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me your dad posted:We rent so I can't do anything permanent. I have a plug nearby so I want something I can plug in. I have to admit my first thought was to get a battery-powered work light, one of those ones with magnets so you can just stick it to the wall on top of a stud. It'd be pretty janky-looking, but it'd work.
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Mar 14, 2016 02:05
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These things are. . . ok. Easy up and down for a rental, won't last more than couple years probably.
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Mar 14, 2016 02:12
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Why not just a long fluorescent bar with command strips? Example. Wouldn't be my choice if I owned, but fluorescents really don't suck like they used to.
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Mar 14, 2016 02:21
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i like nice words
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hooah posted:Will custom builders even consider working with us if we're not interested in $500,000+ monstrosities? Nationally, in 2014, 14% of "contractor-built" homes were $500,000+ monstrosities. 15% were between $100,000 to $149,999. So to reinforce other comments, yes, there are a lot of builders out there who work on smaller builds. Saw chat: for things like cutting trim, what you want isn't a table saw, it's a miter saw. Unlike table saws, you can get a good miter saw for $200. You can't do a lot of woodworking tasks with a miter saw, but it's a wonderful upgrade for a lot of DIY tasks.
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Mar 14, 2016 05:27
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Got an HVAC question. I was cleaning the grate in front of the intake vent in my apartment because it was rather dusty. I unscrewed it from the wall to get to the backside of it, and I saw inside the intake duct to the furnace. Two things are noticed were that 1. It was quite dusty inside and 2. The duct (which it rigid metal) was padded on all four sides with some kind of black, soft material. The dust didn't worry me so much after looking at all the supply registers throughout my apartment and seeing that they weren't too dusty (and also reading in general the EPA does not recommend getting HVAC duct systems cleaned out, except for certain cases). What troubles me a bit is the padding. Some googling leads me to believe they are duct liners, put there for insulation. But they're pretty beat up. The front edge doesn't appear to be sealed, and they're torn/ripped in a few places (pics below). Some metal clamps/pins also pierce them in a few spots (to hold it in place?). Also I''m guessing they're fiberglass, but I don't really know. (I pulled on one of the clumps of dust at the front of the intake, and pulled out some long fibers in addition to the dust. My apt was built in 88 for what its worth.) Pics:    Any valid concerns here? If the insulation is beaten up, and doesn't insulated as well, that's one thing. But main concern is any health risks with the cut/ripped edges being in the air stream, potentially leaching fiberglass into in the air. Edit: Ok, found some info about the dangers of fiberglass from the CDC. It seems residential fiberglass is fairly safe (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts161.pdf) BigBobio fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Mar 14, 2016 |
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Mar 14, 2016 17:27
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BigBobio posted:
That's exactly what big fiberglass wants you to believe 
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Mar 14, 2016 23:25
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OSU_Matthew posted:That's exactly what big fiberglass wants you to believe The CDC is never wrong!
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Mar 15, 2016 01:42
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Thanks for the lighting suggestions. Many of them look good so I'll narrow it down for a purchase this weekend.
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Mar 15, 2016 17:00
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Is it really not recommended to get duct's cleaned out? What if you move into a new to you house and want to do it as part of the whole house cleaning (carpets, refrigerator, toilet andddd DUCTS!)
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Mar 15, 2016 17:59
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Vulcan posted:Is it really not recommended to get duct's cleaned out? https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/should-you-have-air-ducts-your-home-cleaned
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Mar 16, 2016 00:43
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I have big time issues with humidity in my house. Went into the attic and found out the noisy bathroom fan vents directly to the attic, not outside. There are four vents on the roof and a single vent on the southern wall. There is also a closed window that appears to have been covered on the north wall. I'd like to open the window on the north wall and put a screen over it. Then I'd like to improve the airflow on the southern vent, which appears from the outside to have been boarded over. Finally, I'm thinking about replacing the bathroom fan with a quieter, more powerful model that will then be vented to the outside. I'm still new to the do-it-yourself thing so I'm open to recommendations as far as whether these are good ideas. Thanks!
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Mar 16, 2016 09:40
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You need to extend the fan exhaust to outside, probably through a roof vent, everything else is a band-aid. The sooner you do it, the cheaper the mold remediation bill will be.
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Mar 16, 2016 12:45
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Yup. A nice new quiet fan vented to the outside is definitely warranted. But, is that the only thing going on with the humidity in your house? What are the problems you're having?
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Mar 16, 2016 13:29
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Extensive Vamping posted:I have big time issues with humidity in my house. Went into the attic and found out the noisy bathroom fan vents directly to the attic, not outside. There are four vents on the roof and a single vent on the southern wall. There is also a closed window that appears to have been covered on the north wall. The previous owners of my place did the exact same thing, so I got a 4" hole saw and cut a hole in the side of my house, installed an exterior vent cover, and hooked up a new bathroom ventilation fan to it. Fyi, if you're buying a new fan, make sure it's not GU 28 pin-base light bulbs, and instead accepts standard Edison screw base light bulbs. Really pissed me off last year when I dropped a hundred bucks on a fan at Lowe's, and they didn't even sell the stupid obsolete bulbs it required to run. Had to buy a screw base adapter and a specialty short led bulb to fit, costing me upwards of forty loving dollars for loving light bulbs. Fyi, if you're venting your attic, you can cut square holes in your eaves with a jigsaw and drill, and screw in soffit vent covers to cover the holes. If you have roof cap ventsx a bunch of these should provide all the ventilation you need
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Mar 16, 2016 14:03
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slap me silly posted:Yup. A nice new quiet fan vented to the outside is definitely warranted. Mold, and i think rot in the bathroom floor. As you might expect. Left a message with my fiancées dad who owns the place to see about drilling a hole in the wall for a side vent. I don't need to worry about light thankfully, the light bar is separate and its a tiny bathroom, 70 square feet or so.
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Mar 16, 2016 23:08
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Extensive Vamping posted:Mold, and i think rot in the bathroom floor. As you might expect. Left a message with my fiancées dad who owns the place to see about drilling a hole in the wall for a side vent. I don't know how effective they are, but you might look into installing a humidity sensor switch for the fan, which will automatically turn it on once it gets humid enough. Cracking a window, and leaving the door cracked also help out a lot after and during a shower. If it's that bad, I'd definitely fix the attic vent ASAP before your attic starts molding too.
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Mar 17, 2016 00:32
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OSU_Matthew posted:I don't know how effective they are, but you might look into installing a humidity sensor switch for the fan, which will automatically turn it on once it gets humid enough. Cracking a window, and leaving the door cracked also help out a lot after and during a shower. Worth looking into, thanks.
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Mar 17, 2016 03:27
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Have any of y'all done any powder coating at home? I'm playing around with the idea of coloring some Yeti cups I have and I've seen some nice results online from shops that coat stuff. I've seen some tutorials involving toaster ovens and it looks like Harbor Freight sells a pretty affordable spray gun. Is this something I can pull off in my garage/driveway with acceptable results?
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Mar 17, 2016 05:36
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Is there no home solar thread anywhere? I need one of those trademark bloated SA OPs someone spent weeks putting together to figure all this poo poo out.
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Mar 17, 2016 15:38
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The Human Cow posted:Have any of y'all done any powder coating at home? I'm playing around with the idea of coloring some Yeti cups I have and I've seen some nice results online from shops that coat stuff. I've seen some tutorials involving toaster ovens and it looks like Harbor Freight sells a pretty affordable spray gun. Is this something I can pull off in my garage/driveway with acceptable results? I wouldn't put anything from HF near my mouth. Lead and asbestos are still very real concerns.
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Mar 17, 2016 16:01
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Pryor on Fire posted:Is there no home solar thread anywhere? I need one of those trademark bloated SA OPs someone spent weeks putting together to figure all this poo poo out. I worked in the industry for a bit maybe I can answer your question.
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Mar 17, 2016 16:09
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There's a gardening thread and a plant thread but I don't see a general lawn care thread, so: I'm living in my first house. I know nothing about mowing lawns, and I want to try it after having someone do it all last year. What should I know about getting a lawnmower?
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Mar 17, 2016 20:28
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Golbez posted:There's a gardening thread and a plant thread but I don't see a general lawn care thread, so: I'm living in my first house. I know nothing about mowing lawns, and I want to try it after having someone do it all last year. What should I know about getting a lawnmower? Aluminium/plastic bodies are lighter and cheaper but are more likely to crack if you hit a stone (steel just deforms). Make sure the catcher is scaled to your lawn - if you have a big lawn, don't get a small one or you'll be forever emptying the thing. I got one with a mulching plug so it just pulverises the clippings and dumps them out onto the lawn, and they're basically invisible. If you get a gasoline-powered one, check with the vendor (and at the gas station) about fuel. Fuels that have ethanol added can gently caress with the engine and dissolve fuel-lines not specifically designed with that in mind.
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Mar 17, 2016 20:41
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mirthdefect posted:Aluminium/plastic bodies are lighter and cheaper but are more likely to crack if you hit a stone (steel just deforms). Thanks!
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Mar 17, 2016 22:10
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For our small yard I use an electric with no battery: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ZVOLXE Plus a 50' cord which reaches the entire yard from a single outlet, but is at its limit on the longest length of the yard: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OS7ETIA/ I am awful at estimating distance, but the yard is probably 625 square feet, but closer to a triangle in shape due to a patio. Takes me 20? minutes and 1 bag to mow. Edit: Hurr 25*25 not 25 sq ft. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 18, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 23:25
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I have a cheap "Homelite" electric plug-in mower that cost like $120 at Home Depot and it has lasted six years mowing my ~500 sq foot front lawn with no issues. I also have a string trimmer for edging, and in that case the lovely cheap one crapped out after three years. Now I have a dewalt battery operated string trimmer that wasn't that much more money and seems to be way better quality. I do not recommend a gas powered mower for small yards because dealing with the gas is a pain in the rear end, and also because everyone always neglects the engine. You have to maintain any kind of mower but for my electric all I really do is after mowing, I tilt it onto its side and scrape off most of the wet grass clumps adhering in places, and make sure the vents are clear, and that's about it. A gas engine needs to be actually serviced occasionally and most home owners just don't bother or care, so the extra "investment" they made winds up wasted. If you do get a plug-in electric, get an outdoor rated heavy duty three-prong extension cord, plug it into a properly grounded three-prong outlet, and don't for gently caress's sake run over it with the mower. Don't defeat the grounding.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:02
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Leperflesh posted:If you do get a plug-in electric, get an outdoor rated heavy duty three-prong extension cord, plug it into a properly grounded three-prong outlet, and don't for gently caress's sake run over it with the mower. Don't defeat the grounding. My mower only has 2 prongs but is "double insulated" whatever that means. The extension cord I linked is nominally the correct AWG for the length according to the manual, not accounting for the distance of the circuit in the wall. I've only almost run over it once.
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Mar 18, 2016 03:37
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H110Hawk posted:My mower only has 2 prongs but is "double insulated" whatever that means. Actually, that means your device is Class II rated, which means that no single point of failure will result in live voltage shocking the user. That means no metal cases. Devices usually achieve this by having 2 layers of insulation protection between the electrified bits and the user, hence "double insulated". Because of that extra protection, Class II devices do not need to be grounded.
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Mar 18, 2016 10:30
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Golbez posted:There's a gardening thread and a plant thread but I don't see a general lawn care thread, so: I'm living in my first house. I know nothing about mowing lawns, and I want to try it after having someone do it all last year. What should I know about getting a lawnmower? Cut no more than a third of the leaf length at a time, leaving it longer (2.5" or even 3") is a good thing, mulch instead of bagging. The third of the leaf rule also means the longer it is, the longer you can go between mowings. If you want to be more serious, start with soil test results instead of any kind of treatment or fertilizing.
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Mar 18, 2016 12:25
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And if you own three corgis embrace your new dirt lawn.
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Mar 18, 2016 13:34
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I have a section of yard covered in english ivy. I want to demolish the poo poo out of it. The thing is that it grows over/through the chain link fence separating my yard and the neighbor's yard. It's groundcover on a slope, so I don't want to kill their ivy. Will the heavy duty RoundUp for ivy kill all of the ivy? Or just the ivy on my side where I spray it? I have a brush attachment for my weedwacker, is hack and slash a better idea than chemical warfare?
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Mar 18, 2016 18:44
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I'd hack/slash then spray what's left so it doesn't come up again. You'll have to remove the dead plants later if you just spray so it's not that much more work.
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Mar 18, 2016 18:47
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Gounads posted:I'd hack/slash then spray what's left so it doesn't come up again. You'll have to remove the dead plants later if you just spray so it's not that much more work. RoundUp really only works by getting absorbed through the leaves. I'll probably chop it up and spray what comes back.
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Mar 18, 2016 18:54
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Ivy is pretty easy to remove manually. Not sure why you'd bother with round-up.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:01
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I have a small electric mower (a Neutron, I think this one) for my small yard (Maybe around 2000 sq ft?) and I hate it. I got it for free from my dad when I bought my place last summer, so it was better (at the time) then buying a mower, but I'm definitely getting a new one (or maybe decent used one) this summer. Probably gas. I have a small gas station just up the road from me within walking distance so I don't have to worry about gas canisters in my car. To be fair, it might be an ok mower for a MUCH smaller yard. I need at least one, sometimes two, recharges to do my yard. It's also extremely weak, and I have to walk very slow or else I can hear it struggle and almost stall, even if the grass isn't that long. The battery might be dying, but it's over $100 for a replacement. gently caress that noise. The deck is also very narrow, taking too many passes to finish. It also is just designed shittily. A good mower has the mower deck extend far enough to the wheels so that you do your next row by placing the outside wheel on edge of the previous pass. But with my mower, that won't work, because the wheel base is so much larger than the actual mowing width. I have to overlap the deck like 2-3" inches onto the previous row to ensure I don't leave that little strip of unmowed grass. And since the deck is only like 14" wide, I basically have a 12" effective cutting width at best. And then on top of that the bag is so small that I have to empty it waaay too frequently. And I'm in the middle of a "suburban"-ish area so I don't have, like, an embankment or any woods to just toss my clippings into, and it's way too much for a compost bin, AND we don't have any roadside pickup for grass clippings, so I have to put them into those dumb yard-waste paper bags and haul them several miles away to the incinerator place where they burn lawn clippings, leaves, brush, felled trees, etc... from peoples' yards. And I only have a small car, not a truck, so then they get all over my interior. TL:DR: I hate my electric mower and am basically looking for recommendations for a decent, but not crazy-expensive, mulching mower.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:12
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FogHelmut posted:I have a section of yard covered in english ivy. I want to demolish the poo poo out of it. The thing is that it grows over/through the chain link fence separating my yard and the neighbor's yard. It's groundcover on a slope, so I don't want to kill their ivy. Goats. Goats will go through that like mad but won't eat past the fence. Probably someone in your area willing to rent out a goat or two to take care of that. You can even check Amazon (really). http://www.amazon.com/Hire-a-Goat-Grazer/dp/B00UBYDXXQ/
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Mar 18, 2016 19:24
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I would never want a battery electric mower, and only recommended a plug-in one. My Homelite has a reasonable sized deck, a reasonable but not amazing amount of power (it does bog in overgrown heavy wet grass, but you just have to slow down and let it take its time), has the mulching attachment, and the bag is decently sized too. It is not an amazing mower by any stretch, but it works. It's very similar to this one: 20" 12 amp 3-in-1 corded mower. You can ignore the like 90% of negative reviews mentioning battery problems, since this isnt' a battery operated mower - obviously a shitload of idiots can't find their actual battery-operated mower in order to complain about the batteries dying. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Mar 18, 2016 |
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Mar 18, 2016 19:27
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I got this electric mower, looks very similar to the Homelite above http://www.lowes.com/pd_506579-53393-KM210-06_1z0wgdd__?productId=50129046&pl=1 I had a coupon and it works great. I can do my whole yard with a 50 ft extension cord. Also got this weedwacker - http://www.amazon.com/GreenWorks-21142-18-Inch-Trimmer-Attachment/dp/B008BY6ZEC Definitely overkill, but I'm going after that ivy with it. Phanatic posted:Goats. Goats will go through that like mad but won't eat past the fence. Probably someone in your area willing to rent out a goat or two to take care of that. You can even check Amazon (really). Great idea, but the town does not allow goats as pets. I'll look for a rental.
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Mar 18, 2016 20:27
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The bedroom electrical outlets in my duplex don't have grounding plugs; is replacing them with grounded outlets something I can do easily?
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Mar 19, 2016 02:43
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FogHelmut posted:I have a section of yard covered in english ivy. I want to demolish the poo poo out of it. The thing is that it grows over/through the chain link fence separating my yard and the neighbor's yard. It's groundcover on a slope, so I don't want to kill their ivy. Phanatic posted:Goats. Goats will go through that like mad but won't eat past the fence. Probably someone in your area willing to rent out a goat or two to take care of that. You can even check Amazon (really). This. Goats are great
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Mar 19, 2016 02:54
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