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…positioning it for a nuke from orbit?
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Jul 14, 2022 15:53
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tater_salad posted:I guess autocorrect changed my way of spelling Poisoning to Positioning.
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Jul 15, 2022 01:02
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Motronic posted:Quality stuff made out of real metal typically don't use fancy one off kinda things unless you're getting into the really high priced designer stuff. I've repaired Newport Brass stuff with nothing more than what you can find in a typical hardware store. If anything the big brands have gone all in on cartridges and poo poo that are specific to their brand and even more to specific models. Ugh. Fuckin’ Newport Brass. The only company that made the sink faucet that my wife wanted. I bought four extra cartridges because of the river of poo poo that they made me wade through to get them.
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Jul 15, 2022 01:07
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nwin posted:Lmao holy gently caress someone just quoted $450 to remove some cicada killer/wasps from my front yard. Why? They don't care about you, big & scary-looking as they are. They care about one thing, and one thing only: cicadas. 
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Jul 17, 2022 01:29
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Motronic posted:
C'mon, come right out & say it: With few exceptions, developers have been using garbage & building garbage since the mid-70's. It's really stark after 35-years of inspecting structures built from 1740 to this year. Arkanomen posted:... The grout needs to get replaced...Looking now, there is some black gunk around the doors so its time to bleach it again but its not a lot. I Caulk has a nasty tendency to look fine even while & after its adhesion fails, so when you see black crap on caulk or grout, it's not on the grout, it's in it, and most importantly, behind it...so, if you're getting black grout or caulk, it has to all be torn out & re-done. For the same reason, do not use grout tape or other 'labor-saving' seal tapes. They trap all kinds of crap. Practice laying caulk until you get good at it, or hire in someone that can. Someone up-thread mentioned cleaning out your drains & traps. Try that too. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Jul 20, 2022 |
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Jul 20, 2022 05:03
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FEH! DP with bonus shameful snipe. FEH. Have a photo of me inspecting a rowhome in Elfreth's Alley a few years ago. 
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Jul 20, 2022 05:05
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Soylent Majority posted:Anyone have opinions about this sort of Pergola Lego system? https://tojagrid.com/collections/brackets-6-x-6 If you have the confidence, build it from scratch. To do the notching, take the first joist and measure & mark off those notches. Then use it as a template for the rest. The easiest way to get clean, perfectly aligned notches is to use a circular saw, chop-saw or table saw with a dado blade (two blades with a spacer block in the middle, and the blades riveted together). Soylent Majority posted:Also these legos have a base that looks like you'd just bolt into a concrete footing - is this really a stable/durable way to secure something like this? I've always sunk posts into concrete but if its just as good I think she's leaning towards the aesthetic: Here's a site for scratch-building a pergola: https://www.quiet-corner.com/diy-build-pergola/
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Jul 22, 2022 16:20
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My worst anchor bolt project was when the township code inspector failed my footings a week after he watched the mason pour them, stating that hurricane anchors were a code requirement. I had to rent a Hilti, bought a 5/8" diamond bit, six tubes of that hideously expensive concrete adhesive that mixes as you trigger it, and 40-J-anchors. I cut all of the angled bits off & glued them in to pass. Cost about $400. It never sat well with the code assholes that I was doing my own build, rather than hiring
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Jul 23, 2022 01:01
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PageMaster posted:I'm probably being too paranoid and maybe a dumb question, but are there laboratory home air tests for asbestos (like those radon mail in test kits)? We received some pics from previous owner renovations while also asking for some permit info/history, and it looks like a bunch of black thinset or adhesive all over the concrete floor underneath their ceramic tile that they ripped up to put on floating floor. House construction date is towards the later safer years (1989), In the (insurance claims) industry, we don't even test for lead or asbestos unless the house was built before 1978. Even if the floor tile was asbestos, it's not friable (doesn't break into bits small enough to be airborne) even when scraped up.
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Jul 23, 2022 14:32
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Chad Sexington posted:A squirrel chewed through our screened in porch to get at tub of bird seed yesterday. Came home and the little fucker was stuck in there and climbing all over the place in a panic. So I opened the door and he bolted. You're gonna have to kill or relocate him because now he's programmed. I've installed large expanses of screen on my Mom's side porch. I'd kill him.
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Jul 27, 2022 03:50
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Sloppy posted:I had squirrels get into my soffits and that was a nightmare. Use a have a heart trap with some peanut butter and drop him off a few miles away. Would have rather shot them but I live in town now so yeah. loving tree rats. My neighbor would catch them in a Hav-A-Hart. Then drown 'em in an ash can
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Jul 27, 2022 04:41
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raggedphoto posted:Happy you found the issue but WTF was the PO thinking? LOL Ran out of 2" PVC late in the day, and also needed more drywall + mud. Got home, realized he forgot the PVC, & said, "gently caress it."
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Jul 28, 2022 04:10
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Find out what it is for certain, first. I’d start by uncovering it & running the sink & see if either water comes out or if you deem air wafting out (use a match or lighter) Run some water through it & see if it comes out somewhere
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Jul 28, 2022 17:33
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StormDrain posted:Me when I'm working on the house, drilling and cutting things. "this is good and normal" IF ANYONE'S GOING TO gently caress THIS UP, IT'LL BE MEeeeeeeee
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Jul 30, 2022 02:41
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There is no reason whatsoever to replace the panel. If your Eaton is rated for 200-amps, then you should have no problem putting in whatever you want in the way of electrical draw. So the issue is the gauge of the wire from the pole to the meter & thus on to the panel. The ground issue is easy & cheap to resolve with an 8' ground spike (maybe two in parallel, depending on your soil conditions) and some solid wire to bond into the panel. I would consider getting a second opinion and start out by asking whether or not the run from the meter will handle 200-amps.
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Aug 2, 2022 01:59
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Gophers or squirrels? Squirrels will dig up any area that smells like freshly-turned earth and/or is otherwise soft. The little fuckers also love to eat tulip bulbs.
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Aug 7, 2022 03:37
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Hed posted:While we're talking about water heaters I'd like to wish a special place in hell for the folks who thought this was a good design--to replace the anode I have to 1) move the powered vent out of the way (and all that entails to decouple from the PVC) and 2) get my wrench jaws around this stupid nut: Unscrew the top cap. There should be sheet-metal screws around the perimeter. You don't have to remove it completely, just enough to center the opening to get a socket on it. OTOH if it's eighteen years old you'll probably wind up ripping the fitting out of the tank or the anode has so much crap on it that you won't be able to get it out. It's gone 18-years without failing. Doesn't really owe you anything.
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Aug 8, 2022 05:04
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Like, the switch is sticky? I had that issue with mine (same one Motronic has) and had to open up the plastic switch covers & lubricate them with silicone. If it's not that, you could wire in a new rocker switch. Also, check yard sales. I see tons of Shop-Vacs. I have about six of the little 1-gallon cuties. I stopped buying the big ones for lack of space, and started giving them away to family after going through them/cleaning them up. Also if you're into curb alerts, rich fucks with vacation homes at the shore/lake/mountains love to buy a $1200+ Weber grills, use them for a couple years, and them curb them rather than get a little dirty cleaning them up. Weber parts availability goes back forever - I have a trash-picked Genesis 3-burner that looked like Godzilla took a poo poo in it. Dragged it home, power-washed it inside & out, replaced the guts: ignitor, burner, reflector plates, grill (with stainless), wheels & knobs for $250 & have been using it for the past twenty years.
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Aug 9, 2022 03:21
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If something like that happens at your house, at least you know that it will be addressed promptly.
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Aug 19, 2022 04:49
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Can't wait to see the duct-taped connection between the PVC and the flex pipe
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Aug 21, 2022 14:16
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First off: do you own or rent. Second: We need at least the make, and photos, preferably with the cover removed so we can see the box & the fan assembly mounted in it. You may be able to just replace the fan/motor assembly without disturbing the box, which should be screwed or nailed to the ceiling framing. That is the best & cheapest outcome. You may need to be able to access above the until to ties in the vent pipe/hose. E: I’m mig-welding galvanized steel for the next few days - the integrated frame on my ’65 Econoline needs some attention. But I am doing it outdoors and there’s a breeze, so PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Aug 24, 2022 |
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Aug 23, 2022 16:52
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Sweeper posted:On a scale from 1-10 how bad of an idea is it to buy a 300 year old house (say 1730-1780 timeframe or so)? What kind of problems will I run into that I normally wouldn’t? Are there any specific resources people know about which would be useful to read? Current place was built in 1910s in a major city so I’m a bit out of my depth Oh, the wonders you will see
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Aug 24, 2022 00:07
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StormDrain posted:... Three-way switch wiring is one of those mind-fucks that is mentally slippery to hold on to unless you install them on a fairly regular basis. I have done it, but I can't do it now without looking it up and staring really hard at the schematic for a while. Upgrade posted:I am dumb and fixed this and it all works now. I should not trust my FIL. Yea the double wires are the three way switch. You're not dumb, and if you can keep this concept intact in your mind for more than a week or two without doing it again, you may be brilliant.
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Aug 28, 2022 16:02
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I did it around where I had to remove two 100-YO ash trees, and, after five years, I'm going to have to do it again, probably next spring. I dug out the chips & spread them throughout my yard, well away from the house & garage (artillery spores are nothing to gently caress with -very hard to remove the spray) and filled in with soil. Keep in mind that the stump may be gone, but the large roots remain; as time passes these roots will be consumed, leaving ankle-turning voids that you will periodically have to fill in. It's a pain in the rear end: I'll peel the turf back & lay topsoil, then try to compact it, water it & lay the turf back over it. Part of the reason is I have zoysia, and it makes a mat that will cover voids until you break through them; putting topsoil right over the depression & the grass will not work in such case.
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Aug 29, 2022 16:06
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Oh, that'll be fine. Plenty of time
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Aug 30, 2022 01:30
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Verman posted:Its always worth having a good arborist come by to take stock of your property and give you advice on your trees. They can tell you whats healthy, whats not, what needs a trimming, etc. There are certain trees that tend to be problems at a certain age and should be removed if they are close to your house and pose a risk of falling/breaking. I have two very large cottonwood/poplars and every arborist has told me to remove them asap as they are both nearing the end of their lifespan and will break very large branches off, and they're right over the house. How about a good pruning? I did that when I had three ash trees & a tulip poplar, all 90+ years old. Took the better part of ten years before I saw a twig on the lawn. (Later lost two of the ashes & the poplar to internal rot, but am re-growing one ash & the poplar from coppices of the ones that were cut) e: what Kaiser Schnitzel said
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Sep 1, 2022 04:12
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Douchebag posted:Lender required it and it appraised over what we bought for ($8k over). So yeah it did it’s job I was just curious if it would have any negative impact on the future but I guess not. Unlikely anyone will give a poo poo. Then again, if the back of the house has asbestos shingles... No. No one cares at this point.
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Sep 4, 2022 22:03
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Let me know how that goes. I’m looking to clear my lot of two rotted tree stumps that have developed their own little ecosystems of catvine, mulberry, etc. I’ve been debating trying to clear it myself come November when most of it dies back & it is cooler…there’s also deadfall bound to the ground by vines, and 100-feet of completely choked (neighbor’s 4’ chain-link) fence along the left property line. The lot’s never had a house on it and was not really maintained at all for the past fifteen years so it’s run riot. I should at least get a couple of bids from landscapers. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Sep 5, 2022 |
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Sep 5, 2022 03:50
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You can clean the A-coil with a fingernail brush & get the worst of it off. Based on how furry yours is, it looks like there is no filter anywhere. Really surprised that it's not a mass of dirty ice. If you're curious, find the return duct & see where it attaches to the furnace stack. Your filter should be there. Also: check & clean out the condensate pan (catches water running off of the A-coils, located under them) and the drain piping since they're probably both full of crap.
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Sep 6, 2022 15:26
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unknown posted:Whoa, (based on the circuit board guessing the furnace model/style) this style of furnace can actually be installed with a downflow method. On further review, those are probably the filters; they’re definitely not the A-coil; that lives in the silver box at the bottom. Is is in an attic? That’s a down-draft furnace, which is not seen in basements or on slabs, since in such case the air needs to be going up, or sideways. I mean anyone can install anything anywhere; christ knows we’ve seen endless examples of such PO fuckery.
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Sep 6, 2022 21:48
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I'd let a tech figure it out.
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Motronic posted:Oh my....I wasn't thinking slab ductwork.....that's totally not a thing around here. But I bet you're right and that's awful. Oh, but it is! Quite a few contractors in the 1950s & early 60s copied / cargo-culted the Levitt model of burying infrastructure in the slab. Based on professional experience, they mostly went with running round ducts - sometimes reinforced cardboard(!) under the slab rather than copper pipe for floor heating. It was definitely cheaper to do it that way, and maybe they couldn't get the really thick copper piping Levitt used - I certainly have never found 1/8"-thick-walled 1/2" copper piping in any other house - poo poo weighed a ton, but the lime in the slab got to it eventually. The cheapest copycat bastards laid foil-wrapped cardboard right on the dirt. But I digress. There's no fun quite like having your buried soil line (primary or secondaries) fail and dump raw sewage in your ductwork. Except maybe having an 8' diameter, 3' high pile of dirt & concrete in your living room (think Richard Dreyfuss and his Devil's Tower in Close Encounters, but without any artistic merit). I had insureds cry when they saw it. There are at least three of these developments in the Woodbury/Mantua/Deptford (NJ) area, to name a few; these were mostly Cape Cods. The actual Levitt homes (Willingboro in NJ; Levittown in PA) had their copper floor heating systems fail through the 80s and 90s. Ninteen-nineties--early oughts the cast-iron builds started to fail. We were able to get plumbers to fix a few (hence the dirt piles) but gradually gave in to just abandoning the under-slab infrastructure in place & writing to install downdraft units in the attic spaces. The only digging we did after that was for interior water mains/secondary drains, and after a while we treated them like the ducts: abandoning in place & re-routing the water lines up into the attic. For the soil line failures, we really had no choice when it was in the middle of the house, but to trench. The 2" kitchen galv drains were the loving pits, since we typically had to write to pull the cabinets & sometimes HVAC stacks to get to them. If the failure was near any perimeter wall we'd see about setting up to running a new soil line outside & around to the main. . PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 6, 2022 23:53
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Sump pump failure is generally a specific exclusion in homeowner's policies. In the past - over the years, I've paid for it multiple times on the same insured. Why no cancel? With some companies, you can get a water backup endorsement that covers ensuing loss from the failure, but the coverage is usually limited to $5000 - $10000. For everything: water extraction/mitigation, dwelling, and contents. Once I verify the extent of the damage, I'll typically write a check for the limits & call it a day. It's a guaranteed low-exposure loss. Unless you're on a well, I'd consider getting a secondary pump powered by the home's water pressure. And make sure you have the backup endorsement on your HO policy. No way in hell would I trust a battery backup to last. Water's heavy, and Mother Nature likes to send in Olympic pools/minute. I have a large portable generator that is my last line of defense...until I install a water-powered backup. PainterofCrap fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 01:37
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Hence: inline water-powered pump! https://www.amazon.com/Basement-Sentry-Powered-STWB140-Pressure/dp/B08W111B3R/ref=dp_fod_1?pd_rd_i=B08W111B3R&psc=1
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Sep 7, 2022 02:05
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With that vented flue cap I’m guessing 1980s at the newest. Nothing wrong in that photo, especially for a unit that old. I’d replace it at your leisure; we rarely have the luxury of planning. I had a 1960 gas unit in my house when we bought it in 1992. Replaced it once I realized that it had sat, full, for over two years that the house was vacant. The water that came out was black & chunky. It was working fine. Had a pilot light.
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Sep 8, 2022 17:28
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Inner Light posted:My 20 year old windows have no purchase order data anywhere on them. I have searched high and low, top bottom and sides of the movable pane and frames. Super annoying so I just call a local window repair place if issues pop up. Dunno which manufacturer would help me out. So you’re lucky if you have that! Post a picture. No guarantees, but it can’t hurt..
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Sep 13, 2022 00:10
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MayakovskyMarmite posted:Our basement recently flooded with several inches of water due to a sewer back-up after a torrential down pour. The basement is only partially finished and we had some water previously, so not the end of the world, but a huge pain in the rear end to clean up. We investigated some options last time and ended up with decision paralysis. Does the thread have any wisdom concerning overhead sewer systems versus an outside flood control system that uses a sort of gate mechanism? The overhead sewer is like twice as expensive… OK. Need a bit more information. Typically, groundwater removal systems are one thing; your sewer circuit is a completely different thing. Most municipalities prohibit dumping groundwater into the sewer circuit. Need to know your general location. Did groundwater overwhelm your sump pump system, or did water back up out of a toilet?
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Sep 13, 2022 00:16
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The problem with slate roofs (at least in the US) isn’t the slate; it’s the nails. They rust out. Slate does chip & crack from time to time. The downside is finding anyone who knows how to work & repair slate. In the 80s and 90s, in PA, the guys that did slate were these 70-90-YO German dudes. We have a saying in our line of work: “What do you pay a slate roofer?” “Anything he wants” Expect to pay ten times the going rate for dimensional shingle. Last roof you’ll ever buy, though.
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Sep 16, 2022 14:11
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Agh it suuuucks that they did not abandon the doors in place. One of my favorite claims involved finding, for the insured, that they had a pocket-door set buried in the wall. Doors were on the (overhead) track & worked fine, too. They were thrilled.
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Sep 20, 2022 16:11
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Upgrade posted:Progress. Is there iron track at the top? On both sides? I see on the floor across the opening, the ghost of what might have been a track, but I'm betting that it was some kind of tread strip or threshold that may have guided the doors but not carried the mass.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:26
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Sundae posted:Today, after reading earlier in this thread about people cleaning their dryer ducts, I extracted about ten years of lint from inside a wall. It filled a white garbage bag. One of the worst house fires I handled had the gas dryer venting directly into the wall cavity. Something lit it up about 3pm on Thanksgiving Day 1998. Went straight up the wall & through the roof like a chimney fire. It was very sad to see the blackened turkey sitting in the pan. You are fortunate.
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Oct 1, 2022 16:43
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I have no idea how they got so much up there, when (1) the dryer has its lint trap in place, and (2) when I bought the place, I realized they had been venting the dryer directly to the laundry closet and there wasn't even a flex-duct connecting it to the wall.