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My house came with a free pocket knife!
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# ? Aug 5, 2018 02:44 |
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# ? May 22, 2024 16:00 |
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Fallom posted:I checked out a custom blind shop and they quoted me $700 per window at a minimum. You can get wooden blinds at Home Depot or Lowe’s that they’ll size for you in store and aren’t remotely difficult to install. God I'd hate to think what the previous owners paid for these blinds here - we've got 10 large windows with custom wood blinds. They couldn't take them to the new house because of the size, so they left them for us. Probably should stop having my kid play with them.
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# ? Aug 5, 2018 03:57 |
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I need to replace some fencing. Here's what a section of what it looked like before: Here's a satisfyingly large pile of it that I just got rid of: I'm not replacing most of it; my main goal was to open up the yard. However, I do want to replace two panels for privacy purposes. For those sections, I left the fence posts in place. I kept one of the pickets as a guide for the shadowboxing, and the dimensions match up with this, so getting a bunch of new pickets seems pretty straightforward. I do have some questions, though: - For the horizontal pieces, are those called "fence rails"? Is this the kind of thing I'm looking for? - I know I'll need a circular saw to cut the horizontal pieces just right and a nail gun to attach the pickets. Are there any other tools I should get ahold of, like a power washer to try to remove the old layer of paint from the fence posts? - Is there any particular kind of paint I should use for wood fencing? Do I need to prime it first or put on some kind of sealant after? - Any advice for putting up fencing, sans fence posts? Thanks!
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 01:36 |
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surf rock posted:I need to replace some fencing. Here's what a section of what it looked like before: You might find a nice mitre saw to be more useful in the future for not much more money. It's basically a circular saw on a mount.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 01:47 |
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H110Hawk posted:You might find a nice mitre saw to be more useful in the future for not much more money. It's basically a circular saw on a mount. And to elaborate on this - the circular saw is capable of cutting long pieces, like sheets of plywood or whatever. The mitre saw is just safe and precise and generally can do 90% of everything that you're likely to ever want to do.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 02:05 |
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surf rock posted:I need to replace some fencing. Here's what a section of what it looked like before: You might consider replacing the posts first, replacing the posts is going to be a bit easier with no fence and it's something that you'll have to do soon anyway. In fact usually you need to replace the posts several times before you need to replace the fencing itself, assuming the posts are also wood. Since the posts are basically standalone you could lever them out of their holes and drop in new posts without having to dig new holes You don't want a circular saw for the horizontal pieces, you want a miter saw. A miter saw will cut a lot easier and more precisely It's good to prime first but a lot of outdoor paints come with primer. A coat of some sort of sealant afterward can help the paint last longer but is optional When putting up fencing one plank at a time I think it's best to start from the bottom and work up, if you wound up misestimating the number of planks or the width of the planks then it's a lot easier to fix the issue if you started from the bottom QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Aug 6, 2018 |
# ? Aug 6, 2018 02:14 |
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skipdogg posted:I'll probably just wait a year and sign up for the monthly flat rate program where you overpay in the winter to help offset the summer bills. potatoducks posted:Ended up getting a 5 ton AC unit and variable speed fan furnace installed for 13k. Couldn't do dual zone unfortunately because of how our ducts are set up, so we plan to compensate by keeping the fan running at all times as well as use an Ecobee with sensors on both floors. We also needed a horizontal condenser unit due to a required 3 foot offset in the sideyard so that added an extra 1.5k. (If I do new flooring and appliances before replacing the HVAC, the HVAC will die and I will have to raid my efund, won't I? Law of house expenses or something, I assume?) SpartanIvy posted:Unfortunately not. The vents aren't just rectangles. They are made up of like 6 different triangles so even if I ripped out the mesh you couldn't fit anything bigger than a smallish pipe through. Complicating things even more is that those are on the brick facade, and there's another set of vents behind them that are offset somewhat. So I couldn't even make use of the entire vent width if I busted the whole thing out of the facade. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Presumably the utility starts developing energy storage systems, which I have to assume are cheaper to run than generators. If nothing else, their inputs and outputs are solely electricity and maybe water/steam. Buy power at wholesale rates, keep it for a bit, then sell it at market rates; sounds simple enough. Gin_Rummy posted:I would’ve, but I wasn’t home to do so. I left my girlfriend there with my credit card assuming it’d be no problem to swipe it... CloFan posted:If you still have the original carb, you should disassemble and clean it. Running aftermarket carbs can be a pain in the rear end to tune, and the old one is probably serviceable with some TLC. https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/642/how-do-i-know-when-to-change-my-spark-plug/649 Check the chart in the answer post QuarkJets posted:You might consider replacing the posts first, replacing the posts is going to be a bit easier with no fence and it's something that you'll have to do soon anyway. In fact usually you need to replace the posts several times before you need to replace the fencing itself, assuming the posts are also wood. Since the posts are basically standalone you could lever them out of their holes and drop in new posts without having to dig new holes
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 02:45 |
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The miter saw is not a hard requirement; circular saws can do crosscuts just fine. It's easier to do accurate crosscuts on a miter saw, but if you want to only get one saw that can do everything (so long as you're willing to do the work to set up every single cut), then a circular saw is the way to go. If you need to cut a bunch of fence posts/boards to the same length, you should be able to line them up on a table or whatever, mark your line, put something heavy on them so they don't move, and then just zip down the line cutting every piece.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 03:04 |
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Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm not invested in the saw choice (I don't own or have experience using either, so I either get one and learn how to use it regardless), I'll go with the miter if that's better for this project. I am a little wary about the idea of replacing the fence posts, though. I took out four posts and it was a major hassle (I tried using a farm lift approach from YouTube and it didn't work; the concrete bases were really wide). The three fence posts I'm working with for this project all seem solidly in place and don't have visibly rotting wood. I really don't want to dig them up and get into a situation where I'm pouring concrete for new posts or something like that, especially since I don't anticipate being in the house for more than another 5-7 years and I have a hard time believing that the current posts will have given out by then. Am I looking at this the wrong way?
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 03:45 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The miter saw is not a hard requirement; circular saws can do crosscuts just fine. It's easier to do accurate crosscuts on a miter saw, but if you want to only get one saw that can do everything (so long as you're willing to do the work to set up every single cut), then a circular saw is the way to go. Yeah that's all true. A circular saw is more generally useful for sure, yet on a usage-per-week basis I think I get a lot more use out of my miter saw despite that (and it's hella safer... I think)
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 04:35 |
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surf rock posted:Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm not invested in the saw choice (I don't own or have experience using either, so I either get one and learn how to use it regardless), I'll go with the miter if that's better for this project. I think in 5-7 years you'll probably need to replace the posts, but there's no way to really know for sure. Maybe try digging around 2 of the posts to check how well they're holding up and go from there? Some of us are looking at this as saving you more time and effort later than what you'd spend now, but if you're not the owner when the posts need replacing and you lack certain morals then you could just skip the post replacement, sure QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Aug 6, 2018 |
# ? Aug 6, 2018 04:41 |
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Spent most of Saturday deep cleaning the garage and organizing everything properly instead of continuing to let everything slowly spread out and accumulate. I spent a good few minutes just standing in my driveway looking into my garage with my hands on my hips admiring how clean and organized everything looked. What's wrong with me?
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 05:13 |
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Higgy posted:Spent most of Saturday deep cleaning the garage and organizing everything properly instead of continuing to let everything slowly spread out and accumulate.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 05:56 |
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Higgy posted:Spent most of Saturday deep cleaning the garage and organizing everything properly instead of continuing to let everything slowly spread out and accumulate. Homeownership
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 06:26 |
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Yeah that’s like a dream for me.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 12:47 |
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Are the fence posts pressure-treated? If so, they should last indefinitely, and the main cause for needing to remove them would be if they shifted and weren't adequately vertical any more. If they're not pressure-treated, then it's only a matter of time before they rot out and need to be replaced. If you really don't want to deal with removing them, you could always just cut them off at the base and dig new post holes next to them. Just leave the concrete in the ground.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 13:15 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Are the fence posts pressure-treated? If so, they should last indefinitely, and the main cause for needing to remove them would be if they shifted and weren't adequately vertical any more. I'm not sure how to tell if they're pressure-treated, since they're painted and I just know that pressure-treated wood turns green. I did hear from a neighbor that the fence has been up for more than 20 years and since I don't see rotting or instability with the posts, it seems likely to me that they are.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 13:54 |
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Pressure-treated wood usually has little divots in it, looks kind of like someone went down the post, tapping it with a chisel every inch or so. That should show through paint if the paint's not too thick. If you can't see it you could try scraping the paint off to get to the underlying wood surface.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 14:22 |
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Got the deck redone this weekend. The old one had really fallen into disrepair. Glad it's done.Higgy posted:Spent most of Saturday deep cleaning the garage and organizing everything properly instead of continuing to let everything slowly spread out and accumulate. Just the description of this was incredibly satisfying to me. Makes me want to put up my feet with a good World War 2 book and drink a pot of black coffee.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 14:50 |
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SpartanIvy posted:My house came with a free pocket knife! Looks like it's load-bearing to me
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 15:01 |
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I have a tiny shed that I get immense satisfaction out of organizing once a season. I can’t imagine what I would do with a garage in my life.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 17:30 |
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SiGmA_X posted:Could you elaborate on the duct issue for dual zone? I have a single zone (that is almost 20yo), but it goes to two distinct zones of the house with two discharges off the air handler - upstairs and downstairs. I hope it can be zoned when the time comes to drop...5~10k on it. I don't remember what the specific issue was. Maybe something about how they couldn't get to the ducts unless we started tearing down walls. All the HVAC contractors I spoke to said that it wasn't possible so I just took their word for it.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 17:57 |
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potatoducks posted:I don't remember what the specific issue was. Maybe something about how they couldn't get to the ducts unless we started tearing down walls. All the HVAC contractors I spoke to said that it wasn't possible so I just took their word for it.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 21:02 |
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My friends always joke about the water issues I have in my house but it's starting to get absurd. We dont get foundation leaks but all of the internal plumbing must've been DIY or a hack job. Flex pipe and poorly connected compression tubing have become disconnected over the past 6 months since we moved in. 2 weeks ago we discovered there is water getting behind our main bath shower and yesterday we found the onsuite shower leaks an incredible amount of water through the tiles and onto the basement floor. Basically gonna have to gut both bathrooms this year. Wish I had known that before I spent 40k on a new roof and solar. These are both fairly new bathrooms too. Very frustrating.
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# ? Aug 6, 2018 22:50 |
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We kind of have the opposite problem with our bathroom - I estimate that it was last remodeled sometime in the 1930s, and the only aspect of it that's still good is the pipes (and the sweet Art Deco tub). Everything else is literally crumbling and falling apart. Gotta get the tub unclogged though - while doing flooring work, stepfather-in-law dumped a mop bucket full of ultra fine sawdust down the tub and stopped it up pretty good. Drano only did so much. Has anyone gotten their tub clogged with sawdust before?
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 07:02 |
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We have one of those really old school tubs in the main bathroom that has an external drain, and I clogged it within days of moving in. I tried every single product and even a plumber couldn't unfuck it. Plumber recommended I try a product called Glug and after a few tries that finally worked
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 11:28 |
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Queen Victorian posted:Gotta get the tub unclogged though - while doing flooring work, stepfather-in-law dumped a mop bucket full of ultra fine sawdust down the tub and stopped it up pretty good. Drano only did so much. Has anyone gotten their tub clogged with sawdust before? I believe murder is the solution to that problem, wtf
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 13:58 |
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Sepist posted:We have one of those really old school tubs in the main bathroom that has an external drain, and I clogged it within days of moving in. I tried every single product and even a plumber couldn't unfuck it. Plumber recommended I try a product called Glug and after a few tries that finally worked Is it difficult having a spouse with a mentally handicapped parent? If it was me I'd crawl under my house and attempt to use the giant tub drain cleanout access and use a snake. A phone USB endoscope could help you see exactly how bad the clog is and where it is. Is it just the tub backed up or other drains too?
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 15:03 |
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I was able to keep my dishwasher going for a few weeks by doing some simple mechanical repair--I removed the washer arms and opened up the model, and in addition to huge solid wants of disgusting crud, there were some cherry pits and even a plastic cap and a couple loose screws in there. However, this didn't change the fact that the control board was hosed up, and not only do I not know anything about electronics, my wife and I gave up in frustration when I realized I didn't even have a set of torx bits to open it up. We were on the verge of buying a cheap dishwasher from Sears--like, at the checkout counter--when my alarm bells went off. I noticed that even the positive reviews for that model said "Eh, it doesn't actually clean at all, but what do you expect for the price?" I realized that the cost of an actually-worth-a-drat warranty and service agreement added up to more than the sticker price. I know that they don't build appliances to last, those days aren't coming back, and complaining about it is pointless--but at this point it felt like the company is just inviting me to gamble on whether or not their product will break in a week, unless I double the price. Might as well take my money to Atlantic City and hope I win enough to replace every appliance in my house. Anyway, we ended up getting a good deal on a Maytag model.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 15:38 |
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Ghostnuke posted:I believe murder is the solution to that problem, wtf If it weren't for the fact that he and my husband's mom were staying with us for the week to restore all the wood flooring in the attic (which now looks brand new and amazing and not buried under multiple layers of paint and filth like was when we bought), I'd be a lot more angry. A lot more. Especially since we have a perfectly good triple basin laundry sink in the basement that will guzzle up anything you dump down it. Small price to pay for tons of free labor, I guess. I'll check out that Glug stuff. Will try snaking tonight, but something tells me that might not do much good.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 15:52 |
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Halloween Jack posted:I was able to keep my dishwasher going for a few weeks by doing some simple mechanical repair--I removed the washer arms and opened up the model, and in addition to huge solid wants of disgusting crud, there were some cherry pits and even a plastic cap and a couple loose screws in there. However, this didn't change the fact that the control board was hosed up, and not only do I not know anything about electronics, my wife and I gave up in frustration when I realized I didn't even have a set of torx bits to open it up. What did you end up paying? For torx: buy a 100-in-1 bit set on the cheap. It won't be durable for poo poo but it will get you where you need to go. I actually bought one for my dad for Christmas when I was 5ish, he owns every tool there is, and he still uses it to this day 3 decades later. Now that a new one is en route you stand to lose nothing taking it apart to learn how to replace the board. It's probably easier than you expect.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 15:59 |
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Stop using drano and stuff, and get a plumbing snake. Mechanical removal is probably your only realistic option with sawdust. I mean, drano will work eventually, but you’ll wipe your pipes out getting there.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 16:13 |
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I've always used lye for drain clogs. Hasn't failed me yet.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 16:17 |
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As I understand it, caustics and acids and so on are really meant to be used for clearing grease, not hair, tampons, sawdust, etc. And even then, as MrYenko noted, they're hard on your pipes. Mechanical removal (i.e. a snake) is to be preferred if it's at all an option.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 16:22 |
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Yeah, I know from my old apartment full of corroded lead drain pipes that Drano and whatnot is not good for them - basically maintenance boss told us not to use pipe cleaner chemicals and to attempt to snake it or call them to come with a bigger snake. So I knew better, but at the time, we weren't able to get our hands on other options and the tub was stopped dead. Now it drains super duper slowly. Hopefully our silly consumer snake will reach enough of the blockage.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 16:45 |
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I'm not a plumber, but I was told that it's okay to use Drano and then follow it with plenty of water, but if you have a bunch of stuff sitting in your pipes, well, you don't want a bunch of Drano sitting in there slowly dissolving it.H110Hawk posted:What did you end up paying? I know I could've gone down the road to Lowe's and got a cheap torx bit set, and I probably will at some point, just to have it. But this was after doing the basic mechanical repair, and then keeping the thing limping along for a few weeks by constantly flipping the breaker and loving around with buttons on the control panel until I tricked it into running a normal cycle. (I downloaded multiple manuals and read a dozen online guides on how to reset the control panel on a Whirlpool Gold Quiet Partner III, and every single one told me to do it by pressing buttons that do not exist on this dishwasher.) Telling my wife that this was my last-ditch effort to fix it, then finding I couldn't even open the loving thing, was what made us say "gently caress it." Also, it once turned on by itself and ran a rinse cycle and she's convinced that it's haunted now.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 16:55 |
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Wait, the sawdust down the tub was on purpose??? Why would you put sawdust down any drain? What's wrong with the trash?Queen Victorian posted:Especially since we have a perfectly good triple basin laundry sink in the basement that will guzzle up anything you dump down it. NO Your drain is for water and dirty water and maybe a diluted paste of food waste made by your garbage disposal unit. Your municipality has to treat what you pour down that! I mean I think you're joking but in case anyone in here is confused on this point.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 17:35 |
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Halloween Jack posted:Telling my wife that this was my last-ditch effort to fix it, then finding I couldn't even open the loving thing, was what made us say "gently caress it." Also, it once turned on by itself and ran a rinse cycle and she's convinced that it's haunted now. Good times. I was largely thinking if it's going to the dump now is the time to completely disassemble it and learn more about repair for when your shiny new one shits the bed. It is definitely haunted.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 17:39 |
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Leperflesh posted:Wait, the sawdust down the tub was on purpose??? Why would you put sawdust down any drain? What's wrong with the trash? I think you are forgetting that people are terrible. The other day someone told me how stupid her boyfriend was because he didn't even know where the recycling was in their apartment complex, but she doesn't use it anyway because it's like 300 feet further than the garbage and she's not going to walk that far.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 18:12 |
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# ? May 22, 2024 16:00 |
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Leperflesh posted:Wait, the sawdust down the tub was on purpose??? Why would you put sawdust down any drain? What's wrong with the trash? The actual solution was to skim/decant out the water from the bucket (into the laundry sink, not the tub) and then when it was mostly wet sawdust pulp remaining, dump outside into another bucket and let the leftover water evaporate or shop vac it or something. That's what we did for subsequent mop buckets. I still don't know what possessed him to dump a whole bucket full of sawdust slurry into the bathtub. He felt pretty bad about it, but tub is still hosed (granted, we only just moved into the house and need to take regular showers, so now it's actually imperative to deal with it properly.
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# ? Aug 7, 2018 19:05 |