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How would I go about finding out if anything like that is available in Minnesota?
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Nov 15, 2014 02:17
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| # ? May 14, 2024 08:02 |
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Minnesota energy efficiency programs http://www.minnesotaenergyresources.com/home/rebates.aspx
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Nov 15, 2014 03:44
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I had something like that in my house a few years ago. NY paid for half my insulation, furnace, and water heater
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Nov 15, 2014 04:37
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Because I'm using propane for heat, I can get 10 free CFL light bulbs and someone to show me how to turn down my hot water thermostat. And nothing else. (Not that I'd qualify for much anyway, since my house still exceeds current code requirements, but the propane thing still annoys me)
Zhentar fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 21:57
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For future reference here's the federal database of all the renewable energy poo poo you can get in your particular location: http://www.dsireusa.org/ It even includes city and county level stuff if you're lucky and live in a city or county that gives a gently caress.
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Nov 16, 2014 00:11
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Zhentar posted:I can get 10 free CFL light bulbs Free is free, you may as well.
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Nov 16, 2014 01:13
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A family member had a garage/shop built a while back, and some of the work is just a tad questionable. This is par for the course, really. Various other family members have tried to convince owner that this is not proper, only to get many excuses about it being installed by an "expert", etc.  The really "nice" piece of work that I want to see what you all think about is a cooling system for an indoor forge. Let's take a look at how that was done. Here's the intake grill. Plastic. It fell off about 15 minutes into the very first run, I have no clue how it's attached to the ceiling now. Builders were nice enough to offer to replace it with a metal one.  So we know from the fact that this vent pulled enough hot air to melt its cover that it has a bit of heat going through it. I wonder how it was handled? Oh, it wasn't. Like the load bearing romex? I sure do. I didn't feel like digging it out, but know that the air pump is buried in there.  At the end, there's one final question. Where does the hot air go? Surely an insulated vent in the roof? Of course not, that would go against the spirit of this contraption! 
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Nov 18, 2014 06:22
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Subcomputer posted:Let's take a look at how that was done. If I asked somebody to design a system to reliably set my roof alight all the time, and they gave me this, I'd be a satisfied customer.
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Nov 18, 2014 06:38
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Subcomputer posted:The really "nice" piece of work that I want to see what you all think about is a cooling system for an indoor forge. Let's take a look at how that was done. Is... is that a thing people do? Like, inside the house? I could see in a purpose-built shed so you're not out in the sun, but...
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Nov 18, 2014 07:29
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If you're not using the garage space I could see it. Still though, that's kind of uuuuuh special.
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Nov 18, 2014 07:57
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Subcomputer posted:A family member had a garage/shop built a while back, and some of the work is just a tad questionable. This is legit funny, and probably a move out of desperation. Nobody is an expert in garage door openers, they are infernal machines and only the truly evil people on this planet are sentenced to the lowest pit of hell where they toil all day assembling garage door openers.
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Nov 18, 2014 09:10
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Fucknag posted:Is... is that a thing people do? Like, inside the house? I could see in a purpose-built shed so you're not out in the sun, but... I've seen it a bunch of times with smaller forges in the region, only once in a house though but that was a jeweler's forge so it doesn't really count. Still usually used with a huge vent of some kind, as this was supposed to be. Seems to be a long standing tradition, some of the older farms in the area have a coal forge in one of the barns for dead of winter repairs. This is also a region where it gets debated whether a solid foot of snow overnight or -20F is worth closing the schools over. Edit: This is/was a two burner gas forge, and the whole "shop" room in the garage was supposed to be designed from the ground up for dealing with the heat from that along with gas and various electric welding. Not defending the family member, just specifying more clearly what was "ordered". Subcomputer fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Nov 18, 2014 |
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Nov 18, 2014 13:29
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My sister's garage door opener was also like that. What's really angering is knowing how much easier it would be to fix if you had the mounting brackets and spool of wire that the previous installer threw away.
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Nov 19, 2014 03:18
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I love that at least two people saw these weird laser doodads and just went "gently caress it mount them to the roof"
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Nov 19, 2014 04:16
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:I love that at least two people saw these weird laser doodads and just went "gently caress it mount them to the roof" Well yeah, for some reason they're attaching these dumb light gate things to the garage so it won't work unless they can see each other. Best way to make certain they can see each other is to mount them out of the way somewhere where nothing's going to block the beam! Safety? What's that?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:20
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Or just loop the wire so it sends a constant signal and don't mount them anywhere.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:24
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Tried that. I was really tempted to do this when I installed my opener, after I found put the door absolutely would not function without them, nor would it work if wire was used to bridge that fail-safe circuit. I was pissed...but eventually just settled down & installed them as configured/required. They have been less of a pain in the rear end than expected. Usually a random cobwebbed leaf gets hung up on one, or they're knocked askew by something. (content): Juuust a small delay in completion...  Should drive by there tomorrow & see if it's changed in the past two years since I shot this pic. Nitrox posted:In Philly, PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 04:32
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PainterofCrap posted:(content): Juuust a small delay in completion... I wonder if you could buy it and turn it into a neat walled garden thing. Or would it be illegal because it's not done / safe / zoned?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:35
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:I wonder if you could buy it and turn it into a neat walled garden thing. Or would it be illegal because it's not done / safe / zoned? In Philly, that shell would be a godsend for a scummy developer, looking to cram several apartments inside. You get to bypass a number of recent regulations, like a sprinkler fire supression system for example, about $15,000 in savings
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Nov 19, 2014 04:44
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I bought a house that was once owned by an "artist" who fancied himself a capable handyman. Here is a "repair" to the stairs heading to the second floor that I discovered yesterday.  Yep, load bearing pencils.
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Nov 19, 2014 14:46
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You're going all wrong about it, you're supposed to consider why he chose pencils as his preferred medium for this work, even though they're not traditional.
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Nov 19, 2014 15:21
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It's not about the pencils he used, it's about the
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Nov 19, 2014 15:32
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Antifreeze Head posted:I bought a house that was once owned by an "artist" who fancied himself a capable handyman. Sure, save $100 on the entire build by mounting the power sockets with small wooden blocks jammed into the drywall instead of using proper mounting boxes. Who's going to care if the power socket comes out if you pull a plug after all? Dickhead.
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Nov 19, 2014 15:36
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nor, you know, the whole other reason you use an outlet box... fire and electric shock prevention/containment.
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Nov 19, 2014 15:46
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Too busy breaking the rules and sticking it to the man, man. gently caress your bourgeois notions of hazard prevention and electrical safety.
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Nov 19, 2014 16:18
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Flipperwaldt posted:That's exactly the backstory of the jackass that did up my house in the nineties. They're the worst, because you can still smell the pride over the creativity that went into all the half-assed botch jobs. Wood? That's pro. My guy used sprayfoam. 
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Nov 19, 2014 17:45
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Looks like he had the goddamn Alien for a handyman.
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Nov 19, 2014 17:57
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In all fairness to artists, my wife is an artist who can run a tormach and builds robots and she is quite serious about doing home repairs properly and to code where applicable. So yeah some artists are fuckups when it comes to doing things properly but it's not a universal trait.
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Nov 19, 2014 20:42
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Leperflesh posted:In all fairness to artists, my wife is an artist who can run a tormach and builds robots and she is quite serious about doing home repairs properly and to code where applicable. #notallartists
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Nov 20, 2014 03:20
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:#notallartists It's about ethics in artistic code-following.
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Nov 20, 2014 06:29
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So I recently started working in a grocery store. It's been open about 3 years, and prior to opening, it had been another grocery store that had been closed for several years. There's 2 stories. The former grocery store chain usually had their offices on the 2nd floor, while the current one has just two very small offices. I wandered up there the other day and... it's just bare concrete and lighting, with some old dusty shelving units and not much else. I found a compressor room, with two doors. One that said "DO NOT CLOSE" on a hand-written piece of paper and was propped open with a chair. The other door also had a hand written note that said "DO NOT OPEN". I found the other side of the door. 
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Nov 22, 2014 16:00
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some texas redneck posted:I found the other side of the door. My dad works as an Assistant Manager for a grocery chain, and this kind of poo poo is insanely common in grocery store layouts. He once took a pratfall out a door that opened up to a 10-foot drop off a loading dock. Amazingly, he didn't break a thing, but he was banged up enough he spent a day at the hospital. He even laughed about how silly he must have looked as he realized there was nothing under his feet as he walked through the door; but only after he got out of the hospital.
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Nov 22, 2014 17:51
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Why... would that be a common thing in any type of construction?
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Nov 22, 2014 19:26
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Given that it is a compressor room, the door would be pretty useful to bring equipment in with a forklift. Though if that was the intent, making the door bigger certainly wouldn't hurt.
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Nov 22, 2014 19:37
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Chitin posted:Why... would that be a common thing in any type of construction? An old surveillance method was to have someone patrol a long room or catwalk with one-way glass overlooking the store. You can sometimes see the glass in older, bigger stores. I can't find good pics, but this is what kind of view it would provide:  I'm wondering if this could be related.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:19
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The grocery store I worked at had a couple of those but instead of a door it was a waist high gate like on a loading dock. They use a forklift to store things in those rooms. Storage space can be scarce where retail square footage is expensive. If it was an open gate you would at least have a visual of the drop and the compressor could get the ventilation it apparently needs. They should at least replace the door knob with a deadbolt that's keyed on both sides. Or just keyed on the storage room side so we can get pictures of someone riding the forklift up to unlock it.
The Twinkie Czar fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 20:22
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ThinkFear posted:Given that it is a compressor room, the door would be pretty useful to bring equipment in with a forklift. Though if that was the intent, making the door bigger certainly wouldn't hurt. I worked in a fairly large supermarket and they had a second story door on the compressor room for exactly that reason, but I have no idea why it had to be on the second story to begin with. It took something ludicrous like 300 horsepower to run all the refrigeration. I remember finding this out when they used the empty room on the ground floor as high-security storage for the final Harry Potter book. They had a 24/7 security guard sitting on a chair in front of the door for the week between delivery and release.
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Nov 23, 2014 00:56
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I'd guess it would be common in grocery stores because of cheap remodeling over the decades.
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Nov 24, 2014 13:59
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smackfu posted:I'd guess it would be common in grocery stores because of cheap remodeling over the decades. That seems to be the case; a lot of old chain grocery stores that got bought out back in the 80s/90s had to be remodeled to match their new owners' standard layouts, which often leaves weird bits and pieces behind. Most of the stores my Dad works in now used to belong to a regional chain that got bought out, and then the people who bought them got bought out. That's at least two, probably three or four remodels that have been done.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:01
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Jedi425 posted:That seems to be the case; a lot of old chain grocery stores that got bought out back in the 80s/90s had to be remodeled to match their new owners' standard layouts, which often leaves weird bits and pieces behind. Most of the stores my Dad works in now used to belong to a regional chain that got bought out, and then the people who bought them got bought out. That's at least two, probably three or four remodels that have been done.
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Nov 24, 2014 18:04
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