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Tamper resistant receptacles are required by code since 2014. You can maybe argue that you're not doing "renovation" and therefore can swap like-for-like, and there are areas that aren't required to have them: http://ecmweb.com/qampa/stumped-code-conductors-tamper-resistant-receptacles-raceways quote:Q. Where are tamper-resistant receptacles required? That said, if you are going to replace receptacles, just use the tamper resistant ones because they're safer anyway. But don't do electric work on your apartment without even discussing it with your landlord because you'll be potentially taking on liability. Also note that you should only use three-prong receptacles where you have an actual ground, or in nongrounded outlets you should use a GFCI 3-prong outlet. Otherwise you are violating code and creating a hazard by giving the impression an outlet is grounded when it isn't.
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Jul 22, 2016 21:24
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:My problem isn't the outlets themselves being loose, it's the holes for the prongs having zero grip. I can plug something in and it will literally fall back out of the outlet. Vacuuming is an overwhelmingly frustrating experience since the tiniest tug of the cord has it tumbling out of the wall. Trying to charge something? Come back after a few hours to find you have zero charge after several hours because the charger fell out of the wall. I'm sure someone will come tell me why this is a horrible idea, but with most electrical cords, you can bend the prongs a few millimeters out to get them to stay in loose outlets. Doesn't work so well on most wall warts though.
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Jul 22, 2016 22:20
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Leperflesh posted:That said, if you are going to replace receptacles, just use the tamper resistant ones because they're safer anyway. But don't do electric work on your apartment without even discussing it with your landlord because you'll be potentially taking on liability. I'm just gonna get the outlet splitters since i can solve my problem without loving around with wiring in a house that isn't mine. I will bring it up to the landlord as something to upgrade before they put the house back on the market and they will probably continue to ignore me.
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Jul 22, 2016 22:22
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Ugh. Fuckin houses. So my downstairs AC stopped working on Tuesday (the day before we got hit by a ridiculous 100+ everyday heatwave). Condenser unit worked, but the furnace wasn't pushing air. Got a dude out after two days, he fixed it last night, bad compressor. Thank God we have an upstairs AC Unit that worked.. we just camped up there until they could make it out to figure this poo poo out. Fast forward less than 24 hours, with the downstairs unit working like a champ all day long, and now both outside units just stopped working. Both furnaces are blowing air through the vents, but the compressors just won't work. Flipping the breaker on/off, letting them sit for a bit, I was able to get the downstairs on for about 10 minutes, but it clicked off and hasn't come back on. Upstairs unit will go on for a few minutes, and then turn itself right back off. Seriously, what are the odds that BOTH units stop working at the same time? I'm guessing slim to none. I don't think there is anything shared between the two units though, which has got me scratching my head as to what to do. Anyone have any ideas?
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Jul 23, 2016 01:11
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Capt. Awesome posted:a ridiculous 100+ everyday heatwave A/C units are most likely to break when it's super hot, because that's when they're operating at maximum capacity under maximum stress for long stretches of the day. It is still a bit of a coincidence but if they're of similar ages and manufacture it's not that shocking.
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Jul 23, 2016 05:23
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^^ Outlets are incredibly easy to install and only a buck or two apiece to buy in bulk, but I would refrain from doing any electrical work without the explicit permission and understanding from your landlord. Black (hot) goes to brass, white (neutral) goes to silver, green or bare (ground) goes to green. Outlets wear out over time and don't grab plugs like they should when they loosen up. New covers are cheap toemocrat posted:What do people here do for fire/smoke alarms? We had a minor scare the other night and are now looking at what we can do for real protection. Personally, I've had both the nest thermostat and protect for two years now, and I seriously couldn't be happier with both systems. I've smoked out my kitchen on several occasions, one of which caused the nest to warn me the kitchen alarm was about to go off before actually going off, which gave me time to cancel it without an ear piercing screech. The monthly verbal tests are quiet and convenient, and I also really like that I can monitor/get alerts from anywhere. Best part is, the mobile app is far better than FLIR's cameras or Smart Things or any other smart home thingy I've tried so far. Worth every penny, in my opinion. Especially because previously I had battery detectors that just died, without any notice, and I had no idea I was living with dead detectors for who knows how long, since they worked fine when I bought the house. Now that I've had a wired nest for awhile, I'm never going back to dumb detectors. Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jul 23, 2016 |
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Jul 23, 2016 05:29
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Yeah and if you have two old A/C units working together then I'd expect one failing to sometimes be a "straw that broke the camel's back" for the other. It's too bad but doesn't actually seem that improbable The one that was looked at by the repair guy probably just needs to be looked at again, he may have missed something or done something improperly.
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Jul 23, 2016 05:31
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OSU_Matthew posted:Personally, I've had both the nest thermostat and protect for two years now, and I seriously couldn't be happier with both systems. I've smoked out my kitchen on several occasions, one of which caused the nest to warn me the kitchen alarm was about to go off before actually going off, which gave me time to cancel it without an ear piercing screech. The monthly verbal tests are wrist great, and I also really like that I can monitor/get alerts from anywhere. Best part is, the mobile app is far better than FLIR's cameras or Smart Things or any other smart home thingy I've tried so far. Worth every penny, in my opinion. Especially because previously I had battery detectors that just died, without any notice, and I had no idea I was living with dead detectors for who knows how long, since they worked fine when I bought the house. Now that I've had a wired nest for awhile, I'm never going back to dumb detectors. I think this is a good endorsement for having wired detectors, period, but I'd like to emphasize that the Nest detectors are about $100 each whereas most wired smoke detectors are only $20. If you're willing to pay extra to get alerts sent to your phone then that's fine, I just want people to be aware that lower-tech wired smoke detectors exist and work really well
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Jul 23, 2016 05:38
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Oh so two days ago my backyard had some minor flooding, which I assumed was because I had just hosed up some piece of the drip irrigation system that I've been messing around with in that same area. It's all hooked up to a timer on the hose spout so easy enough to just close everything up, set up a hose to siphon the water out, and then let the rest dry out. Well this morning the area was more flooded than ever, like water up to just below the ankles in a few spots. It looks like maybe there's a leak near one of the sprinkler heads. I shut off the main valve to the irrigation system, setup the siphon again, and now the whole area is basically dry. I'm really hoping that it's just a problem with one of the sprinkler valves not closing all the way and that I won't have to dig up anything or mess with the knotted mess of loving wires (holy gently caress there's a huge concrete slab separating the valves from the sprinkler timer, the wires appear to go below the god drat slab, why why why why why). The sprinkler valves are all above-ground so it'll be really easy to fix if that's the case.
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Jul 23, 2016 09:13
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They ran conduit under the slab right? RIGHT?
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Jul 24, 2016 17:31
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OSU_Matthew posted:^^ Outlets are incredibly easy to install and only a buck or two apiece to buy in bulk, but I would refrain from doing any electrical work without the explicit permission and understanding from your landlord. Black (hot) goes to brass, white (neutral) goes to silver, green or bare (ground) goes to green. Outlets wear out over time and don't grab plugs like they should when they loosen up. New covers are cheap to Another recommendation for Nest Protect. Yes they are $100 smoke detectors and yes, they are worth that much. Wireless interconnect between wired and battery smokes means I don't have to run wires when I add smokes in the bedrooms. They test themselves monthly when I'm not home using a built in microphone so I don't have to hear it. Low battery alerts are sent to the app instead of chirping at 3 AM. I've never had a false alarm. They detect CO. The app gives me a little peace of mind- I always think I'm going to come home from vacation to a smoking crater. It is moderately comforting knowing that I'll at least get a notification if my house burns down while I'm away without having to pay for alarm monitoring. Oh yeah, it ties in with my Rachio sprinkler controller to turn on the sprinklers if the alarm goes off to try to prevent the fire from spreading (lol).
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Jul 25, 2016 17:18
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Does anyone want another house? I don't want mine anymore. I started getting quotes for redoing the siding & windows back in March. Signed a contract in April. Time estimate was 4-5 days from start to finish. It's July 25th. Most of the blame falls on the weather - Texas was getting a lot of rain every couple days for like 2 months. Scheduling a siding team, windows team, and painting team in the order they needed to work was a nightmare. Finally everything was falling into place until I tried to plug my leaf blower into the outlet on the front porch. No power. I let the company know, and they spent 3 weeks trying to get ahold of/schedule their electrician. The guy finally comes out this past weekend and makes the outlet work. Unfortunately he is not a "finishing" contractor at all because the outlet looks like poo poo. To be fair it's in a dumb spot in between two layers of lap-siding, so the siding guys had put a few small pieces of siding material into a rectangle to make the outlet cover sit on one flat surface. The electrician ripped all those pieces off and threw them away. The cover has huge gaps in between it and the wall. Husband and I are afraid to be the "clients from hell" for demanding yet another fix (we've nitpicked several things along the way) so we decide to just try super-gluing the siding pieces that we dug out of the trash back into place, and would caulk all around it to really seal/set everything. I went to go screw the outlet cover into place, and learned that the inner part of the outlet has been stripped, and the screw isn't grabbing poo poo. The cover is very loose and definitely not water-tight enough for an exterior plug. I think we need to call the electrician back out to install a new plug with shiny new screw-hole that can actually hold the cover. Then will need to call out the siding team again to put "finishing" touches and create a proper flat rectangle for the cover to sit on. Maybe the whole project will be done by Christmas?? After stressing about how the hell I'm going to request this from my contact at the remodeling company without pissing someone off into doing another lovely job, I was taking my trash out to the curb when a white circle in the yard caught my eye. It's an exposed part of my sprinkler head - The piece that pops up to spray water is just gone. Not chewed up and spit out by the lawn mower. Not busted off. Simply straight up missing. I think (HOPE) it's an easy fix to DIY but I'm just so tired. I just want everything functioning as it should. Bad house. Go to your room.
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Jul 26, 2016 03:29
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drat Bananas posted:Does anyone want another house? I don't want mine anymore. Every day is a new adventure for the wallet. Oh the places your credit card will go... Man, that sucks... When you pay out the nose for a company to take care of evening, you would expect for it all to get done without so much hassle. Thankfully I've never had to hire anyone to do anything yet, but I dread the day that comes, based on all the horror stories. What kind of siding do you have? Vinyl? Might just be easier to replace the box yourself with a new weatherproof one, and then tack on some foam board, cutout siding, and caulk around the edges? Though that doesn't fix the principle of the issue, at least the bulk of the hard work is out of the way now
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Jul 26, 2016 04:15
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It's Hardie board, another $$ aspect, heh. I'm honestly okay throwing another $200 at them to just loving finish it perfectly already, I'm pretty terrible at DIY anyway. Besides I'm more attached to the idea of the stress being over than I am to my money. 
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Jul 26, 2016 04:43
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Economic Sinkhole posted:Another recommendation for Nest Protect. Yes they are $100 smoke detectors and yes, they are worth that much. Wireless interconnect between wired and battery smokes means I don't have to run wires when I add smokes in the bedrooms. They test themselves monthly when I'm not home using a built in microphone so I don't have to hear it. Low battery alerts are sent to the app instead of chirping at 3 AM. I've never had a false alarm. They detect CO. The app gives me a little peace of mind- I always think I'm going to come home from vacation to a smoking crater. It is moderately comforting knowing that I'll at least get a notification if my house burns down while I'm away without having to pay for alarm monitoring. Oh yeah, it ties in with my Rachio sprinkler controller to turn on the sprinklers if the alarm goes off to try to prevent the fire from spreading (lol). I've heard some bad stories about the battery-only nests, apparently they're notorious for either going off for no reason and then ignoring silence commands, or they suddenly die and the network just silently ignores it. I think that you're always safer with wired smoke detectors that have as little software in them as possible. As these are safety devices, you want a failure state to be noticeable and obvious, and you want to eliminate the possibility of a failure state going unnoticed. Silently sending a notification to your phone is a convenience and will be fine in the vast majority of cases, but it also poses an unnecessary risk should your phone become inaccessible when a key alarm fails. I will acknowledge that we're firmly in paranoid territory here, but statistically speaking this does mean that nests are slightly less safe
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Jul 26, 2016 04:56
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$150 for an electrician to come out and fix our lovely porch light switch after we tried to troubleshoot it and failed  Deck contractor finally finished the deck, and left one of the deck boards unscrewed in, we just noticed it popping up yesterday (it's built with "hidden" fasteners, not screwed in from the top, so we didn't notice until after it started warping up). Great attention to detail, dude who came highly recommended by neighbors! Also had to tear out the insulation that the dumbass previous owners had installed right up against the roofing in the garage; so that's how moisture builds up to rot roofs from the inside out! But at least it kept the garage a little warmer in the winter for them! Next up: backyard pipe needs to be replaced, deck needs to be stained, and exterior of house needs to be repainted. I don't trust a single drat contractor to do anything right (except the nice electrician dude), and I am eight months pregnant and waddling around like a goddamned hippo, but I know I'm not going to be able to do poo poo for the rest of the year after the baby arrives, so there it is.
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Jul 26, 2016 08:05
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moana posted:Also had to tear out the insulation that the dumbass previous owners had installed right up against the roofing in the garage; so that's how moisture builds up to rot roofs from the inside out! But at least it kept the garage a little warmer in the winter for them! Huh, learned something new today
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Jul 26, 2016 10:46
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QuarkJets posted:Huh, learned something new today Nobody should buy a house without knowing how attic/roof decking venting works. Not only would it protect the buyers, it would hopefully head off all these screwy boneheaded "renovations" that cause so much damage. Huh, my heating bills are high, lets jam insulation in the soffit vents!  Unless you in a cape cod, it's easiest to think of the attic/roof as a vented superstructure over the living area. If you have poor insulation, you insulate the walls and ceiling of that living space (e.g. the attic floor), not the roof itself. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 11:44
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Yeah, my understanding of the ideal attic situation is that it should be exactly the same temperature in your attic as it is outside at all times.
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Jul 26, 2016 12:22
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Any recommendations for a decent wi-if extender? We're in the middle of moving from a duplex to a real-deal house and while I haven't tested the internet's range (AT&T's guy is working on it at the moment), I'm anticipating similar problems to our old place where the bedroom didn't have the connection speed I wanted. Since there's now room for an office, I know more tech is going to be upstairs and a few walls away from the router. I'd like to use my Vita to play my PS4 while in bed, and I've dyed extenders in the past but I don't know much about them. Do they need to be aligned with the router somehow, or do they just amplify all so-if signals they pick up? What's a good mid point between cost and quality? Also, if anyone's dying to recommend a brand of doorbell, I need one of those too.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:07
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So we're about 20 years into a water heater that should last 10-15. Anyone have a recommendation for where to go and what kind to get? (Electric)
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Jul 28, 2016 16:11
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LawfulWaffle posted:Any recommendations for a decent wi-if extender? There's a Home Networking Thread that can probably help.
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Jul 28, 2016 18:03
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Droo posted:Yeah, my understanding of the ideal attic situation is that it should be exactly the same temperature in your attic as it is outside at all times. That is both not really feasible (the roof surface absorbs quite significant amounts of energy in sunlight), and not the actual problem. A better "simple" rule (for cold climates) would that any moisture sensitive material that gets colder than the interior dew point in winter needs to be able to get some airflow to dry out.
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Jul 28, 2016 18:29
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Also that applying insulation to an outside wall or to the roof requires a vapor barrier. You can insulate your attic space if you want, there's proper ways to do that. But it's more than just shoving insulation between roof joists and calling it a day.
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Jul 28, 2016 20:50
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LawfulWaffle posted:Any recommendations for a decent wi-if extender? We're in the middle of moving from a duplex to a real-deal house and while I haven't tested the internet's range (AT&T's guy is working on it at the moment), I'm anticipating similar problems to our old place where the bedroom didn't have the connection speed I wanted. Since there's now room for an office, I know more tech is going to be upstairs and a few walls away from the router. I'd like to use my Vita to play my PS4 while in bed, and I've dyed extenders in the past but I don't know much about them. Do they need to be aligned with the router somehow, or do they just amplify all so-if signals they pick up? What's a good mid point between cost and quality? If you can wait a few weeks ubiquiti's amplifi system looks great! I wish I had known about it a month ago.
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Jul 28, 2016 21:38
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LawfulWaffle posted:Any recommendations for a decent wi-if extender? We're in the middle of moving from a duplex to a real-deal house and while I haven't tested the internet's range (AT&T's guy is working on it at the moment), I'm anticipating similar problems to our old place where the bedroom didn't have the connection speed I wanted. Since there's now room for an office, I know more tech is going to be upstairs and a few walls away from the router. I'd like to use my Vita to play my PS4 while in bed, and I've dyed extenders in the past but I don't know much about them. Do they need to be aligned with the router somehow, or do they just amplify all so-if signals they pick up? What's a good mid point between cost and quality? I honestly don't trust any extenders or repeaters. Nothing beats a good wired AP in reliability. I'd try out a powerline adapter instead.
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Jul 29, 2016 02:54
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Bozart posted:So we're about 20 years into a water heater that should last 10-15. Anyone have a recommendation for where to go and what kind to get? (Electric) Cheapest, most efficient you can get with the best warranty.
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Jul 29, 2016 17:38
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couldcareless posted:I honestly don't trust any extenders or repeaters. Nothing beats a good wired AP in reliability. I'd try out a powerline adapter instead. Seconding this. Ideally your house will have runs of cat 5 cable, but if not, powerline adapters are handy to transmit wired signal to other rooms via electrical outlets, where you can pick it up with a wireless access point (eg any of Unifi's products). Add a switch at either end if you need more ports. There's so much wireless interference in the 2.4 Ghz spectrum, adding a wireless repeater is usually a bad idea. They only work marginally well to begin with, and exponentially amplify usage of air time so you can't have as many clients. The key to better wireless access are more (wired) access points, on non interfering channels , with the 2.4 radio turned down low and 5 ghz radio turned up high. You can also do stuff like enable zero handoff transfer on the access points, to shuffle clients when the signal noise floor gets too high, and set up a minimum RSSI threshold to kick clients that wander too far away.
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Jul 31, 2016 14:11
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Axiem posted:There's a Home Networking Thread that can probably help. Ask the thread as well as I haven't updated the OP for quite some time.
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Aug 1, 2016 05:30
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There is a wasp nest inside my breaker box. I'd assume that I don't want to spray the thing when it's live. Ideas for getting the thing out of there?
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Aug 1, 2016 17:45
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Piss on it. Eventually the corrosion will make the hive accessible from outside.
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Aug 1, 2016 17:51
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You can schedule your utility company to come and pull the meter, if you don't have a master shutoff above the breaker panel. An exterminator can then take care of the wasps. As an aside, poisons are useful when you need to kill bugs you can't see - like ants, which have an underground nest. But when you're spraying directly onto insects, don't bother with expensive poison, you can kill any insect or spider with nothing more than soapy water. The soap acts as a surfactant which allows the water to coat their exoskeleton, and they immediately suffocate.
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Aug 1, 2016 18:09
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Bozart posted:So we're about 20 years into a water heater that should last 10-15. Anyone have a recommendation for where to go and what kind to get? (Electric) If you're DIYing it, you can just get it from a big box store (and even if you aren't, big box store installation service may be acceptable). If efficiency is important and you use a lot of hot water, a "hybrid" heat pump water heater can have a good payback, particularly in hotter climates (downside is they are relatively noisy). Otherwise, if you want to invest in durability, you can get a Rheem Marathon water heater (which have plastic tanks that won't corrode). And if you don't want that either, then they're all pretty much the same and it doesn't much matter.
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Aug 1, 2016 22:54
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Went to pay the house this month and I was greeted with a payment almost $500 more than the norm. Just had our escrow analysis by the lender, I called and found out they didn't remove our previous homeowners provider that I canceled a couple months ago, joy. Even after adjustment, still looking at $150 more a month than before. drat tax reassessment.
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Aug 2, 2016 05:27
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So, long story short, the previous owner of my house was leasing the hot water heater from the local energy company and did not disclose this until a couple days before closing when they offhandedly mentioned it to me while I was dropping off some money for some furniture we were buying from them. At that time they told me it was like $2 a month and that they come out and replace it at any point if it fails. Seemed like a good deal for that money, but we finally got the lease in our hands and the actual price is over $14 a month, not nearly as good of a deal. I'm trying to figure out if I should just cancel the least and have a new unit installed, or just bite the bullet. I think technically I could make a fuss with the former owners, but they were fairly cool about other things so I'm hesitant to do so. We're planning on being here for several decades, and that Rheem Marathon tank looks pretty awesome, but apparently is electric only and we're gas. My break-even point for a good quality (Rheem "9 year") model with installation (assuming roughly $400 for install) is about 6 years, which seems fairly reasonable. Anything else I should be considering?
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Aug 2, 2016 20:29
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You could go tankless and take endless showers. I would get my own water heater. What size is in there now? If it's not 40 gallons, think you'd have room for one? If you cancel the lease, are there any service fees or penalties?
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Aug 2, 2016 21:42
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BeastOfExmoor posted:So, long story short, the previous owner of my house was leasing the hot water heater from the local energy company and did not disclose this until a couple days before closing when they offhandedly mentioned it to me while I was dropping off some money for some furniture we were buying from them. At that time they told me it was like $2 a month and that they come out and replace it at any point if it fails. Seemed like a good deal for that money, but we finally got the lease in our hands and the actual price is over $14 a month, not nearly as good of a deal. I would ask the previous owners to cancel their lease (and pay whatever cost is associated with that) and then just go ahead and buy whatever heater you want.
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Aug 2, 2016 21:50
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Sperg Victorious posted:You could go tankless and take endless showers. We haven't taken over ownership yet so any fees would go to them. The contract says they have to notify the company prior to ownership change, which they apparently didn't do.
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Aug 2, 2016 23:41
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Gaghskull posted:There is a wasp nest inside my breaker box. I'd assume that I don't want to spray the thing when it's live. Ideas for getting the thing out of there? http://www.lowes.com/pd/Spectracide-Commercial-Wasp-and-Hornet-Killer/1162515
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Aug 3, 2016 00:41
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BeastOfExmoor posted:We haven't taken over ownership yet so any fees would go to them. The contract says they have to notify the company prior to ownership change, which they apparently didn't do. Option C: Just don't pay it, it's their lease, their problem Who leases a water heater  If it's any help, this is the water heater I've settled on getting to replace my electric unit. Saves~30$ a year over similar units, has the 12 year quality rating, and not too pricey. Sucks the marathon unit is electric only, otherwise I'd definitely spring for that one. E: you may want to get larger depending on family size, but gas replenishes real quick anyways
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Aug 3, 2016 01:08
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