Home Improvement: HELP: Toddler overflowed upstairs tub and downstairs ceiling is leaking |
- HELP: Toddler overflowed upstairs tub and downstairs ceiling is leaking
- Replaced beams and created craftsman style facade on my front porch
- Total newbie to stone repointing & looking for feedback
- Contractor wants me to pay for work they didn’t do?
- Increased electric bill?
- Just "fired" our Electrician
- Herringbone backsplash corner issue
- Roof moss treatment
- Are modern storm window options notably superior to the old aluminum 3-track ones?
- What's the correct order to resolve WATER HAMMER? turn on main first then shut lowest faucet V.S. shut lowest faucet then turn on main?
- Spackle technique feedback pls
- Bought a house with drywall covering original plaster walls. Is that an issue?
- How do I repair this bathroom sink drain outlet?
- Staining the Front Brick of Our Home
- Where do you learn all this? Worth Taking a 5-month course?
- Should I tape door trim when doing plaster on walls instead of paint?
- Old out of commission chimney goes through upstairs closet and is falling apart-ish. Need tips on how to “encapsulate” it. Pictures contained within.
- Re-caulking my shower has turned into a bit of a fiasco
- Biggest Re-Investment...
- How to Fix Condensation on Windows
- Multiple Toggle bolts?
- Help requested. Clean out backing up (update)
- LVT floor flexing near ventilation grilles
| HELP: Toddler overflowed upstairs tub and downstairs ceiling is leaking Posted: 07 Dec 2020 03:35 PM PST So my toddler took a big bucket into the tub with her when I was working and dumped a ton of water onto the floor in the upstairs bathroom. I caught it pretty quick but now the ceiling downstairs is leaking through the vent. What do I do? There's a fan setting in the ventilation unit. Should I turn it on? Looks like there's only a little patch of dampness around the vent itself, idk if I should be worried? This is a rented townhouse and I really want to avoid having to call the landlord & fronting a bug bill if possible 🤦♀️ EDIT: Thanks everyone for the tips! Everything dried up fine. Ran the heat and the wet patch around the vent is gone. I realized there's a vent on the floor in the bathroom upstairs so I don't think anything actually leaked all the way through the ceiling. As for the unsolicited parenting advice, I'll go to a different Reddit thread if I'm looking for help raising my child. 🙄😂 I'm going to keep letting her take baths by herself, just getting her a toy holder with holes in it instead. Thanks everyone! [link] [comments] |
| Replaced beams and created craftsman style facade on my front porch Posted: 07 Dec 2020 08:19 AM PST I bought an old home (1930) in mid Missouri about a year and a half ago. I have been renovating it ever since on a shoestring budget. This project was to replace some ugly, crooked, and rotten columns on the front porch. When I took them down, I discovered these "columns" were actually just 1x's sitting on the bare ground (no footings). So essentially the front part of the roof was floating for many years. Unfortunately I didn't document this part, but what I did was pretty simple. I dug down below the frostline (17" here) and poured two footers (one for each column). Into the concrete I stuck some 4x4 post brackets. Then I placed two 4x4 pressure treated posts and made sure they were plumb, then fastened them to the beam that holds up the corner of the roof. After that, everything I did was cosmetic. I went to Menards and got some little brick pavers (about $30 per column) and mortar. I slowly but surely stacked them up on top of the concrete footer, making sure they were level and plumb. After that, I built some wooden craftsman style facades around the structural post. I think the entire project probably cost around $200, including some decking I had to replace on the porch. Happy to answer any questions on the details. This is my first post, hopefully of many! [link] [comments] |
| Total newbie to stone repointing & looking for feedback Posted: 07 Dec 2020 03:52 PM PST Just began my hand at repointing the stone walls in the basement our 100 year old home. Did a lot of online research and talked to at least one pro who ok'ed my tools & plan, just have a few things I'm unsure about at this stage. As you can see from the pics I've done several feet of plaster/cement dust removal on top & btw the stones. I'm trying not to overdo the joint removal and want to know what the maximum depth of chiseled-out space btw stones should be. Some of the old mortar is still fairly firm and I'm keeping that...obviously removing all that is basically sand...but not sure how much of the "semi-firm" stuff I should remove. Most of it is still holding in place but begins to crumble with just a few light scratches with a screwdriver. Just looking for advice/general rules on removing very old mortar from a stone foundation. I feel it would be easy to go nuts and remove more than is needed. (Stones are mostly bluestone and granite with a LOT of schist for smaller filler stones) [link] [comments] |
| Contractor wants me to pay for work they didn’t do? Posted: 07 Dec 2020 06:40 AM PST I asked a contractor to level a subfloor in 2 rooms. The first room was not done correctly so I told them to not do the other room. The contractor now wants me to pay for the other room. This was all in a statement of work. Am I wrong for thinking I shouldn't pay for leveling the subfloor in the second room? Edit: thanks both. I sorted it out with the contractor. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 03:27 PM PST So our electric bill has gone up more than double. We live in the Midwest and it's winter so not sure the electricity we're using. Our furnace, AC, and water heater are all old. About 23 years old. The water heater is gas and the furnace too. The AC unit uses electricity but has been off since august. Any idea what could be causing this?? All of our kitchen and laundry appliances are brand new. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 06:48 PM PST This is more of a rant/venting than asking for advice. We hired an electrician (X) to do a bunch of work in our new house but the main project we wanted to do was installing an exhaust fan in our half bathroom. X assured us when quoting us it wouldn't be a problem, even though we have asbestos siding. Come the day to actually do the work, X has someone that works underneath him come to do the actual work (Y). X brings Y outside the half-bath who immediately can tell it's asbestos siding and as they discuss it becomes clear that X didn't give Y a heads up about this. Y does all the work on our todo list except the exhaust fan but keeps assuring us that they will get to it. Lo and behold, X comes back at the end of the work day and says he'll be back on Monday to do the fan. This timing is important because we're also getting that bathroom painted and we want them to cut in the walls first so the painters can fix them back up, and we've told X this. X comes back on Monday and is already miffed that the painters have already taken up our driveway. X refuses to come back after the painters are done. And then looks at our half bathroom again and says, "I can cut into the siding but I can't guarantee I won't crack any of the shingles and then you'll be in real trouble with the asbestos". X does 1 other small task and then switches his story to "I can cut in the interior but you need to call asbestos contractor to actually cut into the siding, I won't do that." My fiancee and I immediately smell B.S. and tell him not to touch a thing in the bathroom. We decide to pay him for all the other work he and Y did but we'll find someone else to do that fan and live with having to have the painter come back another time to fix it. We called a couple of asbestos contractors, people who'd be incentivized to charge us, and they all said that they're not needed for under 100 sq feet and an electrician should be able to deal with cutting out enough for exhaust on their own. We're now certain that X wanted to pawn off cutting into the siding to Y and balked when Y didn't fall for it, but figured they could still bill us for the work they're more comfortable with. Note: We're ok with a contractor not wanting to deal with the asbestos (we had one ghost us after coming for a quote). But we'd rather they be upfront with it so we can keep gathering quotes. /endrant [link] [comments] |
| Herringbone backsplash corner issue Posted: 07 Dec 2020 06:48 PM PST Hoping to get more seasoned eyes on this to tell me 'it's no big deal', though not sure that's the way it'll go. How much of an issue is this herringbone backsplash corner? https://imgur.com/a/xA9pho7 I am not doing the work myself so am armchair quarterbacking a larger full kitchen remodel. My gut would be redo this and ensure the seams match, but both sides are relatively large and long walls (with one going counter to ceiling). But to ensure work is done within a week I don't see that happening. Other than redoing one whole side, is this fixable? Do I just commit to putting something in the corner forever? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 08:32 PM PST How often do you have to do moss treatment and how long should it last? One guy gave us an estimate for $850 to apply moss treatment to help "further delay moss growth". But when we asked how long does a treatment last he said "we cannot really predict how long it would take for moss to start growing again, since that is something that depends entirely on weather conditions." If the roof is prone to moss growth (it rains a lot here) then should we expect to do it twice a year then? Appreciate any feedback! [link] [comments] |
| Are modern storm window options notably superior to the old aluminum 3-track ones? Posted: 07 Dec 2020 02:57 PM PST I've got a 100 year old house, and I'm not going to replace the original wood windows because they're cool. However, I've wondered if my old-fashioned 3-track aluminum storm windows are up to snuff. It would be pretty far down the project list anyway, but are there modern storm windows that produce enough efficiency/resale value to put replacement storm windows on the list at all, and if so, what would that product be? I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I would add that my house is in a transitional neighborhood with the nicest gut jobs/new builds on empty lots pulling in 3 times the sale price that I bought mine at. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 05:04 PM PST |
| Spackle technique feedback pls Posted: 07 Dec 2020 05:27 PM PST I can't figure out why the spackle peels up on the side I'm ping the putty knife from. So if I pull straight down from the top, a lip appears at the top etc. Please guide me to better spackling. I'm gonna have to do a sand and second pass at this rate [link] [comments] |
| Bought a house with drywall covering original plaster walls. Is that an issue? Posted: 07 Dec 2020 03:48 PM PST I just found out that there is plaster behind the drywall. Should I just leave it as is or is that a bad thing? [link] [comments] |
| How do I repair this bathroom sink drain outlet? Posted: 07 Dec 2020 03:47 PM PST Is there a cheap or easy way to repair this? Perhaps a sleeve that inserts in, seals, and and leaves an extension where I can connect it to the sink P trap? [link] [comments] |
| Staining the Front Brick of Our Home Posted: 07 Dec 2020 09:19 AM PST My wife and I purchased our first home just over a year ago. This past summer we decided we wanted to update the curb appeal of the home. The windows were all a baby blue (as you can see on the front screen door), that we had scraped, sanded, and repainted to a bright white. The windows were peeling/flaking badly and were a completely separate initiative (for another time :) ). As part of that process we decided to stain the front brick of our home. We figured the simple task of staining the brick would be involved but nothing too serious. ... Right? :D To start, we power washed the front of the home. The power washing didn't make a significant difference in the color of the brick, but did it nonetheless to clean out as much of the bricks as possible and improve adhesion. We then used paint brushes to hand paint each brick. The bricks had quite a deep grooved texture that made application of the stain quite tedious. The first few bricks we just utilized a 2" brush, but soon added a .5" brush to touch up the corners and edges of each brick. We contemplated making a brick-shaped template to ease the painting process, but found enough variance in brick size to not make it worth the extra effort. Paper towels and a bucket of water were kept on-hand to rub off any stain that ran off the brick into the grout. This made a huge difference to keep the lines clean if we touched it up with the wet paper towel as soon as we noticed the run. We also used painters tape to tape off around the door trim, windows, and soffit. This made a huge difference for clean edges in all spaces. In total, 83 hours of labor went into the task of staining all of the front brick. We contemplated using a roller to just stain everything quickly to get it over with, but we're both very glad we took the time to hand paint every brick, though it was a labor-intensive mission to make it look as good as it does. Not sure I'd do it again though :P Products used: H&C Concrete Solid Stain Ultradeep Base - Brick Red 2.5" paint brush .5" paint brush Paper towels Painters tape [link] [comments] |
| Where do you learn all this? Worth Taking a 5-month course? Posted: 07 Dec 2020 05:48 PM PST Hello I"m seriously weighing becoming a woodsmith and building houses as a career (I'm in my early 20's and am not fanatical with my current after-college prospects) Thanks all [link] [comments] |
| Should I tape door trim when doing plaster on walls instead of paint? Posted: 07 Dec 2020 08:31 PM PST Im doing a concrete look plaster on the walls of my bathroom. Similar procedure to venetian plaster. It has a thickness to it, not sure the exact amount but definitely thicker than paint. Wondering if I should tape my door trim/fixtures or not. Im worried about a gap on the seam when pulling the tape off. Going to be applying the plaster with a tape knife so it should be fairly easy to make an edge. Maybe use painters tape and leave a small clearance for the thickness of plaster? Im using meoded golmex plaster if anyone is familiar. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 03:50 PM PST Very old house, it's been remodeled. Below this closet at some point in the past was a fireplace. There is no more. This is the last remnant of it. I don't know what the inside of this looks like, but I want to seal it off. I was thinking some of those kits you use to insulate your windows in the winter then use a blow dryer to tighten it up. Thoughts? It sounds absolutely retarded. But maybe just retarded enough to work. [link] [comments] |
| Re-caulking my shower has turned into a bit of a fiasco Posted: 07 Dec 2020 10:26 PM PST So, our master bathroom shower was getting pretty gross. Some spots on the grout and near the caulk just wouldn't clean, regardless of what I did to it. So, I decided to re-caulk the shower - and opened a bit of a can of worms here. I'm not sure if this was done by the builder or a previous homeowner, but now that I'm paying more attention I've found that this shower is absolutely covered in silicone. The spots that couldn't be cleaned? Yeah, excess clear silicone had gotten over the grout. And the shower itself is covered with the stuff - the problem is, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be or not. The shower is made of metal pieces that fit around the shower glass, and in addition to the seams between the metal pieces and the tile being sealed, it seems every single surface that has a seam has also had a layer of silicone applied to it. I've included an album of what I'm talking about - I added captions to the images to explain what I'm looking at. Pardon the mess, as I haven't actually cleaned up any of the gross mess that I now have more access to yet. So, my question is, is anyone familiar with this kind of shower What exactly should and shouldn't be sealed with silicone on the shower itself (I'll seal up around the shower pan and up the edges of the stall itself). At this point the current caulk is disgusting and I'm essentially replacing all of it, and figured I should probably do it "right" - so any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 04:46 PM PST Hey, So, as a 28 year male, I bought a small condo to live for a few years. Small enough for one/maybe two, but for sure want to start a family in 3/4 years so know that I will not be here for super long. Trying to update small things so I will (hopefully) get some return on my investment if I decide to sell this place to buy my next home. What are some easy, do it yourself projects that that will accomplish that? For example, I have already painted the place, replaced or painted radiator covers, updated kitchen cabinet hardware and other things. Should I also update the drawer slides in the kitchen? Should I install more shelves in closets? What should I be thinking about doing? [link] [comments] |
| How to Fix Condensation on Windows Posted: 07 Dec 2020 04:12 PM PST Was hoping someone could help me out. We recently moved into our house and have noticed that the windows in 3 of the bedrooms get condensation over night. We didn't noticed it at first but it seems to have been happening for a while and appears to be causing the paint to start to peel. How can I solve this? Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Dec 2020 06:41 PM PST New to using toggle bolts. If im putting a 8x4 piece of plywood against the dry wall and will be mounting over 200lbs of equipment on it. Is it possible to install multiple toggle bolts through this dry wall/plywood? I see lots of videos using toggle bolts but never more than one for a single thing to hang. I would think it isn't possible because once the first toggle bolt goes in the rest would be very difficult to screw in without it spinning, or am I wrong? Thanks in advance [link] [comments] |
| Help requested. Clean out backing up (update) Posted: 07 Dec 2020 08:51 PM PST This is kind of an update from my original post here So I called the plumber and he came while I was at work. He claimed to have snaked it with two different machines for about 2 hours and got nothing but clay and dirt. He decided that the line was broken, possibly by a tree nearby, and I have to dig up my driveway to replace it for a cool $3800 plus the cost to fix the driveway. My next steps, I figure, is to call the city again and try to get them to clean out debris from the main or at least show me where the valve is at so i can try to do it myself. Then, get a second opinion from another plumber. I'm looking for any further advice on where to go from here. Isn't the fact that he was pulling out dirt and clay evidence of a backup? Is this dude just trying to overcharge me? HELP! [link] [comments] |
| LVT floor flexing near ventilation grilles Posted: 07 Dec 2020 01:11 PM PST We recently had LVT floor installed in our second story. We've observed that the floor panels show a lot of flex in the area of the ventilation grilles. The contractor tells me that this is normal for a floating floor and nothing to worry about from a wear and tear perspective. He told me that we can bring another flooring contractor to take a look if we're uncomfortable. Is this something we should push to have him fix? By shimming the floor in the area of the vents? Or is it nothing to worry about as he says. [link] [comments] |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Hivemind Improving Homes. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment