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I've been trying to get a straight answer from AC companies as to why a little pipe coming out of my soffit (AC secondary drain, I learned) is literally constantly streaming water out this summer, when it never has before in the 6 years we've been here. We put a giant empty flowerpot under it to prevent soil erosion and it fills up in 24 hours! Google told me it's probably because the primary drain has a blockage. Got the runaround from the AC company that whoever plumbed our drains has it all wrong, and it will involve complicated plumbing fixes, so she gave me a reference to a plumber she likes to come out to quote me. 3 weeks of failed scheduling and I just hired a guy I know who works HVAC for a school district to come look. He took 2 minutes to suck out a chunk of insulation that got into the primary drain pipe somehow and after that the soffit is no longer streaming water. He explained (while showing me) how this drain works and says it's unconventional but it all goes to the same place but with a reduced number of 90' angles that clogs could get stuck in. He also showed me how to pour a bit of bleach in every 3 months to keep the drains clear of mildew/algae slime to prevent those types of clogs. A nice $40 service fee instead of god knows what that plumbing work would have been (and wouldn't have solved the clog/dripping pipe anyway!). Roundabout way of saying it, but if you find a really good contractor hold on to that business card for dear life. The AC company I first used is highly rated on Google/Nextdoor/etc but I can't believe they didn't check the first thing that I, an idiot, found from Google and turned out to be the answer. Now that that's fixed, I have a structural engineer coming out to look at some alarming foundation symptoms next week. Yay north Texas soil... Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jul 6, 2019 |
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Jul 6, 2019 19:18
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I use a shop vac to suck out any slime or other blockages that accumulates in my AC's drain pipe every 6 months or so, it usually pulls just a little bit of stuff but the first time I did it it was practically choking on junk because none of the previous owners were bothering to do this. It won't help the system run better or anything but it will prevent bad things from happening, like water suddenly pouring down through your ceiling because your house either doesn't have a secondary drain pipe or it's also clogged. PSA use a shop vac (one that can handle water) to clean out your AC drain pipe from time to time
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Jul 6, 2019 20:29
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Earlier in this thread I posted about having pipes that run along an outside wall that freeze when it gets really cold outside. The room below them is unheated, and so far my fix has been to run a space heater non-stop in that room when it gets cold. Last week I had an HVAC guy come over to give me a quote for running an additional duct into that room. He said that the way my ducts are set up I'd have to demo a large part of the ceiling in my basement and it would cost a lot. He recommended instead that I save my money and just get an electric baseboard with a rheostat (thermostat?) for that room. I priced some out and there seems to be a large variety. Does anyone recommend a certain brand or model for a room? I assume it would cost less than running that space heater, but I don't know for sure. Also, the room in question is a storage room we keep closed so the cats don't destroy the things in there, or poo poo all over the place, and it can be months at a time between when we go in it. I intend on checking on the room every couple of days if I'm running an electric baseboard heater or space heater in there non-stop over the winter, but does anyone have any horror stories about un-accessed rooms to scare me into making sure I keep checking on it?
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Jul 7, 2019 15:49
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Poldarn posted:I assume it would cost less than running that space heater, but I don't know for sure. It would cost the same. All electric heat is identical (unless you are talking about a heat pump), that is, all of the electricity is converted directly to heat via the elements. The fan on a space heater uses some electricity, but it's trivial compared to the heating element. The advantage to baseboard heaters is that they are way safer than a plug-in space heater. They are typically wired with a dedicated circuit with the wiring designed to handle the current draw, and they are all contained and permanently affixed in a way that won't allow the hot element to contact anything combustible. People get into trouble with space heaters, because they plug them into overloaded circuits, oversized breakers/fuses, and/or the wiring and outlets are old and crusty. You should be fine with a baseboard heater -- they're pretty much foolproof and reliable -- as long as you have it installed by an electrician. Just keep anything combustible a safe distance away from the unit and vacuum it out (powered off) every year or so.
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Jul 7, 2019 18:11
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B-Nasty posted:It would cost the same. All electric heat is identical (unless you are talking about a heat pump), that is, all of the electricity is converted directly to heat via the elements. The fan on a space heater uses some electricity, but it's trivial compared to the heating element. Regarding electric heat in general, this guy is an Uber nerd and totally awesome: https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM https://youtu.be/Znt9WR5hhjE
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Jul 7, 2019 18:16
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B-Nasty posted:You should be fine with a baseboard heater -- they're pretty much foolproof and reliable -- as long as you have it installed by an electrician. Just keep anything combustible a safe distance away from the unit and vacuum it out (powered off) every year or so. Huh, I just assumed I'd plug it into the wall, but I guess it should be installed by a professional. I'm not going to mess around with electricity. Jealous Cow posted:Regarding electric heat in general, this guy is an Uber nerd and totally awesome: You're making me regret the $100 space heater I bought last winter. 
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Jul 7, 2019 22:01
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Poldarn posted:Huh, I just assumed I'd plug it into the wall, but I guess it should be installed by a professional. I'm not going to mess around with electricity. Sorry bro. At least I bet it looks cool.
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Jul 7, 2019 23:36
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pradmer posted:https://www.barnfurnituremart.com/office-bookcases/traditional-36-x-72-oak-bookcase.html?id=BCT367212L We spent around 4 hours there yesterday sweating it out. It's about an hour away from us so between that and arranging 6+ hours of childcare (aka grandma) we wanted to make it one and done if we liked the quality of their products. In the end we ordered a custom table (this top that base sorta thing), too many chairs, and impulse bought a floor model coffee table. All of it is cherry. One magical part is they can make any dining chair they sell into a folding chair, so everything past the 4 steady state chairs are going to fold up out of the way. The table comes with 4x12" leaves which all store inside the table, and this amazing sprocket/track mechanism which makes opening and closing the table a breaze.  3 month lead time give or take. $8500 delivered. 
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Jul 8, 2019 00:37
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One of the biggest shocks of being an adult was how much good, high quality furniture costs. We wanted some quality furniture for our new house and it was eye opening how much quality stuff costs.
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Jul 8, 2019 01:18
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H110Hawk posted:3 month lead time give or take. $8500 delivered. You got off easy my friend. I spent more than that on just the chairs. In a room I use like 4 times a year. It sure does look nice, and my wife is happy. skipdogg posted:One of the biggest shocks of being an adult was how much good, high quality furniture costs. We wanted some quality furniture for our new house and it was eye opening how much quality stuff costs. Yeah....exactly this. And it gets eye watering when you go beyond simple quality into things with inlays and other time consuming details (that many people might think look nice).
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Jul 8, 2019 01:21
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Motronic posted:You got off easy my friend. I spent more than that on just the chairs. In a room I use like 4 times a year. Yeah. I don’t have anything super fancy, just solid real wood furniture from quality companies. Some made in the US, some in Vietnam. Leather couches too. I spent more on my couch than the first 3 cars I ever bought combined. Also why are chairs more expensive than the table? Pretty sure I spent 3 times as much on the chairs as I did the table. I have 8 dining room chairs though, so that’s part of it.
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Jul 8, 2019 01:28
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Motronic posted:You got off easy my friend. I spent more than that on just the chairs. In a room I use like 4 times a year. That is what attracted us to this place. We were bracing ourselves for well over $10k for fewer chairs, harder to use leaves, and no coffee table until we found this place. Assuming it's as good as the stuff in the store I would suggest it to anyone. No hesitation in the store demo'ing the leaves, we hadn't even asked. One table was the size of a card table and extended out to 15' and still felt sturdier than our current sawdust+glue table despite not having the leaves in it yet. No up selling, no pressure, nothing. If you wanted to be left alone they happily went elsewhere, and when you were ready to buy they just wrote down what you wanted and that was it. At these prices it's definitely sustainability harvested.  (Just like the ikea stuff we buy.)
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Jul 8, 2019 01:32
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skipdogg posted:Also why are chairs more expensive than the table? Pretty sure I spent 3 times as much on the chairs as I did the table. I have 8 dining room chairs though, so that’s part of it. Look at a chair and table as a things that needs to be produced and remember that material costs dwarf labor costs. A chair on average is WAY more complicated than a table.
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Jul 8, 2019 01:35
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The way to get good quality furniture cheap is to wait for old people to die and then scoop it up when their kids are trying to get rid of 50 years of hoarding. The downside to this is that you will end up with stuff that was in style 30-60 years ago. So there's that.
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Jul 8, 2019 01:39
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Ashcans posted:The way to get good quality furniture cheap is to wait for old people to die and then scoop it up when their kids are trying to get rid of 50 years of hoarding. Midcentury is mostly worn out old garbage. The real deal is to find those kids getting rid of the furniture their grandparents gave to their parents. But that's back in style, so you probably won't find it on the cheap.
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Jul 8, 2019 01:47
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The other issue with even the high quality mid-century stuff is it’s flammable as gently caress if it isn’t just solid wood. Like you could chop it up and use it to start your charcoal or as rocket fuel.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:30
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A good lifehack for millenials, wait for one of the ancient ghouls in your neighborhood to die and then raid their crypt for hoarded furniture and tapestries, watch out for curses
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Jul 8, 2019 02:41
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QuarkJets posted:A good lifehack for millenials, wait for one of the ancient ghouls in your neighborhood to die and then raid their crypt for hoarded furniture and tapestries, watch out for curses This is true and all my friends joke about my house being haunted but I think at this point there's so many competing curses that they just kind of cancel each other out.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:59
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Jealous Cow posted:The other issue with even the high quality mid-century stuff is it’s flammable as gently caress if it isn’t just solid wood. That's not "high quality" but yeah...it's rampant even at "kinda high quality" levels because of rampant use of essentially prehistoric pressboard to save costs. QuarkJets posted:A good lifehack for millenials, wait for one of the ancient ghouls in your neighborhood to die and then raid their crypt for hoarded furniture and tapestries, watch out for curses Put my address on your list. I'm pretty sure the later gens like my kids will not want this poo poo.
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Jul 8, 2019 03:04
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Ashcans posted:The way to get good quality furniture cheap is to wait for old people to die and then scoop it up when their kids are trying to get rid of 50 years of hoarding. The table and china cabinet you can see in my wallpaper pic earlier was one of those deals. 8 chairs, giant china cabinet, side table, and the 4x6 dining with three leaves. $450 from a second hand dealer working out of a storage unit. It's all extremely heavy and my first impression was hello 1990 luxury but the wife is happy and it works perfectly. Edit; I also think dining sets are a great used purchase for what Motronic said earlier, they don't see a lot of use or abuse generally. StormDrain fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 8, 2019 03:15
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Who do I consult to have drainage assessed? Civil engineer? Flash flooding is now a daily occurrence in Pittsburgh. I have an area drain in my yard but I get run off from my neighbors and the water load is too much. My back porch was built stupid at the lowest point, and there’s only 1” lips to the porch, and the back door. Needs more drainage, unsure whether more drains or regrading yard has to be done.
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Jul 8, 2019 04:46
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howdoesishotweb posted:Who do I consult to have drainage assessed? Civil engineer? What do you mean by "area drain"? A large drop box, or like a small 4" storm drain that routes in with your downspouts? You can hire an engineer but that's going to be $$$ for something that might be an easier fix. Maybe post a few photos. Do you know how high your groudwater table is, soil type?
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Jul 8, 2019 11:10
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howdoesishotweb posted:Who do I consult to have drainage assessed? Civil engineer? Hello there fellow Pittsburgh goon. Thanks for reminding me that I need to shovel all the silt out of the basement and get some quotes on fixing the walkout (it's missing the outer slanted cellar door and the PO redid the steps in such a way that they are extremely effective at funneling storm runoff into the basement). All this rain has sucked for our basement. At least it has a drain in the floor.
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Jul 8, 2019 18:50
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howdoesishotweb posted:Who do I consult to have drainage assessed? Civil engineer? I don't know if you need a full out civil engineer, but someone familiar with grading and drainage would work. My backyard slopes down towards my house, but there's a swale in front of the patio that does a great job of routing all the water around the house.
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Jul 8, 2019 19:00
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Poldarn posted:Earlier in this thread I posted about having pipes that run along an outside wall that freeze when it gets really cold outside. The room below them is unheated, and so far my fix has been to run a space heater non-stop in that room when it gets cold. Last week I had an HVAC guy come over to give me a quote for running an additional duct into that room. He said that the way my ducts are set up I'd have to demo a large part of the ceiling in my basement and it would cost a lot. He recommended instead that I save my money and just get an electric baseboard with a rheostat (thermostat?) for that room. Is there no way to heat trace the pipes? It's essentially electric heat the applies directly to the pipe. You'll need to get it insulated since it doesn't work without insulation. I could have sworn I saw some at Home Depot once, but I can't find anything on their website. An electrician would probably need to install it, if you're looking to put a lot in. Would be more efficient than heating a whole room just to keep some pipes warm, but that depends on how many pipes I guess.
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Jul 8, 2019 19:02
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I need blackout curtains for this room due to the glare on the TV. What color would you suggest? Navy blue? I don't have a good eye for color 
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Jul 8, 2019 19:43
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I need blackout curtains for this room due to the glare on the TV. Some shade of green could look kind of good. Yellow and blue is going on already so it could complement.
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Jul 8, 2019 20:09
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forget about curtains until you do something about that fireplace
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Jul 8, 2019 20:18
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It's July and it's more likely I'll be watching TV while the sun's out compared to having a fire in the fireplace
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Jul 8, 2019 20:25
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I need blackout curtains for this room due to the glare on the TV. Gray, imho
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Jul 8, 2019 20:57
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Bird in a Blender posted:Is there no way to heat trace the pipes? It's essentially electric heat the applies directly to the pipe. You'll need to get it insulated since it doesn't work without insulation. I could have sworn I saw some at Home Depot once, but I can't find anything on their website. An electrician would probably need to install it, if you're looking to put a lot in. Would be more efficient than heating a whole room just to keep some pipes warm, but that depends on how many pipes I guess. I didn't even consider that. Research commences!
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Jul 8, 2019 22:24
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I need blackout curtains for this room due to the glare on the TV. If you click the tetrad mode and then rotate the dial on this thing till you get approximately the yellow and blue you've already got, it'll show you complimentary colors, as well as complimentary hues and tones of the same colors. https://paletton.com/ Fiddle around with the other settings and controls, it's fun and will give you a ton of different sets of colors/hues that compliment each other.
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Jul 8, 2019 22:31
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I need blackout curtains for this room due to the glare on the TV. JC Penney has one of the widest selections of the curtains for a reasonable cost that I have found to date. I had to be told about it because I wouldn't have ever guessed. Good color and pattern selection as well as types of attachments. For instance I only choose grommet tops now so I can open and close them easily.
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Jul 8, 2019 22:50
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StormDrain posted:I only choose grommet tops now so I can open and close them easily. Oh hell yes I didn't even think of that. I'll be sliding them open and closed often so that's a must. It's two windows which are each 48" wide. I probably want to go with 4x 48" panels on a single rod?
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Jul 8, 2019 22:52
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Big suckers. Yeah probably 4 panels so it'll have a nice bunch while closed. Fancy option, Custom Roman blackout shades. The anxiety I experienced waiting for them to come and see if my measurements were right AND that the patterned material looked good was a high level first world problem. It was a single unit with two independent shades for two windows like yours.
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Jul 8, 2019 23:02
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The water finally got us. It took 3 inches of rain in an hour, and it wasn't all that bad in the end, but we're ripping up our basement carpet and looking to replace it with something that is not carpet. What's the current hotness for basement flooring? There are various kinds of fancy laminates or vinyl tiles and planks that are intriguing and priced well (and don't require professional installation) but we're a bit lost given all the selection. Also, even though they frequently say waterproof, I think that means a glass of water, not serious weather related things and I'm unsure how much I should be factoring in water issues. I think we can prevent this particular water issue* from happening again, but the drainage isn't great and the houses are close together so I can't guarantee nothing at all will happen. This is the first time in 3.5 years we've had an issue and we had pretty heavy rain last year. *The water was very clever this time around. It poured down the stairs to the basement thanks to a massive lake on my neighbor's backyard (I thought I had drainage issues but this was bonkers, literally the whole yard was covered). Normally the drain at the bottom of the stairs would handle it, but this was enough of a flood to lift all the mulch out of the flower beds and take it down the stairs and completely plug the drain, leading to a significant incursion into the basement living room area. Fortunately it stuck to the middle of the room and didn't do anything to the walls. It wouldn't have even been that bad but my renter didn't close the door properly so at some point the water forced the door open and it came in a rush, rather than just slowly leaking which would have limited the area. Also, is putting a drain just inside a door a thing that exists? The sump pump crock as well as the drain for the AC unit are very close to the basement door. If I could put something directly in front of the doorway that could catch water and shunt it into either of those two holes, that would basically solve my water concerns for the slower leaks that are more likely to occur. I was thinking a thin strip just inside. I've seen things like this just outside a door, but that would be vulnerable to getting plugged and would probably involve more work. edit: If usage effects this decision, the basement is just rented out right now. The area we're replacing is used a living room and a hallway - the bedroom and stairs will remain carpet (at least for now). When we stop renting it (maybe <1 year?), it will become a workout and mancave type area. So it may have a squat rack and a lot of weights on part of it and occasional foot traffic elsewhere. Kase Im Licht fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2019 00:38
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Kase Im Licht posted:The water finally got us. It took 3 inches of rain in an hour, and it wasn't all that bad in the end, but we're ripping up our basement carpet and looking to replace it with something that is not carpet. What's the current hotness for basement flooring? There are various kinds of fancy laminates or vinyl tiles and planks that are intriguing and priced well (and don't require professional installation) but we're a bit lost given all the selection. Also, even though they frequently say waterproof, I think that means a glass of water, not serious weather related things There is no flooring other than "painted concrete" that survives what you experienced. You need to fix your flooding issues and then choose flooring, unless you want to abandon this to a storage basement (with everything on shelves above the floor) Kase Im Licht posted:*The water was very clever this time around. It poured down the stairs to the basement thanks to a massive lake on my neighbor's backyard (I thought I had drainage issues but this was bonkers, literally the whole yard was covered). Normally the drain at the bottom of the stairs would handle it, but this was enough of a flood to lift all the mulch out of the flower beds and take it down the stairs and completely plug the drain, leading to a significant incursion into the basement living room area. Fortunately it stuck to the middle of the room and didn't do anything to the walls. It wouldn't have even been that bad but my renter didn't close the door properly so at some point the water forced the door open and it came in a rush, rather than just slowly leaking which would have limited the area. I hope you got plenty of pictures to demonstrate this because your insurance company is going to want them. You on your own should not have to prepare for this. Your neighbor has a problem that they need to solve, which may be caused by their neighbor, etc, etc. loving lovely housing developments. This happens ALL THE TIME.
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Jul 10, 2019 01:00
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This is the room behind my garage. It is a my future office / wife's sewing room. Monday morning at 9am it was full to the brim with... stuff. Including approximately 220 gallons of potentially potable water. There was a narrow walking path from the red door to the interior door. By noon it was 75% empty including all of the water, and EOD it was packed into a storage unit. Today the wall fell. We're running a bunch of new wires and crap in the walls and the contractor said the time/materials difference between cutting/snaking/patching and R&R was likely a wash and I believe her. 2 people on time and ready to work can accomplish a lot in 1.5 days of net working time.  That pile includes all fasteners near as I can tell. Dump truck comes tomorrow. I have given up on DIY and have instead hired a GC to do 100% of our home renovations, including finishing the garage work I started in other threads. Our city was nice enough to renew my electrical permit gratis despite them being under no obligation to do so, it probably helped that a GC they know and like was pulling a much larger permit for this back room. Part of the bid includes 2 electricians for 2 days to check all of my work, fix any mistakes, and finalize the couple things I wasn't able to get to but so far they think they will be done quickly as they said it looks ready for inspection which felt good.
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Jul 10, 2019 01:16
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Double whammy today. The plumber installed the wrong type of ice maker box in my house... A 1/2 inch dishwasher Outlet rather than a 1/4 inch refrigerator water line Outlet. The refrigerator delivery guy spotted it and said that it wouldn't work, and an adapter would not be a good idea either because it would leak. ... And then they noticed that every single piece of glass and shelving inside of the refrigerator had shattered in transit
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Jul 10, 2019 02:01
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Motronic posted:There is no flooring other than "painted concrete" that survives what you experienced. Wouldn't a grouted ceramic tile floor hold up? I have a few friends that live in legit flood zones and the tile seems to hold up fine.
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Jul 10, 2019 02:07
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