|
loquacius posted:Yeah it says a lot that my initial reaction to hearing the $4k quote was "uh, is that including the $2.5k for plumbing, or" I had to google ELI5, but here is probably the best explanation for you: https://homes.winnipegfreepress.com...-to-work/id-979 tl;dr - AAV's might be legal in your area, but it sounds like you should get quotes from a couple other plumbers to find out
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2020 17:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 12:56 |
|
|
So, let me know if I have this right: the two kinds of vents that exist are the regular kind that are, like, up on the roof, and AAVs I just checked and AAVs are not in fact legal in my state (MA) sooooooooooo yeah if my understanding is correct I guess that's all she wrote and I should just save myself $6500 plus fixtures by just not doing any of this poo poo Thanks guys!
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2020 20:57
|
|
|
best kind of grease/lubricant for door hinges?
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 01:13
|
|
|
BraveUlysses posted:best kind of grease/lubricant for door hinges? My guess is either silicone spray or dry graphite powder-- but I'm not sure how you apply the graphite without making a huge mess
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 01:22
|
|
|
BraveUlysses posted:best kind of grease/lubricant for door hinges? A dry lube. Goes on wet, dries to a Teflon coating that doesn’t attract dust. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Blaster-9-3-oz-Advanced-Dry-Lube-with-Teflon-16-TDL/202532762
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 01:36
|
|
|
MetaJew posted:My guess is either silicone spray or dry graphite powder-- but I'm not sure how you apply the graphite without making a huge mess I applied dry graphite powder to door hinges one time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 02:58
|
|
|
tangy yet delightful posted:I applied dry graphite powder to door hinges one time. Wow it worked that well?! 
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 04:31
|
|
|
Bizarre splash update: It's been drizzling all afternoon and there has been no more splashes or signs of water ingress so now I'm more confused. edit: Nope, wind picked up and changed direction and now there's a very slow bead of water trailing down the outside of the b-vent, so I'm assuming that means the water is getting through the caulking somewhere. 
just another fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Mar 5, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 05:26
|
|
|
Tell: me how to take care of my hardwood floors. We bought a house ~1 yr ago, it was built in 2004. Previous owners had no kids and no dogs so overall most of the floors are in excellent shape and roughly 60% of them are nearly pristine. We have 2" wide white oak strip flooring, not parquet or vinyl etc. In heavily trafficked spots around the kitchen stove, sink and a few spots in front of the couch etc it's starting to discolor (greyish matte coloring) etc and the wood underneath is noticeably darker. I don't think we're in the realm of strip, sand, refinish or anything but honestly, I don't know anything about intermediate treatments like that. There's no water staining or anything that I can tell, and no reason to suspect that given the condition of the house otherwise. What sort of products / techniques are available to do maintenance like this on hardwood flooring? Figured I'd ask here while I start researching it as well. If anyone has a good product recommendation etc that would be great.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2020 13:57
|
|
|
I have a finished drywalled garage, faced insulation in walls, rafter vents installed. Should I use faced or unfaced insulation batts in the celing (attic)? I know the real answer might be "blow it in" but that requires the rental of the blower and an extra hand to shove insulation in the hopper. e: garage is detached, if that matters
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2020 14:39
|
|
|
Solved the mystery of the drippy fireplace. Whichever genius installed the vent didn't caulk under the storm collar, so if the wind hit from the right direction it would blow rain up and in. So this has been happening a lot longer than I realized, I'm guessingGorson posted:I have a finished drywalled garage, faced insulation in walls, rafter vents installed. Should I use faced or unfaced insulation batts in the celing (attic)? I know the real answer might be "blow it in" but that requires the rental of the blower and an extra hand to shove insulation in the hopper. I thought that you were supposed to use faced for the first layer. I'm not sure how much of a difference it's going to make in a detached garage, though.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2020 01:17
|
|
|
loquacius posted:So, let me know if I have this right: the two kinds of vents that exist are the regular kind that are, like, up on the roof, and AAVs That is my (limited) understanding, yes. The reason the normal ones (which are just an open pipe with some rain shielding) go up to the roof is so that any sewer gas sneaking up can waft away without offending any noses. If you think matrixally about it, there's two directions air can flow in a pipe, in or out, and different devices allow different combinations thereof. In and out: normal vent, provides vacuum venting and deals with the gas problem by only having them end outside. In but not out: air admittance valve, provides vacuum venting by admitting air and deals with the gas problem by not permitting air out. Out but not in: only a fecal fetishist would want one of these. Provides no vacuum venting and no sewer gas protection. Neither in nor out: standard P-trap such as you'd have under a sink, provides no vacuum venting but does block sewer gases. I've no idea why AAVs are illegal in some places, but presumably they have a good reason. Probably flooding.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2020 12:39
|
|
|
Jaded Burnout posted:
Here's an article from a home inspector in Minnesota, where they're illegal. He goes into why they're not allowed but also why he doesn't make a big deal out of them if he finds one during an inspection. http://www.startribune.com/air-admittance-valves/497667461/ The tldr; version: Not really any valid reason, just concern that the mechanical seal might fail someday and the potential for leaking if the sewer backs up. e: worth noting that he tried and failed to make an AAV leak in a simulated sewage backup situation PremiumSupport fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Mar 10, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2020 15:57
|
|
|
There must be a cheaper way to get wood paneling or shiplap than buying from a big box hardware store, right? Can you buy direct from lumber mills? Home Depot here here in Canada wants $9.00/sqft for pine paneling. It'd be cheaper to do my ceiling with hardwood flooring.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2020 16:56
|
|
|
just another posted:There must be a cheaper way to get wood paneling or shiplap than buying from a big box hardware store, right? Can you buy direct from lumber mills? E: grade matters a lot too. If you want all clear stuff it will cost you a lot more than if you can live with a few knots.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2020 17:00
|
|
|
Tile talk. I'm subway tiling halfway up the walls on my ~8x8 bathroom as well as tilling to the roof in the corner where I'm putting my tempered glass shower. How should I be realistically approaching this? Is it a case of doing one wall at a time and coming back at it between sessions if I only have time to work on it in the evenings? Is it the sort of thing where I need a much longer period of time so I can try and rush through it and do it all at once?
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2020 00:10
|
|
|
You can easily tile in sections, just don’t let your mortar dry out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2020 01:14
|
|
|
WithoutTheFezOn posted:You can easily tile in sections, just don’t let your mortar dry out. Fast forward a while: Our downstairs A/C broke. When the inspector came in to check the replacement installation, he said, "Oh, hey, I remember this place. Good, solid old house. It was renovated in about 2002, right?" "Yep. That's about right." "Yeah, I showed up one day and I thought the guy was dead! He was just laying on the floor in the basement. Then he woke up all of a sudden Turns out he was, what do you call it, a narcoleptic. Fell asleep in the middle of stuff all the time." Aaaaaaaand then we knew why the kitchen tile worked out the way that it did.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2020 13:36
|
|
|
Install started today! 
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2020 15:06
|
|
|
Windows 7 was an odd choice
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2020 17:20
|
|
|
lol. Regardless, they kick rear end   
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2020 22:04
|
|
|
We too had some recent work done: Google maps shot of the previous (it actually looked worse than this as it was a small hill of weeds growing on top of my excavation from the backyard patio project)     Bonus interior shot with dogs  Please ignore my terrible awful weedy lawn
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2020 23:53
|
|
|
My house is a 2-bedroom Cape Cod from 1947. It's in pretty good shape, the previous owners kept it in good repair and the major stuff is taken care of. The kitchen however (except for the stove/range hood) is pure IKEA-grade. Cheapest/ugliest cabinets, lowest grade of vinyl tile, etc. It's small, 110 sq ft, but it's got a curtain wall between it and the similar-sized dining room. The dining room is used mainly as the location of a table which the girlfriend and I toss mail and keys on. Here, have some panos:    I get a hell of a lot of use out of the kitchen and not so much use out of the dining room. A good chunk of the counter space is wasted in the right angle, with a too-big sink. What I would like to do is to knock down the curtain wall and combine these two rooms. Replace the flooring. Keep the stove and dishwasher in the same place. Rip out all the cabinetry and replace with a counter that runs from the stove down to the dining room window, where it'll make a right angle come out as far as it does now and have a breakfast counter there with a couple of seats. Keep the sink on the same wall, although a bit further away from the stove. Put in non-lovely cabinets, counters, and backsplash. I'm capable of handling the electric and demo and can probably handle the small amount of plumbing. I have a friend who's an architect who specializes in remodeling and I'm definitely going to enlist her help for verifying that that is in fact a curtain wall and not a load-bearing wall and drawing up a plan. And changing houses in the future is not in the plan, I'm fine living here until the plague gets me. Are there any assumptions I'm making that I should question here? What would you do with this situation if the dining room space didn't mean much to you but the kitchen did? Phanatic fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Mar 13, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2020 19:05
|
|
|
   this will make the cat very happy, next order of business is to get a decent bird feeder out there
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2020 23:01
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2020 02:07
|
|
|
So my general contractor told me there was an issue with the framing inspection and the building inspector said that the shear wall had issues because of the way a rafter was placed on it and told us to contact the structural engineer. I looked at the part that the inspector commented on and was like - I'm pretty sure the inspector is full of poo poo. We sent an email to the structural engineer, who replied back confirming that the inspector was indeed full of poo poo. Anyway, I now have a letter from my structural engineer that says that the inspector was full of poo poo in a more polite way. Bay Area building bureaucracy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2020 18:15
|
|
|
Yeah honestly, I'd prefer that than the other way around.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2020 19:18
|
|
|
Somewhat more basic home-maintenance question than my last one: my house is 1930s-era and the walls are made of lovely horsehair plaster. They hold standard picture-hangers etc fairly well, but if I'm drilling into them to mount something more substantial (like a curtain hook, nothing load-bearing or whatever) there's a fair-to-even chance that the plaster just crumbles away and leaves an ugly hole slightly too big for whatever I was just drilling in. In particular, the lovely smoke detector that was in the house when we moved in has just loving fallen out of the ceiling. I have a new one all ready to go, but I'm just thinking about that crumbly lovely plaster and deciding I should probably have a plan ahead of time so the exact same thing doesn't happen. tldr: Is there a best-practices way to deal with drilling into crumbly plaster?
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2020 22:03
|
|
|
Except that's not how it actually works. Because different inspectors often come on different rounds, and a huge ton of inspectors literally will OK anything. Building inspections have very little relation to whether or not your building is constructed well.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2020 22:03
|
|
|
loquacius posted:Somewhat more basic home-maintenance question than my last one: my house is 1930s-era and the walls are made of lovely horsehair plaster. They hold standard picture-hangers etc fairly well, but if I'm drilling into them to mount something more substantial (like a curtain hook, nothing load-bearing or whatever) there's a fair-to-even chance that the plaster just crumbles away and leaves an ugly hole slightly too big for whatever I was just drilling in. Maybe just take the collar and construction adhesive it up there and make it 10 years from now you's problem? You bought one with a 10 year "lifetime" lithium battery in it right?
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2020 22:55
|
|
|
H110Hawk posted:Maybe just take the collar and construction adhesive it up there and make it 10 years from now you's problem? You bought one with a 10 year "lifetime" lithium battery in it right? We're moving out of this place in calendar year 2021 so it would be 10 years from now someone else's problem  That said my wife is apparently of the opinion that the inspector will find this when we sell; can someone please verify for me that home inspectors generally do not check exactly how a smoke detector is attached to the ceiling She wasn't present for the inspection we did when we bought the place, but I was and I'm pretty sure the guy did not attempt to take down the smoke detector to check how it was attached
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 01:14
|
|
|
loquacius posted:We're moving out of this place in calendar year 2021 so it would be 10 years from now someone else's problem They will push the button and hear the tone at worst. At best pop it off to verify that it isn't expired but you should buy a lottery ticket if they do. Liquid nails will hold it there until you are "that crack smoking previous owner loving GLUED this thing to the ceiling."
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 01:25
|
|
|
Pre-purchase home inspections aren’t like a government thing. They’re a friend of the buyer’s agent who nitpicks you into budging on the price. No ones negotiating about a smoke detector.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 01:31
|
|
|
Pre-purchase home general inspections can be pretty pointless. Like, you should have one of course, but general inspectors sometimes dont have enough knowledge to find everything. Much more detailed inspectors will probably help out way more, although general inspectors sometimes will find issues then tell you to talk to a detailed inspector. Note: finish is like one of the last things to care about (unless you see evidence of a leak below). From a money cost, the most important things in order are: Foundation issues Structural issues Sewer issues Plumbing issues (leaks) Termites (if there is structural damage then see above) Electrical issues (like severe wiring problems, not small stuff like GFCI/AFCI)
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 01:52
|
|
|
Thought I'd hose down the car today and I discovered a leak in the frost proof faucet (in circled area - pretty sure it was the bottom of the valve and not the a leak around the threads at the adapter).  I tested it and it only leaked when the hose was attached with a nozzle, but not when it was freely running without a hose attached. The fiberglass insulation was saturated so I pulled it all down and fingers crossed the -1C overnight temp doesn't cause issues because the plumbing is exposed to the crawlspace until I can get to a hardware store tomorrow. Anyway, 1. Anything to know about in particular when working with PB pipe (besides replacing it all -- project for another day)? 2. Better alternative than fiberglass for that area? I'm thinking mineral wool. 3. Anything else I should do when I'm down there? Maybe a shutoff valve for winter? just another fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Mar 15, 2020 |
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 03:15
|
|
|
I'm glad I got a pre purchase inspection because the vent pipe at the furnace in the basement wasn't connected to the flue and the seller lived in a different state and my dumb rear end wouldn't have noticed when the first day of fall came and we would've just pumped CO2 into the whole house and killed ourselves.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 04:31
|
|
|
loquacius posted:Somewhat more basic home-maintenance question than my last one: my house is 1930s-era and the walls are made of lovely horsehair plaster. They hold standard picture-hangers etc fairly well, but if I'm drilling into them to mount something more substantial (like a curtain hook, nothing load-bearing or whatever) there's a fair-to-even chance that the plaster just crumbles away and leaves an ugly hole slightly too big for whatever I was just drilling in.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2020 07:25
|
|
i like nice words
|
Any reason to not use 6 mil poly and sheathing tape to stop airflow in an awkwardly-sized crawlspace hole? I don't think spray foam will work because of the size of the hole and the temperature.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2020 05:20
|
|
|
I've got a bunch of bushes that grow along the edge of my property line, pictured below. Once they're in bloom, they end up 6 or 7' at their tip. I want to rip them out and replace them. What's the easiest way to get them out of the ground so that I can plant privacy trees?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2020 20:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 19, 2024 12:56 |
|
|
Joke answer: light them on fire. Real question: why do you have half of a cement driveway fenced in (vs the yard)?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2020 20:43
|
|
