|
I think the consensus is, even though you have saved lots, people feel like you just got ripped off on the electrical even if it is only a few thousand.
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2017 18:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 14:17 |
|
|
everdave posted:I think the consensus is, even though you have saved lots, people feel like you just got ripped off on the electrical even if it is only a few thousand. I'm part of that consensus. Went looking for wood stoves over the weekend. Found a place that'll do stove, chimney, hearth, and real rock on the walls behind it all under our budget for this. Yay. Chimney height might be an issue, they'll need to measure. Went to house and taped out where hearth and TV were going, turns out electrician didn't put the TV conduit/plug where we asked and it'll need to be moved. Separately, had the revelation that we can key all 5 exterior doors the same. Little things like that make me happy. In our current house we have separate keys for every door and every deadbolt.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 13:54
|
|
|
Gounads posted:Separately, had the revelation that we can key all 5 exterior doors the same. Little things like that make me happy. In our current house we have separate keys for every door and every deadbolt. You can key literally every lock you have the same. They make re-keyable padlocks, cylinders are replaceable on cabinets, etc. It's as magical as you are dreaming.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 16:45
|
|
|
H110Hawk posted:You can key literally every lock you have the same. They make re-keyable padlocks, cylinders are replaceable on cabinets, etc. It's as magical as you are dreaming. And then get a combination lock for your most used door because gently caress keys. I use these guys. https://www.amazon.com/Schlage-BE365VCAM619-Camelot-Keypad-Deadbolt/dp/B000NJJ1MQ
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 17:23
|
|
|
H110Hawk posted:You can key literally every lock you have the same. They make re-keyable padlocks, cylinders are replaceable on cabinets, etc. It's as magical as you are dreaming. As a contractor they just buy them all keyed a like... this is nothing for 5 doors. Even if they were idiots and didn't order them that way someone who knows what they're doing it shouldn't take more than an hour to pull all the locks and rekey them. I have Medeco locks on my door because I want them to have to break the door to get in and so no one can copy the keys... but I'm a rarity. I've never seen them on another residential house outside of my family.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 17:35
|
|
|
Boogalo posted:And then get a combination lock for your most used door because gently caress keys. I installed the flat keypad version of that on my door within a week of closing on our house and it's probably my favorite of the small upgrades I've done. It's unbelievably convenient to not have to think about needing a house key and if we need to have someone come by to take care of our cats when we go out of town or whatever, I can just issue them a temporary code.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 18:01
|
|
|
xwing posted:As a contractor they just buy them all keyed a like... this is nothing for 5 doors. Even if they were idiots and didn't order them that way someone who knows what they're doing it shouldn't take more than an hour to pull all the locks and rekey them. For contracting: Yes. It's easy for them to just say all hardware keyed alike. But as you add locks to your house (build a shed?) it's easy to keep that keying going. You're crazy to spend money on Medeco (or any patented keyway) in my book.  I had a coworker who had them on his house, biggest pain in the neck when his kid would lose one.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 18:05
|
|
|
H110Hawk posted:For contracting: Yes. It's easy for them to just say all hardware keyed alike. But as you add locks to your house (build a shed?) it's easy to keep that keying going. Still a pretty easy to fix. My family charged $8 per cylinder if you brought the locks in to the shop and it was just a plain Kwikset/Schlage. It is overkill for a Medeco... but I like my stuff and intend to keep it. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 23:00
|
|
|
Lol just lol if you don't have an IC lock. It's so great when my hands are full of bags and babby.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2017 23:10
|
|
|
Haven't posted any photos in a bit, so here you go:   In the last one, blue tape is us planning the hearth and where the TV will go.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2017 17:38
|
|
|
Looks like a house to me! When are you moving in?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2017 17:47
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Looks like a house to me! When are you moving in? The plan is end of March. Current house goes on the market Thursday, open house on Sunday. Preparing for that is where all our energy has gone for the past few weeks. Filled a 10x10 storage unit. Got rid of 5 other pieces of furniture. Current house feels a lot bigger now. The one thing that could hold that up right now is electric. The elec. company still won't tell us if we can tie into an existing pole, or will need a new one. That holds up the trench for the line, which holds up finishing the driveway. Been a month of asking so far. Dozens of calls. Several broken promises of coming out. Wife picked out paint colors this week.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2017 18:01
|
|
|
Looking good! I have enjoyed watching the progress of this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2017 22:51
|
|
|
For sale sign just went up on front lawn, feels real all of a sudden. Conservation meeting tonight. Got a quote for the propane tank. Never had propane before, the underground tank sounds like a winner to me. Thoughts? quote:2x100 Gall Tanks Purchase
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2017 19:28
|
|
|
My family has an underground tank and never had a single issue with it. They even got a hunter-green hatch to blend in the opening for the filling valve so it blends in a bit more. I don't know how much they have to refill it, or the size, but if you can bury it, do.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2017 23:06
|
|
|
We had so much fun climbing on our tank when we were kids. The internet can't agree if you should paint it camouflage or like a hot dog.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2017 23:17
|
|
|
peanut posted:We had so much fun climbing on our tank when we were kids. The internet can't agree if you should paint it camouflage or like a hot dog. http://weburbanist.com/2012/10/28/grill-gas-flash-15-prettily-painted-propane-tanks/
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2017 23:24
|
|
|
Conservation meeting last night. They seemed generally receptive to the RDA method I filed, but want to do another site visit. Due to reasons, they're not meeting in two weeks. Looking at March 8 for the next possible meeting date and they'll visit sometime before then. So, not good nor bad news. One neighbor showed up. Chatted with him, nice guy. He had no actual worries, just wanted to see what was going on.
|
|
#
?
Feb 9, 2017 16:37
|
|
|
Bookshelf door is sitting one town over in a warehouse. They wanted to deliver it on a full size tractor trailer truck. Down a long one way road with no way to turn around. Lol. So they're going to deliver it on a pickup next week. That's fine, not ready for it to go in. Thing is 450 pounds, so that's a lot heavier than expected.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2017 15:20
|
|
|
Wow that is pretty hefty. Following your build with interest - I am just on the cusp of selling my place in London and then plan eventually to use the proceeds to build somewhere. Where you are looks like it gets much colder than southern UK. I can see there is lots of work going on with insulation at your place but wondered whether the "passive house" idea is a thing in the US? Seems to me like it would be ideal. They are very focused on insulating, particularly the foundations, and then preventing cold bridging and ensuring air tightness, with heat recovery tot the ventilation system. Looks like a great idea to me. Pretty different in style from what you are building but I love this kind of thing: http://www.riverways.co.uk/2016_07_01_archive.html
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2017 15:30
|
|
|
Don't know anything about the passive house thing. We have some energy efficiency and air-tightness standards we have to meet as part of building code, we're doing a bit better than those in actual building. I forgot to mention the other exciting part, current house has it's first showing tonight. And just got a text asking for another showing today in 3 hours, but I won't be able to do that one.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2017 15:47
|
|
|
knox_harrington posted:Wow that is pretty hefty. Its not so much retaining heat, as it is that many places in the US have enormous temperature ranges. In a Virginia year we range from -13c to up to 37c+ with high humidity and that's pretty drat hard to manage with passive systems. Hell, we swung -1 to 22 in 24 hours last week. All of the insulation is to help the blown air systems be as efficient as possible.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
knox_harrington posted:Looks like a great idea to me. Yeah... it is. Try getting someone to pay for it though. It's a very narrow market for who would have that done. It's not hard to get an efficient home. I once worked with a contractor that did "net zero" homes and they did it because state subsidizes for solar panels and they cut out every engineer they could from the job. If they didn't have the tax credits they wouldn't do it because no one would buy it at the profit they wanted.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2017 20:30
|
|
|
xwing posted:Yeah... it is. Try getting someone to pay for it though. It's a very narrow market for who would have that done. It's not hard to get an efficient home. I once worked with a contractor that did "net zero" homes and they did it because state subsidizes for solar panels and they cut out every engineer they could from the job. If they didn't have the tax credits they wouldn't do it because no one would buy it at the profit they wanted. I can certainly believe that. I just spent a year living for most of the week in a brand new house on a medium size development. The houses there are really not that cheap to buy but the construction was so basic. They just chuck them up as quickly as possible, it was pretty depressing to see. Also none of the internal door mechanisms worked properly. People don't want to think about what goes into a pre-built house and here anyway want the most number of bedrooms for the minimum number of £. Having been in a draughty 200 year old terrace for the last decade I want to live in a modern place built using current methods but really don't trust a volume builder to do anything but slightly below the bare minimum. So, going to need to build somewhere on this tiny island with no land... Hmm e: will stop derailing now! knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Feb 14, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2017 21:52
|
|
|
knox_harrington posted:I can certainly believe that. I just spent a year living for most of the week in a brand new house on a medium size development. The houses there are really not that cheap to buy but the construction was so basic. They just chuck them up as quickly as possible, it was pretty depressing to see. Also none of the internal door mechanisms worked properly. People don't want to think about what goes into a pre-built house and here anyway want the most number of bedrooms for the minimum number of £.  Technically, you can make a whole bunch of things into a passive house. A 1968 high-rise, for example. However, I am not sure how practical any of these ideas are with a classically wood-framed house -- the examples I have seen (both multi-storey dwellings and single-family houses) used a fair bit of concrete and modern windows. More on-topic: I'm really curious to see pictures of that bookshelf wall once it has been fitted. Can you just mount that regularly, or will you need to somehow reinforce the adjacent wall given its weight?
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 02:38
|
|
|
Hollow Talk posted:More on-topic: I'm really curious to see pictures of that bookshelf wall once it has been fitted. Can you just mount that regularly, or will you need to somehow reinforce the adjacent wall given its weight? Here you go: https://www.themurphydoor.com/support/flush-mount-door/assembled/
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 03:10
|
|
|
Thank you! For some reason, I was thinking this would still need hinges in a regular sense (just perhaps beefier).
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2017 03:23
|
|
|
About half the insulation is up. Last week was a bit of a slow week overall. They're doing unfaced fiberglass in the walls, and then going over it with continuous sheets of plastic. I hadn't seen that before, but I bet it gives a better air-tightness than the paper faced stuff. Also caulked everywhere that two pieces of wood come together. Sistered studs, between the floor and wall, etc. Other than that, was what I expected.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2017 13:33
|
|
|
Stopped by today. Insulation guys were sitting in their truck reeking of weed. sigh. At least they're not smoking in the house. Bright side: insulation should be done today and looks well done. At some point the plasterers staged all their drywall and plaster in the rooms, so it looks like they're ready to go. Sheets were much larger than the normal 4x8 - maybe 4x10 or 4x12? Builder is on vacation this week.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2017 19:52
|
|
|
Gounads posted:Stopped by today. 4x12 definitely exists. Good choice if you've got the crew/equipment to handle it. Seams are annoying even for pros.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2017 02:55
|
|
|
Insulation was completed, nobody there yesterday, no drywall up. They didn't insulate the ceiling of the basement. Is that normal? Seems like it should have been done to me. Remember my awesome bookcase door? Insulation knuckleheads moved it. Put the cardboard box down on the damp gravel in the garage instead of up on wood blocks like it was. Luckily, there was styrofoam in the box that kept the wood dry.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2017 16:01
|
|
|
Gounads posted:They didn't insulate the ceiling of the basement. Is that normal? Seems like it should have been done to me. Assuming the basement is conditioned space, then yeah.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2017 16:10
|
|
|
emocrat posted:Assuming the basement is conditioned space, then yeah. It's unfinished and the basement walls are not insulated. e: I checked my contract. "- Install R-21 Kraft Batts in the following areas: Basement ceiling ..." So, either not done yet, or they forgot. Will ask builder when he's back from vacation. No worries, not like it holds up the plasterers. Gounads fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Feb 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2017 16:18
|
|
|
Went over last night. Bedrooms were all sheet-rocked upstairs. Downstairs living room and dining room were each half-done. At that rate, they'll probably have the rest of the house done today, then plaster.  
Gounads fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Feb 27, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2017 13:54
|
|
|
I like that smooth grey with white below...
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
All drywall was up yesterday, plaster today.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 13:53
|
|
|
Are you in one of the areas of the country where the whole wall gets a skim coat, not just seams? No reason for asking really, just curiosity.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 14:45
|
|
|
Slugworth posted:Are you in one of the areas of the country where the whole wall gets a skim coat, not just seams? If I were doing it DIY style, I'd just do the seams. Considering there's a ton of plaster sitting in the house, they must be doing it all. It surprised me. There are three stacks of it, each about this size:  e: Just did the math, 41 50lb bags - that picture is a ton. So ~ 3 tons of plaster! Gounads fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Feb 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 15:34
|
|
|
Got the final wood stove / chimney / stonework quote - $10,326.75 Had $13k budgeted, so yay!
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 16:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 14:17 |
|
|
Don't forget your N100 respirator while they're doing that work and until they've gotten rid of the dust. (Aka opened the windows and called it "good enough.")
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 16:55
|
|