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Spring Heeled Jack posted:Sharkbite has a kit specifically for replacing those vampire taps, I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now. I'm so excited for our new fridge to arrive in a few months. Can't wait to finally have a chilled water dispenser and ice cube maker  Crossing my fingers and hoping there's no issues with the current fridge before then... this year of all years just had to be the one for cascading appliance failures
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Dec 10, 2020 04:20
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El Mero Mero posted:Check with your utility/local city website. They often will pay for home energy audits for you. I had one done that was quite useful at no cost to myself. Same... when I moved in Columbia Gas was offering home energy audits for something like 100$ and it included a free nest thermostat. Came with a full report on what needed fixed and everything, even without the free thermostat it was wholeheartedly worthwhile
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Dec 22, 2020 23:27
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Hed posted:Just a general comment on the Toto washlets. I have found the Toto stuff to be good but sized for smaller people in terms of aim and points. If you’re a large framed American you will probably want something from Brondell or Biobidet and get a Toto for the wife. My buddy has that exact setup and everyone is happy. YMMV. 6’4 Sasquatch with a Toto C200 checking in—after about 9 months I’m still very much liking it! Here’s the wirecutter article I based the purchase on. We just plugged it into the bathroom wall outlet and haven’t had any problems with it not being on a dedicated circuit. I ran a new dedicated circuit for the wall heater, and I can check the amperage being pulled by the bidet, but there’s not much else on the bathroom circuit besides LED lights and the electric toothbrush charger. I’m not planning on drying my hair while drying my tush, otherwise I don’t expect there’s much draw most of the time.
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Dec 31, 2020 23:22
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Hed posted:That’s great, I’m glad you like it. But are you just comparing that to... no toilet? I’m specifically saying the spray on the BB-2000 is better placed than the Toto for me and a buddy of mine agrees. I own both so I don’t really care about one over the other. The C200 has a fully adjustable spray nozzle with front side, backside, and 5 different positions that effectively emulate being roter-rootered by a carwash. Compared to the plebian ritual of schmearing poo all over dead tree carcasses like cream cheese on a bagel? Yes, it is excellent. Are you comparing the C200 specifically? I’ve not tried other brands, this was a TPocalypse impulse buy for me that coming up on a year later still sparks joy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the BB-2000 is better, this is just a sample size of one. Tezer posted:If I remember right they're considered fixed equipment and max draw needs to be 50% or less of the bathroom circuit (7.5A for a 15A, 10A for a 20A). A non-code compliant install may not trip a breaker, but that doesn't mean it would pass an inspection. This is probably a better question for the electrical thread if anyone is really curious, as I'm going off rusty memories here. I just tell clients that it's going to be another circuit, because they always pick a Kohler or a nicer Toto. For the sake of curiosity I threw my fluke clamp meter on the bidet and dropped a dookie for science. Cold startup heating the seat came to .75 amps in the beginning, briefly peaking 1. When the internal tank’s hot water ran out after ~30 seconds (max spray mode), the load jumped to 2.4 amps (with oscillating and pulsating mode also enabled). After the spray timed out, the load dipped to 2.35 amps. Turning on the heated dryer after the sprayer finished up briefly spiked the current to 3.08 amps, but then it returned back down to 2.35. While running the odor filter and heating the internal tank’s water back to temperature, the amperage briefly spiked at 2.54, but remained fairly consistent around 2.35-2.45. A few minutes later once the internal tank finished heating back up, the current dropped back down, oscillating between .1 and .3 amps (with the seat being pre-warmed). Back of the napkin math says 3 amps peak at 120v is 360 watts, average 288 watts at 2.4 amps. This would be equivalent to having 5-6 incandescent lightbulbs running in one of those old tacky vanity mirrors, or 3-4 box fans running. If I were doing a new build, absolutely, I’d throw a dedicated bidet circuit on there and go nuts. For this particular seat add-on in an old build on a limited bathroom circuit with no other fixed appliances? Not the thing that keeps me up at night. That prize goes to thinking about them weird drains in the basement after I found out my house used to belong to the town’s former mortician. Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jan 1, 2021 |
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Jan 1, 2021 02:27
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pmchem posted:check out this very different way of thinking: There’s another quirk to Japanese housing though, is their zoning policy. Basically cities in the US are becoming absurdly expensive and unaffordable because our zoning policies are not favorable to higher density redevelopment. If an individual isn’t happy that the lot next door has been rezoned for apartment building, they can stall the project with legal challenges etc. It’s the reason why the cost of rail and public transport development is significantly higher in the US compared to other similarly industrialized countries. In Japan, the cost of housing has remained largely flat due to the lack of restrictions on building higher density housing. At the end of the day, homes depreciate while land appreciates. We seem to ignore that when valuing properties over here, or the fact that homes require expensive routine maintenance and do not build equity like realtors like to pretend. Add to that peoples’ lack of understanding of how long it takes to build equity in a house due to principal vs interest balance at the beginning of the loan, and it’s a shitshow of idiocy. I blame the Realtor(tm) cartel for so many of our housing issues. I also blame the institutionalization of property management as so many houses were scooped up for next to nothing during the last economic crisis and turned into investment vehicles to created a pervasive system of disinvestment while funneling value out of communities.
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Jan 1, 2021 22:29
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Queen Victorian posted:From what I understand, it’s really rough on older iron and lead pipes. At my old apartment building (built 1915), maintenance had to add a sleeve to our tub drain pipe (called them after I went into the basement while husband was in the shower and water was just falling out of the ceiling) because a section of it had just disintegrated. Drain cleaner chemicals will exacerbate this badly. We were told to never use Drano and to just call maintenance if our drain got slow so they could snake it (it frequently did because everything would catch in the pocked corroded pipes). From what I understand most newer formulations are enzyme based and won’t damage cast iron pipes like the old stuff. I don’t think there’s any problems using drain opener on a slow drain. But if there’s standing water, yeah, you don’t want to be disassembling a u bend and getting caustic drain cleaner pouring over your hands. The real answer is preventative—tub strainer, sink strainer, garbage disposal, and no flushing sanitary products, congealable fat, or stuff like rice down the drains will solve 90% of problems. The other 8% can be done with a drain snake, and then a plumber for the real lovely stuff like pipe problems or roots
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Jan 3, 2021 08:35
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Sundae posted:I put out a refinance loan info request through Better (god, that was a mistake), and my current lender (Rocket Mortgage) reached out to me about running numbers on a refinance. They literally just tried to grab free money for nothing. I'm at 3.5% right now, and they came back offering 2.75%, for the low low price of $51K. They proposed a massive point buy-down from a starting interest rate of 4.25% (six loving points) as if that was going to convince me that it was worth it to save... $350 per month. Well, that’s the whole point of points right? Make poo poo as confusing as possible within the letter of the law, and most people will happily impale themselves on that sword if you can sell how great it is. It’s been so many years since I’ve had to mess with mortgage stuff so I just had to read up on how points work because I couldn’t remember. And if you start talking about how much lower your rate would be etc etc etc save money, it’s easy to obscure what can be a bad deal for people and get them to sign on the dotted line It’s the same sort of entrapment as variable rates. People struggle to think long term about stuff.
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Jan 9, 2021 04:55
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IOwnCalculus posted:You say that but the most either of my broke-rear end cats did when we had mice get into the house was basically alert us to them by staring at the pantry. That sounds about right. At our last place a chipmunk got in through a window and all of our cats were super scared by it, except for the three legged one, who adopted it as a new friend. She’d hop over, catch it, then let it go, then catch it again. We tried to put a container over the chipmunk but then she just let the poor thing go escape altogether. Wasn’t until we heard the sad wailing at three AM we knew the chungus had accidentally Lennie’d the poor thing
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Jan 12, 2021 12:27
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I think you should name the little guy and get some more clear gerbil tubes so he can roam around and be bffs 
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Jan 12, 2021 15:43
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Nitrousoxide posted:Drove him to a local park about 5 minutes away. This sparks joy
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Jan 13, 2021 04:23
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Queen Victorian posted:Now I’m wondering about the effect of layout on indoor air quality. If you have a traditional closed kitchen with doors that can be shut, would that sufficiently mitigate air quality decline elsewhere in the house? As opposed to an open concept, where the kitchen is completely uncontained. If your house has butler stairs, I really wouldn’t worry about makeup air There’s a reason the state of California slaps cancer warning labels on everything because as it turns out, yeah, basically everything we touch or interact with in our modern daily lives carries some minuscule degree of risk, and in excessive concentrations (eg daily occupational interaction) there may be unanticipated side effects or cancer. I mean hell, we ingest a credit card’s worth of microplastics on a weekly basis and we don’t really know what that’ll mean long term, but I’m not particularly worried because my sedentary lifestyle, horrible diet, and lack of meaningful social interaction is going to kill me wayyyy before the plastic does. Or I’m going to drop my credit card while paying for a parking garage, lean over to pick it up, let my foot off the gas, and inadvertently decapitate myself on the booth. Or I’ll do everything right and then get T-Boned in an intersection because cars are by far and away the most dangerous thing we interact with on a day to day basis and we’ve just grown comfortable with the risk and accepted it. Modern life is full of accepted risks, and on the list of things to be worried about, this is very near the bottom imho. If you have a functional monoxide detector, I’d consider the problem mitigated.
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Jan 23, 2021 14:24
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H110Hawk posted:Return it. They serve no purpose. "some adult male medium height and build in a baseball hat and sunglasses stole my package and drove off in a late model Japanese econobox that I couldn't read the plate on" is the basic summary of those cameras. We’ve never had any issues with package theft, but our doorbell cam has been especially useful on a number of occasions. Recently used it to figure out which of neighborhood kids walked off with some tools the concrete contractors had left sitting beside the truck, so I could go talk to their parents and recover them, also used it to figure out some rear end in a top hat had moved the survey pins on our property and confront him after he denied doing so. It’s also a decent deterrent, and useful to figure out whether whoever rang your doorbell was dropping off a package, is soliciting, or a neighbor asking about something. Honestly I’ve gotten more and better use out of the doorbell cam than my NVR IP camera system, though I think both are important and fulfill different roles.
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Jan 24, 2021 23:31
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Spring Heeled Jack posted:Seriously considering buying an outdoor camera if only to catch the shithead that keeps leaving their dog poo poo in the hell strip out front of my house. Hell yeah, uncontested best use for cameras. I vote you figure it out and return their lost property. Preferably in a paper bag, and preferably on fire. I’m so sick of trashy neighbors leaving their trash in my front garden bed, or leaving the lids off their cans and letting it blow around—that was half the reason I put up a privacy fence last year. I was so sick of finding fast food wrappers and wonder bread bags in my back yard and driveway.
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Jan 27, 2021 03:44
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NomNomNom posted:I just ordered $4k of vinyl fencing to redo my perimeter myself Oh hey, that was my hell all throughout last year! Make sure you’ve got good help, good levels, and if you can someone else to punch out the holes for you with a skidsteer go for that, or get a rental with downward force. Even the tow-behind auger was a lot of work and frequently got stuck on rocks, requiring manual clearing with a post hole digger. The foam post setting stuff worked great, and as an extra level of neurosis I funneled fast set concrete down into the post interior with a traffic cone. One spot I couldn’t dig down deep enough to set a pole because of giant live tree roots, but I was able to auger a hole and drop a T-Post down in there, trim the post and sleeve it over with concrete to reinforce it. And make sure you’ve got a good survey and permit paperwork and pray that some jackass doesn’t decide they made a mistake seven years ago when they surveyed your property, and pull the pins up and shuffle them over without your knowledge while surveying an unrelated property several doors down.
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Feb 11, 2021 03:49
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TerminalSaint posted:Are secondary lint filters a good option for further reducing the amount of lint in your dryer vent, or does the reduction in airflow cause more problems than it solves? I installed one of these inline traps about six or seven years ago, and it's something that should just be standard imho. My exhaust has stayed largely lint free after this filter, it's like installing gutter guards. We have a nice new LG dryer that we use in delicates mode and wash very gently with tap cold, and this thing still accumulates an appreciable sheet every few cycles. You won't regret it, and will probably be appalled you didn't have it sooner. On the topic of laundry room must haves, water hammer arresters really ought to be required by code by all washing machine water supply connections. Water hammer arresters allow for rapid pressurization expansion when the supply valve opens and closes, which prevents the connector crimp on the lines from being honed to a knife's edge over time. Water hammer action is what causes supply lines to leak and fail over time, and why we must replace them every 5ish years. 30$ and three minutes screwing these things on can save you thousands of dollars in water damage. Same idea as a whole home surge protector, that should also be standard as it's a cheap insurance policy for all the expensive stuff we have plugged into outlets.
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Nov 12, 2023 13:46
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FISHMANPET posted:When we did my mom's house 15 years ago (yeesh) and worked with some home A/V people, they had us run 2 coax, a cat 5 for data, and a cat 5 for phone to every room. Who knows how useful any of that is now, she sold the place like a decade ago but even then she never really used much of any of it. Just setup a wireless access point in a central closet and that was good enough for everything. Chances are the true genius will never be appreciated and the next owner just chucked in an ISP supplied all-in-one modem/wireless router while complaining about the ugly faceplates on the wall. It's even more distressing when you realize that's probably cat5e and good enough for gigabit throughout too. Douche4Sale posted:Thanks for this - I grabbed a couple of water hammer arresters and installed them, and while doing so found that the hot water washer tube was rusted and corroded on the pipe. Cleaned things up real well and installed new tubes for both hot and cold water, now connected to the arresters. I imagine that level of rust was a disaster waiting to happen! And now my washer is so silent too! He-ey, cool! That's great to get all that fixed before it hits failure mode! Ymmv, but your distribution panel *should* have a Main Shut-Off Breaker Switch to kill the flow of power to the bus bars feeding everything in the panel. After you flip that, your panel should be inert below the main breaker, but always check with a voltage sniffer and/or multimeter to be absolutely sure. If you have enough extra space in your panel, it's just a matter of twisting out some extra covers so there's space for the surge arrestor, clipping it in, connecting the wiring to the neutral bus bar, reinstalling the cover, and flipping the power back on. If you have any uncertainty, or an older panel without a main shutoff, or not enough room to accommodate a standalone surge protector, I can't imagine it would be too expensive to hire it out.
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Nov 14, 2023 14:42
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Harriet Carker posted:I posted this in the Home Zone but I think that was the wrong thread and it didn't get any traction, so trying here: Probably doesn't help much as I'm on the other side of the country, but when I installed my fence it had to be 6" from the property line, and any closer required the neighbor to sign off. I'm on a small lot inside town so I just got my neighbors to sign the consent form just in case, but if it's your fence, it should be within your property line and you should be able to remove it without your neighbor's blessing. If they want a fence, they could install one on their side of the property line. Real answer is to get a survey, and it would probably be a good idea to just reach out to your town (or county) building and zoning department as they'll be able to better answer your questions. Also worth asking yourself whether pissing off your neighbor on this issue is a hill worth dying on, or if there's any sort of compromise. For what it's worth, I totally agree, chain link fences suck. Edit: As far as actually removing the fence, a tractor jack and a length of chain wrapped around the post and attached to the jack will pop the posts right out (even if they're set in concrete). The wire is easy to snip with wire cutters. Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 22:52
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QuarkJets posted:How does the thread feel about generators and portable power stations? That's neat! I love the idea of double duty on lawn tool batteries. I'd say it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. A small gas powered generator is going to be a hassle to maintain, gas degrades and goes bad unless it's stabilized, it's a hazard to store, pain to obtain, and you're going to have to pick and choose what you want to power with it anyways (eg fridge, etc). I would say we're closing the gap on the early adopter curve for solar & battery backups vs gas generators. I can live entirely off grid with a single 140W solar panel, but that basically powers a cooler 12v fridge/freezer, 12v lights, charging mobile devices, and a fan or two running throughout the night. The key to running off batteries alone are DC powered appliances as there's an efficiency loss converting to AC, and you're going to have to rethink what you really need, especially in an emergency. But same is true for gas unless you have a whole home generator. Plus you've got battery type to consider. I'd recommend going with LiFePO4, Lithium Iron Phosphate, as the chemistry supports substantially longer lifetime recharge cycles (roughly 10,000 vs 3,000 for Lithium Ion), and is much safer and less prone to combustion. Also works in a wider temp range, though charging under freezing temps can damage it. We're also on the cusp of some real big battery transitions with silicone Lithium and solid state batteries and wider adoption of EVs which could be plumbed into your electrical panel as a battery backup. It is going to take some thinking about what you need and what sort of setup you can accommodate, but something like this might be a good all in one starting point: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099Z2RDS5 It should run your fridge for a day if you're smart about when you open the doors/etc. Paired with 3-4 cheap 100w solar panels with good south facing exposure, you can probably stretch that into perpetuity. Rinse/repeat/expand batteries and panels according to your needs. You can get real deep real fast, and diy a whole setup with solar charge controller, inverter, electrical panel disconnect, it just really depends on what you need and there's tons of great resources out there. I think the above linked unit *might* be able to run a window ac, but probably not for more than a few hours as the startup energy requirements for the condenser are very limiting. For the price of a whole home generac, you're about halfway to a whole home solar panel install (sans batteries), and the latter would pay back dividends every day.
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Nov 28, 2023 15:49
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Possible stopgap solution if the shitter is full up: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Z7EKIC Only half joking, considering the kafkaesque nightmare otherwise
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Dec 15, 2023 03:07
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Still wouldn't help with the rest of the house's water! The septic system only has the urine and poop and such. At least greywater is much easier to deal with. Switching to the right biodegradable soaps and whatnot, you could divert it straight into suitable landscaping. Probably not a solution for you since you've already engaged professionals to fix the issue, but more to highlight that viable alternatives do exist, though they may require some level of changes in behavior.
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Dec 15, 2023 03:27
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Sundae posted:I see signs around the bay area touting how (this fountain) or (that public garden) uses gray water. Earthships! Interesting viddya where they interview the creator of the concept, talk about how the whole system works, and tour some of the homes that have been built: https://youtu.be/wgUkjbMhF18 Tl;dr, people use grey water to grow their own food in a berm house built out of used tires, dirt, upcycled materials, and concrete. You'd think people living there would have to make major sacrifices, but honestly they just live mostly normal lives in beautiful homes that are passively heated/cooled by being built to adapt to their local environment. A solarium is a long term wishlist item for me, as is stuff like permaculture/regenerative agriculture and how maintaining a healthy bacterial & fungal ecosystem in soil pays dividends in yields. Combining the idea of a solarium with grey water runoff & treatment is a pretty interesting concept imho.
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Dec 16, 2023 05:34
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Hadlock posted:Yeah I was trying to figure out where my lot line is. I am a corner lot and up until today I was under the impression that the ROW ended either at the asphalt or the sidewalk but only in the last couple of hours did I realize about 8' of "my property" is technically city ROW. The ROW is a lot wider than I imagined. I have no delusions about trying to build on a ROW though. Might be worth heading down to your county's offices, they probably have a map room or could have one of their engineers email you a copy of whatever they've got. I bet they'd be happy to help get you pointed on the right direction
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Dec 27, 2023 07:07
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nwin posted:Gary told me on his way out that he would wipe down the copper pipes in the basement monthly, as some kind of preventative maintenance. I can't find a link to the story, but there's an apocryphal tale about the British Navy pre-WW1 and how they were so concerned about appearance the admiralty had their sailors polishing brass portholes nearly around the clock, to the point that the porthole covers were no longer watertight, having been lowly sanded down with constant buffing.
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Jan 12, 2024 05:36
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cr0y posted:How do you guys "shutdown" your house if you are going to be away for more than say a week? My buddy gave me poo poo for being paranoid A week? Lock door, set thermostat to eco (min 52, max 90ish I think), and try to remember to turn off the non smarthome lights. More than 3 weeks? I'd mess with the water shutoff valves at that point imho. I would very much like to install a smart water leak shutoff sensor, and it looks like there's some good mainstream options now instead of the early adopter stuff I looked at ten years ago. Been through all the ups and downs of smarthome stuff so I'm wary with what I bother wasting my time with now. On the topic of travel, this might be overkill but I've found it to be a super convenient gadget for frequent travelers -- portable routers are awesome for restricted or public wireless networks. You can set it up as a repeater and have it broadcast your own wireless--basically set the mac address on the travel router to be the same as your computer, connect up to say, a hotel network with the computer, then switch over and pop in the SSID creds on the router and voila, it'll broadcast your own wifi to hook up to. No device restrictions (eg with hotel wifi or hotspots), and I have wireguard configured to encrypt all my traffic and tunnel it over to my home network. Little bit higher latency, but no device restrictions, no concerns about using sketchy networks, no need to configure my roku to a new network, it's all plug and play with the saved wifi network config from the router. Plus you can use the vpn to stream from your local plex instance at home without having to open up any unnecessary ports on your router. Perhaps overkill, but it's simple, convenient, and gives me connectivity and peace of mind where I might not otherwise have that.
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Jan 20, 2024 13:44
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All these fridge horror stories... I wonder if the amish have the same problems with their propane powered refrigerators? It's just so wild to me that all this poo poo is such a pain in the rear end to service and there's such a ridiculous range of reliability and availability on components like compressors. How is this not a solved problem in TYOOL 2024? In terms of actually possibly helpful resources, I've always found the Yale Appliance Blog to be really helpful when buying new appliances. They do a great job summarizing their service calls and calling out which brands sucked least and why. I've also found Wirecutter's recommendations to be pretty good over time as well. There's a recent Atlantic article talking about how wirecutter maybe not be so good anymore, but after skimming it on 12ft.io, their criticism seems to boil down to editors are paid per article now and some nebulous poo poo about ai and influencers are the future because the internet is too big now or some clickbaity poo poo 
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Jan 23, 2024 22:23
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DaveSauce posted:Spring is rapidly approaching... got home at new years and our daffodils were already poking through the ground. Some of the fuckers had blooms on them last week... thanks global warming! Good news! This battery look familiar? (Caveat to shop around, that was just the first link I saw) Basically, Greenworks manufactures Lowe's 80v lawn tool line (among others), and it's basically the exact same battery with a slightly different rail to make it superficially incompatible. Why? Because gently caress you and gently caress the planet, specifically. The good news is that it's fairly trivial to grind off the extra plastic housing bits that prevent you from slotting a perfectly good battery from the same drat factory into your perfectly good and functional tools. So much so, there's even a very detailed walkthrough with pictures: https://www.smartfamilymoney.com/use-greenworks-batteries-kobalt-tools/ Obvious caveat to be careful and disassemble the pack before using power tools to modify it. Lithium cells typically spontaneously fireball when punctured. The housing for the battery literally unscrews apart, hell, you could probably just swap the plastic housing with the Kobalt pack. Hell, you may not even have to disassemble the thing, your second pack may have discharged below what the charger considers to be a safe charging threshold. You may be able to trickle in some current to get the "dead" battery back up to the point where the charger will do its job normally. I've had luck just leaving my fully deeply discharged kobalt 80v packs on the charger for awhile, and after some futzing around the pack resumed normal charging Catatron Prime fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 07:34
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Hadlock posted:People get really nervous about bricks (ceramic or concrete) but the fact is they almost never fail unless it's got a defect or something Real question since you seem to know a bit more about materials science -- that brick high rise apartment building out in Iowa that collapsed last year? Initially there was speculation that the facade may have weakened after the bricks had been painted, because that created a moisture barrier preventing interior moisture from escaping, softening the bricks till it collapsed. But it looks like the findings after the disaster are pinning it on structural undermining of load bearing walls during questionable remodel work: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deadly-iowa-building-collapse-blamed-removal-bricks-lack-shoring-new-r-rcna104030 I realize there's all sorts of different brick formulations, so this might be a really stupid question from the get-go, but does the acceptability painting a brick wall more or less come down to the porosity of the bricks used in the project? Or is there even an issue, and this was just an example of bad information gaining traction? I'm pretty sure I've seen bricks used in foundations for underwater applications like old locks, and I've even dug up buried bricks in my backyard and reused them for a flower bed, so I wouldn't have previously thought water absorption would significantly degrade or soften a clay fired brick, but it occurs to me I have no idea what the hell I'm actually doing and would like to know more.
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Feb 12, 2024 14:02
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unknown posted:The issue with bricks is the environment they are in and whether they are susceptible to spalling - which primarily happens in areas of hot/cold. The moisture gets into the brick and then freezes causing damage to the brick. Ohhhhh, ok, that makes a ton of sense! Thank you!
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Feb 13, 2024 04:45
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Hadlock posted:My Gary as far as I can tell never cleaned the gutters and at the beginning of the rainy season I scooped out probably 70 gallons of literally fermenting leaf sludge because of course that's what's left up there. I've never been to Scotland but it's pretty close to what I've seen pictures describing a peat big Gutter guards are worth their weight in gold  George H.W. oval office posted:I get a poo poo load of Viking Cruises advertisements from our PO RIP... those will never stop. I will say their Rhine cruise was kinda awesome with a free international airfare sale. Got to spend a few days doing our own thing in Amsterdam, and then go see a lot of stuff at a leisurely pace. Never been on any other cruises, so I don't know how it compares, but it was a very white glove experience, (even if we were one of the youngest couples on the ship by 1-2 decades). With the food, lodging, and transit all included it wound up being a pretty good deal imho
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Feb 15, 2024 03:38
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I thought this whole saga started with wanting to glue up the sink back to the counter, and now we're balls deep into structural framing issues? ... Honestly that sounds about right, we've all been there 
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Feb 18, 2024 03:51
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Might even try putting a blacklight on there to see if it really is the cat going to the bathroom in the wrong spot... that might clear up whether it's a plumbing leak or not
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Feb 22, 2024 15:11
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Condolences... that just sucks It's not really a solution, but a possible plan c for some gardening and fruit growing... have you ever looked at vertical hydroponic walls? I know it's not quite the same, but they're pretty neat and versatile systems if you've got the sun exposure! You just fill the cups with a growing medium, and pump the nutrients from a reservoir to the top and the roots soak up whatever they need as it trickles back down through the pipes. Plus you don't have to deal with weeds and they look cool as heck--you could really rig up a gorgeous green backdrop! Again, that really blows you can't do raised beds like you were wanting... though, could you maybe do tabletop raised beds? My neighbor does this and I'm legitimately jealous of their setup. That plus a greenhouse would be my ideal!
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Mar 12, 2024 21:46
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George H.W. oval office posted:Rooftop garden with the water draining back into a gray water collection barrel and re-using it. Even better, rooftop garden using a thick curtain of moss as a soil medium One of these days I'll realize my dream of building a berm house
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Mar 14, 2024 16:19
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Hadlock posted:It'll degrade the rubber in like, 7 years instead of 15. You're not going to be changing the flapper every 6 months Now that I think about it, 7 years is eerily spot on in my experience... I installed new toilets when we moved in about ten years ago, and during the pandemic I noticed the tank gasket on one had slowly started leaking, and the flush tower seal on another had quit fully seating. We had used those bleaching tank tablets for a couple of years, and I definitely noticed the corrosion a bit on the parts I swapped out (eg the tank gasket had a layer of crumbled black residue). Altogether 15-20$ in parts and an hour or two to google up the model and double check I remembered how everything was put together and replace all the seals in both tanks. Could've also been Monday Friday seals from the factory, or slightly chlorinated municipal water that did them in too
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Mar 14, 2024 18:05
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+1 for battery powered chainsaws -- several years ago I swapped out my older craftsman 4 stroke with a Makita 36v (18v X2) 16" saw, and it has been more than capable for clearing fallen trees, and even felling and sectioning a 3' trunk on a dead ash tree. Goes without saying, but main thing is just to be safe. Understand how to properly cut, and always use chaps, ppe, and felling wedges. And speaking of wedges, splitting wedges are the bees knees 
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Apr 26, 2024 15:56
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Tiny Timbs posted:Question about framing since I can't find a clear diagram- It's a bit of a pain in the butt, but if you don't have a right angle drill for this sort of thing, I've had shockingly decent luck with a Dewalt right angle drill bit adapter and an extra long drill bit. Basically punch your hole for a junction box closer to the floor, then use a combination of the above to get the drill In and make your hole in the wall plate. Combination of harbor freight fiberglass push sticks, cable lube, and fish tape should get your wires down and through to the joist bay below. For getting around ceiling to wall transitions, I've just cut out a thin slice of the corner and patched it back up. You may have to make hole in the ceiling underneath to pull and route it up through there. Personally I'd just install a junction box in the ceiling and put a unifi wireless access point right there instead of going the whole way around and down Unrelated tip -- if stud detectors don't work for you, IR cameras are also magic for locating studs In sure there's a much better way, like the magnetic cable pullers that was talked about a few pages back
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Apr 28, 2024 16:29
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Jesus, I thought the dishwasher thing was just silly, but either that is some rear end backwards user interface or I am way too loving high for that diagram. I dunno, I bought my dishwasher almost a decade ago at a sears ding n dent store and it's been flawless ever since. I press the start button twice, close the door, and it just works really well. It's freakin great. The last place I lived had a bosch dishwasher and it was truly awful. The filter would become rancid and need frequent cleaning, which I had attributed to the design, but could've also been some lovely routing or looping on the drain coil.
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May 7, 2024 03:37
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Hotel Kpro posted:Our new build came with everything Whirlpool, except for the fridge which is LG and we had to buy it separate. Six weeks in and nothing has failed yet  https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/consumer/fridge-failures-federal-lawsuit-cites-lg-refrigerator-issue/3552575/ https://www.consumerreports.org/lawsuits-settlements/lg-settles-class-action-lawsuit-over-refrigerator-compressors/ Does your fridge have a linear compressor or reciprocating compressor? Basically ten years ago LG resigned their compressors (basically the main component that cools fridges) with the goals of better energy efficiency and theoretical claimed reliability. The reality is the design was flawed and peoples' new fridges starting conking out across the board. Last year LG lost (settled) a class action lawsuit for a bunch of the early flawed linear compressor fridges from 2014-2017. Now there's a new federal lawsuit against LG for yet more early compressor failures, so definitely hang onto your receipt and warranty information. At least LG makes nice OLED TVs though!
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May 7, 2024 21:24
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