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I will need to get my chimney taken out someday, which means patching the hole in the roof, then re drywalling or plastering in the two rooms the chimney goes through... Is that the kind of thing a general contractor would do, or is there a specialist? I'd imagine since there's so many trades involved that a GC would be best to get everything taken care, including coordinating all those trades.
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Sep 26, 2021 00:57
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Insurrectum posted:Just got a quote to repair, tear out, reline, and bring our chimney up to code: $12000. Sounds like the typical chimney-guy quote. I'd highly recommend exploring direct-vent inserts (wood or gas, your preference.) They use stainless liner tubes to intake/exhaust the gases, so you don't need to reline the chimney. The height above the roofline is also not a problem, because there's no chance of hot embers flying up from an insert. You still need to cap the chimney, but you can use a paint-on cap product and DIY it if you want to. You can probably get the whole insert job done for 1/2 the cost to fix your conventional fireplace, and it will actually heat your house instead of being inefficient like a fireplace.
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Sep 26, 2021 01:28
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NomNomNom posted:I don't know if there's any magic solution even if they can verify it, other than taking up the floor. I'd love to be wrong, I stabbed one of my ducts with a drywall knife the other day while attempting to cut an access hole. Why would you go thru the floor? Wouldn't it be easier to access thru the drywall in the basement ?
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Sep 26, 2021 15:04
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B-Nasty posted:Sounds like the typical chimney-guy quote. I considered it, but it's a no-go with my wife (she's primarily interested in the fireplace for ambience, and while you get some of the visuals with an insert you lose a lot of the snap and crackle of the fireplace).
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Sep 26, 2021 17:08
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Insurrectum posted:I considered it, but it's a no-go with my wife (she's primarily interested in the fireplace for ambience, and while you get some of the visuals with an insert you lose a lot of the snap and crackle of the fireplace). You can get fireplace inserts that are less stove like and more fireplace looking. Just open up the doors when you want to hear the snap and crackle. And then close when when you want to heat with it.
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Sep 26, 2021 18:15
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Insurrectum posted:I considered it, but it's a no-go with my wife (she's primarily interested in the fireplace for ambience, and while you get some of the visuals with an insert you lose a lot of the snap and crackle of the fireplace). Considering you're sucking heated air out of your house, you need all those repairs, and you *must* get it swept yearly if burning wood, that's some expensive ambience.
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Sep 26, 2021 19:52
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B-Nasty posted:Considering you're sucking heated air out of your house, you need all those repairs, and you *must* get it swept yearly if burning wood, that's some expensive ambience. The trick is to have two fireplaces per room on opposite walls, so dueling fireplaces if you will, and then any endothermic bullshit gets canceled out.  More realistically, what you'd need is a well-designed firebox that draws well and also reflects heat back out and a cast iron surround to help radiate some of the heat.
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Sep 26, 2021 20:35
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Pay the 12k and be done with it. If neither of you have regularly used a fireplace in the past, start getting comfortable with it being a 12k nice idea now.
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Sep 26, 2021 20:39
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Good news.. storm door went up this weekend with minimal bullshit. Pre-planning the opening size etc when dealing with putting the pre-hung exterior door in made life great and was well worth the extra time of calculating and ripping my trim boards to size was a good use of my time. Just in time for screen door season.
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Sep 27, 2021 14:34
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Anyone have a combi heating system? I have one and want to go from a regular 50 gallon tank to a tankless set up. The guy I had here to look at the heating part of it gave me an outrageous estimate for getting that done. I am going to call around to some other places but I wondered if anyone here had done something similar.
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Sep 28, 2021 01:52
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So, I asked about this when I was having my water heater fixed, and the guy told me that because my city's water was so cold, especially in the winter, that I would need an absurdly sized boiler, and would need to upgrade the gas service, to actually heat that water on demand. What they did recommend was a side tank (I keep forgetting exactly what they call it) where hot water from the boiler is fed through pipes in the tank to heat the domestic water. You've still got a tank, but only one fuel burning appliances. Lochinvar specifically was the brand they quoted me, the tank would be about $4500 (on top of the $20k to replace the boiler) but it's a stainless steel tank with a lifetime warranty, vs a water heater that will last 10 years. So a bit of an investment.
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Sep 28, 2021 02:05
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FISHMANPET posted:So, I asked about this when I was having my water heater fixed, and the guy told me that because my city's water was so cold, especially in the winter, that I would need an absurdly sized boiler, and would need to upgrade the gas service, to actually heat that water on demand. What they did recommend was a side tank (I keep forgetting exactly what they call it) where hot water from the boiler is fed through pipes in the tank to heat the domestic water. You've still got a tank, but only one fuel burning appliances. Yea that sounds like a similar system that he recommended to me. There would be one tankless water heater heating water for the radiator and separately heat water for the kitchen/bathroom. He said something like 8-9k for the tank and installation which seemed really high considering a regular tankless WH install would be about 5.
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Sep 28, 2021 02:41
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That does sound a bit high to my inexperienced eye. Was that quote part of also putting in a new boiler, or using an existing boiler? My guy did mention that the boiler install would include positioning it and other stuff so that the water tank would be an easy drop in (they're already next to each other in the basement). But if you're trying to tie something generic into an existing boiler system, or you've got more work to do to move the water tank and the house's supply to a different location in the basement, that might complicate things. I've also only gotten that single quote so far, so maybe it's just an absurdly good deal (they have been very good to me in the past so I trust them, but for something like that I'll still be getting some other quotes when the time comes). E: "Indirect Water Heater"/"Indirect Tank" is what Lochinvar calls it, not sure if that's a general term or just what Lochinvar calls it.
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Sep 28, 2021 20:33
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spf3million posted:Thanks for all of the comments on the asbestos. I'm going to go ahead and get it tested, only costs $35. I'd rather know if I need to go through all the rigamarole every time or not. And anyone buying a house built 80+ years ago is going to assume there's asbestos. If me disclosing that gives them second thoughts, ah well.  Let the demo commence
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Sep 29, 2021 17:07
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I have an electrical annoyance that I want to address if it’s an easy fix. There are switches at the top and bottom of our basement stairs that both control one light in the basement, and one light at the top of the basement stairs. The switch at the bottom of the stairs also controls an outlet at the top of the stairs, this outlet is not controlled by the switch at the top. I would prefer this outlet to be unswitched since we keep our stick vac plugged in there to charge. Taking off the front plates of both switches, there’s only one set of wires coming into each (black/red/white/ground), the outlet has two sets of wires, one coming in from below, one from above. Based on this description is there anything obvious to try to decouple the outlet from the switch without having to mess around behind the drywall? I have no experience with wiring, so I’m not sure if there’s something obvious that I’m missing. I’d prefer not to have a permanent piece of tape over the bottom switch.
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Sep 30, 2021 20:28
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I love these riddles. Did you take the switches out of the boxes? Are there any other wires coming into either box? In what condition does the outlet work? Both switches up, both down, bottom up and top down , bottom down and top up? My first guess. It's wired wrong. (duh) Hot comes into one switch in the basement, to the light, then to the other light, then splits here to the outlet and the last switch. Someone tapped the outlet into a traveler wire at one light location, not to the load wire coming back from the upstairs switch. This can be fixed to be switched with either switch, but can't be wired always hot. None of the wiring after that first switch is always hot. Edit: I'm very confident I'm right, especially after reading your post again, I bet it was wired like this intentionally to make the switch hot and the lights off. StormDrain fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 20:53
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StormDrain posted:I love these riddles. Did you take the switches out of the boxes? Are there any other wires coming into either box? Thanks. I haven’t taken the switches out, only pulled the plates off and looked in with a flashlight. The permutations are below. TD, BD: Light off, outlet on TU, BD: light on, outlet on TD, BU: light on, outlet off TU, BU: light off, outlet off I guess a permanent piece of tape it is then. EPICAC fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 22:29
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EPICAC posted:I guess a permanent piece of tape it is then. If you decide to go that way, there are some nicer alternatives: https://www.amazon.com/Option-Switc...s%2C250&sr=8-11
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Sep 30, 2021 22:56
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EPICAC posted:Thanks. I haven’t taken the switches out, only pulled the plates off and looked in with a flashlight. The permutations are below. That seals it for me. 100% confidence in where the hot for the outlet is, on a traveler, and the power comes in to the downstairs switch. If you don't know about three way switches you should read up. Such a simple design, but until I was taught I had no clue.
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Sep 30, 2021 23:42
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Sorry if this question is just my Google fu being weak. My house has wall plates that appear to be the Amerelle Chelsea line, or something very similar. I have a 4-gang toggle wallplate, and I'd like to swap one toggle switch for a decora-sized rocker while keeping the other 3, like this one, to install a programmable or smart switch. I haven't been able to find a plate with that layout, that also matches the aesthetic of the other ones I have. I don't want to change every wall plate in the house. Anyone have an idea of where to look?
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Oct 1, 2021 00:42
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Doesn't exist. You might be better off swapping the other three for rockers. Let me guess, adding a smart switch?
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Oct 1, 2021 01:10
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StormDrain posted:Doesn't exist. You might be better off swapping the other three for rockers. Let me guess, adding a smart switch? Yeah, that was the plan. Swapping them all to rockers would be a bit unnecessary but would probably be better than changing all the wallplates.
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Oct 1, 2021 01:15
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Is dealing with contractors always nightmarish? Have booked some landscaping and cannot get them to call me back. So. loving. frustrating. Ahhhh.
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Oct 1, 2021 03:26
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Upgrade posted:Is dealing with contractors always nightmarish? Have booked some landscaping and cannot get them to call me back. So. loving. frustrating. Ahhhh. Yep. Finally finished the new garage four months later than planned (other than the gutters which are supposed to be installed next week but gently caress it). And I had a good one. He was accessible every few days, but definitely not regular.
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Oct 1, 2021 03:31
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I am sure their front desk person hates me but maybe call me the gently caress back so we can SETTLE ON THE ACTUAL START TIME. Jesus christ. And of course in this market my 6k job is too nothingburger for most of the companies to even bother (I had multiple landscapers tell me they're not doing anything under 100k!). Thank gently caress this is the only major house thing we need to do right away when we buy the house we're purchasing... until we decide to redo the kitchen at some point. I hate people and I hate everyone.
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Oct 1, 2021 03:39
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I just decided to put in 90 feet of fencing myself for exactly this reason. Sent out for 5 quotes, got three calls, one showed up to eval the property then ghosted.
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Oct 1, 2021 03:47
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Upgrade posted:Is dealing with contractors always nightmarish? Have booked some landscaping and cannot get them to call me back. So. loving. frustrating. Ahhhh. Yep. We finally got a landscaping team out to do work for us and our neighbor came over and sheep dogged the site manager into giving him a quote on some backyard work he wanted done once they finished my house.
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Oct 1, 2021 04:21
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My concrete contractors were getting lots of questions from the neighbors as they were finishing up my driveway. Getting quotes for this wasn't too bad, got three between $24k and $30k, with only one jerkass who acted like I couldn't afford him "this is gonna be at least $70k", he never gave me a written quote.
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Oct 1, 2021 12:02
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Hello, have a DIY question! I have a kitchen quartz (I think) countertop and an undermount stainless steel sink. I noticed one of the clips is completely loose and just tapping it knocked it off completely. Screwing the bolt into the hole feels totally loose, you can slide it in and out freely. The bolt has no damaged threads, so I think the threads in the female anchor are stripped. The bolt also went securely into a size tester at Lowes Depot fine. I tried using a toothpick or steel wool to act as a thread fixer, but no dice, bolt just falls right out again. Is there any fix to repair damaged female threads on a secure anchor in quartz without drilling a new hole for another anchor? If not, contingency since I don't want to screw with my countertop too much, is to just do without that bracket and try not to put so much weight on my sink that is collapses  the other brackets are fine.
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Oct 1, 2021 16:55
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StormDrain posted:The guys in my last countertop job used epoxy to mount the tabs. Must be going around.
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Oct 1, 2021 17:07
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Epoxy is the best fix, but obviously it's pretty permanent.
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Oct 1, 2021 18:05
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NomNomNom posted:Epoxy is the best fix, but obviously it's pretty permanent. That's not a but, it's an and. Since countertop are cut to the size of the undermount sink, it's unlikely the sink ever gets replaced. Plus only the stud is epoxy mounted, so in the event you do replace the sink or reseal it perhaps you can just unscrew it.
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Oct 1, 2021 18:21
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The prosink mount is bars that attach to the cabinet side tops. They have the adjustable screw things and side bars too. This may be more a giant sink thing since one full of water or a person can get quite heavy. Ask me why I am never going with an epoxy solution again. No it was not me.
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Oct 1, 2021 21:56
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EPICAC posted:I have an electrical annoyance that I want to address if it’s an easy fix. There are switches at the top and bottom of our basement stairs that both control one light in the basement, and one light at the top of the basement stairs. The switch at the bottom of the stairs also controls an outlet at the top of the stairs, this outlet is not controlled by the switch at the top. I would prefer this outlet to be unswitched since we keep our stick vac plugged in there to charge. https://www.amazon.com/Aukora-100-Watt-Equivalent-Activated-Security/dp/B07DXMF23S/ Or just invest in Google home/Alexa; I've literally forgotten where most of my light switches are in my house, light switch problems are a foreign concept to me at this point
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Oct 2, 2021 04:05
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Hadlock posted:https://www.amazon.com/Aukora-100-Watt-Equivalent-Activated-Security/dp/B07DXMF23S/ Have you used these particular lights? I've been thinking about buying them but feel like Amazons ratings of off brand poo poo arent trustworthy at all. EDIT: Yea NVM the recent reviews are like 35% 1 star ratings saying they didnt last. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Oct 2, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 04:26
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No, I'm a 100% Philips hue house, I've never had an issue with their stuff, that's the better long term play. When you're getting off the couch you just say "ok Google, turn on basement lights" and then they're on by the time you get over there. Then at the end of the night you just say "turn off all lights"
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Oct 2, 2021 04:47
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I don’t even have to say anything, the motion sensors take care of it
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Oct 2, 2021 11:35
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Hadlock posted:No, I'm a 100% Philips hue house, I've never had an issue with their stuff, that's the better long term play. When you're getting off the couch you just say "ok Google, turn on basement lights" and then they're on by the time you get over there. Then at the end of the night you just say "turn off all lights" Motronic is gonna wander in here and call your setup rental apartment slum trash (I like Hue too but it is expensive lol)
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Oct 2, 2021 16:01
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Hadlock posted:No, I'm a 100% Philips hue house, I've never had an issue with their stuff, that's the better long term play. When you're getting off the couch you just say "ok Google, turn on basement lights" and then they're on by the time you get over there. Then at the end of the night you just say "turn off all lights" Nah, I'm good. I'm mostly worried that Philips probably doesnt have enough skin in the game to keep every model of base station and accessory updated in perpetuity. They probably arent willing to dedicate a few million/year in potential profits to a strong security team and test org.
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Oct 2, 2021 16:46
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Going back to old house asbestos chat, there is a potential future small job that if I do I will want a HEPA vacuum for (in addition to PPE) as a precaution but was wondering if there was a recommendation for a decent one that is not extremely expensive.
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Oct 2, 2021 19:19
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