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Hydronium posted:Sorry to interrupt appliance chat, but I've got a dumb question. Is this for a super heavy painting? Normally I just use 2 hooks for heavier/bigger things, which works fine on just drywall
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# ? May 30, 2017 05:00 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 05:59 |
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I've hung most paintings in the past by just not putting the screw in the drywall anchor in all the way. Like 1/4 inch or less showing and using the screw as the hook.
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# ? May 30, 2017 13:34 |
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Those look like your standard wall hangers and pretty much any hardware store or Big Box will carry something similar.
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# ? May 30, 2017 15:43 |
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I'm going to be getting some estimates for a solar installation on my home and I'm curious if anyone has any general advice, warnings, etc. I know very little about the topic and I'm wondering if there's anything I should watch out for.
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# ? May 30, 2017 16:08 |
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Hydronium posted:Sorry to interrupt appliance chat, but I've got a dumb question. Picture hanger. Any hardware store, store that offers picture framing (michaels, aaron brothers), or amazon. Home Depot/Lowes will have a huge selection of them in with the fasteners. Edit: Beaten by a mile.
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# ? May 30, 2017 16:11 |
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Charles Mansion posted:I'm going to be getting some estimates for a solar installation on my home and I'm curious if anyone has any general advice, warnings, etc. I know very little about the topic and I'm wondering if there's anything I should watch out for. How old is your roof? Having an existing solar installation makes it a lot harder to repair/replace the roof, so this may be a good time to consider replacing the roof as well.
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# ? May 30, 2017 16:13 |
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Charles Mansion posted:I'm going to be getting some estimates for a solar installation on my home and I'm curious if anyone has any general advice, warnings, etc. I know very little about the topic and I'm wondering if there's anything I should watch out for. Be very sure about what happens when you sell your home.
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# ? May 30, 2017 16:15 |
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Thanks, both of you. The roof was redone less than 5 years ago so I should be good on that front. Bozart, are you referring to issues that might arise from one of those solar lease programs or what?
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# ? May 30, 2017 16:59 |
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Those are the two biggest things I encountered in the solar-buying process, which I ultimately called off. Having a power-purchase-agreement (PPA) or a lease can add a significant hurdle to the sale of your home that an owned-outright system won't as prospective buyers will essentially have to agree to (and qualify for) a loan takeover. The other was the roof - my roof is 5-7 years old, right at the threshhold of "just put a new one on before you put the panels up" and "should be fine". SolarCity used to have a flat panel swap charge for roof replacements, but they discontinued that guarantee, and I found out it could cost THOUSANDS just to remove and reinstall panels. It seemed like a bad sign that they couldn't continue that flat fee.
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# ? May 30, 2017 17:00 |
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What about that new Tesla system where the shingles are the panels? I'd wait for that.
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# ? May 30, 2017 17:07 |
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We've been without power since Saturday night, and it doesn't look like we'll be getting it back until Thursday at the earliest. We've been surviving on take-out and cell phone lights, but it's getting old. Plus, it's getting hot out. Upstairs was at 85 degrees, and downstairs 77. Any ideas on cheap-ish lighting and cooling options?
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# ? May 30, 2017 17:21 |
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Charles Mansion posted:Thanks, both of you. For lease programs also be very clear on the terms of the lease, consider having someone review it for you. Panels degrade over time and output fewer watts per ?lumen? of sunlight. This is built into your lease regardless of actual degradation of the panel which is improving constantly with silicon manufacturing improvements. The lease also attempts to level set the PPA prices both on buy-side (grid consumption, cost goes up) and sell-side (power generation, price goes down) of the coin. Plus they make a margin. These can be whole digit % increases in your lease payment despite annual degradation being well under whole digit % on modern high quality panels. If you can at all afford it a outright purchase is normally the better option. Remember you will have to settle this loan as part of the sales process to clear the property title, but it's way easier than a lease. I am a microinverter fanboy. This means there is no DC trunk leaving your panels back to a central inverter, and a single panel cannot bring down the production of your array should it become damaged or shaded.
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# ? May 30, 2017 17:27 |
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One more thing to keep in mind is that there are tons of solar companies right now, but the market is very likely to consolidate over the next decade. Meaning, many companies will either go out of business or be bought by their competitors. Make sure you understand what will happen to you if the company you are working with isn't around in five or ten years.
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# ? May 30, 2017 19:03 |
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Omne posted:We've been without power since Saturday night, and it doesn't look like we'll be getting it back until Thursday at the earliest. We've been surviving on take-out and cell phone lights, but it's getting old. Plus, it's getting hot out. Upstairs was at 85 degrees, and downstairs 77. Any ideas on cheap-ish lighting and cooling options? Window fans at night, close everything up during the day? You'd have to have some way to run the fans though, I'm guessing generators are not available anywhere? There are a variety of car jumpstarter packs that have inverters that might be workable. Charles Mansion posted:I'm going to be getting some estimates for a solar installation on my home and I'm curious if anyone has any general advice, warnings, etc. I know very little about the topic and I'm wondering if there's anything I should watch out for. Use a disposable phone number? I get tons of calls about adding solar to my house and I *haven't* contacted a solar company. I can't imagine how many more I would get if I had.
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# ? May 31, 2017 01:46 |
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Omne posted:We've been without power since Saturday night, and it doesn't look like we'll be getting it back until Thursday at the earliest. We've been surviving on take-out and cell phone lights, but it's getting old. Plus, it's getting hot out. Upstairs was at 85 degrees, and downstairs 77. Any ideas on cheap-ish lighting and cooling options? Open up the windows at night, close them earlier in the morning. Keep the cold air in and it won't be too bad. My home has no central AC so 85 is standard fare. I don't usually bother with AC until it stops cooling off at night, it get up to 90 inside, or the humidity gets ridiculous.
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# ? May 31, 2017 01:56 |
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Ugh I found a winged ant* infestation in our front room. There seems to be an Orkin in our area, should I go with one of the major companies or a local crew? Is this the kind of thing where hippy dippy natural solutions can suffice or should I tell them to spray poison? *please god not termites, I looked really closely and they seem to not be termites they do seem to appear to be ants but who the gently caress knows - need a professional. Ugh.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 01:20 |
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The "hippy dippy" solution is orange oil, which is actually a kind of nasty fuckin' acid that will kill the poo poo out of the bugs and should not be treated as if it's OK to just eat and rub on your face or whatever just because it comes from citrus. On the other hand, it won't poison the hell out of the environment, kill off honey bees, or maybe give your kids cancer in 40 years or something, and it's a pretty clean chemical to manufacture and dispose of, so definitely go for it instead of the other options if it makes sense. The key thing though is that orange oil is a spot treatment. If your house needs to be tented and fumigated, then you gotta do that instead. Orange oil is a contact killer that doesn't last very long (less than a week) so it's only useful if the exterminator can identify all of the infested areas and treat them directly with the orange oil.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 01:56 |
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:Ugh I found a winged ant* infestation in our front room. There seems to be an Orkin in our area, should I go with one of the major companies or a local crew? You can also put diatomacious earth around all of the floorboards, that will give them a bad time. But on the exterior I would use serious business poison and then figure out how they got in and caulk or seal that somehow.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 02:04 |
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I was seeing all kinds of anthills along my front drive for weeks now and didn't take them at all seriously. I've got some orange oil and diatomacious earth coming to hopefully ward off evil spirits now.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 02:31 |
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For some reason, ants decided to take up residence inn my mail box. There were thousands of them with a bunch of eggs last night. I sprayed the hell out of the box and cleaned it out, but I'm really confused why they'd go there in the first place. Anything u can do? This is a mailbox on a post, not house mounted
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 02:47 |
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brugroffil posted:For some reason, ants decided to take up residence inn my mail box. There were thousands of them with a bunch of eggs last night. I sprayed the hell out of the box and cleaned it out, but I'm really confused why they'd go there in the first place. Anything u can do? This is a mailbox on a post, not house mounted Cleanse it with fire, buy a new mailbox
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 02:51 |
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I hate myself for phone posting "u" instead of I, but I will take your suggestion to heart. Was trying to figure out how to rig up a blow torch for some brush/weed clearing anyway
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 03:24 |
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:*please god not termites, I looked really closely and they seem to not be termites they do seem to appear to be ants but who the gently caress knows - need a professional. Ugh. I have some bad news... Actually some species of ant do have winged workers, but I don't know where they are native or where you are. But if you are seeing them IN YOUR HOUSE in any concentration then you need to quickly and certainly rule out termites because it might already be a massive infestation. For home solutions, I've found the Terro liquid ant baits work wonders - place them near a traveled path and then just wait as the thing becomes clogged with tiny corpses. Not "hippy dippy" per se, but it does have the advantage of being isolated to within the trap rather than a ground treatment. Less desirable if you have dogs/toddlers. Hubis fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jun 1, 2017 |
# ? Jun 1, 2017 06:24 |
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Hubis posted:Less desirable if you have dogs/toddlers. We have both dogs AND toddlers. Fortunately it sounds like these ARE ants AND that they're pretty common near where I live. They very clearly have a pinched waist, are very small and have a crook in their antennae.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 07:14 |
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You can make your own ant poison with borax and some honey. Those plastic ant trap things you can buy (like this http://www.homedepot.com/p/Raid-Ant-Baits-8-Count-619864/100179677) seem pretty worthless.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 15:36 |
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Hubis posted:
Thufir posted:Terro liquid ant baits work wonders - place them near a traveled path and then just wait as the thing becomes clogged with tiny corpses. Not "hippy dippy" per se, Unless Terro makes ant poison baits, those are one in the same. Don't bother if you need to truly kill them. If you can find an external ingress point a few grains of real scorched earth poison should get them eating it and kill the nest.
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# ? Jun 1, 2017 15:58 |
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brugroffil posted:For some reason, ants decided to take up residence inn my mail box. There were thousands of them with a bunch of eggs last night. I sprayed the hell out of the box and cleaned it out, but I'm really confused why they'd go there in the first place. Anything u can do? This is a mailbox on a post, not house mounted Weird, same exact situation here. I noticed it a couple weeks ago and brushed them all out, but they came back and were gathering en masse today so I hosed them down with Viper. Here's hoping
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 02:06 |
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Thufir posted:borax and some honey This worked terrifyingly well for us and our neighbours, other than getting honey out of everywhere we smeared it after.
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 02:31 |
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I'm looking at Patio furniture, went around to all the stores to check them out in person, and now I'm looking online. Found some stuff at Wayfair that seems to be identical (and I do mean identical, as in likely the same product) to ones we found in the store, but with different brand names, for almost half as much. Is this just a typical generic rebranding situation (where most patio furniture is overpriced bullshit anyway unless it's handmade/high quality wood) or are these somehow extra cheap knockoffs? The wayfair reviews all seem good. Free shipping.
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 19:30 |
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Elysium posted:I'm looking at Patio furniture, went around to all the stores to check them out in person, and now I'm looking online. Found some stuff at Wayfair that seems to be identical (and I do mean identical, as in likely the same product) to ones we found in the store, but with different brand names, for almost half as much. Is this just a typical generic rebranding situation (where most patio furniture is overpriced bullshit anyway unless it's handmade/high quality wood) or are these somehow extra cheap knockoffs? The wayfair reviews all seem good. Free shipping. Link? We need patio furniture.
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 21:01 |
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H110Hawk posted:Link? We need patio furniture. Same.
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 21:14 |
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We got our large outdoor couch from World Market and it's held together nicely for a year now. I think we stacked the poo poo out of coupons and a current sale and got it for about $500 or so. It's an L shaped sectional, pretty nice wood frame with white cushions, cushion cases are removable and washable. They don't have the widest selection, but most of the stuff we get there has been pretty quality.
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 21:58 |
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Perhaps I should have specified we are looking at patio dining sets, but this is the exact one in question: https://www.wayfair.com/Beachcrest-Home%E2%84%A2-Randwick-7-Piece-Dining-Set-with-Cushions-SEHO3377.html?ds=100186 Which we liked because of the way you can store the chairs and roll it away for the winter. It was over $1400 in the brick and mortar store we were in (with a different brand name), and that was the "sale" price. It's Eucalyptus and not Teak, but the B&M one was Eucalyptus as well (like I said, the same). They have other sets in Teak if you want that, or other materials of course.
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 22:00 |
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Elysium posted:Perhaps I should have specified we are looking at patio dining sets, but this is the exact one in question: https://www.wayfair.com/Beachcrest-Home%E2%84%A2-Randwick-7-Piece-Dining-Set-with-Cushions-SEHO3377.html?ds=100186 Wow I really, really like this one!
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 22:20 |
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Yeah, that's way better than what I was looking at. E: what the hell, ordered
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# ? Jun 2, 2017 22:45 |
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Thread - you better be right, Speed Queen stackable set was delivered today. Hope it was worth the premium.
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# ? Jun 3, 2017 04:18 |
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Re: ant warfare, back in the rental house we tried both the plastic trap dome things and the gel style poison from a little tube and the gel worked super well, the little plastic dome things didn't do a drat thing. I've bought indoor furniture from wayfair without any issues, probably good stuff outdoors too.
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# ? Jun 3, 2017 06:18 |
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the little plastic dome ant traps are terrible Terro ant traps work super well for us, they're the kind that are full of gel and you snip off a little bit with scissors to let the ants get in. For some reason the ants just love those and then the ants don't come back for awhile, so it must be pretty effective we get carpenter ants in our back yard, and the only thing that gets rid of those seems to be this ant food that you shake out of a container onto the ground, whenever I spread that around they tend to go away for a month or so
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# ? Jun 3, 2017 06:22 |
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Any recommendations for fireants in the yard? Those little tan and green spikes seemed to work great, but no stores around have sold them in a few years
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# ? Jun 3, 2017 18:23 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 05:59 |
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CloFan posted:Any recommendations for fireants in the yard? Those little tan and green spikes seemed to work great, but no stores around have sold them in a few years Search for Permethrin. Granular if it's localized (sprinkle over the hills/around the house perimeter and water in) or as a liquid spray/concentrate if you need more area control. It has low toxicity for mammals but is bad for fish and beneficial insects like bees so you want to avoid overspray/runoff. Granular is better for that.
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# ? Jun 3, 2017 18:44 |