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Forer posted:1 easy way to burn to death because the fire department doesn't know about your stupid hidden room. i read an interview years ago from a company that specialized in hidden rooms, they said that 90% of them were for guns. I really like the bookshelf staircase though. Also the book nook.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:33
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ExplodingSims posted:43 Insanely Cool Remodels if you're a millionare with a 10,000sqft mansion now all you have to clean is 200sqft of tile
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Jan 20, 2015 00:35
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Captain Cool posted:now all you have to clean is 200sqft of tile Madness. Tile doesn't get dirty. It just slowly turns yellow-brown and gets mold on it.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:37
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kid sinister posted:Also, I'm not used to having numbered lists all on a single page, instead of separate ones on separate pages. One thing I'll give Buzzfeed credit for, I've never seen them pull that. Yet, at least.
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Jan 20, 2015 00:37
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I feel like a lot of that dead space they keep referring to is 'dead space' for structurally important reasons? Also my parents put in central vac, the thing with the baseboard slit to suck up floor sweepings: The baseboard thing is loving GREAT. Hauling around ten feet of heavy vacuum tubing hooked into a wall? Sucks balls.
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Jan 20, 2015 01:00
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the under-stairs dog home seems like a cool idea, but it seems like an incredible pain in the rear end to get in there to clean it fully.
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Jan 20, 2015 02:01
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:the under-stairs dog home seems like a cool idea, but it seems like an incredible pain in the rear end to get in there to clean it fully.
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Jan 20, 2015 02:45
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:the under-stairs dog home seems like a cool idea, but it seems like an incredible pain in the rear end to get in there to clean it fully. You don't need to clean it fully, just enough that it doesn't bother the dog. That's more than clean enough to not stink (any worse than the dog), and no one is going to notice who doesn't climb into the dog's bed.
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Jan 20, 2015 02:47
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Tasty_Crayon posted:I feel like a lot of that dead space they keep referring to is 'dead space' for structurally important reasons? It doesn't really seem like much of the dead space is structurally important. I can see why have books and stuff under the stairs might cause an issue W/R/T fire hazards and stuff. Also the wall of window/glass doors will kill your insulation and probably require upgrading your A/C system by ad least 1/2 Ton, so there's that. Though I guess if you have your SECRET FALLOUT SHELTER hanging around that's probably not a huge issue for you. I'm not sure I understand the two dishwashers idea at all though. How many dishes do these people do every night?
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Jan 20, 2015 03:51
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ExplodingSims posted:It doesn't really seem like much of the dead space is structurally important. I can see why have books and stuff under the stairs might cause an issue W/R/T fire hazards and stuff. 20 kW of grow lights in the SECRET FALLOUT SHELTER are going to give you away to the cops before the A/C upgrade will.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:02
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ExplodingSims posted:I'm not sure I understand the two dishwashers idea at all though. How many dishes do these people do every night? If you entertain or have a large family 2 dishwashers is awesome. One can be running while the other is being loaded. It's an "inexpensive" luxury if you have the kitchen space to pull it off. There are also single space 2 drawer dishwashers to get the same benefit for the bachelor pad.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:04
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Motronic posted:If you entertain or have a large family 2 dishwashers is awesome. Fair enough, I only mine like once a week if that much, so it's kind of an alien concept to me.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:07
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ExplodingSims posted:Fair enough, I only mine like once a week if that much, so it's kind of an alien concept to me. There are 4 people in my house. We cook most of our meals. I rarely go a day without running the dishwasher. So yeah, it really depends on what you have going on.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:13
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Tasty_Crayon posted:I feel like a lot of that dead space they keep referring to is 'dead space' for structurally important reasons? The wine rack in the extra wide dividing wall probably has as a forced air plenum in it, with the wine rack to make it more visually interesting. There's no reason to have an interior wall that thick. ExplodingSims posted:Also the wall of window/glass doors will kill your insulation and probably require upgrading your A/C system by ad least 1/2 Ton, so there's that. The average A/C system is already oversized by at least 1 ton, so not really a big problem.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:24
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The other thing you can do with two dishwashers is never put your dishes away. Pull from one washer, use, put in the other. So I can see how that would have some appeal for the really truly lazy people out there.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:32
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I like #35 a lot, but I live where it's nice out all year.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:44
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Zhentar posted:The wine rack in the extra wide dividing wall probably has as a forced air plenum in it, with the wine rack to make it more visually interesting. There's no reason to have an interior wall that thick. Really? I find that hard to believe. If anything, I've heard that most A/Cs tend to be undersized, especially in like tract housing developments, due to cost cutting. I can certainly imagine that being the case if you have a lot of contractors just doing rule of thumb guesses instead of proper heat load calculations or using manual J or whatever. Course, I live in Florida, where we tend to take our air conditioning pretty seriously, and the effects you get from oversizing an A/C down here tend to be much more noticeable, so that probably factors into it as well. Especially with regards to humidity control. ExplodingSims fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 04:45
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It's always weird to me seeing things like that, because they are very clearly aimed at people more...prosperous than myself (or who, perhaps, are willing to pretend through debt). I am a poor broke bastard who grew up in a series of mobile homes converted into permanent housing, so when I see poo poo that says 'hey just install a second dishwasher in your giant kitchen!' or 'install refuse chutes in your second-floor kitchen!' my initial response is to wonder just how big the target audience for these articles actually is. Well, that and realizing I've never lived in a house with two stories or a working dishwasher. Although on a related note, I think I at least understand the potential appeal of the 'no glass to clean' statement for the walk-in shower. I can only assume most people who want and are able to strip out their bathroom and install a large walk-in shower area in the first place are probably more likely to be concerned about appearances than dumb broke poors like myself, and it's a lot easier to get an acceptable finish on ceramic than glass while cleaning, even if it is much more prone to mold.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:46
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Shady Amish Terror posted:my initial response is to wonder just how big the target audience for these articles actually is. It's loving huge. You're confusing the target audience. It's not people who can actually afford this, it's dreamer/aspirational tripe.
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Jan 20, 2015 04:50
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Motronic posted:It's loving huge. To clarify, the audience for the article is huge, the audience for the actual improvements (or whatever you want to call them) is much smaller.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:10
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Although on a related note, I think I at least understand the potential appeal of the 'no glass to clean' statement for the walk-in shower. I can only assume most people who want and are able to strip out their bathroom and install a large walk-in shower area in the first place are probably more likely to be concerned about appearances than dumb broke poors like myself, and it's a lot easier to get an acceptable finish on ceramic than glass while cleaning, even if it is much more prone to mold.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:12
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ExplodingSims posted:Really? I find that hard to believe. If anything, I've heard that most A/Cs tend to be undersized, especially in like tract housing developments, due to cost cutting. Yes. "a study in Florida of over 400 homes found more than 50% oversized the cooling equipment more than 120% of Manual J (James, et. al., 1997)" (And note that Manual J intentionally includes a margin of error that means even 100% Manual J is at least slightly oversizing). I'd be surprised if even in the cheapest tract homes intentionally undersize air conditioners, adding on an extra ton isn't particularly expensive, and unlike the many other corners they can cut, new owners will notice very quickly and are very likely to complain. The horrors of oversizing are vastly overestated. You have to get at least into the 200% oversized range before short cycling really starts causing any problems at all. As a side note, I wouldn't consider Manual J any more accurate in practice than rule of thumb guesses. It's theoretically accurate if all the right numbers get put in... but that never happens.
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Jan 20, 2015 05:35
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I know absolutely nothing about air conditioning as it's basically weird space technology that doesn't exist here, at least in terms of residential. What goes into the design of a home AC system and how could having too powerful of a system be bad?
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Jan 20, 2015 06:00
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If the unit moves more air / tonnage than the installed ductwork can handle, the A-coil (the evaporator, which the air passes over to chill & dry it) can freeze up. Which is Not Good. Even if the airflow is good; if the overall system is too large for the home, it (as noted) can lead to short-cycling, which is inefficient & causes premature wear.
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Jan 20, 2015 06:17
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Baronjutter posted:I know absolutely nothing about air conditioning as it's basically weird space technology that doesn't exist here, at least in terms of residential. What goes into the design of a home AC system and how could having too powerful of a system be bad? Because it's called air conditioning for a reason. It does more than just cool, it also de-humidifies the air. So you need the system to run for a certain amount of time to not only pull the temperature down, but to dehumidify as well. Usually you want the system to run for about 15 mins or so, and your good. But if it's too large, it cools too fast, and then your run into short cycling, and humidity problems. The other issue you can run into, if you're replacing a system, is the duct system may not be able to handle the new air volume. You can run into minor issues for the most part, such as lots of noise, and depending on the return system, poor airflow. And of couse the added power usage running up your bill. As far system design goes, you need to know the total CFM needed for a house to determine tonnage. You can fancy stuff like Manual J software or you can estimate it based some rule of thumb estimates that vary wildly. Anything from a a partial heat load calculation to having a cutout that you hold X amount of feet away from the house and tells you the tonnage. Basically, what it boils down to is taking the individual rooms, and calculating the individual needs, adding them up, and getting your tonnage. With software you take things like insulation, roof type, roof color, roof pitch, house orientation, square footage, etc, in to account for the most accurate estimate. Also a favorite of local contractors here because they can go on the county's tax appraiser website and pull the lot info and just plug it in that way. (Which also defeats the purpose of such software, but  )A semi-accurate way to calculate your tonnage needs is to calculate it based on air flow. You know each room needs a certain amount of CFMs, based on the room's square footage. So you take your square footage, and assume that to cool to it, you'll need to exchange 80% of the air per minute. This is assuming it's a standard room, with a standard ceiling.. But, very few rooms are like that, so you may need to cool more, so you can add 5% for a high ceiling, or 10% for a sliding glass door. At any rate, you get you total room needs, and take the Sqft*Air% and your get your CFM needed. (Ex. 12x12 room = 144sqft. 144*80%=115.2 So you'd need to move 115 CFM) Now do this for every room, and you get the total CFM needed for the house. Add all the rooms up, and divide by 400 (Cause 400cfm = roughly 1 ton) and you get a rough estimate of your tonnage. For example if you get around 1200 CFM, 1200/400= 3. So, you'd get 3 ton equipment. And also by calculating the CFM needed on a room by room basis, you can also figure out what size ducts and what size registers you'll need, for both the supply and return ducting. (Assuming you have return ducting and not a box of ductboard right under the air handler.) ExplodingSims fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 06:33
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ExplodingSims posted:So you take your square footage, and assume that to cool to it, you'll need to exchange 80% of the air per minute. Is that a typo? I thought that cleanroom manufacturing environments were crazy-high spec and doing something like 10 air changes per hour.
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Jan 20, 2015 07:33
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canyoneer posted:Is that a typo? I thought that cleanroom manufacturing environments were crazy-high spec and doing something like 10 air changes per hour. This is HVAC math and has a bunch of rules of thumb and stuff built in. Notice he's multiplying square footage by a percentage and getting cubic feet per minute. His calculation would change 80% of the bottom foot of air every minute for six air changes per hour. sqft*8ft standard ceiling *.8 air/min *60 min/hr = 6 air/hr.
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Jan 20, 2015 15:27
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Yes but how many airs per gallon does it get?
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Jan 20, 2015 15:44
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Yes but how many airs per gallon does it get? A little over .05 hectare-bushels.
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Jan 20, 2015 15:53
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I've finally found a concrete contractor worth going with (I think), so I can get the foundation poured for the workshop I want to build. First though I need to set up the survey markers, and I've never done that before. Any particular advice for this? The workshop's going in the back corner of the lot, 5' setback from both border fences. The minimum setback is 3'; the extra 2' means I don't have to take special fire-hardening precautions in the construction except for the soffits/eaves (this mostly just saves me from having to put drywall up). I can't assume that the fences are square, naturally, but as long as the workshop itself is square I don't really care how exactly it's oriented with respect to the fences (or the house). The slab just can't come closer than 5' to the fences. I was figuring I'd just put 8 stakes out, two per corner, set back about a foot from the workshop lot and placed as close to accurate as I can measure, then attach the survey lines to the heads of screws that I place in the stakes. I can adjust the screws minutely to properly position the line and make sure everything is square. Getting things level may be trickier, though; the top of the slab should be 6" above grade, but where do you measure grade from? Of course, if you have a recommendation for a better approach, I'd love to hear it. I'm just a bit leery of buying equipment (e.g. survey laser) that I'm only going to use once.
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Jan 20, 2015 17:37
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Do you know exactly where your property lines are? I couldn't find my markers and wound up just paying a surveyor to mark the setbacks for me. Added a bit to my budget but I didn't have too worry about an expensive bust. Also, my concrete guy was the one to worry about height from grade, I just gave him the plans.
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Jan 20, 2015 17:53
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Tora! Tora! Tora! posted:Do you know exactly where your property lines are? I couldn't find my markers and wound up just paying a surveyor to mark the setbacks for me. Added a bit to my budget but I didn't have too worry about an expensive bust. Also, my concrete guy was the one to worry about height from grade, I just gave him the plans. I live in dense suburbia, so all of the lots are pretty thoroughly fenced in. It's of course possible that the fences aren't exactly on the property lines, but I don't think that's really going to be an issue for this project since they're certainly not going to be off by so much that the workshop would infringe on a neighbor's property. Worst case, some of the workshop turns out to be within that 5' fire safety zone and I have to drywall it after all. But I really don't think that will be an issue. Not having to worry about height above grade would simplify my life. Guess I should verify with the contractor exactly what he needs regarding surveying.
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Jan 20, 2015 18:13
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:they're certainly not going to be off by so much  I guess you'll find out for sure when you some day sell the place!
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Jan 20, 2015 18:19
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I've been involved with countless projects in urban environments where everyone has some 50-100 year old fence or stone wall between their property and then it turns out things are multiple-feet off.
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Jan 20, 2015 18:29
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Mercury Ballistic posted:If there isn't already, there should be a service where you can hire an inspector to monitor a home being built on behalf of the owners. They should have the awareness and ability to deal with issues before they are hidden or costly to deal with. Sorry to quote this so late but there's at least one company in Seattle that does this for places as far as ID and CA. The same market niche has to be filled in other places, though, because banks want to know that the home loan is actually going towards the house they approved it for and not something drastically different (or nothing at all).
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Jan 20, 2015 18:32
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Alright, I can double-check the property lines. These lots are all cookie-cutter -- they were originally military family housing, hundreds of identical A-frame houses with 50'x100' lots. That contributes to my suspicion that the property lines aren't likely to be drastically off. But I understand what you're saying -- nobody wants to spend massive effort and tens of thousands of dollars on a project only to find it has to be torn down because of a property dispute. I have a map of the local lots around here somewhere; it was part of the plans I submitted to the city planning office to get my construction permit. I can't remember if it has landmarks to measure from or not; I may have to contact the city office. Anyway, back to the task of actually doing the surveying -- is my proposed approach of stakes+screws+line going to work out reasonably well? Especially considering I'll be working alone?
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Jan 20, 2015 18:36
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Baronjutter posted:I've been involved with countless projects in urban environments where everyone has some 50-100 year old fence or stone wall between their property and then it turns out things are multiple-feet off. How about a driveway and an rear end in a top hat neighbour? 
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Jan 20, 2015 18:37
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Dillbag posted:How about a driveway and an rear end in a top hat neighbour? Which one is the rear end in a top hat? The guy that poured the driveway all over his neighbours yard or the one who built his fence along what he thought was his properly line but totally wasn't.
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Jan 20, 2015 19:08
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Antifreeze Head posted:Which one is the rear end in a top hat? The guy that poured the driveway all over his neighbours yard or the one who built his fence along what he thought was his properly line but totally wasn't. Arguably they both are, but in this case, the fence builder was technically in the right, if I recall, as his neighbor had a misunderstanding of the property line, refused to listen/acknowledge actual, hard evidence of the property line, and then had the cement poured anyhow. Also I think the driveway side is a daycare or something? I'm having trouble finding a link for the situation in question, though. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 19:11
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Bad Munki posted:Arguably they both are, but in this case, the fence builder was technically in the right, if I recall, as his neighbor had a misunderstanding of the property line, refused to listen/acknowledge actual, hard evidence of the property line, and then had the cement poured anyhow. Also I think the driveway side is a daycare or something? Where would a less aggressive person go for that? Court? Planning board?
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Jan 20, 2015 19:15
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