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I loving hate my master bathroom. I want it remodeled and I searched for a few one stop shop companies to try and get the process started. Only one place got back to me and asked me to show them some quick phone pics to give a rough pricing estimate before they came over and did measurements and I sat down to pick out mats. She told me my 4 x 11 bathroom was going to be about 25k-40k. That's without moving the toilet around or knocking down any walls. I'd be replacing the sink, toilet, shower, floor, tile wall, and light fixtures. Is that estimate reasonable? I'm living in the Pittsburgh area.
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May 11, 2021 02:50
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Dazerbeams posted:I loving hate my master bathroom. I want it remodeled and I searched for a few one stop shop companies to try and get the process started. Only one place got back to me and asked me to show them some quick phone pics to give a rough pricing estimate before they came over and did measurements and I sat down to pick out mats. She told me my 4 x 11 bathroom was going to be about 25k-40k. That's without moving the toilet around or knocking down any walls. I'd be replacing the sink, toilet, shower, floor, tile wall, and light fixtures. Is that estimate reasonable? I'm living in the Pittsburgh area. Everything is priced insane right now due to materials shortages. I can’t speak to specific prices though. It’s generally advised in this thread to wait at least a year or two if you can until material prices drop.
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May 11, 2021 03:05
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Well that's not the answer I was hoping for but that's very good to know.
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May 11, 2021 03:53
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I was going to go the same route with my master bath but not with material prices as they are. So I’m just going to touch up the grout, caulk, new tub hardware, new faucet and some paint. I’m trying to get out of this condo in the next 12 months and I’m going to do whatever I can to sell this place.
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May 11, 2021 04:18
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Dazerbeams posted:Well that's not the answer I was hoping for but that's very good to know. If it's any conciliation, those were the prices I was getting a for a similar sized bathroom renovation (no changes in the footprint) a few years ago before the materials shortage. Are you talking to a large bathroom/kitchen remodeling company with a showroom and lots of sales people (you can sometime find how many sales people are employed by searching contractor licenses on your state contractors directory)? Those were always charging a premium when I got all my quotes because they are taking advantage of the fact that you just want to pick things out and have them do everything at once. You can sometimes have better luck finding smaller general contractor specialists that do the labor, but have you pick out the materials (which they'll then buy with their contractor discount). But, and I cannot stress this enough, really need to be sure that they are quality with lots of proof of their work, preferably with recommends from people you actually know. The best guys are not advertising, and might not even pop up on Yelp or Google when you search, because they have a schedule a year out and don't need to advertise. EDIT: You should still wait a year or two though, because even the small guys probably can't find materials for good prices right now.
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May 11, 2021 07:41
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How long do people think this construction and remodeling boom goes on? I'm saving up to finish our basement, and we're attempting to have all the money saved up within 5 years. I waffle between just taking out a loan to do it now and paying the small interest rate and higher costs, or waiting for prices to come down and just paying straight cash.
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May 11, 2021 15:23
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What are the advantages of doing it now and paying interest on higher prices? Seems like a no brainer to wait if you don't have to do it now.
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May 11, 2021 15:47
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BaseballPCHiker posted:How long do people think this construction and remodeling boom goes on? IMO unless they're necessary fixes, hold off. Keep saving your money and wait until material and labor prices go down. I would guess that 5 years is plenty, but who the hell knows. Bi-la kaifa posted:What are the advantages of doing it now and paying interest on higher prices? Seems like a no brainer to wait if you don't have to do it now. Yeah I'm not sure I get this logic? So not only are you paying higher prices, but you're doubling down on that by adding interest on top of it? When you could be saving that cash in an interest-bearing account (granted, at less than 1% right now) and then pay for everything in cash in a few years. And on top of that, you'll STILL have to wait a long time to even get on the schedule. I mean, if you need to finish your basement to add a bedroom for a baby or something, then that's one thing. But if it's just to have a rec room or entertaining space, then it's something you can absolutely wait for.
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May 11, 2021 15:55
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How are you going to keep them
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May 11, 2021 16:18
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Someone actually got back to me this morning and told me 15k as a ballpark which is a lot closer to what I was expecting. I asked about the materials shortage and the woman said that everything's on serious back order but that the pricing itself isn't being jacked up that much. I'm going to have them come out to take measurements and then see what the final cost is going to be before making a decision.
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May 11, 2021 16:29
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Highbrow Slick posted:Almost a year into me and my fiancée WFH and 2 kids schooling from home has finally made me realize I may want to replace my bedroom (“”office””) hollow core door with a solid core. There is just too much noise everywhere right now. Has anyone done this? Does it make a significant difference in noise? Would it be worth it to replace all 3 bedroom doors with solid core doors? I’m probably going to hire someone to do it because I don’t trust myself not to muck it up. Looks like the 45 day timeline I was quoted on 1/29 was...not entirely accurate. Halfway through May and all I have to show for it is a missing bedroom door that the contractor took yesterday to match paint after arriving at my front door completely unannounced. Hooray
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May 11, 2021 17:14
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Bi-la kaifa posted:What are the advantages of doing it now and paying interest on higher prices? Seems like a no brainer to wait if you don't have to do it now. Most obviously I get my basement sooner! Sorry I didnt phrase my question very well. I guess the risk is that costs keep going up within the next 5 years, that this is a long term boom I might not be able to necessarily wait out. DaveSauce posted:I mean, if you need to finish your basement to add a bedroom for a baby or something, then that's one thing. But if it's just to have a rec room or entertaining space, then it's something you can absolutely wait for. This is the reason for our basement remodel. We have 1 kid due in the next 3 months, and want to have one more in the next 2 years. We can make it work with babies but eventually will want the room for kids. I also like our house/neighborhood and dont want to just move to a bigger place. Would rather fix up and remodel our ancient cool house.
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May 11, 2021 17:23
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Highbrow Slick posted:Looks like the 45 day timeline I was quoted on 1/29 was...not entirely accurate. Halfway through May and all I have to show for it is a missing bedroom door that the contractor took yesterday to match paint after arriving at my front door completely unannounced. Hooray You must've misheard "a monday" as "this monday at the latest" Lot of that going around lately. BaseballPCHiker posted:This is the reason for our basement remodel. We have 1 kid due in the next 3 months, and want to have one more in the next 2 years. We can make it work with babies but eventually will want the room for kids. Our son whos turning 3 in 3 months only just got his own room, so you might be able to play for time. Struensee fucked around with this message at 17:31 on May 11, 2021 |
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May 11, 2021 17:26
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Most obviously I get my basement sooner! I would probably invest my savings for it and wait at least a year. Lumber is close to 3x the cost of where it traditionally is and there isn't a long term reason, it's all short term impacts.
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May 11, 2021 17:27
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Is the material price bubble affecting ALL materials, or primarily just lumber-based items? The granite in our kitchen is the poo poo awfulest tinge of brown (that forces everything else in the living areas to match) and I know if I don’t replace it soon, I probably never will.
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May 11, 2021 19:44
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Dazerbeams posted:I loving hate my master bathroom. I want it remodeled and I searched for a few one stop shop companies to try and get the process started. Only one place got back to me and asked me to show them some quick phone pics to give a rough pricing estimate before they came over and did measurements and I sat down to pick out mats. She told me my 4 x 11 bathroom was going to be about 25k-40k. That's without moving the toilet around or knocking down any walls. I'd be replacing the sink, toilet, shower, floor, tile wall, and light fixtures. Is that estimate reasonable? I'm living in the Pittsburgh area.
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May 11, 2021 19:45
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Gin_Rummy posted:Is the material price bubble affecting ALL materials, or primarily just lumber-based items? The granite in our kitchen is the poo poo awfulest tinge of brown (that forces everything else in the living areas to match) and I know if I don’t replace it soon, I probably never will. Primarily lumber. But manufactured goods are starting/started to come up too as Covid has caused all sorts of raw goods supply issues, especially in long distance transportation. The butterfly effect is that distributors are not keeping any inventory on hand (because the cost of making a good will go down "shortly" - when transportation is restored), so basically put, you're getting screwed if you need to buy anything right now.
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May 11, 2021 20:04
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Copper, steel, and plastic pipe has gone up as well, but nowhere near the extent lumber has. The real issue, as mentioned, is lead times for everything have been going up.
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May 11, 2021 20:14
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unknown posted:The butterfly effect is that distributors are not keeping any inventory on hand (because the cost of making a good will go down "shortly" - when transportation is restored), so basically put, you're getting screwed if you need to buy anything right now. From last week:  A couple weeks before that it was drywall and mud. I bought the second-to-last 10 foot stick of 1" EMT. Also, I've been taking a picture of the 10 foot 2x4 tag every time I walk in. This used to be $3.49 in the before times. Two weeks ago:  Last week: 
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May 11, 2021 20:58
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in my area 2x4x8' are about 1.50 more than they were in the before times.. x10's seem to be increasing at a stupid price tho. I dunno what beforetimes you're discussing, maybe 3 years ago I haven't paid under 5 for a stud in a long rear end time
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May 11, 2021 21:18
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tater_salad posted:I dunno what beforetimes you're discussing, maybe 3 years ago I haven't paid under 5 for a stud in a long rear end time *flexes* Neither has your mother. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 11, 2021 21:56
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tater_salad posted:in my area 2x4x8' are about 1.50 more than they were in the before times.. x10's seem to be increasing at a stupid price tho. I'm trying to find some sort of price history to confirm but with no luck. But okay, maybe I'm off by 2 dollars at the start of all of this and thinking of much earlier. (nice self probe Sundae)
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May 11, 2021 22:20
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Motronic posted:I'm trying to find some sort of price history to confirm but with no luck. But okay, maybe I'm off by 2 dollars at the start of all of this and thinking of much earlier. I saw some chart on probably twitter (so basically as good as wikipedia  ) showing lumber prices were up 208% in the past ~year so if that's true having a close to 300% increase in one local area on one type of lumber doesn't seem outlandish.
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May 11, 2021 23:38
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It's not as bad over here (SFBA). There are too many lumber mills/distribution centers here (since it's a main shipping region from Asia) that materials are still available at a higher cost. The main problem is sourcing special order things.
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May 12, 2021 01:39
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Motronic posted:From last week: Have you checked Lowes? I went looking for 1x6x6 to make some shelves, and at the HD here the select looked like common, and the common looked like firewood, and it was like $30 per goddamn board. I went over to Lowes and the select looks very nice and was "only" $20 per board. Last time I was in, Lowes had a full bin of 2x4 that didn't look like poo poo, but I didn't check the price, I was too fixated on the 6-3 I found.
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May 12, 2021 14:19
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I paid $50 for a 2"x12"x12'. Kill meeeee
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May 12, 2021 15:47
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My new house came with a nice GE Profile fridge (I think it’s this one, or one very close to it). Has warranty until 4/22, but GE emailed me and said they do an extended warranty for it through assurant. Does anyone have any experience with these? Their claim is $0 deductible, repair or replacement cost, and if you buy 5 years worth it’s $70 a year. On its face it seems like a good deal, but I know nothing about fridges. Is it likely to last over the 10 years? If it dies at 9 years old and they don’t want to fix it, are they just going to shove me $500 and claim it’s good?
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May 12, 2021 16:32
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Generally extended warranties are "activated" under 10% of the time. GE would not be sending me e-mails and letters and calls to push these warranties if they were not moneymakers for GE / Warranty company.
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May 12, 2021 16:39
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:My new house came with a nice GE Profile fridge (I think it’s this one, or one very close to it). Haha drat that's a nice fridge. Interesting to see the model progression over the years, I'm sure they are good now. My GE Profile is from like 2003, its design is so bad the water dispenser freezes indefinitely: https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/GE-24-9-Cu-Ft-Capacity-Side-By-Side-Refrigerator-with-Dispenser-GSS25SGPSS If they're anything like modern cars extended warranty is almost always a bad idea on a 'new' car. A modern GE fridge is not a haphazard collection of unreliable components like a Land Rover, so you should be fine. Inner Light fucked around with this message at 18:18 on May 12, 2021 |
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May 12, 2021 17:28
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And it never fails that you buy an extended warranty on a product and it craps out 2 months after expiration.
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May 12, 2021 18:16
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Extended warranties are always and forever a bad idea. You might get lucky and be glad you got it, but more often than not they're a waste of money. There's a reason places like BB and Amazon push them for anything remotely worthy of it. They're a major money maker. Companies wouldn't sell them if they were actually useful, because it would cost them too much money.
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May 12, 2021 19:02
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I know I'm a rube, but when I got my fridge for $1710, I paid $440 from the dealer for 5 year service because I wanted the peace of mind of not having to worry about any problems. I've seen too many horror stories about fridges. Not sure I would get that same service for another appliance. And part of purchasing it from the local dealer means they're the ones that come out if I have issues, rather than dealing with trying to find a repair service that my national warranty will honor or fighting with reimbursement or whatever. And I did get a GE. The only systemic issue I've heard of is the water line freezing, but the waterline on this one doesn't run through the freezer so won't be a problem. But I don't want to have to worry about it!
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May 12, 2021 19:24
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Inner Light posted:Haha drat that's a nice fridge. Interesting to see the model progression over the years, I'm sure they are good now. My GE Profile is from like 2003, its design is so bad the water dispenser freezes indefinitely: Yeah it’s very nice. I can’t say I would have ever considered spending $3500 on a fridge, but frankly in the 3 weeks I’ve been with it it’s seriously making me think I would. The thing even loving buzzed my phone the other day cause my kid left the fridge open a little bit. Thanks for the opinions everyone. I was considering, but I’m going to skip it. I’m realizing most repairs (if it even needs one before it hits replacement time) will probably be under the $400 cost of the warranty. I’m pretty good at repairing electronics anyway and I could probably fix most issues that aren’t compressor related anyway.
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May 12, 2021 21:03
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So I have been a homeowner for 19 days and my first thing has broken! What do I win? Any suggestions for how to get a “pop up” sink plug that is very much not popping up unstuck? It pressed down and is sealed and will not come back up! I can get no purchase on it to pull it back up out of the plug hole. Online I have seen suggestions to try twisting it counter clockwise while wearing grippy rubber gloves, to use WD40 to loosen it, or to find something with a suction cup on it to suction onto the plug and then pull it up. I have now ordered rubber gloves, WD40 & a suction cup but I am open to suggestions!
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May 12, 2021 21:09
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aDecentCupOfTea posted:So I have been a homeowner for 19 days and my first thing has broken! What do I win? Assuming you're just dealing with a standard bathroom sink plug, its usually a mechanical connection underneath and a connection inside the drain pipe. It may be a loose connection or the part itself has failed. As a new homeowner, youtube will invaluable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLfkDzE7j5U
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May 12, 2021 21:21
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I am at my absolute wit's end. The plumber our Home Warranty has contracted to replace our water heater (which burst in February) has not been answering or returning my calls for weeks. They tell the Home Warranty company that they have called me and left a message, but they most certainly have not. Jesus Christ, I am glad the seller paid for this warranty and not me. At this point am I just better off taking the payout and going with a more expensive plumber/replacement?aDecentCupOfTea posted:Online I have seen suggestions to try twisting it counter clockwise while wearing grippy rubber gloves, to use WD40 to loosen it, or to find something with a suction cup on it to suction onto the plug and then pull it up. This is what I have done in the past to fix these. I believe the tighter you turn them, the more suction they get when closed. Try just keeping them a little bit looser?
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May 12, 2021 21:34
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I’ve held off on demo’ing the shed in my backyard because of the cost of labor and the fact it will necessitate some fence work post-demo, so of course a critter moved under it and brought fleas with it. The fleas either hitched a ride on my shoes or are getting into the house through the wall, so now I’m spending the day outside the house while an exterminator does his thing. This saga is definitely cutting into my enthusiasm for getting a dog.
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May 12, 2021 21:39
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Gin_Rummy posted:I am at my absolute wit's end. The plumber our Home Warranty has contracted to replace our water heater (which burst in February) has not been answering or returning my calls for weeks. They tell the Home Warranty company that they have called me and left a message, but they most certainly have not. Jesus Christ, I am glad the seller paid for this warranty and not me. At this point am I just better off taking the payout and going with a more expensive plumber/replacement? If the warranty company is offering a payout you should almost always take it. Their repair folks are almost always the absolute worst and you don't want them selecting things for you if you can avoid it.
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May 12, 2021 21:44
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Democratic Pirate posted:This saga is definitely cutting into my enthusiasm for getting a dog.
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May 12, 2021 21:45
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El Mero Mero posted:If the warranty company is offering a payout you should almost always take it. Their repair folks are almost always the absolute worst and you don't want them selecting things for you if you can avoid it. Yeah, probably true... this is just a water heater though, so I am less concerned. I'd rather pay no money than some money for it. Also, they called me shortly after I posted, so surely an anonymous goon came in to the rescue on my behalf. Thanks anonymous goon! /s
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May 12, 2021 22:00
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