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w00tmonger posted:This might be more of a question for the home automation thread, but has anyone dealt with an automatic water shut off system? drat that's expensive, I know any avoided water damage can pay for itself, but lol at a pinhole leak in a toilet getting you back your $900 for the Moen Flo. Maybe it's a good thing though, I'm not sure.
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Nov 5, 2021 22:48
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I just had a pinhole leak fixed. I’m not sure if a flo would have caught it or not but the plumber who fixed it said to not bother with them. He said something along the lines of they haven’t been around long enough to trust their reliability. Also having a smart device control your water usage sounds nice until the smart part of it stops working. Some insurance companies will pay for it or offer a rebate so maybe if you can get it that way it would be worth it.
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Nov 5, 2021 23:18
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w00tmonger posted:This might be more of a question for the home automation thread, but has anyone dealt with an automatic water shut off system? I have a Flo just after the main valve of my house. I bought it after having a dishwasher drain leak that did $50k of damage, followed by a contractor who broke a PVC line during kitchen re-install and didn't tell me, leading to another $20k of damage, all from water. I have mixed thoughts on the Flo system. In some ways, it's good... even if I have a hose trickle-watering a specific tree, after I forget, 50 minutes later, I'll get a text from Flo saying there's abnormal useage and I turn the spigot off. The flip side of that, though, is when one of my kids takes a ~30 minute shower and the system thinks it's an issue (this usually happens as I'm going to sleep, getting startled by texts and calls and such). There is also a component to the Flo system, which is any number of discrete WiFi sensors that will immediately shut the water off if they sense water. This is what I was most concerned with, but when I got the system about 2 years ago, the battery life of them was abysmal... plus, they use some lovely off-spec battery. However, I just put a new battery in my test one several weeks ago, and it's still going... maybe they did a firmware revision that made them reasonable. Idk.
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Nov 5, 2021 23:29
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EVERYWHERE 
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Inner Light posted:drat that's expensive, I know any avoided water damage can pay for itself, but lol at a pinhole leak in a toilet getting you back your $900 for the Moen Flo. Maybe it's a good thing though, I'm not sure. My concern is more developing a pinhole leak in some poly b, and passive monitoring would be great for that. Regardless, it would be some mix of the flo and physical flood detectors in high risk areas. Seeing about 700$ cad to grab one so not the most horrendous cost to implement it
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Nov 5, 2021 23:36
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meatpimp posted:when one of my kids takes a ~30 minute shower and the system thinks it's an issue The system's not wrong
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Nov 6, 2021 00:41
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El Mero Mero posted:Whelp, our ancient water heater is finally leaking (installed in 1998!) and it's time for a replacement. It's a 40 gal gas unit and we're going to replace it with another tanked 40 gallon gas unit as well (I decided to skip tankless after researching it). Are there really any brand, performance metric differences, or feature differences to look out for on those units? Or are they all basically commodity pieces that are more or less the same? The advice I've seen is "whatever a contractor you trust installs" because it means they'll be familiar with it if anything comes up.
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Nov 6, 2021 01:34
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FISHMANPET posted:The advice I've seen is "whatever a contractor you trust installs" because it means they'll be familiar with it if anything comes up. This. They will also have parts on the truck.
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Nov 6, 2021 02:11
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They also have access to a little bit better stuff than you'd get at Lowes Depot through contractor supply houses, right? e: we replaced our is 20 year old 40g hot point with a Bradford White 50g unit last winter, no complaints
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Nov 6, 2021 03:15
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brugroffil posted:They also have access to a little bit better stuff than you'd get at Lowes Depot through contractor supply houses, right? That's what the plumber who did mine said at least, they put in a Rheem Commercial model. Also check for rebates through your utility company if replacing a water heater. I've got $350 coming from my gas utility for replacing tanked gas with tanked gas.
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Nov 6, 2021 03:35
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Anne Whateley posted:Only if you have modern wiring. If you have older wiring with no neutral, time to call a pro. House was built in 93 so I'm sure it does
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Nov 6, 2021 03:43
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csammis posted:The system's not wrong True, that's been a constant battle with my son until he left for college and now my 12 year old daughter.  I even went so far as to put a timer switch on the fan in the bathroom, so they know that when the fan goes off, they need to be done. Still a battle.
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Nov 6, 2021 16:43
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meatpimp posted:True, that's been a constant battle with my son until he left for college and now my 12 year old daughter. I always heard the bathroom fan should continue running for a while after a shower. Maybe the difference isn’t so stark that it actually causes issues though.
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Nov 6, 2021 16:45
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Talking about water heaters... I have a Rheem professional plus series gas water heater with power vent, installed in 2015 by the previous owner. Since August it kept shutting down sporadically, giving me an error code "pressure switch failed to close". I would be able to reset the controller and it would work again for days or weeks until it would shut down again. about 6 weeks ago I replaced the pressure switch ($50) and it did not shut off again until 3 days ago. This time i replaced the entire power vent for $300. FML. So far it hasn't shut down again. As far as I can tell, if it wasn't the pressure switch itself, it has to be a problem with the entire power vent - possibly a dying fan. If this doesn't solve my problems...it might be a problem with the wiring or something internal in the tank. Anyone have any other ideas or suggestions? fingers crossed the new power vent fixes this problem.
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Nov 6, 2021 17:59
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Inner Light posted:I always heard the bathroom fan should continue running for a while after a shower. Maybe the difference isn’t so stark that it actually causes issues though. I think that's true, to get rid of residual moisture. They put the fan back on for 20 minutes when they get out.
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Nov 6, 2021 18:04
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Does anyone have an air source heat pump (ASHP) with a ducted system? I know ASHPs are pretty common as ductless in my area, but I've never heard of a ducted ASHP install but as far as I can tell they do exist. We have ducting and may need to replace our furnace soon, so wondering if an ASHP might work, particularly since I may be looking at putting solar on the roof.
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Nov 7, 2021 02:47
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Does anyone have an air source heat pump (ASHP) with a ducted system? I know ASHPs are pretty common as ductless in my area, but I've never heard of a ducted ASHP install but as far as I can tell they do exist. We have ducting and may need to replace our furnace soon, so wondering if an ASHP might work, particularly since I may be looking at putting solar on the roof. Pretty much every major manufacturer has this as an option. I would just call 3 installers and ask about replacing your system with a heat pump. Remember if your temperatures get down near freezing you will want backup heat (gas or electric). They become wildly inefficient down near their lowest rated temperature, and they flatly stop working below that - not even a little bit. So if you have a furnace that is fine enough you could potentially keep it.
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Nov 7, 2021 03:02
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Does anyone have an air source heat pump (ASHP) with a ducted system? I know ASHPs are pretty common as ductless in my area, but I've never heard of a ducted ASHP install but as far as I can tell they do exist. We have ducting and may need to replace our furnace soon, so wondering if an ASHP might work, particularly since I may be looking at putting solar on the roof. My friend has one, he installed it last Fall. Seems to work well, he made it through the winter no problem (Toronto, Canada). He kept natural gas running to his furnace as a backup, but actually cancelled his gas account once he made it through the Winter.
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Nov 7, 2021 03:04
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So for this does the ASHP heat exchanger go on top of the gas furnace (where the current AC condenser is), which would just sit there unused unless the temp dropped super low? Looks like the lowest annual temp my city gets doesn't generally go below -15C (looking at absolute lowest annual temp, and is usually around -5.5C looking at monthly averages), and ASHP can go to like -30C?
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Nov 7, 2021 03:14
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H110Hawk posted:Pretty much every major manufacturer has this as an option. I would just call 3 installers and ask about replacing your system with a heat pump. Remember if your temperatures get down near freezing you will want backup heat (gas or electric). They become wildly inefficient down near their lowest rated temperature, and they flatly stop working below that - not even a little bit. So if you have a furnace that is fine enough you could potentially keep it. This isn't really accurate, efficiency drops off a bit but they're still completely functional well below freezing. Mine has a backup immersion element which records when it's used and has never come on since it was installed. The house is at 1700m in the Alps and it gets cold here. I had to alter the curve setting to provide less heat because I couldn't use the fire I had installed, it was too hot.
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Nov 7, 2021 17:15
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Some Guy From NY posted:Talking about water heaters... Yes. Contact Rheem and initiate the process to get it replaced, or at least get reimbursed for the power vent, if you still can. The 2015 Rheem power vent units were defective. Had exactly the same problem when I installed mine; For months, I replaced a few parts, then when the problem persisted did some online digging, and found a ton of other folks with the same issue. Got ahold of Rheem, and first they wanted me to throw parts at it (they sent the parts for free). Oddly, they never suggested replacing the power vent unit. The only (other) thing I hadn't replaced by then was the control head as it was nearly $400. They sent me one, I installed it and dutifully waited until the unit shut itself down (by this point I was checking the loving thing daily, because a cold shower sucks), called Rheem & they finally OK'd a replacement. I bought mine at Home Depot on sale, so I returned it there. Still wound up paying $350, can't remember why, but the replacement unit has worked flawlessly since late 2017. The only noticeable difference was the power vent unit was from a different manufacturer, so you might have slain the dragon. B-Nasty posted:I'm bringing back flood insurance talk, because I saw this article today which has some good info about how the NFIP's Risk Rating 2.0 is really going to hammer properties near water: https://www.newsday.com/business/flood-insurance-rate-increases-fema-nfip-climate-change-1.50411873 Just as well. Building on beaches, especially on barrier islands, is hubris to the stupidest degree. 2016:  2021: 
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Nov 7, 2021 17:20
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knox_harrington posted:This isn't really accurate, efficiency drops off a bit but they're still completely functional well below freezing. Mine has a backup immersion element which records when it's used and has never come on since it was installed. Fair enough. I should edit it to say lowest rated temperature. Is there a method to defrost the outside coils that isn't reversing? (Resistive strips?)
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Nov 7, 2021 17:22
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The Slack Lagoon posted:So for this does the ASHP heat exchanger go on top of the gas furnace (where the current AC condenser is), which would just sit there unused unless the temp dropped super low? Looks like the lowest annual temp my city gets doesn't generally go below -15C (looking at absolute lowest annual temp, and is usually around -5.5C looking at monthly averages), and ASHP can go to like -30C? Yeah the heat exchanger replaced the AC condenser in the furnace. H110Hawk posted:Fair enough. I should edit it to say lowest rated temperature. Is there a method to defrost the outside coils that isn't reversing? (Resistive strips?) The one my friend has resistive strips that go on every so often when the outside temp goes below a certain level to defrost.
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Nov 7, 2021 18:34
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PainterofCrap posted:Just as well. Building on beaches, especially on barrier islands, is hubris to the stupidest degree. To play devil's advocate, my house is in a dip in a large hill but because there's running water along the dip, we're in a flood zone and have to carry flood insurance. I don't think there's ever been a record of flooding but our flood insurance is probably going to go up because of this change. Feels kinda not great, no?
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Nov 7, 2021 18:38
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H110Hawk posted:Remember if your temperatures get down near freezing you will want backup heat (gas or electric). They become wildly inefficient down near their lowest rated temperature, and they flatly stop working below that - not even a little bit. So if you have a furnace that is fine enough you could potentially keep it. There are a lot of heat pump units that perform well at 32F and plenty that perform at 0F or lower. Units meant for heating climates will have a production curve that still provides some amount of heating at lower temperatures. For example, Mitsubishi uses 'HyperHeat' in their marketing for units designed to provide a significant amount of rated output (70%+) at -13F. At these low temperatures the Coefficient Of Performance (COP) rating is impacted, but generally they are still above 1.0. A natural gas/fuel oil/electric resistance back up system will have a COP less than 1.0 due to the nature of the calculation. There are a small, but significant number of homes in heating climates that only have heat pumps for heating (excluding spot heating in bathrooms which is typically electric resistance in these types of homes). I build one in 2015. NEEP maintains a list of cold weather suitable equipment: https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product_list/
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Nov 7, 2021 18:58
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PainterofCrap posted:Yes. Contact Rheem and initiate the process to get it replaced, or at least get reimbursed for the power vent, if you still can. Interesting info! I don't have any paperwork for the hot water tank, as it was installed by the PO. I hope replacing the powervent is good enough, even if it lasts for 5 years. By that time it will be due for an entire replacement anyway.
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Nov 7, 2021 19:47
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Blinkz0rz posted:To play devil's advocate, my house is in a dip in a large hill but because there's running water along the dip, we're in a flood zone and have to carry flood insurance. I don't think there's ever been a record of flooding but our flood insurance is probably going to go up because of this change. Feels kinda not great, no? Eh, may not be too bad. NFIP rates the flood zones, part of that is severity and frequency. A natural swale is a somewhat lesser risk, probably, than salt-water coast/islands
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Nov 7, 2021 20:44
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Blinkz0rz posted:To play devil's advocate, my house is in a dip in a large hill but because there's running water along the dip, we're in a flood zone and have to carry flood insurance. I don't think there's ever been a record of flooding but our flood insurance is probably going to go up because of this change. Feels kinda not great, no? PainterofCrap posted:Eh, may not be too bad. NFIP rates the flood zones, part of that is severity and frequency. A natural swale is a somewhat lesser risk, probably, than salt-water coast/islands I mean, in general, if you live in a flood zone, flooding will become more likely over the coming decade as weather events that were once rare become less rare.
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Nov 8, 2021 00:27
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We're looking at adding AC to our house and have gotten one quote so far. It was for a ducted system, with the air handler going in our attic. The house is ~2000 sqft and was built in the 30's so there's just radiators for heat and no existing duct work. They quoted us $25k and the only extra cost may be adding a sub panel onto our main breaker. Does this seem reasonable? It's my first time having a major project like this done. We're in Cleveland, OH if that makes a difference. We've got another HVAC company coming later this month to give an estimate/quote.
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Nov 8, 2021 14:55
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Any humidifier recommendations? We have a whole-house humidifier that the previous home owner disconnected, but I'm not interested in fixing it for mold reasons. Most of the small portable units you can buy at the store with like 1-3 gallon capacity don't seem to do very much. Long-term I'm wondering if switching the furnace from natural gas to dual fuel would make it less dry but that's a decision for down the road.
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Nov 8, 2021 15:24
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Chad Sexington posted:Any humidifier recommendations? We have a whole-house humidifier that the previous home owner disconnected, but I'm not interested in fixing it for mold reasons. Most of the small portable units you can buy at the store with like 1-3 gallon capacity don't seem to do very much. Aprilaire for forced-air setups is a no-brainer. I just had to replace the guts of mine because the UV light made the pad cage brittle, but other than that, it's a tank. Regarding mold issues, if you're talking about near the furnace, a UV sterilizing light makes a huge difference. It's one of the best and most inexpensive upgrades you can make in your air, imo.
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Nov 8, 2021 16:06
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Roof gang. New roof here, is the metal part (flashing?) being visible normal? Ignore the grimy gutter and chewed fascia that is getting fixed later. e: having issues embedding, but images here for now https://ibb.co/98p374R https://ibb.co/RSb7LQN
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Nov 8, 2021 16:33
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I added a gas outlet to the back of my house and in the process of leak testing discovered that 1. There is a very small leak somewhere 2. It's not on or near the pipes I worked on I'm pretty drat sure the leak is from when an HVAC contractor decided my furnace supply pipe should be closer to the furnace and loving pulled the pipe over with his hand, which would have unthreaded a fitting from a pipe where it turns vertical to go down the wall, the tee for the water heater, or the elbow where it goes into the wall under that. Luckily I can get to those to test but it's behind my water heater which is a royal pain in the rear end to move. I'm going to spend the rest of the week after work crawling around the crawlspace and attic with Nu-Calgon and eliminate everything else I can first. On the weekend I can tackle behind the water heater. I'm pretty sure this leak has been around for months but we're playing it safe by cutting the gas at the meter at night, and we don't get any whiffs of gas anywhere during the day except occasionally from the water heater closet. I have a natural gas detector in there though and it's never shown a PPM reading or alarmed. Once I pull the water heater out I can cap the line and perform a real pressure test on it with my test gauge too. Yay homeownership
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Nov 8, 2021 16:41
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Infinotize posted:Roof gang. New roof here, is the metal part (flashing?) being visible normal? Ignore the grimy gutter and chewed fascia that is getting fixed later. Maybe not the cleanest job ever but it looks like it would work. Are you in a part of the world where you could get ice dams in the winter?
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Nov 8, 2021 16:44
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my basement walls are primarily stone (which I think have a coating of cement, over which there is drylok paint), and I need to install some new shelving. the basement was partially waterproofed years before I owned the house to account for the deficiencies of fieldstone foundations, but I still get a bit of water during heavy rain (heavily exacerbated by my neighbor refusing to fix their gutters and ripping out the downspout extension, filling the alley between our houses with water) dumb question: how do i prevent water ingress caused by drilling into the foundation wall? Or will I be relatively OK if i'm mounting pressure treated lumber directly on the wall (and then mounting shelving on that)?
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Nov 8, 2021 17:08
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BigFactory posted:Maybe not the cleanest job ever but it looks like it would work. Are you in a part of the world where you could get ice dams in the winter? That was basically my thought as well. I am in Austin so no harsh winter weather*. * except last winter, which will be every winter from now on with my luck. In all though I think ice damming is pretty unlikely here. This is also over a porch which may make that less likely since less heat would potentially rise there.
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Nov 8, 2021 17:19
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Slanderer posted:my basement walls are primarily stone (which I think have a coating of cement, over which there is drylok paint), and I need to install some new shelving. the basement was partially waterproofed years before I owned the house to account for the deficiencies of fieldstone foundations, but I still get a bit of water during heavy rain (heavily exacerbated by my neighbor refusing to fix their gutters and ripping out the downspout extension, filling the alley between our houses with water) I would use a freestanding shelf, personally, rather than try to mount shelving to a parged stone wall.
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Nov 8, 2021 17:20
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armorer posted:I would use a freestanding shelf, personally, rather than try to mount shelving to a parged stone wall.
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Nov 8, 2021 17:43
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armorer posted:I would use a freestanding shelf, personally, rather than try to mount shelving to a parged stone wall.  the previous owners got to drill holes in the walls but im not allowed to use a hammer drill and do it too edit: i do have some freestanding shelves and benches along some walls and they sucked to make usably level, i think i had at least 4" of shimming on one leg due to the floor being designed for Extreme Drainage before it was drylok'd Slanderer fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 19:52
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SpartanIvy posted:I'm pretty sure this leak has been around for months but we're playing it safe by cutting the gas at the meter at night, and we don't get any whiffs of gas anywhere during the day except occasionally from the water heater closet. I have a natural gas detector in there though and it's never shown a PPM reading or alarmed. Once I pull the water heater out I can cap the line and perform a real pressure test on it with my test gauge too.
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Nov 8, 2021 21:12
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Is there a reason you aren't hiring a plumber for this one? It's one thing to install an outlet, it's another to track down a very dangerous leak. Well at this point we're not even sure there actually is a leak, and if there is it's very minor and I'm not in danger of exploding. We're keeping the gas off most of the time while we investigate. The initial cause of concern was after the gas was left off at the meter while while I worked, the stove had no pressure when we turned a knob on after 3-4 hours. I was working past a closed valve so my working shouldn't have depressurized the line. We've been repeating the test today with better results and if there is a leak it's very very very small because we just had the meter off for 3.5 hours and the line was still pressurized when we opened a valve. We cut the valves to the stove and water heater for the last test so it might be an issue with one of the flex cables on them. I have a pressure test meter but it's not accurate enough for sub PSI pressures, and I don't have the right fitting to hook my manometer up to the house line yet. That's the next step to see if we get any drop over time with the appliances cut off. E: this is probably a repeat of February where I thought I had a tiny water leak but it's actually a faulty gauge or temperature changes, or something similar. SpartanIvy fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 22:46
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