|
So we have some water seeping into our unfinished basement. I'd like to know what we would need to do to prevent it happening - who should I contact for that? A contractor? Is it better to have some sort of engineer come out and tell us what needs to be done and then ask contractors for their price on that solution?
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2018 14:43
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 02:00 |
|
|
Most of the time our basement is ok, except apparently when we have heavy rainfall/snow melt; we're currently getting puddling that is draining into our sump and getting pumped out. The walls are fieldstone. I realized that when the PO redid the roofing they left the downspouts just dumping against the wall, so I have fitted some extenders and tubing to direct that out away from the house, but I think by the time we did that the ground was already pretty saturated; so it hasn't solved the issue. I'd like to at least improve the way it drains (it currently just sort of wiggles around the floor before making its way to the sump) and at least find out if we can do something exterior. Out of curiosity, how close was too close for doing exterior work? We're fine on three sides, but one side of the house is about 4 feet from the neighbors fencing and that might be an issue.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2018 16:16
|
|
|
Voodoo posted:Glue traps are a excellent (but gross) solution for cave crickets. Scatter a couple of them around the basement where you think the fuckers might be coming in from, and you will see almost immediate results. Also think about whether you might have mice/rats/etc around that you don't know about, because they'll also get stuck in glue traps and that can be pretty horrifying.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2018 22:29
|
|
|
Just wanted to give a big gently caress you to the PO/plumber who installed a toilet with barely 3" of clearance on the side with the flush, so not only do 90% of replacement levers not fit, you can't even remove the one there without a hacksaw. There is more than a foot of space on the other side, too. Or just use a tank with a front mount!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2018 02:21
|
|
|
I have it on good authority that anything from the Harrison administration is definitely top shape and doesn't need to be looked at too closely, promise.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2018 17:26
|
|
|
We're in the process of getting some blown insulation in; you should look to see whether your city or state offers any incentives for it - ours offers a rebate up of 75% of the cost of insulation and weatherization improvements, which is amazing and there's no reason not to do it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 31, 2018 16:37
|
|
|
I feel like a lot of people probably got a bad taste for battery units when they were relatively new and they either lacked power or stamina or both. Kind of like people who jumped on CFLs as soon as they launched and then got pissed off by the delay and swore off them until LEDs were replacing them anyway. Anyway I still use a wired drill because it works and I feel weird replacing it when the current one works just great and I'm rarely drilling stuff beyond the reach of an outlet anyway. Now a cordless jigsaw, let's talk, how good are those things now?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2019 15:23
|
|
|
Jealous Cow posted:I’m so cold, guys. It’s loving cold in here. I think I may need to do some insulation work. I feel you. It's 3F outside, parts of my house are 54F. I've been going through the state program to discount/rebate weather improvements since September, and finally got approval to schedule someone. I'm glad I was proactive and didn't wait for the cold snap to get started or it would be summer before it worked out.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 21, 2019 21:35
|
|
|
Not sure if this is the place for this, I considered DIY but I'm not sure this is a 'fix it fast' situation. We had some heavy rain this past week and we have some water seeping into our basement. The basement isn't finished, it's fieldstone walls and a concrete floor; it's also where our furnace and electrical panel are, but we don't use it for anything besides storing bicycles and law mowers. Our house is on a slope, such that the back of the basement is underground and the front is actually ground level; the seepage is at the back wall, and I am pretty sure what is happening is that water draining off the hill above us soaks the back wall and then start seeping in when we have enough saturation - it doesn't happen all the time, and one of the first things I did was check our gutters and ensure we have downspouts directed properly. The water isn't a practical problem; it seeps in around the back wall and then flows to a sump pit, and if enough comes in it gets pumped out. It's not great, obviously, but its not a disaster situation. I want to get this taken care of, but I also have a number of other items on our house list. Is this the kind of thing where I need to call in a specialist and have it taken care of immediately? Is it ok to backburner it for later in the year, or longer, assuming it's just this occasionally seepage that gets handled without flooding/swamping anything? I know the house has had water seeping before, probably similar to this, in the past. If I need it taken care of pronto is this a thing a general contractor does, or should I find some basement specialists? A lot of basement companies look like they're about finishing spaces, but I assume they'd know about waterproofing etc as a first step as well.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2019 18:06
|
|
|
Poldarn posted:Based on my lovely foundation experience, if you live somewhere where it freezes over the winter, those little cracks where the water is getting in are going to become bigger cracks next year. There are companies who specialize in excavating around your property and fixing your drainage so the water doesn't run up to the exterior wall anymore. That's a good point, I hadn't thought about what the winter will do to it. Guess we'll prioritize having someone come and try and take care of it before the fall.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2019 17:12
|
|
|
As it's warmed up, we have had some big ants wandering around the kitchen and bathroom (ground floor, they share a corner of the building). On research it seems likely they are carpenter ants. How paranoid do I need to be that they are filling the walls and eating the supports? At the moment we basically find a couple wandering around alone every day. I spent part of this weekend laying out borax baits, for a start.
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2019 21:55
|
|
|
Terro is what I grabbed at the hardware store because I wanted to do something immediately, so good to know it wasn't a total waste of my time stuffing little cards under things. I'll look into Delta Dust as well and follow up with that if we keep seeing them appear. As soon as I identified them I got paranoid and started searching for signs they're in the house but I haven't found anything to indicate we have more than a few visitors.
|
|
#
¿
May 28, 2019 04:36
|
|
|
There was that guy who had CO buildup in his apartment, leading to him writing weird postit notes to himself. Don't be that guy!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2019 20:20
|
|
|
We have a sump pump, but thankfully the lower side of the basement is actually entry level (due to a hill) so I think our emergency plan is to open the door and let everything flow out there? It's not a good plan, I may want to reexamine that.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2019 19:46
|
|
|
But then where to you keep your flooding? 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2019 20:58
|
|
|
I thought dangling things by the wires was how you checked your connections were secure 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2019 00:41
|
|
|
GoGoGadgetChris posted:Why the gently caress would you hang wallpaper in tyool 2019, OP Look the previous owner hosed me hard with their projects, you bet I'm going to pass that on to the next guy.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2019 13:39
|
|
|
Our Victorian has a subtle wallpaper in the stairwell/hallway that is plain but textured. I really like the effect but it's also a huge headache because the raised pattern is particularly vulnerable to damage. And because it is who knows how old it's impossible to find any match to repair it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2019 01:40
|
|
|
The way to get good quality furniture cheap is to wait for old people to die and then scoop it up when their kids are trying to get rid of 50 years of hoarding. The downside to this is that you will end up with stuff that was in style 30-60 years ago. So there's that.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2019 01:39
|
|
|
This conversation makes me really glad I have both a basement and an attic; all the wire runs around the basement and then up into the walls, and the second floor stuff runs from the basement up along the chimney well to the attic and then down to whichever room is needed. We had a ton of rewiring done and the electricians only needed to cut a handful of index-card size holes to make specific runs and otherwise there was no wall destruction involved at all. If we ever get to wiring up a network or something it should be relatively simple.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2019 18:21
|
|
|
The real question is how hard it is to DIY one of those pneumatic tube systems. Edit: I would also accept a Mr. Rogers trolley I can send from room to room.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2019 01:21
|
|
|
That looks like a pupae of some sort? What was the sand construction like? Was it just like a knob of sand on the wall, or was it running up from the ground? If you have termites, you'll generally be able to see where their tunnels run into the ground, the above-ground portion gets built up out of a nest or tunnel system. Other insects like wasps use sand or mud to make nests, but they're stand-alone structures stuck on a surface.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2019 21:44
|
|
|
I just let my yard grow whatever and mow it when it's getting high. It's a motley collection of stuff but I don't care, and I'm not pouring water and money onto a yard. At some point I'll get more focused on it and actually landscape some native plants but for now it's just thunderdome and whatever can make it gets to stay.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2019 13:23
|
|
|
Isn't a cast iron tub going to weigh something like 300lbs? You probably need a plan to get that out of there and it's not something you can likely solo.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2019 17:29
|
|
|
Armadillos are the only animal that carry leprosy and can transmit it to humans, so watch out that war could get nasty.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2019 14:05
|
|
|
Are there any restrictions on the location or symmetry of the windows? Maybe you could turn a loss into a win with some creative thinking. 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2019 18:49
|
|
|
I suppose that you could just go in and cripple the wireless receivers for everything where you don't want to use any smart functions, assuming that the design isn't so obnoxious that it stops working when it can't get any sort of signal.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2019 19:10
|
|
|
Agreed, we went through a state program that subsidizes insulation work, and part of it was having someone come out to inspect the work - the guy had a thermal imager so he could just walk around imaging the walls and pinpoint any spots that weren't properly filled, and flagged those for the company to come back out and remedy. Not sure what a rental would cost, but I would definitely go that way.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2019 21:13
|
|
|
If you are going to resent your kid because your guest room changes into a nursery, don't have kids, because that is literally the best thing they will do to you in the first 10 years.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2020 22:41
|
|
|
I would be pretty cautious about winnowing down the number of bathrooms you have, old houses already tend to have fewer than the preferred number. How many bedrooms is the house? We have a 2 story with 4 bedrooms and 1.5 baths, and our long term plan is to put a shower/bath into the first floor half bath. If its a smaller house maybe that's less of a concern. One thing to consider is that having a full bathroom on the first floor is important if anyone living there has mobility issues and may be restricted/unable to use stairs easily. You'd still have the toilet at least, but it's something to think about. This also kind of depends on if the first floor is viable as a living space at all (ie, not if its all open plan common rooms) or if the house itself would exclude someone (ie, you have flights to even get in). If I were you I'd try to figure out if there was a way to get the laundry in without losing the shower, but maybe it's not possible. If not I'd rather keep the bathroom and the laundry in the basement, but there are a lot of variables going into that.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2020 18:50
|
|
|
A coworker did something pretty similar last year in order to reorder their living space, but they had already owned the condo for 10+ years and it was explicitly because they could afford to move around some interior walls (they did a lot of the work) but not to buy something that actually met their needs in their neighborhood because all the prices have rocketed in that time. You would obviously want to get an actual professional to confirm you can move those walls if this is a requirement for you buying the place. Also from everything I have heard, condo renovations make your neighbors/condo partners hate you and drives everyone nuts, so there is that to look forward to.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2020 04:57
|
|
|
Ok I wanted to go back to your actual plan: If I am reading it correctly, there isn't actually a door between the closet area that is shared with the W/D and the smaller bedroom? That seems like a bad setup, especially for a kids room. You don't want to have to be entering their space to run laundry. Also, you apparently can't get to the W/D without either passing through the bathroom or the bedroom, which also seems needlessly restrictive. If you're going to go through all the trouble of the renovation, I would say you should fill in the door to the W/D area from the bedroom, add a door so the walk-in closet is accessed directly from their room. I guess you can't just remove the wall separating the W/D from the main room if you want to keep that area out of sight and reduce noise, but put the door there so you can access it directly. I don't really think moving the bedroom wall pays off because you'll also be messing with the room proportions; the living area will be lopsided facing the window, and the bedroom will have one window weirdly tucked in a corner. I mean it works, but it's kind of off kilter.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2020 15:34
|
|
|
Is it a boat? Or a bird? poo poo I was never good at these magic eye things.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2020 17:26
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:What do I actually do with things like heating units and toilets I want to get rid of? I have no idea how to dispose of these things. Based on the archeology of my back yard, you just dump old toilets at your least visible property line and wait for nature to take its course.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2023 18:02
|
|
|
Drag it into the street, now it's a different department's problem.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2023 16:28
|
|
|
Johnny Truant posted:My house has at least two coax drops in every room. Every. loving. room. Mine has phone jacks, but instead of running the wires through the walls they ran them along the molding and then painted over them 15 times. At some point I'll have to tear them out and then repaint it all. But not this day.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2023 23:22
|
|
|
Qwijib0 posted:Taking this dumb idea to the end, it takes ~700 watt-hours to vaporize a gallon of water, so a 5kW array generating ~30 kWh attached to a boiler can boil 42 gallons/day, or 1.7 ccf/mo Can we burn the solid waste as fuel for the boiler to steam away the grey water? Turning problems into solutions. Alternative: become a famous streamer and sell your grey water to weirdos.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2023 03:12
|
|
|
We did laundry every day with babies because I didn’t want anything with fluids stewing and getting more rank. Our kids are older now but we still do a full load probably every other day between clothes, pajamas, and stuff like PE gear.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 17, 2024 15:10
|
|
|
Before we do that: 1/ Do you know where the shutoff for the sink is? 2/ Do you know where the shutoff for the house is? This will protect you from the worst outcomes.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 18, 2024 04:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 02:00 |
|
|
We have some insane plaster and horsehair bullshit on top of lathe, so magnets find absolutely nothing. I have had the best luck with some variety of complicated sensor that also detects electric lines and metal pipes. I dunno how it works but it's been the mostly consistently right so far. It doesn't help with the fact that if you disturb the plaster even a little bit, sometimes it gives up the ghost and a huge chunk explodes into powder.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2024 04:38
|
|