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The house is X shaped, the sump drains out on a gable end under a deck, so it’s not blocked up or frozen, and the ground generally slopes away (very gently) towards the yard drainage from there, so it seems to be successfully making it out and away from the house. A little bit of standing water there but not deep and that end of the crawl space is much drier. I have a video of it on that end too but my cell service and Imgur aren’t cooperating at the moment
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Mar 12, 2023 22:49
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Steve French posted:In case any of you are jonesing for some schadenfreude:  Hope the melt isn't too terrible on ya. Personally, with that much snow, I'd be ensure you have a secondary, back up pump. It's always a good idea to have another one anyhow. Or even just a small general purpose pump. If it gets wet fast, you're probably not going to be able to find one within hundreds of miles of where you are. e: Even something that can discharge into a garden hose is better than nothing.
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Mar 12, 2023 22:52
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StormDrain posted:Seems like perfect weather to do donuts in a Bitchin Firebird . There’s an RS4 with a brand new set of misfire codes parked under the lift that the Firebird is on 😬 Anyway my current gas powered focus is the snowmobile
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Mar 12, 2023 23:07
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ptier posted:So update on this: RE: Gutters installed quite poorly, fascia is to blame. And alls well that ends well. The guys no showed Saturday which was dumb, but they didn't have my number and only go through the PM who didn't answer any calls yesterday so not their fault. But they showed up today at 5:30pm, saw the problem of the fascia being too high, tore that poo poo down, redid it to satisfaction ( I checked ) and rolled out. They were straight up with me and no BS. Now I get to move on to soffits and rakes and molding oh my! Bonus Content: Sometimes when someone paints over the top of a light switch cover its not because they were lazy, it's because the cover has load bearing paint and the drywall hole was too big. So they were lazy in a different way! Thanks PO. But, a trip to bLowes, two new switches and a jumbo cover later and all is well. It was just as well since the switches were REAL squishy and original to the house.
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Mar 13, 2023 00:06
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slidebite posted:
This is a good idea, I'll look into it, thanks. If anyone has a recommendation on a specific product, let me know.
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Mar 13, 2023 02:14
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Also, believe it or not, I live in the banana belt of my town, and neighborhoods on the other side of it have about twice as much snow. What you see in my photos is pretty much the least of it.
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Mar 13, 2023 02:38
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Steve French posted:This is a good idea, I'll look into it, thanks. If anyone has a recommendation on a specific product, let me know. I've got a healthy fear about that melt, and I'd say any backup right now is going to be better than finding the "best" backup. Backup the things that will put you out of commission if they fail. I just replaced my 23 year old HVAC system last year, but for the old system I had a spare igniter, flame sensor, and draft inducer. For the gas weater heater, a spare pilot assembly. When we moved into our house, the sump pump was dead and the home inspector missed it. Thankfully, we moved in in August and there was little moisture, but the sump well was 3/4 full. I replaced the pump and it took a WHILE for it to pump down... seems that the foundation has a base of, I can only assume, gravel that kept the surplus water away from the foundation itself. Kinda awesome. So, I don't have a spare sump pump, since I know when it dies, I have a bit of time before there would be a backup. Edit: since I'm dishing hot house takes, here's another one on a different topic -- if you do any drywall work, do yourself a favor and get the 4" and 6" stainless one-piece drywall knives from Home Depot. They are by far the best knives I've used. Sharp, strong, just the right amount of flex. It really makes the mud jobs more enjoyable. I've used these for 3 years with two big projects and they're like new, only a little bit sharper. 
meatpimp fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Mar 13, 2023 |
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Mar 13, 2023 11:59
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EVERYWHERE 
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Yeah strong agree on a backup sump pump being a must. Having spare parts for common (and relatively easily replaceable) appliances is a really good idea. Other things I always keep around are spark plugs for any engines (mower, snow blower, etc), some electrical outlets and receptacles and wiring, spare extension cords and power strips or surge protectors, a toilet valve kit, various sizes of gaskets for sinks, and a spare router for when the cheap one you have breaks.
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Mar 13, 2023 17:19
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Ja, good practice, but be mindful of what you'll wind up with after 30-years
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Mar 13, 2023 18:58
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PainterofCrap posted:Ja, good practice, but be mindful of what you'll wind up with after 30-years Same, at least. I've ended up using totes to store the tools and materials for each operation type. Plumbing, drain work, electrical, drywall, paint... houses suck and have too many parts.
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Mar 13, 2023 19:08
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Amongst thost metric tons of parts is the part I need. Maybe. Maybe I just can't find it. My garage loft is worse. I have half of a '66 Bonneville up there (including the entire drivetrain), about 1/10 of an aircooled VW, maybe 1/5 of 98-01 Accord, and a sprinkling of Ford & Mercury parts
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Mar 13, 2023 19:19
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devicenull posted:While you're trying to find an engineer, do your downspouts drain close to the foundation? You might be able to extend them to help a little bit (this is by no means a permanent fix) slave to my cravings posted:They are probably clogged or leaking underground and that water is going into the garage. Get a 20foot long downspout extender for each one and get the water away from the house and see if that solves the problem for now. Then you can take some time on the actual best solution for the wall. Later this week when it's warmer I'm going to go back over to the house, pull the downspouts out of their holes, and run my endoscope camera down to see if I can see any obvious obstructions in the first 12 feet. We also identified two cuts in the curb almost perfectly downhill from where the downspouts enter the ground which we suspect are the outputs, so after using the camera I'm going to stick a hose down the holes and run some water to see if it's flowing as much as we'd expect it to. As far as we can figure this one:  drains downhill towards this one:  then down through the front yard  out to this cut:  This path handles the majority of the water coming off the roof, the left half of the bedrooms' roof runs down on to the front half of the living room roof and then from there to the front left downspout, where it meets up with the water that came off the back half of the living room on to the sunroom and then down the rear left spout. Obviously if those tests give us any reason to believe any amount of water entering those downspouts isn't making it out to the street we'll set up some temporary redirection through above-ground extensions until we can get the underground part fixed.. We have some rain expected later in the week so the theory should be pretty easy to test. --- As for the wall itself, let's assume best case scenario that we find an obvious problem with the downspout drainage and resolving that prevents further water intrusion so the problem isn't actively getting worse. How bad is this much of a bulge? This power strip is about four feet long and is the longest straight edge I had handy.    I have heard everything from "that's not bad enough to be worth doing anything about unless it gets worse, fix the water problem and send it" to "your house might fall down yesterday, that wall needs to be anchored or reinforced ASAP" Obviously there's only so much I can expect from posting a few pics to the internet versus what a physically present specialist will be able to tell me, but I'm trying to at least have a rough idea of how hosed I am before I can get said person on site. Next time I head over to the house I'm going to bring some angle iron and see if I can build a crude gauge that'll let us easily see any movement that may happen.
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Mar 13, 2023 22:26
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meatpimp posted:Same, at least. This is a good idea and I do it two. Drywall, paint, electrical and plumbing tubs. Clear plastic so I can see in them. They still accumulate a bunch of useless stuff but manageable to fix. The one recurring issue I have is cross contamination between painting and drywall, since I'll use them often together.
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Mar 13, 2023 22:36
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wolrah posted:
Literally only an engineer can tell you. I would personally consider that to be something in the "needs immediate remediation" category but I'm an electrician.
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Mar 13, 2023 23:25
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corgski posted:Literally only an engineer can tell you. I would personally consider that to be something in the "needs immediate remediation" category but I'm an electrician. The kicker on this is that none of us know what was done recently to hide that. Patches? Re-grouted? Definitely painted. This all sucks because you have no clues about the speed with which things are happening. If it's looks like this for the last decade this is a non-issue. If they had to regrout 1/4 of that wall and paint it to make it not look like a mess until they sold the place it's a hair on fire emergency that need secondary bracing right now until its fixed.
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Mar 13, 2023 23:45
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Motronic posted:hide that. Yep, that's textured waterproofing paint. Absolutely no way to tell what's going on behind there. Perhaps if you would sandblast it off, you may see some signs, but if it were me, I'd say give it some time and see if you see any movement.
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Mar 14, 2023 00:59
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Is your municipality ok with your gutters draining to the curb (and by extension, into the storm sewer). It was common in the past, but I know my city has an ongoing effort to remove those and fix them to drain into the property somehow. Something to keep in mind if you have to do some work on the drainage specifically, that you may not be able to merely repair the existing system, but you may have to replace it.
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Mar 14, 2023 01:09
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wolrah posted:We haven't had any further active professionals out to look at it yet (we have an appointment with a foundation repair firm that has engineers on staff later this week)... You don't need an angle iron. Use painter's tape. If it doesn't tear in a few months/period of time recommended by an engineer, you should be good. How far along the wall does it run? They'll also be able to tell you how unfortunate that degree of deflection might be.
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Mar 14, 2023 01:33
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Comedy option is to drill a hole in the base of the wall so the water has somewhere to go. This will probably result in all the dirt eroding out eventually though
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Mar 14, 2023 01:37
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Oh I got a water problem! It rained fairly heavily tonight and water is coming out of my basement shower drain and running through my basement to a crawl space (water/sewer access hatch?). The flow just seems like rainwater and not sewer back flow; there are no clogged catch basins on my street and I live on a hill. That just means I have a partially blocked sewer line right? (I live in the combined sewer/rainwater part of Brooklyn) E: The rain has mostly let up, but the shower isn't draining yet. Does that point to groundwater intrusion into my septic line? theflyingexecutive fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 07:23
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Need a little advice on ceilings. We had our HVAC redone including new duct work over a year ago. Old stuff was real gross so I'm happy with the final product. BUT. The guys had to increase the holes for the ducting to get through. They did it with a ... less than stellar process with a sawsall / template.   I don't care that much about it because I am going to be repainting the house anyways. However, long after they left, I finally see the real damage of a sawsall run against drywall with some plaster on top with LAYERS of paint on top of that:   I've had some of these cracks before in other rooms and I fixed them by chipping off everything that was loose until I got down to solid stuff, then using joint compound ( usually it was just the surface plaster + paint and not anything deeper ) evened it out and then painted. I wanted to see if anyone had a "better" way to clean up and repair stuff like this. My googling and YouTubing just found a bunch of "here is how to fix normal rear end drywall" videos.
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Mar 14, 2023 18:01
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I know the guy's garage that's about to collapse is more exciting, but I've got a question about lights while we wait. Has anyone had any success with outdoor string light LED bulbs? I bought several strands previously (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073PWBMPJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and after 1.5yrs, something like 70% of the bulbs have died. I'm in Buffalo NY, so I'm guessing the cold weather and aggressive winds have something to do with it. It's hard to tell, even reading product reviews, what will stand up to a real winter climate. What's doubly annoying is that I have 250ft of incandescent bulbs that I didn't realize weren't LED when I bought them, and not a single one has gone out in a year. Of course, the energy usage...
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Mar 14, 2023 19:01
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I'm using these: https://www.1000bulbs.com/fil/products/219430 I'm on winter #2 and haven't lost a single one.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:32
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Cool beans. Cheap too. Thanks. What's with the new av?
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Mar 14, 2023 20:21
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The Wonder Weapon posted:What's with the new av? I guess I made someone on the internet $10 mad and that person thought I lived a bit further north than actually I do?
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Mar 14, 2023 20:24
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Maybe he wanted to call you a black hole but forgot the term for it
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Mar 14, 2023 20:31
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Motronic posted:If it's looks like this for the last decade this is a non-issue. If they had to regrout 1/4 of that wall and paint it to make it not look like a mess until they sold the place it's a hair on fire emergency that need secondary bracing right now until its fixed. PainterofCrap posted:You don't need an angle iron. Use painter's tape. If it doesn't tear in a few months/period of time recommended by an engineer, you should be good. How far along the wall does it run?
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Mar 14, 2023 20:51
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Motronic posted:I guess I made someone on the internet $10 mad and that person thought I lived a bit further north than actually I do? Shame it was such a feeble attempt. If you're gonna get $10 mad, put some effort into it.
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Mar 14, 2023 21:41
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wrong thread
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Mar 14, 2023 22:07
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Motronic posted:The kicker on this is that none of us know what was done recently to hide that. Patches? Re-grouted? Definitely painted. This all sucks because you have no clues about the speed with which things are happening.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:14
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I would think that the wall being emergency regrouted might show previous owners' deliberately concealing house condition? But I know nothing. Maybe? But even proving that was done and to what extent is going to be basically impossible unless they are complete idiots and put the entire process and their motivations on social media. It's disappointing because things like seller disclosures were created to fix this exact problem and have some vague look and feel like that actually can, but in the end nope. It's all BS. I'm helping my sister find a new house right now and was reminded of the classic if you didn't live there you aren't expected to be able to fill them out. So gamma's in the old folks home and doesn't have enough good days to manage her affairs so the disclosures basically just say "Power of Attorney, nyah nyah!"
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Mar 14, 2023 22:23
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MASSHOLE spits out facts like BLACK HOLE spots out hawking radiation. Shortly after buying, I found things that I discussed with our lawyer at length, and it basically came down to "you can pay me a lot of money but unless they are morons you wrote down exactly what they were doing and why you have no chance of winning anything". Anything that's a patent defect (visible) is effectively disclosed ("you should know better"), and very little will prove they knew of any latent defects ("silent but deadly") left undisclosed. Some items related to things we explicitly asked them about as well, not just relying on disclosure. Womp womp.
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Mar 14, 2023 22:48
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theflyingexecutive posted:Oh I got a water problem! Any chance you have a backwater valve installed? If so, it's possible the main sewer is still overwhelmed, and without that you would have ended up with sewage in your house. If you don't have one, ask whoever you call to camera the lines to quote you an install price!
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Mar 14, 2023 22:57
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Good time to point out, you don't just have to use a "home inspector." When I bought my current house I had a house inspector come out and he was... okay, but I also had an actual roofer come out to look at the roof and a plumber/HVAC guy out. The roofer found some minor issues but our contract was technically "as-is, no repairs to be made" so it was just informing us about some future projects, and reassuring me we weren't looking at an immediate $15k new roof. The plumber on the other hand discovered the 40 year old furnace was holed and leaking, and that the sellers did fix regardless of our contract given the seriousness. I think we paid an extra $300 between the 2 of them and saved $5k over the furnace issue.
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Mar 14, 2023 23:16
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My previous owner sued the owner before him. Despite having pretty clear evidence (a change order from a contractor) that the undisclosed issue was known, he did not prevail in court.
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Mar 15, 2023 01:25
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theflyingexecutive posted:Oh I got a water problem! It points to a blockage in your line somewhere ahead of your shower drain. Possibly a break between your foundation & the street. If you're lucky, it's your street trap/vent
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Mar 15, 2023 01:30
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meatpimp posted:Same, at least. 
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Mar 15, 2023 01:37
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devicenull posted:Any chance you have a backwater valve installed? It's possible I already have one (just moved in a year and a half ago and don't really know anything about sewage) but DEP (who handles water/sewer) told me there wasn't an issue near me and the flow outside to the catch basins seemed fine. It also seemed like there wasn't enough rain to overload the sewer. PainterofCrap posted:It points to a blockage in your line somewhere ahead of your shower drain. Possibly a break between your foundation & the street. If you're lucky, it's your street trap/vent Gotta plumber coming tomorrow to clear it out and fingers crossed it's not a break. Thanks! My guess right now is that it's some long-accumulated clog that was getting worse and the ice cold water was solidifying some fat/oil down there. theflyingexecutive fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Mar 15, 2023 |
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Mar 15, 2023 05:46
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I'll certainly never get to Jamie Hyneman's storage level. Looking at it, I don't know if that's heaven or hell.
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Mar 15, 2023 11:18
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Steve French posted:[motherfucking snowpocalypse] i'm going to swim in my pool today just to spite you.
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Mar 15, 2023 14:59
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