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Motronic posted:Compressor is hosed. Time to search the classifieds I guess.
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Jul 12, 2018 02:46
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 And we're 95% done! Grouted yesterday. The contractor did a great job undoing several layers of stupid halfassery which resulted in a hump in the floor. Now instead of a hump and 1.5" of drop in 3 ft it's flat and nearly level based on the available thresholds. Most of it was just using a thinner subfloor under the hardibacker in the 6" of threshold where they poured a cement wall for the addition. 2 extra cuts of subfloor but you had to actually, you know, take the time to look. Just need to replace the dryer and screw down 1 transition. New washer comes Saturday! He was great with my kid too who wanted to watch. Took a trimming and cut+polished the edges into 6 little tiles my kid could play with while he watched.
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Jul 15, 2018 16:55
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H110Hawk posted:He was great with my kid too who wanted to watch. Took a trimming and cut+polished the edges into 6 little tiles my kid could play with while he watched. 
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Jul 15, 2018 17:15
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Okay so a home project just changed in scope. We had some carpet in an eventual bedroom that we didn't like. So we decided to do the easy thing and buy some okay pergo laminate to replace it. We ripped up the carpet today, saw the expected faded dark grey (with pink, yellow, and mint stripes) vinyl tile underneath. But then we saw the area where a couple tiles came up and looked. And there's original late 1800's thick hardwood plank flooring underneath the tile adhesive, most likely in all three bedrooms of the house. We would prefer that over the pergo. Does anyone have experience in restoring hardwood from really stupid decisions by previous homeowners? It doesn't seem like there is a lot of damage besides the adhesive (although who knows what lurks beneath the remaining 2/3 of the vinyl). If it's too far gone we can still do the laminate, but I don't want to pass up the much nicer material if I can help it. 
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Jul 15, 2018 22:27
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Rent a floor sander from your local hardware store.
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Jul 15, 2018 22:31
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Oh my goodness, restoring that old floor would totally be worth it if the majority of it is in good condition (like no major past water damage) and SO much nicer than laminate (and amazing for added value to the house of you want to sell down the road). My fiancé and I recently bought an old Victorian and just finished restoring the floors in the attic. Various previous owners had painted, painted, carpeted, painted, painted, and then painted this poor pine plank floor. It looked disgusting, and so filthy and messed up that we feared that there was water damage or something. But nope, floor was perfect underneath all that paint. With the help of relatives and heavy duty sanders rented from Home Depot (and purchase of an orbital and a mouse sander), we sanded off all the layers of paint, then conditioned and stained the wood and gave it a few coats of polyurethane. It looks brand new now. Our work wasn't perfect (first time we'd restored a floor), so if you know where to look you can see some gouges and unevenness from sanding, but it still looks fantastic. If you're worried about wrecking the floor with a big sander (they can be unwieldy), you can use a smaller sander with finer grain sandpaper (like starting with 80 grit instead of 50) which will be safer but will take exponentially longer and be unbelievably tedious. But if you're just sanding off adhesive and not six layers of paint, you might be able to get away doing it that way as to reduce risk of damaging the floor if you're inexperienced with giant floor sanders.
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Jul 15, 2018 23:00
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Yeah I would be careful with delicate old flooring especially if it’s a soft wood. Not the type of thing I personally would want to learn on.
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Jul 15, 2018 23:41
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BadSamaritan posted:Okay so a home project just changed in scope. I had floor that looked worse that came out quite nice. Time will tell as you uncover more - As others have said, water stains may be hiding, and they tend to go deep enough that it can be hard/impossible to sand out. The other issue is gaps. Old floors have had a long time to move around, and can be real gappy. You can fill them, but larger ones will always be visible. Some people will call it character, others will call it a defect.
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Jul 16, 2018 02:33
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BadSamaritan posted:Okay so a home project just changed in scope. That’s almost certainly asbestos tile and/or mastic.
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Jul 16, 2018 12:15
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BigFactory posted:That’s almost certainly asbestos tile and/or mastic. We were worried about this too! We were able to find an old package wrapper from the late 80’s (manf. 1987) under the basement steps, so they’re likely past the asbestos cut-off date. Unfortunately a few of the other rooms in this house have old chip-print sheet vinyl under carpet- hopefully the master bedroom is not this case. Either way, for the rest of the demo we’re planning on suiting up appropriately.
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Jul 16, 2018 12:28
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BadSamaritan posted:We were worried about this too! We were able to find an old package wrapper from the late 80’s (manf. 1987) under the basement steps, so they’re likely past the asbestos cut-off date. Unfortunately a few of the other rooms in this house have old chip-print sheet vinyl under carpet- hopefully the master bedroom is not this case. If they’re 6”x6” or especially 9”x9” tiles they’re vinyl asbestos tiles. If they’re 12x12s they might not be. Find an asbestos testing lab near you, put a sample of each kind of tile in a ziplock bag, and scrape samples of the black mastic into separate bags, label them so you know which style is which. For 20 bucks you’ll know whether you have a problem or not. “Suiting up” is useless if you’re contaminating your entire house with fibers, not to mention exposing people who handle the waste after you.
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Jul 16, 2018 12:37
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BadSamaritan posted:We were worried about this too! We were able to find an old package wrapper from the late 80’s (manf. 1987) under the basement steps, so they’re likely past the asbestos cut-off date. Unfortunately a few of the other rooms in this house have old chip-print sheet vinyl under carpet- hopefully the master bedroom is not this case. I removed similar looking vinyl tiles from both a quarry tiles floor and a wooden plank floor I found that these type of scrapers along with a hot air gun was the way to remove the bulk of the tiles themselves.  My tiles came up largely intact when i did them like this which should limit your asbestos exposure (please buy the right mask and filters for this - they don't cost much!). Seal off other rooms using plastic sheets and tape to limit the mess. The scrapers here take razor blades. buy lots of spare blades! You will also end up with bruised and sore hands. After the tiles are removed you will end up with lots of sticky glue residue. I found that on the tiles paint stripper along with the scraper and wire wool (I used a pack of plumbers wire wool as it was cheapest and you can just chuck it when it is clogged) got it up pretty well but is not pleasant to use. On the wooden floor it is harder to get the adhesive off. I ended up using warm water/sugar soap with wire wool and the scraper for a first pass. The warm sugar soap solution softened the glue on mine. Then more scraping along with some sanding with 60 grit paper and repeat over the next few days as it dries and you find the sticky patches. A hand held belt sander with the coarsest belt you can find will also work but big patches of adhesive will mean that you get through belts very quickly.
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Jul 16, 2018 15:26
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Also consider an oscillating multitool for lifting tiles, they have flat attachments which scoot under the tile.
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Jul 16, 2018 15:41
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BigFactory posted:For 20 bucks you’ll know whether you have a problem or not. “Suiting up” is useless if you’re contaminating your entire house with fibers, not to mention exposing people who handle the waste after you. Agreed. ESPECIALLY about the mastic/adhesive. It's been a while since I worked in asbestos abatement, but I seem to recall that even after tiles no longer had asbestos in them, it stuck around in the mastic. It can be expensive to have someone professionally remove it, so if you don't want to go that route (depending on where you live, local regulations might allow residential homeowners to remove it themselves,) make sure to do it properly. If all you were doing is ripping up the tiles and putting laminate over, I'd say you might be able to get by with just suits and masks, because the vinyl and mastic are non-friable. But if you're going to be sanding if all off down to the wood, then you'll be flinging that poo poo ALL up into the air. As said, it's not just putting on a suit and respirator. You need to seal off that room from the rest of the house. Ideally you'd get a negative pressure set up by lining the walls and ceiling with thick plastic, and putting a VERY large fan in a window that has a HEPA filter, but I'm not sure how easy it is to find one of those for rent. Even without the fan, you'll still need to line walls with plastic. And then to dispose of it, you need to put them in double-lined contractor grade bags sealed with duct tape (fill the first bag, twist it shut, wrap several layers of tape around where you twisted, then put it in the second bag and repeat), and you should ask around your state/county landfills/transfer stations to see if they have special rules for asbestos disposal. Asbestos sucks, yeah, but asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma suck worse.
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Jul 18, 2018 13:16
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Sorry if this has been covered a ton but I'm about to purchase my first home with original shag carpeting from 1977. I want to replace it with a mixture of hardwood in the upstairs, and some other hard non-wood flooring in the kitchen, bathrooms, and lower level. I will be hiring someone to do the installation. What's the best way to go about this? Buy from a retail store that also handles the installation or buy the flooring separately and try to find a good contractor on my own? Any good resources for this? Thanks!
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Jul 18, 2018 16:17
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willroc7 posted:Sorry if this has been covered a ton but I'm about to purchase my first home with original shag carpeting from 1977. I want to replace it with a mixture of hardwood in the upstairs, and some other hard non-wood flooring in the kitchen, bathrooms, and lower level. I will be hiring someone to do the installation. What's the best way to go about this? Buy from a retail store that also handles the installation or buy the flooring separately and try to find a good contractor on my own? Any good resources for this? Thanks! I can't speak with authority for your locale but round here if you go to a retail place they're going to hire the job out to contractors anyway, and you'll get better prices buying online, but you have to make do with delivery samples.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:22
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I did just order a butt-ton of samples. Also, what's the collective wisdom on bamboo? I live in northeast Ohio so there are big humidity swings, and lots of them. The home will have a whole house humidifier and dehumidifier, however.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:28
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To start I would recommend asking friend/family for referrals and if you can see the work they did. Angie's list is also free now but referrals also take the cake for me.
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Jul 18, 2018 17:13
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How does one go about finishing a basement with an interior french drain? I assume one would have to seal the channel somehow first before you put a wall in front of it first?
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Jul 20, 2018 00:53
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willroc7 posted:I did just order a butt-ton of samples. Also, what's the collective wisdom on bamboo? I live in northeast Ohio so there are big humidity swings, and lots of them. The home will have a whole house humidifier and dehumidifier, however. I don't know how they handle humidity swings but I had them in Alaska where it's very humid and my dad has them in CO where it's very dry. My experience in both areas is that they're relatively inexpensive and relatively hard/ding resistant. My dad's are ~8 years old and still look pretty much brand new. I only had mine for about a year, in the foyer, and they also still looked great. Performed much better than the engineered walnut veneer floors I had more recently.
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Jul 20, 2018 03:14
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Putrid Grin posted:How does one go about finishing a basement with an interior french drain? Our basement gets a little seepage after we waterproofed the exterior, but previously got lots of it during storms. If the interior perimeter drain still gets a decent amount of water in it I personally would be reticent to wall it off so that you could not get to it. We're lucky in that our front wall is more or less the only problem area, so it's okay that the finished half has a side wall that denies access to directly visualizing the junction of the stone wall and the non-contemporaneous concrete foundation. So the options are either lose a lot of floor space by making the wall cavity walkable (which we have in one spot, and it's where the A/C air handler is), or find another way to make the area accessible. If I were refinishing our basement, I'd frame it with metal studs like it is now, and put in wainscotting with access panels where panels were actually removable and held onto the studs with magnets. The frames hide the seams and you just pop them off to access the sump pump (if you have one), wiring, plumbing, etc.
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Jul 20, 2018 15:46
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I just had my deck pressure washed and sanded and had all the old grey removed. I want to apply a new stain/sealer. Are there any good combo brands or would I be better off staining then sealing after? I was hoping to do it in 1 go if possible as I have dogs and their only access to the grass is from the deck, so it would be ideal to limit the time they can't access it. Not that I'm against just walking them, but one is a puppy and has to go out often during the night still. Edit: Right now Im looking at one of these. Any thoughts? 
keep it down up there! fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 17:09
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According to Consumer Reports testing no transparent sealants last longer than a year so don't seem worth messing with, semi-transparents last around 2 years, and some solid sealants are still going strong after 3 years. Check out Behr Premium Semi-Transparent sealer.
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Jul 20, 2018 18:26
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While we’re on the issue of sealants, does anyone have a recommendation for a paver/concrete sealant? I had a paver patio installed recently with dark gray brick but heavy efflorescence has left it looking light gray with whitish splotches. I’m looking to give it a “wet” kind of look without looking glossy. Any thoughts?
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Jul 20, 2018 21:15
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Can anyone recommend pest control options? I bought a small cape cod style house that was constructed in 1955 and is mostly original, even down to the used razor blade slot in the bathroom sink cabinet. I have fixed most of the broken stuff but the thing that confounds me is ants in my kitchen, and cobwebs in my partially finished basement. I keep my kitchen really clean, but every couple of days I find a couple of ants in the sink, and inside my dishwasher sometimes. I'm assuming they're looking for moisture or bits of Cocoa Puff milk. I think they're coming in from outside but I've soaked the perimeter of the house and all the outside pipes with ant control barrier spray and have ant traps in the kitchen. It's minor but it happens often enough to be irritating. Would ant barrier spray be ok to spray on the floor of the kitchen, behind the dishwasher/sink drainpipe, or in the basement where the water supply pipes are? Is there something I can do for cobweb spiders? like, I have put things in the basement, gone to the store and come back 30 minutes later to find a small cobweb on it. It's unsetting.
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Jul 21, 2018 05:28
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keep it down up there! posted:I just had my deck pressure washed and sanded and had all the old grey removed. I want to apply a new stain/sealer. Are there any good combo brands or would I be better off staining then sealing after? I haven’t used the deck sealants but I hate Behr paint with a passion. Does Home Depot carry other brands?
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Jul 21, 2018 11:48
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red19fire posted:Can anyone recommend pest control options? I bought a small cape cod style house that was constructed in 1955 and is mostly original, even down to the used razor blade slot in the bathroom sink cabinet. I have fixed most of the broken stuff but the thing that confounds me is ants in my kitchen, and cobwebs in my partially finished basement. I keep my kitchen really clean, but every couple of days I find a couple of ants in the sink, and inside my dishwasher sometimes. I'm assuming they're looking for moisture or bits of Cocoa Puff milk. I think they're coming in from outside but I've soaked the perimeter of the house and all the outside pipes with ant control barrier spray and have ant traps in the kitchen. It's minor but it happens often enough to be irritating. Grab some of these: https://www.walmart.com/ip/TERRO-6-Pack-Liquid-Ant-Baits/17165156 For the first couple of days the ants will swarm all over them, then nothing. They take the bait back to the nest and it kills them all. We had a huge ant issue when we bought our house, laid these and it went away for a couple years. Eventually new ants move in, and you do it again.
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Jul 21, 2018 14:10
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keep it down up there! posted:I just had my deck pressure washed and sanded and had all the old grey removed. I want to apply a new stain/sealer. Are there any good combo brands or would I be better off staining then sealing after? I've been very happy with the stuff from these guys - http://usetwp.com/. Anything you put on is going to need re coating, so a big part of my search was looking for something with minimal stripping/prep required between applications. With this, expect to re-coat flat surfaces about every 3 years, vertical surfaces can go longer - I'm on year four for those and plan to re-do it next year. South-facing vertical surfaces are starting to look fairly faded. This is all oil-based and while it needs a good cleaning before a new application, nothing needs to be stripped. If the wood will suck it in, you can put it on. I used the TWP 100 series, which is rather high VOC and is not allowed in some states. I used their "cedartone" color which was the first level that had any real pigment, gives it some additional UV stability. Does come out a bit orange-y on pressure treated wood. Lessons learned: -Wood needs to be totally dry -Do not apply in direct sunlight, this can cause too fast of a flash off resulting in a gummy/non-absorbed mess -Because of those two points, if you can, rig up a tarp awning or something over the whole deck and you'll have a much easier time of it -vertical surfaces suck, do them first with drop cloths under -Keep a wet edge -If you do overlap onto already stained surfaces, wipe off right away and it won't cause any issues. Otherwise, expect a poorly cured area that will take a very long time to really dry out. -Needs frequent stirring; I worked from a 5 gallon pail with an attachment on my drill. Vapors and incidental contact with the rubber on the drill handle mean that I now have a lovely drill for mixing, and a new good drill for actual use... -Work with an assistant for best results.
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Jul 21, 2018 14:43
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red19fire posted:Can anyone recommend pest control options? . 2nd Terro for the ants. And for the cobwebs/spiders grab some Suspend SC from Amazon.
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Jul 21, 2018 15:43
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keep it down up there! posted:I just had my deck pressure washed and sanded and had all the old grey removed. I want to apply a new stain/sealer. Are there any good combo brands or would I be better off staining then sealing after? Personally, I like Schaeffer's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6c4Nupnup0 red19fire posted:Can anyone recommend pest control options? I bought a small cape cod style house that was constructed in 1955 and is mostly original, even down to the used razor blade slot in the bathroom sink cabinet. I have fixed most of the broken stuff but the thing that confounds me is ants in my kitchen, and cobwebs in my partially finished basement. I keep my kitchen really clean, but every couple of days I find a couple of ants in the sink, and inside my dishwasher sometimes. I'm assuming they're looking for moisture or bits of Cocoa Puff milk. I think they're coming in from outside but I've soaked the perimeter of the house and all the outside pipes with ant control barrier spray and have ant traps in the kitchen. It's minor but it happens often enough to be irritating. https://www.domyown.com/ants-c-1.html (As always, don't miss the "How To" links at the top for an in-depth guide) The Outdoor/indoor kit provides some options. Tarsus SC for outside (although it sounds like you have that covered for now), Temprid for indoors. The product you already have for outdoors should either be listed in the label for indoor use (probably cracks/crevices) or labeled as ourdoor only. If it's labeled for indoors then yeah what you'd want to do is put it behind cabinets/in inaccessible areas, along the tops/bottoms of baseboards, and around openings. The Terro traps are great. The baits on the DoMyOwn site are also good. Suspend SC and Temprid will work for indoors as well. Hubis fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 17:15
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Before the weather closes in, I'm getting a new roof put on my garage, handled by some roofers that I've used before who are pretty on the ball.   The plan is for them to replace the rotten boards/felt, add a couple of light tunnels at the rear of the roof, replace those 4x3" ties with larger planed ones, and then insulate and panel the inside of the roof (which is why I want the ties to look nice) The main reason I'm posting, is that before I insulate and panel out the walls, I've got to sort the floor. The floor is unfinished concrete, but for some unknown reason the builders decided that there was no need to level or even out the material - so there are sections 1/2" taller than the average, and areas 1/2" lower. Speaking to a friend, he suggested pouring epoxy, but it looks like that really starts to become problematic over 1/2" total, so I've been looking for alternatives. It seems a skim/resurfacing of 3/4" above the average might be a solution. I'd need it sealed, so I gather that would imply an epoxy ontop as well? or if not then some kind of concrete polish/sealer? Here's the rough idea of the floor (you can see top right where it's a different texture for some unknown reason):  I'll probably get someone in to do the work, but just wondering if there's anything else I should bear in mind? I'm lifting weights in there, but any areas where I could reasonably drop them are covered in horse-stall matting. I'm considering the garage 50/50 between tools and a home gym, but I'm spending 4-5 hours a week in there and getting a mouthful of spider web and filthy hands is really sapping my motivation - it's gonna be really difficult motivating myself to go down there when it's cold, chucking it down with rain, etc. if it's miserable inside. I'm fairly confident I could do the interior walls myself, since it'll be warm, dry and with lots of space and no time constraints, but I'm considering the roof/floor/walls as three separate projects to be executed in sequence. Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jul 22, 2018 |
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Jul 22, 2018 18:08
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Southern Heel posted:just wondering if there's anything else I should bear in mind? I can't be 100% just off the photo but the blocks your walls are made of look like a type that's particularly soft and crumbly. That doesn't matter much for their main purpose of holding up the roof, but do check on that before hanging anything very heavy off them, like dumbbell racks or whatever. Can't think of anything else, though.
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Jul 22, 2018 18:32
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Southern Heel posted:The floor is unfinished concrete, but for some unknown reason the builders decided that there was no need to level or even out the material - so there are sections 1/2" taller than the average, and areas 1/2" lower. Speaking to a friend, he suggested pouring epoxy, but it looks like that really starts to become problematic over 1/2" total, so I've been looking for alternatives. It seems a skim/resurfacing of 3/4" above the average might be a solution. I think this is the exact reason self leveling concrete exists.
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Jul 22, 2018 20:21
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I'm thinking that the end result would hopefully look like this, albeit much less acutely angled: One of the builders said that if they were going to do a roof from scratch, they wouldn't even use ties - that seems like crazy talk to me but pinterest has numerous examples. Jaded Burnout posted:I can't be 100% just off the photo but the blocks your walls are made of look like a type that's particularly soft and crumbly. That doesn't matter much for their main purpose of holding up the roof, but do check on that before hanging anything very heavy off them, like dumbbell racks or whatever. That's a good shout. My plates/dumbbells are on the floor at the moment but I'll probably use trees/toasters to hold them now you've said that. H110Hawk posted:I think this is the exact reason self leveling concrete exists. IKR the previous owners were absolute numpties and so anything that could possibly have been done on the cheap, was done so - there are three discrete blocks which have different textures, one of which has the extra bits ontop and another with a hole in the middle. I can only assume they poured it on different days, added too much gravel, and decided they didn't want to waste any of it.
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Jul 22, 2018 20:45
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If you need layout/rack ideas reddit has a home gym setup sub. I toy with putting a gym addition on my house but know I can push myself as hard as my coaches do.
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Jul 22, 2018 21:10
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I'm fairly sure i know the answer to this, but just so I'm clear - putting up insulation and panelling into a garage roof is something I pay someone else to do, right? Once the floor is levelled, I'm thinking of doing the walls myself (builders have suggested they would use insulated plasterboard i.e. this directly against the concrete blocks of the structure.) since at least that way I can make sure I route cable troughs/etc. as I want without having to babysit them constantly.
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Jul 28, 2018 08:48
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Southern Heel posted:I'm fairly sure i know the answer to this, but just so I'm clear - putting up insulation and panelling into a garage roof is something I pay someone else to do, right? Shrug. Depends on your taste for money vs labour. It's not particularly hard but it's physically demanding and you probably want a helper.
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Jul 28, 2018 09:03
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Rent a drywall panel lift, and it's a pretty easy job to do a ceiling solo.
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Jul 28, 2018 15:17
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We are selling our old house and my in laws switched out the newer oven for their old one. I tried cleaning the oven off with degreaser and it’s taking off the numbers/text around the dials! Is there a way to get the built up grease off without taking the numbers off, too?
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Jul 29, 2018 06:39
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Jaded Burnout posted:Shrug. Depends on your taste for money vs labour. It's not particularly hard but it's physically demanding and you probably want a helper. Enos Cabell posted:Rent a drywall panel lift, and it's a pretty easy job to do a ceiling solo. Gotcha - they have quoted £1k to line, insulate and panel about 30sqm - seems that the materials will be roughly £300 and rental of a panel lift roughly £100 for the weekend. How long roughly should I budget for it, assuming I'm doing it basically by myself?
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Jul 29, 2018 08:18
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