SpartanIvy posted:

Well at this point we're not even sure there actually is a leak, and if there is it's very minor and I'm not in danger of exploding. We're keeping the gas off most of the time while we investigate.

The initial cause of concern was after the gas was left off at the meter while while I worked, the stove had no pressure when we turned a knob on after 3-4 hours. I was working past a closed valve so my working shouldn't have depressurized the line. We've been repeating the test today with better results and if there is a leak it's very very very small because we just had the meter off for 3.5 hours and the line was still pressurized when we opened a valve. We cut the valves to the stove and water heater for the last test so it might be an issue with one of the flex cables on them.

I have a pressure test meter but it's not accurate enough for sub PSI pressures, and I don't have the right fitting to hook my manometer up to the house line yet. That's the next step to see if we get any drop over time with the appliances cut off.

E: this is probably a repeat of February where I thought I had a tiny water leak but it's actually a faulty gauge or temperature changes, or something similar.

armorer posted:

You can bubble test anywhere along the line that you might suspect?

ErikTheRed posted:

We're looking at adding AC to our house and have gotten one quote so far. It was for a ducted system, with the air handler going in our attic. The house is ~2000 sqft and was built in the 30's so there's just radiators for heat and no existing duct work. They quoted us $25k and the only extra cost may be adding a sub panel onto our main breaker.

Does this seem reasonable? It's my first time having a major project like this done. We're in Cleveland, OH if that makes a difference.

We've got another HVAC company coming later this month to give an estimate/quote.

FISHMANPET posted:

Is it a single story or two story house? Running duct work from an attic down to a first story could get trick and complicated, if it's a single story and you can do all the runs in the attic, that's not as big of a deal. As a fellow radiator haver, take a look at a minisplit system as well. Those same HVAC companies might even do those so ask them about that option. Though without knowing your house, maybe it would be pretty simple to run ducting to all the rooms as is, rather than running linesets on the exterior and placing a head unit in nearly every room.

ErikTheRed posted:

It's a two story with a finished attic (which has a full bath and bedroom, so closer to a 3 story I guess). They did a pretty thorough estimate/inspection and seemed to think they'd be able to run ductwork to the first floor through closets without too much trouble. We've got 4 bedrooms (including the one on the third floor/attic) to cool in addition to the first floor. We asked about minisplits but the project manager was in favor of doing a traditional ducted system because there was room in the attic and the layout of the house was amenable to it.

MrChrome posted:

Are they doing a Unico system? I just had one replaced while keeping the existing ductwork. 2000 sq foot, 2 story house, built in 1929. 3 ton system. Replacement cost was $8000. I had other quotes for 12k and 15k. They also added a duct from the attic to the first floor (through a closet). They were charging $500 per duct.

tracecomplete posted:

Vent incoming, because "contractors lie" is one word.

I shitcanned my GC today after coming home and seeing this comedy of errors out of him and his subcontractors:



This is new. All of this is installed, from bare studs, over the last two weeks. (I have been ill, and then out of town, and then under the weather from a COVID booster, so I have not been watching what these idiots have gotten up to as closely as I should have.)

The previous drywall was 3/4"; he had his (new--I found out yesterday, a month into this boondoggle, that the crew that had done well on the first project I had them do outright quit on him for trying to lowball them on jobs) drywall guy hang 1/2", leaving the window cases proud of the drywall. He dismissed my concerns, saying "we can do a fill on the trim, you won't even notice!". I'm used to dealing with my guys, from when I owned a property management company, and like an idiot I just let this guy and his subs do the thing.

So there you can see the results, and it's like a fractally wrong thing. Setting aside that that fill makes the trim 1" when the door immediately to the left (or its own window bottom) is 3/4"? The fill is 1/4" plywood, edge-out, so it doesn't take paint the same way. And--sanding? Puttying? Making sure that the top of the post-and-lintel trim lines up with the sill? What are these silly questions? Surely this glop of paint will hide all our sins!

Oh, and the wall. The wall. That wall is the feature wall in the living room, where his painter, for reasons I shall never in my life understand, ignored the can of paint sitting right next to the wall in question and took the semigloss paint out of the bathroom and slathered it on the living room wall. Then he painted the bathroom with the flat off-white from the hallway outside it. Why? I don't know. I don't have any loving idea. Maybe semigloss accent walls are the in thing. I don't know.

Also all of this was supposed to be done October 28th. It is--checking my calendar, carry the two--not the 28th. Like an idiot (again, overloaded, not an excuse but true all the same) I let the "I will fix, I promise" assurances go by without sufficiently challenging them, and now I've got this horseshit on my hands. I should've been watching them more closely--but, holy poo poo, how can you be this bad at the job? I am a computer toucher who fondles trees in my spare time and this stuff is Obviously Wrong, how the hell?

So that GC is gone, and he had the minimally good sense to not even ask about the back half project fee that he's absolutely not going to see, and I have this sinking feeling I'm going to have to fix this entire thing myself unless a contractor I actually trust somehow has a free week over the winter. And while I think I can handle trim after I rip this entire mess out I am absolutely mystified by drywall. Eep.

BigFactory posted:

That looks like something I would do if I had to do a job like that by myself and tried to figure it out as I went along. It sucks

NomNomNom posted:

His subs were drunk and/or high, hth.

That is incredibly bad, but I am shocked he didn't ask for the rest of his fee anyway.

Rand Brittain posted:

(The hatch is also about 25.5" by 54", where most of the covers I see on sale are 25 by 54; not sure how big a problem that's going to be.)

Sous Videodrome posted:

I'm trying to troubleshoot an underfloor heating system. This is the first time I've tried to run it since I installed it.

Motronic posted:

https://www.amazon.com/Sealing-Tuf-Tite-Polylok-Septic-16/dp/B01IRM64UW

This. And do it ASAP. Groundwater ingress will saturate your field.

just another posted:

Dredging this up again because I ended up using tuck tape and it worked fine with no issues in the house that we could notice. I guess the seal wasn't 100% perfect but whatever.

So for a long-term solution, I need some sort of gasket around the rim or attached to the underside of the lid. Is this butyl sealing rope going to glue the lid to the riser or is it more like a super strong peel & stick weather stripping? I don't want to make issues for when it needs to be pumped.

devmd01 posted:

This house had an outrageous amount of rock beds when we moved in. I’ve been slowly working on digging out the rock garbage, filling with topsoil, then sodding over. Somewhere in there I usually throw in a barrier along the new contour.

Now that the front is done, I’m doing the same to the back. I’ll sod this in in the spring.





The branch manager made sure I took appropriate rest breaks.

devmd01 posted:

The branch manager made sure I took appropriate rest breaks.

Motronic posted:

Butyl rope is more "sticky clay" than it is "3M VHB". You'll be fine, and it's gonna likely not need to be re-applied in 3-5 years when you take the lid off to pump it. It will stay pliable enough to toss the lid right back down and seal unless it gets real dirty during the process.

Sous Videodrome posted:

Good news! I got it working.



Looks like one of the three mats was damaged during the installation process. But the other two work!

It's been running for an hour with no trips.

There's a very slight chance that it might be residual moisture in the self leveling concrete getting to it. So I'll try hooking it up again at the end of winter/next summer and see if it still trips. But 2/3 mats probably gets me 3/4 of the heat, because one of them was way smaller than the others and I think it's the one that's tripping the GFCI.

Sous Videodrome posted:

Good news! I got it working.



Looks like one of the three mats was damaged during the installation process. But the other two work!

It's been running for an hour with no trips.

There's a very slight chance that it might be residual moisture in the self leveling concrete getting to it. So I'll try hooking it up again at the end of winter/next summer and see if it still trips. But 2/3 mats probably gets me 3/4 of the heat, because one of them was way smaller than the others and I think it's the one that's tripping the GFCI.

tracecomplete posted:

Vent incoming, because "contractors lie" is one word.

I shitcanned my GC today after coming home and seeing this comedy of errors out of him and his subcontractors:



This is new. All of this is installed, from bare studs, over the last two weeks. (I have been ill, and then out of town, and then under the weather from a COVID booster, so I have not been watching what these idiots have gotten up to as closely as I should have.)

The previous drywall was 3/4"; he had his (new--I found out yesterday, a month into this boondoggle, that the crew that had done well on the first project I had them do outright quit on him for trying to lowball them on jobs) drywall guy hang 1/2", leaving the window cases proud of the drywall. He dismissed my concerns, saying "we can do a fill on the trim, you won't even notice!". I'm used to dealing with my guys, from when I owned a property management company, and like an idiot I just let this guy and his subs do the thing.

So there you can see the results, and it's like a fractally wrong thing. Setting aside that that fill makes the trim 1" when the door immediately to the left (or its own window bottom) is 3/4"? The fill is 1/4" plywood, edge-out, so it doesn't take paint the same way. And--sanding? Puttying? Making sure that the top of the post-and-lintel trim lines up with the sill? What are these silly questions? Surely this glop of paint will hide all our sins!

Oh, and the wall. The wall. That wall is the feature wall in the living room, where his painter, for reasons I shall never in my life understand, ignored the can of paint sitting right next to the wall in question and took the semigloss paint out of the bathroom and slathered it on the living room wall. Then he painted the bathroom with the flat off-white from the hallway outside it. Why? I don't know. I don't have any loving idea. Maybe semigloss accent walls are the in thing. I don't know.

Also all of this was supposed to be done October 28th. It is--checking my calendar, carry the two--not the 28th. Like an idiot (again, overloaded, not an excuse but true all the same) I let the "I will fix, I promise" assurances go by without sufficiently challenging them, and now I've got this horseshit on my hands. I should've been watching them more closely--but, holy poo poo, how can you be this bad at the job? I am a computer toucher who fondles trees in my spare time and this stuff is Obviously Wrong, how the hell?

So that GC is gone, and he had the minimally good sense to not even ask about the back half project fee that he's absolutely not going to see, and I have this sinking feeling I'm going to have to fix this entire thing myself unless a contractor I actually trust somehow has a free week over the winter. And while I think I can handle trim after I rip this entire mess out I am absolutely mystified by drywall. Eep.

gwrtheyrn posted:

So I bought a non-electronic toilet buttsprayer, and only after I got it, I realized I can't install it according to the instructions (or at all without extra parts). The one I got, as well as the ones I've previously installed, specifically say to attach the T onto the toilet rather the shutoff valve on the wall. Thing is, all the toilets in this place have the hose just run inside of the toilet tank rather than connect to something on the outside. They also use the same size hose/threads as what came with the bidet (3/8?) from what I could find. Am I going to gently caress something up if I buy one of these and attach it where the hose currently connects to the valve on the wall? I assume there's some reason all the instructions say that.

Toilet is labeled Delta RP75019WH on the inside of the tank."

Sous Videodrome posted:

Good news! I got it working.



Looks like one of the three mats was damaged during the installation process. But the other two work!

It's been running for an hour with no trips.

There's a very slight chance that it might be residual moisture in the self leveling concrete getting to it. So I'll try hooking it up again at the end of winter/next summer and see if it still trips. But 2/3 mats probably gets me 3/4 of the heat, because one of them was way smaller than the others and I think it's the one that's tripping the GFCI.

H110Hawk posted:

What is your butt sprayer labeled?

gwrtheyrn posted:

So I bought a non-electronic toilet buttsprayer, and only after I got it, I realized I can't install it according to the instructions (or at all without extra parts). The one I got, as well as the ones I've previously installed, specifically say to attach the T onto the toilet rather the shutoff valve on the wall. Thing is, all the toilets in this place have the hose just run inside of the toilet tank rather than connect to something on the outside. They also use the same size hose/threads as what came with the bidet (3/8?) from what I could find. Am I going to gently caress something up if I buy one of these and attach it where the hose currently connects to the valve on the wall? I assume there's some reason all the instructions say that.

Toilet is labeled Delta RP75019WH on the inside of the tank."

meatpimp posted:

OP, I saw this a couple days ago and forgot to wrap back.

I feel for you. I had a similar experience with a contractor doing poo poo-tier work in my house and ended up similarly firing him. Still didn't change the fact that I had to UNdo what he did and then DO the job that I contracted out because I needed some extra help. It made me swear off contractors entirely. If it's a job in your house, for the workers it's a JOB and for you it's your HOUSE. Two entirely different mindsets that won't come together well without the right contractor (that I cannot find).

cruft posted:

I am having a really difficult time imagining your water intake joint. It's inside the tank?

gwrtheyrn posted:

gwrtheyrn posted:

gwrtheyrn posted:

cruft posted:

The hoses on a toilet are essentially garden hoses. You ought to be able to put the T joint that came with the bidet between the feed hose you already have and a new feed hose that goes to the wall, or even directly on the wall if it's not in danger of getting kicked off. I think everything's usually the same size and threading.

Turn off the water at the wall. Put a bowl under it to catch water that comes out, and unscrew the feed hose from the wall. When it's drained, screw your T adapter in to the hose to make sure it's the right size. Try to thread it onto the wall side too. If it fits, you might be able to just leave it there. If leaving it there won't work because it's in danger of getting broken off, go to the hardware store with the T adapter and get a short hose to connect wall - new hose - T adapter - old hose - toilet.

If things don't thread, take as much as you can to the hardware store (the local hardware store, not home depot) and make sad eyes at whoever's working near the plumbing section. This has worked 100% of the time for me: I love the neighborhood hardware store.

H110Hawk posted:

Huh. That's actually a little bit genius as it can't leak onto the floor without some kind of secondary failure.