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spf3million posted:Getting an excuse to buy a new tool is half the reason I take on diy projects. Everyone knows when it comes to a project's budget the tool calories don't count. There is no feeling in the world greater than having some bullshit come up unexpectedly and having 100% of the poo poo you need to do it on hand because of previous projects.
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Apr 26, 2023 13:30
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hattersmad posted:Insurance claim question. That depends on a lot of things including what makes it safe and what is still completely undamaged - this includes things you're not looking at that an adjuster may have like pilings and fasteners. And I'm assuming you mean "deck" because a patio is a concrete slab installed on the ground. Insurance is typically to "make you whole". This is a monetary thing, not "you must replace like for like", just "we have to pay you to put it back to how it was before".
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Apr 26, 2023 13:58
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hattersmad posted:Insurance claim question. Once we pay, the money is yours to do with as you please. The only issue is recoverable depreciation; if you choose to repair rather than replace (or do nothing), you cannot collect the depreciation unless you spend every dime, including your deductible, on the repairs. The bank is a different story. If your payout was large enough that they included the mortgage company, they will for sure want to see your plans/contractor's estimate to replace the patio (deck? cover?) before signing off on the check.
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Apr 26, 2023 15:15
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Hadlock posted:Watched two videos on "dry pouring concrete" out of morbid curiosity. Hey I could actually use this lol I want to do a 3ft x10ft mini walkway for my trash cans. It also never freezes here.
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Apr 26, 2023 15:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:There is no feeling in the world greater than having some bullshit come up unexpectedly and having 100% of the poo poo you need to do it on hand because of previous projects. Absolutely. Although I don’t think I’ll ever have use for the drywall stilts I bought again. Time to up-cycle them to a Halloween costume or something!
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Apr 26, 2023 16:22
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Hadlock posted:Watched two videos on "dry pouring concrete" out of morbid curiosity. I did that for a fence post but people do this for paths? Madness.
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Apr 26, 2023 19:27
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Last night we heard a squirrel in the downspout on our bedroom corner, fighting to not fall down two stories head first and losing. Unfortunately that downspout is tied in with underground piping that takes the water to the drainage swale, and pretty much always has the other end full of water so no escape that way. Today, the dog heard the squirrel still in there and lost his goddamn mind. Removed the downspout and pulled out my cheap endoscope camera but the thing was further than 4 feet down the pipe. Running the hose down the underground pipe thankfully put enough fear into it that it finally figured out how to back out of the pipe and escape to a tree.
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Apr 26, 2023 22:08
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MarcusSA posted:Hey I could actually use this lol I want to do a 3ft x10ft mini walkway for my trash cans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhYEOG9LOIk I really wish I had a situation where I needed to build this, but, alas  Hashtag #trashtrain  Edit: fixed, thanks Hadlock fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Apr 26, 2023 |
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Apr 26, 2023 22:24
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Apr 26, 2023 22:46
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Hadlock posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhYEOG9LOIk lol I'll have to take a picture of it tomorrow but I am thinking I'll just use pavers or something. A few people in my neighborhood have paved it but that seems a bit pricy.
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Apr 26, 2023 23:10
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PainterofCrap posted:Once we pay, the money is yours to do with as you please. The only issue is recoverable depreciation; if you choose to repair rather than replace (or do nothing), you cannot collect the depreciation unless you spend every dime, including your deductible, on the repairs. Thanks for bringing this up, I've been meaning to ask about this! This is an excerpt of the email I got following the fallen tree I had earlier this year: quote:The policy states that we will pay no more than the actual cash value of the damage unless actual repair or replacement is Some of the payout was for things that didn't need repaired (for instance, the claim said we needed to replace siding on the entire side of a house, but the contractor only really needed to do about 50 square feet). The insurance payout is about 3k more than the final cost of the repairs made. Given this policy, will that unused money need to go back to the insurance company?
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Apr 26, 2023 23:11
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devmd01 posted:Today, the dog heard the squirrel still in there and lost his goddamn mind. He was left alone in the back yard long enough to try and get to the long gone squirrel and destroyed the conduit. God dammit. 
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Apr 27, 2023 00:20
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devmd01 posted:He was left alone in the back yard long enough to try and get to the long gone squirrel and destroyed the conduit. God dammit. Look up Gate City Foundation Drainage on YouTube and learn the gospel of PVC over conduit for downspouts
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Apr 27, 2023 02:34
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Oh yes that is the plan, to get the downspout connected back into the still good portion of corrugated with pvc. Not going to re-do the entire run, just run it enough inside the existing conduit to get it back into service. Not ideal but I don’t expect a problem, I’ll continue to monitor it. The rest of the pipe flows downhill at a pretty good angle all the way to the swale, so I never have any water backup. Took tomorrow afternoon off so hopefully I can make some progress. I also ordered some downspout gutter guards to prevent more animal infiltrations. devmd01 fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Apr 27, 2023 |
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Apr 27, 2023 03:11
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Eason the Fifth posted:The insurance payout is about 3k more than the final cost of the repairs made. Given this policy, will that unused money need to go back to the insurance company? I need your insurance company, who is this?
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Apr 27, 2023 05:02
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Eason the Fifth posted:Thanks for bringing this up, I've been meaning to ask about this! This is an excerpt of the email I got following the fallen tree I had earlier this year: No. Enjoy your trip to Cancun.
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Apr 27, 2023 05:04
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Baddog posted:I need your insurance company, who is this? The Norfolk & Dedham Group up here in New England. PainterofCrap posted:No. Enjoy your trip to Cancun. Any extra is just going toward more home repairs 
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Apr 27, 2023 05:22
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The obvious answer here is "too many unknowns, talk to an architect" so with that out of the way, please help indulge my in some navel gazing The house sits on a corner lot and as near as I can tell by reading city and county rules and ordinances, the south wall sits ~15 feet back from the "residential setback maximum build line". The southern corner of the house is a 2 car garage opening to the street on the left. Kind of thinking, put a whole-house-depth "one car garage" here, maybe with garage doors on both ends. I think the house is about 38' "deep" so you'd be able to fit a full size car in there + a fair amount of tools and home office on the other end Is this like, a $100,000 project? Due to the developer copy-pasting this floor plan all over the neighborhood, the wall with "the view" facing the street only has three of those tiny 16" wide sliding bathroom vent windows, way at the top, the wall is mostly blank so adding a Very Tall garage on this side wouldn't be difficult and you wouldn't need to make weird compromises near windows or balconies etc   Kind of thinking, pour a standard 4" slab on grade, over the normal gravel bed (there's no frost line in this part of California), then it looks like, you remove some of the siding where the lean to garage would be to access the sheathing/framing, then build a... 10 or 12' exterior wall frame, and... Probably depends on the local code, either build a frame that butts up against the existing house, or it looks like you might be able to attach a 2x12 to the house and then just mount rafter brackets to the 2x12 directly and run those across to the new exterior wall. And then frame and raise the ends and hang the garage doors on both ends. Something like the photos up above, but ~14' wide + 1' roof overhang (it's pretty dry here and this is the protected side according to prevailing weather), the exterior wall would be like... 12' tall? And the rafters would reach to to ~16' above grade where they attach to the existing house? Might as well get maximum interior volume. Ultimately I'd like to get a hobby shop going in there and we'd move my "home office" out there so my wife can reclaim one of the bedrooms as a guest bedroom. So we'd probably rough in 2x 30 amp 120v circuits, and also 1x 50 amp 240v (how many amps do you need to run an industrial milling machine + weld 1/4" plate at the same time?) Also apparently additions to the house, for every $1 you put in to them, you only get a return of ~$0.40-0.60 on the hinge value? 
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Apr 27, 2023 22:42
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So, 8 foot of foil dryer hose duct-taped to the rigid pipe at the wall... Is this something I should be replacing sooner rather than later, or is it ok to ignore if I clean it regularly? So far, I haven't noticed it collecting much lint.
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Apr 27, 2023 23:14
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Baby Proof posted:So, 8 foot of foil dryer hose duct-taped to the rigid pipe at the wall... Is this something I should be replacing sooner rather than later, or is it ok to ignore if I clean it regularly? So far, I haven't noticed it collecting much lint. You can clean it regularly and it will be fine-ish, but cleaning it regularly is going to make it leak soon enough. I'd plan on replacing it with some hard pipe in the mid term to long term. If that's the bulk of the run it's probably going to stay fairly clean unless you're real bad at cleaning out the lint trap on your dryer.
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Apr 27, 2023 23:23
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Thanks - I figured it would be a little easier to clean foil compared to semi-rigid, but not having to worry about damaging the semi-rigid would be a plus.
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Apr 27, 2023 23:38
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replace the duct tape with heat safe tape that won’t melt
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Apr 28, 2023 00:00
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My Ego lawnmower battery got stolen out of my garage this winter. Are any of the Ego battery alternatives good, or will they burn my garage down, and I should just pay the $400 for a real 7.5 Ah Ego battery?
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Apr 30, 2023 20:28
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Residency Evil posted:My Ego lawnmower battery got stolen out of my garage this winter. Are any of the Ego battery alternatives good, or will they burn my garage down, and I should just pay the $400 for a real 7.5 Ah Ego battery? You can get pretty good prices on brand new EGO batteries on eBay. People buy the bundles then part out the batteries bc the tools are cheaper in those packs than if you bought them alone: https://www.ebay.com/itm/145060240085
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Apr 30, 2023 20:42
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Sirotan posted:You can get pretty good prices on brand new EGO batteries on eBay. People buy the bundles then part out the batteries bc the tools are cheaper in those packs than if you bought them alone: https://www.ebay.com/itm/145060240085 Thanks. Wasn't sure if eBay batteries are likely to be fake.
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Apr 30, 2023 20:44
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https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/please-dont-mount-your-tv-over-the-fireplace/ CNET eating that low hanging fruit
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Apr 30, 2023 21:56
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/please-dont-mount-your-tv-over-the-fireplace/ I mean, they're right. Fireplaces as the focal point of the living room in modern houses is loving idiotic. No matter how much people wax poetic about crackling fires or shake their fists at how a consumerist entertainment box shouldn't be the center of family life, that just doesn't reflect how the vast majority of people actually live. If it's an old house with an existing fireplace? You've got my sympathies, there are some conversations to be had there about how to work around it. The inexcusable poo poo is the new construction with fireplace centric living rooms.
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Apr 30, 2023 22:06
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Residency Evil posted:Thanks. Wasn't sure if eBay batteries are likely to be fake. Probably took the good batteries out, sold them, and filled with cheap 500ma (not 2500ma) copies. I would not trust your car hobby to that absolute fire hazard it's not worth it
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Apr 30, 2023 23:39
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Ehhh. I bought the EGO snowblower SKU that came with two batteries and high speed dual-battery charger. I already had two batteries and a charger so I sold both new batteries, and the single charger, and ended up getting the snowblower for like $200 less than the tool-only price. As long as the battery comes with the EGO serial number on the side (which you can register on their site for the warranty) you should be good.
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May 1, 2023 00:25
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is ebay more or less likely to sell you counterfeits than Amazon? Honest question, because I've given up on buying batteries on Amazon, but at least there you also have real recourse and can get your money back.
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May 1, 2023 00:51
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Ebay has a purchase guarantee that they're usually pretty good about honoring. You do have to do more due diligence yourself on eBay (checking seller feedback numbers, product description, photos etc) compared to Amazon I guess. Personally the only time I've encountered counterfeits is when looking for physical media (DVDs/Blurays).
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May 1, 2023 01:10
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Cyrano4747 posted:is ebay more or less likely to sell you counterfeits than Amazon? More in my experience
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May 1, 2023 01:55
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Thanks guys. Because of the absolutely idiotic way these batteries are priced, I just bought a new (refurbished) lawnmower.
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May 1, 2023 03:03
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It probably depends on the product but yeah if I were gonna do counterfeit battery stuff, I'd probably pick egopower batteries and still sell them on eBay for half of retail For Amazon the big scam seems to be selling counterfeit SD cards
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May 1, 2023 04:31
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Nobody is making counterfeit EGO batteries, but there are plenty of third party vendors making their own generic versions. They might be green and sorta look the same but they're not counterfeits. You can find the exact same things being sold on Amazon. The same thing can be said for Greenworks, Ryobi, etc.
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May 1, 2023 12:31
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After reading those articles about all the of counterfeits of completely ordinary items on Amazon like ove gloves, kids seatbelts, toothbrushes…I don’t trust anything sold by them or any other company with a 3rd party seller marketplace (eBay, Walmart, Newegg, etc.). If it’s something that can burn my house down, then I’d happily spend a few extra bucks at the OEM or an established company with a reputable supply chain rather than rolling the dice with a 3rd party seller.
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May 1, 2023 14:31
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Cyrano4747 posted:I mean, they're right. Fireplaces as the focal point of the living room in modern houses is loving idiotic. No matter how much people wax poetic about crackling fires or shake their fists at how a consumerist entertainment box shouldn't be the center of family life, that just doesn't reflect how the vast majority of people actually live. 100%. Mounting the TV over the fireplace both ruins the look of the fireplace and provides a miserable TV-watching experience, not to mention the problem of dealing with any A/V equipment that isn't just a Roku taped to the back. Better to get creative with the room setup than do that.
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May 1, 2023 14:41
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Tiny Timbs posted:Better to get creative with the room setup than do that. It's really not that hard IMO. A bit awkward to have the fireplace off to the side or something, but most rooms I've seen with a fireplace have at least 1 blank wall you could put a TV against and not make couch/chair placement totally awkward. I mean it's not ideal, but it's a million times better than putting the TV way up like that. Worst part about that above article though is that I swear none of the seats in the pictures they show are actually facing the TV... so not only are you craning your neck up, but also to the side.
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May 1, 2023 15:05
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My mom has a new build (2020) with a fireplace-centric living/front room and then a separate den/media room. The living room is open to the kitchen and the media room is connected connected to the kitchen with pocket doors. It works really well tbh and each room gets equal use when there are between 2-20 people there. I know not everyone has this much space but this is the way imo. I don’t have a fireplace in my house but my tv is still going in a bonus/media/play room in the basement.
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May 1, 2023 15:11
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We have a bonus room, so that's where our TV lives right now. Before that we had it in the living room, which is where the fireplace is. We had the couch against the windowed wall, the TV against the opposite wall, and so sitting on the couch the fireplace was on your left. I mean, it's not perfect, but I feel like it's way better than the TV above the fireplace. Right now the living room has a couch facing the fireplace and a coffee table in between. Eventually 2 chairs will be on each side of the fireplace facing the couch, so you end up with a great space (IMO) for entertaining/talking/playing games/reading/etc.
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May 1, 2023 15:55
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