poo poo Fuckasaurus posted:

LMAO if you think a door-to-door solar seller is taking structural considerations into account properly when installing your solar, but if you don't want to run the conduit and/or pull the cables you can hire an electrician to do that part.

raggedphoto posted:

You’re with Portland General? Sounds like getting solar was worth it in the PNW? I am considering it in the distant future but google solar calculator had me just breaking even after 20 years.

ROJO posted:

If you are responding to me, no, I am in CA on Pacific Gas and Electric, who just rolled out their third rate hike in what feels like 12 months. Lots of sun (not lately) and bullshit prices mean my payback is hopefully pretty short.

Wifi Toilet posted:

Time for a relaxing getaway in the dungeon!

First of May posted:

PG&E helpfully sent me an email warning that my January bill was going to be 20% higher than it was same month last year. And I'm like, yeah, you raise your prices every three months because you're finally remediating burning down entire towns every year. Why aren't you state run again?

Platystemon posted:

They spent all the money on advertising how great they are.

ROJO posted:

If you are responding to me, no, I am in CA on Pacific Gas and Electric, who just rolled out their third rate hike in what feels like 12 months. Lots of sun (not lately) and bullshit prices mean my payback is hopefully pretty short.

The Dave posted:

It looks like it ran around the top of the whole run but that's the last man standing guard.

titty_baby_ posted:

"We are finally burying the lines!" (after saying it wasn't cost effective, them burning down multiple towns, then being pressured by everyone, then passing the cost on to you)

Uthor posted:

And it was punched through the wall in the corner to keep from having to make a super sharp bend.

tetrapyloctomy posted:

A nearby high-traffic road is being expanded so it's two lanes in each direction plus turn lanes (where previously it was anywhere from that to just three lanes total with unprotected left turns). A truly massive undertaking, totally redoing the wastewater lines and everything.

... and they're putting in loving overhead lines. On a road where once every year or two trees take down lines and cut power to huge swaths of homes.

brugroffil posted:

Could be temporary lines

brugroffil posted:

Could be temporary lines

PainterofCrap posted:

I have a claim now winding up to a denial.
Policyholder’s bathroom ceiling fell in. Drywall was wet; insulation above it was saturated.

They were puzzled by this because the roof was replaced within the past year by…the roofer subbed from the solar-panel installation company they contracted. Said that they had to replace the roof (which is rolled asphalt/bitumen) before the panels could be installed.

Turns out the roofers removed the chimney structure completely, sheathed & rolled right over it. Leaving no chimney at all. It’s not entirely clear how exactly this happened.

In any event, the gas hot-water heater was venting directly into the attic space, which was only a foot or so above the ceilings below. But things really got going when they fired up the gas furnace last November…only took a couple months for the humidity to turn that space into an equatorial jungle environment.

The engineer I sent out confirmed that there were no roof leaks. The entire attic space was saturated by combustion by-product moisture.

The best part? They never replaced the roof! They re-sealed seams, and laid some patches here & there, and sheeted over the chimney base…but the insured paid for a new roof. Oh, and when the roofers demolished the masonry chimney structure below the roofline, they packed the flue with masonry debris.

How no one died, I do not know. I sent them the engineer’s report, and I imagine that they’re looking for a good lawyer. No homeowner’s policy covers this kind of thing. They’ve already paid +$10K for a new chimney.

skybolt_1 posted:

That story is just bananas. I don't understand how people can be so disconnected from their day to day reality that they wouldn't somehow grasp that maybe, just maybe, things weren't being done properly when they noticed a missing chimney. I'm really hoping that this was an absentee landlord or very elderly person scenario....

Also, I'll just leave this here as a warning to others.

evobatman posted:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/02/rooftop-solar-is-the-future-but-its-also-a-scam.html

GreenNight posted:

PainterofCrap posted:

We solved that problem with a sewing-machine table. He couldn't get up there without expending extreme effort.

Darchangel posted:

The sheer amount of scam and grift in the above just stuns me.
I'm glad that I have a working knowledge of stuff like this, so it's unlikely to slip by me, but saddened that these scum dupe average people who trust experts and tradesmen to help them deal with things they have no need to have knowledge of.



I love how greed and capitalism have managed to mostly destroy something that could help us all.

I installed a video doorbell specifically so I could ignore or tell to gently caress off door-to-door salesmen (I don't handle face-to-face confrontation well - I envy people who can do that.)

Renovated house with butler's stairs left in place?

Cat Hatter posted:

I always thought this was interesting in a "how do we talk to aliens" sort of way, but it's also useless in any practical sense. There's no way that a warning sign in a dozen languages isn't going to be understandable to someone. Even in some distant Mad Max dystopian future they'll probably still have legends of the bombs that killed everyone and destroyed everything and have at least one historian or scientist that can read something or recognize a radiation symbol. What dye were they planning on using that will outlast every written language on Earth for the dyed concrete?

My favorite suggestion is "just bury it and don't put up any warning so nobody will actively look for it!" Maybe that'll be useful in a very specific circumstance 10,000 years from now, but it's going to be a big problem in about 50 years when the land gets sold off and someone drills a well into a nuclear waste site.

Yes, I know Mad Max was originally after a non nuclear war.

actionjackson posted:

is that a terrazzo floor?

Darchangel posted:

Renovated house with butler's stairs left in place?

PurpleXVI posted:

PurpleXVI posted:

Arrath posted:

Only God will help you if you run an unbalanced load in that washing machine.