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Hello house bitching thread. It appears our insulation contractors broke the spool pin off my wife's sewing machine while closing the vent. This is fine assuming they hadn't neglected to tell us.  The machine was threaded, and the spool was laid neatly on the table apart from the pin. Nothing neat comes from dropping a spool that is threaded into a machine. Now they get to wake up to a calm, rational email explaining how overnight shipping of a replacement from Amazon is the correct solution so my wife can finish the babies costume for the weekend fair. Edit: The new panasonic bathroom exhaust fan they installed is magic. Our old one was LOUD, moved very little air, and exhausted into the attic. This is none of those things. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 06:22
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H110Hawk posted:Now they get to wake up to a calm, rational email explaining how overnight shipping of a replacement from Amazon is the correct solution so my wife can finish the babies costume for the weekend fair. Quoting myself because the guy called me first thing to make it right. Only to have his crew drill through the one section of wood siding we told them 6 ways to sunday not to drill, including twice today. They didn't want to drill it due to the nightmare of patching it. He also says they will make that right. They come from a personal recommendation, we see them all around town doing work, and their yelp reviews are great. (Barring one nut job who was paranoid about the guy sketching his house, taking pictures of key mechanical appliances, etc, during an energy audit.) 
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Oct 18, 2016 16:59
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metallicaeg posted:My home to-do list, now that I have a job that pays enough to where I can start to pay off my debts: Congrats on being always broke through the glory of home improvement. We cut the check for the last of our money on Friday. It will be nice not to be living in a construction zone. Call a local energy efficiency company if those exist. They will tell you a lot of this stuff for free, handle rebates if they do the work, etc. Our attic and walls were effectively uninsulated and it led to our AC unit running 100% duty cycle from noon-9pm if it got above 90 degrees outside. Today is our first day completely insulated and it's also supposed to get up into the high 80's low 90's so my smart meter should let me see the savings by this time tomorrow! The company charged us like $6250 out of pocket, but they're fronting us like $2500 in rebates, and I get $500 back at tax time.
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Oct 19, 2016 19:21
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10 Beers posted:Not sure if this is really the place for it, but where's a place to get towels, bed sheets, etc., that isn't outrageously expensive? Ross, TJ Maxx, similar stores. Ours have lasted several years, I know because they are up for replacement. We have 3 sets of sheets which are changed every other week. They're the same stuff that the big department stores carry but at Target/Wal-Mart bargain prices.
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Jan 2, 2017 20:35
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wormil posted:I don't think we have those in the States, I had to Google it. Big bathrooms are the fashion here so they probably wouldn't sell. Shower + bath inserts are totally a thing here, but are most commonly seen in rapid construction tract homes/condos. They give you only one point to seriously leak (the drain) and are incredibly easy to install if you have level surfaces. Or based on the condo we rented for a while, not level surfaces. It made loud creaking and popping noises if you stood in one section.
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Jan 6, 2017 17:44
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Selachian posted:Is this the place to talk about house pests? Because the wife and I are plagued with flies -- fruit flies, that is. We've bug bombed the house twice, used enough fly spray to ensure everyone in the family gets cancer, and I've killed them in dozens with the vacuum cleaner, but the little bastards keep coming back. We've tried fly traps, both the homemade apple cider vinegar type and the commercially available type, but they don't make enough of a dent in the fly population. Fly strips have worked, but there's still too many of them around. Does anyone out there have other fly fighting tips? Until you find their food attempting to kill them is pointless. It could be inside, outside, or in your neighbors unit. Once you do, a chunk of banana in a LARGE jar (we used a giant beer stein) with a cone coffee filter at the top with the bottom quarter inch cut off will trap them.
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Feb 5, 2017 00:29
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Alereon posted:I'm planning to overseed with it this coming planting season, hopefully it lives up to all the hype! From the little hard information I could gather it seems to work, it just isn't popular yet because the trends seem to be going toward either non-grass lawns, OR high maintenance "lawn dominator" lawns, and it seems like an interesting middle-ground that looks good but doesn't require a lot of work or chemical inputs. Our irrigation system is getting unfucked AS I TYPE. The dude confirmed we have Augustine grass in most of our yard so we're going to fill in the dead spots with sod. He seems to think we only need to put in around 50% coverage of sod and it will fill in the rest. Does that sound sane? They've done good work for us to date including tree trimming. We have a happy bushy tree now that there has been plenty of rain instead of a scraggly monster in desperate need of trimming.
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Feb 24, 2017 17:47
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Hubis posted:St Augustine will spread as I understand it (I've got a cool season grass lawn so no first-hand experience). I'll pimp the Lawn Care Nut on Youtube again here -- he's moved to Florida so he does a lot more warm season stuff that isn't applicable to me, but he's generally pretty informative. He did a series on planting a new St. Augustine lawn using plugs: Thanks, I'll watch these soon.
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Feb 24, 2017 20:18
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null_pointer posted:Has anyone actually rented a core aerator and done the work, themselves? I got quoted about $450 to aerate and overseed about an acre-and-a-half of lawn. I've done it by hand (well, with a foot stomper thing a-la this) over small areas of not super compacted soil and it is tedious. 1.5 acres? You might see if you can rent something with a motor or similar to do it with some mechanical advantage, then you can probably get it done in a day w/ seed. If you get her a manual one and set her to work the $450 might seem like a bargain in a few hours. 
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Feb 26, 2017 19:30
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Raised by Hamsters posted:I worked on a golf course in high school, and I remember aerating as one of the worst jobs. That said, what made it so awful was disposing of the ejected plugs. We had a machine to pulverize them after ejection, for areas that could be the equivalent of residential lawn. None of you are mentioning anything like that though, is the pulverizer built into the small units you can rent? Or are you just skipping it and letting them break down/ get eaten by the mower? A golf course has to look pretty for the next tee time and not screw up peoples drives. That stuff is left to rot.
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Feb 27, 2017 16:59
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Arachnamus posted:Does anyone have experience with indoor and/or outdoor home security cameras? There's a billion of them out there of varying quality but I'd like to find a good balance between convenience and winding up on a botnet. In the other home owner thread there was a recent discussion on it. Starts about here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3774735&pagenumber=39&perpage=40
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Mar 16, 2017 19:29
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Pollyanna posted:I always wondered about those pads they push around. It doesn't seem like such a bad approach, since it gives you more control than an extended pushmop does. Your hardwood doesn't absorb any crud, so everything normally hidden by your carpet is always right on top. You can both see it and feel it on your feet. Assuming you don't have a pet (small children are included in this,) you should be able to get away with every other week. Stop wearing your shoes inside, get a doormat that actually brushes them off, and make sure your vacuum is actually trapping dust. Get a HEPA filter/bag for it, get a mini-pleated filter for your AC (nordicpure), and overall be a little more conscious of "crud." After a few weeks of this, and washing your bed linens, the baseline level of dust and dirt in your house should be reduced dramatically. If you leave your windows open you are likely pulling in dust from outside which will increase your cleaning frequency.
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Apr 23, 2017 22:45
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It's spring cleaning time anyway, so I might as well do a deep clean.
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Pollyanna posted:This makes me wonder how having storage drawers on the same side of the bed as the nightstand is supposed to work. gently caress it, I'll figure it out somehow. In my experience, poorly. I bought a fancy 4-drawer boxspring and all 4 drawers are hard to open, but the two at the head of the bed are only for long term storage because it's such a nuisance.
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May 11, 2017 15:32
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Buca di Bepis posted:Is a malfunctioning attic fan something to be concerned about? It's old and when the thermometer triggers it every few moments it tries to spin up but just makes a buzzing noise instead. My attic access is insanely treacherous so I'll only go back up there again if it seems like the house might burn down. Unfortunately it's not on a dedicated circuit. A motor that's trying to start but fails is generating heat instead of motion. Heat is one of the components of fire.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:14
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glynnenstein posted:Does anyone have recommendations for a flood or area light specifically in a short-range motion-sensing application? The finest cheapest light fixture lowesdepot sold me had some adjustments for that and it seems to work pretty well. I have it mounted above my garage door but I have to get under a carlength away from it to get it to flip on. I have the motion sensor angled down and the sensitivity turned down. Same reason, if I had it all up where I would like it it would both trigger anytime my neighbor wandered around in his back yard and make it super bright. Outdoor LED floods in it under an eave and it's worked fine for nearly 2 years.
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Jun 26, 2017 17:30
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deadly_pudding posted:I forgot to bring my DVDs with me, so I'll bring those next time; I haven't watched a DVD in like a year. Congrats on the big cleanup. If you have a bunch of free space on a hard drive you can use makemkv to convert those into easily watchable files before discarding them in the trash.
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Jul 5, 2017 17:10
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Arachnamus posted:Is there a good bulk way of doing this? I have about 1500 DVDs and the bulk places charge like 85p/disc. I'm familiar with makemkv but doing them all by hand is real  I mean MakeMKV turns it into a single button press but I was imagining a "large" collection at "100 titles." 1500 titles is also 6TB which is a lot of space to have laying around. No way would I rip 1500 titles.
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Jul 5, 2017 17:40
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Arachnamus posted:I have a 40TB NAS that's only half full so that's fine. I guess I'll find some set up to do it over a very long time. I think you should stick to your original plan of donating them for a tax writeoff rather than miring yourself with a hilariously large task. Take a picture of them discs 100 at a shot spread on your floor so when you get audited you have proof.
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Jul 5, 2017 19:13
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Erwin posted:I use this stuff for argentine ants, but it says it works for carpenter ants: https://www.amazon.com/Amdro-Block-Home-Perimeter-Granules/dp/B000QDEQ7E/ref=sr_1_3 . Ace sells it, I'm sure Home Depot does as well. We use that as well, but you have to read the warnings carefully as it Really Actually Toxic. In fact I just came in from baiting yet another trail. It works a treat, they largely only need a few grains. Sadly I often cannot find the nest, but when I do it lasts months.
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Jul 9, 2017 15:50
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Squashy Nipples posted:However... every few years my yard turns into a pile of anthills, and I've found the only thing that works is this nasty poison I spray with the hose (I started off with "green" products, which did nothing). Amdro works for me. If I can find a hill one shake of pellets onto it nukes the whole hill in a day or two. Again don't let your cat out until they're dead and you've watered heavily to disperse it. It's water soluable so don't put it on fruit trees you intend to eat or over your well. A little bit goes a LONG way.
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Jul 12, 2017 18:57
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peanut posted:That house also had a central vacuum system... which seemed cool then but I'm thinking noooope now as an adult who would have to unclog it. Is that a big problem? We had one as a kid which my dad installed and it was amazing. Never clogged up, but we only had it for 5ish years before we moved. This is with several long haired cats, a few dogs, some birds.
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Jul 30, 2017 08:13
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His Divine Shadow posted:I'll just add another port if I want one, but our house isn't that big so we basically only needed one. Bigger houses and houses with more than one floor have multiple ports My dad installed several ports in our house to make it easier to use. Everything you mentioned is why I love them and it is my lottery-dream to own one myself. It was a life changer as someone with asthma. Our house went from a pet dander nightmare scenario to dust free. We had to empty the can several times right after installing it, it was insane. The sweeper isn't something I had heard of, clever, but we just sucked everything through the hose always.
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Jul 31, 2017 15:26
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It is. You need to seal up that stuff and look under, behind, and around everything. If a rat died it would stink so that is likely not it unless you literally have no sense of smell. Could be something much smaller though. Anywhere opening into a wall cavity is where bugs can get in.
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Aug 13, 2017 18:01
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The Dregs posted:What is the best way to go about making my home more energy efficient? I have vaulted ceilings on a split level home and the living room doesn't like to dip below 80 in the Georgia Summer, even though my AC is running nearly all the time and putting me in the poorhouse with 480 dollar electric bills. I am pretty sure my windows are poo poo. My AC unit was bottom of the line when they installed it about 12 years ago. I don't have the money to replace all my windows, and get new insulation for the attic (and maybe try to insulate the vaulted part), and replace the ac unit. At least I don't have enough to do them all at once anyway. But I would like to get started on whatever will give me the most bang for my buck. See if your state will chip in any money (cash, financing, etc) to replace your windows, AC, and insulate. If your AC is at 100% duty cycle you stand to save money immediately if you can get any of those changes. Heck at $480 you could potentially pay for a 0% financed solar system if you have net metering available to you. That would immediately free up cash to replace the rest of your stuff. Note that should you need to sell your home for any reason that financing will likely become due to clear the title on your house. (You could potentially pay for it from the proceeds of sale.) Heck even if you could only pay for it with a HELOC you're looking at $25k for 10 years being under $300/month.
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Aug 24, 2017 00:14
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life is killing me posted:You'll either laugh or cry at this I imagine, but the house itself was built in 2014 and has had more leaks than just this sliding door leak. They are large, heavy doors. This house has had problems it shouldn't have and the warranty from the builder is expired as far as I can see, so we are kind of unsure how we can get this done without spending money we barely have. Shouldn't this fall under construction defect? It's a nightmare of a lawsuit, but a house shouldn't leak 3 years after it was built. Is the company that built it even still in business? Do your neighbors have these issues as well?
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Aug 26, 2017 00:47
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Pollyanna posted:Huh, maybe I can replace the back door's lock that I lost the key for that way. New doorknob if I need it, even. Although I doubt my landlord would let me do that. Just ask your landlord what to do. Ours said to just replace it and mail them a key. Call a locksmith and ask how much to key all 7 locks alike, it might be cheaper than you think and only takes them an hour or so.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:37
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HycoCam posted:Foscam and Amcrest are other inexpensive cameras. Foscam are Chinese made. If I've followed the press releases correctly, Amcrest bought Foscam and moved the manufacturing to the USA? (I think....) The Amcrest cameras are inexpensive and have decent quality, but Amcrest wants you to use their monthly subscription service to view and record multiple cameras unless you want to use a third party program like ZoneMinder, IP Cam Viewer, iSpy, Blue Iris, et al. I would not suggest allowing your Foscam cameras to communicate outbound from your network. Mine talked to China first thing. Their "plugin" was flagged as a virus by Windows Defender, and requires some ancient version of IE to work. I put a firewall rule in my router to prevent them from talking to the internet at all. Other than that they are great cameras, my Synology records them just fine.
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Aug 30, 2017 17:32
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Zero VGS posted:NetGear makes a security camera brand called Arlo: Free until they pull a Google Nest and remote brick it because they're bored of the product line.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:01
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stupid puma posted:Bosch 500 series is the best dishwasher I've used. Only downside is there's not really a good place to put wine glasses securely. Seconding this. Bought the $800ish model with third rack for silverware. It adds a surprising amount of space and is well worth it. See if your credit card company adds a warranty or satisfaction guarantee. Same for the box store. Unlike your LG this thing won't beep at you.
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Sep 4, 2017 16:08
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HycoCam posted:Mine will probably be the worst advice, and I look forward to hearing the correct answer. One of the few times water is not the enemy in homeownership. Hose it down.
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Sep 20, 2017 02:24
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Jaded Burnout posted:Any thoughts on smart locks? I don't believe that the market has anything out of the box in the consumer world that does what you are asking. You would have to figure out some kind of Bluetooth / wifi controlled lock, then code up something so that when your phone is connected to the wifi they are unlocked, or whatever the trigger you want to use. It exists in the corporate space but I have no idea how much that would cost, I bet it's thousands to get started. In both cases you have to make sure you fail-safe/open (vs fail-secure) and people can egress in the event of an emergency. If someone burns to death because you rigged up some awful system to protect your funko pop collection you are going to be in a world of hurt. You would be better served by an alarm system sticker or an actual alarm system, plus an insurance policy. If what you have isn't replaceable you can talk to a rich person security company about hardening your home properly but again get your checkbook ready. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Oct 10, 2017 |
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Oct 10, 2017 15:33
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Jaded Burnout posted:Whoa, when do you think someone swapped out the brick walls that were there this morning? This is your house, isn't it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes
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Oct 10, 2017 23:46
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Magnus Praeda posted:It really depends on the tub, but regardless of the kind of tub, it sounds like whatever was fastening it to the tub deck/wall/floor is no longer securing it. Likely (more like definitely), you have serious water ingress behind and beneath the tub. Which means the nails or screws have corroded and broken or pulled out or the wood has rotted and isn't structurally supporting anything anymore. I dunno sounds like the hard part is already done.
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Oct 11, 2017 21:07
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Hubis posted:This really seems like something you should be able to do yourself, but I guess not everyone has a compressor lying around for it... Harbor freight surely sells a compressor for the same price as having a company do it. Assuming you even want to to try and DIY it.
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Oct 18, 2017 21:20
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Kashwashwa posted:Quick plumbing question... I've lived in my super old house for about 18 months. My only bathroom is upstairs, and it almost never completely flushes properly. If you don't want a new toilet the entire guts of one is <$20. Or just adjust the float so it fills more or the chain so it pulls the flapper all the way up quickly.
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Nov 4, 2017 02:30
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Southern Heel posted:So my house purchase looks like it might complete on the 27th of this month - which is both scary and exhilarating. I've got two big bits of work I'd like to have done ASAP - adding some more plugs (and of course, verifying the condition of the wiring/etc. ) and sanding/refinishing the floor and wooden trim in the house. How old is the house? Do you have a picture from your inspection of the main panel with the cover off? A whole home rewire is a week long process. I regret not doing it before we moved in. If you really just want to add outlets to modern wiring that is easy to do post move in by an electrician.
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Nov 14, 2017 15:29
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Southern Heel posted:Home inspection is a thing, and I paid top dollar - however they explicitly do not cover electrical work (in the UK) other than a visual inspection of sockets. Anything more requires a separate specialist, so I spoke to a number of firms all within the area and they advised they would be able to perform an ECR (electrical condition report) which is exactly the same process (visual only), and any further assessment would require floorboards to be pulled/etc. Seems backwards as all hell to me, but we went into negotiations budgeting for the worst (i.e. total rewire) so it's not all bad. The normal one doesn't even pull the cover on your panel to check for obvious signs of fire and fire accessories? I guess in a country with ring mains anything is possible.
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Nov 14, 2017 19:09
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Endie posted:I have to add 450mm of insulation to my new loft. I hate loft insulation, and hugely doubt that the last layer will have a huge effect on what is not in any case a passive design. Fiberglass is known harmful to breathe. That's something you can find out years ago. Why not use rockwool?
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Nov 15, 2017 15:09
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Endie posted:Ok then, if we're pedantic make the headline "mineral wool fibre loft insulation linked to inevitable, asbestos-style lung cancer, itching". I was trying to help. At least rockwool is currently thought to be safer than fiberglass. In general exposed insulation skeeves me out.
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Nov 15, 2017 16:40
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tetrapyloctomy posted:Time for a new dishwasher! I'm considering a Bosch 800 series (probably this one, though I have to admit I'm a bit intrigued by this back stainless one here). It sounds like Miele is a smidge more reliable but a fair bit ore expensive -- anyone here have any experience with the two lines? Also, the current dishwasher is hardwired. The second Bosch says ,"Hard-wire junction box included," and the first says, "Power cord included." Can I assume that the one with a power cord can have the cord removed in order to be wired up directly? I mean, I could have an outlet installed without too much difficulty, but I'm fine with keeping the dishwasher hardwired. I love my bosch, as does seemingly everyone in this thread who owns one. Go to a dealer (Pacific Sales for example) and ask them to get out the Big Book O Models. There will be a big centerfold (  ) of options. Go through there and build up the machine you want. I highly recommend the dedicated silverware third rack, and I regret buying one with front controls (1 year old kid) and no "self cleaning filter/garbage disposal." The silverware rack seems absurd, but it makes the dishwasher hold seemingly twice as much stuff as when we put the (included) silverware basket inside.Ask at the store what it comes with, the hardwire vs plug kit was a $15 option. I wouldn't buy a Miele at I presume twice the price. Just buy two of these.
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Nov 17, 2017 18:04
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