Home Improvement: Don't upvote, I'm trying to figure out this type of plywood |
- Don't upvote, I'm trying to figure out this type of plywood
- Another Cautionary Leaf Filter Tale
- On this episode of what is in my shower drain...
- Frameless Shower Curb Sloped Away/Out of Shower, Water Leaks on Floor
- Replacing fluorescents with LED tubes.
- Ridiculous toilet (Or: Am I making this too hard)
- Found Mold (Stachybotrys & Chaetomium) in house
- Any advice on how to get rid of scuffs on polyurethane finished wooden floors? (Picture provided)
- Replacing vapor barrier in crawlspace
- Fix or replace suspended ceiling
- Need help deciding on security cameras
- Safely heating the lower floor in a bi-level rental house.
- Buying a house that has these porch steps. The inspector said they just need repaired, but not sure how to go about this. Any suggestions?
- Painting a stairwell, but in what order?
- Is 1-inch PVC/Poly pipe water line better?
- Sprinkler help
- Advice on ceiling for basement bathroom.
- Advise: Repaving/bricking the driveway
- Can this be done with laminate or vinyl or does it have to be hardwood?
- does anyone know what these are called?
- Recommendations for replacing outlets in bulk
- Nail pops or something else?
- Thinking of installing Ikea cabinets
- Re-plumbing shower
| Don't upvote, I'm trying to figure out this type of plywood Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:15 PM PST I have plywood under my vinyl siding that is green in color and has some sort of coating on it. It doesn't appear to be painted on by a person, but manufactured that way. Any thoughts? Update: Thanks to /u/matchracer for figuring it out. It's zip sheathing and the inspector didn't figure it out. This inspector also dinged me on things that were no way issues. After I finalize the closing I plan on reporting him. Thanks for the silver! [link] [comments] |
| Another Cautionary Leaf Filter Tale Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:52 AM PST My wife and I decided to attend one the local Home and Garden shows in town last weekend. Like most families, we have a small to-do list, and one of the items on that list was to look into some gutter management systems. Backyard has six pine trees and two huge locust trees, so I could easily get up on the ladder 4-5 times a summer if I wanted to. One of the first booths we saw was for Leaf Fitter. I thought the product was interesting, but still had some reservations that the crap would just pile up on top and water would roll off the edge of the gutters. They had some demonstrations of the product and discussed how the mesh is the same as used in heart valves. *In retrospect, this should have been red flag number one, as those aren't exactly comparable processes and therefore should be irrelevant.* The lady at the booth took my information to have someone come out and get a free quote, and when I inquired about ballpark prices, she immediately clammed up and claimed that she was just hired for the show and they didn't provide her prices. *This was the second red flag. How do you not provide such basic information that anyone interested is going to ask about?* but she gave me a $250 coupon and I made some assumptions about the price based on what I assumed would be a 5-10% discount. Dude pulls up to my house, an older sales-type fella. No ladder, just a tape measure to get rough dimensions and then sits in his car for about 15 minutes afterwards. Then he comes in to chat. Goes through the binder showing my all the rave reviews, endorsements by a random tv personality that I hadn't heard of, and proceeds to do a kitchen sink demo, and shows a youtube video of a guy running faucet water down the sales folder to simulate flow from a roof. OK, it's not perfect, but I'm not expecting perfect, so I say let's get down to brass tacks and show me a quote. The first quote (for 120 linear feet of gutters) comes in at $4400 dollars, which strikes me as high. I say nothing. He tosses out the coupon and provides me a special discount which gets us down to 4000 and seems quite thrilled to present this deal. I'm doing the math in my head figuring out the per foot charge, comparing that to the math I did based on the coupon... I'm slow at math, so he must have mistaken this for a negotiation tactic and started telling me how he's gotten his son in law into the installation business and telling me about all the costs involved in running an install team (equipment, insurance, etc) and says the "commit now" price could be $3500. Luckily, my wife wasn't able to be there, so I was able to truthfully say "well, I won't make any commitment without talking to my wife first." that, and I had hoped to at least get one or two more quotes. He then proceeds to tell me that if I could talk it over with her, show her the literature, show her the video, that he could get me in at $3100 *IF* I could call him by 9PM that night and agree. I tell him we'll certainly discuss it, but in the back of my mind, I am wondering just how much wiggle room is there if the price dropped $1300 in less than 20 minutes of talking. We chat. We both are a little put off by the price and the hard sell. I searched this subreddit and found some very similar stories, along with other folks who were disappointed in the solution. I do not call him back. Next morning, I have a text:
I let him know we've decided to pursue other options. His response.
LOL, that's a hard no from me dawg. Kinda hard to build trust with someone who just tried to quote me a for more than 200% higher. I again thank him for his time and say no. Then today, just as ordained by previous posts, I get a text from his "manager" offering.
Wow, what an amazing coincidence that there just happens to always be excess inventory after a failed sale! Too bad you somehow quoted me for slightly more than the other guy's final offer. I've seen this playbook before, and I wonder how many times it then goes to "oh man, I'm so sorry, but the initial estimate was misentered and we're short, we'll need X to make up the difference" or some other story. I'd rather pay someone to come out and clean them regularly than deal with this shadiness. [link] [comments] |
| On this episode of what is in my shower drain... Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:34 PM PST http://imgur.com/gallery/Ibk14dT A little background: this is a 4 inch trapped floor drain. I don't know if it was originally supposed to be a shower drain but I've had a shower in this drain for the 6 years I've lived in this house. I had some backup issues which resulted in me pulling apart the bathroom and shower. When I first pulled up the shower pan, I found ants absolutely everywhere and there were so many of them. There was a piece of plywood between the concrete and pan that was very water damaged. The drain coming out of the pan wasn't at all sealed to the cast iron in this picture so when the backup occurred it just seeped into that plywood and my floor. Anyway the ants, they were everywhere: On the bottom of the pan, on both sides of the plywood, and in the cast iron drain. Most of them were in the drain taking up all of the space above the water in the trap up to the top of the pipe at the concrete. I vacuumed up the ones I could and poured about 3 gallons of boiling water down and around that drain. I got rid of all but maybe 5 ants that were still hanging out in the drain. Whatever I covered up the drain with a test plug. Its been about 5 weeks since and I opened it back up because I'm trying to figure out how to properly seal the pan so I can put the shower back in. And what do I find?! About 20 ants between the top of the concrete and water. No idea where they came from. And also this white stuff that almost looks like a cobweb? [link] [comments] |
| Frameless Shower Curb Sloped Away/Out of Shower, Water Leaks on Floor Posted: 05 Mar 2020 08:23 PM PST TLDR: Top of shower curb sloped away/out of shower, water leaks on to floor, should I replace tile on curb, replace all tile, get a better threshold/dam and clean up the water every use. Bought the house about 10 months ago, previous owners had the shower remodeled a couple months before sale and said they never used the shower to keep it nice for the sale...learned my lesson here. Anyways top of curb is not sloped to drain and slopes out of the shower and leaks water all over the floor. The threshold seen in the pictures was already installed but I added the sweep which helped a little bit but water was still leaking under the threshold through the grout lines. I then had the silicone sealant added at the inside of the threshold which also helped but is looking like it needs to be replaced soon. Now because of all the added sealant and the sweep and threshold the door won't close all the way and water is making it to the outside of the threshold and leaking all over the floor still. I'm tired of all the band aids and want to fix it for good. I had a tile guy come look and he is worried about cutting out the tile on top of the curb and damaging the waterproofing underneath as well as damaging adjacent tiles and having to replace more than the curb. I also don't want to have to replace the whole shower. He also is worried about the elevation of the tiles after doing this and having to raise the door but I would think he can keep the center of tile at the same elevation and just slope it the opposite direction. I have a glass guy coming tomorrow to get a quote for removing and reinstalling the doors so the tile guy can do his work but I am hoping there is a better option. Looking for any suggestions and wondering if the tile guy should cut out the top of curb tiles or if this really will mess up the waterproofing or if I should just get a better threshold installed and live with wiping up some water every time I shower. [link] [comments] |
| Replacing fluorescents with LED tubes. Posted: 05 Mar 2020 12:31 PM PST So the ballast in one of the kitchen fixtures died. It was 10 years old. It had a right. But the replacement was only available in boxes of 10 at Homedepot.ca, was 39 bucks at Lowes.ca and $29 at Amazon. But I could get a box of 4 LED strip tubes for $45. No need of ballast. The conversion was simple:
Gotchas:
If you believe all the lies, I'm getting about the same number of lumens for 18w instead of 35 watts. So 2 bulbs x 17w savings = 35 W savings. About 30 hours to save a kWh. These bulbs are on about 12 hours a day. (Yeah...) Call it 80 hours a week. So 2.6 kWh/week or 130 kWh/year. At 10 cents/kWh that's 13 bucks a year. The bulbs pay for themselves then in 1.5 years in electricity savings. [link] [comments] |
| Ridiculous toilet (Or: Am I making this too hard) Posted: 05 Mar 2020 09:51 PM PST Hi everyone, first post for me in this sub! I have a 1960s-built house in the US inland Pacific Northwest that has seen its share of renovations, both properly licensed and...well, not. I've been making improvements as money will permit. One less expensive thing I would really like to do is replace my upstairs toilet. It's one of those one-piece American Standard models that uses special parts for EVERYTHING, goes through parts ridiculously fast, is terribly bad at low-flow flushes, and is the only thing in my house that gets rust rings. Inspiration struck when I spent 3 weeks in Japan in 2016 and fell unreasonably in love with the smart toilets you find even in the dingiest bars and rest stops. Toilet paper has just never meant the same to me since. Luckily the bidet concept is starting to catch on in the US. So, thinking, "hey, I've removed and replaced toilets before to put down flooring!" I went ahead and sprung for the OVE Lena when it was on sale. Some of you are no doubt asking, why not just spring for the cheaper bidet attachments? Well, because my stupid fancy existing toilet curves around the bowl and an attachment wouldn't fit. So I'd have to buy a new basic toilet and then an attachment, which (for all the fancy features I want) would end up costing nearly as much as the OVE model did anyway. 2 birds, 1 stone, yada yada. When I got it unboxed--which involved utterly destroying the box--I realized that the toilet comes with a special valve attachment that is not sized for my 1/2-inch supply pipe. I had a plumber take a look at it and he said in order to fit the attachment I would need a 3/4-inch plumbing line retrofit all the way to where it branches from the mains supply, which would involve ripping out a not insignificant amount of drywall in my upstairs bath and kitchen, and cost upwards of $3k. I asked if the valve could just be fitted with a converter and he said the toilet would not work correctly. Now some time is passed and I'm pretty sure I can't return the toilet, missing all of its packaging and almost certainly now beyond the return window. So, is the plumber right? Is there another solution we both missed? Or should I admit I wasted some money, buy a cheap toilet, and live with improperly-cleansed nether regions forever? Edit: I hadn't thought of this before RIGHT NOW, but OVE is a Canadian manufacturer. Might the valve just be Canada standard, for which I could find a converter? Or would the plumber's assessment about the supply line being too small still apply? Edit 2, More Brain-Thoughts: Would putting down the money for the re-pipe be a good investment for the house? [link] [comments] |
| Found Mold (Stachybotrys & Chaetomium) in house Posted: 05 Mar 2020 08:29 PM PST I started renovating a 1100 sqft home with 3 bed/2 bath,, kitchen, dining area, living room and laundry room. Found mold in all rooms except, master bedroom, living room, and one bedroom. Can I remove/replace as much material as I can find and then with the mold on studs, hard to reach OSB boards (like under the bath tubs) and once piece of drywall (that I can't remove because I just had cabinets installed and one small section shares the wall with the cabinets just intalled) can I saturate the material with Mold Control (Link takes you to Lowes Website) waiting until it dries and applying Mold Killing Primer, and be OK? I also suspect it might be under the tile floor, can I just leave it if the tile is well sealed? The mold is basically all dried out, all humidity problems have been fixed, and I will have the HVAC system professionally cleaned, will I be okay living there or do I need to pay for professional remediation? My concern is are the remediation companies and mold companies in cahoots to help profit each other, and BLACK MOLD overly hyped because of that cases in Cleveland that lead to infant deaths. I know mold is naturally in the environment, and we breathe in tons of spores on a daily basis. [link] [comments] |
| Any advice on how to get rid of scuffs on polyurethane finished wooden floors? (Picture provided) Posted: 05 Mar 2020 11:56 AM PST |
| Replacing vapor barrier in crawlspace Posted: 05 Mar 2020 09:27 PM PST Live in the south-east and are going to replace worn out vapor barrier in crawlspace. We are not encapsulating it just simply replacing what was put down . Previous barrier appeared to function well (no mold or moisture within crawlspace) and was layed down over bare dirt but was not secured to anything let alone the wall and foundation. Seeing as we are not encapsulating the crawl space, can we get away with laying a new layer of barrier without going up the foundation walls or is that still recommended even when NOT encapsulating? I only ask because most of the "how to install new vapor barrier" instructions appear to address mostly homes that are encapsulating with conditioning and I am trying to figure out why I should lay the barrier up the wall a few feet if I'm not encapsulating it. [link] [comments] |
| Fix or replace suspended ceiling Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:18 PM PST We purchased this house a couple of years ago, so I don't know whether the ceiling was installed professionally or the previous homeowners did it themselves. It looks really bad though. Tiles aren't matched and the railing is sagging in many places. The pic shows one area, but it's pretty indicative of what the rest looks like. My trouble is that I don't know much about drop ceilings. Is this something that can be fixed? Or are we better off just tearing it all out and starting over. [link] [comments] |
| Need help deciding on security cameras Posted: 05 Mar 2020 04:06 AM PST So my girlfriend wants to get security cameras (one outside & one inside at least). We're looking for ones in the budget range of around $200 that also allow you to check the cameras from your phone. A lot of the reviews on Amazon are hard to take serious because there's a lot of conspiracy theories in them lol. Do ya'll have any ideas? [link] [comments] |
| Safely heating the lower floor in a bi-level rental house. Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:56 PM PST I'm renting a home in Calgary, Alberta. A surprise to us is that while the house is reasonably well insulated, the heating system is fairly basic and run off a thermostat on the upper floor only. This works fine, however it leads to the classic "ground floor is freezing." The problem here is that our kids (young children, 6-10) bedrooms are on said lower floor. It's a rental house, so upgrading the heating system is off the table, as is anything structural. Any ideas on how to provide some warmth for our little rugrats? If they were older, electric space heaters would be fine, but I cannot rely on them not doing something very unfortunate and I'd rather not have a house fire. Currently, we're just opening an upstairs porch door at night to force the furnace on and prevent cooking us in the process, but that's horrifically wasteful. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:58 PM PST |
| Painting a stairwell, but in what order? Posted: 05 Mar 2020 01:03 PM PST Very amateur DIY person here. I've (foolishly?) decided to strip ~100 years worth of paint from my stairwell and repaint it to look something like this - am almost done stripping down to the bare wood, but am wondering in what order should I paint? Should I do the walls first, and then the trim + stringers and then the risers + treads? To those who have done this before, what makes the most sense? [link] [comments] |
| Is 1-inch PVC/Poly pipe water line better? Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:06 PM PST I'm replacing my water line which will run about 100 feet from the main supply to the whole house. I read somewhere if I can specify the size of my house water line, I should choose 1-inch line because that will increase the water capacity, reduce the friction, and still provides good pressure if many fixtures are running at the same time. I won't regret it, according to the writer. However, when I mentioned this to my contractor, he freaked out and said that 1-inch is too big and 3/4-inch is good enough. He said even the hardware/plumbing shop said nobody used 1-inch pipe inside a house. I'm a bit torn here between sticking with what I read and what my contractor told me. I'm also planning to install a water pump (because from what I see and heard, the pressure from the main supply is not strong. I haven't stayed in this house yet) and the outlet of most pumps I checked are 1-inch. That's why I thought it's a good idea to ask my contractor to install 1-inch water line. Any help are appreciated. Thank you! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:04 PM PST My main sprinkler connection is leaking. More like spraying. The sprinkler store told be to get brass connections for this connection. This is where it transitions from 3/4" poly pipe from the secondary water company to my 1" poly line feeding my sprinklers. Could they have sold me the wrong size causing the water to spray out the end? [link] [comments] |
| Advice on ceiling for basement bathroom. Posted: 05 Mar 2020 07:04 PM PST I am putting in a basement bathroom. I'm slowly remodeling the basement but this is the first major project. My intention is to leave the ceiling joists exposed for the remodel. However, I wonder if I should do this for the bathroom. It seems like a bad idea. I have the main HVAC duct that runs right through the bathroom ceiling. It's too low for me build a soffitt around it to make that the ceiling and I don't care to anyway unless there's some very compelling reason. I don't think the exposed metal should be an issue as it's galvanized. So I thought maybe I should put sheet rock on either side. It's 9'x5' and includes a shower. The ducting is rectangular and takes up about 2' of the ceiling. There's other exposed pipes in the area but they could be covered with a 2" soffit. What do you think? Any other ideas? Or what if I left the joists exposed except for the shower and put up the backerboard and tiled that part of the ceiling? [link] [comments] |
| Advise: Repaving/bricking the driveway Posted: 05 Mar 2020 04:41 AM PST I am in UK and not sure where to ask this, but I would like to re-pave my driveway or put brick driveway there. At the moment its cement with small steps (2 steps) on the right that lead to the house. The driveway has space for 1 car. Can someone please let me know what I need to think about when I talk to sales people about my options. Obviously the cement has to be removed, base to be put down again and then repaved. I would ideally want to do it so it lasts longer than 5 years, so thats why I am considering bricks. I really appreciate help. I found this site: https://www.propertypriceadvice.co.uk/home-improvements/much-value-driveway-add-home here is the driveway: https://i.imgur.com/QaFwwFG.jpg [link] [comments] |
| Can this be done with laminate or vinyl or does it have to be hardwood? Posted: 05 Mar 2020 04:41 PM PST |
| does anyone know what these are called? Posted: 05 Mar 2020 03:21 AM PST my glass door in the home I rent rattles like crazy because a bunch of these are missing. I can't begin to find out what they're even called to order more. [link] [comments] |
| Recommendations for replacing outlets in bulk Posted: 05 Mar 2020 02:43 PM PST My house has a weird mish-mash of outlets, with different styles in different rooms, and many of them are quite old and have been painted over many times. I have a young kid so I want to get Tamper Resistant outlets, and I'd like to do them all in the same color/style (probably white). I was looking for some feedback
[link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2020 06:11 PM PST Hello, Our 11th month walkthrough for our home warranty is coming up. We've marked a bunch of the nail pops to get fixed but these in the ceiling looks weird: https://imgur.com/gallery/x2A5CQk Are these nailpops or something else? It looks like maybe the paint bubbled? This is below a bathroom so wanted to know if water pipe leak is a possibility. Thanks in advance! [link] [comments] |
| Thinking of installing Ikea cabinets Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:53 PM PST Does anyone have experience with ikea cabinets? I'm looking to remodel my kitchen by replacing the cabinets. I'm stuck between in-stock cabinets from the big box store, or the ikea cabinet system. Has anyone installed the ikea cabinet system? Was it difficult? Appreciate it! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2020 05:52 PM PST looking to convert from copper to pex since I have the backside of the tile wall open. I typically do my DIY in stages when I have free time so I was wondering if once I cut out my supply lines to the shower if I can just slip a shark bite ball value on the end to stop water flow to the shower but can still supply water to the rest of the home. Or will I need to buy a separate brass end stop fitting? Thanks in advance [link] [comments] |
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