Home Improvement: What do I do with this concrete guy who made a mess of my lawn? |
- What do I do with this concrete guy who made a mess of my lawn?
- Doors suddenly not fitting in frames
- Is this Lowe's / Costco Lennox AC / HVAC Quote too high? $23,260 - California
- Mother-in-law suites... worth it?
- Changing interior trim styles - worth it?
- Tankless hot water heater - Is it worth it?
- Chirp every 34 seconds in ceiling??
- HVAC repairman flooded my unit
- Residential well questions - just moved in and have no idea what's going on
- Wiring question. Is it A or B?
- Old House looking for energy efficient attic to bring down $300 bill with $4k budget
- Will this burn my house down? How to make it not?
- Sooo I found some mold...
- Kitchen cabinet underlighting help!
- I know I need new heating and air ducts. Is there a slower time of year to get a better rate?
- Does anyone have any idea on why the guy who installed my tile shower would use that yellow foam stuff at top "trying" to seal it instead of using the grout stuff like the other spots have?
- Question about loud HVAC in new apartment
- How to improve my studio, ring of tile around two main walls looks very bad
- Wet Pressure Treated lumber... Use it now or let it dry out?
- Planning on doing renovation on 100 year old home
- Replace entire vanity or just counter top?
- Can I use any type of wall light as an outside light?
- dricore vs dmx 1-step
- Where can I find irregular sections for freedom brand Brighton fencing?
- Should I be worried about asbestos if I break this piece and replace it with drywall? House made in 1920s
| What do I do with this concrete guy who made a mess of my lawn? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 01:04 PM PDT I'm having a new driveway put in. Since it's new construction, I have a temporary gravel drive. The concrete guy dozed all the temporary gravel out to the level he needs for the drive, but he's dozed it onto my rough-graded yard. I'm going to be having my landscaping done within the next two weeks. The gravel being there is not ideal. I've told him that it's gotta get cleaned up but it's like talking to a brick wall. I have a feeling that he's not going to clean up. What can I do? Just withhold payment until he cleans it up? UPDATE So the drive is done and I had a nice talk with the concrete guy. I asked if he could help me out here, and he said he'll be back tomorrow to clean up the mess. No problem. Thanks for all the advice of not withholding payment. [link] [comments] |
| Doors suddenly not fitting in frames Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:59 AM PDT Hey everyone, weird question I know, and maybe I'm drawing the wrong causal connections, but here goes. I recently moved to Miami and my home had a very crappy AC system, I couldn't sleep and I was sweating 24/7. Complained A LOT and my landlord finally got a new AC. Shortly after installing the AC, and the house becoming cool for the first time, I've had door issues. My backdoor won't open anymore without applying serious amounts of strength. Literally, my GF can't open it anymore, and I have to put my entire arm strength into it. Also, one door to a guest bedroom is no longer closing. It's as if it's suddenly too big for the frame. I have no clue what's going on, but this started around the same time, and it started after the AC was installed (not sure if cool plus humid, or something, is warping the wood?). [link] [comments] |
| Is this Lowe's / Costco Lennox AC / HVAC Quote too high? $23,260 - California Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:53 PM PDT Question: Is $23,260 even within the ballpark of reasonable? My ducts needs replacing, no question about that. I got a quote from a locale AC company, and figured I would get a quote from one of those big-box stores - in this case it was Lowe's. I haven't received the local person quote yet, but I did get the big-box store on the spot. They gave me 3 quotes, "standard system" ~$14800, "better system" ~$20880, "best system" $23,260. The main difference being inverter cooling thingie that uses less energy Home is ~2500sq.ft, in what is traditionally considered an expensive cost of living location Replacement / InstalltionFurance: Lennox DLSCIndoor Air Quality (IAQ): HC MERV 16 Filter & CabinetOther: 2 ZonesIndoor Air Quality (IAQ): Other: UV Light FiltrationOther: Zoning SystemControls: iComfort S30 Ultra Smart Wi-FiControls: Other: Room CensorReplace Complete Duct SystemAir Conditioner: Lennox Elite SeriesRemove Existing EquipmentStandard Registered WarrantyMaterial & LaborPermit ----------- $23,260 [link] [comments] |
| Mother-in-law suites... worth it? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:26 PM PDT What are y'all a thoughts on turning finished basement space in to a mother-in-law suite? Does it add enough value to the home? Or are you just wasting space that could be entertaining space? [link] [comments] |
| Changing interior trim styles - worth it? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 04:00 PM PDT We're replacing flooring throughout our home, and will also be replacing baseboards as we go. We're interested in something a bit more modern, but I'm concerned about how a new style would clash with the trim in our window and door casings. We have 3.75" Coronado baseboards and all our window and door casings have 2.25" colonial-style trim. A number of the door frames also have rosettes in the top corners, and our living room has cove crown moulding, so overall the house has a distinctive and more old-fashioned style even though our own aesthetics tend towards a cleaner, Scandinavian look. Is there a type of baseboard trim that can straddle these styles, or if we want to have more modern baseboards will we need to bite the bullet and replace the door and window trim throughout? [link] [comments] |
| Tankless hot water heater - Is it worth it? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:36 AM PDT Right so I've been in my home for about a year. Very first one. Simple 4 bed, 2 bath ranch. The water heater thing was replaced about 5 years ago. It works great. I think it's 50 gallons or something. It's in the basement. Anyways I was watching Breaking Bad and Walt replaced his hot water heater with a tankless one that runs off the gas line. I thought this was science fiction until I googled it and apparently they are a real thing. So my question to you: should I replace my currently fine hot water heater with a new tankless one? Is this something I can install myself? Gas and water lines may need to be rerouted and an exhaust fan, from the look of it. How significant is the energy savings? [link] [comments] |
| Chirp every 34 seconds in ceiling?? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:58 PM PDT Hi friends. We just heard something start chirping in our house. It's every 34 seconds, 1 mechanical chirp. As far as we can tell it's in the ceiling or wall near our upstairs bathroom fan. Our attic has a fuckton of loose insulation so we can't see the rafters to walk around up there and investigate further. I am stressed. Any ideas? I feel like something bad is going to happen while we sleep. It sounds like a smoke detector low battery chirp, but there is no reason I can think of that one would be buried under insulation in our attic. [link] [comments] |
| HVAC repairman flooded my unit Posted: 04 Sep 2020 08:28 PM PDT HVAC repair question (since I had no idea what sub to post it to). Long story short, found that an open pipe was leaking next to my central heating/air unit. Had a repair man come over, and find out that the condensation pipe had plugged up, and water was coming out of the overflow. Gentleman opened up the pipe, BLEW INTO the pipe (straight into the unit) to "clear the clog". Said everything was fine. Charged me $147 for the repair call. 2 hours later my Bryant evolution thermostat said "44-CANNOT COMMUNICATE WITH BLOWER". After reading on the right way to fix the problem.. which is with a shop vac.. not blowing water back into the system.. I did a system test.. the system itself runs, but the blower fan does not kick on. You can hear water gurgling inside of the unit. He's supposed to come back tomorrow to do a "diagnostic" for free, but if the blower has to be replaced, it'll be upwards of $900. Of course we have the most expensive system Bryant offers. Am being scammed? Is this guy an idiot? I'm just confused how someone is licensed would go and do that. I'm certainly not paying $900 for someone else's recklessness. Any opinions on how to handle this mess is appreciated. Edit: Checked a SensorPush inside of a humidor that's not a fridge, and within 30 minutes the temp of the house rose. It wasn't just a coincidence. [link] [comments] |
| Residential well questions - just moved in and have no idea what's going on Posted: 04 Sep 2020 05:33 PM PDT So the past few times it's rained we've started seeing sediment in our water. At first we primarily noticed a browning of the toilet water and then I found sediment in the tanks. I thought maybe the toilets weren't getting filtered water and the rain was stirring things up, but I think that idea was severely misguided. We're starting to see a browning of our tap water and I'm assuming if we collected enough and let it sit we'd see sediment. I called a well driller and he said it might be a few different things, but from what I've read if it's happening after a rain then it's possible there's a leak in the well head and a bunch of shit we don't want is leaking down into the aquifer. So what I want to ask is, if there's a leak in the well head that's letting water through, would a covering fix it? There was one hiding the well and I removed it because I thought it was ugly, but now I'm wondering about it. What kind of filtration systems are recommended in the home? We have a single filter case and I pulled a random filter off the shelf at Lowe's because it said it would last a whole year. I'm seeing on Amazon systems that have up to 6 filters and systems that go under sinks. Is this overkill or would it provide a legitimately desirable amount of protection? I know I had more questions, but it's been a long, frustrating day and I've already started drinking. Thanks for reading. [link] [comments] |
| Wiring question. Is it A or B? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 09:15 PM PDT Hello all, hopefully someone can help me. I am currently trying to wire my house with cat6. I have all the necessary supplies and I plan to work on it this weekend. I currently have AT&T fiber Internet. So my question is this. I've read in certain articles that I have to use the wiring T568A method instead of the standard T568B method when dealing with AT&T internet. Is this true? A response or p.m. would be much appreciated. Thank you very much [link] [comments] |
| Old House looking for energy efficient attic to bring down $300 bill with $4k budget Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:39 PM PDT Had the house a year and I've finally saved up some to improve the energy efficiency of this drafty dwelling.
General House Specs
Current AC Usage
Attic Specs
The plan is to hire a contractor to do the work. I've had bad experiences with the local contractors (the dud that did our house inspection included) so I just want make sure I'm not making bad decisions. [link] [comments] |
| Will this burn my house down? How to make it not? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:34 PM PDT I am looking at ways to insulate my window during the winter. On top of some other stuff I've already done, I am thinking about securing a sheet of PIR insulation like this one to my window at night (paying suitable attention to the joints/gaps etc). Feel free to let me know if this is a stupid way to insulate my window, but the main issue is this: the window in question is a few feet above my electric baseboard heater. Is there something I can/should do to keep my insulation sheet from catching on fire/melting? Like maybe put some kind of barrier between the heater and the window, or some kind of coating on the sheet? Or maybe it's not a big problem at all? Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:56 PM PDT We got our HVAC cleaned/flushed because it was full of mold, and had never been cleaned. After a few days it smelled funky again, and we're like oh, this old HVAC has dirty sock syndrome, whatevs. While waiting on my HVAC-expert BIL to have time to come to check it out, I noticed mold on all of our windows. We knew buying the house we needed to replace them, but we were banging through more pressing issues because other than losing some A/C and heat, we didn't see any issue with it. I guess I cleaned it often enough assuming it was dust that it never got the chance to become noticeable, but it's been raining a TON the last couple of weeks and I didn't clean last weekend like I usually do. So today I was finally catching up and I'm like holy shit, there's mold on every window. It's in several drawers in the kitchen. It's all over the outside of the HVAC vents (when the HVAC has mold it was only on the inside, so I don't think that's it). It's it's on the kitchen windows and in the drawers, does that mean it's in the walls behind the drawers, or did it get into the drawers from being in the kitchen inside the house? What do I do next? Obviously replacing windows has moved up our list of priorities, but we're replacing our front door and the door to the upstairs porch. Also, the upstairs of our house has amazing thick carpet, and it often feels damp for no reason. Does mold get on carpet too? How do I fix that if it does? My husband gets a bonus after tax season that we typically use to pay ahead for daycare, but we could repurpose that for windows if we need to. What do I do in the meantime to help us not keep inhaling mold? I'm so grossed out. These pricy fixes are becoming the barrier to affording a second kid and it's really bumming me out. ETA: I started checking cabinets and found a SHIT TON of mold on the bottom of one of the drawers. No wonder cleaning it out didn't help. So I'm off to get all the things everyone has mentioned so far. [link] [comments] |
| Kitchen cabinet underlighting help! Posted: 04 Sep 2020 11:46 AM PDT Hello everyone! I moved into a new condo, and the potlights under the cabinets are all burnt out. I believe they were all old halogen styles; and after literally months of tracking down replacements they were almost 100$ each; and I need three. Certainly there are other options I don't know about that are more cost effective? I don't know where to look or what I can put in to replace these, the hole is 2" diameter with a 5/8" depth. They seem to be directly wired to a dimmer switch, with each hole having a white and black wire. I've attached a picture, hopefully that helps show it. Can I put LED's in there? Any cheap replacement option? I'm okay with spending around 100$ for all three, but 300 seems rediculous! [link] [comments] |
| I know I need new heating and air ducts. Is there a slower time of year to get a better rate? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 02:57 PM PDT I live in North GA. We patched some holes in our air ducts when we moved in a couple of years ago. It's done okay but this summer was brutally hot. Our house is approximately 1600 square feet. The house is built into the side of a hill so crawl space varies from almost 6ft high to 3ft high. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT I'm at a lost as why there is yellow foam in a tile shower near the roof. [link] [comments] |
| Question about loud HVAC in new apartment Posted: 04 Sep 2020 03:21 PM PDT I just signed a lease and moved into a new apartment. Unfortunately I found out the HVAC is system is extremely loud. Is there anything I can do at this point? Or is a loud HVAC system par for the course in some apartment buildings? Are there any common fixes that maintenance can do? [link] [comments] |
| How to improve my studio, ring of tile around two main walls looks very bad Posted: 04 Sep 2020 07:35 PM PDT |
| Wet Pressure Treated lumber... Use it now or let it dry out? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 09:40 PM PDT I'm putting a steel exterior door at the bottom of my bulkhead in the basement and need to screw up some pressure treated 2x6s into the concrete opening to put the jamb in. The lumber yard delivered them today and they were dripping wet and extremely heavy. I've read some people like to use them while they're still wet since they're nice and straight while others say to let them dry and shrink before using them. If this wasn't for a door frame I wouldn't care but I am afraid if I use them now while they're so wet that they're going going to shrink and throw the door out of alignment a few weeks/months from now. Any thoughts? [link] [comments] |
| Planning on doing renovation on 100 year old home Posted: 04 Sep 2020 02:49 PM PDT Hello! I wanted to ask what are some things I can do to help.save myself cash. The home is 100 years old and while in good condition, I am planning to update the entire home. To save some cash, what would you recommend I can do myself? [link] [comments] |
| Replace entire vanity or just counter top? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 07:21 PM PDT Hi, I know the best thing to do is to get an estimate from a contractor, but I'd figure it doesn't hurt asking here (don't hurt me lol) I want to replace the counter top for my bathrooms to make them more modern and also replace the sink. I'm not sure if it's cheaper having a piece of granite or quartz cut to fit the current vanity and new sink or just replacing the entire vanity? So having to tear out the existing one and replace it Thanks for any help ! [link] [comments] |
| Can I use any type of wall light as an outside light? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 09:29 PM PDT To elaborate a bit more, we bought a house and the previous owner turned the patio into an enclosed lanai. So now, two of the 4 walls are CBS and the other two are regular walls. Please excuse the improper terminology. I'm slowly turning that room into a study/ play room for the kids and on the 2 CBS walls, there are two outdoor lanterns. They're hideous. Do I have to exchange them with outdoor lights or can any lamp that can attach to a wall work? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2020 02:11 PM PDT finishing the basement and need some advice on subfloor. I did some reading and there are many opinions so it's even more confusing. What do you guys normally recommend for basement? [link] [comments] |
| Where can I find irregular sections for freedom brand Brighton fencing? Posted: 04 Sep 2020 12:46 PM PDT http://imgur.com/a/W6ysyMI My fence got damaged in a wind storm. The fence surrounds my pool, and the section that was used as an extra wide gate (one large section between 6-8ft, a post, and a small section 3-4ft), got torn off the hinges. I haven't had a chance to fix it yet due to being away from home. I'm trying to get everything in place to fix it when I go back for a week this month. I need to get this done quickly because I'm planning on putting the house on the market when I go there. However, I'm having issues finding anything other than 6ft sections of this type of fencing. The fence was installed by the previous owner and I have no way to contact him. Sadly the the vinyl cracked around the bracket so I can't just screw it back together. I also don't have exact measurements for the actual sections, as I assumed I'd have more time to get it fixed. Going off the pictures I have, the gate section is 9 boards wide, and the large section is 15 boards wide. The 6ft sections they sell at lowes is 11 boards wide going by the pictures online. Where could I go to get irregular sections? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2020 01:52 PM PDT |
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