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cruft posted:Do I even need an HVAC person to install a water heater? I'd be moving from gas to electric, but I'm getting an electric sub panel installed 2 feet away from where the tank would go, and the manufacturer seems to think I can just hire a plumber. Assuming you mean one of the basic tank heat pump water heaters (like the popular Rheem hybrid), no, any chucklehead can do the install. The only issues over a regular electric tank are that the inlet/outlet tend to be on the side (because the HP is on top) and you need to deal with the condensate (either pump/gravity to a drain.) So, a little extra plumbing and maybe a condensate pump, but the rest is standard. These typically require the same 240v/30A circuit as a regular electric tank. With most models, they still have the 2 electric elements, but you can control how often they are used over the HP.
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Nov 2, 2021 14:51
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Got a call from my insurance agent yesterday, my homeowners insurance is going from $5200/yr to $8400/yr. Calling the insurance company, they insist that the increase in premium is due to, and I quote, “inflation.” Absolutely nothing to do with the state lobbyists that got the insurance companies the law-change to change the age-limit on shingle roofs from twenty to FIFTEEN YEARS. So now to even shop a different rate, I’d have to replace a perfectly sound, functional roof. Florida can suck my balls. gently caress this stupid state.
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Nov 2, 2021 15:04
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My shower head broke and I'll need a new one - any recommendations on brands/models? My wife needs one with a handheld thing for her hair.
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Nov 2, 2021 15:42
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MrYenko posted:Got a call from my insurance agent yesterday, my homeowners insurance is going from $5200/yr to $8400/yr. Calling the insurance company, they insist that the increase in premium is due to, and I quote, “inflation.” Ya know, we're all experiencing the 50% inflation.  I've got family in California, near fire country, that is looking at similar insurance increases. loving gnarly.
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Nov 2, 2021 15:57
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MrYenko posted:Got a call from my insurance agent yesterday, my homeowners insurance is going from $5200/yr to $8400/yr. Calling the insurance company, they insist that the increase in premium is due to, and I quote, “inflation.” Based on that rate (unless you have a multi-million dollar house), it sounds more like you're getting hit with risk adjustments, not inflation. I assume there's something risky about your house's location (hurricanes, flooding) that is jacking up the rates. The other possibility is replacement costs. With everything house-related costing more (labor/materials), many policies are trying to capture that. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you don't want to be underinsured. You may be able to negotiate this a bit. Anyone that has flood insurance is in for a rude awaking over the next few years. The government is the only real issuer of these policies (NFIP), and they have been undercharging (compared to the risk) for decades. Last month they adopted Risk Rating 2.0, which applies to all new policies. For current policies, they are limited to increases of only 18% (IIRC) per year, but they will eventually raise to the rates calculated by RR2.0. This will result in much, much higher rates for over 3/4 of those insured.
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Nov 2, 2021 16:03
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meatpimp posted:I've got family in California, near fire country, that is looking at similar insurance increases. loving gnarly.
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Nov 2, 2021 16:07
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Yeah, my first thought was also hurricanes or flooding. It turns out there are actually laws all over the place preventing insurance companies from setting rates based on risk. This is why there is still a lot of coastal construction happening. As these laws slowly get overturned, insurance rates are beginning to reflect the actual risk of a place, and we're going to an increase in migration even beyond what's already happening after a neighborhood gets flooded 3 times in a 10-year period. I mean, definitely go shopping around, but be prepared to discover that everybody's going to charge you far out the rear end to insure a home in a high-risk area for hurricanes or flooding. Which is pretty much the entire state of Florida. People have been predicting this migration for years, and it's going to be a hell of a thing. cruft fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Nov 2, 2021 |
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Nov 2, 2021 16:29
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cruft posted:Yeah, my first thought was also fire and/or flooding. It turns out there are actually laws all over the place preventing insurance companies from setting rates based on risk. This is why there is still a lot of coastal construction happening. As these laws slowly get overturned, insurance rates are beginning to reflect the actual risk of a place, and we're going to an increase in migration even beyond what's already happening after a neighborhood gets flooded 3 times in a 10-year period.
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Nov 2, 2021 16:31
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Arsenic Lupin posted:In California, at least , there's a high-risk pool. You can get insurance if you're in a danger zone, it'll just be spendy. I didn't have to go to the high-risk pool. Yeah, I mean, I could probably get somebody to issue a million-dollar policy against the sun coming up tomorrow, if I pay them $2 million a day for it.
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Nov 2, 2021 16:33
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cruft posted:Yeah, my first thought was also hurricanes or flooding. It turns out there are actually laws all over the place preventing insurance companies from setting rates based on risk. This is why there is still a lot of coastal construction happening. As these laws slowly get overturned, insurance rates are beginning to reflect the actual risk of a place, and we're going to an increase in migration even beyond what's already happening after a neighborhood gets flooded 3 times in a 10-year period. Due to the way insurance laws are structured, people often end up *having* to remain, because FEMA will pay to rebuild, but not to move. And they can't sell, because nobody wants to buy a flood disaster, so . . .
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Nov 2, 2021 16:45
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cruft posted:The guy putting in our minisplits for like $30k just quoted me $15k to install a heat pump water heater, which involves running two water lines and a 220V AC line out a wall and into a unit on a bracket mounted to the outside wall. I installed the Rheem unit myself earlier this year. The biggest hassle was getting it down into the basement. Plumbing side was cake. I hired an electrician to run a drop that I wired into the unit myself. Nothing about it was a hassle. The unit itself works really well. My geothermal preheats a holding tank that the Rheem pulls from, so the unit is hardly running to keep up.
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Nov 2, 2021 16:54
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Due to the way insurance laws are structured, people often end up *having* to remain, because FEMA will pay to rebuild, but not to move. And they can't sell, because nobody wants to buy a flood disaster, so . . . Climate refugees, baby
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Nov 2, 2021 17:37
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How technically difficult/specialized is removing and installing a water heater? We need to start patching our garage holes after and have a couple handymen quotes but they want to remove our water heater to do it. I know we paid a licensed plumber for the install with county inspection, etc. So I don't know how safe an idea is to go with this instead of finding someone (probably more expensive) who can work in the space (i do understand it's a giant pain, though I'm not sure impossible)? If water heaters are stupid simple and there's not much to go wrong I would be fine with it. Edit: cruft posted:
PageMaster fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Nov 2, 2021 |
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Nov 2, 2021 17:46
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I assume from the exhaust that's a gas heater. If so, the county requires plumbers to work on it for a very good reason: keeping amateurs from killing their whole families.
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Nov 2, 2021 18:08
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Jesus my home owners insurance is like 250-300 euros a year I think, not sure.
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Nov 2, 2021 18:17
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Also a quote for installed solar panels, 7500€, that's all and sized for a decently sized house using heatpump for heating. Though I guess it's mostly the weather that decides that, apparently it works so that the power generated is consumed by the house as first preference, then if there's excess that's sold to the grid (you don't get a lot for it, but something). Considering solar panels since the germans have driven up european electricity prices in other countries and it's probably not coming down.
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Nov 2, 2021 18:20
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PageMaster posted:How technically difficult/specialized is removing and installing a water heater? We need to start patching our garage holes after and have a couple handymen quotes but they want to remove our water heater to do it. I know we paid a licensed plumber for the install with county inspection, etc. So I don't know how safe an idea is to go with this instead of finding someone (probably more expensive) who can work in the space (i do understand it's a giant pain, though I'm not sure impossible)? If water heaters are stupid simple and there's not much to go wrong I would be fine with it. Removing and re-installing the same water heater just to get it out of the way probably doesn't require a permit, but you'd need to check with your locality. Most places let you do your own work on your own home, but you'd also have to check on that, too. Water heaters are extremely simple to do, but it does require that you know what you're doing with the gas and the flue so you don't kill your family. If you have to ask, you probably shouldn't.
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Nov 2, 2021 18:32
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Permit not required for just pulling it out and putting it back in, and definitely something I don't plan on doing. I was more wondering if the scope was something simple enough that a handyman could do it pretty easily and safely for the drywall install. None of the ductwork would come out but I am trying to gauge if temporarily pulling it out is pretty basic enough to not worry about or cause for concern and something I shouldn't trust them with. If so, I'd probably need a GC or to find a drywaller who can work in the space above and behind it. Also correct, it is a gas water heater.
PageMaster fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Nov 2, 2021 |
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Nov 2, 2021 19:55
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His Divine Shadow posted:Jesus my home owners insurance is like 250-300 euros a year I think, not sure. We pay around $500 here (Sweden). $8400 would be insane.
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Nov 2, 2021 20:28
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Just checked mine out of curiosity (USA), 2 cars + home + umbrella is about $2k. Curious what the assessed value is of said expensive insurance house?
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Nov 2, 2021 20:32
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Mine is $1200ish but I'm sure that's about to go up after these tree repairs are done. We are up to $85k and still not done.
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Nov 2, 2021 20:48
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1400 CHF/USD for building and contents here including earthquake insurance as its a seismic area. $8200 is nuts. The city my apartment is in has mandatory centralised / socialized fire and flood insurance, it's ridiculously cheap which I guess shows what could happen if you take the profit motive out of insurance. 87 CHF per year. https://www.eca-vaud.ch/particuliers/assurer-ses-biens/mobilier-de-menage/simulateur-menage
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Nov 2, 2021 21:24
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My annual homeowners is $11,000. My flood is $600. Auto is about $1300 per car. I live in a Hurricane/flood/accident/theft prone area.
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Nov 2, 2021 22:01
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knox_harrington posted:The city my apartment is in has mandatory centralised / socialized fire and flood insurance, it's ridiculously cheap which I guess shows what could happen if you take the profit motive out of insurance. 87 CHF per year. There is no profit motive in the largest (by far) underwriter of flood insurance in the US - the Federal government. In fact, that's a big problem, since it's currently $20B+ in debt to the Treasury due to its mispricing of risk. The better question is why should US taxpayers subsidize flood insurance for expensive, ocean-adjacent properties? You need car insurance to drive, but I don't see the government stepping in to underwrite the 18 year old, male, performance-car-owner policies, even though they get screwed compared to every other risk pool.
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Nov 2, 2021 22:04
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Phil Moscowitz posted:My annual homeowners is $11,000. My flood is $600. Auto is about $1300 per car. I live in a Hurricane/flood/accident/theft prone area. My home insurance went up $80 this year to $833 and I thought I was getting gouged. I'm pretty sure I am a little bit underinsured but... 
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Nov 2, 2021 22:28
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B-Nasty posted:There is no profit motive in the largest (by far) underwriter of flood insurance in the US - the Federal government. In fact, that's a big problem, since it's currently $20B+ in debt to the Treasury due to its mispricing of risk. The better question is why should US taxpayers subsidize flood insurance for expensive, ocean-adjacent properties? You need car insurance to drive, but I don't see the government stepping in to underwrite the 18 year old, male, performance-car-owner policies, even though they get screwed compared to every other risk pool. I don't think expensive, ocean-adjacent properties are responsible for, nor even make up a majority of, the costs for flood insurance.
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Nov 2, 2021 22:32
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Sirotan posted:My home insurance went up $80 this year to $833 and I thought I was getting gouged. I'm pretty sure I am a little bit underinsured but... That’s on a 110 year old house for $1m structure, $500k in contents, and $1m in liability. Flood is capped at the $250k/$100k NFIP limits.
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Nov 2, 2021 22:32
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PageMaster posted:How technically difficult/specialized is removing and installing a water heater? We need to start patching our garage holes after and have a couple handymen quotes but they want to remove our water heater to do it. I know we paid a licensed plumber for the install with county inspection, etc. So I don't know how safe an idea is to go with this instead of finding someone (probably more expensive) who can work in the space (i do understand it's a giant pain, though I'm not sure impossible)? If water heaters are stupid simple and there's not much to go wrong I would be fine with it. Maybe I'm not fully understanding the scope of work here but it seems like it would be best to just throw up 2 sheets of drywall on either side of the exhaust pipe with a half moon cut out of each such that they get as close to the pipe as code allows (I seem to recall my first house the drywall needed to be cut 2-3" back from the exhaust pipe and then you can put like a metal cap around the pipe to bridge that gap). The end result might not be as perfect as removing and reinstalling the water heater would yield but I don't think the hassle will be worth it for you.
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Nov 2, 2021 23:05
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knox_harrington posted:1400 CHF/USD for building and contents here including earthquake insurance as its a seismic area. $8200 is nuts. The Confoederatio Helvetia is not in the same category of flood risk as Florida 😆
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Nov 2, 2021 23:39
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cruft posted:The Confoederatio Helvetia is not in the same category of flood risk as Florida 😆 Did you miss all the floods in central Europe this summer? E: and before you start moaning about it, yes I am aware Florida will be underwater long tern knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 01:06
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papa horny michael posted:I don't think expensive, ocean-adjacent properties are responsible for, nor even make up a majority of, the costs for flood insurance. This doesn't have enough resolution (it's at the county), but even zoomed out to that level, it's pretty clear where the most claims tend to cluster  It all depends on how you define 'adjacent', but I never even made the claim that those properties make up the majority of the cost. My point was that taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing flood insurance for wealthy property owners that own expensive houses. If they want to take the risk of building expensive homes near the beach, they can afford private insurance.
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Nov 3, 2021 01:55
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Can anyone give advice on sizing a generator to power a sump pump in a power outage? Wife and I moved into new construction 2 months ago. So far the sump has only run twice: during hurricane Ida and again this past week when we had a significant amount of rain. When it runs it typically cycles on for 2-3 seconds then off for 60+ seconds tapering off over a day or so until the water stops. The pump is 1/3hp and draws 4.1 amps while running with a peak of 19 during starts. Could I get by with a 2200 sustained / 2500 peak inverter generator or would that be cutting it too close? It's currently plugged into a 20 amp circuit and the breaker has never tripped while running. We eventually plan to get a natural gas standby generator so I was hoping to get something small and portable that I could re-purpose when it was no longer needed for the sump.
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Nov 3, 2021 02:38
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tangy yet delightful posted:Maybe I'm not fully understanding the scope of work here but it seems like it would be best to just throw up 2 sheets of drywall on either side of the exhaust pipe with a half moon cut out of each such that they get as close to the pipe as code allows (I seem to recall my first house the drywall needed to be cut 2-3" back from the exhaust pipe and then you can put like a metal cap around the pipe to bridge that gap). The end result might not be as perfect as removing and reinstalling the water heater would yield but I don't think the hassle will be worth it for you. Sorry, I might be making it sound more technical and complicated than it is. You can see the drywall opening in the back wall of the picture;this extends a foot or so more further downbehind the water heater. The handymen I've talked to want to remove the water heater to put in the drywall because it's physically in the way and otherwise they're working in the narrow space between the water heater and back wall as well as above and around the water heater. I'm not sure what's physically possible or unrealistic to expect that an installer should be capable of doing. Interesting that you bring up the separation around the flue though; house originally did not have any separation around there for the furnace or water heater, nor do any other houses in the neighborhood, and the city inspector said it was all good. Maybe because it's not just the single wall run, but only around the connection/double wall pipe at that point? Or newer (than 1990) code and needs to be fixed?
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Nov 3, 2021 02:46
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His Divine Shadow posted:Also a quote for installed solar panels, 7500€, that's all and sized for a decently sized house using heatpump for heating. Though I guess it's mostly the weather that decides that, apparently it works so that the power generated is consumed by the house as first preference, then if there's excess that's sold to the grid (you don't get a lot for it, but something). What is the size in kw of the PV array, and how much do you pay for electricity? I doubt $7500 is worth it from a purely financial perspective, and electricity might not be going down but solar panel prices are. Also, you can try to find someone on PVoutput.org that is vaguely in your region and get some real world stats on how many units your PV will actually produce.
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Nov 3, 2021 02:53
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I got my appliances today - only took two months, so obviously could have been worse, but it's pretty irritating that despite buying at the start of September, the delay means the rebate forms they gave to me are all expired (mid-October). I needed the product serial numbers to fill out the forms, so I kind of got screwed, has this happened to anyone else?
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Nov 3, 2021 03:25
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PageMaster posted:Sorry, I might be making it sound more technical and complicated than it is. You can see the drywall opening in the back wall of the picture;this extends a foot or so more further downbehind the water heater. The handymen I've talked to want to remove the water heater to put in the drywall because it's physically in the way and otherwise they're working in the narrow space between the water heater and back wall as well as above and around the water heater. I'm not sure what's physically possible or unrealistic to expect that an installer should be capable of doing. Maybe I missed it, but why do you need/want drywall there? Is it a cosmetic thing? Fire proofing?
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Nov 3, 2021 03:54
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I am not sure where to post this, please point me in a different direction if this isn't the right thread. We're buying our first home. We had wanted to get some kind of smart deadbolt until we did our walkthrough last night and saw that the front door appears to be the original with the original door knob and deadbolt from the early 1950s. The brand Russwin is stamped on the deadbolt and I did some googling but wasn't successful. We're going to contact a locksmith to rekey after closing, but wanted to get an expectation of whether we can or even should replace the whole assembly.
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Nov 3, 2021 14:55
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Involuntary Sparkle posted:I am not sure where to post this, please point me in a different direction if this isn't the right thread. Hiya Friend! long time no chat. Congrats on the home purchase! A locksmith can more than likely pull the tumbler out, re pin it, and cut you a new key in about 30m of his time if not faster.
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Nov 3, 2021 15:03
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Wife and I are buying a house (yay) and it has a lot of old outlets. The breaker box is good but all the outlets should be upgraded so I posted this in the wiring thread but: Hey thread, if I wanted to install a GFCI outlet that's something I can do myself right? You just: Turn off the power Check that you won't electrocute yourself Uncrew the old outlet Disconnect the wires Connect to new outlet Screw in new outlet to wall? Turn on the power (Optional)
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Nov 3, 2021 15:13
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HootTheOwl posted:Wife and I are buying a house (yay) and it has a lot of old outlets. The breaker box is good but all the outlets should be upgraded so I posted this in the wiring thread but: Get one of those little things that plugs in and shoes proper wiring with 3 little lights in it, they're probably under 10bux. In your case I'd leave that plugged in and after the "connect new outlet" phase turn power on before pushing it back into the socket. Then turn it off again and continue with your steps. They're always labeled terribly and the wire in the wall may or may not be colour coded depending on house age, so maybe snap some photos before removing old outlet too. Basically you just need to deal with hot, neutral, ground. New outlets usually have colour coded screws too which helps (one bronze ish and one not)
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Nov 3, 2021 15:49
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