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I'm working on plans for a workshop I want to build in my (suburban) back yard. The plan is to go fully-permitted (but not as "habitable" space, so no insulation etc. requirements). 16'x24', one big room, concrete slab foundation, but that still leaves a lot of leeway in the actual design. I'm a reasonably handy person, but strictly a hobbyist -- I'd be hiring contractors to handle the foundation pour and any electrical work (no plans for water at the moment). I'd like to do most of the actual construction myself though. Outbuildings around here can't go above 12' tall, which means with 8' walls I can get something like a 4:12 slope on the roof at most. We have a temperate climate; no snow, moderate rainfall, plenty of fog, no heavy winds. I'd appreciate some advice, specifically: * Do I need diagonal bracing for the walls, or should I just rely on the siding? * Is there any particular reason besides cost why I shouldn't use 2x6s for the sole plate, studs, and top plate? I mean, why engineer when you can overengineer? * A standard flat joist ceiling "wastes" the volume above the joists. It's only 2-3 feet or so, but it could be useful as storage or something. Would it be possible to space the joists and rafters wider than normal, like say every 3' OC, by using doubled 2x6s or something? Then I could lay down some plywood and access the space up there with a ladder. * Alternately, a vaulted ceiling would leave the entire interior volume open, but I get the impression that a 24' ridge beam would be a big expense and difficult to install. I could probably put up a support post in the center of the slab (presumably secured to the slab via anchor bolts and some kind of 90° straps). Thoughts? And bottom line: how nuts of a project is this? I'm drawing up my plans in Blender, and eventually will be taking them over to the building inspector to get them approved. I've never tackled a project this big before.
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Oct 25, 2013 23:45
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I'm not really an expert on lumber, but I kind of thing that if your fence isn't rotting out after 40 years, then you've probably spent so much on the lumber that you won't mind paying a bit extra in time and money to use screws instead of nails.
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Oct 30, 2013 23:27
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Any opinion on self-drilling screws vs. drilling pilot holes manually? Is there some rule of thumb for when you should drill a pilot hole vs. when you can just send the screw straight in sans pilot?
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Oct 31, 2013 18:43
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I think I have a leak in my upstairs bathroom's plumbing. When the bathroom is used (haven't narrowed it down to sink/toilet/shower), the ceiling in the sun room leaks. Outdoor shot, showing the sun room (foreground) and the upstairs bathroom (thingy poking out of the roof on the second floor). Immediately beneath the bathroom is the kitchen.  Shot of the sun room ceiling:  My best guess is that water is leaking from a pipe or something in the bathroom, running along the interior walls, somehow bridging the gap into the sun room (which was added after the house was built, and turns the previous door-to-the-back-yard into an "interior" door), and then flowing along the slightly slanted roof until it gets to this point, where it drips down. So what do I do about this? First thing presumably is figure out which particular device in the bathroom causes the leaks, but then is it just a matter of tearing open the wall, ripping out some piping, and replacing it? After turning off the water of course.
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Nov 2, 2013 17:21
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neogeo0823 posted:Does anyone have any suggestions on a type of motor, or a product that I could get for cheap and rip the motor out of? I'm not looking for ULTIMATE SUCTION or anything like that, just something that I can turn on and get a nice, quiet, steady flow of air through it. From my understanding of computer cases, the main determinant for noise when moving air is the RPM of the fan. You can get the same airflow for less noise by using a bigger, slower fan (or multiple same-sized fans in parallel). EDIT: thanks for the advice regarding the bathroom, folks. I'll poke around in there today and see what I can find without ripping the walls open. TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Nov 3, 2013 |
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Nov 3, 2013 16:44
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neogeo0823 posted:Hmm. That is true. Maybe I should get 2 of those fans then. I'm not sure it'll work if the fans are in series, and I don't know what the ramifications are of trying to merge their airflows; you might create a lot of turbulence rather than improve your CFM. I'm not clear on what your plan is, but I'd say get the biggest fan you can that will fit your bucket, and if that doesn't get you enough airflow, duplicate the entire setup with a second bucket.
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Nov 3, 2013 17:09
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:Do you own or rent? A hepa filter and leaving your furnace fan running would help. Also a couple of those super hardy low light plants will contribute. As he said earlier, he's renting from a slumlord, so doesn't have much in the way of support. The Ionic Breeze "air filters" got pulled from the market after they were proven to not work; they simply don't move enough air to be effective filters. Of course, that's also why they're so quiet. A HEPA filter would be the normal approach, though, and yeah, you have to replace them from time to time.
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Nov 3, 2013 22:13
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melon cat posted:I have a really basic question about drilling into drywall. Let's say I'm hanging up a a rack and you're drilling the holes so you can hang the thing up. Are you supposed to drill into the wooden studs behind the drywall, or avoid them? Drill into the studs; they can support weight far better than the drywall can. If you're just putting up a picture with a lightweight frame then it doesn't matter much, but I generally recommend going for the studs all the time anyway. You can get a stud finder at a hardware store, but my favorite method for finding studs is to use a rare-earth magnet. It'll be attracted to the screws used to secure the drywall to the studs, so you can just run it along the wall until it sticks. Then attack your rack slightly above or below that point (so you don't hit the screw).
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Nov 10, 2013 02:57
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spwrozek posted:I wouldn't use pergo since it is cheap and is a floating floor (not a fan of that). Curious, what's wrong with floating floors? I replaced all of the carpeting in my house (which was a poo poo-ton, and it was all old, manky stuff) with floating engineered hardwood and it seems to be fine.
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Nov 16, 2013 01:57
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spwrozek posted:It is more a preference than anything else. I just don't like the movement and bounce of the floor. There is nothing wrong with it though.
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Nov 16, 2013 04:10
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I'm not remotely an expert on this kind of thing, but my understanding is that the "desk" ought to be directly on the underfloor. I suspect that if you pull it out five years down the road, any tile won't be a perfect color match, whether it was installed when the desk went in or was installed after it was pulled out.
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Nov 19, 2013 20:27
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eddiewalker posted:Stick it to the glass? This sounds like a good idea to me. Get some rare-earth magnets, put some on one side of your rear window and some on the other side to hold the sticker in place. Of course, with any setup like this someone can just walk off with your magnet(s) and sticker...
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Nov 21, 2013 16:04
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I had an idea while in the shower, and I want to know if it makes any kind of sense (and maybe if it's already being done!). Set up a heat exchanger on the outflow from the shower stall, trying to dump as much heat onto the cold water input to the shower. It seems like it ought to be relatively trivial to set up and require no failure-prone parts, and as far as I'm aware that heat is otherwise lost. Any thoughts? I'm not about to rip open my bathroom wall to try it out myself, but it seemed like such a good idea that someone must have already thought of it.
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Nov 22, 2013 16:08
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sirr0bin posted:It is an excellent idea and as you mused someone makes them already. I've heard good things about them. Ah, excellent, glad to hear it's actually a thing. Though $600 is surprisingly expensive. I'm pretty sure I get all the hot water I personally need just from the pilot light on my water heater, so there's not much point in upgrading my bathroom. Oh well.
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Nov 22, 2013 19:21
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Entangled posted:Completely unrelated: Anyone here with experience with wood truss design? I've got engineered, manufactured gambrel trusses and I'm trying to determine what the load ratings for them would be. I'm in a rural area with no permit or inspection process, so I don't have old documentation to refer to. I would have thought that there should be a load limit / specification stamp on the truss somewhere, but I've not been able to find one. Contact a manufacturer. That was what I was told when I asked my city building-inspector-department thingy what I'd need as far as a ridge beam for my yet-to-be-built workshop. The manufacturers should know the build tolerances for their equipment. It sounds like you don't know exactly who made your particular trusses, but I'd imagine most trusses will be pretty similar in terms of strength per unit volume.
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Nov 27, 2013 03:31
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tuyop posted:I just started renting a place with a gas water heater. Is there any quick, easy, and non-permanent way to install a timer on this thing? Please pardon my obliviousness, but what would the timer do? Only heat water at certain times of the day? My heater accomplishes all of its heating via the pilot light and still produces plenty of hot water for me. You might be able to get away with that.
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Dec 11, 2013 15:58
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Zhentar posted:I still managed to stick true to my never succeeding on the first try... turns out my old supply lines aren't compatible with the faucet I bought, so I'll have to make another shopping trip tomorrow. If you're working on a plumbing project and you only have to make two trips to the hardware store, then you're doing just fine.
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Dec 14, 2013 06:34
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ehnus posted:I'm planning to wall in an old car port and turn it into a workshop. One item I'm not sure about currently is what to do for heat. Could you just get a heat lamp for when you're in there? No need to heat the entire room when you can just heat yourself, right?
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Dec 14, 2013 21:45
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For what it's worth, I put in a couple of Delta showerheads a year ago and have been happy with them so far. We have pretty high-quality water here though, so I don't know how representative that is, and a year isn't exactly a long time. At least showerheads are easy to install. You don't even need to turn off the water. Though I did get thrown off by one of my showers, where it turned out that the showerhead was permanently attached to the pipe going into the wall, despite being cast to look like it should be able to be unscrewed. Had to take the pipe off and put a new one in. Oh well.
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Dec 17, 2013 18:08
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They're talking about the Mpemba effect.
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Dec 20, 2013 19:04
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DrBouvenstein posted:Any ideas? For what it's worth, I have my heater set to go on if the temperature in the living room drops below 55°F, which means my bedroom gets significantly colder than that. I just use an electric blanket at night, and wear more layers during the day. Barring medical conditions, the human body can learn to be comfortable in a pretty wide range of temperatures.
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Dec 31, 2013 18:56
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Corla Plankun posted:Is it possible to block all light from coming in through a window, but not all the heat? Get some blackout curtains, paint them black?
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Jan 6, 2014 04:11
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Motronic posted:As mentioned, it very well could be the exhaust fan. I have an old horizontal exhaust fan in my bathroom (venting directly to the outdoors), whose flap is kaput. How hard is it to replace one of these things? Seems like the biggest difficulty would be finding a new fan that fits the old hole in the wall (or changing the size of the hole to fit a new fan). Right now I just leave the door to the bathroom closed most of the time to cut down on heat loss, which is an okay solution but it's not exactly great.
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Jan 7, 2014 18:13
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Rotten Red Rod posted:I just moved into a new house, and there's a motion sensor flood light set in the driveway. One of the bulbs shines directly into our next door neighbor's bedroom window. I've been keeping the bulb unscrewed for now since I know how obnoxious that can be. Are there any specialty bulbs that include some sort of shade or keep the light directed on a smaller area? I don't really have a good visualization of the setup, but couldn't you just rig some plywood up to block the light? Paint it white and it'll diffuse the light for you so you don't lose it. Or use a mirror, I guess.
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Jan 7, 2014 21:18
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Dragyn posted:Is it reasonable that a dehumidifier could help the problem? I don't have any qualifications in this area, but if you have any kind of significant gaps in your structure then you'd essentially be trying to dehumidify the outdoors, wouldn't you? Kind of like running an air conditioner with the windows open; you aren't going to accomplish much. If you can get the structure mostly sealed then a dehumidifier will have a much easier time.
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Jan 12, 2014 04:57
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It's probably wise to have a plunger on-hand anyway, and they're not horrifically expensive. You want one like this, not the kind that are shaped kind of like a trumpet bell. Those are for sinks, if I recall correctly; you need a different shape for toilets to get a good seal.
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Jan 22, 2014 17:38
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Insane Totoro posted:If it's that easy, yeah I can do that! I suppose a bucket and some waterproof garbage bags would help too in "disposal" right? No, the waste goes down the sewer line, it doesn't come back up out of your toilet. Not unless something has gone badly, badly wrong. Drano and other drain-clearing chemicals basically break up whatever is clogging your waste water line so that water can flow through it again. Usually the instructions amount to "pour X amount of this into your clogged drain, then wait Y time, then run lots of water down it" (but of course you should read the instructions). eddiewalker posted:Save an old bleach or milk jug and turn it into a plunger holder. You're not going to want it sitting on your floor after it's been used. This is also good advice. You want something to keep the plunger off the floor. Doesn't have to be a cut-in-half jug, but it's a container that you won't use for anything else.
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Jan 22, 2014 18:15
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Hatter106 posted:I can't replace the pegs without taking the whole shelf apart. I was thinking about some kind of small L-brackets on the bottom, but the shelf itself is only 1" thick particle board, and I don't think a screw short enough to not poke though would be very strong. You don't need to attach the L-brackets to the shelf, just to the wall that the pegs originally slotted into. It's not like screwing the L-bracket into the shelf increases its supportive power; it just keeps the shelf from shifting. But it sounds like that's not currently an issue. Glue would be tricky because you'd be trying to glue wood to metal. That usually doesn't work very well in my experience.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:46
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I have an Olympic weight set and weightlifting bench that honestly need to get sold on. When I got them I found the prospect of doing bench press without a spotter somewhat disturbing, so I built a safety frame around the bench:  For liability reasons I probably shouldn't try to include the frame when I sell the thing, but that leaves me with a bunch of 2x6s and 4x4s that have holes through them for the 3/8" bolts I used to hold everything together. What all do I do with this stuff? Is it okay to burn? It's not pressure-treated, just standard construction fir bought from Home Depot. (Also, I swear I used more than 20 pounds of weight while lifting...those're from when the housemate was using the thing. Shut up.)
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Feb 2, 2014 22:04
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eddiewalker posted:Why not toss it in for free if the person who buys the rest wants it? More useful than burning it and I don't see the liability concern. The liability concern is that they assemble it wrong (or it legit fails, though I think I overengineered it), their chest gets crushed by a 150-pound barbell, and then they sue my rear end off for selling faulty product.
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Feb 3, 2014 00:37
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unprofessional posted:Anybody have any ideas on how to easily/cheaply make an extendable pole pruner, like these? I'd love to be able to get close to 30' of reach. I thought maybe something with pvc pipe could work. I can't help but think that most PVC pipes would have some rigidity issues if you tried to extend them 30' into the air without any kind of support. That may not be an issue once you have the sawblade resting on the tree limb though. If you don't mind not having a telescoping system, you could just join lengths of PVC pipe together end-to-end. Presumably you don't want to have to store a 30'-long system, so hold them together with slightly wider-diameter pipes. Drill holes through both pipes so you can pin them together with bolts. You'll want the "sleeve" pipes to be fairly long since they'll be experiencing a lot of lateral stress. As for sticking a sawblade on the end, heck if I know the best way to do that. Pin the sawblade to a wooden wedge that you jam into the end of the pipe, maybe?
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Feb 5, 2014 19:16
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Trabant posted:The crafts thread is dead, so here goes: It's possible to do this kind of thing with a wire wrap, so I assume you could also do it with cord. Basically you want to fashion a trough-shaped wrap around the edge of the coin; the trough holds the wrap to the coin, and then you attach the rest of the bracelet to the wrap. A quick google for "coin setting wire wrap" turned up this page which isn't exactly helpful for instructions but does at least prove that the concept is possible  Sorry I don't have anything more detailed for you.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:27
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I was thinking about that -- how much would it cost to set up some batteries so your pumps would continue to function even during a power outage? Obviously it wouldn't last indefinitely, but the average power outage is only for a few hours to half a day or so, right? (Speaking as a Californian, resting assured that the only "Real Weather" I have to deal with is the minute chance of a major earthquake...)
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Feb 12, 2014 17:46
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Cpt.Wacky posted:A $10 Fiskars bow saw from Home Depot and $5 replacement blades will cut larger limbs up pretty well. Any particular reason to prefer a bow saw over one like this? I guess bow saws are a bit cheaper, but the bow always seems to get in the way when I try to use bow saws. I'd wager the blade lasts longer on a pruning saw like the one I linked, too, since it's not under tension and has more backing.
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Feb 20, 2014 21:12
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tzirean posted:If I didn't know better, I'd say it was just old cable that they painted over. Just looks like a lovely paint job to me. They put it on too thick and it dripped down while it was drying, creating those "runs".
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Feb 20, 2014 23:54
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I seem to recall in the "Retreating to the Wilderness" thread awhile back there was a brief discussion of chainsaw safety, including things like wearing leather chaps to protect your legs. Best bet, as with any power tool, is to read up on safe practices before you turn the thing on.
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Feb 21, 2014 18:57
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Rockzilla posted:I have 12 gallons of Behr sand texture paint to cover about 600 sq.ft. As someone who's never done this before I'm just looking for tips for making the whole ordeal easier and/or cleaner. Dunno about the popcorn ceiling, but 12 gallons is plenty. You need less than a gallon to do one 10'x10' room, counting the walls. Also, I'd characterize basically everything about painting (that I've done, anyway) as "not difficult, just tedious". The main thing to remember about painting is that it's all in the prep work. If you don't prep your surface, then no matter how good a job you do painting, it's gonna peel off later.
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Feb 23, 2014 20:42
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Given styles of wood floors, tile, etc. always seem to go out of stock immediately after you buy the supply you need for your project. Which is why I have two extra boxes of flooring sitting in a closet, waiting in case I ever need to do some repairs.
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Feb 24, 2014 23:52
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stubblyhead posted:I have a toilet seat whose screws keep working loose. I was going to put some loctite on them, but the label says specifically that it's not for use on plastics. The nuts are plastic, but the screws themselves are metal. Any suggestions on what I could use to keep these in place? JB-Weld? Any reason you can't replace the nuts with metal ones? Might want a plastic washer if the nuts are currently directly contacting the toilet, to avoid scratching it, but any other reason?
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Feb 26, 2014 03:09
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 20:53 |
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stubblyhead posted:That's actually a pretty good idea, and one I'm ashamed to say I didn't even consider. Having not used loctite before, is it still pretty easy to get the nuts off again with a wrench if you need to? It's really just intended to keep them from working themselves loose over time like is happening here, correct? Sorry, I haven't used loctite myself, so I wouldn't know. I'd be a bit leery of gluing any joint that I might want to un-join later, though. A lock washer as suggested by someone else might be a better solution.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:20
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