Home Improvement: Recent mini-split installation impressions |
- Recent mini-split installation impressions
- Hey! Not too bad for a work done by a 17 y/o girl who has no dad that learned how to plaster & skim coat on youtube :)
- Received 4 quotes for electrical work. EV charger to detached garage. Trench work.
- Vacuum cleaner under warranty but they charge a lot of money
- Water coming from the floors of the house in about every room
- Moved into an apartment where the cooking vent doesnt actually go anywhere.
- Accidentally tried to use plastic anchors in what I believe is plaster. How badly did I fuck my wall up?
- What’s your favorite tool and why?
- Hole in siding exposing wood of wall, with hole!
- A contractor has been telling me he’s coming back to finish “next week” for 6 weeks. When is it time take action?
- Not sure how to bleed my old radiators...
- Locked Bathroom Door
- Purchasing home - upgrade to gas dryer?
- Dumb ethernet question
- New Windows
- Mystery Water in Kitchen
- How best to remove Old 80’s style martini wall
- Home buying
- Baseboarders v NeatHeat
- What's the best practice for flooring wood grain direction?
- How can I improve shower temps with a tankless water heater?
- Three tools every new homeowner needs?
- First time floor DIY
- Outlet sparked and now black
| Recent mini-split installation impressions Posted: 09 Dec 2020 01:29 PM PST I recently went through an upgrade to a mini-split, and wanted to share the early impressions. TL;DR An expensive win. The houseSeattle. Mid-1980s, ~2k sq ft, 2 floors, lower one is partially in-ground, 2x6 walls, average (but below modern code) attic insulation, all fiberglass. It's entirely electric, with no spacing for central air. The original electric baseboard heaters are still in-place, and are a mix of convection and fan-driven. My panel isn't well marked, but roughly 90 amps of heating. Outside, there was already a run for powering a hot-tub and a dedicated spot for it in my panel. Since there was already space and electric runs setup, this made sense for where to place the compressor. I had two versions of installation I was considering:
I ended up going with the latter. The quotesI wanted Mitsubishi specifically for its excellent reputation and performance. Got a matrix of quotes for regular compressor vs HyperHeat, and regular heads vs the fancier ones with the IR sensor. I ended up going with the fancier heads for their better air control + slightly better efficiency, and HyperHeat so I wouldn't have to stress about performance near or below freezing. Went through all of the diamond contractors in the larger area, read their yelp/google/etc reviews, and found three that seemed like they didn't have any strong red flags. Quotes included utility rebates for upgrading from electric baseboard:
I ended up going with #2, both because they were in the middle price-wise, but also had the most well documented quote for what they were doing, and why. InstallationLeadtimes were about a month from contract sign to install, and required 50% upfront. They took CC with no extra fees, so I went that route for points. Took 2 days. Crew did a good job with COVID precautions and keeping the inside clean. The upstairs runs went through the attic to minimize the amount of changes to the outside of the house. The compressor also had its stability ties done with wire instead of metal hangars, which is nice since it means the vibrations don't transfer to the house. They did a new electric run in the existing piping to the compressor and installed a new cut-off, and everything looked good there too. The only negative was that they had to move one of the heads after initial placement, since they had the outlet for the lines directly aimed at the main electric line for the house. They patched up the drywall, but had a provision in the contract to not deal with the paint. The ImpactBecause electric baseboard heat is so expensive, I had the upstairs set to 69-70, and the downstairs set to 60-63. This made some rooms downstairs act like heatsinks, and the floors upstairs were cold in spots. Now, I run all of the mini-splits at 73F. Some of the far away rooms in the lower floor are still floating around 67F, but I consider that "good enough", and don't have any baseboards running in the house. My TOTAL electric usage per day has dropped by 40+%. That's with the big change in how warm I'm keeping the house now, and a slightly decrease in outside temps. With the HyperHeat, I think I can get by without running any baseboards in winter, which means I should expect at least $1500/year savings at todays rates (assuming I don't use cooling). The ROI timeframe isn't the best (roughly 10 years), but with the significant boost to comfort I consider it worth it. As for cooling, I can get by without it most of the time, but it would have been great for a week or two this summer, when temps were in the high 80s and the house had to be shut tight to keep wildfire smoke out. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 01:50 AM PST Hi! 10 days ago, I posted my plastering/skim coating results here but it got removed cause I didn't fulfil the rules of posting so it was fair enough to be removed. I wanted to share more so I had to wait till I got new stuff for my room in order to repost! Plastering/Skimcoat Results This are before and after pictures of my walls and ceiling. What my room looks like now after a trip to IKEA I got a new bed frame, beddings, bedside table, some plants and a few other things. So since I was 10, I've been painting my walls very often myself and there were lots of tries and error which made my walls very uneven. Last August, I wanted to spice up my room by buying super cheap blue 3D brick wallpaper to stick on my ceiling and it didn't hold up well and started falling off after a week and left excessive glue on the ceiling which made it super ugly so I decided to plaster AND skim coat my walls :) I originally wanted to get a professional to do it but it was super expensive (I'm not American but I'll be sharing the final price in USD). -25kg of skim coat was rm21, 20kg of joint compound rm21, and tools all together was around rm15. i asked professionals the pricing and for my room size it would've been around rm1800-2300. so on average i saved rm1993 (489.38$) Ikea trips costs a total of rm1477.8 (362.8$) first trip was rm957, second trip rm520 Others rm300 Budget was rm2500 but in total I only spent rm1834.8 (450.35$) I used my own savings for this and I'm so proud! P/S: Someone asked me to do their kitchen and living room next week after my uncle posted my results on his Facebook account! I'm so excited. Thank you so much to the kind people that rewarded me and told me that I did a good job on my last post! I appreciate it so much. If you have any questions you can ask me! I'll be happy to answer any. [edit] : its still not done, i have to put up posters and get a bigger carpet! my new wooden panelled ceiling fan is coming in on christmas too but it's cute for the time being ;) [link] [comments] |
| Received 4 quotes for electrical work. EV charger to detached garage. Trench work. Posted: 09 Dec 2020 12:16 PM PST $950, $1200, $3000, $3200 [link] [comments] |
| Vacuum cleaner under warranty but they charge a lot of money Posted: 09 Dec 2020 09:25 AM PST I bought a Samsung sc18m2120sb vacuum cleaner 1 year ago and it stopped working. I sent it to warranty and they said motor died and it's free to replace, however they said there's a filter in the engine to be replaced and it's not free of charge. The vacuum itself cost 90$ and they want 50$ for the filter. Does it make sense? Are they lying? Is there really some other filter inside the engine except for the big filter? [link] [comments] |
| Water coming from the floors of the house in about every room Posted: 09 Dec 2020 05:51 PM PST Hey reddit, So I have a major issue going on and I'm hoping it's not as bad as I think it is. So for almost two weeks now water has been appearing on the floor of the house always around 5-6. I counted about 14 locations this is happening in the house (Not always at the same). The worst of it is the hallway where the water spill needs a second mop to get everything dry. So we've been shutting off our water around the time this occurs and it has stopped so far. In End the we had someone come out for a water leak detection and all he really told us is that he was really sure that it wasn't a slab leak but instead a moisture barrier leak which is insane considering the locations that this is happen. He also told me to get my septic tank serviced as well. I guess I'm kind of mad that I paid $350 and didn't get a solid answer. I just want to know if you guys ever dealt with a moisture barrier leak? edit: spoke too soon, it's still happening even when the water has been shut for 4 hours now. Luckily it only happened in the hallway. Side I forgot to mention this house is a about 70 years old and I live in Florida. This issue really started when the weather started to get colder. edit: some pictures but due to the way the titles are it's hard to clear see it [link] [comments] |
| Moved into an apartment where the cooking vent doesnt actually go anywhere. Posted: 09 Dec 2020 10:07 AM PST I just moved into a new apartment and I cook quite often. I just realized the cooking vent which is part of the microwave doesn't actually vent outside. So all the greese and oil is ending up on top of the vent cabinets. How can I mitigate my cooking greese and smell if even possible. All this stuff is staying in the apartment with no where to go. I have this type of setup with the microwave+vent combo on top of a gas stove: [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 07:29 AM PST I am trying to mount a shelf on an interior wall. These plastic anchors were giving me a world of difficulty going into the wall themselves, and then when I was trying to install the screw, it was impossible. I ended up backing out the screws (which took the anchors with them) and am stuck with 1/4" holes in my wall. I am going to use toggle bolts to mount the shelf, so fortunately I can work around this. But looking to the future, how difficult of a repair job is this going to be? I'm familiar with just wood filling/spackling a hole in drywall this size. Is this the same process? Also, is this definitely a plaster wall, or could something else be going on? I am definitely not hitting a stud, I can feel the wall ends after ~1/2" back. There is not a cross beam behind the wall. The wall remnants left from drilling and screwing seemed a lot more powdered and sandy than drywall to me. Thanks EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback guys. Looks like a few people are agreeing this is probably a plaster wall, and I would have been better served with a metal anchor if anything. I was able to get the shelf mounted with toggle bolts https://imgur.com/a/gX4QBUm and now know I can patch this just like any standard drywall hole when that time comes. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| What’s your favorite tool and why? Posted: 09 Dec 2020 05:43 PM PST Always fun to look around and expand my collection in the old toolbox. For me, it's the set of 6 wera kraftform screwdrivers I got to replace the Irwin's that were all beat up. Great tips, use them all the time! 2nd place probably my lineman pliers. I forget the brand but looking around I might sub out the ones I have for some knipex. I'm not a tradesman, just like to tinker. What's your go to and or things that make your life easier? [link] [comments] |
| Hole in siding exposing wood of wall, with hole! Posted: 09 Dec 2020 09:44 AM PST Hello /r/HomeImprovement, I have HVAC contractors running new ducts up to the second floor. In order to do this, we had to get the sheetrock of a couple walls removed. To my horror this exposed a problem: a hole in the wall that goes through to the outside! With a giant old wasp's nest to boot. I now notice that this is caused by a hole in the siding outside. The problem is that the hole in the siding was probably caused by the person who installed a gutter and wanted to "make room" for the gutter (at the sacrifice of... the integrity of the house!). *My main question*: what type of contractor (or group of contractors) should I hire to work on this? It seems like an interior and exterior problem. I think I'd need to get the gutter shortened by an inch, get the part of the siding with the hole re-installed, remove the rotted wood in the wall, patch it up, re-insulate, all before resheetrocking. Here are the pics: https://imgur.com/a/MwKKdLm EDIT: Ugh, title fail. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:07 PM PST About 3 months ago I hired a guy to address some minor wear and tear on my fireplace. Upon further inspection I ended up needing a lot more work, which ended up being triple the original price. As the extent of damage wasn't visible and for safety reasons I approved the work. The guy came back and did a great job but he mis-ordered the final piece (cap for the top). He told me at the time he called in and ordered the correct size and he'd be back "next week" to install it. "Next week" was now 6 weeks ago. I've called a couple times to see what the status was, and each time he would tell me "we'll definitely be out next week". My last interaction with him (a week ago now) got a little heated, and he implied I was being unreasonable and he'll be out next week. At this point I'm starting to doubt he'll be back. Since I paid him the remaining balance on his last visit (foolishly in hindsight) should I consider contacting an attorney? I'm conflicted as he did amazing work and overall I'm happy with the job he did but he seems to refuse to come back and finish the remaining piece. [link] [comments] |
| Not sure how to bleed my old radiators... Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:59 AM PST My apartment had old radiators. I'd like to bleed them, but I'm not sure how. They each have a valve like this one on the side. Any idea how these work? Thanks in advance. Edit: thanks for all the responses. Appears I have steam radiators. I didn't even realize there was a distinction to be made here. Just confused a little because previous owner mentioned bleeding the radiators once in a while... [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 03:21 PM PST This bathroom door is locked on the inside with no one in it. I'm not sure how to open it. Can anyone give me some advice? [link] [comments] |
| Purchasing home - upgrade to gas dryer? Posted: 09 Dec 2020 07:47 PM PST Purchasing a home which has gas to the house, gas furnace in basement. Currently the laundry room on main level is setup for an electric dryer. House also has electric range. I was wondering what do you guys think about getting a gas line ran to main floor laundry to be able to purchase gas dryer? I currently do not own a dryer, but in past have had gas dryer and prefer it. Is this cost and effort worth it? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 07:41 PM PST Im looking into getting ethernet installed in my house so we can finally have some wifi other than our hotspots. It's an old house with no ethernet. And there is one question I have that I cannot find the answer to anywhere... Where does ethernet come from?? How does the internet get into my house? I'm very familiar with electrical work. When it comes to electricity, the power comes from the powerlines to a main panel in the house, and all your wires feed to your outlets from that panel. Is it not the same with ethernet. It's a stupid question with probably a very simple answer. Where do the cables coming into the ethernet ports come from?? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 09:43 AM PST A/S/L: 1950s construction, single story brick ranch, US Mountain States Region I purchased my house in 2012. It was sold in a sorry state in 2009, and received some minor cosmetic and HVAC updates by the owner I purchased it from prior to our sale date. There was a laundry list of things to-be-completed, one of which were the windows. The windows at purchase were builder-grade vinyl inserted directly into the old steel frames, then caulked to oblivion. They weren't airtight, all of the caulking needed replaced, many were not airtight, and the larger windows were so out of square the windows themselves couldn't be removed to be cleaned. We received two estimates in 2015 for half of the windows to be replaced, then shelved the project due to the expense. We finally revisited this project this year. The work was done by an area small business, and included the removal of 9 steel window frames and the installation of the new windows. We completed all of the finish work ourselves. The company we chose came in at $9800, which included the masonry work to narrow the kitchen window, windows (with transferrable factory warranty), and install. It was a one day install, and the crew was clean and efficient. This company outbid the projections from the first two companies we spoke with in 2015 using their rates at that time (we have a VERY aggressive housing market so everything is expensive), as well as two other companies who provided estimates. The other estimates were 25% higher or more, and didn't even include the narrowing of the kitchen window. I'm really pleased with the result! The new windows are much quieter, MUCH prettier on both the interior and exterior, have improved locking/safety features, and they seemingly maintain our temperature in the house much better (we haven't had them long enough to compare energy bills, and energy savings weren't our main imperative for this project). It's not DIY, but I worked a lot of overtime to afford the upgrade, and I'm excited that we are set up for success for a more intuitive kitchen layout when I save enough time/money to do a full renovation. We could not have wrap-around counters or U shaped counters before this. Thanks for looking! To anyone interested in learning more about windows this was an amazing post I found researching this subreddit AFTER this whole project was complete. It is chock-full of great information, though! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 04:52 PM PST I'm at my wits end. Apologies if there is a better place for this. Every so often, a mystery puddle of water appears in my kitchen, and I cannot figure out where it's coming from. I'm worried that it is some massive leak that will necessitate a ton of work. I've double-checked the dishwasher (installed in the last 6 months), the refrigerator, under the stove, under the sink, and found nothing. Can a large leak seep through the tile grout to puddle on the floor? The ceiling below is perfectly fine. [link] [comments] |
| How best to remove Old 80’s style martini wall Posted: 09 Dec 2020 05:33 AM PST We are redoing our Living room and have decided it's time to remove the old Martini Glass below. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this as I just want to turn it into a regular walk through. My options so far are to either cut through the wall the square it off then attach one large piece of square drywall on either side or add some metal track to the incline angles and add cut and angled drywall to fill it. any help or other ideas are welcomed! UPDATE: Thanks for all the responses and everyone having a good time with this thing. So I got into it today and as many said it's just framing nothing really going on inside. I'm going to square it out and just make a standard doorway. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 08:41 AM PST Hi all, question for all you homeowners/realtors. So as for many 2020 was rough but through it all my husband and I have been able to save about 35k total for home buying. The problem is that my husband lost his job and got a serious pay cut. I have a solid 3+ yrs at my job. We're looking to buy but I'm worried that my husbands job history will be an issue. He's been through 4 jobs in the past two years. With Biden's possible first time home buyers tax credit in 2021 we are looking to be ready to buy by the time it passes, if it does. Will his job history hinder us from moving forward? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 07:27 PM PST My wife and I just bought a home. After redoing the floors, our baseboard heating covers look shabby. After doing some research the two best options seem to be Baseboarders and NeatHeat, the price difference is significant. Baseboarders look like a much nicer product but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Has anyone used either of these products? Pros/Cons? [link] [comments] |
| What's the best practice for flooring wood grain direction? Posted: 09 Dec 2020 10:30 AM PST Here is a picture of the area that i'm working with, which will help with my description. I'm installing flooring in a staircase that leads to a hallway. I feel like wood grain direction at the top of the stairs should be the same as the stair treads. My problem is that the hallway that it leads to, I feel that the wood grain direction should be the opposite. I haven't seen how this is typically handled in many photos so I'm curious how people typically handle this. I'd imagine i could just change the direction of the flooring and install a transition in the door frame but I'm not sure if that will look any better. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! [link] [comments] |
| How can I improve shower temps with a tankless water heater? Posted: 09 Dec 2020 05:29 PM PST First time home owner! Have been in the house for a few months. Was pumped about the tankless water heater. Since it got cold though, I've been having to max out the temp setting (140) on the heater to get my shower hot enough. Meanwhile the kitchen sink is scalding when the heater is set to 125. I figure some of it may have to do with the distance the water has to travel (longer to bathroom than to kitchen) and that some of the pipe length is probably in the cold crawl space under the house. Anything I can check or do to get more heat out the water in the bathroom? [link] [comments] |
| Three tools every new homeowner needs? Posted: 09 Dec 2020 03:00 PM PST So if you were tasked with buying three tools for a new homeowner, what would you pick for them? Let's just assume they have the most basic things: hammer, screwdriver set, pliers, etc. I'm thinking like what type of saw would you choose? Would you go socket set or hex wrench set? Rotary tool or shop vac? Limit it to the three non-basic tools you think they will use the most. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 06:21 PM PST Hi, I'm about to tackle installing a floating luxury vinyl plank floor thought our house and have a couple questions. The bedrooms in our house have carpet and the rest of the house is tile. I'm going to be ripping out the carpet and put plywood down to match the height of the tile. What I'm wondering is if I need a vapor barrier between the concrete and plywood. Another question I have is how do I hide the 1/4" expansion gap at an exterior door? Thank you. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Dec 2020 07:06 AM PST I was just measuring something in my sons room and the ruler hit the outlet where his monitor is plugged in. There was a huge spark and now my outlet and monitor plug are black. Oddly the monitor did not turn off. This outlet is behind his crib - is it safe to still use or should I move it and have someone come look at it? [link] [comments] |
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