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cruft posted:I'm still holding out a shred of hope that the one company left will come back saying they can put in a ground source hydronic heat pump for $5000... although I guess that won't help a whole lot with cooling. Why not? Ground source heating and cooling is common. Just make sure that's what you're actually asking for. Also, $5000 isn't going to cover the costs of excavation and/or bore hole drilling, never mind the equipment and actually installing it.
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Sep 24, 2021 15:18
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Motronic posted:Why not? Ground source heating and cooling is common. Just make sure that's what you're actually asking for. Don't crush my dreams, man!
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Sep 24, 2021 15:20
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Minisplit install costs can be highly variable due to how much work is involved in running the linesets/condensate pipe and any electrical work. It's not like you're swapping an existing central-split system. It can be as easy as straight out and down an outside (vinyl siding) wall or a complex route through multiple walls. The compressor(s) need a decent, level base, which in the minimum is digging and laying some fine gravel to put a plastic condenser pad on. Just make sure you get the specifics of the install in writing. I gave the installers that did mine specific instructions on how I wanted the linesets run, electrical done, and where the units would be mounted. They did exactly what I asked.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:06
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If your house has ducts it could be cheaper to have a central unit and only install the splits in rooms that you specifically want zone control in.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:07
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Speaking of running lines... Could anyone hazard a guess as to how much would it cost to relocate a natural gas line, refrigerant line, and a condensate drain over by just 1 stud bay? Assuming there's no gotchas hidden behind the walls. The geniuses that built our house decided that they'd run all this junk directly behind the microwave/oven, so it's currently impossible for us to install any sort of over-the-range ventilation. This bothers us because we like to cook, and would like to also have a gas range at some point. I'm assuming it's in the ballpark of $1,500 or so, so we're probably not going to do it. But it'd be nice to know in case we ever find ourselves with extra money. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 24, 2021 16:18
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spf3million posted:Anything wrong with throwing a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes on top of the dirt in our crawl space? I plan on crawling around down there to do some wiring projects over the next couple of months and it'd be nicer to be laying on cardboard than dirt. No evidence of previous water intrusion. NomNomNom posted:It'd be expensive, but you could just rerun the entire house from the crawlspace, fishing new wire up to the existing receptacles. The electrician is skeptical that these walls are fishable, given the construction. There aren't big empty vertical voids.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:20
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Okay, thanks for all the advice. It sounds like $30k isn't outrageous for a more complicated job (it requires an electrical service upgrade, for starters), which really puts my mind at ease. I've been trying to find someone to do the service upgrade since May, and keep getting ghosted. I get it: everything is crazy since 2019. This HVAC company actually called me back (twice!) and they've got a great reputation in the area: my very large employer uses them as well. This house does actually have ducts to some rooms! But to get that working again would basically be a remodel to undo the earlier remodel that pulled the central heater to create a new closet, and we'd have to find a way to duct into the addition. Wheee, home ownership.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:25
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Oh wow you're getting a service upgrade on top of it? That's a great deal (unless you're just talking about a sub-panel off your existing panel). I had my 1965 100 amp service upgraded to 200 amp service (because I needed a bigger panel anyway, and the service mast/entrance needed to be replaced anyway) and that alone was about $10k. My original Minisplit quote had an extra $600 to put in a subpanel for the mini-split since my breaker was full, but now with the big new panel I was able to cut that off at least.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:28
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FISHMANPET posted:Oh wow you're getting a service upgrade on top of it? That's a great deal (unless you're just talking about a sub-panel off your existing panel). I had my 1965 100 amp service upgraded to 200 amp service (because I needed a bigger panel anyway, and the service mast/entrance needed to be replaced anyway) and that alone was about $10k. My original Minisplit quote had an extra $600 to put in a subpanel for the mini-split since my breaker was full, but now with the big new panel I was able to cut that off at least. We've got to do the same thing, go from 100A to 200A. We already have a sub-panel that showed up when the solar panels went in. I'm hoping I can toss in some extra money to clean that mess up, because I don't want a second sub-panel. We're running out of room on the side of the house and it looks like an insane scientist lives here. Which, I mean, that's true. But we don't want it to look that way.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:34
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DaveSauce posted:Speaking of running lines... Is the in the way stuff overhead or behind? Couldn't you just vent to above, not going in to the wall behind? Are cabinets above it? usually that stuff is all just taking space out of the inner cabinet. and if not, usually there's some outside-of-wall vent cover thing. Also recirc isn't the end of the world, its better than nothing.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:36
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falz posted:Is the in the way stuff overhead or behind? Couldn't you just vent to above, not going in to the wall behind? Are cabinets above it? usually that stuff is all just taking space out of the inner cabinet. and if not, usually there's some outside-of-wall vent cover thing. So the microwave is an over-the-range, and it's surrounded by cabinets left/right/above. The plan was to go through the above cabinets and out the wall behind them. Problem is, the pipes in question are directly behind where the vent would penetrate, so that route is 100% blocked off to us right now. They run vertically up through that stud bay from the crawl space to the attic, and it's a 2-story, so it's no small feat to get past them. Now that said, this wall goes to the garage. We'd have a 90 on the garage side to divert the duct so that it goes out the back wall, which is right near the hot water heater exhaust. I suppose, depending on how joists are run, we could go up through the cabinets and in to the ceiling and then turn 90 to run through the ceiling to get outside. Issue with that, however, is that we just built a porch where this run would hit the exterior, so I'm not sure venting would clear the roof there. There's a cantilever, so maybe we could have another 90 to go out the non-roof side, but then we're cutting through the joist holding the cantilever up, soooo probably not a great idea. And recirc works OK, but when we're doing some serious high-heat stuff we get a lot of smoke going, so then we have to open windows and turn on fans and whatnot. I get that we might need to open a window anyhow for make-up air, but that's way easier.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:58
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Maybe a couple more 90s to route the duct through one of the side cabinets? Or a y-junction with reducers to split the flow and thread it through the pipes. That'll lower the flow rate, but better than nothing.
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Sep 24, 2021 17:11
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I’ve discovered what I think is a pinhole leak in one of my copper pipes that goes from our basement to our master bedroom on the second floor. Dry wall was wet so I opened it up. I’m pretty sure I see the pinhole itself where it is leaking. Is this something that can be solved with some sort of epoxy seal or should I just call a plumber and have them replace the entire pipe. I suppose I will call a plumber to get an opinion but figured I would ask here if anyone else had a similar situation before. Water is turned off so I think I’ve somehow managed to limit the damage to just the drywall. It must have started today or last night. Whew. Also how does something like this happen?
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Sep 24, 2021 18:36
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My dad once taped half of a tennis ball to a pipe with a pinhole leak. Kept it from leaking long enough to run to the store for a slip coupling to sweat on. Call a plumber if you have never sweat a pipe yourself or are otherwise uncomfortable with sharkbite fittings behind drywall. As for why it happens? Could be your house's copper is 50+ years old, water quality, additives from your water company, stress from water hammer. It happens. Have your plumber assess that small section when he repairs it and see if it's getting thin elsewhere.
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Sep 24, 2021 19:05
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Thanks for the info. Water is turned off for now. Seems like it was spraying until it was turned off and now it’s just slowly dripping every few seconds. Have some towels to soak it up for now. Don’t want to drain all the water out so I don’t lose where it is. I have a plumber coming out in a few hours who said he would cut a few inches around it and replace it. Hopefully it’s not a systemic issue. House is only 25 years old or so. Wonder if our pressure is too high maybe I’ll have the plumber check that too. Got me thinking about getting one of those smart leak detecting shut off valves now when previously I thought they weren’t worth it.
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Sep 24, 2021 19:15
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That's an easy $20 fix with a sharkbite and pipe cutter. https://www.homedepot.com/p/SharkBite-1-2-in-Push-to-Connect-Brass-Slip-Coupling-Fitting-U3008LFA/202270515
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Sep 24, 2021 20:33
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 Ripping out carpet is so easy, holy poo poo! One of the flooring installers told me to get an ice scraper on a pole and to just scrape up the underlayment, cause it'll take most of the staples with it, and fuuuuuuck that saved me so much effort. Fuckin pro tip, right there.
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Sep 25, 2021 00:17
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Enos Cabell posted:That's an easy $20 fix with a sharkbite and pipe cutter. All the plumbers and handymen i know hate shark bite stuff due to their eventual failures.
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Sep 25, 2021 00:25
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I've never heard of them failing, and they are code compliant for in wall permanent installs. I don't doubt that people who earn their living from homeowners not being able to do simple plumbing repairs aren't fans.
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Sep 25, 2021 00:35
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papa horny michael posted:All the plumbers and handymen i know hate shark bite stuff due to their eventual failures. I've had our plumber over to check my bathroom wall stuff and he didn't care at all about the copper-to-pex set up. v  v He said that there wasn't anything there that they wouldn't have done.Edit: I mean, I guess we'll find out in ~5-10 years as all the sharkbite bathrooms start poppin' off if these failure predictions are right, lol.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:20
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Mini-split ACs in every room is common practice here  Only our LDK requires a 200V air conditioner. All the other rooms (size varies from 9x9 feet to 12x24 feet) are fine with 100V. There are dedicated outlets 6 feet up for each AC but it's easy cheesy for an electrician to add outlets. A nice AC for a 12x24 foot room costs around $3000, smaller units for smaller rooms are as cheap as $400 but I would expect to pay closer to $1000 for something reputable. Installation varies but labor and external ducts should definitely cost less than $500, and cheaper for multiple installations. $30,000 for 5 units sounds strange to me, but if that includes updating your breaker and a lot of other wiring, I might understand.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:47
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mutata posted:I've had our plumber over to check my bathroom wall stuff and he didn't care at all about the copper-to-pex set up. v from what i understand it's the rubber valves used in a majority of the connections. and also people not burring stuff correctly. the sharkbite stuff is easier but more expensive typically than just plumbing things correctly
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Sep 25, 2021 07:06
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Hey goons. It has been a while. Since the site running my blog for the house (https://www.vtwoods.life) has been up and down all week, and I haven't posted here in ages, I thought it was past time for an update. We are moving into our house on October 1. Finally. Here are the bullet points of what has been happening: - Everybody's timelines are hosed. - Supply lines are hosed. - Finding good tradesmen is almost impossible due to a worker shortage. - We are finishing within our budget with no huge unexpected costs. - Vermont has been a cool state to live in full time. The electrician is still installing lights.  We got the bathroom glass earlier than expected. They had told us October 15 and it was September 24th. A rare occurrence of good timing news.  The in-progress kitchen. Plumbing installation and appliance installation happens next week. Fisher Paykel is expensive. They didn't order the kickplate so I ordered one yesterday -- $250. Wtf. The backsplash and all of the shelves have yet to be installed.  The main room is almost done. The electrician put up the big light last week.  The summer porch has been great. We come here after hours and just sit and listen to the woods.  The doors fit, the paint gets another coat this week. It's looking good. 
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Sep 25, 2021 13:35
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falz posted:Hey kids I'm going to remodel a bathroom this winter. I'm going to leave all plumbing where it currently is, but replace the 'builder grade' one piece shower/tub combo with a dedicated shower. This is upstairs, there's a tub on main level so that should be fine for old people or whatever. Re quoting old post. So I'm simply looking for the right type of 'surround' material, but hoping to be just sheets of something. Menards/Home Depot/Etc have 'Flexstone' https://flexstoneproducts.com/royale/ Which all but white is ugly imo.I intend to just buy a pre made shower base then put these on the walls. IDEALLY though it's 96" high (to the ceiling). Also the 'bullnose' edges of this are ugly and I'd do something different there so it doesnt bump out, tbd (some type of trim that's panel thickness perhaps) Flexstone 3 panels in white would be $700 total (without base), which doesn't seem like the end of the world. The base, from them, is another $550 or so (so ~$1300 total for materials) Anyone aware of other options/manufacturers/competitors like this? Image from their website: 
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Sep 25, 2021 15:22
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I am also interested in people's experience with that as I have a basement bathroom that I'm gonna give the same treatment (which is to say I need to finish a dedicated shower and I want to do it as quick and cheap as possible while not having it fall apart in a couple years).
mutata fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 15:45
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I bought a dreamline shower base, it's fine, was only $130. It's meant to mount directly to your studs so your tile can overhang the flange, not sure how that would work with a wall panel.
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Sep 25, 2021 16:11
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How hard is it to loving respond to a loving 811 ticket in a week? loving annoyed.
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Sep 25, 2021 16:47
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After getting a quote of over $8,000 for stripping and staining or repainting the cabinet doors I'm test stripping a few myself. God do I hate stripping paint. I'm using D super remover, which claims to be the most effective new generation stripper now that whatever heinous old chemical has been banned.  https://www.superremover.com/en_US/products/multilayer-stripper-new-generation/ I find it mediocre, like every single paint stripper I have ever used. They never, ever seem to work as well as I'd hope. I know it's all dependent on what has been painted and what the paint was and how it cured. But goddamn. The cabinets are red birch ply. There's maybe 4? layers of paint on them. The top layers are kilz primer and valspar flat house paint that I did a few years back, then beneath that is whatever the old owners did. Presumably some actual cabinet paint. Maybe a stain originally? Maybe not? I'll see when I get there.  First coat. I don't think I went heavy enough. The instructions say to coat the entire piece 1/8th inch thick (!). And you know what, they're right. The places where there was a thick coating came up, while the places where it was just brushed on stayed stuck down.  After scraping. I'm waiting for another coat to work. I went as heavy as I could this time without it all dripping off the sides. Is there a truly effective paint stripping product? Anything that will at least work better than the super remover?
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Sep 25, 2021 22:03
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I have had excellent luck with citrustrip
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Sep 25, 2021 22:53
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Dumond SmartStrip worked excellently for me! Paint stripping is never fun, though, only varying degrees of tedious. I was just slapping on like 1/4" of stripper on and letting it sit for a good 6 hours because my POs must've been trying to do a terrible paint job.
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Sep 25, 2021 23:24
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Qwijib0 posted:I have had excellent luck with citrustrip I had decent luck with citristrip, though I was taking off a lot of layers of very old paint from a hand-carved newel post an absolute idiot (e.g. the PO) had decided to paint over. I tried one of the less "pleasant" alternatives but it didn't work any better and it definitely couldn't be done indoors. Pictured, the shameful post before I bought the place (the round post cap was not original, was made of pine, and was clearly intended for a fence):  To really get it to work it needed to go on thick (at least 1/8") and then sit there for a while. The best way I found was to slobber the stuff all over it and then wrap it all in saran wrap and leave it overnight. The other thing that worked pretty well for getting the bulk of the paint off before using stripper was just a plain old heat gun, though if you're incautious you will permanently blacken whatever wood is under there. Wallet fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 26, 2021 |
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Sep 26, 2021 00:48
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Anyone got a good recommendation for a ceiling fan for a guest bedroom? I'm looking for something that either comes with a wall switch with separate controls for the light and the fan, or works with like the Lutron Maestro wall control. Preferably something even an idiot (like me) could install. I've installed a fan myself once, but it came with a remote and I don't like losing control of the light in that room like that. I'd be fine even if the light of the fan can be controlled by the wall switch but the fan speed control was a remote.
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Sep 26, 2021 02:47
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Sous Videodrome posted:
Is there potential for lead? If yes, do you have access to a true HEPA vacuum?
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Sep 26, 2021 03:12
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he1ixx posted:Hey goons. It has been a while. Since the site running my blog for the house (https://www.vtwoods.life) has been up and down all week, and I haven't posted here in ages, I thought it was past time for an update. That’s looking amazing, congrats on the move in date!
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Sep 26, 2021 04:29
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Sous Videodrome posted:Is there a truly effective paint stripping product? Anything that will at least work better than the super remover?
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Sep 26, 2021 04:38
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i like nice words
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Sous Videodrome posted:Is there a truly effective paint stripping product? Anything that will at least work better than the super remover? Reason #372 that working with metal is better than working with dead tree carcasses: If in doubt, media blast the poo poo out of it.  I will say that old school solid wood cabinetry is leaps and bounds better than the modern mdf garbage in most homes now. My parents house still has the original 1950s wood cabinets, and I helped them through a similar process that you’re doing now. Once you get through the tribulations you’re certain to be happy with it, but gently caress stripping cabinets, it loving blows, and there is no way around it.
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Sep 26, 2021 12:30
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he1ixx posted:Hey goons. It has been a while. Since the site running my blog for the house (https://www.vtwoods.life) has been up and down all week, and I haven't posted here in ages, I thought it was past time for an update. This is looking awesome. What kind of woods are you using? Do you know the wood finish that they are using? MrYenko posted:Reason #372 that working with metal is better than working with dead tree carcasses: If in doubt, media blast the poo poo out of it. You can use baking soda to blast paint off wood with pretty great results.
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Sep 26, 2021 13:56
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Thanks for all the input, everyone. I'd like to retract my poo poo talking of the super remover. It says 1 coat/15 minutes, which I wasn't too impressed with. But give it a few hours and I think it worked as well as you can hope for. Which is to say the process still sucked but the results are pretty good. I did another coat with a lot heavier application and waited a couple hours. After I scraped that one I did a third coat on the edges where some stuff was still adhered. Heavier coat peeled up  Scraped  Rinsed  You can see the grain is pretty visible  I think that's acceptable performance for a chemical paint stripper. I haven't sanded them yet but that's what I'm doing today. For the next set of doors I'm gonna do a super heavy coat and leave it like 5 hours before scraping, see if I can get it all done at once. At least I'm only sanding the paint on the carcasses flat and painting over it rather than trying to strip the carcasses to bare wood. MrYenko posted:Reason #372 that working with metal is better than working with dead tree carcasses: If in doubt, media blast the poo poo out of it. Totally agreed. I way prefer metal finishing to wood finishing. Sanding is really not my thing, but I've come to appreciate the process a bit more in the past few years. Not everything in a house can/should be metal. quote:Once you get through the tribulations you’re certain to be happy with it, but gently caress stripping cabinets, it loving blows, and there is no way around it. 
Sous Videodrome fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Sep 26, 2021 |
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Sep 26, 2021 20:25
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I planted a few trees earlier this spring. I put down fresh top soil, planted the sapling, and covered the whole area with about 2" of mulch. Despite getting out there to pull the more obnoxious weeds out as often as I can (read:not often), it now looks like this: http://imgur.com/a/EzRrAJg I need to plant more trees elsewhere, and I'd like to avoid this outcome. They'll be replacing a very old wood fence and assorted small bushes. What do I need to do when I plant more trees to prevent a weed explosion coming up through the mulch?
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Sep 26, 2021 20:59
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Yooper posted:This is looking awesome. The majority of the wood ash. We did maple in the laundry room area but ash everywhere else that there is wood. Due to the beetles destroying all of the ash up here it’s in fairly ready and cheap(er) supply. The finish is a Bona Matte water based deal. The guy who finished the floor said he has had great, long lasting results from it and it’s bullet proof. We shall see. For now, it looks incredible.
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Sep 26, 2021 21:01
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