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Previous owners painted the outside brick on my chimney about 5-6 years ago now. I live in the frozen tundra of northern MN. How screwed is my chimney? Can I use my new power washer and try blasting off the paint? Or is this within the realm of hiring a pro to use like dry ice blasting or something?
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Apr 5, 2024 16:54
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PainterofCrap posted:That's surface prep. You could have the greatest paint on the planet, but it won't stick if the surface isn't free of contaminants. idk why but I find the sanding to be very zen I think my brain appreciates getting lost in stupid poo poo for hours on end *glances in general direction of the somethawful servers*
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Apr 5, 2024 17:12
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I snagged a solid oak coffee table from some dude off Facebook marketplace for $50 who literally worked at the shop in Ohio where it was made in the 70s. As the olds die off there is gonna be some incredible furniture showing up
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Apr 5, 2024 17:19
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GlyphGryph posted:The only place I reliably see better quality furniture than IKEA is at the local shop that mostly sells used furniture that's more than 20 years old. They have some incredible stuff, even the new stuff is really high quality, but I've gotten some extremely good, extremely durable furniture from there for very cheap. We have gotten several pieces from Article and all of them have been well made. Their tables include steel straps on the underside, perpendicular to the direction of the boards and fitted into recessed grooves so that the bottom is still flush. I gather their couches suck though.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:30
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George H.W. oval office posted:I snagged a solid oak coffee table from some dude off Facebook marketplace for $50 who literally worked at the shop in Ohio where it was made in the 70s. As the olds die off there is gonna be some incredible furniture showing up I got a full Ethan Allen dining room table, two leaves, six chairs, and the original table pads from a garage sale for $400. Tried looking them up and it's a style they no longer make, closest I could find was similar chairs and for 6 of them it was over $2400 
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Apr 5, 2024 17:49
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Cyrano4747 posted:ReStore is good for this too. A couple years ago some rich person in my town died and all their stuff got sent to the ReStore. There was a full white Italian leather living room set in new condition for $500. I got a $2000 driftwood floor lamp with the price tag still on it for $200. So I guess my point is if you want to increase the chances for better loot, you know what to do.
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Apr 5, 2024 18:10
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They also had a mounted black goat head which they insisted they were not allowed to sell me because it would be illegal
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Apr 5, 2024 18:14
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Tiny Timbs posted:They also had a mounted black goat head which they insisted they were not allowed to sell me because it would be illegal Illegal aka Tim really wants it but the manager will get pissed if it’s not on the floor for a bit
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Apr 5, 2024 19:32
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I got a couch from wayfair, it was missing a few washers so I talked to their support to have some sent out and they sent out an entire 2nd couch. 10/10 customer service right there.
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Apr 5, 2024 20:13
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Complained about a stripped M5 screw for an IKEA parasol that was discontinued, so they offered to take it back or give me a 90% discount. I took the discount.
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Apr 5, 2024 20:29
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I bought an article leather sofa a few years ago and it's been great. It's stood up to several years of usage, looks great, and it's super comfortable, nice and firm. So far it's one of my favorite pieces of furniture I've ever bought. It's incredibly sturdy with no sagging or creaking.
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Apr 6, 2024 00:14
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I have some cloth couch and ottoman from Article. Seem ok, they are currently packed up in some pods, curious to see their condition upon opening.
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Apr 6, 2024 00:55
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Tiny Timbs posted:They also had a mounted black goat head which they insisted they were not allowed to sell me because it would be illegal That reminds me of when my son worked at Goodwill. Amongst the things that people would drop off were swords & other edged / stabbing weapons. They were not permitted to sell them or put them in a dumpster. There was a growing collection locked in a back room.
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Apr 6, 2024 02:12
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Sounds like the establishing shot of a zombie movie
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Apr 6, 2024 02:18
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Cyrano4747 posted:ReStore is good for this too. I've gotten a few really great things from ReStore, including a rug, some matching nightstands, and a really nice corner desk. I think you're more likely to strike gold by hitting estate sales but then you have to actually go to estate sales We've also had great luck getting rid of old stuff with ReStore donations. For bigger things they'll even come and and pick it up, we wanted to get rid of an old couch that was in good condition but just kind of old-looking and their guys came out and took it away and gave us a donation receipt. Outdated light fixtures, extra building materials, tools that you just don't want anymore, they'll accept a lot of stuff. This is also how I got rid of an old car, an early-1990s toyota camry "beach cruiser" that I was driving around for beach trips when I finally decided that it was time to retire it. The dealership couldn't find anyone willing to accept it as a trade-in, but ReStore sent out out a tow truck and hauled it away QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Apr 6, 2024 |
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Apr 6, 2024 03:28
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Verman posted:I bought an article leather sofa a few years ago and it's been great. It's stood up to several years of usage, looks great, and it's super comfortable, nice and firm. So far it's one of my favorite pieces of furniture I've ever bought. It's incredibly sturdy with no sagging or creaking. My Article cloth sofa is still going strong, it's been great.
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Apr 6, 2024 17:05
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dxt posted:I got a couch from wayfair, it was missing a few washers so I talked to their support to have some sent out and they sent out an entire 2nd couch. 10/10 customer service right there. Did you have enough washers between the two to have a functioning couch, though?
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Apr 6, 2024 22:13
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#lifehax: make a couch out of some throw cushions and three old washing machines placed next to each other
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Apr 6, 2024 22:19
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dxt posted:I got a couch from wayfair, it was missing a few washers so I talked to their support to have some sent out and they sent out an entire 2nd couch. 10/10 customer service right there. I had a similar experience attempting to buy a tv stand. I ended up with two of the tv stands, and a raised outdoor planter. Top notch service. I then bought the worst couch I've ever encountered (with matching ottoman) from them. Never again.
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Apr 6, 2024 22:42
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I was looking at a cabinet on Wayfair, but it was missing dimensions. They had a thing where you could ask for missing info, and they eventually replied that they were unable to determine the dimensions of the cabinet. Ikea has a self-service spare parts order now: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/customer-service/spare-parts/ I ordered some spare cam-locks that I broke when I put together our night stands a few years ago. I just found the part ids in the instructions from the website and they practically overnighted them to me.
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Apr 7, 2024 00:03
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GlyphGryph posted:Did you have enough washers between the two to have a functioning couch, though? Not enough washers per the assembly instructions, but they were lovely plastic ones and not necessary for a functional couch.
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Apr 7, 2024 05:00
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There has been some tangential discussion of this in the last 10 pages (specifically: rates affected by California wildfire zones), but I have a question for the thread: has anyone outside fire/flood areas seen their homeowners insurance go way up? I live in Salt Lake City and my rate went up 43% this year. Several (but not all) of my friends in the area report getting similar increases. The insurance payment is in escrow and our mortgage broker says that somehow we are still getting the best deal available for our coverage. The insurance company basically told me tough titties. Is this a regional or widespread phenomenon?
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Apr 7, 2024 14:41
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Another tangent on home insurance that I found out recently: if you need to replace your roof, check your homeowners insurance to see if they'll give you a discount for getting high impact rated shingles. Often the insurance discount will outweigh the increased cost of the shingles and you'll end up getting a better roof for essentially free or better.
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Apr 7, 2024 14:48
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My home insurance was recently cancelled because I was insured for "too much for my area" according to them. All the spam mail I've received trying to reinsure me is only offering coverage of like half my home's current value. I don't live in a flood plain, wildfire area, or near the coast, and I've never made a claim with them. I paid out of pocket in 2018 or so to reroof my house with impact rates shingles too. I can't think of a better customer for an insurance company.
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Apr 7, 2024 16:52
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Our garbage disposal switch stopped working. We plugged it into a different outlet, and it worked fine. So, there's a GFCE outlet that the Test and Reset buttons don't seem to be working that the garbage disposal is plugged into; some Googling seems to indicate that it's likely either an outlet that went bad (it was previously working, so this seems fairly likely) or a fault in the circuit going to the outlet somewhere. The plan is to pick up a new GFCE, then get under the sink, remove the old one, test to see if it will reset when not wired up, then try the new one, however, we've never previously went looking for the breaker that that outlet is attached to, so I'm not 100% sure what breaker it is; with the outlet not resetting, is there any way to test for activity to the outlet and figure out what breaker it is, or do I basically just need to turn off power to the whole house while we work on it?
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Apr 7, 2024 19:56
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If you have a non contact voltage tester, you could hold it next to the wire feeding the outlet and have someone else cycle the breakers until your tester beeps at you.
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Apr 7, 2024 20:06
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You want a breaker finder tool. Example: https://a.co/d/92yxYgX
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Apr 7, 2024 20:09
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Dobbs_Head posted:You want a breaker finder tool. Oooohhh, toner probe for power, great! And our tool library has one (looks like that specific one, even). Thank you!
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Apr 7, 2024 20:27
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A non-contact voltage tester is a good thing to use even when you're feeling confident that you've turned off the correct circuit breaker; you never know what Gary might have done to your circuits. I always use one when I'm working with electricity. One time I was replacing some outlets in an older house and discovered that a group of outlets had their neutral line energized whenever the home's air conditioner was running - safely working with either circuit meant having to turn off both circuit breakers, which were not joined in the breaker panel (which is the requirement in newer construction for shared neutral configurations) tl;dr always use a non-contact voltage tester when you're about to touch your home's electrical circuits
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Apr 7, 2024 21:02
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Jesse Ventura posted:There has been some tangential discussion of this in the last 10 pages (specifically: rates affected by California wildfire zones), but I have a question for the thread: has anyone outside fire/flood areas seen their homeowners insurance go way up? I live in Salt Lake City and my rate went up 43% this year. Several (but not all) of my friends in the area report getting similar increases. Eastern PA, not in a flood plane, nothing particularly risky going on: my rates are up slightly, not much. Hear the same form others. But, people looking for new policies are getting shafted hard. My insurance broker told me most of his companies closed their books/aren't offering new policies. Those that are are 50% or more higher. Based on chatter from locals, including my sister who just had an offer accepted so is shopping for policies, this seems to be the way thing are around here now. I'm guessing they aren't raising the rates as quickly on existing policies because state law or something else doesn't allow them to, otherwise why wouldn't they?
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Apr 7, 2024 21:34
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As someone who works in tech for the insurance industry, rates in general are up all over the place. Stupid amounts some places
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Apr 8, 2024 00:24
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That seems clear, but why?
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Apr 8, 2024 01:00
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That seems clear, but why? I would expect rates to be up. They are covering losses to, primarily, your home (in most cases the rest of the porperty can't really have significant to repair losses). You have seen the increase in the cost of materials and heard about how expensive and difficult to find contractors are so pretty much......that. They are largely required to "make you whole" again, so when damage to the covered asset costs more to repair they have to charge more.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:02
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Insurance companies have been paying out huge sums over the past few years (directly and/or indirectly through reinsurance) for natural disaster level stuff and now they're raising rates everywhere to make back that lost money.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:06
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Jesse Ventura posted:There has been some tangential discussion of this in the last 10 pages (specifically: rates affected by California wildfire zones), but I have a question for the thread: has anyone outside fire/flood areas seen their homeowners insurance go way up? I live in Salt Lake City and my rate went up 43% this year. Several (but not all) of my friends in the area report getting similar increases. My rates went up, and I actually couldn't get my new house insured by my old carrier. This is in Missouri where I guess hail is the biggest issue (outside of flood zones). Kinda seems like nobody wants to insure anything anymore.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:19
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PerniciousKnid posted:My rates went up, and I actually couldn't get my new house insured by my old carrier. This is in Missouri where I guess hail is the biggest issue (outside of flood zones). Kinda seems like nobody wants to insure anything anymore. Makes sense to me. These are giant companies that are exposed to risk everywhere. If they're losing their asses from wildfires out west or hurricanes or florida or whatever they've got to make it up somewhere, and raising your rates even if you're low risk is how they do that.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:25
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Cyrano4747 posted:Makes sense to me. These are giant companies that are exposed to risk everywhere. If they're losing their asses from wildfires out west or hurricanes or florida or whatever they've got to make it up somewhere, and raising your rates even if you're low risk is how they do that. They have to justify rate increases to the DOI, in theory they can't do that.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:32
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I’m out of the loop on how many companies cover the whole spectrum of insurance, but have heard the ozempic+ wave is hitting health insurance companies hard and the rate increases will be rolled out over a few years.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:36
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Jesse Ventura posted:There has been some tangential discussion of this in the last 10 pages (specifically: rates affected by California wildfire zones), but I have a question for the thread: has anyone outside fire/flood areas seen their homeowners insurance go way up? I live in Salt Lake City and my rate went up 43% this year. Several (but not all) of my friends in the area report getting similar increases. Every single policy I’ve reviewed with a new claim for property claims here in New Jersey contains a .PDF of a letter to the policyholder notifying them that their premium will be increased between 7-35% soon. I’m insured by my employer (i.e. same company) and I got that letter last month.
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Apr 8, 2024 03:49
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The fun thing to know is that basically all American insurers buy insurance for themselves, so that if they pay out more than they take in, they're insured. This is sold by reinsurers, which is a sort of cross between the GoT iron bank, and a shadowy cabal of swiss bankers, who actually run the show (actually not making this up). Like four companies in Switzerland underwrite all American insurance. If rates are going up it's probably because of California and Florida, and the reinsurers lost money so they're raising their rates, which impact American insurance rates
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Apr 8, 2024 04:09
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