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Inner Light posted:Ugh, I misunderstood exactly what the guy said and feel bad. Now that I think about it he said it was 2 hot wires touching rather than touching the case.... that changes the 'laziest thing imaginable' a little, but just wanted to set myself straight on these here forums. Still not good! But that's why he secured the leads away from each other with zip ties.... I am not sure exactly why they have exposed ends that could touch, but that's what happened. That doesn't make any more sense, and the problem is still that zip ties are not the appropriate way to fix anything like this. Period. Call another company. Get the work inspected. Send a demand letter for that invoice plus the food you lost.
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Aug 19, 2021 23:28
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Inner Light posted:Ugh, I misunderstood exactly what the guy said and feel bad. Now that I think about it he said it was 2 hot wires touching rather than touching the case.... that changes the 'laziest thing imaginable' a little, but just wanted to set myself straight on these here forums. Still not good! But that's why he secured the leads away from each other with zip ties.... I am not sure exactly why they have exposed ends that could touch, but that's what happened. This description also makes it sound very sloppy which there's no reason for it to be. These guys sound unsafe.
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Aug 19, 2021 23:30
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Motronic posted:That is not an acceptable fix, and you lost a fridge full of food over their fuckup. I forgot about the fridge. I’d be demanding payment for the loss of food in the fridge as well. That’s on them as this is due to their negligence. Based on other responses about this (I know not enough about electric or AC units) I’d be calling another company out to verify the work is correct, fix the lovely work, and billing the original company for it.
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Aug 19, 2021 23:30
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Motronic posted:It could be, it could not be. If this hasn't ever happened before and suddenly started happen it could be something completely different like broken gutters/downspout. A neighbor that regraded. A neighbor's broken downspout, etc. It's definitely had moisture there before. Don't think pooling before, but we did have the reminents of a tropical storm roll through last night. The neighbors essentially have no gutters so I presume their water on their roof just has a nice 12 ft fall to the ground.  My gutters are in good working order and I have a tube that takes it away from the foundation.  No other grading work near me.
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Aug 19, 2021 23:43
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re: AC electricity chat -- Got it, I appreciate all that feedback and will deal with this. Sorry to monopolize the thread but hopefully it was good content. Have learned a ton here!
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Aug 19, 2021 23:43
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Nitrousoxide posted:It's definitely had moisture there before. Don't think pooling before, but we did have the reminents of a tropical storm roll through last night. Yeah, that's not great. Also I'm like 20 miles north of you. And the skylight in my master bath leaked. I feel your pain.
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Aug 19, 2021 23:46
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Motronic posted:Yeah, that's not great. Ah yeah, fun times. Last year when the tropical storm rolled through the vent in my bathroom started leaking and after having someone come out and look at it they discovered ponding on my flat roof. I ended up having to get an entirely new roof because the algae that was growing up there was wrecking it, despite the roof being only 2 years old.
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Aug 19, 2021 23:52
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Nitrousoxide posted:Ah yeah, fun times. Last year when the tropical storm rolled through the vent in my bathroom started leaking and after having someone come out and look at it they discovered ponding on my flat roof. I ended up having to get an entirely new roof because the algae that was growing up there was wrecking it, despite the roof being only 2 years old. Was this homeowners insurance claim territory or no?
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Aug 19, 2021 23:56
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Inner Light posted:Was this homeowners insurance claim territory or no? I did reach out to them, but they said they would not cover it because the ponding wasn't due to a sharp event like a storm, but instead a slow degradation of the roof.
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Aug 20, 2021 00:05
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Nitrousoxide posted:slow degradation of the roof. Nitrousoxide posted:roof being only 2 years old. insurance bastards
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Aug 20, 2021 02:39
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Inner Light posted:re: AC electricity chat -- Got it, I appreciate all that feedback and will deal with this. Sorry to monopolize the thread but hopefully it was good content. Have learned a ton here! So you also had an upstream higher rated break flip before a lower rated one, yea? Sounds like you may have a bad breaker. A/C should have its own breaker that doesn’t render your house inop. If that didn’t flip before the house you got a problem.
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Aug 20, 2021 03:29
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Nitrousoxide posted:
This cracks me up, imagine just coating your roofing material right on over the gutters. Why not, you're being paid the bare minimum anyway
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Aug 20, 2021 14:24
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Motronic posted:Yeah, that's not great. I'm that in the West direction, and my basement window wells (they have covers) collected enough water to create a few puddles in the basement, which never happens normally. No big deal since it's unfinished. That was a rough storm! Nitrousoxide, this is an excellent resource: https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/building-science-insights/bsi-110-keeping-water-out-basements Basically, older basements aren't designed to be finished. If you proceed against that recommendation, as Motronic said, you need interior drainage and a sump pump(s). It's also a good idea to build it out assuming that some water is inevitable (because it is), like tile/waterproof floors, keeping the drywall an inch or more up with vinyl 'baseboards', etc.
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Aug 20, 2021 14:33
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Nitrousoxide posted:
You'll be lucky if they didn't just put the flooring over a dirt floor, and the walls aren't random field stones. Depending on where in Philly, some of those houses have interesting basements. But if you have a full height ceiling, you probably won't have those other things. Anyway, the city is notorious for lovely flips, especially with all of the gentrification in the last few years.
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Aug 20, 2021 15:19
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B-Nasty posted:Nitrousoxide, this is an excellent resource: https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/building-science-insights/bsi-110-keeping-water-out-basements Old house basement haver here (over in SW PA) and older basements not being designed to be finished is absolutely correct. They were for housing your laundry sink, root vegetables, boiler, and a pile of coal, not for rec rooms with electrical and carpeting. Our basement is completely unfinished and is more or less as it was when the house was built in 1910. Foundation walls are sandstone. Part of it still has a dirt floor. It weeps when it rains and puddles form in the corners when it rains hard, but because it's unfinished, the extra water eventually find its way to the floor drain or just seeps back into the earth (concrete is quite porous). After seeing what happens in this basement when it rains, I am so very glad we didn't buy a house of this vintage with a finished basement (and we saw lots of them when house hunting). What a good "finished" old house basement would look like to me would be waterproof flooring that can be hosed off (concrete, stone, ceramic tile, terrazzo), walls that are repointed and parged with traditional breathable lime-based material (no paint or Drylok - this will trap moisture and cause spalling and eventually lead to degradation of the foundation). Interior French drain and sump pump. No drywall, no plastic-wrapped wood framing, no absorbent wall insulation, no carpet, no electrical outlets or wiring anywhere near the floor. If you want something soft on the floor, go for cheap rugs that can be removed, cleaned, and dried in the event of dampness or flooding. Basically, an unfinished basement that's dressed up enough to give the illusion of being finished but still works and can be treated like an unfinished basement. If I were you, Nitrousoxide, I'd gut the basement and start over - add the drains and sump pump, repoint the walls (which are likely stone and likely in need of repointing), pour a good concrete floor (if there isn't one already), and parge rather than drywall (so the walls remain accessible and let you immediately see any moisture/leak issues). I reeeeally wouldn't trust a finished basement with water intrusion issues in an old row house.
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Aug 20, 2021 16:12
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My wife stumbled into a plug that was plugged into an outlet. Wood paneled wall in the basement, exterior wall right under a half sunken window. Her hitting it pulled the junction box half out of the wall. I took the face plate off and the metal box has nearly disintegrated with rust. No signs of water damage to the carpet or the wood paneling but I'm guess there's a fair bit of moisture getting through the unpainted cinderblock foundation.
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Aug 20, 2021 16:43
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I'm finally ready to move forward with insulating my exterior walls and attic, now that all our knob & tube is taken care of. Except the $5000 is going to turn into $7500 to add remove all the old insulation. I keep thinking "I can do it myself" and then today I filled 3 huge contractor bags with batt insulation and made basically no dent. And that doesn't count all the loose insulation under the attic floorboards, which would be about 800 rounds with my shop-vac. Meanwhile, they can just wheel in a giant vacuum to suck up all the old poo poo (and I guess there's no secret to bad insulation, they're just gonna bag it themselves, but at least they'll be properly geared up and have lots of hands to make it happen. But they won't remove the floorboards themselves for liability reasons, so I'd have to do that myself (fine, not a huge deal I guess) but the original insulation quote includes dense-pack insulation under the floorboards and blown-in on top. So now I have to figure out what the heck actually needs to be done. I'm talking to the contractor to figure it out, so this is mostly just venting, but if anyone has suggestions or experience here that's appreciated as well.
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Aug 20, 2021 16:59
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FISHMANPET posted:I'm finally ready to move forward with insulating my exterior walls and attic, now that all our knob & tube is taken care of. im in a similar boat where ive got to get the biohazard insulation out of the attic before i can rip the K&T out. the only hitch is that theres gonna be a month and a half with no installation while i wait for the electricians availability, but that seems easy peasy
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Aug 20, 2021 17:19
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We're lucky that critter problems were just squirrels, which aren't too much of a biohazard in the grand scheme of things. So the electricians were able to just push the batts to the side where they need access, and pull up a floorboard and push the loose stuff aside if they needed access there. And it doesn't look anything like asbestos, so I'm not worried in that department. If I were them I would have been wearing an N95 just because of the old dust and fiberglass stuff, but that's on them. And it was hot as hell the week they were here, and I've worn an N95 construction mask in that hot attic and it's miserable. So I get it. We also got lucky that the knob & tube crew had a sudden cancelation and so they were suddenly available right away, otherwise it might have been this week or next week that they finally got around to doing the work. We lived through 6 Minnesota winters in this house with the upstairs insulation all messed up, and so I'm not really concerned with it in the warm summer, but it will hopefully be all done before winter hits. And yeah the timing thing sucks. The original $2500 quote for attic insulation removal was just isolated from the insulation quotes, I'm not even sure if the guy doing the quote was aware. I have no idea how the crews work, I'm kind of hoping we can save some  if they come out and do it all at once rather than having to make multiple trips. But that might mean me rushing to rip up floorboards after they've pulled out the batts but before they can get the vacuum in there.At least we got low-interest financing through some city and state programs so paying for it isn't a concern. I didn't include the $2500 for removal in the total of everything, though in hindsight I should have, but I should be able to just pay that out of pocket without too much trouble. Hell, the $30k in electrical all got put on credit cards (which will be paid off before I pay any interest, just a stopgap until all the financing came through) so I've got a big chunk of credit card rewards out of it so far!
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Aug 20, 2021 17:34
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FISHMANPET posted:I'm talking to the contractor to figure it out, so this is mostly just venting, but if anyone has suggestions or experience here that's appreciated as well. Attic air sealing/insulation work loving sucks, no way around it. I've done a bunch of it in my house (I must like pain), but contracting this work out, at least pre-COVID times, is generally pretty inexpensive, likely because it's just grunt labor. It's one of those tasks that any homeowner that isn't flat broke should seriously consider just paying for. I'll add moving, landscaping, and concrete/masonry work to the list of things that are relatively cheap to hire compared to their suck/pain factor.
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Aug 20, 2021 17:49
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Your gas and/or electric utility might have rebates for insulation or other energy efficiency work. I know mine does and when they recently redid insulation in my old apartment the landlord wouldn't stop talking about how it was basically free.
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Aug 20, 2021 17:50
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Georgia Power had a pretty decent deal on a smart thermostat ($50 vs. nearly $150 for the same thermostat if I bought it at Amazon) plus free shipping (just be willing to wait a couple weeks for them to get around to it). It might also be worth looking into utility company marketplaces (if they have one) to see what you might can get a deal on that would also help lower utility costs and/or be just generally cheaper than most retail options.
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Aug 20, 2021 18:29
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The local power and gas company work with non-profit org that does energy audits, and so as soon as we bought the house (we'd been renting it previously for 6 years) we had a free energy audit done. The "Home Energy Squad" works with insulation contractors and part of the audit is they examine the insulation and write up a work-quote that the contractors will honor. So the total for the insulation is $5607, and then there's a total of $1000 in utility rebates on top of that. I had the same company that will actually be doing the insulation also give a quote for removing the existing insulation, which was $2500. So overall the money isn't really an issue one way or the other, it's just more hassle to deal with. I'll be looking forward to this initial surge of work from our purchase being done, so we can relax for a little while.
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Aug 20, 2021 19:40
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Home ownership t-minus 31 days: a woman who owns a landscaping company told me about her crew of "Mexicans... but all legal and vaccinated!" that can do a landscaping job for me
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Aug 20, 2021 22:58
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The casual rascism from small business owners never ceases to amaze me.
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Aug 20, 2021 23:35
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My buddy just had his offer accepted on a house. A tree fell on it the next day. The sellers dragged their feet on singing their end of the contract so nothing is official yet. Lol It was listed way too high, sat for a week and they lowered the price. It's also not in the most desirable areas. Sat for another month and no offers. He offers under asking but not a journal by any means, and rather than going with his offer to sell it and be done, they countered trying to squeeze as much cash out as possible on a house that clearly was priced wrong twice and still couldn't sell. My buddy was mostly interested in the large garage as he's a car guy. Now they've got a huge loving tree that took out the front of the house and they get to deal with that. Getting an engineer to check the roof isn't hosed, someone to remove the tree, someone to come fix the damage etc and a final inspection. Inspection was supposed to be tomorrow. They also likely have to pay multiple months of their mortgage now from it sitting, the repairs, and then closing. If they had priced it competitively from the start, it would have closed already and been someone else's problem. Current owners bought in 2013 for 250 and didn't do much to it. There's two"bedrooms" that aren't legal despite being listed as three bedrooms. Listed it for almost 600, dropped to 550 and sat a month with zero offers, then got an offer for 500. They countered at 530, my buddy offered 515 with them covering closing costs. Then the tree fell down. This is fun to watch from the sidelines. I tried telling my buddy that he's got the power in this situation and his agent should be threatening to walk and or possibly redo the deal since nothing was signed yet. Nobody was to blame for the tree, maybe an inspection could have pointed it out but doubtful. But any prospective buyer with knowledge of this accident will want documentation of the process that things were inspected and repaired properly.
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Aug 21, 2021 00:16
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Verman posted:My buddy just had his offer accepted on a house. A tree fell on it the next day. The sellers dragged their feet on singing their end of the contract so nothing is official yet. I'd def walk from this, holy poo poo. A seller that DGAF and new, major damage that likely includes water damage? Count me the gently caress out. Also shout out to Zillow: My mom just sold her house to Zillow for above market after fees and that poo poo was done in 30 days from "I want to list" to "cash in the bank". The smoothest transaction I've ever seen from myself and several friends buying houses.
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Aug 21, 2021 00:42
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Not that I'm looking to sell, but I've been really curious about those home buying services from redfin and zillow. Do they spruce things up in an attempt to flip it higher?
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Aug 21, 2021 01:32
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NomNomNom posted:Not that I'm looking to sell, but I've been really curious about those home buying services from redfin and zillow. Do they spruce things up in an attempt to flip it higher? If I were in their position I'd be packaging and selling to REITs.
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Aug 21, 2021 01:40
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CarForumPoster posted:So you also had an upstream higher rated break flip before a lower rated one, yea? Sounds like you may have a bad breaker. A/C should have its own breaker that doesn’t render your house inop. If that didn’t flip before the house you got a problem. It was probably due to me being dumb, meaning.... the thermostat was commanding the A/C to run, blower motor was on, and that's when I reset the A/C breaker from tripped -> off -> on. My finger holding it to 'on' for a fraction of a second likely did not allow it to trip in time, and that's probably when the 100A breaker tripped. That's my guess which means the breaker didn't malfunction.
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Aug 21, 2021 02:18
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Inner Light posted:It was probably due to me being dumb, meaning.... the thermostat was commanding the A/C to run, blower motor was on, and that's when I reset the A/C breaker from tripped -> off -> on. My finger holding it to 'on' for a fraction of a second likely did not allow it to trip in time, and that's probably when the 100A breaker tripped. That's my guess which means the breaker didn't malfunction. Might wanna get it replaced or looked at if an electrician is coming out. But yea holding a breaker on is really...something...ya know...decision making wise. So totally unrelated but, thread, Motronic, I have historically gotten frustrated with this threads attitude that THE ELECTRON PIXIES WILL FIND A WAY TO YOUR DEATH. I get it now. They will. If you don't know the pixies already, we won't help you learn is a justified attitude. I will no longer advice people on this subject.
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Aug 21, 2021 03:24
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I'm totally willing to help people learn, but you can't teach all of this safely over the internet with someone who has little to no base knowledge. Holding a breaker on is a perfect example. I never would have considered that that was a cause because it's so out of my mindset that that would be a thing someone would ever do. I understand that I have these gaps in imagination of just what people who don't know any better might do and that's why I'm all "hire an electrician" so often.
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Aug 21, 2021 03:29
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Working as a computer tech, there are three types of people. I feel this strongly applies to home repair projects as well. 1. People who are too cautious and they won’t do anything at all without approval from someone “knowledgeable”, even if they are fully capable and could easily do it. They refuse to do their own research, or are incapable. Contract out everything. 2. People who understand their limits. They put a little to a lot of research in, and will generally understand risk and either start a job or practice a skill before giving up to a professional or finish the job safely, and correctly, albeit typically sloppy. 3. Fuckin’ yolo. They’ll just try any old random poo poo without a good grasp or understanding. They’ll take huge risks without even knowing it’s a risk because they’re just winging it. This also includes people who fall into the category of “too smart for their own good.” They half-to-quarter grasp something but attempt to apply it like they know everything, and it ends in catastrophe. There’s some middle ground between 2 and 3, but loving Christ people that lean into 3 do dumb poo poo. My forever favorite example of type 3 is someone who tried to change a part in a brand new computer, while the computer was plugged in and powered on. He did this because the part was cheaper from a third party than preinstalled by the manufacturer. Edit: I guess I should clarify my point in posting this. It’s very hard to do on the internet, but when giving advice that’s complicated or potentially dangerous, it is super important you understand which type of person you’re dealing with and adjust your advice accordingly. Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Aug 21, 2021 |
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Aug 21, 2021 03:43
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Oh I didn’t mean I literally held it in the on position, I flipped it to on and immediately let go, I’m saying the tiny fraction of a second my finger was holding it was probably enough for the breaker not to be able to function, before the 100A popped. Hopefully that makes more sense and is more excusable.
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Aug 21, 2021 04:27
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It is, and that likely did not cause the problem. Breakers do take some discrete amount of time for their innards to work. Side note, I thought all circuit breakers in household use were based on a bimetallic strip. Turns out they're way cooler
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Aug 21, 2021 12:11
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In school we had this old guy from Bussman fuses come talk and he gave one of the most informative and entertaining engineering talks I’ve ever seen. Catastrophic failures, talking about fuse and breaker innards, and stories about big machines. Awesome.
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Aug 21, 2021 13:01
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NomNomNom posted:Not that I'm looking to sell, but I've been really curious about those home buying services from redfin and zillow. Do they spruce things up in an attempt to flip it higher? yeah, reno and flip to whoever will buy it from their site. they actually prefer retail buyers because a lot of their revenue is from agent services, loan origination, etc. see page 16 of the Q2 letter here for mentions of renovation and a zillow offers gross profit breakdown on page 18: https://s24.q4cdn.com/723050407/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/Zillow-Q2%2721-Shareholder-Letter_Exhibit-99.3.pdf their 10-Q is here if you want all the gory details: https://s24.q4cdn.com/723050407/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/43b52a20-321a-402e-869b-be7d2754361e.pdf
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Aug 21, 2021 13:03
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Breakers as a rule cannot be "held on" in a true fault situation. https://www.tpub.com/neets/book3/8k.htm Obviously there are failures, defects, etc. which would be the exception, but they are designed to prevent obvious dumb workarounds to trips.
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Aug 21, 2021 17:29
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Let's talk fire extinguishers. Motronic, please drop some wisdom and tell me if my assumptions are off! I've used small ones in training environments as well as to put out small car fires, and think I understand their limitations (i.e. use them on a small fire only as it's starting, and know when to GTFO instead) Is there a worthwhile middle ground between a Kidde/First Alert Home Depot special and paying for Ansul/Amerex? I'm thinking I want a 10# in the garage and a 5# in the kitchen and in the second floor laundry room. To my layman perspective that hits all the high risk areas and puts one on each floor. Assume I want a CO2 or a BC in the kitchen and ABC dry chemical elsewhere?
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Aug 21, 2021 17:46
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Tyro posted:Let's talk fire extinguishers. Motronic, please drop some wisdom and tell me if my assumptions are off! Mount them so they are by/on the path to an egress (exit). You want to pick up an extinguisher and use it with your back to the way out so you aren't fighting your way through fire to get it/fight fire. Past that, ABC is gonna be fine everywhere. Also add a type K to the kitchen. You can absolutely go full on Ansul/Amerex, but those extinguishers are just bigger and very specific type Ks. The entire point of those is to have the same extinguishing media in them as the hood suppression system in the restaurant you'll find them in, so obviously this isn't something to worry about at home. I have a 10 LB ABC in my barn as well as a "PW", a pressurized water extinguisher. But I do a lot of hot work in there so that may or may not be useful to you. It's nice to be able to grab something to just put our embers or whatever that doesn't make a huge mess and require being sent off to service to refill. With a PW you just unscrew the top, fill it with water (or RV antifreze in my case) put it back together and pressurize it with whatever you've got for compressed air until it's full. Home depot specials will work for any of this, but Kidde and the like are really really cheap and disposable. Any extinguisher is better than no extinguisher so if that what gets it done go for it. But there are a lot of places that sell on ebay that clean up and recert old extinguishers. You can get them extremely cheaply if you don't care what they look like (like in your garage maybe), and pretty cheaply for nicer looking ones. Maybe not home depot cheap, but these are real deal extinguishers that can be serviced and last decades.
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Aug 21, 2021 18:08
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