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Being able to spec and buy our own materials is one of the big reasons we are going with the Amish contractor for our kitchen. His was the only outfit that was truly build-only and quoted by days of labor rather than the whole project (with tons of marked-up materials wrapped into the price tag). The other guys were all design-build and I was very concerned about getting stuck with their suppliers for important poo poo like cabinetry and tile, and also them trying to do too much of the design work. Also the Amish guy’s FIL is a master cabinetmaker who does amazing custom work so I know where to get the cabinets.
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Sep 12, 2020 05:31
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Queen Victorian posted:Being able to spec and buy our own materials is one of the big reasons we are going with the Amish contractor for our kitchen. His was the only outfit that was truly build-only and quoted by days of labor rather than the whole project (with tons of marked-up materials wrapped into the price tag). The other guys were all design-build and I was very concerned about getting stuck with their suppliers for important poo poo like cabinetry and tile, and also them trying to do too much of the design work. I used to live in Lancaster PA. Amish furniture is amazing poo poo as long as you never need to move it up or down a flight of stairs. God, the quality.  God, the weight. 
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Sep 12, 2020 05:36
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Sundae posted:I used to live in Lancaster PA. Amish furniture is amazing poo poo as long as you never need to move it up or down a flight of stairs. God, the quality. Back in the before times we were contemplating a weekend trip to Lancaster specifically to look at Amish furniture/millwork, but we can’t really do that anymore. What we need now more than furniture is bedroom built-ins to compensate for the utterly useless second floor closets that are literally nine inches deep. Would love to have Amish work for that (if it doesn’t deviate too far from cabinetmaking). It’ll be part of the house so we don’t have to move it But then it’ll be part of the house so we can’t move it
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Sep 12, 2020 06:16
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MayakovskyMarmite posted:How common is it for contractors to have you buy materials? Both bathroom and floor guy expected me to go to Floor & Decor/Home Depot and bring them materials to install? Got a list of required stuff (things like vanity, fixtures, tile, vinyl flooring). Ours asked us to do this sometimes. After a lot of pushback of "charge me an hour and add your O&P % to it" they started running errands for me. I did it once or twice depending on what it was but for anything bigger or when inconvenient I made them do it. That's in the before times though when they weren't drowning in work. They may simply not care now.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:17
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Sundae posted:I used to live in Lancaster PA. Amish furniture is amazing poo poo as long as you never need to move it up or down a flight of stairs. God, the quality. We live fairly close to Lancaster and we're looking for a new bed. Any suggestions?
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Sep 12, 2020 17:18
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Residency Evil posted:We live fairly close to Lancaster and we're looking for a new bed. Any suggestions? If you're looking for older / consigned stuff, "Next to New" consignment on Willow Road. Some of it is poo poo, but I've found some nice pieces in there. Otherwise, check out "King's Amish Furniture" in Intercourse PA. They have a large store showing off what local folks can do and will effectively middle-man out custom orders to the local Amish crafts community to build your furniture. There are tons of other places in the Intercourse / Bird-in-Hand area, but they're smaller so I haven't heard as much about them.
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Sep 12, 2020 19:30
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Sundae posted:If you're looking for older / consigned stuff, "Next to New" consignment on Willow Road. Some of it is poo poo, but I've found some nice pieces in there. That's super helpful, thanks. My wife is looking at beds from here: https://beautifulbedco.com/beds/wooden-beds/all-wood-beds.html. Seems pretty standard, and something local would hopefully be preferable/cheaper.
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Sep 12, 2020 20:25
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So we are getting a house that already has a general hookup with a manual switch setup, and a natural gas line that plugs directly into the generator. The seller is giving us his Briggs and Stratton generator that works with the setup and I looked it up, it has a Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of 3-6%. My understanding is that "sensitive electronics" need to have at most 5% THD of "clean energy" so I am wondering if I could get away with just adding a good line conditioner in the event of a power outage so I don't fry my computer or TV with the dirty generator energy. Or do I need to go the very expensive route of getting a online dual conversion UPS to prevent the THD/sine fluctuations?
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Sep 13, 2020 19:31
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How hard is it to do click-lock engineered hardwood flooring on fairly-rectangular room by yourself? I've suffered the curse of elderly cats on a white carpet, and now have permanently-ruined carpet with poo poo and vomit stains everywhere, and my wife wants hardwood anyway. I've done laminate before, complete with adding extra patterning / borders, etc etc, but never anything requiring actual wood.
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Sep 13, 2020 21:42
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Sundae posted:How hard is it to do click-lock engineered hardwood flooring on fairly-rectangular room by yourself? I've suffered the curse of elderly cats on a white carpet, and now have permanently-ruined carpet with poo poo and vomit stains everywhere, and my wife wants hardwood anyway.
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Sep 14, 2020 02:09
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Edit: nm
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Sep 14, 2020 02:12
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I have a raised deck, any recommendations on wood filler? The deck is sturdy but I noticed some small holes and cracks on the support posts, and thought it wouldn't hurt to add some filler there. I'm a complete noob when it comes to deck maintenance but I know I'll need to give it a paint too. Just got it powerwashed as well and got rid of algae/dirt which the previous owner never removed. Some pictures:   Notice the slight bend on the support post: 
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Sep 14, 2020 16:02
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Bowing is bad and the moisture seems to wick up the posts which is doubly bad. For the height their dimensions also seem a bit slim; have you considered replacing them with 6x6 posts?
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Sep 14, 2020 16:18
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Sundae posted:How hard is it to do click-lock engineered hardwood flooring on fairly-rectangular room by yourself? I've suffered the curse of elderly cats on a white carpet, and now have permanently-ruined carpet with poo poo and vomit stains everywhere, and my wife wants hardwood anyway.
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Sep 14, 2020 16:46
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A new neighbor just bought the house nextdoor, and he hasn't even moved in yet and he's asking me to help pay for a new fence (block wall) between our yards because he doesn't like how it looks. Obviously my answer is no, as it is structurally solid and already exists. Under this condition, I'm not obligated to shell out tons of money to replace something that doesn't need fixing and that I'm not interested in changing. Now he's getting property lines surveyed. If you look at property map overlay from an online map (which I know aren't 100% accurate), the property line is at a slight angle, and part of the wall is on his side and part is on my side. As far as I know, the wall has been here since the 70s - but I'm sure there's some "technically correct" reason why I'm hosed if he decides to cause a problem. I'm not sure if I'm venting or asking for advice, but I like my other neighbors who I never see or talk to. tl;dr - Some rear end in a top hat moved in and is worse than a HOA. Other fence related weirdness, but different neighbors and no complaining - The entire block is like this. My side is on top of the hill. The property line ends where the slope begins. There's a chain link fence about 10' down. This 10' is the rear neighbor's property. Everyone on the block on the upper half maintains this gap as there is a fence and no access for the lower neighbors to get to it. While this has been this way forever, and I'm certainly not building on it, what are the odds some future rear end in a top hat could gently caress with me? Especially after its more or less my responsibility to maintain? 
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Sep 14, 2020 17:36
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Tell new neighbor to pound sand (nicely). He bought the house knowing about the fence and if he wants to replace it he can pay for it. Hes probably planning to replace it anyway and was hoping he could sucker you into paying half. My parents neighbor tried that too. The surveyer is to hopefully make sure that whatever new fence he puts in to replace it is truly on the property line in case the old one isn't. The rear property line issue seems like a bigger liability for the downslope neighbor than you. If someone tries to gently caress with you on by moving the fence or building on it, you can simply demand they start doing lawn care on the part that is their yard. I would think the most anyone would want to do is move the fence line to be accurate, which doesn't seem like a big deal. The old fence is entirely on their property so it's their problem/expense to move it.
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Sep 14, 2020 17:56
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Is he actually being an rear end in a top hat about it or is he just inquiring? Regardless, it's a pretty easy time to say "sorry I don't have the finances budgeted for this", you'd have to be a pretty big prick to question someone further about it in the current day and age. In my town you need to get a variance to build anything less than 6 feet away from the property line. If this happened here, based on the distance, he/she would need to get my approval and it would have to go up to the town board. Even when my neighbor (and we're friendly with all of them) wanted to do a new flagstone patio that was close to our fence we went to the council meeting to say it was okay with us and actually we support it wholeheartedly.
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Sep 14, 2020 17:56
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FogHelmut posted:A new neighbor just bought the house nextdoor, and he hasn't even moved in yet and he's asking me to help pay for a new fence (block wall) between our yards because he doesn't like how it looks. Obviously my answer is no, as it is structurally solid and already exists. Under this condition, I'm not obligated to shell out tons of money to replace something that doesn't need fixing and that I'm not interested in changing. It looks like it's entirely on his property. That's your neighbors fence and he can replace it if he wants to; not sure why he'd ask you to pay for part of it.
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Sep 14, 2020 18:04
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If he didn’t do a survey and get that fence diligence done and cleared before getting his title, well then that probably tells you all you need to know about dealing with this guy. E: to be more helpful, I got a survey done and had the neighbors for whom existing fence meandered onto/off of our property signed off so that it was accepted as fine, and if any fences are rebuilt it will be done properly.
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Sep 14, 2020 18:47
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Not sure how they'd gently caress with you other than not maintaining it and not allowing you to maintain it. If the fence has always been that way and there isn't a clear understanding of ownership throughout the time it's been up, you could theoretically already have ownership of that extra 10ft, but don't go assuming anything like that without a lawyer involved
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Sep 14, 2020 18:57
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re Fence Chat: Check local laws/ordinances, deed documents, and HOA documents (if there is one) and see what they say about party walls. My HOA docs cover shared fences and each lot owner is on the hook for 50% of repair, reconstruction, or replacement. It doesn't cover cosmetic issues of course.
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Sep 14, 2020 19:25
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I'm sure it will amount to nothing, but I'm on edge after having legal issues with a condo association last year (association was fining me for not evicting a tenant who moved in with one kid and had 4 kids after a few years, stating they were validating dubious occupancy rules, but evicting someone for having a family is not legal). Two different fences, two situations.  The back fence is weird, and yeah I didn't do my due diligence about property lines, and it's weird as hell to have to maintain a space that I don't own, but ultimately it can't be used for anything because its too severe of a slope. The effort amounts to just extra weeding a few times a year to prevent stuff from encroaching on my livable space.
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Sep 14, 2020 19:26
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FogHelmut posted:I'm sure it will amount to nothing, but I'm on edge after having legal issues with a condo association last year (association was fining me for not evicting a tenant who moved in with one kid and had 4 kids after a few years, stating they were validating dubious occupancy rules, but evicting someone for having a family is not legal).
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Sep 14, 2020 19:50
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Go take a bunch of pictures of this fence in good repair before this guy has it demo'd and tries to bill you for half regardless. The city is likely to take his side unless you have evidence to the contrary.
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Sep 14, 2020 20:47
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Hire a goddamn lawyer. Property lines can be moved due to longstanding and well established things like walls and fences, depending on the state laws. Get a lawyer with experience with real estate boundary issues in your area and at least ask them for advice. You are in a situation where your neighbor could potentially try to claim a slice of your property. You'll be better off if you have your own survey and also a lawyer to tell you exactly what to do. You need legal advice. Get a lawyer.
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Sep 14, 2020 21:06
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Yeah I'm getting the paperwork together if it comes to that for the side neighbor. I don't trust the online maps with property overlays because they don't jive with the pins out in the curb for the borders. I'm also looking into if there is any kind of official easement, or anyone old enough to know why the fences are built this way in the back. It's so weird, it seems to be just my block. I've looked around the whole neighborhood and everyone else's fences on the slope are built at the property line which always ends at the top of the slope. 
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Sep 14, 2020 22:01
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Anyone have good pointers to information about saltless water conditioning systems? I live in southern Ontario and we have extremely hard water (350-550 ppm), so some sort of mitigation is necessary. Right now we have an ion-exchange conditioner, but it's getting on in years and it would be nice to replace it with something that doesn't require periodic re-salting and doesn't flush huge amounts of brine into the wastewater. What I know so far: Template-Assisted Crystallization - installed inline - water flows through a substrate of nucleation sites that encourage crystal formation; as crystals get larger they break off back into the flow - high iron levels¹ can clog the substrate, so you need an iron filter in front of it - no power requirements or moving parts - substrate needs to be replaced every ~5 years Electromagnetic Crystallization - installed as a bracket around existing pipes; does not directly contact the water - uses electromagnetic fields to encourage nucleation in the flowing water - requires mains power but has no consumable parts - maybe a scam² - also needs an iron filter, except maybe it doesn't, or even works better on iron-rich water, who the gently caress knows It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to find discussions of or reviews of these that aren't either (a) written by the companies that make them, and thus say that they're awesome and will solve all your problems, or (b) written by the companies that make ion-exchange softeners, and thus say that they're poo poo and a waste of money. Further complicating matters, there's lots of "magnetic water conditioners are a scam" pages out there, but the ones that aren't written by ion-exchange manufacturers all cite the same batch of papers from the 70s-90s looking at the effects of a different and much older technology, and more recent papers look more promising. --- ¹ We might have high iron, but it ranges from 5 ppb to 1800 ppb depending on where you are in the city, so we'd have to actually test to be sure. ² "Magnets will solve all your problems" is a classic scam and consumer reviews on e.g. Amazon are so unreliable that I can't really draw any conclusions from them
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Sep 17, 2020 15:14
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I don't have an easy answer for you, but I feel your pain. I've always had water softeners in my homes in the northeast, and never given them a second thought. When I moved to CA the water was hard as poo poo and no houses came with softeners. So I went looking for a company to install one as well as build the necessary plumbing loop. Half of the places offered me the same types of water treatment as you mentioned and despite being an actual scientist, who looks for primary literature as a profession, all I could find was the industry sponsored papers on either side. Ultimately I found a plumber that was willing to just install a softener and I'm happy because I KNOW those work and I've not met anyone who can tell me about their experiences using other treatment methods. What exactly is the problem with just using a softener?
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Sep 18, 2020 01:16
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Anonymous Zebra posted:What exactly is the problem with just using a softener? They waste huge amounts of water (modern ones are less bad but still not actually good), the water they discharge into the sewer needs special treatment (or if your municipality is poo poo they just dump the untreated brine right into the waterways), and they have comparatively high upkeep costs in the form of regular salt refills.
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Sep 18, 2020 01:29
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ToxicFrog posted:Anyone have good pointers to information about saltless water conditioning systems? I live in southern Ontario and we have extremely hard water (350-550 ppm), so some sort of mitigation is necessary. Right now we have an ion-exchange conditioner, but it's getting on in years and it would be nice to replace it with something that doesn't require periodic re-salting and doesn't flush huge amounts of brine into the wastewater. If you ever get this question answered/take the plunge, I'd love to hear the results. Because yeah, same experience here when I was looking.
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Sep 18, 2020 04:59
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Thought I had the place all buttoned up to sell. Then my realtor calls to tell me my basement is flooded  okay maybe not flooded like wearing gaiters or anything but maybe an inch of water on half the floor. got a group out there today and they want to charge me $2900 to leave a dehumidifier and four fans there for three days... Seeking new quotes but this seems like 2-3x how much it should cost? Also they couldn't figure out where it came from.
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Sep 22, 2020 16:31
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The Big Jesus posted:Thought I had the place all buttoned up to sell. Then my realtor calls to tell me my basement is flooded I mean you can buy a dehumidifier and 4 fans for 2900 probably like 3 dehumidifiers (the good ones) and 4 fans and still be ahead.
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Sep 22, 2020 17:31
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The Big Jesus posted:Thought I had the place all buttoned up to sell. Then my realtor calls to tell me my basement is flooded That's similar to what disaster recovery cost me after a water heater failure. They ripped up carpet and drywood though because of mold concerns, is that getting done too?
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Sep 22, 2020 19:23
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mastershakeman posted:That's similar to what disaster recovery cost me after a water heater failure. They ripped up carpet and drywood though because of mold concerns, is that getting done too? There is no drywall or carpet lol it's just a concrete floor
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Sep 22, 2020 19:25
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tater_salad posted:I mean you can buy a dehumidifier and 4 fans for 2900 probably like 3 dehumidifiers (the good ones) and 4 fans and still be ahead. It's sort of the going rate for that racket if they even get a whif insurance is going to cover it. If you're paying out of pocket you should absolutely call and ask if there is a better cash rate than can be worked out.
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Sep 22, 2020 19:27
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H110Hawk posted:It's sort of the going rate for that racket if they even get a whif insurance is going to cover it. If you're paying out of pocket you should absolutely call and ask if there is a better cash rate than can be worked out. They specifically asked about insurance and I said I'd be covering it myself.
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Sep 22, 2020 19:29
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You can rent the same industrial sized fans and dehumidifiers from Home Depot. It'll be like a tenth of the price of hiring people.
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Sep 22, 2020 19:43
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The Big Jesus posted:Also they couldn't figure out where it came from. Um, unless you had a record-setting rain or something, this is a crucial step in the process. Last thing you want is to be under contract and have the basement flood again before inspection. Buyers will run for the exit.
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Sep 23, 2020 02:00
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B-Nasty posted:Buyers will You were so close.
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Sep 23, 2020 02:32
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Motronic posted:
You were so close.
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Sep 23, 2020 02:55
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