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Update: I am still alive. Alarm has not sounded again. Turns out PG&E (California's utility company) has a hotline for this sort of thing and will dispatch a technician to your house to probe for the problem. I am waiting for him or her to arrive now. Remember that if you're a California goon. Just call PG&E on 1-800-743-5000 then press 1 to report a hazardous situation.
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Jun 18, 2019 20:54
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how loud was it? betting on it being the alarm for no mains power connected and you've never heard it go off properly before always check the expiry dates on your alarms and test regularly
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Jun 18, 2019 20:56
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Wiggly Wayne DDS posted:how loud was it? betting on it being the alarm for no mains power connected and you've never heard it go off properly before It was loud. It was four beeps in a row, followed by a recorded human voice say "CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTED". If this is the failure mode for the alarm when power is cut then the engineers behind it need a talkin' to, because the alarm would be misleading. I do not think it's a power issue. EDIT: I also do not think it is a power issue because only one of several CO / Smoke detectors sounded.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:01
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The brand of CO detectors in my house have a 7 year timer that kicks in after initial turn on. Once you hit 7 years, they constantly indicate CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTED but it means "it's been 7 years, replace me"
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Jun 18, 2019 21:02
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Even if it just turns out to be a single faulty detector, I think you're doing the right thing here. Carbon Monoxide is nothing to be hosed with.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:03
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Chimp_On_Stilts posted:It was loud. It was four beeps in a row, followed by a recorded human voice say "CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTED". If this is the failure mode for the alarm when power is cut then the engineers behind it need a talkin' to, because the alarm would be misleading.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:04
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PG&E will come out for free, there's no reason not to have them do it. I once had a smoke detector going off because there was a spider in it, weird things can happen, though.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:08
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cobwebs/dust is a pretty common false alarm scenario for the optical smoke alarms, it's why you're recommended to clean them regularly it's effectively a cheap sensor that uses refraction to figure out if smoke is in the air, or really any big particles that sneak past the guard
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Jun 18, 2019 21:11
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Chimp_On_Stilts posted:Turns out I am SoCal Gas thank you very much!  Seriously though, every single Natural Gas provider will come out and help you if you have a hazardous situation for free and same-day. If you get a strong smell of gas when you walk inside, are burning yellow (though they're likely to just red-tag the appliance), or think you have CO call them. If you smell gas the number of your local gas company is 9-1-1 and getting as far away from your house as possible though. They will also help you hookup appliances if you have all of the appropriate fittings, but that's not a same-day urgent situation, or at least socalgas will.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:13
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PG&E technician is done and didn't find anything. We ran all the gas appliances and he used his detector on them, nothing came up. He said that, in his experience, some detectors *do* sound the CO alarm when mains power is cut. This seems like a bad design choice to me, but oh well. I will carefully read the manual to see if this is expected behavior. Also, after looking more closely, it turns out I have one combined CO/smoke detector and the other detectors are all smoke only. I've been in this house for less than a week, not even fully unpacked yet. Homeownership is fun! (Seriously I am overjoyed to be out of my crappy apartment and into a proper house.) Thanks for the help, everyone.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:32
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Hey honestly that's the best possible outcome, you and your family are safe and all you need is a new detector.
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Jun 18, 2019 21:37
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Chimp_On_Stilts posted:
Yeah this is called fail-safe design and it potentially saved your life. With anything that has to do with safeguarding life and limb, loss of detection capability = fault. Power's gone? Who knows how long my battery will last; better scream my head off until it's fixed. Yeah it'll wake you up in the middle of the night, but at least you get to wake up.
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Jun 18, 2019 23:01
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Oh for pete's sake. I finally sit down to do some drat work, plug in my laptop to an outlet I haven't used yet, and the breaker trips. Tried a couple more times and the breaker is tripping when this outlet (and its circuit - I tried nearby outlets) are under pretty much any load. Neutral-ground fault maybe? It's the best I could Google up. I'm calling an electrician. This is not in my wheelhouse. Gonna get my money's worth out of the warranty on the renovations, it seems.
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Jun 19, 2019 00:14
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9 months after closing, and we finally have a properly graded and seeded lawn. Our builder still hasn't come to fix our two neighboring houses grade work or prep for sod, so I'm glad we lawered up and broke our contract for landscape work with them. Surprise, an actual landscape company is more reliable than our builders in-house grading/landscape crew. Now I just have to go exchange one defective sprinkler, and grab a couple more hoses so I can try to keep the yard moist so my grass actually grows.
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Jun 19, 2019 15:17
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gently caress sump pumps gently caress sump pumps gently caress sump pumps.
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Jun 20, 2019 18:40
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Residency Evil posted:gently caress sump pumps gently caress sump pumps gently caress sump pumps. Uh oh, what up? My house depends on a sump pump to survive so my heart is with you on whatever you're dealing with
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Jun 20, 2019 18:55
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ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh gently caress gently caress gently caress hope it's okay!!! our sump pump has a backup and both are on a battery backup because gently caress WATER.
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Jun 20, 2019 19:24
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We have a sump pump, but thankfully the lower side of the basement is actually entry level (due to a hill) so I think our emergency plan is to open the door and let everything flow out there? It's not a good plan, I may want to reexamine that.
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Jun 20, 2019 19:46
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AMA having my sump pump and chest freezer on the same circuit because I need to feel alive.
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Jun 20, 2019 20:15
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Yeah, I think we all know what just happened. Law of nature: basements that require sump pumps WILL flood. Not if, but when. Growing up, it was always the drat float switch. The pump was usually just fine, it was the float switch that would fail more frequently.
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Jun 20, 2019 20:20
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Yeah it's probably always worth the money to have a backup, battery operated pump installed in the same pit and maybe also set a wireless smart water alarm on the edge in case somehow both fail.
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Jun 20, 2019 20:24
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I get around the sump pump problem by having a 150 year old house surrounded by 1980s construction and McMansions. When they build my place they stopped at bedrock and built the foundation a couple feet above grade into the hillside. All the new homes are built at grade with deeper basements chipped down into the shale. Their sump pumps do all the work for me!
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Jun 20, 2019 20:40
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I don't have a basement and I'm okay with that
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Jun 20, 2019 20:51
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But then where to you keep your flooding? 
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Jun 20, 2019 20:58
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Speaking of not having basements, I’ve moved from the land of full basements to the land of slabs and pier and beam. I really loved my basement and all the access to plumbing and electrical. Should I prefer pier and beam or is slab the way to go? Texas for what it’s worth.
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Jun 20, 2019 21:47
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What area? Watch out for expansive soil. Very common for homes built before fancy engineered post tension floating foundations to have foundation problems in areas with expansive soil.
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Jun 20, 2019 22:11
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Jesus, my window coverings are standard blinds with an incredibly fine, silk-strand-thin cord to raise or lower them. In the past 24 hours my cat snacked on every single one and severed the cord for all 15 of my windows. Time to get some plantation shutters and also hope my cat can poo poo the cords back out
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Jun 20, 2019 22:18
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 cordage can cause serious gut problems, keep a very careful eye out and if your cat doesn't have normal bowel movements the next day or so, get to a vet. Also: there is a product called Bitter Yuck that you can spray on stuff that deters cat snackage, give it a try
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Jun 20, 2019 22:20
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Jesus, my window coverings are standard blinds with an incredibly fine, silk-strand-thin cord to raise or lower them. Blinds.com is a shockingly good deal around these parts. It's like $150 for a random axe murderer to come out and measure everything, then someone I presume named "Stephanie" calls you and you order all your blinds in one fell swoop, then said axe murderer comes back and installs all of them. We have Bali cordless cell shades and they are awesome.
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Jun 20, 2019 22:34
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skipdogg posted:What area? Watch out for expansive soil. Very common for homes built before fancy engineered post tension floating foundations to have foundation problems in areas with expansive soil. Austin. Looking at homes built in the 90s or later unfortunately.
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Jun 20, 2019 23:16
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H110Hawk posted:Blinds.com is a shockingly good deal around these parts. It's like $150 for a random axe murderer to come out and measure everything, then someone I presume named "Stephanie" calls you and you order all your blinds in one fell swoop, then said axe murderer comes back and installs all of them. We have Bali cordless cell shades and they are awesome. Apparently blinds.com and Home Depot both route you directly to "Avalon Blinds" who is coming to my house next week to check it out. I've also got some bougie Hunter Douglas people coming out too, so I'm curious to see how much the pricing and quality each differ.
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Jun 20, 2019 23:42
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh gently caress gently caress gently caress hope it's okay!!! Things turned out ok. I woke up this morning and on my way out the door at 6am, I heard the song of my backup sump alarm. Went to the basement to find the main pump valve spewing water and broken. Thankfully, we met a friend of a friend a few weeks back who happens to own his plumbing business, and who was able to replace the main sump for $325, which seems not bad? The water table in our neighborhood is insanely high and all of the houses are old/have constantly running sump pumps. He said he'd be willing to set our pump to drain to the sewer instead of outside. I'm considering it.  We're saving so much money on rent! Residency Evil fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jun 21, 2019 |
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Jun 21, 2019 00:02
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Apparently blinds.com and Home Depot both route you directly to "Avalon Blinds" who is coming to my house next week to check it out. It's all one company basically. We're really happy with ours 3 years later. Our 3 year old beats up his on the regular and it still works. The "Bali" ones are the upgrade from the "blinds.com brand". We just ordered 6 more for the rest of the windows we should have done 3 years ago. Whole project is coming out under a grand installed.
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Jun 21, 2019 00:06
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H110Hawk posted:It's all one company basically. We're really happy with ours 3 years later. Our 3 year old beats up his on the regular and it still works. The "Bali" ones are the upgrade from the "blinds.com brand". We just ordered 6 more for the rest of the windows we should have done 3 years ago. Whole project is coming out under a grand installed. This is incredibly encouraging. I've got 14 windows and 1 sliding patio door to get done and I've been told to expect everything from $3,000 to $30,000 EDIT: holy lol Avalon is going to be perfect for me. This is my dumbass bathroom  and this is one of the top images in their gallery 
GoGoGadgetChris fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jun 21, 2019 |
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Jun 21, 2019 00:16
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Residency Evil posted:The water table in our neighborhood is insanely high and all of the houses are old/have constantly running sump pumps. He said he'd be willing to set our pump to drain to the sewer instead of outside. I'm considering it. Assuming you mean a sanitary sewer, not only is this most likely illegal, but it's a tragedy of the commons dick move too. The sewer system isn't able to handle the extra water, and you (and other people) could possibly overwhelm the system to the point that people have backups of sewage discharge in their house. If nothing else, processing all that extra water costs everyone collectively more on their sewer bills.
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Jun 21, 2019 00:25
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:This is incredibly encouraging. I've got 14 windows and 1 sliding patio door to get done and I've been told to expect everything from $3,000 to $30,000 If you can swing it, it's worth the upgrade $$$$ stacks to go for the 2.5 inch split shutters without the tilt bar, at least in important areas. They really let you adjust the amount of light. 
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Jun 21, 2019 00:42
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B-Nasty posted:Assuming you mean a sanitary sewer, not only is this most likely illegal, but it's a tragedy of the commons dick move too. The sewer system isn't able to handle the extra water, and you (and other people) could possibly overwhelm the system to the point that people have backups of sewage discharge in their house. If nothing else, processing all that extra water costs everyone collectively more on their sewer bills. Optionally, if you're in Cleveland, we have combined sewers and when it gets too much, they just overflow sewage into local waterways and Lake Erie! Panthrax fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jun 21, 2019 |
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Jun 21, 2019 06:12
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Apparently blinds.com and Home Depot both route you directly to "Avalon Blinds" who is coming to my house next week to check it out. We got our bougie louvers from https://www.louvershop.com/ and the were very professional (which they should be for the price). Get the "invisible" adjusters instead of the stupid ones right in the middle of the window.
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Jun 21, 2019 14:06
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 Noticed the paint started bubbling on the wall, couldn't find the source of the leak so just had to open it up. PO must have drilled into the wall to hang something, then patched and painted it just before selling and didn't realize he drilled into the drat waste pipe from the bathroom upstairs. But we're building equity I guess????
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Jun 21, 2019 15:59
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ugh cursed image.jpg
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Jun 21, 2019 17:19
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