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There's also plaster on lath; the lath is held in with tacks. It can be difficult to center on a stud. I've had trouble with magnets (sticks everywhere), stud finders (confused by lath, can't detect voids, everything's a stud) and tape measure (16" on-center is more of a suggestion, lol) At times the best solution is to drill a line of tiny holes until hitting something solid, then a quick pass with spackle & some paint. If I'm really, lucky, whatever I'm hanging entirely eclipses my boreholes.
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Mar 4, 2024 04:33
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 12:41 |
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We have some insane plaster and horsehair bullshit on top of lathe, so magnets find absolutely nothing. I have had the best luck with some variety of complicated sensor that also detects electric lines and metal pipes. I dunno how it works but it's been the mostly consistently right so far. It doesn't help with the fact that if you disturb the plaster even a little bit, sometimes it gives up the ghost and a huge chunk explodes into powder.
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Mar 4, 2024 04:38
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I just put a TV mount on a plaster wall and my method was to drill an endoscope hole, put it in there, and then watch from behind the wall as I drilled super tiny pilot holes. Pretty successful. I have an old house and you can just roll the loving dice on what is behind these walls. We just opened one up and welp there’s a door way that was closed off decades ago. Or there’s a span of like 28 inches or something ridiculous with no studs in my bedroom. I learn to laugh at it.
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Mar 4, 2024 12:34
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PainterofCrap posted:There's also plaster on lath; the lath is held in with tacks. It can be difficult to center on a stud. I've had trouble with magnets (sticks everywhere), stud finders (confused by lath, can't detect voids, everything's a stud) and tape measure (16" on-center is more of a suggestion, lol) This is exactly the reason you’re not supposed to look behind my tv (probably drilled a dozen holes to find studs)
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Mar 4, 2024 15:28
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something from my neighborhood social media. The thread has bifurcated into basically 2 groups of people. The majority who are "we spent ~1-2K on a front door" (some even less, probably hung it themselves). And another group who *really* believe that spending something like this on one normal-rear end loving door is normal. Almost certainly because they paid it. I know you *can* spend insane amounts on a door, and inflation has been wild.... but for 20K it should be something way better than "3 foot wide white fiberglass". Solid handcarved oak with gold inlays or something, I dunno. I guess "renewal by andersen" just targets dumb money at this point? Borderline scam.
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Mar 4, 2024 21:00
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gently caress I'd just use a tarp at that price.
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Mar 4, 2024 21:05
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Baddog posted:
It's this. See also: window companies. I'm pretty sure the entire business model is to sucker in people who have no idea what this poo poo costs and get beaten into submission by a salesman basically insisting that if you don't fix this right now you're going to cause irreparable damage to your house.
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Mar 4, 2024 21:09
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Cyrano4747 posted:It's this. See also: window companies. I'm pretty sure the entire business model is to sucker in people who have no idea what this poo poo costs and get beaten into submission by a salesman basically insisting that if you don't fix this right now you're going to cause irreparable damage to your house. I had someone pull this with my siding and it was borderline traumatizing for my partner how pushy and invasive and fearmongering he was. Just a heinous experience. I think he quoted us like 68k to replace the siding and a few windows, which actually wasn't too far afield of a couple other quotes I'd gotten (we've got aluminum sitting on top of asbestos sitting on top of god knows what, so it's apparently a pretty complicated job), but holy poo poo there's no way we'd ever let someone from that company around our home again.
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Mar 4, 2024 21:18
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Making me feel pretty good about my mother in law "only" paying $375 to get her garage door opener belt ($45 part) replaced while I was out of town
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Mar 4, 2024 21:27
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Some guy is lecturing me that just a *basic storm door* is going to run 1500-5000 I gave him the link to the most expensive storm door you can order from home depot, 1K for steel with all these pretty little flower patterns on the corners, and asked him if he usually paid 4K to hang a door? You're paying your handyman 100/hour and the guy camps out at your house for a solid week to put a door on? He comes back and says "oh our doors are 8 foot high, I'm sure you can get cookie cutter ones for cheaper". He was asking for a new property management company the other week, he has at least 7 rentals. How does this work, how does someone so dumb have money??? I click on his profile, he's a goddamn chiropractor with his own practice, hiring other chiropractors
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Mar 4, 2024 21:31
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Looooooooooool For reference I recently paid $14,000 for 1. Removal of 1 wall, and construction of that wall again 6 feet back 2. A closet built in the bedroom 3. All paneling and drywall removed in ~600 sq ft of living space 4. New drywall and ceilings in that areas 5. Trim, paint moulding and all that accessories. A quote of 23000 for a door would make me laugh and laugh then ask okay what's the actual price.
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Mar 4, 2024 21:33
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There are definitely companies who count on marketing and dumb money to carry them through. I tried to get a solar quote from SunRun. Mid-visit he asked if I was getting bids from other companies, once I told him yes he left without finishing and I never heard from him again.
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Mar 4, 2024 21:40
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Baddog posted:How does this work, how does someone so dumb have money??? Grifer who grifts other grifters getting grifted. That's the good poo poo.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:23
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Do you all like front doors with windows in them? I am not a fan, I prefer privacy.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:29
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phosdex posted:Do you all like front doors with windows in them? I am not a fan, I prefer privacy. You can get frosted windows if you need privacy but also like light. But really, this is a very specific thing per house.......some people's front doors have all the privacy they need even if it's open. Other people have front doors that lead one step onto a busy public sidewalk.
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Mar 4, 2024 22:48
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Yeah you can't even see our front door from the street on most days. We're in deep deep suburbia with very little though traffic, though. Our door has a medium amount of glass but I'd love to add more glass as it's a ~western exposure and would really help light that side of the house. Lots of other projects before that upgrade Pretty sure there's at least a couple goons here with a 200' driveway locked behind an automatic gate you'd need to drive down to see the front door Hadlock fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Mar 4, 2024 |
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Mar 4, 2024 23:01
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phosdex posted:Do you all like front doors with windows in them? I am not a fan, I prefer privacy. I prefer a screen door or glass-paneled storm door over the main front door if I have a choice. (I don't. Front door design + color list are dictated by HOA for my condo, and they do not include windows or storm doors as options.)
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Mar 4, 2024 23:02
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I got a quote on windows and a door from Anderson and it was like 15,000 for the door and 7,000 per window for basic vinyl windows.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:17
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They have lead generators hassling people at hardware stores, shopping malls, outside of grocery stores...... They then pass you off to a salesperson, who then passes you off to a local contractor. That's a lot of people to pay. They count on their clientele being low information easily cowed homeowners.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:22
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Baddog posted:something from my neighborhood social media. man. I asked the hvac thread about replacing a heat pump / air handler / related stuff for the system because I have no internal sense of trades prices after the pandemic. we quoted from a few different companies and brands and everything was in the $10-15k range depending on how fancy you got with things, size of system, etc. at least it feels like a good roi compared to $20k on a front door lol
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Mar 4, 2024 23:26
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pmchem posted:man. I asked the hvac thread about replacing a heat pump / air handler / related stuff for the system because I have no internal sense of trades prices after the pandemic. we quoted from a few different companies and brands and everything was in the $10-15k range depending on how fancy you got with things, size of system, etc. Getting multiple quotes is the key. At the very least you'll have some kind of ballpark understanding of the order of magnitude that the cost should be. If one guy quotes 12k, another 15k, and a third 18k that's a hell of a spread, but it's at all telling you that it's a five figure job. It's when you get 8k, 12k, and 33k that you know someone is bullshitting you and you should lose that phone number.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:46
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Renewal by Andersen has a well-earned reputation for loving insane pricing and a reputation for hard-sell tactics. I'm guessing there was a change in control of the company in the 80s-90s that led to them torching their reputation.
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Mar 5, 2024 00:40
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It's not just the sales. The quality of the products are not as good as the rep they built and trying to get parts.....just wow. I was routed to a regional service center where there was apparently only one person who did this, was never at their desk so you had to leave voicemail, it was never returned, etc. I literally gave up on trying to get the correct replacement window lock and just pulled the sash to route it out for a different one that I could source. Just ridiculous.
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Mar 5, 2024 00:44
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My mom and I went to the local home show a couple weeks ago. She's got some water in a corner of her basement, and she wasn't even sure what kind of trade to call. We walked past a foundation contractor that did free inspections, so we talked and they set up an appointment. After the inspection he said they needed to tear up the finished walls on one side of the basement, put in a membrane, then also do some digging and trenching outside to get the water directed somewhere else, for around $15k. Based on how she described the work to me it sounds like a reasonable price, but I have no idea if the work itself is reasonable, though it at least sounds plausible. She apparently mentioned something about getting another quote, at which point the inspector gave her 10% off the quote, which more than anything set off alarm bells in my head. She's a smart lady, and can absolutely afford it, but I'm starting to see a trend where she's a little too willing to fork over money to contractors without all due diligence. She got solar put on her house recently and I could tell just from looking at the roof that it wasn't a good candidate for solar, and now she's annoyed that it's not generating as much power as she was told it would. It's especially funny because there are lots of things she should be spending small amounts of money (like, under $100) to make her life better and she won't do it, but at 5 figures she starts to... I don't really know what happens. At least she's had the good sense to tell Renewal by Andersen to pound sand when they came back with like $20k to replace a couple of windows on her breezeway.
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Mar 5, 2024 00:51
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Motronic posted:They have lead generators hassling people at hardware stores, shopping malls, outside of grocery stores...... They then pass you off to a salesperson, who then passes you off to a local contractor. That's a lot of people to pay. They count on their clientele being low information easily cowed homeowners. *pushing my cart out of BJs* I DO MY OWN WORK "but, you see, the convenience -" I DO ALL OF MY OWN WORK. YES, REALLY.
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Mar 5, 2024 01:31
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My brothers father-in-law got massively taken advantage of by contractors. 100s of thousands. Apparently my brother threatened to sue them for elder abuse, and got almost all the money back. But definitely something to keep an eye out for.
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Mar 5, 2024 01:32
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FISHMANPET posted:My mom and I went to the local home show a couple weeks ago. She's got some water in a corner of her basement, and she wasn't even sure what kind of trade to call. We walked past a foundation contractor that did free inspections, so we talked and they set up an appointment. After the inspection he said they needed to tear up the finished walls on one side of the basement, put in a membrane, then also do some digging and trenching outside to get the water directed somewhere else, for around $15k. Based on how she described the work to me it sounds like a reasonable price, but I have no idea if the work itself is reasonable, though it at least sounds plausible. Pricing shenanigans aside, the term here is French drain, and possibly a sump pump. It's not possibly to turn your house into a boat and keep the water out that way, so instead you have to help it move to somewhere else lower down. The French drain establishes a perimeter around the house that water can flow into, and then you move it (actively with a pump, or passively with gravity) to somewhere that won't flood your house.
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Mar 5, 2024 01:57
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Yeah she's on a corner lot and it's going to be pumped from on street facing to the other street. Apparently also part of it was that there were some big trees there that they had to take down, and those were potentially holding back some water from getting to the foundation. The part that I don't entirely understand is that the membrane is on the inside of the foundation wall, and not the outside. But maybe that's because water is coming up from the floor? Or maybe the trench is happening on the inside of the house, not the outside? So glad my basement has been bone dry for over a century.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:08
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I'm not an expert on the topic, and couldn't comment on the membrane. But the French drain can be interior or it can be exterior. Interior tends to be easier to access -- remember, you have to dig down below the bottom of the basement. But it also means digging through the bottom of the basement, of course.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:18
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:It's not possibly to turn your house into a boat and keep the water out that way, The hell you say https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/grand-designs-amphibious-house-buckinghamshire/
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Mar 5, 2024 02:42
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Baddog posted:something from my neighborhood social media. We paid $28k for all new windows, doors, *siding*, and gutters. We paid I think $2-3k for the door (apparently they had never sold one these before despite being in the catalog). it was expensive, but it's also rad as gently caress  It's the blue one in the bottom left. No regrets thus far.
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Mar 5, 2024 03:02
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Baddog posted:something from my neighborhood social media. that costs considerably more than my new roof
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Mar 5, 2024 03:10
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brugroffil posted:The hell you say ...I stand corrected  I wonder what the weight limit is on the floating portion of the house?
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Mar 5, 2024 03:14
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devicenull posted:We paid $28k for all new windows, doors, *siding*, and gutters. We paid I think $2-3k for the door (apparently they had never sold one these before despite being in the catalog). it was expensive, but it's also rad as gently caress Goddamn I want one of those Retro doors; their current catalog no longer shows them. I can install it; the unit I installed in 2009 & getting blasted & the sidelight seals have let go. e: found it
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Mar 5, 2024 03:21
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brugroffil posted:The hell you say It's just concrete?? Looks like it was season 14 episode 7, I gotta watch it.
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Mar 5, 2024 03:37
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My wife and I recently bought a house that has active knob & tube in the attic, we got money back from the seller rather than have them handle replacement. Is it unreasonable to ask an electrician to just replace knob & tube with Romex but otherwise hold off on doing a complete rewire of the house? We will have a full-on rewire done someday, but ideally in a year or two after we've lived in the house for a little bit, and also to coincide with some remodels we have planned. We're in the process of getting estimates, and the two electricians that have looked at it so far have ranged from contractor A "yeah, I can switch it out for $3k over two days but it'd have to be under the table and not part of the licensed & bonded business I work for, also technically I'm just an apprentice" (gently caress no) or contractor B "if I touch anything it has to be full rewire, including relocating panels, for $36k over four weeks" (gently caress no). Like, if it's rewire or nothing then it's not the end of the world for us to do the rewire before other stuff, but I don't know how much of this is actually 'required' versus just sales tactics. Paper Tiger fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Mar 5, 2024 |
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Mar 5, 2024 05:12
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More patio table: When I refinished the top almost 2-years ago, I addressed the wobble by tightening up the leg bolts, which should be done periodically as the wood shrinks. Except the one leg pair wouldn't tighten, because the leg was rotting at the top, so the washer/bolt would just sink in. So I finally went after it today, and boy howdy, I was lucky it didn't collapse last summer during a party or something. The leg was rotted half-way down, into the rabbet. I used a hammer to pop the bolts free, and the leg just...exploded   The brace that holds it to the underside was rotted too   So I picked up a 2x4x8 & a 2x6x8 for $11 and I should have it done by tomorrow. Oddly, the other leg set & brace are fine. One of the novelties reserved strictly for the older folks is the odd feeling you get from seeing poo poo you built be reclaimed by nature. I designed & built it in 2004.
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Mar 5, 2024 05:29
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Paper Tiger posted:My wife and I recently bought a house that has active knob & tube in the attic, we got money back from the seller rather than have them handle replacement. Is the whole house knob and tube, but somehow the attic wasn't disclosed due to oversight? Like, how much electrics do you have in the attic? Most attics I've been in have a light switch, 1-3 light bulb sockets, a 2 outlet box. And maybe an HVAC unit Given that it's old enough to have knob and tube, there's a good chance it's a high pitch roof with good access
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Mar 5, 2024 05:40
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Hadlock posted:Is the whole house knob and tube, but somehow the attic wasn't disclosed due to oversight? Oh yeah, I didn't phrase that clearly. The whole house is knob and tube, with runs going through the attic as opposed to a crawl space (and there is pretty good access throughout the attic; not standing room, but room to maneuver). The knob and tube was fully disclosed as part of the inspection & sale. What we're looking to replace with Romex now is just those runs that go through the attic. Any knob and tube in the walls would be replaced later as part of a full rewire, which we'd rather do when we (1) have a better idea of where we'd want to add/remove outlets & switches and (2) are already opening up/moving walls for other work. But maybe that's not a reasonable thing to want. If a piecework approach is unsafe/unreasonable then we'd go straight to rewire, but I'm not sure how to weigh 'piecework is fine!' versus 'rewire is mandatory!' when so far I've only gotten opinions from people who'd be charging me for the work.
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Mar 5, 2024 06:13
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How big is your house? Ours is a two story four square with an accessible attic, 1300 SQ ft, and we paid about $25k for a crew to do it with only 4 holes in the entire house. And it only took them 4 or 5 days, and that was with the team leader/most experienced guy gone for the first two days. And that was 2.5 years ago when prices for everything felt nuts. Anyways, the expensive ones aren't going to rip down all your walls, they're going to carefully fish through the walls. The cheap ones will just knock down your drywall/plaster and leave you to deal with it. As for if it's safe to leave it, man, who knows.
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Mar 5, 2024 06:23
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