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NomNomNom posted:Also please tell me you don't really mean pex but the csst flex hose right? Using pex as a generic, we don’t do that anymore?
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Dec 22, 2020 02:18
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H110Hawk posted:You're not getting a skilled trade in for under $150 trip charge. Especially for a super small job. $300 sounds about right for a 1hr job in covid times. I mentally prepare myself for $1000/day for labor in general. Work backwards from there.
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Dec 22, 2020 02:54
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Remulak posted:Using pex as a generic, we don’t do that anymore? I'm not aware of that ever being a thing. The concern here is that pex is a polyethylene product intended for water. CSST, or "gastite" is corrugated stainless steel with a poly outer jacket that is meant for gas. It's a completely different product for a different purpose and neither is a substitute for the other ever for any reason. I and the people in this thread have seen enough dangerous stupidity from handymen who didn't know any better that were hired by a homeowner who shouldn't have had to know any better because they thought they were hiring someone who knew what they were doing. Bottom line, if you have gas-pressureized pex in your home you need to go shut off the gas RIGHT NOW.
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Dec 22, 2020 15:44
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Looks like there is a product which I could see being confused as "pex for gas" - http://www.gasflex.com/. I'm not stating safety one way or the other because my general opinion on gas hookups is to call a plumber. The big bold ISO certification statements make me worried though.
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Dec 22, 2020 15:53
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H110Hawk posted:Looks like there is a product which I could see being confused as "pex for gas" - http://www.gasflex.com/. I'm not stating safety one way or the other because my general opinion on gas hookups is to call a plumber. The big bold ISO certification statements make me worried though. I've never used it before, but it's apparently NFPA 54 (National Fuel Gas Code) compliant as well as ISO 17484 (Plastics piping systems — Multilayer pipe systems for indoor gas installations with a maximum operating pressure up to and including 5 bar (500 kPa)). Not sure it's big in north america yet, seems like a lot of EU use.
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Dec 22, 2020 16:56
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So I’m thinking I need a home energy audit. We have a 1300 sq ft house built in 1986. No natural gas, everything is electric including the heat (baseboard, probably original or close to). The original water heater is somehow still working and there in the drafty garage. We’ve debated replacing the water heater before it breaks and maybe get a bit more efficiency with a new unit as well. The washer/dryer are old and we ordered newer high efficiency ones coming in early Jan. We replaced all lightbulbs with LEDs. We use 1918 kWh in the last billing cycle and 4377 kWh on our last one  . Average daily this cycle was 70-80s kWh. Our last (rental) place was a fairly new townhouse with high efficiency everything and in the winter our electric billy barely moved up, so this was a shock. We are going to set the thermostats in rooms lower but clearly we need to see what else can be done. We already feel cold inside all the time...
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Dec 22, 2020 18:06
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Hawkeye posted:So I’m thinking I need a home energy audit. I'm not sure you need the audit, unless you have a suspicion that it's not the electric heat. If you want to confirm, your utility may be able to provide historical usage for the address. There's a reason why in every climate with significant amount of heating degree days you'll find very little electric resistance heating. You've got options, but "expensive" or "impractical" is going to characterize a lot of them: 1. Replace your heating system 2. Gut and re-insulate your house 3. Train your body to withstand cold conditions by taking ice baths 4. Disconnect the resistance heaters in rooms where there is no freeze risk (no plumbing) and cold isn't an issue (bedrooms - just get thicker blankets) 5. Install a point heater in the common room (fireplace or direct-vent heater) and keep doors open
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Dec 22, 2020 18:17
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Tezer posted:
While maybe don't go to this extreme, in general I think people are wimps about comfortable temperatures. We keep our house at 65 during the heating months. You get used to it.
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Dec 22, 2020 18:28
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Wool socks are the difference between me being bundled up freezing and walking around in shorts in the deep California winter.
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Dec 22, 2020 18:30
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NomNomNom posted:While maybe don't go to this extreme, in general I think people are wimps about comfortable temperatures. We keep our house at 65 during the heating months. You get used to it. Ya, I tend to agree with this. I keep our house at 55 at night (that's what blankets are for) and I used to keep it at 60 during the day/evening before I started working from home - now it's set at 68. Makes me realize how sedentary my work is.
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Dec 22, 2020 18:31
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Hawkeye posted:So I’m thinking I need a home energy audit. You didn't mention your climate zone, but anywhere cold is going to be very expensive to heat with electric baseboards. Literally any other type of heating will end up being cheaper: fuel oil, natural gas, propane, or a heat pump. If you have ducts and access to natural gas, a NG furnace will be the cheapest option. If you don't have ducts, cold-weather mini split(s) would probably be your best bet. Of course, bring your attic insulation up to the recommended amount (check charts online) and airseal and add weatherstrips, etc. to stop drafts. These are low-hanging fruit that can be done cheaply, and will give you a nice ROI regardless of your heating method.
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Dec 22, 2020 18:39
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Hawkeye posted:So I’m thinking I need a home energy audit. Townhouses are deceptive. If you're willing to be colder than your neighbors, you can leach heat and barely heat your home. Especially if you have a middle unit.
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Dec 22, 2020 18:41
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This info is helpful thanks all. We will try lowering the heat and see if it makes a meaningful difference in the bill. I’ll try and ask neighbors that are in houses with the same design and age about it too. The house is in Seattle, so it doesn’t really get cold but basically stays in the low-mid 40s as highs for the winter.
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Dec 22, 2020 19:30
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Check out all of your doors and windows for leaks in and around them. As any Midwest renter with a landlord skirting the heat ordinances knows, a few $10 door snakes and some ugly window film can be the difference between feeling comfortable in the winter and wearing every sweater you own and still chattering your teeth.
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Dec 22, 2020 20:19
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Even with a heat pump in ca the heat alone is about 15-17 kw/d
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Dec 22, 2020 22:08
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Hutla posted:Check out all of your doors and windows for leaks in and around them. As any Midwest renter with a landlord skirting the heat ordinances knows, a few $10 door snakes and some ugly window film can be the difference between feeling comfortable in the winter and wearing every sweater you own and still chattering your teeth. At a previous rental I realized that the door was sealed against the frame, but the walls were hollow and the hollow walls extended to the door frame on the outside of the door seal. End result was that the middle of my walls had free air exchange with the outdoor air. The air had to go through the 1/4" gap between the door and the frame, but there was an obvious, continuous flow of heated air coming out. I ended up stuffing the opening to the hollow space with some newspaper (it's a rental), taping off the hollow with duct tape, and then putting some scrap wood over everything to make it semi permanent. Dropped my monthly bill by about 20%. I also used about half a roll of duct tape sealing up any hole on the exterior of the house larger than a pin hole, and repainted the painted-over windows, and put rugs over the hardwood floors where there were obvious cracks
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Dec 22, 2020 22:21
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Check with your utility/local city website. They often will pay for home energy audits for you. I had one done that was quite useful at no cost to myself.
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Dec 22, 2020 22:23
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El Mero Mero posted:Check with your utility/local city website. They often will pay for home energy audits for you. I had one done that was quite useful at no cost to myself. Same... when I moved in Columbia Gas was offering home energy audits for something like 100$ and it included a free nest thermostat. Came with a full report on what needed fixed and everything, even without the free thermostat it was wholeheartedly worthwhile
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Dec 22, 2020 23:27
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Hadlock posted:At a previous rental I realized that the door was sealed against the frame, but the walls were hollow and the hollow walls extended to the door frame on the outside of the door seal. End result was that the middle of my walls had free air exchange with the outdoor air. The air had to go through the 1/4" gap between the door and the frame, but there was an obvious, continuous flow of heated air coming out. I ended up stuffing the opening to the hollow space with some newspaper (it's a rental), taping off the hollow with duct tape, and then putting some scrap wood over everything to make it semi permanent. Dropped my monthly bill by about 20%. I also used about half a roll of duct tape sealing up any hole on the exterior of the house larger than a pin hole, and repainted the painted-over windows, and put rugs over the hardwood floors where there were obvious cracks Dang. At one of my apartments, if it was still light outside but the inside of the apartment was dark, you could see a nearly complete rectangle of light outlining the window frame. I have no idea where it was attached to the walls.
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Dec 23, 2020 00:02
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Anyone have any advice for replacing a built-in natural gas grill on a patio? I can find decent units for sale. I can find well-reviewed gas plumbers. But I'm having trouble finding a gas plumber that seems to specialize in grills or sell them. Is that just not a thing? I found one well-reviewed contractor who apparently sells a lot of those gas fireplaces with the fake logs! Just want to avoid a scenario where I buy the wrong unit for our cutout or overlook something and then have a guy come out and can't do the work. We have a really old rusted out unit that I don't think has been used since the owner before last.
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Dec 24, 2020 03:48
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Chad Sexington posted:Anyone have any advice for replacing a built-in natural gas grill on a patio? You will need a conversion kit for whatever grill you buy to replace your old one. If you already have an NG gas line on your deck it should have a regulator. From there the grill itself would need a different sized orifice. Check out the offering here : https://www.bbqguys.com/grill-accessories/gas-conversion-kits A more expensive grill will likely be able to be converted. A ridiculously cheap big box store grill will likely be riveted/tack welded and much more difficult to convert. This one is for a CharBroil dual fuel grill, note not all CharBroil grills are dual fuel (the whole big box thing). https://www.amazon.com/Char-Broil-Natural-Gas-Conversion-Kit/dp/B000NW2FY4
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Dec 25, 2020 17:01
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Just find a natural gas grill the size of your hole and any licensed plumber can pipe it in. It probably just sits in a hole. If it is a fancy size most fireplace stores also sell grills and install.
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Dec 25, 2020 19:39
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Chad Sexington posted:Anyone have any advice for replacing a built-in natural gas grill on a patio? If you're in a decent sized metro area there should be a outdoor bbq/patio or outdoor kitchen company that you can work with. We have bbqoutfitters.com in my area. What built in grill are you replacing? Generally they're somewhat standard sizes, 24, 30, 36, or 40 inches are common sizes. They tend to sit inside an insulated liner as well, so you may need to modify the cutout to fit whatever liner and grill you want. Right now I have a NG gas outlet on my back patio I have a NG Weber connected to, but one day when I do the outdoor kitchen I'll be grabbing something like this. https://bbqoutfitters.com/collectio...infrared-burner and you can see the insulated liner that goes with the grill https://bbqoutfitters.com/collections/insulated-liners Make sure whatever you get is high quality stainless. An outdoor built in grill shouldn't rust out.
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Dec 25, 2020 22:44
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skipdogg posted:If you're in a decent sized metro area there should be a outdoor bbq/patio or outdoor kitchen company that you can work with. We have bbqoutfitters.com in my area. I found a place that sells and installs them -- the trick was to search for places that do the NG fireplaces and work backwards. It's a a 24-inch AOG unit from 2009 at the latest. We have documentation from a PO for a quality check around that time. I was probably overstating the shittiness of current unit, but it does look like it hasn't been used in years. I'm actually a little afraid to talk to an outdoor kitchen company, because I could probably be persuaded to expand the existing grill area at great expense. 24" is pretty paltry a cooking surface after all...
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Dec 26, 2020 01:01
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I would be surprised if that grill couldn’t be saved with a ton of elbow grease and maybe a couple parts. There’s probably a guy in your area that cleans grills for a living if you don’t want to do it yourself. Might be worth exploring Outdoor stuff is a slippery slope. My dream outdoor kitchen is almost 5 figures in appliances alone and gets to double that if I have someone else do the work. I’m not in my forever home so I won’t spend the money until I am.
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Dec 26, 2020 07:47
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Merry christmas, my basement now has water in it  Joys of half frozen ground, 6" of rain across a few hours, and my siding/soffits/fascia/evestroughs being replaced. I now know why the back side of the house had evestroughes installed, but the front side didn't (the water came in on the side that had evestroughs pre-demo). The grading is good, and water seems to have come in through the seam between the floor slab and the walls, so the insulation isn't wet at all but I'll probably need to replace the bottom 2x4. It also wasn't a significant amount of water, and is appropriately dried up now. Should be fine when the new evestroughs are up, as we've had more significant rainstorms without an issue.
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Dec 27, 2020 02:50
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TrueChaos posted:Merry christmas, my basement now has water in it Let me guess: older (> 30 years) house, with a finished basement. Houses built more than a decade or two ago should never have their basements finished. There are no vapor/water barriers on the slab or walls, and it was expected that a bit of water might creep in.
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Dec 27, 2020 03:57
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B-Nasty posted:Let me guess: older (> 30 years) house, with a finished basement. Does that still apply if the house has been retrofitted with interior drain tile, or will water find a way?
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Dec 27, 2020 04:08
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Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic park, water always finds a way.
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Dec 27, 2020 04:34
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B-Nasty posted:Let me guess: older (> 30 years) house, with a finished basement. Close! House built in '86, but unfinished basement. The exception is that interior stud walls were put up at some point but never finished. Electrical was run, and the exterior walls were insulated & vapor barriered, if not done all that well. So no real damage done, other than the bottom 2x4 of one section of an exterior wall.
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Dec 27, 2020 11:33
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Hoo boy, I just came home from a week long vacation and my house smells incredibly musty. I hope it's just nose-blindness and that it has always been this way (and I can address the issue) and not related to my brand new roof & the recent heavy rains 
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Dec 27, 2020 20:06
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Hoo boy, I just came home from a week long vacation and my house smells incredibly musty. I hope it's just nose-blindness and that it has always been this way (and I can address the issue) and not related to my brand new roof & the recent heavy rains Our house smells a bit musty in the summer when we get back from being away for a few days or more, but it goes away when nose blindness turns on. Not a problem in the winter because the basement (source of mustiness) dries out. B-Nasty posted:Houses built more than a decade or two ago should never have their basements finished. There are no vapor/water barriers on the slab or walls, and it was expected that a bit of water might creep in. This, especially in century-old houses. Back then, basements were never designed to be finished because in lieu of moisture barriers, they made basement walls porous so they can shed excess moisture. Ours weep in the summer when there’s lots of rain. We looked at a bunch of super old houses retrofitted with fancy finished basements and I’m so glad ours is unfinished - if you seal it with nonbreathable stuff and hide it behind drywall, you trap moisture in the stones and risk spalling/disintegration except you won’t know because it’s hidden.
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Dec 27, 2020 20:34
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Blorange posted:Does that still apply if the house has been retrofitted with interior drain tile, or will water find a way? Homeowner's Insurance policies (all of them, to my knowledge) will only cover mechanicals (water heater, HVAC, circuit panel, etc.) and I think laundry devices in the basement from flood damage. Everything else -- possessions in storage, furniture, even repairs to "finished" rooms like the replacement of wiring/drywall -- are not covered as below-grade space is not considered "suitable for habitation". It's only "valid" use in the eyes of your insurance is as an access space for utilities. Let the fact that they can't find a premium price at which they can make a profit insuring basements guide your perspective on the likelihood or predictability of basement water intrusion, even after considering region and home age.
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Dec 27, 2020 20:37
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Just make your own call on what your risk level you're comfortable with is. I live in a remodeled rowhouse in Philly originally built in the early 1900's with a finished basement. But I also live on the top of a hill (more or less) making the water table WAAAAAAY far below my house and reducing the likelyhood of water intrusion due to a heavy storm. I still only use my basement for exercise equipment, laundry stuff, and storage though.
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Dec 27, 2020 20:46
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Hubis posted:Homeowner's Insurance policies (all of them, to my knowledge) will only cover mechanicals (water heater, HVAC, circuit panel, etc.) and I think laundry devices in the basement from flood damage. Everything else -- possessions in storage, furniture, even repairs to "finished" rooms like the replacement of wiring/drywall -- are not covered as below-grade space is not considered "suitable for habitation". It's only "valid" use in the eyes of your insurance is as an access space for utilities. This is absolutely not the case universally.
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Dec 27, 2020 20:56
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Hoo boy, I just came home from a week long vacation and my house smells incredibly musty. I hope it's just nose-blindness and that it has always been this way (and I can address the issue) and not related to my brand new roof & the recent heavy rains That would suck if the roof is bad. Probably not the case, though, right? Good luck. I hate water.
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Dec 27, 2020 21:39
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pmchem posted:That would suck if the roof is bad. Probably not the case, though, right? Good luck. I hate water. No leaks are making it into the house proper, but I'm nervous that when I pop my head into the attic I'll find a lagoon somewhere!
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Dec 27, 2020 21:49
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Home ownership is just a lovely RPG where I try to put points into my kitchen but the durability on my water heater is critically low. I should pick up some side quests so I can do both.
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Dec 28, 2020 01:02
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StormDrain posted:Home ownership is just a lovely RPG where I try to put points into my kitchen but the durability on my water heater is critically low. I should pick up some side quests so I can do both. It's more of a lovely KMMO in that paying the NPC to repair stuff comes with a 50% chance of destroying it irreparably. 
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Dec 28, 2020 01:17
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StormDrain posted:Home ownership is just a lovely RPG where I try to put points into my kitchen but the durability on my water heater is critically low. I should pick up some side quests so I can do both. And the party members are worthless!
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Dec 28, 2020 02:01
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