figure out which valve controls the water intake? I've tried tracing the pipes but they're a complete mess. I think it's the black one close to the chimney, but don't want to just start loving around on a hunch.
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Jan 15, 2024 01:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Why is that superior? Duty cycling is a perfectly valid way to reduce effective power. So what does the inverter actually do better? Imagine heating a sauce by having it (instantly) at max burner on your largest burner for 10s, then just off for 10s (no residual heat in the elements just what is trapped in the sauce itself) over and over for 60s for 50% power. This offers you the ability to heat it up over a medium low heat constantly. Same with melting butter or softening butter.
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Jan 15, 2024 01:20
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PainterofCrap posted:Anecdote: We had a Panasonic Genius microwave that lasted over 20-years. We've also got a Panasonic that I like: https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Microwave-NN-SN766S-Countertop-Technology/dp/B01DEWZWFS/ This one's pretty big but they have a lot of models. It works great, had it a few years now. Our previous Panasonic died after ten years or so but it was because my dad was microwaving empty plates to heat them up, which is specifically recommended against, there needs to be something in there to absorb the energy. You could microwave some plates to heat them but you'd want to put some water in with them or something.
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Jan 15, 2024 01:43
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StormDrain posted:The flooring is probably on a underlayment, not direct to concrete. Ugh my phone keyboard has been weird lately (and I was tired when I wrote that), sorry. Lemme try that again. "Turns out we do have a sump pump but there’s no pipes or anything that actually divert water into it. It's just 'as the groundwater rises, it'll suck up some of it I guess!' and also just a general basement flooding guard I suppose. So we’re going to rip up the flooring, get a second sump pump, route pipes along the perimeter to feed both pumps, and then take this opportunity to just get the whole drat floor done properly while we're ripping up part of the basement floor for the sump pumps/piping.
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Jan 15, 2024 02:36
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PainterofCrap posted:Anecdote: We had a Panasonic Genius microwave that lasted over 20-years. Yeah I have a Panasonic "genius prestige plus" with inverter, it came with the condo. I have to say it's much much weaker than the last microwave I had in the old place but I dunno if that really means anything or if this is just the baby model of the appliance. IE reheating a slice of pizza in the old one would be about 15s and it's probably double that in the new microwave.
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Jan 15, 2024 02:37
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My hot water is really sucking lately, oil fired boiler for baseboard heat with a tankless coil providing hot water. I started looking into it a few weeks ago and figured an indirect water tank would be the way to go: 40 gallons of hot water ready to go whenever. Got 3 quotes: $3500-$5000. A new high efficiency boiler with indirect can be had for $13k. Yes that’s a ton more but since I’m planning to sell within 5 years-a new boiler is a way better way to sell than a 40 year old boiler. Assuming markets stay the same as they are now, that’s probably not a huge deal, but still. I have a tough time spending that much cash on a water tank to fix a problem I have when I’ll still be wondering what’s going to break next on this boiler.
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Jan 15, 2024 03:26
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Sad Billionaire posted:First winter in this old rear end house and I'm pretty sure the boiler/radiator system has very low water pressure but I have no idea how to confirm that and/or fix it. Last house I lived in just had a valve you opened for a bit and I assume this system is similar, but anyone know how I figure out which valve controls the water intake? I've tried tracing the pipes but they're a complete mess. I'd guess it's that green one that's currently in the off position (which looks to be downstream of the one you're talking about)
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Jan 15, 2024 16:11
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devicenull posted:I'd guess it's that green one that's currently in the off position (which looks to be downstream of the one you're talking about) Thanks! Yeah, I figured that one is also involved. Both valves are closed and there's a backflow preventer between them. Opened them up for a couple minutes and nothing exploded. When I try to bleed the radiators now the pressure is still near-nonexistent though.
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Jan 15, 2024 16:48
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Sad Billionaire posted:Thanks! Yeah, I figured that one is also involved. Both valves are closed and there's a backflow preventer between them. Opened them up for a couple minutes and nothing exploded. When I try to bleed the radiators now the pressure is still near-nonexistent though. You had the valves open when you were trying to bleed things right?
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Jan 15, 2024 17:31
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devicenull posted:You had the valves open when you were trying to bleed things right? Tried both, no noticeable difference
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Jan 15, 2024 17:43
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kid sinister posted:I bet it's the main fuse inside. Let me go more in depth on how the microwave failed. I put my coffee mug in it for a quick hit start button > get 30 seconds of heating up coffee. But the MW stopped after maybe 20 seconds. I tried it again and after only a few seconds it stopped again. Now it just doesn't turn on at all. I've tried different plugs and checked the breaker panel, nothing is tripped. Could this be a fuse or something else that's an easy fix? I have read that microwaves have capacitors requiring that one knows what to do so you don't discharge a capacitor into your body for not-so-fun times. GE Model JES1145SH1SS
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Jan 16, 2024 06:29
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If it’s like a front panel you can get for a hundo bucks it ain’t worth trying to fix unless it was like a thousand bucks and less than 3 years old. I’ve done it on one before but besides that it’s probably trash. When I google that model it shows up as $200, probably cost more to fix it than to just buy a new one.
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Jan 16, 2024 06:37
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Enjoying this first snowy cold snap in my new to me 200 year old house. Wondering how much the PO of 50 years spent on heating oil instead of insulation.
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Jan 16, 2024 14:49
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Last year’s super freeze definitely exposed some weak spots in mine, and it’s only 27 years old. Once I shored up a specific section of basement rim joist with foam boards and spray foamed every penetration, that made a huge difference down there. There was a worrying ice spot on the inside of the living room wall but that is for investigation another time.
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Jan 16, 2024 16:41
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tangy yet delightful posted:Let me go more in depth on how the microwave failed. I put my coffee mug in it for a quick hit start button > get 30 seconds of heating up coffee. But the MW stopped after maybe 20 seconds. I tried it again and after only a few seconds it stopped again. Now it just doesn't turn on at all. I've tried different plugs and checked the breaker panel, nothing is tripped. My GE microwave likes to act up sometimes. It's always the main fuse: either the fuse is corroded or the clips the fuse fits in are loose. Yes, microwaves do have big scary parts inside (look up fractal burning). That's why you need security bits to get inside them. In my experience, the main fuse is up near where the cord comes in, far away from the dangerous bits. If you know what you're doing, you'll be safe. For what it's worth, my GE is a piece of poo poo and I need to adjust that fuse every year or so. Also, with such intermittent power issues, the clock only works for a week or so before it blanks out.
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Jan 16, 2024 21:09
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kid sinister posted:My GE microwave likes to act up sometimes. It's always the main fuse: either the fuse is corroded or the clips the fuse fits in are loose. Yes, microwaves do have big scary parts inside (look up fractal burning). That's why you need security bits to get inside them. In my experience, the main fuse is up near where the cord comes in, far away from the dangerous bits. If you know what you're doing, you'll be safe. RuiLing 5-pack amazon - Thinking about buying this 5 pack for $7. "Fits GE Microwave" 1 pack by Anchilly brand - Or I could get this more expensive one that has good title keywords but ultimately is a no-name brand for $28. Note that during my searching I also found some fuses where the metal tabs stick up instead of out and that design won't work with the space constraints of where this fuse mounts inside this particular microwave. Are these fuses similar to the little car blade ones where you just buy a big cheap pack or should I be finding some different site/manufacturer?
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Jan 17, 2024 01:02
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No continuity for a NC switch = no bueno. I'd stick with the cheap one since you were already set to throw the old one away. edit: Well, a "switch" in that it'll ever only flip once, then it's open forever, such is thermal fuses. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 01:07
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Just as another anecdotal point: we bought a nice Panasonic Inverter from Costco, and it lasted 5 years. Replaced it with the cheapest LG from Costco, and it has been trucking for another 8. I think the best microwaves are the cheapest. I don't need any buttons other than "quick start" - the Panasonic was 1 minute, the LG is 30 seconds. All the other buttons are crap. I also had a microwave from the 80s's with a dial, it was also indestructible. I got in 2000's when I went to university, and it only went away because it had yellowed from the sun and i was tired of moving it, so it became a built in for the next guy. If there was such thing as a microwave/toaster oven/convection oven (air fryer) then maybe it would be worth getting. But I bet as it becomes more and more complicated it sucks more and more.
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Jan 17, 2024 01:18
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blindjoe posted:I also had a microwave from the 80s's with a dial, it was also indestructible. I don't know if it's survivorship bias, but if you can find an old microwave, keep it and cherish it.
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Jan 17, 2024 01:21
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I read somewhere that most microwaves are made by Midea in the same factory. Very few brands make their own anymore.
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Jan 17, 2024 01:46
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BaseballPCHiker posted:I read somewhere that most microwaves are made by Midea in the same factory. Very few brands make their own anymore. This is very much the case, Midea makes the vast majority of microwaves sold in the US. Panasonic even uses them for their cheaper microwaves.
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Jan 17, 2024 02:05
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blindjoe posted:I also had a microwave from the 80s's with a dial, it was also indestructible. I got in 2000's when I went to university, and it only went away because it had yellowed from the sun and i was tired of moving it, so it became a built in for the next guy. My Mom bought me a large Goldstar micro in 1985, when I moved out on my own. It finally died in 1996, when it shot a bolt of lightning out of the magnetron that burned a hole through the inner top panel and made a hell of a racket like I was microwaving an anvil or something.  blindjoe posted:If there was such thing as a microwave/toaster oven/convection oven (air fryer) then maybe it would be worth getting. But I bet as it becomes more and more complicated it sucks more and more. There was one; my neighbor had it: flip the switch one way, it's a microwave; flip it the other, and it was a convection toaster oven. He loved it - but you'd win the bet: he went through two in six years. e: well, there are more now! https://www.lowes.com/pl/Convection-oven--Microwaves-Appliances/4294715798?refinement=4294805928
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Jan 17, 2024 02:21
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PainterofCrap posted:My Mom bought me a large Goldstar micro in 1985, when I moved out on my own. It finally died in 1996, when it shot a bolt of lightning out of the magnetron that burned a hole through the inner top panel and made a hell of a racket like I was microwaving an anvil or something. One minor correction: they're microwave and convection ovens, but I've yet to find one that's a microwave-convection toaster oven combo. Toaster ovens have heating elements on top and bottom that can run at the same time (so you can toast both sides of your bread).
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Jan 17, 2024 07:55
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Ive pretty much abandoned my microwave and toaster due to our new toaster oven, that thing is awesome. It has an air fry feature as well.
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Jan 17, 2024 18:51
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I think these are what I need - https://www.amazon.com/National-Artcraft-Connect-Candelabra-Socket/dp/B07PM8H833/ref=asc_df_B07PM8H833/ armorer fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 19:23
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