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novamute posted:So I'm in the process of trying to get some vegetables growing in my backyard and the existing "landscaping" which I want to replace with a garden is basically just two trees surrounded by bark mulch. In the process of digging out the bark mulch I discovered that it is covering a weed barrier fabric and then underneath that is "soil" that is basically just river rocks packed together. Looks like it was filled in with rocks to level it out before they dumped the bark on it or something. Any better way to handle this than using a pickaxe to try and break them up a bit at a time and slowly shoveling them into a big fuckoff pile of rocks so that I can get some real dirt in there? I think trying to run any kind of tiller through there to break stuff up is just going to gently caress up the tiller blades so that probably isn't an option. Raised beds, man. Just plop some raised beds down anywhere, put good gardening soil in them, and grow your veggies in them. They're way nicer anyway, you don't have to get on your knees on the ground to weed or pull out carrots or whatever, you can move them around if you want, you can run irrigation to them without too much issue using just a long hose or something, you can put wire over your seedlings if you need to keep them safe from critters, and you can leave your multi-layered landscaping foundation stuff alone.
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May 5, 2016 00:22
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QuarkJets posted:I lined it with garden cloth, which is basically just porous plastic; that should keep dirt in but let water out. But it's not going to perfectly separate those things Make sure your raised bed is made of something that won't leach anything into the soil you're growing food in. For example, most pressure-treated wood is not suitable for growing food. So is most paint, a lot of different wood stains, etc. If you're just growing flowers then w/e of course. Drainage of some kind is useful, though. The best approach for a food-growing planter is probably to line it with nonpermeable food-safe plastic, but then add a few evenly-spaced drain holes, and deal with whatever comes out of those holes specifically.
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May 5, 2016 21:11
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My 3 bedroom 1.5 bath house is 1188 square feet. It's in a neighborhood full of similarly-sized houses full of families with two, three, and four kids. Whether a house "seems small" has as much to do with perceptions as square feet, and then another aspect is how well the house was laid out for usability. A lot of houses are poorly designed and waste a lot of square footage on poo poo like hallways. Some people have formal dining rooms, others don't. Staircases consume square footage too. If you have a laundry room in your home instead of hookups in the garage that can be another hundred square feet. Etc. etc. Lots of people feel more comfortable with more space, that's fine. Where folks take issue is when we're living very reasonably in 1200 square feet and someone pops in to declare that they "need" twice as much space. "Need" is a loaded word. Americans are generally massively wasteful, some of us are acutely aware of that wastefulness, and it's not a terrible thing to remind people - politely - that the standard American perception of what we "need" is actually grossly conspicuous luxury compared to how most of humanity lives, including in other developed countries. Especially in BFC, because one of the persistent problems that people have with regards to managing their financing, is being unable to clearly delineate between actual needs, and luxuries.
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May 10, 2016 00:34
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couldcareless posted:We just switched insurances. The new agency called me up yesterday about sending out someone to do an inside and outside inspection tomorrow. Our last company did not do this, relying on on drive by inspections. Make sure your smoke detectors are installed correctly and that you also have a carbon monoxide detector. My insurance agent told me when I switched providers recently that the new one basically only sent out the inspector to see those.
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May 12, 2016 05:23
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Brigdh posted:Yes, you could smash a window, but then at-least I'll have no problems filing a claim with my insurance. Are you suggesting that if someone entered your home and stole stuff, and you had left the door unlocked, that your insurance company might refuse to pay out? I don't know this for a fact but I'd be very surprised if an insurance company can get out of a burglary claim by claiming you failed to adequately secure your house. Short of leaving the door wide open with a big sign saying "FREE STUFF, COME ON IN AND TAKE WHAT YOU WANT," going into a private residence and taking things is still theft no matter the condition (or lack of) locks.
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May 16, 2016 04:41
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QuarkJets posted:It's really going to depend on your policy. This blogger seems to think that some insurers will refuse a claim if it looks like there was no sign of forced entry, and I really don't find that surprising at all. That blogger is posting about London, so I assume he's referring to UK law. After I posted above, I spent a few minutes looking around, and saw multiple assertions that in the US, insurers absolutely do not and can not put in limitations on their policies of this kind, and it's been this way for decades. I have not found much in the way of completely verifiable legal opinions, but I've seen posts by people claiming to be insurance agents, adjusters, and lawyers, and they generally agree that policies cannot include a 'test' of security, and that you can even leave home with your door standing wide open and that still doesn't get them out of paying out a claim. On the other hand, installing and using an effective security system can get you an insurance discount. And I could see an insurance company canceling your policy (perhaps retroactively) if you're claiming a home security system discount, but then they discover that you disabled or removed your system and didn't update them. I agree with you in general that insurance companies use every tool they have, to avoid paying out claims, though.
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May 16, 2016 22:16
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This goes directly to the definition of the word "negligence." Generally for insurance it means something like "how a normal person would act," which is itself somewhat wishy-washy. When it comes to burglary, I do not know if courts have determined that (say) leaving a door unlocked is negligent. Perhaps it would be negligent in a neighborhood where everyone locks their doors, but would not be negligent in a neighborhood where ordinary "reasonable people" leave their doors unlocked? I'm failing to pull up obvious case law, but IANAL so that's not surprising. e. I've decided to ask about this in the legal questions megathread. my post Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:55 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 22:45
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No doubt. For me, security is more about trying not to have my poo poo stolen, and less about trying to make sure my insurance company can't weasel out of a claim, but the latter isn't a completely dismissable idea and that's why I'm looking into it. I have a preconceived notion about what is and isn't negligence, but it's not well-founded and worth learning more about.
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May 16, 2016 23:03
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minivanmegafun posted:Also there's nothing "thankful" about the break being under your sidewalk instead of in the street-if it was in the street it would be the city's problem (and at least in Chicago they're pretty prompt about fixing broken sewer lines). Not necessarily. I know (because I checked) that I'm responsible for the entire run of my sewer line until it joins the main, which runs down the middle of the street, and my line runs at an angle to it. So I own about 30 or 40 feet of sewer line under the street, and if I ever want to replace it, I will have to pay for the street excavation and repair. Or more accurately, I will pay for trenchless sewer replacement, because gently caress that. e. This is in California, and I think it probably varies by state/municipality/sewer district/etc.
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May 17, 2016 00:41
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Got a reply about the liability vs. locks question:Phil Moscowitz posted:As you say this is going to be very state-by-state and I doubt you will be able to get a solid answer on this that applies to more than one state. Certainly not any specific case law that is good anywhere but in the state you are in. My take on this is, don't leave your door standing wide open, but otherwise you're probably fine and don't need to worry about a denied insurance claim on the basis that, say, you forgot to lock your back door, or your locks were kind of crap, or something like that. But still do get good locks if you think your neighborhood calls for them.
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May 20, 2016 00:29
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QuarkJets posted:I'm going back inside because it's probably cold or hot outside and grilling hardly requires spending any time standing next to the grill, a hypothetical outdoor TV wouldn't change that I know that you are trying to obliquely make some kind of point about people loving around with the food on their grill way too much when they're grilling, but you gotta understand that grilling isn't an American passtime just because it tastes good. Having a barbecue is a social event and tending to the grill is part of the ritual. You stand there in your dumb KISS THE COOK apron holding a big fork and watch the fire and rearrange the sausages and drink a beer and you are doing the thing. It is not a terrible thing to have a covered outdoor area to socialize in while doing it, and if you have a giant TV to play sports on while you're at it, all the better. This sort of activity is portrayed commonly enough in American media that I have a hard time believing you're actually confused by it, so OK, yes, people usually mess with their steaks way too much when they're grilling and they should knock it off, are you happier now?
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May 23, 2016 23:45
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 NOOOO YOU STUPID BASTARD! GO INSIDE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!
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May 23, 2016 23:47
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Those particular idiot birds, which we have also had to deal with, will keep nesting in the same drat spot no matter how many baby birds they lose until you physically prevent them. In our case, the little babies would reach their fledgling stage, take their first test flight down to the ground, and promptly be eaten by a neighborhood cat. Over and over and over, sad little piles of feathers in the yard. We eventually had to construct a cardboard... thing... roof, I guess? Slanted roof, over the security light on the side of the house they had chosen as their permanent cat feeding position.
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May 24, 2016 05:34
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Zhentar posted:If the nest is empty (no eggs, no babies in it), it's generally okay to remove it, though if it belonged to a species that has more than one brood a year it may prevent them from raising additional broods. Yeah basically there's nothing in that bird's many millions of years of evolution that would ever make it need to adapt to a situation where it's nest full of eggs got moved to a different location many yards away. So its instinct is to find its nest right where it left it... or not, if the nest got raided by a predator. And humans with eyes on the front of their faces are visually keyed as predators. That said, it's just a mourning dove. They're not endangered, they're prolific breeders, and they'll be OK. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:50 on May 24, 2016 |
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May 24, 2016 18:48
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Inverse Icarus posted:I'm looking into converting one of my side yards from an overgrown patch of weeds and dog crap into a fenced off area for raised beds of vegetables. I shall now consider a potato mound. The problem I have with growing potatoes is that they're just about the cheapest food you can buy. So you're gonna go to a lot of manual labor in order to save yourself like $20 on potatoes. The solution is probably to grow weird heirloom potato varieties or something.
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May 25, 2016 22:26
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When you replace your roof, get a white roof. It will probably save you a lot on energy bills during the summer.
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Jun 18, 2016 00:38
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Have you considered a self-propelled push mower? Your lawn is sloped but it really isn't all that huge. If your "push" mower had driven wheels, so you're not having to shove it uphill, would that be good enough? You can get a decent one for $400-$600ish, depending on features and it'll be a lot easier to store. Example: a $600 Honda with free shipping from Home Depot: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Honda-21-in-Variable-Speed-Self-Propelled-4-in-1-Lawn-Mower-with-Select-Drive-Control-HRX217K5VKA/205494644 I only mention it because a riding mower is totally overkill for .2 acres of lawn. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jun 21, 2016 |
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Jun 21, 2016 19:45
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My lawn mower is a plugin, and my trimmer is a Ryobi hybrid - I can run it off a battery pack or plug it in. I got an extra large battery for it anyway because the small one it came with isn't enough to do my front + back. Also my "lawn" is now about 80% weeds, but I just mow it down anyway and let it die all summer because I'm in California. Sooner or later I'm going to take advantage of the incentives offered by the local water district + the state to replace the "lawn" with native plants anyway. I just have other more urgent home improvement projects to get to first.
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Jun 23, 2016 18:23
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a shameful boehner posted:So I bought my house a few years ago for $240k with a $228k note. Over the last two years, the principal of the loan has reduced to $218,000, while the (Zillow) estimated value of the home has increased to approximately $298,000. Yes, and this is exactly what I did. You will have to pay for an appraisal, and probably the bank will want to pick out who does it. note that Zillow can be wildly inaccurate with its "zestimate" algorithm, which seems to be really stupid. For example mine tends to account for sales of nearby apartments as if they were SFHs and that can pull down estimates in my neighborhood during winter, when fewer houses sell. Meanwhile a house on a corner lot with a much bigger yard sold recently and pulled up all the values in my neighborhood, even those with normal-sized lots.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:36
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A basic HE frontloader works fine. I've had mine for like 8 years? It's a Kenmore model 417.something. Top loaders with agitators tear up your clothes more and have lower capacities, and you can't shove big blankets in there.
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Jul 8, 2016 01:17
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/\/\/\Don't do this with a live outlet. In theory you can gently caress around inside an outlet without electrocuting yourself, but in practice if it's old, improperly done, or there's some problem, it's not safe. Turn off power to the circuit before you do anything beyond removing the faceplate. Replacing outlets is very easy. You need to have access to the circuit breaker panel, though, because you absolutely must turn off power to every outlet you're going to work on, and in a shared building it'd be better if you can secure the panel while you're working (that is, proactively lock out everyone else but you from turning those breakers back on). You will need: a non-contact voltage tester. They look like this:  Each time you work on an outlet, you verify your tester is working (test it first on a line or outlet that is live) and then verify that the outlet and wires you're about to touch are not live. You will also need a flathead screwdriver. A wire stripper may also prove useful, although you can make do with a sharp knife. You should open up the outlet you're going to work on, pull stuff out and take a cell phone picture, just so you have something to refer to if the wires wind up being confusing. Evaluate whether the wiring is fine and you can just swap in a new outlet, or if the wiring is hosed in some way. Assuming everything is fine, you can just disconnect the wires from the old outlet and connect them to the new one. New outlets are cheap. Most or all of your outlets are 15A. You should install new, 15A, tamper-resistant outlets. You may want in some or all cases to upgrade to GFCI outlets for added protection: in some locations that is required by code, including kitchen and bathroom outlets. It doesn't hurt to use them everywhere. If you are at all uncertain, there's the DIY Wiring thread. Don't electrocute yourself or burn your house down. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 22, 2016 |
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Jul 22, 2016 19:48
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Tamper resistant receptacles are required by code since 2014. You can maybe argue that you're not doing "renovation" and therefore can swap like-for-like, and there are areas that aren't required to have them: http://ecmweb.com/qampa/stumped-code-conductors-tamper-resistant-receptacles-raceways quote:Q. Where are tamper-resistant receptacles required? That said, if you are going to replace receptacles, just use the tamper resistant ones because they're safer anyway. But don't do electric work on your apartment without even discussing it with your landlord because you'll be potentially taking on liability. Also note that you should only use three-prong receptacles where you have an actual ground, or in nongrounded outlets you should use a GFCI 3-prong outlet. Otherwise you are violating code and creating a hazard by giving the impression an outlet is grounded when it isn't.
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Jul 22, 2016 21:24
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Capt. Awesome posted:a ridiculous 100+ everyday heatwave A/C units are most likely to break when it's super hot, because that's when they're operating at maximum capacity under maximum stress for long stretches of the day. It is still a bit of a coincidence but if they're of similar ages and manufacture it's not that shocking.
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Jul 23, 2016 05:23
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Also that applying insulation to an outside wall or to the roof requires a vapor barrier. You can insulate your attic space if you want, there's proper ways to do that. But it's more than just shoving insulation between roof joists and calling it a day.
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Jul 28, 2016 20:50
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You can schedule your utility company to come and pull the meter, if you don't have a master shutoff above the breaker panel. An exterminator can then take care of the wasps. As an aside, poisons are useful when you need to kill bugs you can't see - like ants, which have an underground nest. But when you're spraying directly onto insects, don't bother with expensive poison, you can kill any insect or spider with nothing more than soapy water. The soap acts as a surfactant which allows the water to coat their exoskeleton, and they immediately suffocate.
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Aug 1, 2016 18:09
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BeastOfExmoor posted:So, long story short, the previous owner of my house was leasing the hot water heater from the local energy company and did not disclose this until a couple days before closing when they offhandedly mentioned it to me while I was dropping off some money for some furniture we were buying from them. At that time they told me it was like $2 a month and that they come out and replace it at any point if it fails. Seemed like a good deal for that money, but we finally got the lease in our hands and the actual price is over $14 a month, not nearly as good of a deal. I would ask the previous owners to cancel their lease (and pay whatever cost is associated with that) and then just go ahead and buy whatever heater you want.
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Aug 2, 2016 21:50
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I use a combo of a mini shop vac for hardwood floors, and a 20 year old upright bag hoover I bought for $50 when it was new for carpets, and they work fine. And I have six cats. That said, when I was a kid my folks had a Rainbow and holy poo poo that thing was great. Dumping out the water was gross, but there was zero dust involved, ever, and it never broke down, either. e. I kind of want to get an upright that can do steam cleaning, though, just to actually wash the hardwood floors (they're sealed with varethane so they're totally waterproof anyway) because that might be easier than mopping after vacuuming.
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Aug 4, 2016 19:54
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SiGmA_X posted:What do you all think about mulching vs bagging? My folks always had me bag as a kid and I've done that in my adult life in rentals too. I mulch a little in order to build up a reasonable thatch, and then bag the rest and put it into the composter. Then again I don't give a poo poo and at this point my "lawn" is like 80% weeds, plus I'm in California so it's currently closely-cropped dead weeds and maybe some grass. (Lawns are stupid and bad and I'm going to get rid of mine and I encourage everyone else who is allowed to, to do the same.)
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Aug 4, 2016 21:01
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Due to obstacles and how much time it takes to empty and clean it, we stopped bothering with our roomba. Our scooba, on the other hand, owns. Kitchen and dinette have a lot less obstacles (just move the dinette chairs), are easier to close off, and we sweep in there regularly but mopping is more of a chore to do by hand. It won't scrape food gunk off the floor but it's good at normal mopping and the floor dries after faster since it sucks up the dirty water. Emptying just involves a dump and rinse which to me is less onerous than pilling hair and crap out of the roomba's innards after every use. Honestly though if we hadn't gotten both for free as gifts I wouldn't have been happy with the return on investment. The time savings are minimal due to the constant manual maintenance, and if you spend two or three hundred on a good upright with steam cleaning and attachments etc you are getting vastly better cleaning. They're kind of fun toys and if you are a lottle obsessed about keeping your floors spotless, running one once or twice a week lets you only do manual vacuuming once every couple of weeks which is probably a reasonable tradeoff.
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Aug 6, 2016 16:43
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daggerdragon posted:^ New thread subtitle, please. I actually tried seeding my "lawn" with clover one year, but I guess I didn't water enough the first week because it mostly didn't come up. Some of it came up this spring, actually, but it kept raining on the weekends so I didn't wind up mowing until some of it was really big, and I think mowing it killed it (again?). In any case clover/grass mix is very good because the clover helps to fertilize the grass, apparently. I love clover because bees love it, too. But generally it's not drought tolerant enough anyway. I want natives, which can handle the weeks of mid-80s to high-90s heat we get all summer without having to be watered daily. My plan is to dig up my irrigation system (which has at least one leak, somewhere, and is just a sprinkler system anyway), install an in-ground drip system to replace it, cover everything with amended soil, then cardboard as a weed barrier, then mulch, and then plant natives through it. I'll be fixing the (total absence of) roof drainage to the street at the same time, and replacing the ugly stacked pavers barrier at the sidewalk (my ground grades down to the sidewalk maybe a foot or two from the house to the street) with lava rock or something (I'd prefer a low brick wall but my wife wants lava rock and she's probably getting her way). We get some good rebates here for converting from a lawn to a drought-tolerant low-water system, so I should get some cash back against the cost of doing all of the above. My scooba runs on kitchen tile and bathroom marble flooring. We do not have kids, and we scrape up any stuck food in the kitchen first, because it really only "washes" the floor, it does not scrub it. I mop by hand occasionally too, just to get the good scrubbing in. We ran out of scooba juice ages ago and I'm lazy so I just follow the recommendation in the booklet to use white vinegar instead, which seems to work OK. The thing to do with loads of fruit is make jam, preserves, or juice them. Especially poorer-quality fruits. My neighbor brought us a five gallon bucket of fairly unappetizing apples and we turned it all into really good apple butter. We give away jars of jam and pickles as christmas gifts for friends and extended family members, which reduces how much money we spend on christmas to just the larger gifts focused on immediate family.
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Aug 9, 2016 01:51
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plus tax) that said it would be sufficient for 5-10 acres. I have 0.13 acres. I used a hand-crank seed distributor and spewed the whole bag, instructions be damned. Fast-forward to this year, we've got a major drought, the grass is patchy and dead-looking, yet the clover is growing hog wild and my place looks better than my neighbors' brown-rear end lawns. Bonus: I've only had to mow twice all year and that was only to keep the clover from getting any ideas on world domination.
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mastershakeman posted:So I have a ton of old 2 prong outlets throughout the house. We've also just started baby proofing everything and the slide covers won't fit on these old outlets. You have a project, and you have some options. GFCI is a good idea to improve safety when you do not have a grounded outlet. If, when you open up your outlet boxes, you find that the metal box inside is actually grounded (which may be the case), you can just install three-prong outlets instead of GFCI - although in some locations such as bathrooms, kitchen counters, and anywhere near a sink, you have to do GFCI to bring it up to code anyway. A GFCI outlet can also be grounded, and that gets you the best of both worlds. Regardless, each outlet you put in should be a tamper-resistant outlet. These have little doors on the inside over the two prongs, and are designed so that the doors only open together - that is, there's a physical barrier that prevents anyone from sticking something into just one of the two prongs. Tamper-resistant is required by code now, at least in new construction, but if you go to home depot or whatever, the majority of outlets available aren't the tamper-resistant type, which I find bizarre. Tamper-resistant outlets do cost slightly more than non-, but the cost per outlet is so low anyway that there's not much excuse not to do it. I'm seeing them online for as little as two dollars! And GFCI costs substantially more, but still I see some online for under ten dollars each, so that's still quite cheap as far as home improvement costs go. A GFCI outlet on a circuit protects all other outlets "downstream" on that same circuit. So, many people will correctly tell you that all you need to do is put a GFCI on the first outlet on a given circuit. But, that won't get you a three-pronged outlet downstream, nor will it get you the upgrade to tamper-resistant. So, what I would recommend is to replace the first outlet on every circuit with a tamper-resistant GFCI, and then replace the other outlets with: -A tamper-resistant regular three-prong outlet, if the box behind the outlet is grounded (so you can have a grounded outlet) -A tamper-resistant two-prong outlet if the box is not grounded and you don't care about plugging in three-prong cords into that outlet -A tamper-resistant three-prong GFCI outlet if the box behind the outlet is not grounded and you want to plug three-prong items into that outlet You can hire an electrician to do all this, but it's not that hard. If you DIY, you need to make sure you understand how to turn off the power, you need a non-contact tester that you understand how to use to verify that power is off at any outlet before you open it up (they're like fifteen bucks), and you should get yourself a wire stripper. For materials you need the outlets, some wire nuts of the correct size, and if you need to add wire anywhere, you'll need the appropriate-gauge wire - typically 14 or 12 gauge (match whatever gauge is in use). The wiring and electricity thread can help if you get stuck.
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Sep 4, 2016 18:21
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My hot water heater already runs on gas, so it'll be easy to replace it with tankless when it finally dies.QuarkJets posted:One question though, why would you need wire nuts to replace an outlet? Isn't it just a matter of moving the same wires from the old outlet to the new outlet? Others gave you some good answers. But in my case, it's because none of the existing wiring joins in my house were done using wire nuts: they were all just twisted together and covered in electrical tape. My wiring is from 1958, although some of it looks like maybe 1970s era stuff. I also think wire nuts are so cheap that it's worthwhile replacing them whenever you do work. Probably the old ones are fine, but a big box of assorted wire nuts is like five bucks, so  if there's any advantage at all to using a brand new one, it's worthwhile.I also had to extend the pigtails on almost every outlet I touched, because there was generally no extra slack whatsoever. I guess in 1958 they didn't believe in leaving extra? Who knows.
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Sep 6, 2016 21:20
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Just make sure you have large enough natural gas pipes. That is the biggest issue I saw when I researched putting one in. You need a lot more gas to heat water on the fly than over time in a tank. Hmm. Well, I don't know how large my gas pipes are, but fortunately, my stepdad is a retired pipefitter and my brother is an apprentice pipefitter so between the two of them, I expect I can get it sorted out. ...also I'm gonna set up a gas forge one of these days, so that's another reason to get my natural gas delivery tubes assessed and upgraded appropriately.
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Sep 6, 2016 23:02
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Subjunctive posted:Also: are there minimally-invasive (read: not opening drywall) options for dealing with "it takes a full minute for hot water to get to this tap"? The shower in the same room seems to heat up much faster, possible because of pipe size maybe? I'm not good at house. Well, it depends on where your water pipes go. You said you have a basement, if the water pipe from your hot water heater to your various faucets runs along the basement ceiling, then hey, you can easily insulate it! But if it goes somewhere else, that could be harder to access. Basically this isn't rocket science, you want to wrap your hot water pipes in insulating foam, but that's never going to be as good as having the hot water heater/tankless heater closer to where your faucets are. For $more you can replace metal pipes with PEX or whatever. Metal takes a lot more energy to heat up so it will cool the water for longer. Plastic pipes will suck away less heat as the water flows through them.
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Oct 7, 2016 20:44
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Hardwired generally just means it doesn't need a primary battery, although I think some hardwired smoke detectors have one anyway so they'll still work if the power goes out. Networked smoke detectors can be just connected to one another, or possibly to a whole-house fire alarm system, which in turn may or may not be tied into a security system, and from there possibly to a monitoring company, e.g., you pay for a subscription monitor co to alert the fire dept when your alarms go off. Regardless, all smoke detectors have limited lifetimes so eventually you'll need to replace the one in the living room. If you don't know how old it is, you should probably find out - there should be a sticker on or inside it somewhere. If you still can't tell, or if it's more than ten years old, replace it. If you can't borrow or rent a 15' ladder, hire someone to do it.
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Oct 13, 2016 00:14
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Networked, more easily tied into a whole house fire alarm/security system, and most of the time even if the battery is dead they'll still work because usually the power is on.
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Oct 14, 2016 21:27
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As a rule, plan to put on two coats. You probably don't need to prime over light colors. If you do find you need to prime over something, Kilz primer will go over just about anything. Kilz + two coats of normal interior semi-gloss or matte latex paint might cost less than two coats of really expensive "covers everything" latex, but it might not, it really depends on what you're buying.
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Oct 17, 2016 18:51
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The manufacturer offers plumbers an exclusive item that is a marginal "upgrade" over the consumer unit. This gives the plumber the ability to honestly claim the unit they sell (at a substantial markup) is better, which lets the plumber pocket more money. The manufacturer benefits, because it gets more plumbers to market their products (instead of a competitor's). The plumber benefits, because he gets to pocket more money while feeling OK about it because he sold the customer a better product. But the consumer loses. Because this arrangement is instead of the manufacturer offering the upgraded product for customers to buy directly, in a marketplace where pricing is more competitive. Instead, the consumer has to either buy a less-good product, or pay a plumber a large premium for the marginal upgrade. So, as a consumer, if you are most interested in your own interests, you should seek a similar product from a competing brand; or, buy the cheaper product, or even buy a more expensive product at competitive consumer-level pricing. (Of course, your plumber might not agree to install a part she didn't sell you, but I bet you can find a plumber who will.) If you are most interested in your plumber's best interests, feel free to pay them for the upgraded tank... and I'm not being facetious, we do need plumbers and plumbers need to make a living wage. Of course, they could instead offer consumer parts at consumer prices and just charge more per hour, but customers have a nasty tendency to shop on labor prices while ignoring parts markups, especially when they have no ability to look up the price that the plumber is paying for those parts. For my own part, when my very old but still works-fine hot water heater finally dies, my wife has already decided that we're definitely going tankless and will brook no argument.
Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Dec 6, 2016 |
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Dec 6, 2016 00:01
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I still have not one not two but THREE dish network dishes stuck to my house (i'm on DirecTV). I've been meaning to take them off for almost seven years now. There's also an insane web of coax running all over the place in the crawlspace, on the outsides of the house and roof, and in the attic space. Plus all kinds of garbage phone lines, and random other wires. I'm pretty sure at some point a family subdivided this house (without using walls, just... decided) and had someone living in the garage and they all had independent phone and cable. I have direcTV for tv, but comcast for internet, so I have to keep those wires working, and I'll have to make a series of decisions about which cables to actually remove vs. leave in place for the next home-owner to potentially make use of. gently caress previous owners, god.
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Dec 17, 2016 00:10
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 22:48 |
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No Butt Stuff posted:You need a grill that can make and hold fire. I just pile some sticks in the back yard, set them on fire, and then throw the meat into the blaze. Everything beyond that is frivolous frippery.
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Jan 24, 2017 19:40
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