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Just bought a house, and I'm trying to decide if I should be removing a major branch from one of the trees on the lot. The landscaping here was pretty neglected. Googling for tree maintenance tells me that V-shape branch crotches with bark subduction are a bad thing, compared to the much stronger W-shape. (click for big)    I marked visible portions of the branch in question. The tree is some kind of maple, and roughly 30 feet tall by my guess. The branch poses no threat to the house, but might be an issue for the parking lot that I took the first picture from. Looking up into the tree, you can see it has a nice central stem, but the branch in question is a huge portion of the tree.  Making matters worse, the above photo is the side of the tree directly across from the major branch. I've got those two knobby buggers in the left of the photo, plus the large branch in the bottom right that isn't any better than the big one I'm wondering about. Should I take off a branch that big? Will I end up killing the whole tree? Any idea how long it would take for the crown to start filling in the hole I'll leave? I'm mostly hoping to avoid growing a tree like the one I have in the front yard, where this situation progressed from the very beginning. That one has a crack/seam going from the first major division all the way to the ground.
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Aug 1, 2011 00:42
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What kind of paint do you guys recommend for 1. a vinyl garage door and 2. a steel entry door? Regular flat exterior ok for both?
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Aug 1, 2011 15:05
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Bigass Moth posted:What kind of paint do you guys recommend for 1. a vinyl garage door and 2. a steel entry door? Regular flat exterior ok for both? Is that steel bare or rusty anywhere?
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Aug 1, 2011 19:37
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kid sinister posted:Is that steel bare or rusty anywhere? No.
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Aug 1, 2011 21:13
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Oh good. If it was, you'd need to prime that steel door first. Any exterior grade paint should be fine. You'll probably want to give both a good scrub with a wet towel first.
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Aug 2, 2011 00:20
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kid sinister posted:Oh good. If it was, you'd need to prime that steel door first. Any exterior grade paint should be fine. You'll probably want to give both a good scrub with a wet towel first. Thanks for the help!
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Aug 2, 2011 00:30
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How do I step outside myself and get objective perspective on the do or don't of the (first time) house purchase that I am involved in? It's been... pretty up and down. Well, mostly down, really. Closing's already two months late due to shenanigans, bullshit, and repair.
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Aug 2, 2011 01:04
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Splizwarf posted:How do I step outside myself and get objective perspective on the do or don't of the (first time) house purchase that I am involved in? Just get an outside opinion. Get a friend, relative, neighbor, anyone really who will give it to you straight. It's better if they've actually seen the property.
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Aug 2, 2011 02:46
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Splizwarf posted:How do I step outside myself and get objective perspective on the do or don't of the (first time) house purchase that I am involved in? That's a hell of a question. Find somebody you trust, who can tell you like it is without fear of hurting your relationship. Make sure they can tell you you got screwed if that's the case.
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Aug 2, 2011 14:25
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I've pretty much had the AC on constantly all summer (Chicago) but in just the last few days my basement ductwork has been sweating like crazy. The ducts are all semi enclosed so aside from ripping the whole thing down I have no way to access them to wrap with insulation. Are there any other things I could try that might help that doesn't require me taking my ceiling apart?
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Aug 2, 2011 21:41
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Use a dehumidifier in your basement?
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Aug 2, 2011 22:31
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Splizwarf posted:How do I step outside myself and get objective perspective on the do or don't of the (first time) house purchase that I am involved in? Ask someone at work/church/etc that maybe you don't particularly like but respect, or a mentor figure, that person has no vested interest in blowing smoke up your rear end. The other suggestion is never love anything that can't love you back.
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Aug 3, 2011 07:41
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Raised by Hamsters posted:Just bought a house, and I'm trying to decide if I should be removing a major branch from one of the trees on the lot. The landscaping here was pretty neglected. Googling for tree maintenance tells me that V-shape branch crotches with bark subduction are a bad thing, compared to the much stronger W-shape. I would contact your local agricultural extension service. http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/ they will usually meet with you and give free advice about stuff like this. Your tax dollars at work! I used them several years ago here in New Jersey when I found ants colonizing one of my ash trees. My first concern off-hand is that removing a large limb from a tree can stress it; the larger the limb, the worse it is.
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Aug 4, 2011 15:35
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PainterofCrap posted:My first concern off-hand is that removing a large limb from a tree can stress it; the larger the limb, the worse it is. This isn't the time of year for pruning anyway. The best time for the trees is late winter to early spring. Well, for live branches anyway. You can remove dead stuff any time of year.
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Aug 4, 2011 18:35
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ElectroSpecter posted:I had this question about getting my window screens out on the previous page. I tried drilling a hole, but I can't get the bit in at a perpendicular angle, so it slips around too much. I'm thinking that a pair of some sort of snips would do the job. Are a regular pair of tin snips powerful enough to cut through the metal (to the upper left of the red circle, where that notch is, I'd like to cut a hole that the peg will fit through)?
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Aug 4, 2011 19:52
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ElectroSpecter posted:I had this question about getting my window screens out on the previous page. I tried drilling a hole, but I can't get the bit in at a perpendicular angle, so it slips around too much. I'm thinking that a pair of some sort of snips would do the job. Are a regular pair of tin snips powerful enough to cut through the metal (to the upper left of the red circle, where that notch is, I'd like to cut a hole that the peg will fit through)? Try using a Dremel or other rotary tool with a metal grinder bit.
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Aug 4, 2011 22:52
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particle409 posted:Ok. The new faucet I bought was a plastic piece of leaky poo poo (American Standard Symphony). The mechanism that makes the valve pop up was pretty neat, but all the water pouring out the bottom was not. I put the old faucet back in. It's a Delta two handle centerset. Figured it out.  I needed to adjust the brass/metal part sticking up, within the stem. It wasn't pressing down on the seat hard enough, so I grabbed some pliers and twisted them a full rotation. That did the trick.
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Aug 5, 2011 02:48
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Need to strip, waterproof, prime, and paint a cement basement. This is the biggest DIY project my wife and I have tried to tackle, and it seems very daunting. We have some water damage to some of the walls so the paint scrapes off very easy, but the rest is what we are worried about. What would you suggest we do to strip the rest of this paint off? After that, how would you go about waterproofing the walls?
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Aug 5, 2011 16:37
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I don't know if it works for concrete but for wood you can heat the paint with a high power heat gun and scrape it off. Is it latex or lead? Lead paint chips are brittle and break easily, latex paint is pliable and bends If you use chemical stripper, try to ventilate the space the best you can and use a respirator; its nasty stuff There are paint-on products that can be applied to the basement walls for waterproofing Make sure you have proper drainage away from the foundation
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Aug 6, 2011 03:38
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I've had poor clothes dryer performance since I moved into my house 3 years ago. It has been on my honey-do list to fix the dryer since then but I only got to it this weekend. I took the dryer completely apart and cleaned the inside(removing about 1cf of lint) and replaced the rollers. This effectively silenced the always noisy machine. Next I replaced the chintzy foil-flex tube(made of flammable material!) with rigid 4" aluminum duct and eliminated all 90' elbows(they really cause a lot of back pressure). When I pulled off the old flex tube I found that the existing 4" tube had about an inch of lint coating the entire pipe, and also found untaped joints that were leaking humid-air into my living area. How this dryer, the flammable line, or the lint blockages never caught fire is amazing to me. Just a notice to all you guys to please inspect your dryer system, apparently the clothes dryer is a leading cause of house fires.
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Aug 7, 2011 03:57
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dinozaur posted:I've had poor clothes dryer performance since I moved into my house 3 years ago. It has been on my honey-do list to fix the dryer since then but I only got to it this weekend. I took the dryer completely apart and cleaned the inside(removing about 1cf of lint) and replaced the rollers. This effectively silenced the always noisy machine. Seconding this. I took mine apart that came with my home when the heating coil failed and it was scary how much lint builds up inside it.
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Aug 7, 2011 04:54
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Thirding. I've handled dozens of small, contained basement fires and at least three fully-involved house fires that were the direct result of lint buildup in gas dryers, although one of them was because a previous owner had vented the dryer into a wall cavity which had built up lint for 20+ years...that house went up like a Roman candle. I take mine apart annually and vacuum it out.The Spookmaster posted:I've pretty much had the AC on constantly all summer (Chicago) but in just the last few days my basement ductwork has been sweating like crazy... Try checking your furnace filter...sometimes, if they're near the end of their life (i.e. clogged), they can cause this. Seems to me that it shouldn't matter that much, but I've seen it solve this problem. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 14:55
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Two story house, 1,740sqft. Richmond, Virginia in the middle of summer is hot as hell, it's been upper 90's for most of the past month. Two outside AC units cooling it, info plate posted below. Put simply, they're doing a lovely job. There's a separate thermostat for each floor - both are set to 70, but the last time we saw 70 degrees in the house was when it was cloudy/rainy for about four days straight. Downstairs has floor vents, upstairs has ceiling vents. Upstairs is generally pretty comfortable, especially at night; I think it hits around 72. Downstairs loving sucks. Last night it was 80 when I went to bed. I can feel cold air coming out of the upstairs vents, but I can only feel a trickle of cool air coming out downstairs; mostly I only know the downstairs is working because the vents themselves are cool to the touch. The units seem to run all the time; our electric bill for last month was $400. The picture below is meaningless to me but hopefully not you guys; my question is, are we just screwed? Are our two small-ish units just physically incapable of cooling a house when daytime temps are consistently in the 90's for weeks at a time? 
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Aug 8, 2011 16:46
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jackpot posted:Two story house, 1,740sqft. Richmond, Virginia in the middle of summer is hot as hell, it's been upper 90's for most of the past month. Two outside AC units cooling it, info plate posted below. Put simply, they're doing a lovely job. There's a separate thermostat for each floor - both are set to 70, but the last time we saw 70 degrees in the house was when it was cloudy/rainy for about four days straight. Downstairs has floor vents, upstairs has ceiling vents. Upstairs is generally pretty comfortable, especially at night; I think it hits around 72. Downstairs loving sucks. Last night it was 80 when I went to bed. I can feel cold air coming out of the upstairs vents, but I can only feel a trickle of cool air coming out downstairs; mostly I only know the downstairs is working because the vents themselves are cool to the touch. The units seem to run all the time; our electric bill for last month was $400. You have two completely separate systems cooling your home? How old are the units? I'm not super experienced with HVAC, but the exchangers might need to be cleaned. How often do you swap out your intake filters?
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Aug 8, 2011 16:56
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jackpot posted:Two story house, 1,740sqft. Richmond, Virginia in the middle of summer is hot as hell, it's been upper 90's for most of the past month. Two outside AC units cooling it, info plate posted below. Put simply, they're doing a lovely job. There's a separate thermostat for each floor - both are set to 70, but the last time we saw 70 degrees in the house was when it was cloudy/rainy for about four days straight. Downstairs has floor vents, upstairs has ceiling vents. Upstairs is generally pretty comfortable, especially at night; I think it hits around 72. Downstairs loving sucks. Last night it was 80 when I went to bed. I can feel cold air coming out of the upstairs vents, but I can only feel a trickle of cool air coming out downstairs; mostly I only know the downstairs is working because the vents themselves are cool to the touch. The units seem to run all the time; our electric bill for last month was $400. Sup RVAgoon. I'd start by changing your intake filters as poster above me said. If that does nothing then post back here. Also a note about thermostats - the air that is pumped into your house is the same temperature no matter what you have your thermostats set to. All a thermostat does is cut off the unit when it detects whatever temperature you have it dialed too. If your units suck and put out crap air and you set them to 70, with the heat we've been having in Richmond they will never shut off even at night and your electric bill will be $400. e: and you might want to look into getting a fan until you fix the problem. I usually sleep with a desk fan pointed at my bed and I went from burning up at night to needing a blanket. Ceiling fans aren't very directional, but a little oscillating desk fan can work wonders. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 19:27
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dwoloz posted:I don't know if it works for concrete but for wood you can heat the paint with a high power heat gun and scrape it off. Picked up a heat gun, and it didn't do jack poo poo to the paint on the wall so I returned it. The chemical stripper that we used for refinishing some stuff in the kitchen hardly put a dent in the latex paint on the walls. We have been scraping the hell out of the bubble areas, and are going to try and just sand the areas around the bumpy parts to kinda even it out a bit. What would you use for a paint on sealant? I assume you can paint right over something like that?
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Aug 8, 2011 23:36
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:You have two completely separate systems cooling your home? How old are the units? I'm not super experienced with HVAC, but the exchangers might need to be cleaned. How often do you swap out your intake filters? The system he showed the picture of rolled off the assembly line in the 18th week of 1995. Also how many square feet would you estimate the downstairs to be? That plate is for a 2 ton unit which seems like it would be rather small. Take the door off of your furnace and look at the blower wheel. 1/16th inch of grime on the blower wheel can reduce air volume by up to 25 percent. If the filter is clean and the blower wheel checks out clean, the remaining options are a dirty evaporator coil or duct problem. Unless you've had your duct work replaced since you've lived there I am assuming it is as old as that unit if not older. Old duct work tends to be crappy and falls apart if you breathe on it wrong. If you can, try and take a look at it, having holes in your duct work will lead to reduced air volume through your vents.
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Aug 9, 2011 06:41
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how are the freon levels? Two 2 ton units should be freezing a house like that out.
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Aug 9, 2011 11:13
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You guys have asked me a bunch of great questions to which I have almost no answers.  When I get home I'll take a look at it all and see what I can find out, thanks. All I know is, if any of this involves me going under the house then loving forget it. I poked my head down there yesterday and besides the requisite spiders we've got spider crickets the size of kittens...and I swear, they loving watch you. jackpot fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Aug 9, 2011 |
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Aug 9, 2011 22:02
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Nissir posted:Picked up a heat gun, and it didn't do jack poo poo to the paint on the wall so I returned it. The chemical stripper that we used for refinishing some stuff in the kitchen hardly put a dent in the latex paint on the walls. We have been scraping the hell out of the bubble areas, and are going to try and just sand the areas around the bumpy parts to kinda even it out a bit. What would you use for a paint on sealant? I assume you can paint right over something like that? If it's still really bumpy I'd use something like this http://www.polycell.co.uk/products/polycell_smoothover_your_damaged_walls.jsp after sealing and before painting, because if you don't all those little bumps will bug you till you feel compelled to start over anyway. Then use an undercoat, then paint. I don't know if you get Smoothover there, but you should be able to find something similar. It's dead easy to use.
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Aug 9, 2011 22:05
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jackpot posted:You guys have asked me a bunch of great questions to which I have almost no answers. camel crickets or spider crickets or whatever theyre called are completely harmless
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Aug 9, 2011 23:51
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Cosmik Debris posted:camel crickets or spider crickets or whatever theyre called are completely harmless
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Aug 10, 2011 13:36
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On the HVAC front, with the past few weeks having highs in the 98-103 degree range, the AC at my house has only shut off maybe two or three times, and that's extremely early in the morning with the thermostat on 75. In the afternoon/evening the temperature steadily climbs inside with the unit running, usually topping out between 83 and 85. The unit is putting out cold air, but it seems like it just can't keep up. When we got the system installed I don't remember it ever getting more than a couple degrees over what the thermostat was set on during the hottest part of the day. Are there any fairly simple and cheap methods for increasing the efficiency of our unit? It's probably about 12 years old and has never been services to my knowledge. We are horrible about changing furnace filters on a proper schedule, though we changed them a couple weeks ago during the heat wave, but it didn't seem to help the temperature much. Also, my bedroom is the coldest room in this house. Doesn't matter if its 100 degrees outside or 0 degrees outside. Doesn't matter if the AC is on or if the heat is on. In the summer I close 1 of my air vents, and have the other one 3/4 of the way closed, and my room is always in the 60s. In the winter, I have both of my vents open for heat, run a space heater, and the temperature usually hovers in the lower 60s still. Walls and ceiling are all insulated. Floor is carpeted. What's the deal? Is my bedroom possessed by ice monsters?
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Aug 10, 2011 14:37
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Maniaman posted:On the HVAC front, with the past few weeks having highs in the 98-103 degree range, the AC at my house has only shut off maybe two or three times, and that's extremely early in the morning with the thermostat on 75. In the afternoon/evening the temperature steadily climbs inside with the unit running, usually topping out between 83 and 85. The unit is putting out cold air, but it seems like it just can't keep up. When we got the system installed I don't remember it ever getting more than a couple degrees over what the thermostat was set on during the hottest part of the day. Get an experienced person to come to your house and clean the coils on your outdoor unit. That should help a bunch!
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Aug 10, 2011 15:25
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jackpot posted:I was joking. Oh my bad. Ive seen people shriek in terror at the sight of them.
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Aug 10, 2011 16:29
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Cosmik Debris posted:Oh my bad. Ive seen people shriek in terror at the sight of them. My wife didn't trust my homeowning skills and called in the home warranty folks. Turns out the AC coils had about five years of grime on them, and after taking care of that we dropped 30 pounds of pressure downstairs, 40 pounds upstairs. According to the repairman that should help things a bit.
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Aug 10, 2011 19:01
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Maniaman posted:On the HVAC front, with the past few weeks having highs in the 98-103 degree range, the AC at my house has only shut off maybe two or three times, and that's extremely early in the morning with the thermostat on 75. In the afternoon/evening the temperature steadily climbs inside with the unit running, usually topping out between 83 and 85. The unit is putting out cold air, but it seems like it just can't keep up. When we got the system installed I don't remember it ever getting more than a couple degrees over what the thermostat was set on during the hottest part of the day. If you haven't been changing your filters, then theres probably no way you've cleaned the unit outside. Do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gj_lKVnHqw While you're there, make sure the pipe insulation running from the outside unit tot he house isn't shredded up. With the AC running, feel around the inside ductwork for leaks. Air leaking there is air that isn't getting where you want it. Seal it up with foil HVAC tape. If you've got ducts running through a non-living space like a garage, insulating the ductwork can help too. I did my whole garage for about $50. Here's a good how-to on that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msro_nvINzs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1EK8dMiZj8 You also might see if your electrical company subsidizes AC maintenance. I got a recharge of up to a pound of freon for free just for asking.
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Aug 10, 2011 19:18
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This is less of a how-to question and more of a "Where can I get it" question: I'm trying to find a place that sells Lignum Vitae wood. I found the aptly named http://www.lignum-vitae.com/ and was wondering if anyone has bought from them before and can vouch for them. It's a very hard to get wood and this just seems too good to be true. I'm using https://www.woodfinder.com as a first step towards finding these places, but if there's a better way please tell me.
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Aug 10, 2011 23:15
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jackpot posted:But take my word for it - they are creepy. The legs are just too long. Yeah, that's a pretty good amount of freon added, plus having the coil clean you can actually get air through the system now. I'm curious, though, did they check the blower? It happens all the time that I go to a house where the coil and filter are spotless but the blower is still nasty. Why does nobody ever respect the blower? It has needs, too. eddiewalker posted:If you haven't been changing your filters, then theres probably no way you've cleaned the unit outside. Do this: That guy has zero idea what he is talking about, and only half an idea of what he is doing. You are not cleaning your compressor, that is a condenser. Those aren't cooling fins, that is a coil. If you choose to pop the top off, it is a good idea not to crimp the wires as he mentioned, but that doesn't mean just slam the fan blades/motor into the side of the unit. If you choose to go that route you should pull the motor and blades out and then turn the whole thing over so that it is resting on the grate. Bending your fan blades or the motor shaft is going to cause expensive problems.
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Aug 11, 2011 00:11
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Jaweeeblop posted:That guy has zero idea what he is talking about, and only half an idea of what he is doing. You are not cleaning your compressor, that is a condenser. Those aren't cooling fins, that is a coil. If you choose to pop the top off, it is a good idea not to crimp the wires as he mentioned, but that doesn't mean just slam the fan blades/motor into the side of the unit. If you choose to go that route you should pull the motor and blades out and then turn the whole thing over so that it is resting on the grate. Bending your fan blades or the motor shaft is going to cause expensive problems. I just shuttled through it without sound. Either way, it needs to be cleaned, even if just sprayed down from the outside. Mine gets almost stuccoed shut with mud and cotton.
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Aug 11, 2011 00:31
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