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I'm not sure if this is the right thread to ask, and if not my apologies, please point me in the right direction. Did some searching around trying to pinpoint it. My wife and I own a 1963 Ranch style home all in brick. It is beautiful, not rotting (with a fresh roof) and we love it. However, it still has the original single pane windows and without the heat shrink Window kits and heavy curtains my wife installed our balls would be frozen solid every winter. How does one go about getting windows replaced? Note: I will not be replacing them myself, I will most definitely be paying a professional as I can replace a water heater, washer, do drywall and run cat 5, but I feel like I know enough to know I don't know enough about replacing windows and I would rather let someone else do this one. What criteria would I use to judge a replacement window company? What kind of research should I do before getting estimates (I intend to get multiple estimates)? What kind of products should I be looking for (brand, features etc.)?
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Mar 31, 2019 22:05
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Thank you all for the replies! I think I got a list of stuff to start with. I’ll check back in when I’ve got something moving along.
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Apr 1, 2019 02:00
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Apologies if this should go in the plumbing thread, but as this story REALLY relates to home ownership I think it should be here. If it needs a move kick me. This is my weekend adventure at jackleg plumbing camp, where everyone gets to buy a crescent wrench and its awesome. (Cross post from home thread because I have questions at the end) We have been living in our 1963 brick rancher since 2016. On the plus side no asbestos OR aluminum wiring! No ground for most of it, but I can live. I have been reticent to work on things where I have to open up the wall, because sometimes, its done right and its an easy fix, other times it feels like Gover took a trip down to my area to help out a buddy. It's like opening a wall and finding a note that says "lose 2 weeks, do not pass go, lose $400" This situation is a little in between. The washing machine setup has been a little leaky, like a drop every 2 mins or something on the cold side. But also getting rusty, which seems like a not good thing. The connection is a little special seeing as we have a T in between the wall and the spigot for adapters that take it down to 1/4" from 1/2" for the refrigerator water supply. Wasn't that bad when we moved in and it was time to fix it up. (Full removed assembly below):  The junction had started leaking pretty bad, so I think to myself: "Ok this shouldn't take too long I just need to remove the stuff, go to the hardware store, get new to replace all the gross for 1/2" MIP copper and bob's your uncle!" Well, you might catch what is happening the in that photo. But that T isn't brass, its galvanized, which is screwed into the wall supply which is copper. I get the issue, it LOOKS galvanized, but scratching it with your keys will show its definitely copper. Which explains a LOT of the issues I had had with the water flow for the refrigerator which I can only describe as "ant pissing in the wind" I grab what tools I have, and YouTube on speed dial and get to work. I had to remove some paper towels some asshat had shoved in the wall around the 90 degree fitting screwed into the wall. That totally isn't foreshadowing for what will come later!   YUM!   Then the true fun begins, I wanted to remove the nipple in the wall threaded into a 90 degree fitting to replace with a longer one that will give me more working room to assemble all the fun stuff AND put a cut off in front of the new T. Its not pictured here because I lost my poo poo late afternoon Saturday trying to get it out. But penetrating lubricant and an internal wrench got me through. Which, by the way! Internal Wrenches! That stuff is amazing and I DID NOT KNOW about them until this issue trying to get that nipple out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfYDPhaf0Aw Very useful stuff, and I now have one for all the eventual new fun I am going to do to my house. Now, here is where the fun begins. I get everything "back together" and did some shifting so I have a red for hot and a blue for cold. Had to re-PTFE tape some connections and had to run to the HD like 4 times for parts because I am a new and didn't realize that MIP (male iron pipe) is different from flare. Well I know now! Everything fits! everything works! I have like two little leaks which while sad, is better than what I started with:  Also notice the rear end in a top hat level AC condensate drain slapped in-between this. I.. can't.. even with that one. Well as I am checking for leaks, I find water on the solder side of the joint in the wall where those new paper towels are sitting. I have done all that work, to still need to cut the 90 degree fitting off and redo it. This is a lesson that if it looks like a dumbass did something in the wall, expand your observation radius, you might only be in the eye of the storm. This where I finished up for today. It "works" for moment. And I am "done" working on my house for today, which is all I can ever really say. The wall fitting has me pretty pissed. I want to do it right, and I was shooting for temp fix, but now I am engaged enough to nail this thing straight to hell. ptier fucked around with this message at 21:40 on May 22, 2022 |
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May 22, 2022 21:23
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I'm thinking of getting solar panels on the old domicile. The only solar provider I really know of is Tesla and I have a friend that got an install from them and seems pretty happy. Of course Tesla is not doing solar in our area yet (or ever). I wanted to see if anyone had any good solar providers they might be aware of. I'm trying to do solar with battery backup power for things like power outages which are usually pretty brief (1-3 days at most). So yea, any recs for a company that won't try to lease them to me for 500 years or require a first born or just totally screw me?
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Sep 16, 2022 19:10
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spf3million posted:In our area there are a bunch of smaller companies and a couple nation-wide companies. We went with a smaller local outfit that had good reviews on the various online websites. If you happen to be in the bay area I can give you a referral. I think that makes sense. I’ll do some more digging around here. Unfortunately I’m on the other side of the country. But thank you for the offer.
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Sep 17, 2022 13:05
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DrBouvenstein posted:Not a bad idea to just always have a couple 3/8" and/or 1/2" sharkbite "end cap" fittings lying around for emergencies. Cut off what you have to and shove that fucker on there. I could have used this about 4 days ago. I know whats in my wall! It's 1/2"! It was not 1/2" And I had no 3/8" sharkbites so a night of no water was not fun. But I now know Home Depot's open at 6.
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Sep 20, 2022 20:21
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NomNomNom posted:100%. Not opposed to mixing copper and PEX, just don't want to bury a fitting that's using an o-ring to stay watertight. For me sharkbites are great for quick fix until I can do the real thing, and before I close the wall up if I don't have the needed parts. Also if you are charging the person for the fitting and then straight time, they may not care how much it is ( not awesome, but there ya go).
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Oct 26, 2022 12:48
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I have some squirrel abatement questions. I have a detached garage where the end of a soffit has rotted out. The PO put a piece of wood over it but didn't attach it really and put it on rotting wall so it just... fell out, thanks guys. A family of bushy bastards are using the eaves as their home. What I would like to do is spay something they will hate, and then put an excluder or just cover it up so they won't be able to get back in. My questions are, what is a good deterrent? and does anyone know of an excluder one way door that will cover a 6" by 9" hole (I can make it smaller, but that's what I am starting with)? When we moved into the house there was a squirrel family in our attic and I was able to go up there in the day time when they were outside scare them out and seal the vent they were coming through, but since I don't live in the outside building, I wouldn't want to inadvertantly trap a little bastard in there and then starve it in the walls.
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Oct 30, 2022 15:59
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Can I get a recommendation for exterior paint for wood soffits? I have had my gutters replaced, fascia is fixed but my soffits in a couple of areas need to be torn out and replaced. I have everything figured out there but the paint. I am not well versed in exterior painting ( don't know what I don't know etc.). The best I got is: - white - paint-like - glossy to match and make sure stuff doesn't stick?
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Feb 28, 2023 15:20
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StormDrain posted:You go to the paint store and get exterior paint. Bonus if you bring a sample to match. Straightforward. I like it.
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Feb 28, 2023 15:52
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Do be aware that paint is one of those "you get what you pay for" situations. Cheap paint does not last well. Also, proper surface prep is essential, do not skip it. The surfaces should be clean and dry before you paint or the paint won't adhere. Thank y'all for all the info. Oh yes, my plan is to cut the soffits to fit, take them into my nice-ish garage and paint them after cleaning / light sanding. And I intend to get some quality paint. That's why I was asking about recommendations for exterior paint. e: Danhenge posted:Sherwin Williams' Urethane Trim Enamel is pretty great, but also very expensive. I'll take a look around that level or so. ptier fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Feb 28, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2023 20:45
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Well, time to rant and give everyone else a lesson to learn from me! Gutters. I hate gutters. I live in my 1963 brick rancher and we have gutters that are basically from the the same time period. They suck, and when we moved in I band-aided them, with some cheap rear end LowesDepot plastic mesh nonsense. I did not want to remove gutters, nor replace fascia and redo the gutters. So I decided to pay someone. ( This was my first mistake). I went online and looked around, did some YouTube research, and came back with leaf filter ( steel micro mesh really) as the best choice. Everyone was screaming just to do it yourself AND leaf filter as a company was horrible because they promised grandma that she would never have to send grandpa to the roof to clean a gutter again. I knew that was a lie, and the sales bro who gave me the whole deal didn't go with that one, that you will have to blow some poo poo off it every now and again. I was prepped for it, and I didn't care tooooo much about paying extra for the dudes to do the needful. Everything seemed very up and up. Mistake #2! I didn't measure the fascia myself. So the sales bro who mostly used to do loan originations measured and eyeballed as a 1x6 (it was not, and in fact was a 1x5). So, the day laborers who do actual work get here and slap out some gutters. They are quick, clean etc. It was also raining like an rear end in a top hat and they just went on doing their thing. So, I didn't get a chance to jump up on the roof before they left with my check ( Mistake #3!) I finally had some time to get back up there and start measuring for soffit and rake replacement (it got a little soft near the end of the rake). And LOW AND BEHOLD. 1. They tore 3 of my shingles removing the old fascia. This honestly did not bother me too much. I probably would have done it also, and at the absolute worst, the some roof grade sealant would make me not care anymore. 2. Upon further inspection however, I found the atrocities. The fascia is too wide, and instead of stopping what they were doing and solving the problem correctly, they matched it to the bottom of the other fascia, and let it rise up pushing the shingles all the way up, and also mounted the gutter too high on the fascia so that it pushed it up even more.   looking at a place where some fascia was replaced right next to original will show it well:   You can see it pushed up hard core. 3. But also, in the "normal" area, it still is too high for the shingles. Like the WHOLE point was that they didn't push the drat shingles up and "void the warranty"  . I don't think it's that bad out front, but I will need to look again. I was looking for damage not dumbassery. So, where I am now: I have gotten in touch to see what the hell they want to do, but they may ( I haven't had a chance to follow up so hard last week because of work ) have ghosted me. Which will not end well for them. I'm going to start calling outside the group I'm talking to and make a stink out the rear end. I feel like every time the lesson I learn is "do it yourself, NO ONE cares about your poo poo except you". I may also just not have good luck with people ( and this one was admittedly my fault for going with poo poo brand X). So please, point and laugh and enjoy my teeth grinding.
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Mar 7, 2023 00:06
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devicenull posted:Ah, good to see you went with the bird nest upgrade I am a friend of birbs! PainterofCrap posted:Write letters or email. Calling will do no good. You need a paper trail. Update: I should be having a phone conversation today about it with a person. I will be getting email to keep in contact. They really don't like using those ( looked and sales bro email is his personal gmail). I think the extra pictures I sent yesterday peaked their interest. EDIT: Jeez looking at those pictures, I really need to do some rake repairs followed by a scrape and paint. It was the plan, after the gutters... but more so as I look at those. oof. But 60 years ain't bad. Update 2: Phone call went well. They agree it's poo poo, but for some reason wasn't seeing the fascia above the roof line as a problem. But I don't think they saw the picture right. I sent them the a new pic with drawn on colors and hopefully I'll get that cleared too.  So far Saturday they will be back out to fix all the things. And I will be hopping on the ladder to check it this time damnit. ptier fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 15:07
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meatpimp posted:I use an old FLIR One attached to like an iphone 5. Cheapest entry into thermal and I haven't needed anything more. +1 for the FLIR One. Comes in iPhone and Android flavors.
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Mar 8, 2023 18:54
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ptier posted:I am a friend of birbs! So update on this: Seemingly they will be out on Saturday to “fix the gutters and they are aware of the fascia situation so they can take care of it.” whatever the hell that means. My guess is there will be a 50/50 chance I get into a yelling match. But whatever. Fix my poo poo.
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Mar 9, 2023 01:34
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VelociBacon posted:You're much better off instead of yelling (which won't fix anything and will give them a reason to not come back due to verbal aggression) to get everything in writing, like right now I'd be looking for a written statement acknowledging that this was not done correctly and their statement of intent to rectify the issue, in as much detail as you can get from them. That I have. I followed up with restating the issue and their solution and got an affirmative in writing. I don’t actually think I’ll get into a shouting match. I don’t lose my poo poo at people as a rule and calmly restate my issues and work toward resolution.
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Mar 9, 2023 02:09
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ptier posted:So update on this: RE: Gutters installed quite poorly, fascia is to blame. And alls well that ends well. The guys no showed Saturday which was dumb, but they didn't have my number and only go through the PM who didn't answer any calls yesterday so not their fault. But they showed up today at 5:30pm, saw the problem of the fascia being too high, tore that poo poo down, redid it to satisfaction ( I checked ) and rolled out. They were straight up with me and no BS. Now I get to move on to soffits and rakes and molding oh my! Bonus Content: Sometimes when someone paints over the top of a light switch cover its not because they were lazy, it's because the cover has load bearing paint and the drywall hole was too big. So they were lazy in a different way! Thanks PO. But, a trip to bLowes, two new switches and a jumbo cover later and all is well. It was just as well since the switches were REAL squishy and original to the house.
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Mar 13, 2023 00:06
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Need a little advice on ceilings. We had our HVAC redone including new duct work over a year ago. Old stuff was real gross so I'm happy with the final product. BUT. The guys had to increase the holes for the ducting to get through. They did it with a ... less than stellar process with a sawsall / template.   I don't care that much about it because I am going to be repainting the house anyways. However, long after they left, I finally see the real damage of a sawsall run against drywall with some plaster on top with LAYERS of paint on top of that:   I've had some of these cracks before in other rooms and I fixed them by chipping off everything that was loose until I got down to solid stuff, then using joint compound ( usually it was just the surface plaster + paint and not anything deeper ) evened it out and then painted. I wanted to see if anyone had a "better" way to clean up and repair stuff like this. My googling and YouTubing just found a bunch of "here is how to fix normal rear end drywall" videos.
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Mar 14, 2023 18:01
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PainterofCrap posted:I carried 4x8 sheets of plywood in an '86 Escort LX hatchback. 1999 Plymouth with all the seats out could take a 4x8 nicely. Like slid right in like someone designed it specifically to handle 4x8 sheet goods. The lumber yard loader said it was the best pickup truck he had seen in years.
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Mar 29, 2023 10:54
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Verman posted:I bought the EZ On stainless mesh gutter guards from costco and installed them a year or two ago shortly after we moved in. We get a lot of sticks, pine needles, and leaves on our roof, to the point that our gutters were clogged when we moved in. The gutter guards need an occasional sweep off but thankfully my roof is low and pretty flat so its easy to hop up and clean them off. With an extension pole, they make a brush that you can clean your guards with from the ground. This. We got the name brand bullshit, which was more expensive than I would have liked, but whatever. Every storm so far, water keeps flowing. I do need to get up on the roof and blow off all the used sperm sacks from my oaks, but as long as the water flows and doesn't rot out my soffits its a win-win. Since the previous YEARS before we bought our house didn't do that, I am currently replacing all the 1960's soffits now they they stay dry. ( kill me). ptier fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Jul 7, 2023 |
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Jul 7, 2023 14:02
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emocrat posted:Thanks for the faucet advice everyone. Got a 400 ish one from Fergusen and it is installed and working. Hooray. Sweet! I ended up getting a delta from them and man is it nice. The contractor grade faucet rusted completely out after about 4 years after we moved in. Rusted out and dripped everywhere. Had to cut the screw ring off with a oscillating tool. ptier fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Aug 14, 2023 |
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Aug 14, 2023 20:50
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Motronic posted:4 years is quick, but some water chemistries will do that and makes buying something quality even more important. Well, doesn't help that the cartridge started to leak, and I didn't notice until it was WAY too far past bad. It was hot trash anyways. Not even a brand on it.
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Aug 14, 2023 20:59
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GlyphGryph posted:Glad I went in person, apparently half inch (brass) is a very different size from half inch (compression). I knew the straight thread was different from tapered but didnt realize that even for straight threads there were different types. As someone who has 3/8ths copper to all of my appliances, I feel this in my bones.
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May 13, 2024 19:39
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Is there any particular software anyone uses for tile layout? I am using Visio right now, and its not too bad, but I just want to see what's out there. I am going to do a backsplash for our kitchen, and I want to be able to layout a couple of different sizes of tile ( whichever ones my wife likes ). Meandering story: During the pandemic we were locked in our house as you do, and we measured and bought some tile. However, I think there was too much COVID drinking because I only bought 20 sheets, where the math just worked out to 19 sheets and 1 row. And that is if none are broken ( a couple of the single tiles on the sheets are ). It makes me SUPER nervous to do babby's second tile job and have almost NO spares incase I drop / loose / break with my goof hands.
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May 16, 2024 20:21
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Have a quick question here about adhesion as it relates to joint compound. I am patching some fallen paint / compound with new joint compound before painting. The TL:DR version is that when dudes put in new HVAC vents, they needed to make the holes bigger. They did so with a sawzall. In places where it has been painted a million times instead of the normal plaster, the top layer of paint / smoothing compound detached and started to peel away (The picture is after I popped off everything that has detached until it was wasn't coming away anymore):  When I am applying new compound, I was going over the edges with a wet sponge (this is level 1, when it semi-dried I was going to put a second coat on to smooth it all out) and I guess the sponge pulled harder than the old plaster and started pulling pieces off:  Is my compound too dry? I mixed it until it was basically like chocolate pudding so it would be easy to work with, but should I wet sponge the area first? Also basic old house info: - Built 1963 - The ceiling "appears" to be 1/4 in drywall + 1/4 plaster + smoothing compound + paint. (At least that's what it was in my bed room when I put my knee through the ceiling from the attic and had to do a patch job real fast). ptier fucked around with this message at 16:40 on May 26, 2024 |
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May 26, 2024 16:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:If it's a really sensitive area where moisture is going to pull more poo poo off you can straight up sand it. As in, sanding block, not wet sanding with a sponge. Let it dry all the way and sand flush. Sirotan posted:Looks like rock lath to me. My condolences. I had to repair the ceiling in my living room that was also rock lath and you will likely need to keep peeling off the plaster layer that has separated until you get to a point where it's still well adhered. That or score the plaster farther out from that damaged area and break it off up to that point, then fill it all back in. It helps if you moisten the gypsum layer a little before adding your fresh joint compound. There will be a lot of sanding. I'm sorry. Well, my fears are confirmed, I have done this in other areas in the house but none so dumb as the kitchen. I have dealt with this enough that I have a dewalt sander with vaccum attachment. I just now know it will get yet another work out!
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May 26, 2024 16:55
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