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Enfys posted:You don't need tons of trees to cover the entire area. Trees are great because their root systems are enormous and complex, so they will suck up water from a large area around once established. This is a good post, and luckily there are actually lots of resources to help him out. I suggest life is killing me look into Texas's agricultural extension (I think its' through A&M). I believe they have Master Gardeners or Watershed Steward volunteers who can be great resources to reach out to.
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Sep 22, 2016 01:34
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I would talk to the local garden center to see if there is anything that fits the bill. In the northeast you see a lot of pachysandra for this kind of thing, but they need lots of water. There may be some equivalents where you are.
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Sep 22, 2016 02:13
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Riprap won't do anything to help your backyard, that's primarily used along things like river and stream embankments to prevent erosion from the water movement. A retaining wall might not do too much if you've got improper drainage-- I've got one that's falling because it wasn't built with proper drainage, and the shifts and swelling of the dirt is causing it to buckle outwards. Not to sound too dismissive, but if you've got the money for a dock, failed sod, and two hundred bucks a month to hire someone to mow for you, you might just want to suck it up and pay the five grand for a professional to put in proper drainage and whatnot. Just look at it like paying for mowing services for two years. This is just a guess, but I'd imagine alkalinity in your soil might be because the runoff, especially if you're at the bottom and getting everyone else's yard fertilizer and junk rinsing through your yard. Seems like fixing the drainage might fix the root of your problems Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 02:35
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To put it in better perspective, our expenses are out the rear end right now; we ain't rich. I too am thinking the drainage is the first domino. We are going to do it, but we've survived the summer so will look at it again in the late winter before the rain starts again. And our sod didn't fail--the turffalo did. That wasn't our choice. The builder hosed up and deliberately killed the grass that they had put in thinking we wanted to do turffalo, and by the time we found out it was too late. It took them a couple months to even send someone out to put the turffalo plugs in, and those guys did it wrong. It was supposed to spread and it didn't. We WANT zoysia sod, but it makes no sense to do it until the yard is re-graded and the drainage issue fixed.
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Sep 22, 2016 05:42
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I have no idea how suitable this is for texas but look into moss gardens. They can look hella cool and moss only cares about having sun, water and something to hold on to. Sounds like you have plenty of those.
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Sep 22, 2016 07:42
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life is killing me posted:To put it in better perspective, our expenses are out the rear end right now; we ain't rich. Sorry if I came off like a dick, I was pretty tired when I was writing that. I completely understand, it's real easy to be overwhelmed with the never ending stream of home expenses that always absolutely need done right now. I'm in the same boat, I've got some drainage issues with my detached garage where the concrete floor is destroyed because the drainage sucks and water leaches in. I've also got to rip out a failing retaining wall, widen my driveway, replace the accumulated dirt and river gravel with limestone, put up some new privacy fencing, add a workshop to my garage, redo my front steps that are buckling along with the retaining wall, replace five more ancient windows that are rotting out, replace my breaker panel that's been jerry rigged with a sheet metal screw that long story short is effectively carrying half the current in my house, replace my leaky meter box that used to funnel water into my breaker box (and is temporarily sealed with electricians putty), etc etc etc etc etc. And all that is after the extensive list of things I have done in the time I've been here. I thought that because my mortgage was half the cost of my last rental, I'd be saving fistfulls of cash every month, but it's been a pretty even split so far 
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Sep 22, 2016 12:15
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Appliancechat: I knew Home Depot had a bad reputation, but their Labor Day sale on washers and dryers was ridiculous so I figured, well screw it I'll order from then and deal with problems, but spend less money. So we go to the local store and get a clerk to sell us a new washer and dryer, and pedestals because my wife said that they would be really good and I almost never do laundry so I'm not going to argue. Delivery day comes and they bring 29" pedestals for 27" appliances. I reject the delivery like the HD guy said to if there was anything wrong. And the installation guys got pissed that they had to put our existing machines back so they put them in the wrong places and tore our walk off rug. Next the HD won't call back even after leaving a bunch of messages over 2 days, and finally a week later they refund the order when I go there in person to get them to do something (their clerk had ordered the wrong size) Then when I go back to try to get the right appliances ordered, they say there are none of them left in the US. Also they haven't seen their appliance manager in days and don't know where she is. They are right, all of the big stores that sell this model for this price are out of stock, and I'm like gently caress it until I look at consumer reports' rating of appliance sellers, and do you know who is on top? loving Amazon. Lo and behold they do have the right model at the right price and had it shipped 2 hours after I clicked buy, and I know for sure they have good customer support, so hooray Amazon I guess.
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Sep 22, 2016 14:01
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OSU_Matthew posted:Sorry if I came off like a dick, I was pretty tired when I was writing that. I completely understand, it's real easy to be overwhelmed with the never ending stream of home expenses that always absolutely need done right now. No big deal, I'm sure I've come off like a dick many many times here on SA. We are pretty overwhelmed right now and unsure of what to take care of first lately. My wife gets super-stressed about money and calls me in the middle of the day while I'm at work to talk to me about money and how we can't spend from this account for a bit, how low our savings are, etc. The only money we've spent is what we needed to spend (okay, we did go visit my sister in Seattle). My car's rear brakes are now grinding pretty hard, we have a leak from our bathroom fan exhaust that's somehow routing to the outer wall, dripping down from where our vanity light fixture is mounted, and going behind the mirror so it's super stealth. Plus, a water-logged A/C duct that's going directly to a vent in the roof. Last year, we had to get the builder to fix a number of things, which he was slow to do. Our sliding glass door to the patio leaked when it rained and has ruined the wood floor at the base. The sink in one of the bathrooms sprung a leak pretty early on. The worst so far was the chimney leak that took months to diagnose--roofers said it was the chimney, chimney guys said it was the roof, no one accounting for poo poo. The chimney guys would tell the builder they'd come and wouldn't show up (because when you're a sub-contractor, I guess you don't prioritize not being paid for fixing jobs you didn't do right in the first place), and the builder would forget to call them because he has no office help. It was leaking down into my side of the master closet during and after rain, and it ruined the drywall in the ceiling. I finally told him I was going to get a drywall saw and cut a hole so I could look since it needed to be fixed anyway, so I did. Yep, been the chimney all along. 2 months later they finally came out to fix it, and only because I got so pissed off that I sent a certified letter to the builder telling him that if he didn't make sure it got fixed, we'd hire a contractor of our choosing and bill him for it; if he didn't pay it we'd pursue legal action. He called me the minute he got the letter and the chimney guys were out there the next day and the drywall guy was out the day after. Still haven't seen the carpet cleaners, but whatever. As to drainage, the last drainage specialist we had out to our place told me to turn off the sprinklers at the valve to isolate the drainage and make sure it wasn't a leak in the system. He pointed out numerous places where water was, I guess, saturating? the concrete in the foundation. Who built that retaining wall? Every guy I've had out has asked about drainage first, like they wouldn't consider building one in the first place if it didn't have proper drainage in place. Did they even put deadmen in? life is killing me fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 14:51
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life is killing me posted:Horror story Wait, didn't you say this place was only built in 2013? Or did I misread. Also... HVAC ductwork linked up to a roof vent?! How the gently caress did that happen? 
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Sep 22, 2016 15:01
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LogisticEarth posted:Wait, didn't you say this place was only built in 2013? Or did I misread. Yes, it was finished in late 2013 and was vacant a couple months at most before we bought it. As a former military helicopter crew chief/mechanic, there's an old understanding: No aircraft comes off the assembly line perfect. I have applied this to new homes so that it helps me accept the fact that my home has these issues so I can rationally come up with solutions to the problems. I've tried vitriol with any and all contractors involved in building (and subsequently fixing) the house, and that got me nowhere, so pseudo-lawyer-speak in a certified letter worked for at least one issue. As to your second point--yes. Our handyman was the one who found it, and he was scratching his head. He said we should call HVAC techs out, so we did, and they scratched their heads at it, saying they have no idea why that duct is like that, they said I should call a roofer because they wouldn't touch it. I called a roofer. He scratched his head. There should be something on that vent to keep water from sloshing up he said, but there isn't. He found numerous other problems while up there, exposed plywood under flashing that was installed way too high, another plastic(!) vent where the screws were torqued so high that the plastic was cracking. While we're at it, he said, let's discuss why the hell there's a plastic roof vent on your standing seam metal roof? He told me the guys who installed the roof did it all sorts of wrong and half-assed.
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Sep 22, 2016 15:17
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I live in a house thats brick built and about 80 years old. It has issues, I mean its old. But jesus, at least I know if I look after it, it will be here long after Im dead and burried I heard new houses these days are not build to last but Id expect the drat thing to outlast my white goods. That really sucks for you man, is there no recourse? Did you get the place surveyed?
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Sep 22, 2016 16:39
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drat...that's a lot of problems for a barely 3 year old house
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Sep 22, 2016 16:41
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life is killing me posted:There aren't enough flora on the hill to keep it from eroding. We do have two trees, a female cottonwood and an elm that are right next to each other. I'd really love to cut the cottonwood down actually because I hate cottonwoods, they are brittle fuckers that will lose an entire branch in a small storm to the point that the arborist recommended getting a cable installed between the biggest branch and the trunk to minimize the possibility of it breaking off. But since they are mature trees and both about 30' tall, their roots help in that area of the hill. Unless I'm misunderstanding, you have house -> hill -> lake? Plop some bald cypress by the waters edge. In 2 years you'll have a natural sea wall for around $1/linear foot. Slow down the rest of the hill by hand digging or hiring a bobcat to make some swales running perpendicular to the slope of the hill, then plant up with whatever. Swales are used to reduce soil erosion and also passively harvest water for plants, so this'll benefit you both during the dry season and the wet.
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Sep 22, 2016 17:01
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robotindisguise posted:Unless I'm misunderstanding, you have house -> hill -> lake? Plop some bald cypress by the waters edge. In 2 years you'll have a natural sea wall for around $1/linear foot. Slow down the rest of the hill by hand digging or hiring a bobcat to make some swales running perpendicular to the slope of the hill, then plant up with whatever. Swales are used to reduce soil erosion and also passively harvest water for plants, so this'll benefit you both during the dry season and the wet. Correct. By the way, the dock builder made a clear distinction between a seal wall and a retaining wall, he said he considered retaining walls landscaping and doesn't build them, but he does seawalls--he just didn't think we needed one. We don't, a couple good things about the hill are that we sit above the lake and have a great view, and we also don't need flood insurance since that hill puts us above the floodplain. As to the swale, I hadn't thought of that, and it sounds like a good idea. A bobcat wouldn't have any room though, the flat part of our backyard is small and most of it is taken up by patio. It would have to be hand-dug. If I'm understanding you correctly, you mean to dig swales horizontally parallel to the top of the hill and perpendicular to the slope, sort of like a hand-dug terrace? So basically what a retaining wall builder would have dug except without the retaining wall? If we planted gardens there, wouldn't they get beaten up? Also, with the loose soil around there, would the swales even last?
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Sep 22, 2016 17:26
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If you really want advice that is worth anything, photos and a slope measurement are kinda essential. The success of swales/terraces/diversions is dependent on what you're dealing with. Edit: it might be worth starting a thread over in DIY since this is likely a pretty intense project.
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Sep 22, 2016 17:47
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LogisticEarth posted:If you really want advice that is worth anything, photos and a slope measurement are kinda essential. The success of swales/terraces/diversions is dependent on what you're dealing with. An intense project I'll probably have to hire someone else to do. My wife and I work a combined 120-130hrs a week. At least I know a guy we could hire to do it, he's the same guy that built our stairs. Photos forthcoming later on.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:10
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robotindisguise posted:Unless I'm misunderstanding, you have house -> hill -> lake? Plop some bald cypress by the waters edge. In 2 years you'll have a natural sea wall for around $1/linear foot. Slow down the rest of the hill by hand digging or hiring a bobcat to make some swales running perpendicular to the slope of the hill, then plant up with whatever. Swales are used to reduce soil erosion and also passively harvest water for plants, so this'll benefit you both during the dry season and the wet. Heck, he should just make a big pond to go swimming in.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:38
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life is killing me posted:Yes, it was finished in late 2013 and was vacant a couple months at most before we bought it. You've reminded me why vetting a builder is so important! Most builder stories remind me of that fact though.
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Sep 22, 2016 20:24
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:I live in a house thats brick built and about 80 years old. It has issues, I mean its old. But jesus, at least I know if I look after it, it will be here long after Im dead and burried I hear this everywhere (that newer houses are not as well built), and it makes me curious. I am guessing some of it is due to the usual "things were better in the good ol' days" thinking, but at least where I live, new housing estates seem to be consistently riddled with problems. Maybe all houses are riddled with problems, but there do seem to be a lot of poor/cheap construction and materials used in a lot of modern building. It seems like we should be a lot better at building good houses, and especially since houses seem to cost people more to buy (compared to wages, COL etc) than previously. Does anyone with a better understanding of construction have any thoughts on this? It's something I idly wonder about whenever I hear stories like this (which is surprisingly often). Maybe I would have been hearing similar stories 50 years ago too, I don't know.
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Sep 22, 2016 20:33
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Enfys posted:I hear this everywhere (that newer houses are not as well built), and it makes me curious. I am guessing some of it is due to the usual "things were better in the good ol' days" thinking, but at least where I live, new housing estates seem to be consistently riddled with problems. Maybe all houses are riddled with problems, but there do seem to be a lot of poor/cheap construction and materials used in a lot of modern building. It seems like we should be a lot better at building good houses, and especially since houses seem to cost people more to buy (compared to wages, COL etc) than previously. There's probably just changes in philosophy. My entire subfloor in my house is a big concrete slab that's poured into the foundation somehow, so when you're in the basement you look up and just see Ibeams and concrete. I don't think that's a construction technique ever used anymore, but it seems really nice to my uneducated viewpoint. Since it was built in '48 I'm guessing bomb shelter type idea at the time. Maybe it sucks versus earthquakes, but I'm in Illinois so I'm not too worried about that because if the new madrid fault goes we're all screwed
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Sep 22, 2016 20:40
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lovely houses that were built 80 years ago caught fire/fell down/were torn apart 75 or 70 or 65 years ago. In order to last for a hundred years, even with care, something has to be reasonably well built to start with. My sister's house was built almost 200 years ago, but there were a ton of other buildings put up at the same time that didn't make it that long. That isn't to say that we aren't building a lot of lovely housing now, people are definitely going to use cut rate materials or techniques of they know it will save money and the end product will be fine for some length of time, rather than methods that have been proven to work well and last, or even improved ones that will work even better. It's just that people were likely doing that all through history, and we are generally only exposed to the stuff that was built well while all the terrible poo poo got washed away. In 50 years you'll probably find big swathes of lovely houses are gone and we'll have a minority of the decently built and maintained ones hanging around, and people will point to those and say how 20th century artisans took their jobs seriously.
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Sep 22, 2016 20:46
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SiGmA_X posted:Shouldn't you (let alone inspector..) have noticed the roof vents and such? The poo poo of it is, he built my parents' house 20 years ago and it's really well-done. He builds a lot of luxury homes or near-luxury homes too. We know him personally, have been to his house, share an office building with him, he's a well-known guy with a reputation around here. I think the decline in build quality with a lot of builders who have been around a while (especially independent ones, not companies that manufacture track homes like McBee or something) has a lot to with subs and is proportional to the cost of materials and what those subs expect to be paid versus what the builder is willing to pay them. If materials go up in cost for a time and you're building a house with a specific price range in mind that the market will only support if you can build it within budget, then you spend more on materials and may be less willing to pay subs. You get what you pay for, so you get subs that will take a lower rate, and they're willing to take a lower rate because their work is sub-par and half-assed. So you get the house built, but it's not built all that well because of the rising cost of materials and low-rent subs who don't give a poo poo. If you pay subs more AND buy decent materials at higher prices, you end up spending more on a house than you wanted starting out, and you have to ask for a higher price than most other homes with the features you built in can reasonably demand. You lose money because you didn't get the price for the house you needed to break even, much less make a profit, and you've most likely got a balloon loan to pay off. Would you take that over just hiring shittier subs who are willing to work for less pay so you can at least break even? Then again, I imagine most builders wouldn't still be in the business if they didn't think they could make some kind of profit because they have to make a living. Don't know for sure of course but I imagine most construction loans total much less than what the house is priced at. e: Or, I guess if you want a higher profit, you figure by the time the buyer discovers the issues with the lovely build quality you know is there, well, you're already putting money in the bank. In other words, you're maximizing your profit by cutting corners and costs on purpose not because you want to break even, but because the less you pay subs, the more you take to the bank. life is killing me fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 21:04
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Bozart posted:Appliancechat: I knew Home Depot had a bad reputation, but their Labor Day sale on washers and dryers was ridiculous so I figured, well screw it I'll order from then and deal with problems, but spend less money. So we go to the local store and get a clerk to sell us a new washer and dryer, and pedestals because my wife said that they would be really good and I almost never do laundry so I'm not going to argue. Delivery day comes and they bring 29" pedestals for 27" appliances. I reject the delivery like the HD guy said to if there was anything wrong. And the installation guys got pissed that they had to put our existing machines back so they put them in the wrong places and tore our walk off rug. As someone who's getting our new Labor Day w&d delivered tomorrow, thanks for ramping up my anxiety. We're due for something like this.
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Sep 22, 2016 21:05
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Saved this from SA a few years back. It bears repeating: "Old construction is better than new constructionbecause older homes were usually overbuilt in structural terms. They'll also usually be in better parts of town, in more established neighborhoods, and closer to city centers and services because they were built before everyone drove everywhere. Old houses were built by tradespeople who treated construction as a career and took pride in their work. They were built to last forever. You'll have a yard and a sidewalk that leads somewhere you want to go. You'll have a cozy fireplace and a formal living room. New construction is better than old constructionbecause it follows modern building codes. You'll have outlets every six feet, laundry connections, a two car garage, cable in multiple rooms, and more than one light in any given room. You'll have a living room built with a TV in mind and a kitchen built with a microwave and dishwasher in mind. You'll have a media room rather than a formal living room. You'll have insulation in the walls and the ceiling, efficient appliances, a complete HVAC system, double-paned windows, and insulation-wrapped hot water pipes. You'll have bedrooms that fit king size beds, an eat-in kitchen, and a bathroom that's wider than a bathtub. You'll have special foundation reinforcement (where applicable) or storm-proof roofing. You won't have to worry about your roof for 20 years. Old construction is worse than new constructionbecause the walls hide horrible problems, like support beams cut in half, old wiring, leaky pipes with lead solder, and asbestos-lined heating ducts. There are never enough outlets and if you use the hair dryer and the microwave at the same time you'll have a brownout. Your drainage to the sewer, if it's present, will be clay pipes full of roots. You'll have tiny rooms with low ceilings and a tiny kitchen that doesn't have a dishwasher. You'll have the most inefficient heating system possible, and if there's air conditioning it will triple your electrical expenses and drop the temperature by 5 degrees and drip water down the inside of your wall. You'll have single-pane aluminum windows and no insulation in the walls. Your roof will have three layers of shingles on it or will be leaking or both. New construction is worse than old constructionbecause it was built by people hired that morning in a Home Depot parking lot, using the minimum amount of material in order to meet the too-lax building codes, designed to last through the three year warranty and not a day more. New construction sometimes employs newtechniques in an incorrect manner, which often ends up trapping moisture somewhere in the walls and causing horrific mold or rot problems. New construction is all about the finishes and not about the structure or mechanicals. You'll get a yard that funnels water into your foundation covered in some sod and maybe a 2-year-old tree. Your brand new roof was flashed incorrectly and water's running underneath all of it. All of the above is true, simultaneously. Home ownership is awesome."
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Sep 22, 2016 21:13
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Mercury Ballistic posted:New construction is worse than old construction because it was built by people hired that morning in a Home Depot parking lot, using the minimum amount of material in order to meet the too-lax building codes, designed to last through the three year warranty and not a day more. New construction sometimes employs newtechniques in an incorrect manner, which often ends up trapping moisture somewhere in the walls and causing horrific mold or rot problems. New construction is all about the finishes and not about the structure or mechanicals. You'll get a yard that funnels water into your foundation covered in some sod and maybe a 2-year-old tree. Your brand new roof was flashed incorrectly and water's running underneath all of it. This is basically true for me, all of this paragraph save the mold or rot. Just found out today all the flashing on my standing seam metal roof was incorrectly installed and doesn't cover the area well enough anywhere the roof meets the outer walls of the house. Basically it's not going down far enough so water has free reign to splash right into any open seams. Roofer sent me FORTY loving PHOTOS AS EXAMPLES OF SHODDY WORKMANSHIP. He said the rest of the roof is great, just not the 30-40 areas where the roofers apparently were running late for their lunch break and said, "gently caress it, this is good enough right?" They used cheap plastic vents and overtorqued the screws so they are cracking and letting water in, they didn't bring corners together all the way, and there is plywood showing through huge gaps as I mentioned in an earlier post. There are numerous loving places water can get in, and probably IS getting in, and other places where we KNOW water is getting in. The worst part about the flashing is, my house is loving STUCCO. So of course the flashing was put in and stuccoed over, and to replace it completely all around the house would mean tearing out that stucco, the color of which, when replaced, almost certainly won't match the color of the rest of it. That'd cost thousands. The estimate I just got is going to cost almost $5k, and that's with them jury-rigging new flashing over the old flashing to make it do its job, WITHOUT tearing out the existing stucco where the flashing is anchored. AAAAND now I get to have that conversation with my wife, who is going to go, "Well, let's get other estimates, why does it have to cost that much, we're not paying that..." or "We're already over-expensed, let's just put it off..." or "Let's just do it and I'll stress out over the money we're spending and vent to you about it while you're at work..." Everything else: Yard funneling water into my foundation? Check. Sod or grass plugs that didn't take? Check. 2 year-old tree in the front yard? Check. It might not hurt to get other estimates, honestly. It's just that my wife insists on getting estimates on any and everything until we get one that's acceptable to what she THINKS something should cost, whether or not a thing actually should cost that amount. I keep telling her, "Some things just cost what they cost, and any estimate we get is going to be around that same amount minus a few hundred here or there. Getting a ton of estimates until we get some low-rent dude who will charge less won't work." It also is a way of putting things off while we hem and haw over the money we're about to spend. I think we need a compromise in place from now on: We get four estimates, and if they are all around the same amount, we choose the contractor we like the best. If they are all way different estimates, we're going to choose the one charging the second least amount of money out of the four. Or something. gently caress. life is killing me fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 21:58
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life is killing me posted:This is basically true for me, all of this paragraph save the mold or rot. Death is certain and you can't take it with you. Spend the money to not live in a rotting hovel. Edit: my uncle had half his roof shingles just...slide..off of his house one day. They weren't even nailed in lol
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Sep 23, 2016 04:30
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mastershakeman posted:There's probably just changes in philosophy. My entire subfloor in my house is a big concrete slab that's poured into the foundation somehow, so when you're in the basement you look up and just see Ibeams and concrete. I don't think that's a construction technique ever used anymore, but it seems really nice to my uneducated viewpoint. Since it was built in '48 I'm guessing bomb shelter type idea at the time. Maybe it sucks versus earthquakes, but I'm in Illinois so I'm not too worried about that because if the new madrid fault goes we're all screwed My garage floor is done this way. From the basement under the garage it looks like concrete beams resting on a steel ibeam. 
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Sep 23, 2016 04:38
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So selling our old house and no one is currently living there. Someone filled up the Trash and Recycling containers with dirt and ash, probably our horrible across the street neighbors who suck in every way and are part of the reason we moved. Neither dirt nor ash are acceptable in either container. Who do I even call for this?
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Sep 23, 2016 05:46
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Sounds like a triage situation - fix the water penetration because that can wreck your house, cosmetic stuff like sod and stucco need to wait for free funds.
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Sep 23, 2016 13:20
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King Burgundy posted:So selling our old house and no one is currently living there. Someone filled up the Trash and Recycling containers with dirt and ash, probably our horrible across the street neighbors who suck in every way and are part of the reason we moved. Neither dirt nor ash are acceptable in either container. Who do I even call for this? City public works folks can be surprisingly helpful sometimes, though they might also just tell you tough poo poo, should have secured your bins better. Alternately, you could get a shovel and go unload the dirt and ash back into your neighbor's yard.
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Sep 23, 2016 16:42
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Thufir posted:City public works folks can be surprisingly helpful sometimes, though they might also just tell you tough poo poo, should have secured your bins better. Yeah, I mean, if I could prove it was them, that would be my go to.
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Sep 23, 2016 16:53
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Just put them out for regular pickup with a case of beer on top.
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Sep 23, 2016 18:48
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Hide a hunting camera in your bin, or nearby. Or...fill your bins with yellow jackets.
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Sep 23, 2016 20:50
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Mercury Ballistic posted:Hide a hunting camera in your bin, or nearby. Or...fill your bins with yellow jackets. Do both and share the video, thanks.
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Sep 23, 2016 21:20
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We had some guys in to clean up a massive wooded area of our back yard... to  Turns out half the neighborhood has been using it as a dumping ground for poo poo for years. Rumor has it there was a tree service owned by another neighbor that was dumping poo poo there rather then paying dump fees. Total cost? $5000, half of which was dumpster fees. On the plus side, our backyard has now doubled in size. We now have a battle with the house you can see there, they apparently dumped a bunch of lawn clippings over the fence at some point between when the workers left for the day, and when they came back the next morning.
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Sep 24, 2016 01:52
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I can't believe how many people are loving shitdicks. When mowing I will take extra time and inefficient routes to avoid blowing clippings across the property line or into the street. I then use a leaf blower to blow anything that went into the street back into my property.
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Sep 24, 2016 02:18
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Mercury Ballistic posted:All of the above is true, simultaneously. Home ownership is awesome This is why I think / hope my next home will be a self build. I'm in the process of selling my flat in London which is lovely but suffers from being a converted Victorian terrace with no insulation (and being a leasehold but that's a separate matter). Conversely, during the week I live in a rented house out in a different county which is a few months old and was one of the first of a new development. I have watched the other houses being built. The quality of construction is really quite bad (despite these being slightly "premium" houses) and the attention to detail is lacking. None of the door handles work properly, for instance, there are gaps in the exterior sealing, the windows don't open and close properly, the heating doesn't work properly in the smaller bedrooms. The list goes on. I am sure the reason is the builders are under huge time pressure to maximise the developer's profit. I would certainly be very reluctant to buy from a volume house builder, in the UK at least.
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Sep 24, 2016 11:14
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life is killing me posted:This is basically true for me, all of this paragraph save the mold or rot. Fix your roof and drainage immediately. Those are emergency repairs. Talk to a lawyer if you want to see if you can hold the builder accountable. I don't know if the drain system and regrading are necessary in your case, but I wouldn't be surprised, and you need to know exactly what's required. When I had a fixer-upper house, the house trained me to think this way: 1. if anything about the contractor seems off, don't trust any estimate from him 2. if a non-cosmetic estimate comes in under $1,000, do it right now if the contractor is good 3. if a non-cosmetic estimate comes in above $1,000 but under $5,000, do it within 2 months if the contractor is good, otherwise get at least 3 estimates 4. if a non-cosmetic estimate comes in above $5,000, cry 5. immediately cross off any cosmetic work on your to-do list; there will never be time or money for those Accept that you might have to tear up your patio to get heavy equipment in to deal with drainage, and that plants are a waste of money until the grading is in good shape. You can fix some drainage problems with plants, but it sounds like your issues are much bigger.
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Sep 24, 2016 19:48
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I need to replace the weather stripping under the doors that go out back. It looks (?) like I can literally just pull the old stuff out and put new stuff in, but none of the new stuff looks like the old stuff does where it meets the ground - it looks the same with how it (probably?) attaches to the door (just presses into these grooves); The old stuff has this loosely dry rotted rubber that my son pulled off on the bottom, whereas the new stuff is like stiff plastic. So, my question is a) can i just pull the old stuff out and put the new stuff in? b) do I need to be concerned about the height (?) of it (ie, will it prevent the door from opening & closing easily?) The doors are metal. The new stuff I think I can use: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Frost-King-E-O-1-3-4-in-x-36-in-Brown-PVC-Door-Bottom-Replacement-for-Stanley-Steel-Doors-UDS36/100566670
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Sep 26, 2016 18:57
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devicenull posted:Total cost? $5000, half of which was dumpster fees. On the plus side, our backyard has now doubled in size. Dumpster fees? Was there a lot of painted/stained/non-clean wood in there, or do you live in a place where you get charged to get rid of wood and brush? Or am I the one living in a weird place where all of that stuff is free to get rid of? Looks great, though. Good luck with the neighbors dumping stuff. Are they mowing the lawn themselves, or is it a hired service that cares even less than the homeowners presumably would about the dumping?
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Sep 26, 2016 21:55
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