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C-Euro posted:Do we have a pest control/extermination thread somewhere? I've seen a couple cockroaches in my wife's bathroom in the past week or two and am hoping to take care of the problem without getting my landlord involved. I sprayed the perimeter of her bathroom and the immediate area outside it with Ortho when I saw the first one, but another rolled through tonight and I don't know if it came from somewhere else or if the spray's not working. There are some good pro-grade products on Amazon, and some great videos for applying them on Youtube. The general consensus seems to be that strong sprays kill on contact, but make the population seek shelter until the chemical dissipates. I ended up going the bait route because there was the least loose chemical and powder to get spread on food. I bought Advion gel syringes because one particular video recommended them, but don't take that as an expert suggestion from me. The bugs like tight crevices where their bodies make contact on all sides, so I baited inside my cabinet hinge pockets and in trim gaps. Basically any opening thick enough to slide a nickel. Seems to have worked eventually.
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Jun 24, 2016 04:08
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Jenner posted:
Wow, that is definitely something uncommon. You should definitely try asking in the woodworking megathread. Somebody more knowledgeable than us may be able to ID your existing floor.
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Jun 24, 2016 04:12
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Is there an interior design thread? We bought a house in December with a gas fireplace. The previous owners but a bland white box around it. We've been trying to figure out what to do but can't decide. I'm not sure if it can be moved further against the wall or not. Right now we've been thinking of putting tiles in and replacing the bookcases with a few floor cabinets and shelves that are the same height as the top.
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Jun 24, 2016 11:53
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devicenull posted:
You'll need to figure out your square footage, and buy an appropriately sized fan. Eg a 2000 square foot house needs ~6000 cfm with 8 square feet of attic ventilation, like this one. Belt driven is quieter and more reliable than direct, and they even make suspended fans that are really quiet, but pricey. Closest wood I can think of is poplar. It's not as knotty, but the variation in grain defects strongly resembles it.
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Jun 24, 2016 12:18
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devicenull posted:Ah, I hadn't figured out if 240CFM was going to be enough to make any significant difference. It's a pretty small room, my theory is that two people plus minimal airflow means we're heating up the room with body heat. Two sleeping adults would typically only generate around 600 BTU/h (equivalent to ~175 watts of electricity); if that is the case then 240CFM would be plenty but it's also unlikely that the room would get all that hot in the first place. As for whole house fans, a decent window fan (like this one) can get you the whole house fan effect in at least a couple rooms for little cost & effort.
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Jun 24, 2016 16:56
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Zhentar posted:Two sleeping adults would typically only generate around 600 BTU/h (equivalent to ~175 watts of electricity); if that is the case then 240CFM would be plenty but it's also unlikely that the room would get all that hot in the first place. We had been putting box fans bigger than that in our windows for years, but it is nowhere near the same effect as a WHF (even when paired with a ceiling fan). For one, the cfm pulled from a window unit is miniscule at best, and it doesn't pull in cool air and push hot air up and out of your attic. It just pushes hot air around instead of creating a convection wind tunnel of cool air. 6000 cfm or bust 
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Jun 24, 2016 19:02
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OSU_Matthew posted:6000 cfm or bust  I love cranking mine up on high, hearing the vent slats POP as the airflow opens them (and closed with gravity when it's turned off) and seeing those curtains go sideways. You can even go truly insane and just have one window/screened door open and create a drat vortex of badassness.
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Jun 24, 2016 19:36
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I was considering a whole house fan but it seems like it's too hot during the summer in Ohio for it to make sense.
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Jun 24, 2016 20:18
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I live in Southern Illinois and yeah I mainly use my whole house fan in the spring/fall, or just whenever it's not super hot outside. It's also a huge bonus if you're painting/burning anything.
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Jun 24, 2016 20:23
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OSU_Matthew posted:We had been putting box fans bigger than that in our windows for years, but it is nowhere near the same effect as a WHF (even when paired with a ceiling fan). For one, the cfm pulled from a window unit is miniscule at best, and it doesn't pull in cool air and push hot air up and out of your attic. It just pushes hot air around instead of creating a convection wind tunnel of cool air. That's a 2,500 CFM fan on high, and if you run it in the exhaust direction with another window open, it will do exactly the same thing as a built-in whole house fan (and the shroud lets it do much better than box fans). It's certainly not a 6,000 CFM fan in the attic, but on the other hand it's $80 and takes two minutes on install. Hashtag Banterzone posted:I was considering a whole house fan but it seems like it's too hot during the summer in Ohio for it to make sense. Yeah, they work best in dry climates, both because there are larger diurnal temperature swings and because the cool night air isn't super humid. I pretty much only use my window fan in spring & fall. Zhentar fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jun 24, 2016 |
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Jun 24, 2016 21:37
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OSU_Matthew posted:That's not a problem, just choose a central spot upstairs and it'll suck out air from open windows so you can control which rooms get cooled. I know I'm never going to get up in the attic every winter to insulate it, so having a fan that has the insulation built in was pretty appealing. I'm in NJ, so it would need insulation in the winter or I'd just vent all my heat into the attic. (That's why I was looking at the more expensive ones) Zhentar posted:Two sleeping adults would typically only generate around 600 BTU/h (equivalent to ~175 watts of electricity); if that is the case then 240CFM would be plenty but it's also unlikely that the room would get all that hot in the first place. I wish! The previous owners put in these really tiny windows. They're actual window opening I have to work with is 29" wide by 11" high. I can barely fit window fans, much less some massive fan.
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Jun 25, 2016 01:01
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Hashtag Banterzone posted:I was considering a whole house fan but it seems like it's too hot during the summer in Ohio for it to make sense. Counter point, I live in Columbus and it's basically the perfect climate for these things. There are very few days throughout the year it doesn't cool down enough at night to use one of these things, but when it does, that's what AC is for.
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Jun 25, 2016 04:45
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I picked up a wooden dresser from Craigslist and the drawers don't work well. As you can see in the picture below, the slides for the drawer are mounted in the center, and because there is no support in the middle at the front of the dresser, the horizontal wooden piece bows and the drawers end up touching each other and all of them open when you try to open a single one. My thought was that I could pick up some drawer slides and place two slides per drawer, one on each side of the drawer. Any thoughts on why this would not work, or whether there is a better option? If it is a feasible option, what would I start looking for to determine what slides would work?
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Jun 26, 2016 02:13
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Finding a different craigslist dresser is going to be cheaper, faster, and easier, if any of those are your goals.
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Jun 26, 2016 02:39
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i like nice words
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Three pairs of drawer sliders won't cost much and as long as there's space between the drawers and sides they'll do exactly what you want.
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Jun 26, 2016 13:35
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Has anyone dealt with a shakey 2nd floor? One of the bedrooms upstairs in my house has been pretty much unoccupied until recently, and now that I'm starting to put stuff in there I've noticed that the floor has a lot of bounce to it. In fact, when I dropped the mattress after moving it up there the windows started rattling and I thought the whole thing was going to collapse. It's a hundred year old balloon framed farm house, and the rest of it is in good shape, it's just that one particular room with bouncy joists. Are there any good fixes for this? The room below is a finished kitchen, but I could tear up the floor in the bedroom and get to the joists that way.
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Jun 26, 2016 14:18
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OSU_Matthew posted:Has anyone dealt with a shakey 2nd floor? One of the bedrooms upstairs in my house has been pretty much unoccupied until recently, and now that I'm starting to put stuff in there I've noticed that the floor has a lot of bounce to it. In fact, when I dropped the mattress after moving it up there the windows started rattling and I thought the whole thing was going to collapse. Not sure about the windows rattling, but I had a bouncy second floor in an old house. I ripped up the floorboards (a bunch of 6-9" wide pine boards, then screwed&glued down 3/4" ply then screwed&glued 1/2" on that. It's solid now, very stiff. Had to replace one floor joist in the process since it was split at the end where it was notched out. Also, removed ~90 years worth of mice nests...
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Jun 26, 2016 14:28
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Yeah, it depends on what's causing the bouncing, but you'll have to remove the floor (or somehow access it from underneath) to check. Simplest is that the subfloor isn't sufficiently held down to the joists; you can fix that by driving some screws through the subfloor into the joists. But it's also possible that the joists in that area are damaged/rotten/missing, which gets trickier to fix.
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Jun 26, 2016 15:23
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This thread skews to the technical (and I love it for it...) but I am hoping it can give me some good ideas of a more creative nature... This is in my finished basement and on the left is a fireplace. All I want to do is fine some creative, cool looking, ideally-not-wiring-in-walls way to illuminate the guitars/alcove. I am heavily invested in the hue ecosystem and would love it or whatever I did could cooperate with that. I have hue bulbs I could use. Led strip lights aren't really bright enough the way I'd hoped. Some kind of corner mount external fixture where I could use cable organizer strips from the outlet up the wall could be cool... Thoughts? 
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Jun 27, 2016 16:36
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Feenix posted:This thread skews to the technical (and I love it for it...) but I am hoping it can give me some good ideas of a more creative nature... Anything not in the wall is going to look super cheap and crappy.
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Jun 27, 2016 22:10
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:Anything not in the wall is going to look super cheap and crappy. In my opinion cables can be hidden behind baseboards really effectively, but yeah if you can get them in the wall or tucked under something absolutely do it. On the flipside though, I've used stuff like this from Menards: https://www.amazon.com/Wiremold-C50-Cordmate-5-Foot-Channel/dp/B000BW0YH6/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1467073856&sr=8-11&keywords=cord+mate I use a pretty long segment of this stuff to get my antenna wire up into my attic, and the fact that I've got it painted and textured the same as my wall it looks really nice. It's all about keeping lines straight and painting like your life depended on it, but it can look great and be a piece of cake to install. These technically have sticky strips on the back but forget that, I put a few finishing nails through it so I know that sucker is in.
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Jun 28, 2016 01:33
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Gutter question I have a gutter on my garage that appears to be pitched in the wrong direction - The low end is away from the downspout, meaning that all the rain water and other nastiness is pooling on the far end - Right above the doorway. I'm thinking it will get real interesting come the next winter/spring cycle. This last one wasn't too bad, but a frozen block of ice on the end of a gutter can't be helping things. Could I just redo/replace what screws are there? Start at the downspout end, drill a new hole just bit lower and/or raise the opposite end? If I have to get/cut a new downspout to length that's doable.
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Jun 28, 2016 03:31
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CzarChasm posted:Gutter question Also, mosquitos in the summer.
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Jun 28, 2016 12:38
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Feenix posted:This thread skews to the technical (and I love it for it...) but I am hoping it can give me some good ideas of a more creative nature... If you got a low bookshelf or something like that you might be able to light it from below with a couple lights pointed towards the ceiling. Could you put something in the ceiling maybe?
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Jun 28, 2016 13:30
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CzarChasm posted:Gutter question Try raising the opposite end first. It could be that side sagged. As for what to use to hold it on place, these work well: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Amerimax-Home-Products-5-in-Hidden-Hanger-with-Screw-21812/100085356 You don't need to pre drill the hole either.
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Jun 28, 2016 18:46
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emanonii posted:Try raising the opposite end first. It could be that side sagged. As for what to use to hold it on place, these work well: Hidden hangers feel like cheat codes when fixing gutters. Go up there with a few of those and a cordless drill and be done in less time than it takes to get the ladder out.
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Jun 28, 2016 20:05
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My upstairs is about 6-8 degrees warmer than my downstairs. I closed most of my downstairs vents and opened all of the upstairs. It doesn't do much. There are no returns upstairs. Attic insulation is poor - rolled out fiberglass, doesn't even come to the tops of the joists. Is this a major factor? Or would it be my HVAC?
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Jun 29, 2016 00:52
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Uncomfortable rooms when the thermostat is satisfied means the airflow isn't appropriately matched to the load. Blaming either the airflow or the load is just semantics, the question is just which part of the equation is more cost effective to adjust. The first thing to do would be to inspect your ductwork, where it is exposed. Ducts can become disconnected in crawlspaces or attics, or get crushed, severely reducing airflow. Flex duct should be taut, not loose and floppy. Any of those problems will be cheap (or free) and easy to fix, and could make a big difference. After that, attic insulation is certainly a good option to try. Perform air sealing, and then rent a blower and add 6-12" of cellulose on top of your batts. I can't promise it will fix your comfort problems, but it should at least improve it (in both summer and winter), and it will definitely save you money and prevent ice damming. If that still doesn't fix it, then it's time to look at modifying your ductwork (adding balancing dampers, new duct runs, or booster fans).
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Jun 29, 2016 02:12
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Drilling in concrete walls, my hammer drill often skates (?) a bit before a hole is properly established. The result is that, especially if I can't get a good working position, the hole may end up upwards 5 mm from where I intended it to be. Is there any good trick to avoid or lessen this problem? Should I establish a pilot hole/indent with a hand driven chisel first?
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Jun 29, 2016 18:22
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nielsm posted:Drilling in concrete walls, my hammer drill often skates (?) a bit before a hole is properly established. The result is that, especially if I can't get a good working position, the hole may end up upwards 5 mm from where I intended it to be. Drilling into concrete is a pain in the butt for exactly this reason. What are you trying to mount to it? Also, are you sure you're not deflecting off steel rebar in the wall?
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Jun 29, 2016 20:01
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kid sinister posted:Drilling into concrete is a pain in the butt for exactly this reason. What are you trying to mount to it? Also, are you sure you're not deflecting off steel rebar in the wall? Curtain rod, the mounts each require two holes perfectly vertical above each other. Which means I have to stand on a stepladder while drilling near the ceiling, in a corner of the room. I haven't hit rebar anywhere else I have drilled. (And I wouldn't expect any before having drilled at least 2-3 cm in.)
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Jun 29, 2016 20:06
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Haven't actually tried this so I don't know how well it would work, but could you get a piece of wood or plywood, drill a hole through it, and then tape it up on the wall so the hole is centered where you want to drive through the concrete? The wood would hold the bit in place so it wouldn't be able to skate off-center.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:09
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Haven't actually tried this so I don't know how well it would work, but could you get a piece of wood or plywood, drill a hole through it, and then tape it up on the wall so the hole is centered where you want to drive through the concrete? The wood would hold the bit in place so it wouldn't be able to skate off-center. That's actually a decent idea, making a template of sorts. That should also help me drill perpendicular to the wall. Main thing I'd worry about is heat. The concrete drill gets stupid hot and it might burn the wood?
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Jun 29, 2016 20:20
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Wood's pretty hard to ignite. You might scorch it a bit but I doubt anything worse would happen. If you're really worried, soak it in some water first.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:24
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Eh, just use a Ramset/Hilti gun to hang the brackets. It will be a lot quicker, and you get to use fasteners that go BANG.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:30
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Haven't actually tried this so I don't know how well it would work, but could you get a piece of wood or plywood, drill a hole through it, and then tape it up on the wall so the hole is centered where you want to drive through the concrete? The wood would hold the bit in place so it wouldn't be able to skate off-center. Good luck. I tried exactly this and never got it to work, the forces driving the drill off centre are stronger than you holding the bit of wood. Helpful but terrible advice: I got used to getting a hole started as close as I could, then finish it at a slight angle so you can drive the screw in from the right point. Then move somewhere they don't build houses out of solid concrete, that's better advice. Sorry.
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Jun 29, 2016 20:35
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I could also drill an oversize hole, fill it with something softer, then re-drill the smaller sized hole I want. E: Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Eh, just use a Ramset/Hilti gun to hang the brackets. It will be a lot quicker, and you get to use fasteners that go BANG. nielsm fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 20:42
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I usually just whack the back of the drill with the bit pressed up against the wall in order to make a divot that the bit tends to stay in as I drill the rest of the hole.
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Jun 29, 2016 21:45
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nielsm posted:I could also drill an oversize hole, fill it with something softer, then re-drill the smaller sized hole I want. Good news! Ramsets use gunpowder, not electricity!
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Jun 29, 2016 21:48
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n0tqu1tesane posted:I usually just whack the back of the drill with the bit pressed up against the wall in order to make a divot that the bit tends to stay in as I drill the rest of the hole. How hard are you hitting your drill that you're able to make a divot in concrete?
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Jun 29, 2016 21:54
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