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Speaking of thermostats, I installed a thermostat over the weekend. I even had to buy a drill bit to put another hole in the stone tile where my old one was, because it had two holes on top left/right and one in the bottom middle (big rectangular thing) and I replaced it with a Nest, which just has one at the top and one at the bottom. I assume I'm just going to have to live with two random holes in that tile. Maybe I could put the old one back in when I sell the house... Hey, I officially "did some stuff around the house". Whoop. For the record, it works.
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Feb 21, 2018 17:58
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totalnewbie posted:Speaking of thermostats, I installed a thermostat over the weekend. I even had to buy a drill bit to put another hole in the stone tile where my old one was, because it had two holes on top left/right and one in the bottom middle (big rectangular thing) and I replaced it with a Nest, which just has one at the top and one at the bottom. Just make sure you put it back before the realtor takes pictures. Or just don't bring it up. If the biggest issue in your house is 2 random screw holes in the wall you're doing good.
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Feb 21, 2018 18:26
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Oh I didn’t know that. We just had our entire HVAC system replaced in 2016 so hopefully our thermostat has something like that. For now I’ll just go off a visual of the filter when I pull it out. It’s over a year old now and I have two cats.
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Feb 21, 2018 18:28
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totalnewbie posted:Hey, I officially "did some stuff around the house". Whoop. Congratulations, you've done more than most people ever will. You are now officially "handy".
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Feb 21, 2018 18:39
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 Ohdear  What have we done?!?
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Feb 21, 2018 18:41
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All I see is ASSSS
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Feb 21, 2018 19:12
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Potrzebie posted:
You bought a house with some very good locks and some very bad locks.
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Feb 21, 2018 19:16
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Man I just had my wife's uncle quote us for a set of outside L shaped deck stairs - $5,700. That's with a $1,000 family discount. We had budgeted $2k for it. Houses are expensive.
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Feb 21, 2018 19:23
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Potrzebie posted:
Made it so you should rekey your house? 
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Feb 21, 2018 20:01
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H110Hawk posted:Made it so you should rekey your house? Make a copy of the keys, test on every house you encounter, profit?
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Feb 21, 2018 22:05
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Potrzebie posted:
Given everyone on the internet a copy of your keys?
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Feb 22, 2018 03:10
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Lol god drat you nerds no one gives enough of a poo poo about your new money pit to dupe keys you posted online. Also you clearly bought an abandon apothecary or some poo poo with those keys.
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Feb 22, 2018 05:27
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My keys all read ASSSS, poo poo, and PISSSSSS
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Feb 22, 2018 08:21
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Secret Garden havin’ rear end
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Feb 22, 2018 13:16
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Anyone buy one of these 'hybrid' electric water heaters that are supposed to be way cheaper to run than older ones? The two manufacturers seem to be Rheem and A.O. Smith and I find lots of complaining about both along with effusive reviews but that also seems to be how trying to comparison shop house appliances goes. Do you get a plumber to install these or an electrician? Also, new house is great but I miss how anything breaks == call landlord versus trying to figure out what is a plumber, electrician, or generalist handyman problem.
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Feb 22, 2018 21:43
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QuarkJets posted:My keys all read ASSSS, poo poo, and PISSSSSS Front Door, Back Door, and Shed, duh whose doesn't.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:19
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FuzzySlippers posted:Anyone buy one of these 'hybrid' electric water heaters that are supposed to be way cheaper to run than older ones? The two manufacturers seem to be Rheem and A.O. Smith and I find lots of complaining about both along with effusive reviews but that also seems to be how trying to comparison shop house appliances goes. Do you use electricity or gas to heat your water? Honest to god boilers are hard to beat in terms of efficiency. It looks like they use a heat pump which is the current gold standard for electrically moving heat if your ambient conditions support it. It's going to depend heavily on your climate and location of the unit how much money you save. For example, if it's in air conditioned space with relatively warm tap water most of the year the savings will be negligible. (Think Texas in the summer.) You call a plumber. Make sure you run the math, as appliances approach >90% efficiency per joule of energy (watt, btu, whatever) you hit hugely diminishing returns. If you go from a 30 year old -> energy star modern efficient unit in ideal temperature conditions? Sure it's probably fine. If not? Probably just stick to something traditional but better insulated.
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Feb 22, 2018 22:34
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H110Hawk posted:Do you use electricity or gas to heat your water? Honest to god boilers are hard to beat in terms of efficiency. It looks like they use a heat pump which is the current gold standard for electrically moving heat if your ambient conditions support it. Thanks, this is Seattle so it says fairly cool but never gets absurdly Minnesota cold. We don't have AC. Currently we have a very old heater I'd guess it dates back to the original build (80s). We use electricity to heat because the house doesn't have a gas line (unfortunately). We also noticed when the upstairs bath overflow drains there is a slight leak in the downstairs ceiling near the water heater. Think we'd save money having the plumber come out and check that leak and do the install at the same time? I found our public utility offers rebates for buying one of these which would bring the price down near a cheap normal one. Their page does list some issues with heat pump water heaters tho. It says: "Because the heat pump exhausts cool air in the area where it is located, the water heater should be installed in a location that would isolate cool air, or is ducted to the outside. Examples are in a garage or unheated/unfinished basement, attic or crawlspace" the water heater is in our laundry room which doesn't have exhaust (except the dryer duct which doesn't count presumably since it is closed) and is on the first floor not an unfinished basement or anything.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:07
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We installed a tankless Rheem heater when we converted our house to natural gas. Also in Seattle. For the ducting, we just had the contractor send a 4” pvc pipe out the exterior wall of our laundry room. The only downside is that you don’t get instantaneous hot water with it. The good thing is once it heats up, you will never run out of hot water. Mine takes 30-40 seconds of running to get hot water going.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:18
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Speaking of water heaters, what about replacing the traditional ones with an on-demand one? What about a programmable one with a panel in another room? I've lived in places where you can control hot water temp from the kitchen or whatever and it was great, but I don't know how it is in the context of replacing what I already have.
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Feb 22, 2018 23:19
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FuzzySlippers posted:We also noticed when the upstairs bath overflow drains there is a slight leak in the downstairs ceiling near the water heater. Think we'd save money having the plumber come out and check that leak and do the install at the same time? You know what will save you more money? Not having your house end up having a 2nd floor bathtub in your 1st floor water heater closet. Call a loving plumber. FuzzySlippers posted:Thanks, this is Seattle so it says fairly cool but never gets absurdly Minnesota cold. We don't have AC. Currently we have a very old heater I'd guess it dates back to the original build (80s). We use electricity to heat because the house doesn't have a gas line (unfortunately). Ducting is going to be cheap and easy. It's going to be more money to repair one of these things, so you should price them both compared to your potential savings. You will be using (in a sense) your general central heating (resistive? heat pump+resistive?) to heat the air in your house, this will then heat the water in your tank, making up for any deficiencies with resistive heating. If you have to repair the unit once for $500 then you might be way underwater ( ) compared to a regular one.
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Feb 23, 2018 00:09
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Oh I'm definitely getting a plumber asap I was just dithering on whether to rush buy a water heater too. This new house ownership thing makes me terrified of anything structural on it.
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Feb 23, 2018 01:33
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The person who tiled my shower grouted over the drain's "+" holes in the screw heads, so I can't get the screws out to remove the drain cover. I need to get a hairball out. I prefer to not use chemical dissolvers, and am not thrilled on the idea of pulling chunks out with needle nose pliers or a coat hanger. Is there a way to get this grout out of my screws?
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Feb 24, 2018 03:41
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Do you own a dremel or know someone who does?
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Feb 24, 2018 04:02
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Good idea, thanks. Charging its battery now. I don't think any of the attachments are skinny enough for this little screw head though. My husband is currently chiseling it with a screwdriver, we'll see how that goes. Apparently this is how I spend my Friday nights now in my 30s  edit: Screw is out; hairball is out!  
Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 04:14
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Feb 26, 2018 00:26
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Congrats. My kids love that water table.
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Feb 26, 2018 00:42
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H110Hawk posted:loving joys of homeownership my furnace isn't transitioning from the initial test airflow stage to the "fire" stage. It's going to get down to 32f here tonight and my fragile Los Angeles skin cannot take the bitter cold. My rugged Chicago skin insists your pipes won’t freeze and to grab a few more blankets
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Feb 26, 2018 02:01
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minivanmegafun posted:My rugged Chicago skin insists your pipes won’t freeze and to grab a few more blankets Too late I died
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Feb 26, 2018 02:21
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Thought you guys might get a kick out of this. My girlfriend and I bought a house about a year ago and the kitchen was a wreck but we decided we would live with it as is for 2-5 years before we had it renovated. Somehow in between the home inspection and us moving in all the electric outlets in the kitchen stopped working except for the one where the refrigerator was plugged in. My girlfriend used this lack of electricity to talk me into accelerating our kitchen renovation plans so we went about finding a contractor and ended up hiring a company to do the design and remodel. During the demolition of the old kitchen and laundry room, I think it was the second day of the whole project, they were ripping out the sub-floors in the laundry room and one of the workers dropped his crowbar and didn't hear it hit the ground. He thought that was weird so they started carefully removing the sub-floor in that area.  That looks weird. Let's keep removing more sub-floor.  The house we bought had two additions on it and I guess for the second one they just built right over the old 22 foot deep well that was on the property. They didn't even make an attempt to seal it up. The well is dry when there is no rain but if it rains (or snow melts) it fills with water. So the sub-floor and floor joists were rotten from all the moisture coming out of the well. Luckily sealing the well and replacing the floor joists only cost us an extra ~$1,600. Possibly saved us a lot of money in the long run if that part of our house had started to collapse. Lyon fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Feb 26, 2018 |
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Feb 26, 2018 09:35
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Whelp, that's the stuff off nightmares, thanks for that. E: just to be clear, murder/grudge well monster house I'm perfectly fine with, it's the expensive unknown repairs that keep me up at night. Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Feb 26, 2018 |
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Feb 26, 2018 13:28
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Lyon posted:Thought you guys might get a kick out of this. My girlfriend and I bought a house about a year ago and the kitchen was a wreck but we decided we would live with it as is for 2-5 years before we had it renovated. Somehow in between the home inspection and us moving in all the electric outlets in the kitchen stopped working except for the one where the refrigerator was plugged in. My girlfriend used this lack of electricity to talk me into accelerating our kitchen renovation plans so we went about finding a contractor and ended up hiring a company to do the design and remodel. Oh cool, you bought buffalo bills house
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Feb 26, 2018 13:37
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Did he get his crowbar back?
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Feb 26, 2018 14:34
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Don't they find a well under some floorboards in The Ring? Watch out OP, maybe don't watch any VHS tapes.
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Feb 26, 2018 14:49
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How would they go about sealing it?
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Feb 26, 2018 15:03
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I imagine putting some filler in there but stopping every 8-10 ft to drop in a couple of playboys for historical record.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:10
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meat police posted:How would they go about sealing it? Catholic Priest from the exorcist.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:11
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meat police posted:How would they go about sealing it? If it's into the water table it needs to be slurry filled so groundwater can't end up down there and gently caress things up for every else's wells. For $1,600 - I doubt that was done nor DEP permits pulled.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:47
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meat police posted:How would they go about sealing it? Start with an unbroken circle of salt.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:51
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Motronic posted:If it's into the water table it needs to be slurry filled so groundwater can't end up down there and gently caress things up for every else's wells. Correct, we did not fill it nor did we pull any permits. No one has actual wells here (mandated city water) so there is no worry about groundwater loving up anyone else's wells. The contractor essentially dug around the well, ran rebar, mesh, then more rebar, and then cemented over it. After that they covered the entire floor (included the section with the well) in a plastic sheeting meant to prevent moisture from getting into the house from the ground as it was just dirt underneath the joists. Structurally he likened it to building a deck over the well and it was perfectly safe to walk on. I was in Toronto for work when this happened and my girlfriend slept with the lights on until I got home because she was freaked out. McStabby posted:Did he get his crowbar back? The crowbar is forever sealed in the well, RIP. We planned to put together a time capsule but didn't really know what to put in it and weren't sure what would survive for a long time with the fact that water does partially fill it after a heavy rain. Lyon fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Feb 26, 2018 |
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Feb 26, 2018 16:11
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