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BadSamaritan posted:Partner at new house: “I really want to pull all the old coax and phone line out of all these rooms!” Anyway, repairing the 16” trench that the electrician cut along every wall has been amusing. Thank goodness for Concrete Fill and Fibafuse.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:14
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steckles posted:I had to open up all the walls to replace the knob and tube wiring and have used it as an opportunity to remove the 11 billion coaxial plugs the previous owner had installed. What a way to live, always within 10 feet of a tv with cable at all times. Or maybe they wheeled the TV into the dining room on special occasions, I dunno. It's such a late genx/boomer thing to do, at least in the early 2000s. My place was like this too - they even had one in the bathroom.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:17
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Motronic posted:It's such a late genx/boomer thing to do, at least in the early 2000s. My place was like this too - they even had one in the bathroom. I am getting ready to re-wire my whole house and I am debating if I am even going to bother running coaxial (comcast just punch a cable through a wall at one point) anywhere but where I have my modem plugged in. Brings up a good question about if I should run any kind of communication cable (cat 7, coaxial, phone) while I have walls open... My house is 1,300 sq ft so a single wireless router is plenty and I no longer need to be hardwired into my NAS. Verman posted:At atmospheric river that hit Seattle has given me a new issue. My roof is leaking at my chimney. So that's fun. I just noticed water pooling in my detached garage here in Portland, at-least I re-caulked and painted the exterior of my house this summer so there's less to worry about.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:30
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Verman posted:At atmospheric river that hit Seattle has given me a new issue. My roof is leaking at my chimney. So that's fun. I've just noticed some discoloration on the wall inside of where the chimney is. Chimney repair guy coming to evaluate on Thursday. Sigh.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:31
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raggedphoto posted:Brings up a good question about if I should run any kind of communication cable (cat 7, coaxial, phone) while I have walls open... My house is 1,300 sq ft so a single wireless router is plenty and I no longer need to be hardwired into my NAS. Yes, absolutely. Cat 6a is more than good enough. You never know when you might want a second AP, cameras, hard wired gaming consoles or TV or whatever, etc. Hell, you can even use them to connect Power over Ethernet (PoE) equipment in the future. Better to have it than not.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:39
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steckles posted:I had to open up all the walls to replace the knob and tube wiring and have used it as an opportunity to remove the 11 billion coaxial plugs the previous owner had installed. What a way to live, always within 10 feet of a tv with cable at all times. I'm grateful because I'm probably gonna need to use MoCA to route Internet through my new house. Built by old people so even though it's newer they didn't think to include Ethernet.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:46
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raggedphoto posted:
I absolutely would. Wifi is great but you never know when you want to hardwire something. It just gives you more options and since things are already open I’d just do it.
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Dec 5, 2023 19:49
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Google Fiber is coming to my neighborhood in the next few months. Do they generally put the DMARC wherever in your house or do they just pipe it to some external wall and call it a day and its up to you to extend it?
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Dec 5, 2023 19:50
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Cool, thanks MarcusSA and sirotan I will add ethernet to the project. Any odd spots in the house you'd recommend installing ports beyond the obvious server closet and what not?
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Dec 5, 2023 19:58
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For phone, just pull an additional cat 6/6a cable. Gives you more flexibility and usable data outlets in on the future, and you can just patch and terminate as necessary in your telecom closet
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Dec 5, 2023 20:05
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George H.W. oval office posted:Google Fiber is coming to my neighborhood in the next few months. Do they generally put the DMARC wherever in your house or do they just pipe it to some external wall and call it a day and its up to you to extend it? The demarc is not "where I want it" in telecom. It's the MPOE (minimum point of entry). "Where I want it" is considered an "extended demarc" (demarc = short for demarcation point, it's not an abbreviation so no need to capitalize it). If you want an extended demarc you should arrange for that ahead of time/let them know. It's likely they will be installing an ONT (optical network terminal - it turns the typically single mode simplex provider fiber into ethernet or MoCa). That can be outside where the service cables land at the house or at the MPOE. There's probably no reason to change this location as what you're likely after is simply ethernet between the ONT and your router. You really don't want to run the fiber any more than necessary or be responsible or it in your home past the MPOE.
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Dec 5, 2023 20:25
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raggedphoto posted:Cool, thanks MarcusSA and sirotan I will add ethernet to the project. Any odd spots in the house you'd recommend installing ports beyond the obvious server closet and what not? Living room obviously but you might want to consider a drop near the backyard so you can increase your outside coverage. Especially if you plan on adding wireless cameras in the future. It’s actually been really nice having strong coverage outside the house for me at least.
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Dec 5, 2023 20:32
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raggedphoto posted:Cool, thanks MarcusSA and sirotan I will add ethernet to the project. Any odd spots in the house you'd recommend installing ports beyond the obvious server closet and what not? I still need to pull cable to a few rooms, but one of the places I've been considering is inside a closet that is located basically dead center of my house both horizontally and vertically. Perfect place to mount an AP high up on a wall out of sight for max coverage. I also recently installed some conduit out the side of my house to act as a demarc for all the telco wiring coming in to the house (and hopefully fiber soon). I fished some ethernet out that conduit and then under the box to install an outdoor AP so I'd have wifi in my backyard. It rocks.  (I'll probably mount it higher up next spring)
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Dec 5, 2023 20:36
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I just had fiber put in and one thing to note is that at least in my case they used a fixed length pre-terminated cable and just coiled the extra up in a flat but large enclosure and screwed it to the wall. Then they feed it out from that to the terminal where it's converted to ethernet. So in my case I had them put that in my garage which happened to be the closest location to the entry point anyway. Then it was just one cable to the data closet where I have the wifi router and switch.
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Dec 5, 2023 23:29
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LloydDobler posted:I just had fiber put in and one thing to note is that at least in my case they used a fixed length pre-terminated cable In all cases. They aren't dispatching resi field techs with fusion splicers.
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Dec 6, 2023 00:08
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raggedphoto posted:Cool, thanks MarcusSA and sirotan I will add ethernet to the project. Any odd spots in the house you'd recommend installing ports beyond the obvious server closet and what not? Consider planning for having more then one AP in the future. Modern wifi is trending towards frequencies that don't penetrate walls very well, but can offer additional speed. Having an AP in the same room as you spend most of your time may one day be nice. Then again, I have a 1400 sqft house and have two ruckus r610's so my opinions might be overkill. Might also be worth doing a drop near where your breaker panel is - if you ever go solar in the future it's a lot more reliable to be able to plug poo poo in to ethernet to get access to monitoring. Anywhere you've got equipment that needs internet and doesn't really move (computer, TV, cameras, whatever). The goal should be to offload all stationary objects to wired and leave the wireless for things that move around (or things that misbehave when partially wired, like sonos...)
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Dec 6, 2023 01:18
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We had a plumber come by to check out some water hammer sounds and adjust our water heater temperature. He only charged us $50 for the call since when he showed up the water hammer wouldn't happen. He also mentioned we should get some sort of faucet hood or something for our outdoor water faucets, but i don't remember what he was talking about well enough to google it. Something about the fear of water freezing inside the outdoor faucet? What might he have been talking about and do I need it?
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Dec 6, 2023 01:23
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Motronic posted:In all cases. They aren't dispatching resi field techs with fusion splicers. Altice apparently uses some kind of mechanical splice tube... although I swear I remember the guy had a fusion splicer, but it was a few years ago.  Black is armored fiber from outside, red is the pigtail they spliced on. I was able to get them to drop it into my server closet in a good place, but it's also got an exterior wall so it was nice and easy.
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Dec 6, 2023 01:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:He also mentioned we should get some sort of faucet hood or something for our outdoor water faucets, but i don't remember what he was talking about well enough to google it. Something about the fear of water freezing inside the outdoor faucet? What might he have been talking about and do I need it? Maybe something like this faucet cover? We get below freezing where I’m at so I put them on every year after I disconnect the outdoor hoses. No idea if they’re necessary I guess, my parents told me to put them on when I first moved into my house so I did. Better safe than sorry where a burst pipe is concerned
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Dec 6, 2023 02:03
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Here we just turn off the outdoor faucets at the shutoff indoors, but we spend 3-4 months below freezing. YMMV. And I'd probably still run actual coax to at least a few spots. Our builder ran one to each bedroom and the living room/flex room, but really we only use the one in the main living room. We don't have cable, so we use a combination of streaming and OTA TV, which feeds off an antenna in the attic. We could do an HDhomerun and stream OTA via WiFi to the TV, but this is easier and pretty foolproof.
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Dec 6, 2023 02:30
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IMO the idea network cable distribution is at least one drop per section of wall which isn't interrupted by a door and which is large enough for something to be placed against. Basically the thinking is it's fairly easy to run a network patch cable along a floorboard, but a real pain in the rear end to go across a door opening. So a bedroom with a closet would get at least two drops, a bedroom with a closet and bathroom three, and my family room at least four as can be seen in this lovely sketch:  Note that you don't need power on each wall since POE can send plenty through to power an access point or smart speaker. Also you don't need to actually light up all that cable, just have it well labeled and ideally all terminated a punch panel so that you can easily hook up any particular jack if you want.
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Dec 6, 2023 03:13
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I would also run at least one network cable drop in the ceiling of each room and closet. Ubiquiti APs as one example are meant to be ceiling mounted in most cases and are PoE. Good network cable is insanely cheap compared to the cost and frustration of running it after the fact.
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Dec 6, 2023 04:18
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I had someone tell me it was a "piece of cake" to run cable across the entire length of a house and then down two floors and I have to imagine they were incredibly misinformed about how homes are framed. If I were going to do it today I would run it on the exterior and tuck it into the siding.
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Dec 6, 2023 04:21
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Pipistrelle posted:Maybe something like this faucet cover? We get below freezing where I’m at so I put them on every year after I disconnect the outdoor hoses. No idea if they’re necessary I guess, my parents told me to put them on when I first moved into my house so I did. Better safe than sorry where a burst pipe is concerned Might get one or two of these Is it normal to have a shutoff for the outside faucets? I'm not sure where my shutoff would be, I've only been able to identify a shutoff valve in the garage which effects the entire house
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Dec 6, 2023 04:29
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I've only seen it as a homeowner upgrade that I wish I had
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Dec 6, 2023 04:31
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QuarkJets posted:Might get one or two of these Every house I've lived in has had one, maybe it's a cold climate thing. Usually the shutoff is in the utility room, but one was underneath a bathroom sink.
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Dec 6, 2023 04:32
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Yeah in climates that freeze for months, the hose bib slopes down out of the house and there is a shut-off just inside where it's nice and warm. You close the shut-off and open the exterior tap when it dips below freezing.
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Dec 6, 2023 04:33
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I installed shutoffs for all hose bibs and installed freeze-proof sillcocks. Have to be sure that they’re pitched downwards slightly, so that they’ll drain out.
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Dec 6, 2023 04:51
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Thanks for all the network advice, I am adding it all to my house work notes for next summer when I can get my dad to come help re-wire the house. I know it sounds stupid but I really excited to re-wire the entire house and service, it's going to be a fun learning experience. QuarkJets posted:Might get one or two of these Before I abandoned the old water pipes for a pex manifold my house had water shut off valves for the hose bibs in the crawlspace space just behind where they exited to the exterior. Which meant you would have to crawl through dirt and spiders to either side of the house to shut them off. Now I can do it from the comfort of my utility room but hardly ever need to, it hardly freezes here and I put in frost proof bibs.
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Dec 6, 2023 06:15
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I deal with network cabling all day for a living, you could not pay me to run and punch a bunch of cat6 myself. I paid a small company to come and run it all over my house where I wanted it and am extremely happy with the money well spent. I don’t that I’d go so overboard to have a termination on every wall section interrupted by a door frame, but one location (with potentially 2-4 drops) per room should suffice. Running on interior walls is much easier and also consider if there are places where you could run down (or up) between the same studs and hit a room on each side of the wall to save work. Absolutely recommend running ceiling drops for APs on each end of the house (mine is 1200sqft and I have one in the bedroom side and kitchen side as well as one on the back deck). And definitely consider if you ever might want cameras. I don’t currently want them but I may at some point want them outside so I had them run a drop such that I could cover the major angles of my house entrances/value spots in the future easily.
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Dec 6, 2023 08:27
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Tiny Timbs posted:I had someone tell me it was a "piece of cake" to run cable across the entire length of a house and then down two floors and I have to imagine they were incredibly misinformed about how homes are framed.
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Dec 6, 2023 08:30
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Awww yeah. Currently in the middle of my first truly terrible HVAC experience as a homeowner. Live in a condo with a water source heat pump that isn't producing any heat. Had 4 companies cancel on me 24 hours before scheduled appointments to tell me that they can't service WSHP. (This is on top of calling 20+ different companies to have most of them tell me they can't work on it.) Finally get one to come, diagnoses the issue as a refrigerant restriction, need to replace the thermostatic expansion valve, quotes me 1-2k, with the possibility that the issue is somewhere else in the line, and would require another repair costing probably around the same. Get the real estimate 48 hours later, $4k for the first repair. Looks like a new TXV + consumables to flush the system would cost like...$700 bucks max, so that sure is a lot of cost going to labor. Additionally, dude left 3 valve caps just inside the unit that go...somewhere? Also tore the insulation off 90% of the internal refrigerant lines and didn't put any of it back on. On top of all of that, I do a little research myself, see that the heat pump circuit board is giving me an error code; finally find the manual online, and see that the proper repair steps for the status code are refrigerant recharge or full refrigerant replacement. TXV issues would be giving completely different symptoms/errors. So now I get to spend another $200-$400 to have another company come and diagnose the issue. Already starting to price out all the equipment/books/materials I would need to teach myself how to do the work.
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Dec 6, 2023 21:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:We had a plumber come by to check out some water hammer sounds and adjust our water heater temperature. He only charged us $50 for the call since when he showed up the water hammer wouldn't happen. That reminds me I've never been able to find the shut off for the outdoor spigot in front of my house. I think it might be inaccessible. I never thought of using some sort of cover, but I may as well give it a try.
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Dec 6, 2023 22:08
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NyetscapeNavigator posted:That reminds me I've never been able to find the shut off for the outdoor spigot in front of my house. I think it might be inaccessible. I never thought of using some sort of cover, but I may as well give it a try. Edit: I should mention, my Gary was an engineer, and everything he did uses this kind of logic. It's all technically correct, and probably even more efficient, but is not done the way most people do things or how I ever expect it to be done. stealie72 fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Dec 6, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 22:15
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I forgot that at our townhouse, the pipes for the outdoor bibs went BACK into the slab after coming off the water meter main that came up from the slab. The shutoffs were both in the utility closet at least, and you knew which was which from which way the pipe disappeared back into the slab. I do not miss that place. It was built by the same construction company that built the townhome I rented in college, which should have been obvious when we first looked at it. They went out of business around '08-09.
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Dec 8, 2023 03:32
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A low key nightmare scenario for me as a homeowner is a catastrophic water flooding due to a burst pipe. I've purchased a number of zigbee/wifi water monitors for our toilets, but I"ve been hearing about central water shut-off options. Has anybody installed one/using one and how do you like them?
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Dec 8, 2023 21:04
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This is just a scream of pain. So, we've known for over a year that our septic system was illegal (greywater going into a state park, toilet water going into the septic tank.) This summer I finally decided to start doing something about it, and made an appointment to talk to the only septic/waste engineering company in the area, who have a very good reputation. Over the fall, they visited us once and explained that it was physically impossible to put a legal septic system on our .09 acre. Our options were to persuade our neighbor to sell us part of her property and then put a leach field there, or to go all the way up the county and state water regulators explaining that yes, cisterns are bad, but also this house is about to be legally uninhabitable. In mid-November, the engineering company walked the property with our neighbor and talked about whether she was willing to sell land, and if so, where. We've been waiting to hear back. Last Friday the guy who is putting in our garden retaining walls decided to look in the risers for the septic tank. They were full, I mean literally up-to-the-lip full. I hastily called the septic pumpers in the area, who showed up today. They said that the septic system is no longer draining at all. It's a 1400-gallon septic tank that is now effectively a cistern. Which is, of course, very illegal. I've dropped a note to the septic engineering with the latest news, in hopes that this may move us up higher on the queue. Shoot me now.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:13
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Ok now hear me out here, Are outhouses illegal? PS that really fuckin sucks.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:35
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peeing outdoors rules
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Dec 13, 2023 22:42
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Arsenic Lupin posted:This is just a scream of pain. Can you do a septic mound instead? My dad's is about 60x15 just measuring from google satellite, but even if that's underestimating that's 1/4 of your .09 acre. You could also go with an incinerator toilet. He had one of those prior to the septic mound since the outhouse (a 2-seater) got too cold.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:43
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