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There's some guy that posts on the r/furniture subreddit who also has his own blog. The subreddit seems to trust him, and his website has got that quaint jankiness that comes from someone who's too much of an expert in their field to be bothered with web design. He says he's retired from the furniture industry, and has a number of furniture patents and even founded his own furniture company (that he sold when he retired). Anyways, according to him, the thing that makes a couch last a long time is the quality of the foam in the cushions. He actually ranks Lovesac as a pretty awful deal, because they're using 1.8 density foam. And as you look at all these online companies where you're spending 2500-5000 and beyond for a 5-7 person sectional (which is what we're getting) they're all using that cheap foam that's going to break down in 3 years. Meanwhile the IKEA Kivik is using coil springs in their cushions, which is like the gold standard in seat cushions. I don't think any of the online vendors are even using cushions like that. It's kind of funny when people's image of IKEA is exclusively as the absolute cheap garbage you can afford as a college student. Our current couch is like 13 years old from IKEA and has held up admirably. Our dining room table is about the same age, and our bed frame from IKEA is 16 years old and still doing fine. IKEA has some quality stuff, especially for the price. I've had a $150 "loveseat" from IKEA and that's in a totally different class from their stuff like the Kivik. Don't sleep on IKEA.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:20
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Yeah IKEA makes good stuff, when I met my stuff we moved every year for like 6 years and took big advantage of their 52 week return policy on the couches. At the 51 week mark we'd return our kivik leather couch and after we moved we'd buy a new leather kivk couch that fit our new living room layout I think at some point (2019?) they stopped offering kivk in brown leather unfortunately Ikea sells college dorm grade $400 couch shaped objects; but anything over $700 from IKEA is generally very high quality I've got a Hadlock fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 03:27
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Can you link the dudes blog? I would be quite interested in that.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:30
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Yeah Ikea products cover a huge range in quality, from higher-end stuff to cheap poo poo that's only suitable for a college dorm. And even the cheap poo poo can last many years without issue
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Feb 26, 2024 03:35
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The Dave posted:Been pretty happy with our Dyson V11 cordless for the few years we've had it. skybolt_1 posted:Miele, classic C1 line. Best vacuum ever. Unfortunately out of reach. I got excited and saw a C1 on sale but then realized it's the hard floor version. QuarkJets posted:We got a Shark Rocket corded stick vacuum a few years ago. It's been excellent, way better than our previous bag-style vacuum (which was a nice model for what it was), and also happens to be way less heavy. The "head" comes off easily so it's better for runningalong corners and baseboards and for picking up larger things that a normal vacuum might not be able to handle. Would strongly recommend a stick vacuum like this one. Now this I like.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:36
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We’re on our second Shark Apex bagless upright. It picks up everything, including silky cat under-fur. Every time we run it, it’s cram-packed with cat fur that we didn’t even see. I could run it 3-4 times a week & it’ll be packed with fur. (We had six cats at one point; now down to three) Can be detached to hand-vacuum stairs, high areas etc. I also have three trash-picked & renovated Orecks; they’re incredibly loud & amazingly light. They don’t pick up as much as the Shark; as we age, though, we may wind up sticking to the Orecks. Prefer the Shark. In my garage, I use an old, Sears-badged Panasonic upright. The Panasonics are tanks; a commercial version used to be the default at hotels & motels, and is why I bought one in 1990. Parts and bags are still available. They ain’t great in corners, and weigh a ton, but are fairly quiet and pick-up satisfactorily PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 03:57
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skybolt_1 posted:Miele End of discussion right here. We have a C3 Alize and it is phenomenal. My parents were all "you really have a $650 vacuum on your wedding registry?" but seriously zero regrets. In addition to sucking harder than I thought possible (it will pull in cat fur from six-eight inches away) it is extraordinarily quiet. You can talk to someone while vacuuming, and I actually had a problem with my cats refusing to get out of their beds when I was vacuuming so I had to prod their beds hard repeatedly with the vacuum head to get them to lazily saunter out. When you're fired up the old vacuum they would practically teleport to the other side of the house.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:10
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GlyphGryph posted:Can you link the dudes blog? I would be quite interested in that. Yeah, sorry, I was phone posting before and the site is literally too massive for my phone to even load: https://insidersguidetofurniture.com/worst-and-best-sofa-sectional-reviews-for-2023-2/?expand_article=1#google_vignette
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Feb 26, 2024 04:20
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Democratic Pirate posted:We inherited a lightly used grandparent couch when they downsized to assisted living. My parents kept their mid-century modern sofa going strong from the early 60s until the 2010s. Several re-upholsterings kept it from looking like a relic.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:25
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If you want info on foam and foam related stuff (ie: cushions and mattresses) - this website (also designed in year 2000) for a foam manufacturer near Toronto is actually loaded with info, just badly presented so you might have to look around a bit. https://www.foamite.com/foam-grades/ https://www.foamite.com/custom-cut-foam/foam-pricing/
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Feb 26, 2024 04:32
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Vacuum Chat - Something I care way too much about. --- Generally speaking with vacuums, you are going to have to decide how much you value 'convenience' vs 'actually good at being a vacuum'. Bagless vacuums kinda suck right out of the gate, with the one notable exception being a Dyson 2008~ model that was OK but I've since forgotten the model number - they are basically impossible to find anyway. Bagged vacuums aren't really any more or less convenient, but I vacuum *a lot* of square feet and probably use 2 bags a year in my Sebo E3. The 'convenience' of bagless is pretty overblown, and the tradeoffs in performance and filtering are dramatic. Cordless is nice, but you are trading off *massive* amounts of performance for that. Part of this is that no one is making cordless vacuums to actually be good vacuums - this is a market that wants convenience at the cost of everything else...so if you are willing to sacrifice everything at that alter, go nuts I guess. E: Looking around, some vacuum nerds are saying the Numatic Henry Cordless HVB160 is actually quite good, so that's maybe an option in this space. Vacuums generally are products that can be repairable, but the manufacturers that are trying to sell you convenience over performance go out of their way to make it NOT repairable (Shark is the worst about this). --- Brands to Consider: Sebo, Miele, Lindhaus, Numatic, Oreck If you are willing to buy the best, the correct answer here is Miele C3 and Sebo E3. They can do carpets and hard floors, are built to last, are repairable, and do an excellent job. Lindhaus's Electric Nozzle products are up here as well. These will also run you north of $1,000 USD, but these are truly some buy-it-for-life products. These are the kinds of devices that come with an exploded engineering diagram and parts list with the ability to buy parts directly. I think Lindhaus will sell them to you too. For about half the cost of their premium line of products, Miele and Sebo both have mid-range options where the major trade-off is flexibility. Electric Nozzles are generally what let you get flexibility in utility, but they are also expensive. Something like a Sebo E2 is about $650, but only comes with a Turbine Nozzle - something that can do OK on carpet, but really prefers hard floors. Lindhaus Activa is a Brushroll product that's about $500 and has a Brushroll Nozzle instead - Which is a carpet-first solution. More budget-friendly options that still kickass include Oreck's Lineup, which are legitimately pretty good devices and can go for under $500 new. A special mention to the Oreck XL21, which is very common and can be had for almost nothing used and is a very competent carpet cleaning device. --- Brands to avoid: Shark. Shark is awful. Their performance is awful, they can't be repaired, they offer no support of any kind. They purposely sabotage repair-ability. They make cute looking poo poo sometimes, but it's all poo poo. The number of people who are 'on their third shark' and still buy that trash...I can't even. Dyson. Dyson is just Shark++. They can kinda be repaired depending on model, and some of their products are OK-ish, but they are 95% marketing and 5% actual product. In a vacuum, Dyson wins every time vs Shark, but you can do a lot better. Dirt Devil. This company was spun off of Riccar to basically be their 'bad, cheap products' label. They aren't nearly as bad as Shark, but they aren't any kind of good either. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 05:51
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:Bagless vacuums kinda suck right out of the gate, with the one notable exception being a Dyson 2008~ model that was OK but I've since forgotten the model number - they are basically impossible to find anyway. Counterpoint: Shop vacs are bagless and are awesome and also you can get a good cordless one for like $125.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:59
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GlyphGryph posted:Counterpoint: Shop vacs are bagless and are awesome and also you can get a good cordless one for like $125. Shop vacs don't filter air by design, and kicking up some dust isn't really a deal killer in that space, especially when the trade off is water proofing. Shop Vacs are purpose built for a specific workload and it's not really the same as a carpet/hard floor home vac - there are trade offs here.
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Feb 26, 2024 06:02
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I always say this, but reupholstering or slip-covering gives you the best of both worlds. Yeah this is the way, you buy couches and chairs with good interiors and then you can get them reupholstered from time to time. Nice foam is a little more expensive but lasts considerably longer. Cheap couches are temporary furniture, sometimes that's what you want but if you're a homeowner then you're probably past that phase of your life
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Feb 26, 2024 06:06
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:Shop vacs don't filter air by design, and kicking up some dust isn't really a deal killer in that space, especially when the trade off is water proofing. Shop Vacs are purpose built for a specific workload and it's not really the same as a carpet/hard floor home vac - there are trade offs here. Okay, I might be arguing from genuine ignorance here. If they don't filter air, what does the "filter captures 99.97 percent of particles at 0.3 microns or larger" even the cheap ones advertise actually mean? Is 0.3 microns that much worse than regular house vacuums? I would not be surprised if I was missing something. It certainly feels like mine filters dust really effectively. The main tradeoffs Im aware of are in terms of volume (they tend to be loud), convenience (shopvacs tend to be a bit trickier to move around to vacuum a whole house) and aesthetics (which seems to be the main selling point and mode of competition for most modern household vacuums, which seems weird to me for something you're probably hiding away when company is over) I don't actually know poo poo about vacuums, just that I've been disappointed in every other vacuum I've tried and always ended up back with the ol' reliable shop vac (not necessarily shop vac brand, I just mean the type) in the end. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 06:08
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GlyphGryph posted:Okay, I might be arguing from genuine ignorance here. If they don't filter air, what does the "filter captures 99.97 percent of particles at 0.3 microns or larger" even the cheap ones advertise actually mean? Is 0.3 microns that much worse than regular house vacuums? I'm not sure what that poster is trying to say, every shop vac I've ever used has had an air filter installed in it. Maybe they mean a wet vac? Usually a shop+wet vac has a filter that's easily removed by necessity In fact you can buy better filters for shop vacs, which may be a good idea if you're using one often; you can run a simple particulate sensor next to the exhaust of a shop vac to see how much crap it's shooting into the air, which may not matter if you're outside but may matter a lot if you're in a poorly ventilated space QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 06:14
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I truly don't know poo poo about Shop Vacs either and have always been more interested in the house stuff. I didn't even have a shop to have to think about one until a year-ish ago, so I was (and still am) ignorant. I actually went down to the shop, and sure enough - it *does* have an air filter that I've clearly neglected, so TIL. My assumption was always that shop vacs didn't have them with a 'why bother' kind of use case for them, but there it is - I was wrong about that!
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Feb 26, 2024 06:20
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FISHMANPET posted:There's some guy that posts on the r/furniture subreddit who also has his own blog. The subreddit seems to trust him, and his website has got that quaint jankiness that comes from someone who's too much of an expert in their field to be bothered with web design. He says he's retired from the furniture industry, and has a number of furniture patents and even founded his own furniture company (that he sold when he retired). yup me and my animals love ours 
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Feb 26, 2024 06:26
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I honestly always just grew up with them as the normal "house vac" which is probably the real reason I tend to prefer them though, they are the norm for me. Everyone in my family had them and my parents gave me one as a gift when I got my first apartment. A nice little one with wheels and all sorts of useful attachments for getting in corners and tight spaces and for different surfaces. So they are just sort of the default "vacuum" for me and everything else is just mentally a variant on them... and most come up lacking, hah. Also the portable cordless ones are super nice for vacuuming out the car when you live in the city. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 06:26
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:I truly don't know poo poo about Shop Vacs either and have always been more interested in the house stuff. I didn't even have a shop to have to think about one until a year-ish ago, so I was (and still am) ignorant. They even sell bags for shop vacs! They're great if you're planning to suck up a lot of fine dust, basically, but it's one more thing to remove if you're going to be sucking up liquids. They're pretty versatile tools
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Feb 26, 2024 08:29
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Shop vacs are great, especially for the bigger messes with fine dust from drywall, etc you don’t want clogging your regular vacuum filter. The corded 10 gal my dad gave me is powerful, but awkward to use so I only bust it out for big construction messes. Recently got a 3gal ryobi wet/dry cordless and I’ve been very happy with it so far.
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Feb 26, 2024 13:31
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I use a dyson stick vac which rules if your house isn’t too big
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Feb 26, 2024 13:40
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GlyphGryph posted:Okay, I might be arguing from genuine ignorance here. If they don't filter air, what does the "filter captures 99.97 percent of particles at 0.3 microns or larger" even the cheap ones advertise actually mean? Is 0.3 microns that much worse than regular house vacuums? I would not be surprised if I was missing something. It certainly feels like mine filters dust really effectively. So you're missing a bunch of things that I even know, a non-conniseur of shop vacs. Like first of all they are mode to be run with bags. They are made to be run bagless. They are made to have a removable filter which you will be reminded on the lid you are to remove if picking up water. And they don't have moving brush heads. They're a gret thing for specific purposes but even with their configuarbility they are not a general replacement for what most indoor vacuums have as table stakes.
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Feb 26, 2024 13:47
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Jenkl posted:Unfortunately out of reach. I got excited and saw a C1 on sale but then realized it's the hard floor version. You really don't need anything other than base parquet floor model. Powered heads are overrated.
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Feb 26, 2024 13:54
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While I no doubt believe stick vacs pale in comparison to traditional corded vacuums, our stick Dyson did it's job in a house with 3 Corgis and there's really not anything more I could ask out a vacuum. And if you have kids my 3 year old thinks it's a grand time to spend 20-40 minutes using the vacuum and sure buddy, go ahead.
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Feb 26, 2024 13:55
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I have a cordless stick vac for the downstairs which is all hard flooring, so it does a fine job of getting stuff and anything that is missed gets mopped. For upstairs we have a corded pet vac that came with the house and its pretty good. I think both are Bissell's.
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Feb 26, 2024 14:04
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I'm laughing at using a shop vac as an around the house vacuum lol
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Feb 26, 2024 14:44
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Johnny Truant posted:I'm laughing at using a shop vac as an around the house vacuum lol Yeah they're great for what they do, but I can not imagine trying to clean a carpet with one. Also there's nothing quite like going to vacuum up the dry wall dust that you carefully avoided getting all over the house, and forgetting that you had the filter out because you were vacuuming up some kitty litter with it last week. 
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Feb 26, 2024 15:03
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QuarkJets posted:They even sell bags for shop vacs! They're great if you're planning to suck up a lot of fine dust, basically, but it's one more thing to remove if you're going to be sucking up liquids. They're pretty versatile tools Ja I used my 12-gallon Shop Vac hooked to the orbital sander to contour body filler during bodywork. Used a bag & a canister filter. Still use that set-up to vacuum out the woodstove. When I demolished the chimney in my house, I also ran the wet-vac exhaust side out my basement window using the 2" hose because the bottom 3' was packed with coal ash (house was coal-heated from 1930-1950). and the really fine ash would go through both the filter & the bag PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 16:06
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The root of the issues with bagless vacuums is that the separator is relying on momentum to do the filtering, which depends on high air velocities and gets less and less effective as particle size goes down. Since filtering depends on air flow anything that reduces flow like vacuuming thick carpet or upholstery reduces filtering efficiency and filtering efficiency at startup is effectively zero. That's why the initial round of bagless vacuums would send out a big plume of dust when you first turned them on. That's also why bagless vacuums are very rarely variable speed and are very loud compared to equivalent bagged ones. You can boost air velocities by making your cyclonic chambers have more narrow and pointier points, but larger bits of debris will tend to stick out into the airflow path and muck it all up so you need multiple stages of separation. Every stage of separation has a pressure drop across it and constrains flow because energy goes into spinning the air, so adding more means more suction power wasted in the separator section. It also increases cost and weight significantly. Like, as a household vacuum bagless pretty much is objectively worse in just about every single metric except not needing to buy/swap a bag. But now manufacturers of bagless vacuums include a HEPA filter in them to help mitigate the varying efficiency of filtration and the tendency of the filtration system to completely stall out, and those filters have to be replaced regularly. It seems like people aren't comparing like to like when they compare bagged vs bagless, comparing years old bottom of the line bag vacuums to new expensive bagless ones. Yeah no poo poo a new Dyson is better than a 18-year-old Walmart-exclusive Hoover with a janky bag compartment zipper, but compare it to an equivalently priced Miele or Oreck instead and the Dyson gets smoked. You can't even complain about the mess of changing a bag because modern bagged vacuums seal the bag as soon as you start to remove the bag.
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Feb 26, 2024 16:16
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For what it's worth, every Oreck I trash-picked had the pickup tube absolutely clogged with debris. The Shark, which has a larger tube/orifice, has never clogged. I am maybe more anal about keeping the canister & filters clean, but I really have no choice as it is crammed full every time I use it. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 16:35
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Johnny Truant posted:I'm laughing at using a shop vac as an around the house vacuum lol This isn't that absurd, surely?  ... maybe a little bit? Y'all make constantly feel like a huge loving weirdo, and you're all goons to begin with, which... well, that's a bit worrying. I'm apparently definitely doing home ownership wrong. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 16:37
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How bad of an idea would it be for me to run an extra length of 14/2 romex to set up an independent fan switch for a bathroom fan instead of paying for 14/3 and replacing the existing run?
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Feb 26, 2024 16:51
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Tiny Timbs posted:How bad of an idea would it be for me to run an extra length of 14/2 romex to set up an independent fan switch for a bathroom fan instead of paying for 14/3 and replacing the existing run? That's the way most people would do it. There is no problem either way from a safety standpoint.
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Feb 26, 2024 16:55
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Excellent, thanks! 14/3 is expensive
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Feb 26, 2024 16:58
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Is eucalyptus that much worse vs teak for outdoor furniture? We started down the path and good lord was that some sticker shock. We have some fantasies that we'll become outside lounging people but I know deep down that is absolutely not gonna be the case.
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Feb 26, 2024 17:41
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George H.W. oval office posted:Is eucalyptus that much worse vs teak for outdoor furniture? We started down the path and good lord was that some sticker shock. We have some fantasies that we'll become outside lounging people but I know deep down that is absolutely not gonna be the case. I got some Polywood patio furniture from Costco last summer, it is really really nice.
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Feb 26, 2024 17:45
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Sirotan posted:I got some Polywood patio furniture from Costco last summer, it is really really nice. Same except like 4 years ago and it still is great. They get some sun in the morning, otherwise they're under cover of my porch roof and they're in fantastic shape. I sat in one yesterday and enjoyed a cup of coffee in the sun.
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Feb 26, 2024 17:58
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Hadlock posted:The neat thing about the love sac is that nobody has a bad opinion about them. Which is worth a lot I have literally never heard anyone say something good about love sac outside this forum. I think it's an echo chamber effect. When I've sat on their stuff in stores it seems like complete uncomfortable garbage.
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Feb 26, 2024 19:41
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GlyphGryph posted:This isn't that absurd, surely? That person is using it outdoors Using it in place of a standard indoor vacuum is definitely weird
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Feb 26, 2024 19:51
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