Homeowners: I own 8 different power saws, primarily to attract a mate.

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distortion park: Apr 25, 2011

Quaint Quail Quilt posted:

.

Aluminum frame windows will conduct the current outside temperature directly into the house unless (as someone else said) they are thermally bridged, which I've never heard of or seen, but that's an idea.
Hence they are the worst, but they may keep a draft out.

Unless you are talking like my current windows that are aluminum clad outside and wood inside with hopefully insulation between.

If you are getting new windows remember you can tint them more or less depending on your house orientation and climate, hardly anyone did that.

I did some research and locally (France):
* All the aluminium windows I checked at the home depo equivalent claim thermal breaks of some sort
* The energy rating system gave E's to even some windows with thermal breaks
* Every window is meant to have a "Uw" coefficient of thermal conductivity. This seems to range from 0.9 on the good end to 2.2 for the cheapest windows, which is actually a pretty big range!

So I've learnt some stuff, thanks! Together it makes me think that non-thermallly broken windows might not be legal locally, or at least challenging to build and meet energy efficiency requirements.

e: Uw always includes the frames. In the US there is a "U value" which seems to sometimes include frames, sometimes be glass only:

quote:

For windows, skylights, and glass doors, a U-factor may refer to just the glass or glazing alone. NFRC U-factor ratings, however, represent the entire window performance, including frame and spacer material.

distortion park fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Jan 12, 2022

# ? Jan 12, 2022 09:10

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# ? May 9, 2024 14:38

DaveSauce: Feb 15, 2004; Oh, how awkward.

I've been contemplating replacing the lighting in my kitchen for quite a while. Currently it's a 2x 4' CFL fixture, because 1999. I'm trying to figure out what to replace it with. Only other light is a can over the sink and the over-the-range microwave light (we also installed under-cabinet lights ourselves, but that's a different subject).

A centralized track lighting system with aimable bulbs, or a similar style multi-bulb fixture, would be easiest, but it's track lighting and we'd have to get something that looks good. Can lights would be a bit more trouble to install, but they'd be cleaner and hopefully less prone to shifts in fashion.

If we go with cans/recessed, what size and what sort of spacing requirements are we looking at? Or is there some lumens per sq ft that we want to target? The biggest concern there is doing all that install work and ending up with funny shadows. I'd assume more small cans are better than a handful of big ones, and this will probably be DIYed so that's not a big deal for me.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 15:17

Zarin: Nov 11, 2008; I SEE YOU

DaveSauce posted:

I've been contemplating replacing the lighting in my kitchen for quite a while. Currently it's a 2x 4' CFL fixture, because 1999. I'm trying to figure out what to replace it with. Only other light is a can over the sink and the over-the-range microwave light (we also installed under-cabinet lights ourselves, but that's a different subject).

A centralized track lighting system with aimable bulbs, or a similar style multi-bulb fixture, would be easiest, but it's track lighting and we'd have to get something that looks good. Can lights would be a bit more trouble to install, but they'd be cleaner and hopefully less prone to shifts in fashion.

If we go with cans/recessed, what size and what sort of spacing requirements are we looking at? Or is there some lumens per sq ft that we want to target? The biggest concern there is doing all that install work and ending up with funny shadows. I'd assume more small cans are better than a handful of big ones, and this will probably be DIYed so that's not a big deal for me.

I think I saw in a different thread (maybe Elviscat's house of horror thread?) that they used LED pucks that mimic can lights but are much, much easier to install.

I don't know a single thing about any of what I just wrote, but it sounds like it might be a potential alternative to what you're considering?

# ? Jan 12, 2022 15:27

extravadanza: Oct 19, 2007

I did (well a contractor did...) puck lights in my living room because the placement of the lights was very important and there were joists in the way. They are seriously as thin as drywall and just require you to shove a junction box up in to the area between the joists. They are Dimmable and I am very happy with them. These are definitely DIY-able and basically just require the purchase of a hole saw that matches your puck light size and the ability to run wire through the ceiling.

e: I am, personally, thinking about doing a 8'x8' LED strip square enclosed in wood in my kitchen to replace my current singular light fixture centered in my kitchen, but doing some puck lights would also look pretty good, I think.

extravadanza fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jan 12, 2022

# ? Jan 12, 2022 15:45

DaveSauce: Feb 15, 2004; Oh, how awkward.

Zarin posted:

I think I saw in a different thread (maybe Elviscat's house of horror thread?) that they used LED pucks that mimic can lights but are much, much easier to install.

I don't know a single thing about any of what I just wrote, but it sounds like it might be a potential alternative to what you're considering?

Yup, that's what we'd be using if we went with cans/recessed style. The cool thing about them is they usually have color temperature settings on the driver, so you can change the color temperature to suit your install without having to buy different lights.

The issue is that even though we don't need to attach the big can brackets to joists, we'd still need to cut holes and run wiring around to all of them, so it'd still be a bunch of work that might require a permit. With a single track/whatever fixture, all we'd need to do is bolt it up and aim the lights.

But I'm not afraid of more work as long as it's a better result.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 15:45

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

DaveSauce posted:

Yup, that's what we'd be using if we went with cans/recessed style. The cool thing about them is they usually have color temperature settings on the driver, so you can change the color temperature to suit your install without having to buy different lights.

The issue is that even though we don't need to attach the big can brackets to joists, we'd still need to cut holes and run wiring around to all of them, so it'd still be a bunch of work that might require a permit. With a single track/whatever fixture, all we'd need to do is bolt it up and aim the lights.

But I'm not afraid of more work as long as it's a better result.

Wouldn�t you still need to run the wiring into the ceiling?

I doubt the cutting holes part is what makes the permit required.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 16:08

DaveSauce: Feb 15, 2004; Oh, how awkward.

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

Wouldn�t you still need to run the wiring into the ceiling?

I doubt the cutting holes part is what makes the permit required.

Right, I'd wire from the existing junction box to all the new lights. This is where I'd likely need a permit since I'm extending the existing circuit to new fixtures. With any luck the existing junction box would line up with where I'd place a can... I'll have to think about the alternatives if not.

This is why a multi-bulb fixture/track would be way easier, since no wiring changes would be required.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 16:33

Zarin: Nov 11, 2008; I SEE YOU

DaveSauce posted:

Right, I'd wire from the existing junction box to all the new lights. This is where I'd likely need a permit since I'm extending the existing circuit to new fixtures. With any luck the existing junction box would line up with where I'd place a can... I'll have to think about the alternatives if not.

This is why a multi-bulb fixture/track would be way easier, since no wiring changes would be required.

Just thinking out loud here - I don't know if anything like this even exists - but does anyone make LED lights that run on 12v instead of 120v? If so, would running a 12v circuit require permits?

# ? Jan 12, 2022 17:32

Zarin: Nov 11, 2008; I SEE YOU

extravadanza posted:

e: I am, personally, thinking about doing a 8'x8' LED strip square enclosed in wood in my kitchen to replace my current singular light fixture centered in my kitchen, but doing some puck lights would also look pretty good, I think.

I'm trying to envision this - would it just be 32 linear feet of lighting arranged in a square box "outline"? Or would it be a full-on 8' x 8' panel on the ceiling that would glow like some sort of kick-rear end sci-fi ship lighting?

Because I've always thought that glowing panels would be awesome, but I've never really actually seen anything like that in practice.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 17:34

pokie: Apr 27, 2008; IT HAPPENED!

Senor P. posted:

South Western WA (Vancouver)? Or South Central WA (Tri-Cities)?

Because if it is the latter, you're looking at about $50 an hour base + $20 an hour for benefits.
(A lot of talented folks leave residential and get into commercial/industrial because it pays more.)
https://ibewlu112.com/index.cfm?zone=/unionactive/private_view_page.cfm&page=Wage202620Benefit20Packages

Personally if you're feeling adventurous, I'd maybe try watching a few videos, turn off a few breakers, check for zero voltage and perhaps start out trying GFCI outlets.

Near Vancouver.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 17:50

Nybble: Jun 28, 2008; praise chuck, raise heck

Anyone have any recommendations for thermals curtains that look the same on both sides? Need it to block a hallway so I can keep the warm air from escaping up my open foyer. I don't mind the sliding glass door curtains with the backing that looks different, but it seems impossible to find reversible curtains.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 20:44

Zarin: Nov 11, 2008; I SEE YOU

Nybble posted:

Anyone have any recommendations for thermals curtains that look the same on both sides? Need it to block a hallway so I can keep the warm air from escaping up my open foyer. I don't mind the sliding glass door curtains with the backing that looks different, but it seems impossible to find reversible curtains.

I think I have a set of Eclipse curtains that didn't have the thermal backing on them. I can't seem to locate those online now, but such an animal does exist.

# ? Jan 12, 2022 21:17

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

You're all doing it wrong you're supposed to stop "fetishizing" your home and knock down the house and build new instead of replacing or fixing anything.

quote:

Stop Fetishizing Old Homes

In early august, 254 Tamarisk Drive went on the Bay Area housing market asking $850,000, and it sparked a bidding war that topped out at $1 million. The 1968 four-bedroom ranch, clad with half-century-old fixtures and set behind a patchy lawn, was not only unremarkable but had actually been �fire charred� before it was put up for sale. And yet its buyers likely got a good deal: According to the real-estate-listing site Redfin, the home could now be worth as much as $1.36 million.

This extreme case highlights a housing market in crisis: Americans are paying ever more exorbitant prices for old housing that is, at best, subpar and, at worst, unsafe. Indeed, the real-estate market in the U.S. now resembles the car market in Cuba: A stagnant supply of junkers is being forced into service long after its intended life span.

In housing circles, one hears a lot of self-righteous discussion about the need for more preservation. And many American homes doubtless deserve to stick around. But the truth is that we fetishize old homes. Whatever your aesthetic preferences, new construction is better on nearly every conceivable measure, and if we want to ensure universal access to decent housing, we should be building a lot more of it.

According to census bureau data compiled by House Method, the median home nationwide is now 39 years old, up nearly 20 percent over the past decade alone. In the northeastern states of New York and Massachusetts, the median is much higher, at 63 and 59, respectively, while out West, in Nevada and Arizona, your typical home is still barely old enough to rent a car.

This isn�t an East-West thing, however: The median home in California is roughly 50 percent older than that in the Carolinas. A typical home in San Francisco is now 15 years older than its New Orleans counterpart, not because San Francisco is older than New Orleans, but because the former is so slow to permit new development.

Across the country�but particularly along the coasts�barriers to construction mean that housing production has plummeted, such that we now face a national demand-supply gap of 6.8 million homes. To break even over the next 10 years, the National Association of Realtors found, we would need to build at least 700,000 new homes each year.

In the meantime, we�re stuck with a lot of old housing that, to put it bluntly, just kind of sucks. A stately Victorian manor in the Berkshires is one thing. But if you live in a Boston triple-decker, a kit-built San Jose bungalow, or a Chicago greystone, your home is the cheap housing of generations past. These structures were built to last a half century�at most, with diligent maintenance�at which point the developers understood they would require substantial rehabilitation. Generally speaking, however, the maintenance hasn�t been diligent, the rehabilitation isn�t forthcoming, and any form of redevelopment is illegal thanks to overzealous zoning.

You might think uneven floors or steep stairwells have �character.� You�ll get no argument here. But more often than not, old housing is simply less safe. Until 1978, lead was common in house paint, and until the 1980s, in water pipes. Although the substance has been banned in new housing, the CDC estimates that 24 million old homes are still coated in lead paint�including the many Levittown homes built in the 1950s�while an estimated 9.2 million homes still receive water through lead pipes.

Or take fire safety: Electrical fires alone account for one in 10 residential fires, killing nearly 500 Americans each year. These fires are mostly a function of improper and aging wiring, which is endemic in older homes. Worse yet, many older homes lack the materials needed to stop a blaze once it starts; back in 2016, a single misplaced cigarette might have been what sent San Francisco�s Graywood Hotel�a 116-year-old single-room-occupancy building that housed approximately 77 people�up in flames.

Even when old housing is not killing its occupants, much of it is exclusionary by design. Before the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act and recent amendments to the Fair Housing Act, standard elements such as ramps and elevators�as well as more subtle accessibility features such as automatic doors and wheelchair-friendly units�were not required, and so were rarely provided. As a result, old housing typologies like New York City�s walk-up tenements end up trapping many thousands of seniors in place, while limiting housing opportunities for many thousands more.

Here in los angeles, we are busy retrofitting nearly 14,000 dingbats, those low-slung, 1950s apartment buildings that could very well collapse with the next earthquake. Like many Angelenos, I�ve come to appreciate their charms. But those resources could have been better spent replacing pedestrian-hostile carports and aging units with the street-level storefronts and additional apartments that our city so desperately needs.

Yet like most U.S. cities, Los Angeles has made redeveloping much of its aging housing stock all but impossible. Between apartment bans, strict density limits, and minimum parking requirements, taking an old home and turning it into an apartment building, or even two or three modern townhouses, is in many cases illegal. Much of this flows from our national prejudice against new housing, especially if it�s billed as �luxury.� Attend a hearing for any given housing proposal and you�re sure to hear baseless speculation that new housing is shoddily constructed or unsafe.

The fact is that those much-lamented cookie-cutter five-over-one apartment buildings cropping up across the U.S. solve the problems of old housing and then some. Modern building codes require sprinkler systems and elevators, and they disallow lead paint. New buildings rarely burn down, rarely poison their residents, and nearly always include at least one or two units designed to accommodate people in wheelchairs.

And despite what old-home snobs may believe, new housing is also just plain nice to live in�in many ways an objective improvement on what came before.

Noise is now appropriately recognized as one of the biggest quality-of-life issues in cities. As I write this in the living room of my 1958 Los Angeles dingbat, I can hear the neighbor on my right shouting over the phone and the neighbor on my left enjoying reggaeton at maximum volume. The distant hum of the 405 is forever in the background. Back when I lived in a mid-2000s apartment building in D.C.�a relatively old building in our pro-growth capital�I had no such distractions. Double-paned windows kept out virtually all street noise, even on a busy downtown intersection, while fiberglass insulation kept neighbors from bothering one another. I wasn�t even certain that I had neighbors until we bumped into each other several months after I moved in.

Modern homes and apartment buildings are not only far better insulated�they also feature modern HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) technologies, such that homes can be warmed and cooled without using nearly as much energy as their older counterparts. Given that heating and cooling account for nearly half of all household energy use in the U.S., the savings from new housing could have serious implications for climate change. That little space heater struggling to keep your drafty old apartment warm�to say nothing of your window AC unit�isn�t just unsightly. It�s also a climate failure.

In smaller ways, too, new construction is nicer. Bathrooms and closets are larger, as are kitchens, which are no longer walled off from the rest of the home. Modern windows let you bathe a unit in natural light, without temperature or noise concerns. Smaller unit sizes�think studios and one-bedrooms�better reflect shrinking households. And in-unit laundry is more common now, as are balconies�amenities that have only grown in value amid recurring COVID-related shutdowns.

For comparison�s sake, consider the Japanese approach. The average Japanese home is demolished 30 years after construction, the realistic life span of a typical cheaply built structure. The Japanese have virtually no �used home� market: Fully 87 percent of Japanese home sales are new, compared with 11 to 34 percent in the West. As a result, most Japanese households enjoy a new house or apartment with all the modern amenities and design innovation that entails, including ever-improving earthquake standards. And this steady supply of new housing has helped make Tokyo one of the most affordable cities in the world, despite a growing population.

All that construction consumes a fair share of resources, and housing in Japan doesn�t double as an investment vehicle. But I, for one, would take that trade-off.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 02:45

Thom Yorke raps: Nov 2, 2004

Excited to buy a 120 year old Victorian (and probably freeze to death in the winter)

cause they're real pretty

# ? Jan 13, 2022 03:00

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Ehhh, they're over-selling it to get those hate shares but I don't totally disagree with the core thesis that just because something is old doesn't mean it's worth saving. Like, that guy who bought that SF historic register home a few years ago and bulldozed it to make a nouveau riche techbro luxury beige box should be locked in a small room with Queen Victorian and a baseball bat, but there is plenty of old housing out there that's just old and needs to be torn down in favor of high density construction.

Disclaimer: this is largely based on me hating poo poo like skyline height ordinances and thinking that a solid half of most cities should be razed for high density construction. I really dgaf if it's going to ruin SF's charm or whatever, people need places to live and cities aren't time capsules. To be clear I'm all for preserving a portion of the old construction, I think a patchwork quilt of buildings from different eras is a neat look if nothing else, but some people do take it a few steps too far.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 03:59

canyoneer: Sep 13, 2005; I only have canyoneyes for you

Let's tear down the 1400 sqft old houses that had 5 or more people living in them for most of their existence and replace them with half of a big house that 2.1 people and a cat will occupy.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 04:10

KS: Jun 10, 2003; Outrageous Lumpwad

Airthings wave sensors do co2 plus radon plus temp/humidity. They�re extremely accurate and $130ish on eBay.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 04:31

Sirotan: Oct 17, 2006; Sirotan is a seal.

Hell yeah gonna bulldoze my 81 year old house because it's 'old' and then own a vacant, unlivable plot of land because I can't find a builder who sees a single SFH build as being profitable enough to follow through with.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 04:37

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

canyoneer posted:

Let's tear down the 1400 sqft old houses that had 5 or more people living in them for most of their existence and replace them with half of a big house that 2.1 people and a cat will occupy.

This would tear down the majority of housing in the outer boroughs in NYC, including mine.

The issue is not single family/2 family homes that are well maintained, the issue is the zoning on new construction. Near me there is a single floor supermarket that is attempting to sell its lot to a high rise developer with new apartment building zoning, and people are freaking the gently caress out. �Preserve the skyline, keep the �frequently moving undesirables� out of the neighborhood, save the chain supermarket!�

It�s all just racist bullshit to keep low income minorities out of the neighborhood, and the city just keeps letting it happen. There is plenty of space in NYC in the outer boroughs to build up, and plenty of tear downs that are just waiting on city approval. No need to raze all the single family homes that are actively housing people.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 05:41

hypnophant: Oct 19, 2012

Old expensive construction can be worth saving but old cheap construction is vastly inferior to new construction, which is safer, more efficient, and so, so much more comfortable

Also if you disagree with that article, you better never ever say a word about getting rid of fossil fuel heating in homes

# ? Jan 13, 2022 08:34

NomNomNom: Jul 20, 2008; Please Work Out

That's the crux of it. My old poorly insulated home is cheap to heat in moderate temp Virginia (as long as natural gas prices stay low). I'd be so poor if we had to use electric.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 13:22

Motronic: Nov 6, 2009

Femtosecond posted:

You're all doing it wrong you're supposed to stop "fetishizing" your home and knock down the house and build new instead of replacing or fixing anything.

This is mostly just a reeeeeeeeee from someone who lives in a lovely old apartment who thinks if it was a lovely new apartment it would somehow be fine. This is laughable on its face, especially in regards to his noise complaints. It would be "better" for exactly as long as it took for it to fall back into maintenance debt.

Yes, plenty of lovely houses/buildings were built lovely enough that they are beyond their designed service life. Yes, we need more housing. No, the same lovely housing built to updated but still bare minimum code standards is not a great solution.

There is a large component to all of this that is a zoning/NIMBY issue.

And lastly, this lovely-apartment-renter starts out by misunderstanding that nobody was bidding on the HOUSE in this SF story. They were bidding on the land. The house on it was a liability/price discount on the land in the amount that demo would cost.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 14:52

Upgrade: Jun 19, 2021

I also think that quality and livability of old homes can vary a lot from decade to decade. I�ve sent a lot of nice livable homes built in the 1920s and a a ton of junk from the 50s and 60s

# ? Jan 13, 2022 14:59

extravadanza: Oct 19, 2007

Zarin posted:

I'm trying to envision this - would it just be 32 linear feet of lighting arranged in a square box "outline"? Or would it be a full-on 8' x 8' panel on the ceiling that would glow like some sort of kick-rear end sci-fi ship lighting?

Because I've always thought that glowing panels would be awesome, but I've never really actually seen anything like that in practice.

Not really a panel, just 4 x 8' strips arranged in a square shape using tracks like this https://www.amazon.com/StarlandLed-Aluminum-Accessories-Perfectly-LightStrip/dp/B07MPX3WHM/ which would basically just be inlaid into some wood, probably a box, and bolted to the ceiling. This particular arrangement I think would work really well in my space because my kitchen is a square and there is no island in the center. Currently the one singular light fixture in the center of the room basically gets blocked by your body whenever you are trying to do any prep on a surface or get into a cabinet or whatever. I have already done undercabinet lighting in a few spots to solve this issue, but looking to make even more improvements at some point.

e: you can purchase large led panels now, they even have them at costco and they are super thin and cheap... but lining a bunch of those up next to each other would probably be waaaaay too much light. To get your desired effect, I feel like you would need low lumen panels so as to not overwhelm the eyes in your space.

extravadanza fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jan 13, 2022

# ? Jan 13, 2022 15:01

Pilfered Pallbearers: Aug 2, 2007

hypnophant posted:

Old expensive construction can be worth saving but old cheap construction is vastly inferior to new construction, which is safer, more efficient, and so, so much more comfortable

Also if you disagree with that article, you better never ever say a word about getting rid of fossil fuel heating in homes

There�s absolutely bo reason to knock down old houses because they�re built with gas or oil heating. The way to solve it is to incentivize home owners to switch with cash to cover the very expensive cost of conversion.

NY has a few of these programs. Although I personally think there would be a lot more traction if they covered the entire cost or even shoved cash on top of the cost, it�s a great start.

https://www.coned.com/en/save-money...othermal-system

https://www.coned.com/en/save-money...tless-minisplit

# ? Jan 13, 2022 15:33

Motronic: Nov 6, 2009

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

There�s absolutely bo reason to knock down old houses because they�re built with gas or oil heating. The way to solve it is to incentivize home owners to switch with cash to cover the very expensive cost of conversion.

Yeah. I seriously don't understand this.

Incentivize building performance (air barriers, insulation, windows) to start with. Then......it's just a matter of changing fuels. It doesnt' matter if it's forced air or hydronic, it's literally changing the heating source, not the ductwork or radiators.

Yes, it's expensive. No, it's not "bulldoze and rebuild" expensive. That's not only a waste of money but also a waste of resources.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 15:41

Sloppy: Apr 25, 2003; Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Femtosecond posted:

You're all doing it wrong you're supposed to stop "fetishizing" your home and knock down the house and build new instead of replacing or fixing anything.

Part of the problem is that a major portion of the negative environmental impact of a house is from the manufacturing and construction process. The 'greenest' thing we can do is retrofit old buildings up to a higher standard.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 15:52

Epitope: Nov 27, 2006; Grimey Drawer

Sloppy posted:

Part of the problem is that a major portion of the negative environmental impact of a house is from the manufacturing and construction process. The 'greenest' thing we can do is retrofit old buildings up to a higher standard.

I'm going to move into a yurt in the yard, and help nature slowly decommission this structure over decades. If I went proactive and removed the structure, that would just incentivize the next guy to build a new resource guzzling monstrosity

# ? Jan 13, 2022 16:02

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Cyrano4747 posted:

Ehhh, they're over-selling it to get those hate shares but I don't totally disagree with the core thesis that just because something is old doesn't mean it's worth saving. Like, that guy who bought that SF historic register home a few years ago and bulldozed it to make a nouveau riche techbro luxury beige box should be locked in a small room with Queen Victorian and a baseball bat, but there is plenty of old housing out there that's just old and needs to be torn down in favor of high density construction.

Disclaimer: this is largely based on me hating poo poo like skyline height ordinances and thinking that a solid half of most cities should be razed for high density construction. I really dgaf if it's going to ruin SF's charm or whatever, people need places to live and cities aren't time capsules. To be clear I'm all for preserving a portion of the old construction, I think a patchwork quilt of buildings from different eras is a neat look if nothing else, but some people do take it a few steps too far.

I agree fully that there's poo poo tons of low density detached homes that need to be torn down and replaced with apartments. That's a separate issue however from much else he's arguing. I dunno if it's bad editing or bad thinking, but he is seemingly trying to mash these two issues together somehow, yimbyism and old houses "being bad", but no it doesn't work. These are independent concepts.

Motronic posted:

Yes, plenty of lovely houses/buildings were built lovely enough that they are beyond their designed service life. Yes, we need more housing. No, the same lovely housing built to updated but still bare minimum code standards is not a great solution.

There is a large component to all of this that is a zoning/NIMBY issue.

Yeah it feels like a yimby article, which is good and fine, plenty of old housing out there that should be replaced with apartments, but in other places in the article he's just dragging old housing and there's no assertion that its replacement should be an apartment.

His Japanese example is the worst example of this.

quote:

For comparison�s sake, consider the Japanese approach. The average Japanese home is demolished 30 years after construction, the realistic life span of a typical cheaply built structure. The Japanese have virtually no �used home� market: Fully 87 percent of Japanese home sales are new, compared with 11 to 34 percent in the West. As a result, most Japanese households enjoy a new house or apartment with all the modern amenities and design innovation that entails, including ever-improving earthquake standards. And this steady supply of new housing has helped make Tokyo one of the most affordable cities in the world, despite a growing population.

That the Japanese consider houses disposable is not a virtue. In Japan when you want to buy a Single Family Home it's often that you buy a bare plot of land and a house is built from scratch. An existing house, regardless of its condition was demolished to create that bare land. There's no yimbyism going on here. It's simply straight up wasteful.

quote:

And this steady supply of new housing has helped make Tokyo one of the most affordable cities in the world, despite a growing population.

This assertion 100% does not follow from the notion that Japanese housing is disposable. There are plenty of SFHs in Japan and a great deal of destruction of SFHs to another SFH. Japan has relatively much more liberal zoning than North America and that is most likely to be the dominant driver of why Japan has been able to create new housing often. If Japan's ability to create lots of new housing is related to the fact that people tear down houses often the author has not shown the work to prove his point.

Motronic posted:

And lastly, this lovely-apartment-renter starts out by misunderstanding that nobody was bidding on the HOUSE in this SF story. They were bidding on the land. The house on it was a liability/price discount on the land in the amount that demo would cost.

Lmao yes this was the most immediate sign this article had immediately gone astray. In expensive markets the old houses are worth almost nothing. It is the land value that you are paying for.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 18:59

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

I also thought the author cheated because most of his argument applied only to apartments, while he claimed he was talking about all housing. He also happily ignored all the documented issues about some kinds of tract-built new construction, and it was telling that he spoke approvingly of a contractor who hired untrained crew because it kept the build costs down.

Fetishizing dingbats seems dumb to me, but then again, they aren't in the time period I find beautiful and nostalgic. Eichler homes. Those you can fetishize, even though they contain next to no storage space and the underfloor heating is corroded.

# ? Jan 13, 2022 19:11

Elephanthead: Sep 11, 2008; Toilet Rascal

Sirotan posted:

Hell yeah gonna bulldoze my 81 year old house because it's 'old' and then own a vacant, unlivable plot of land because I can't find a builder who sees a single SFH build as being profitable enough to follow through with.

Gonna save a ton on property taxes

# ? Jan 13, 2022 19:18

Bi-la kaifa: Feb 4, 2011; Space maggots.

My house is old and it deserves to be bulldozed

# ? Jan 14, 2022 02:19

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Y'all never seen a candle light vigil for a house that's being torn down and it shows.

# ? Jan 14, 2022 03:22

StormDrain: May 22, 2003; Thirteen Letter

DaveSauce posted:

I've been contemplating replacing the lighting in my kitchen for quite a while. Currently it's a 2x 4' CFL fixture, because 1999. I'm trying to figure out what to replace it with. Only other light is a can over the sink and the over-the-range microwave light (we also installed under-cabinet lights ourselves, but that's a different subject).

A centralized track lighting system with aimable bulbs, or a similar style multi-bulb fixture, would be easiest, but it's track lighting and we'd have to get something that looks good. Can lights would be a bit more trouble to install, but they'd be cleaner and hopefully less prone to shifts in fashion.

If we go with cans/recessed, what size and what sort of spacing requirements are we looking at? Or is there some lumens per sq ft that we want to target? The biggest concern there is doing all that install work and ending up with funny shadows. I'd assume more small cans are better than a handful of big ones, and this will probably be DIYed so that's not a big deal for me.

Get Lithonia WF series canless lights. You don't even need a box to mount them to, they're damp rated, color selectable (most are at least), easy to install and inexpensive. They even come with Wago connectors pre installed.

Select the size based on the number and layout in your kitchen.

Also pick up an adjustable hole cutter with a dust shield.

Klein Tools Adjustable Hole Saw
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools-Adjustable-Hole-Saw-53731/203828012
SKU# 203828012

Edit: your instincts are right, more fixtures are better so you get less shadows. I put Five 4" cans in my kitchen, one over each counter workspace, close enough together the light overlaps. I also placed them closer to the cabinets so it's harder for my head to cast a shadow. When I replace the cabinets I'll put in full hardwired under cabinet lighting which are an incredible improvement for lighting. There are fewer shadows and it's right where you're working. I dislike the plug in kind, I think it's ugly, and also the last one I got failed on me in the first month.

StormDrain fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jan 14, 2022

# ? Jan 14, 2022 03:29

unknown: Nov 16, 2002; Ain't got no stinking title yet!

Speaking of under cabinet lighting...

The PO installed some horrid janky "led strips" in our place that are fed via hardwired 120v to multiple transformers which have some weird custom connections (think really old Ikea).

Been searching for newer stuff, but I haven't found any decent hardwired transformers (120ac to 12dc) that weren't hugely expensive in order to feed newer brighter strips. Any suggestions?

# ? Jan 14, 2022 03:56

AHH F/UGH: May 25, 2002

Blinds, baseboards and installing the LVP and finally catpiss/ratturd house will be officially not a giant gross mess. Almost there, probably moving in around Feb 10th or so.

# ? Jan 14, 2022 05:08

Hed: Mar 31, 2004; Fun Shoe

unknown posted:

Speaking of under cabinet lighting...

The PO installed some horrid janky "led strips" in our place that are fed via hardwired 120v to multiple transformers which have some weird custom connections (think really old Ikea).

Been searching for newer stuff, but I haven't found any decent hardwired transformers (120ac to 12dc) that weren't hugely expensive in order to feed newer brighter strips. Any suggestions?

I used this one recently as a dimmable driver. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08QZBVDHS it has a 12V version. They also have a cheaper one with a pigtail if you need it. The one linked I just ran lamp chord to the screw terminals.

If you don�t care about dimming then something like this https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/power-supplies/12vdc-waterproof-mean-well-led-power-supply--lpv-series/1172/ or there might be some cheaper non water resistant options.

# ? Jan 14, 2022 05:38

pokie: Apr 27, 2008; IT HAPPENED!

Upgrade posted:

I also think that quality and livability of old homes can vary a lot from decade to decade. I�ve sent a lot of nice livable homes built in the 1920s and a a ton of junk from the 50s and 60s

Wouldn't this be largely attributed to survival bias? The lovely homes from 20s have collapsed since then so only the cream of the crop remain.

# ? Jan 14, 2022 16:33

Residency Evil: Jul 28, 2003; 4/5 godo... Schumi

pokie posted:

Wouldn't this be largely attributed to survival bias? The lovely homes from 20s have collapsed since then so only the cream of the crop remain.

This is kind of how I view it to. If a house from the early 1900s is still standing, there's something right about the way it was built.

I like old houses.

# ? Jan 14, 2022 16:58

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# ? May 9, 2024 14:38

BigPaddy: Jun 30, 2008; That night we performed the rite and opened the gate.
Halfway through, I went to fix us both a coke float.
By the time I got back, he'd gone insane.
Plus, he'd left the gate open and there was evil everywhere.

Both houses I grew up in were brick built 1910s which still have their original tile roof. Of course they are old British homes so are the size of a shed compared to modern homes but they haven�t even needed repointing yet. They public housing so we�re upgraded over the years with modern electrical systems, heating and windows. If I were still in Britain I would want an older house over a newer one because they are built like bunkers and modern ones are similar to houses constructed in the US with a wooden frame. The main difference is they still have slate roofs and brick exteriors so they look like the older stock.

# ? Jan 14, 2022 17:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Homeowners: I own 8 different power saws, primarily to attract a mate.

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