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Crawlspace looks fantastic now, no more sagging fiberglass batts so I can clean up the random coax runs and such. 
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Feb 3, 2024 01:41
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Eason the Fifth posted:Oh man I wish mine was that caliber. What did it run you, if you don't mind answering? About $15k for the following scope: - remove old insulation and vapor barrier, raking ground of larger rocks and debris in crawl space. - seal foundation vents and wall penetrations - Clean mold/fungal on joists and beams, hand applied, negative pressure in crawlspace during application. - R10 foam board on crawl space walls (nailed and foam sealed at all seams) w/ 2” inspection gap at the top of foundation - R10 foam board along the foundation ground perimeter extending 24” from wall - R19 fiberglass batt in rim joist pockets - air gap sealing at sill plates around foundations perimeter - 12 mil woven liner on the floor area of the crawl space and around piers, 12" seam overlap, 25 year material warranty - Aprilaire E100 dehumidifier, hung mount with discharge routing to exterior wall with outward sloping grade - Vinyl crawlspace door with vinyl trim weatherstripping and insulation. - dimple board under the liner at Crawl Space entrance - 20A circuit w/ GFCI breaker to dehumidifier outlet - 20A circuit to new exterior GFCI outlet at exterior front wall Plus permitting/inspections. About 1200sqft of crawlspace. They were actually the highest bid (excluding the one that was trying to pull the "we need both you and your partner present to discuss the plans" high pressure tactic) but their no-nonsense professionalism, consistently glowing reviews, and emphasis on not mass fumigating the space which I knew heavily leaked into the living space won me out. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Feb 3, 2024 |
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Feb 3, 2024 03:32
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I'm glad other people also have the "oh that's nice" response and that I'm not uniquely strange. The floors on the 1st floor are noticeably more comfortable to walk on now, and a drafty area of the family room which I had suspected was getting leakage from the crawlspace isn't cold anymore.
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Feb 3, 2024 13:39
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That flexible vent is metallicized plastic isn't it? I would be concerned about what fun stuff would come out of just the vent material if it were burned. That said, I would probably cut a short section and light it just to satisfied my own curiosity about how much danger there was when it was in the wall.
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Feb 5, 2024 14:56
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The rippled metal thing is just flexible metal conduit, right?
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Feb 11, 2024 01:09
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My main concern is If the son is already sneaking into that house to steal poo poo to pawn, this has a very high possibility of becoming your problem too the first time you leave something he perceives as valuable where it can be seen by him. My father lived next to a person who would do that poo poo and it was awful. What's the sanitary situation like? I can't imagine that shed has a bathroom. The trouble with calling code enforcement is that they will come down on the owner, not the tenant, and she has already shown herself to be unable/unwilling to take steps. Is there any legal aid you could hook her up with so she can start the official "find another place to live" process on the dad and son? Nobody should have to live with someone who steals from them.
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Feb 12, 2024 11:03
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Like most things home related, with painting brick there is a right way to do it and there is a cheap way to do it. If you use the correct paint and correctly prep the surfaces you don't wreck the breathability of the brick. If you just spray it with the generic exterior paint there will be problems.
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Feb 12, 2024 14:51
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Gotta love how mortgage servicers wait to pay insurance premiums until midway through the day that it's due. Big "it's someone else's problem if something goes wrong" energy.
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Feb 15, 2024 16:49
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Don't immediately go to ripping out the wall. See if you can figure out what the water correlates to. Since it isn't always there, it can't be on a normally pressurized supply line. You can try things that would introduce water into the drains or fittings like running the shower for a while. If running water in the shower and faucet or flushing the toilet doesn't cause the water to show up, you can try being a bit messy and spilling water where it would be likely to fall out of the tub or the sink. What might be happening is water is simply traveling along the crack at the bottom of the baseboard, until it finds a point to flow out of and be visible.
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Feb 22, 2024 15:02
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skybolt_1 posted:Miele End of discussion right here. We have a C3 Alize and it is phenomenal. My parents were all "you really have a $650 vacuum on your wedding registry?" but seriously zero regrets. In addition to sucking harder than I thought possible (it will pull in cat fur from six-eight inches away) it is extraordinarily quiet. You can talk to someone while vacuuming, and I actually had a problem with my cats refusing to get out of their beds when I was vacuuming so I had to prod their beds hard repeatedly with the vacuum head to get them to lazily saunter out. When you're fired up the old vacuum they would practically teleport to the other side of the house.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:10
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The root of the issues with bagless vacuums is that the separator is relying on momentum to do the filtering, which depends on high air velocities and gets less and less effective as particle size goes down. Since filtering depends on air flow anything that reduces flow like vacuuming thick carpet or upholstery reduces filtering efficiency and filtering efficiency at startup is effectively zero. That's why the initial round of bagless vacuums would send out a big plume of dust when you first turned them on. That's also why bagless vacuums are very rarely variable speed and are very loud compared to equivalent bagged ones. You can boost air velocities by making your cyclonic chambers have more narrow and pointier points, but larger bits of debris will tend to stick out into the airflow path and muck it all up so you need multiple stages of separation. Every stage of separation has a pressure drop across it and constrains flow because energy goes into spinning the air, so adding more means more suction power wasted in the separator section. It also increases cost and weight significantly. Like, as a household vacuum bagless pretty much is objectively worse in just about every single metric except not needing to buy/swap a bag. But now manufacturers of bagless vacuums include a HEPA filter in them to help mitigate the varying efficiency of filtration and the tendency of the filtration system to completely stall out, and those filters have to be replaced regularly. It seems like people aren't comparing like to like when they compare bagged vs bagless, comparing years old bottom of the line bag vacuums to new expensive bagless ones. Yeah no poo poo a new Dyson is better than a 18-year-old Walmart-exclusive Hoover with a janky bag compartment zipper, but compare it to an equivalently priced Miele or Oreck instead and the Dyson gets smoked. You can't even complain about the mess of changing a bag because modern bagged vacuums seal the bag as soon as you start to remove the bag.
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Feb 26, 2024 16:16
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Democratic Pirate posted:Parts and labor: $35 The bicycle mechanics I've known probably would have spent most of the day with the bike on the stand and the tool at the 12-o'clock position challenging every friend who walked in the store to see if they were the rightful king of cyclists.
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Mar 3, 2024 11:59
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Renewal by Andersen has a well-earned reputation for loving insane pricing and a reputation for hard-sell tactics. I'm guessing there was a change in control of the company in the 80s-90s that led to them torching their reputation.
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Mar 5, 2024 00:40
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Attic k&t can be more problematic than wall k&t because it tends to get covered up with insulation which wrecks the heat dissipation. Yours is still visible and exposed? As long as you aren't facing insurance pressure to remove the knob and tube wiring in the attic, I would hold off and replace the whole thing in one go. If the panel uses a breaker format that is still being made (square D QO, CH/Eaton Type J) you might be able to put some AFCI breakers on the k&t and get a bit extra protection against a lovely connection sparking and causing a fire.
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Mar 5, 2024 11:31
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trevorreznik posted:Unfortunately the difficulty seems to be how to find a non high pressure sales pitch in the first place. A dead giveaway for a high-pressure sales pitch is if they try to arrange for their visit to happen at a time with both you and your significant other are present. Their goal is to both remove the excuse of "I have to talk it over with my spouse" and to play you off of each other. So if anyone you are considering getting a bid from asks to have both of you present when they do it, you should almost certainly retract the request for a bid.
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Mar 5, 2024 17:28
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Mar 5, 2024 23:05
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Hadlock posted:What is best practice for tree house construction. I have two, soon to be three nephews under six and a pair of mature redwoods 10' apart begging for a rope bridge between them. Seems like it would get at least moderate use If you aren't getting a prebuilt structure, step one is to confirm your homeowners liability limits and pick up an umbrella policy. Even if the kids' parents are not at all interested in blame if something bad happens their health insurance won't hesitate to try and recover.
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Mar 6, 2024 14:32
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I'll copy my response from the buying thread here: I'm a huge fan of things that address minor but frequent inconveniences. You can't go wrong replacing basically all of your fixed lower kitchen cabinet shelves with slide-outs. They are absurdly convenient. I thought it would be only marginally useful but turns out Lutron's Caseta smart switches/dimmers own. Snug in bed but the bathroom light got left on? "Siri, turn the bathroom lights off." Sync up all lights in a room even on different circuits. Entryway lights automatically turn on when you drive up, etc. I'll add in that if you have drywall it is much easier to swap an old in-wall box for a new "old-work" one than you'd think.
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Mar 9, 2024 18:34
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Did the gas company decide to take an actual reading after months of estimated reads?
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Mar 12, 2024 19:34
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Arsenic Lupin posted:That's a good idea. I'll ask. I'm actually good friends with my neighbor; the problem is that the house and land are held by a trust and will eventually be inherited by her stepchildren, who hate her. Promise to plant mint when she goes into hospice.
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Mar 13, 2024 01:42
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Unless it isn't supposed to stop, then it does.
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Mar 18, 2024 00:58
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AFCI/GFCI breakers will also tell you why they tripped, just look up the documentation online for the particular manufacturer you have. Eaton uses a blink code on a small LED, which I greatly prefer over Square-D's "reset while holding the button, count the number of seconds until it re-trips" method.
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Mar 18, 2024 10:15
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I'm in the market for a Murphy bed, but really don't have any idea where to start. Any suggestions from folks?
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Mar 19, 2024 00:53
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How's the best way to get caulk out from the bottom edge of siding? Gary spotted water at the bottom of a sill plate in the carport storage and proceeded to seal the bottom edge of the siding with an obscene amount of caulk. When that failed to stop the problem he found the actual source of the majority of the water up at the top and half-assed a seal on it, BUT with the first caulking job he had completely sealed off the way out for water which gets behind the siding or goes along the edge flashing. Thankfully the space isn't finished on the inside so it has been able to dry out from behind when it gets wet. The sill plate is CCA pressure treated and still looks fine but the lower 4-5" of the chipboard outer sheathing is hosed. I'm hoping that clearing out the caulk will give the water a place to go and slow down the damage.
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Mar 24, 2024 15:38
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PainterofCrap posted:What kind of siding? Vinyl? Aluminum? Steel? Wood? Vinyl, so I can't get aggressive with solvents.
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Mar 24, 2024 17:35
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Hadlock posted:The Internet says I can get a skylight installed for $2500 If you just want light then a tubular skylight like a Solatube or Velux Sun Tunnel would be a better solution. They neatly fit between rafters, can (to some degree) maneuver around obstacles, and don't require any more ceiling refinishing than a new can light. All that makes them much cheaper to install despite the actual unit potentially costing more.
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Mar 27, 2024 01:51
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Hadlock posted:It gives me like 20 minutes of personal time before my toddler wakes up and and starts screaming it's pretty great I think the time zone is set incorrectly on my toddler because the screaming is at 5:20 AM
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Mar 27, 2024 13:51
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I like the shade of blue, it is quite nice.
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Apr 4, 2024 02:28
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You also can't leave a job partially-finished around a kid unless you want to spend every moment of the intervening time playing reverse Sisyphus with your child. The job area needs to be either entirely cleaned and safe or entirely secured and inaccessible. Doing stuff bit by bit can easily mean spending twice as much time on setup and cleanup than you do actually working. Edit: maybe this changes when they get older, I don't know. I do know that "please don't go in there or touch that, it is not safe and might break" apparently translates in a 3.75yo brain as "there is a magical wish-granting unicorn in there which can only be summoned by touching that as much as possible, I am hiding this from you because I'm a meanie." Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 18:03
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*throws instructions into shredder* "I'm not taking advice from a cartoon man!"
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Apr 4, 2024 19:34
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GlyphGryph posted:The only place I reliably see better quality furniture than IKEA is at the local shop that mostly sells used furniture that's more than 20 years old. They have some incredible stuff, even the new stuff is really high quality, but I've gotten some extremely good, extremely durable furniture from there for very cheap. We have gotten several pieces from Article and all of them have been well made. Their tables include steel straps on the underside, perpendicular to the direction of the boards and fitted into recessed grooves so that the bottom is still flush. I gather their couches suck though.
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Apr 5, 2024 17:30
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Our policy premium went up 17% but the total is a relatively reasonable $950/yr with enhanced coverages, and the original rate was about 25% lower than what every other provider wanted so I expected they would pop up. We bundle with our auto insurance and that didn't go up any (first time that's ever happened), which made staying the best financial option. I have also seen too many stories of people switching them getting a "replace your roof within a month or your coverage is canceled" ultimatums from the new provider to risk going through full underwriting to save like $30/yr.
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Apr 8, 2024 10:26
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That's a loving Cadillac of generators. Even if you have to replace the entire fuel system because it sat with bad gas in it for a decade $700 is still such an amazing deal that you should you should also bring your friend a case of whatever their favorite beverage is.
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Apr 10, 2024 13:59
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Those are definitely poly pads.
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Apr 12, 2024 00:01
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We got an Electrolux ELFW7637AW almost a year ago and we've used the hell out of it (at least one load a day, sometimes multiple) with zero trouble. Can't give a long term testimonial but it does clean much much better than the GE top loader that came with the house, dries throughly in spin, and doesn't have a grody door seal. Also very quiet. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 22:45
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phosdex posted:I also bought a Leviton timer switch for the bathroom exhaust fan. There are 2 other light switches but the older toggle style. So I bought a 10 pack of Leviton rocker switches. Didn't notice until I went to install them that they say Leviton across the bottom of the rocker. Is this normal? Not sure if I should care about this. Leviton and Lutron mark the front of their decorator style switches, Eaton does not. I use Eaton. I am a bit of a weirdo and try to keep visible branding to a minimum, but to be honest I just find Eaton's back clamp design a little less finicky than the others.
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Apr 24, 2024 14:56
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Upgrade posted:Sadly I need to buy a diswasher. I have an older two-rack version of the whirlpool (wdt730pahz) and am very happy with it. It is quiet (not silent) yet gets dishes drat clean even when I load it to the gills. It came with the house but I believe it is roughly five or six years old. Cycle takes about three hours, but that's the norm now and I really cannot emphasize enough how drat effective the thing is at cleaning dishes.
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May 6, 2024 03:16
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Potato Salad posted:Bosch is great, and Whirlpool support has always come through for me. My whirlpool has a fan. Dries better than any dishwasher I've ever had.
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May 7, 2024 02:17
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