SkunkDuster posted:

Don't garage doors have a pressure sensor? All the ones I've known in the past 20-30 years or so use the IR sensor, but I seem to remember in my younger days before they used IR that if you shoved something under the garage door, it would stop and open back up.

edit: if pressure sensors have been replaced by IR optic sensors, I just came up with a new idea for a high output can crusher.

CopperHound posted:

Why do all these improperly installed sensors still have all the excess wire slack? Are they delusional enough to think that they will fix it later?

e: Or does the wire come stripped and they are too lazy to cut and strip it again?

canyoneer posted:

Motronic posted:

You said a bag of concrete. 400 lbs would be 5 bags. So is it 400 lbs or 80?

LiquidCatnip posted:

dammit my urianum won't fit guys you might have caught me in a bit of a fabrication... I'll try to become a better example to others.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4000000+lbs+%2F+density+of+uranium

uwaeve posted:

Consider putting your bike halfway down a 800-foot-long, 12% grade zipline for security.

apatite posted:

Nope, won't work. I wouldn't steal this guy's bike and concrete block but would totally ride that zipline and ride off into the sunset lauging maniacally

apatite posted:

Sorry to interrupt vidyagame chat, but has this shown up here yet?

Manslaughter posted:

Either the camera has lens distortion, or my mind is mentally viewing that load bearing 2x4 as bowing. Or, it is already bowing.

The Orange Mage posted:

If that's a door up there, someone's gonna step out for a smoke and die of something other than lung cancer.

However, it looks like it's up a against a window, so I'll naively pretend that someone built a deck for their cat(s).

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

As I understand it the main thing is to avoid using inspectors recommended by the realtor, to avoid a conflict of interest. So go on Yelp and find ones with decent reviews.

But yeah, absolutely do not buy a house that hasn't been inspected. And I'd suggest that you try to stay intimately involved in this process as a semi-impartial third party, because it's very easy to get emotionally invested in "your" house, which could lead your parents to make bad decisions.

Laminator posted:

I was looking at houses down in Austin and one of them was an old lady special, ugly as hell but looked like it was well-maintained. Thanks to this thread I remembered that some breaker panels were bad, but I couldn't remember which, so I snapped a picture...



STAB-LOK

quote:

So why don't I recommend having an electrician evaluate the panel? There's no point.

KillHour posted:

No, he thought "I'm getting paid to run these wires. I'm not getting paid to tell my supervisor he's wrong."

It seems to be a common sentiment in Asia, from what I've heard.

DNova posted:

Earlier in the thread a bunch of people got angry at the idea of homeowners checking in on construction on a daily basis.

pac man frogs posted:

I did my first house inspection on Monday and saw a whole lot of awesome gems. We knew this place was going to need some work, but really...

This is the bathroom in the ADU. Just take the thought process that put this together in the first place, then extend that to literally any single aspect of this entire chopped up colonial turned quadplex(ish). It just gets fractally weirder the closer you look.

See if you can unravel all of the layers that make up the majestic glory that is this shower.

Wasabi the J posted:

I genuinely dislike the lack of natural white light that LEDs have. Have they fixed that or are you still dealing with huge chunks of the spectrum missing?

nm posted:

That bit about explicit permission is exactly what I'd say if someone wanted me to pay for medical treatment and U was unethical. He may be telling the truth, but I'm taking it with a grain of salt.
As for the other guy, if the lawn guy hires help, that isn't a big deal either.

Leperflesh posted:

I'm just saying: you bring a stranger with you to someone's property where you know there's a dog, and you can see they're not home, then it's on you to make sure your buddy is safe.

DNova posted:

You would be surprised what kind of insurance people intentionally do not have, such as flood insurance where floods are probable (and thus insurance against them is very costly). I'm not sure if the ground literally falling into the ocean counts as a flood or not though.

Leperflesh posted:

If you've ever bought a house, it's easy to understand. You review and sign hundreds of pages of documents (literally, I think I went through at least 300), and you usually do this in a meeting where you need to get through them all, and you've already had your closing delayed twice, and you've got to move in the next two days or you're goign to have to pay another month's rate on top of all your mortgage and new loan and moving expenses.

Easy Mac posted:

I don't know anyone who had a lawyer when buying a house. So I don't know how you jumped to your conclusion.

Terrible Robot posted:

My buddy who runs a small construction company is constantly having problems with poo poo like this because lazy/drunk/high employees.

thespaceinvader posted:

As noted juuuust upthread, measuring both diagonals doesn't actually guarantee you have square corners; the room could be trapezoidal. You have to make sure that at least one corner is square in and of itself, too, or make sure that the walls are the same lengths.

SubCrid TC posted:

Anyone have the website of the home inspector with the hilariously in depth reports and maintenance manual that comes up every once in a while in the thread? He's around Vancouver and I think I'm going to try and convince a friend to use him.

Boaz MacPhereson posted:

I've lived in Illinois all my life in numerous places with dishwashers and have never seen one with a switch. Inspector didn't mention it on my current home either.

Zhentar posted:

Edit: I know not all of IL has adopted NEC, but the requirement for dishwasher disconnects was rewritten for the 2011 NEC because the old version was widely misunderstood to allow the circuit breaker to meet the disconnect requirement.

~Coxy posted:

Dishwashers fail frquently enough that surely you'd want then plugged into a normal electrical outlet anyway?
Over here they are plugged in like any other kitchen appliance and plumbed into a normal faucet so you can do that yourself too.

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

Javid posted:

Current minor gripe with my place. The layout is approximately this:



The a/c unit is one of the big heat/cool combos you see in hotels. Easily has the juice to keep the place cool.

However, due to the layout, it keeps the living room at whatever I set it at, but the bedroom is 8-10 degrees warmer. I've tried various combinations of fans to try and suck the cool air into the bedroom, to no effect. If I wasn't renting I'd just put a hole in the wall in the back of the closet and mount a fan in there, but alas. And I don't want to crank it up to arctic because then my power bill will be stupid and the living room will be 65 degrees just to have the bedroom at 73.

During the winter, it's not an issue, as there's a small secondary heater in the wall of the bedroom. No backup A/C though unless I want to stick a window unit in one of the three windows this place has and increase my power bill.

baquerd posted:

Depends on your perspective for impact. It'll run a good $20-50 a month depending on how you use it and the outside temps.

Kazy posted:

Clickhole did a relevant article.

7 Party-Saving Tricks To Keep The Fun Going After Your Deck’s Collapsed

"Your deck may have collapsed, but act quickly and you can still save this thing. Here are seven genius hacks guaranteed to get your party humming again."

quote:

“Uh, sorry, what deck collapse were you talking about? I was too busy getting BEER out of a WATERMELON.”

Ambrose Burnside posted:

Yeah, I've got zero faith that they didn't just run daisy-chained lamp extension cords through some old pipe and called it a day. It's my folks place and apparently the state of the electrical was a concern when they bought the place that they've only partially remedied.
Speaking of which, are there any decent online/free resources for homeowners redoing electrical stuff? It's all witchcraft from where I'm standing.

Finagle posted:

I guess my questions are:
1) Just how BAD is this?
2) My best friend took a look at this and his concern is that because "the type of corrugated plastic pipe" its possible just going back into the drain area that the sump pump drains in the first place, rather than out to the street/away from the house. Is that right? How do I even tell?
3) Is this easily fixed by either A) getting a cap for the drain pipe in the ground and connecting it up to pipe from the house? (Something like this is what I'm trying to describe poorly: or B) just extending the pipe from the house to actual go INTO the pipe in the ground, so it splashing and flooding the area around the pipe isn't an issue?

I'm new to owning a house, and while I am very confident in my ability to LEARN to do things, I am also very aware that I am starting from scratch in most of my knowledge. Add to that that I'm going back to school (and thus quitting my job here in a couple weeks) so stopping problems before they start is something I really want to do where possible!

Sylink posted:

If I'm paying someone thousands of dollars or more they can go gently caress themselves as far as how often I show up to my own property. As long as I dont interfere with the work itself.

You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide

canyoneer posted:

https://np.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3ivoj6/canadaon_religious_challenges_to_condo_rules_or/

Jeherrin posted:

structural air

Tyson Tomko posted:

Damnit I just blew 30 minutes watching that video too, man I love that guy. The way he cuts beams with his circular saw (pipe cutter style) is badass too. I have no idea if this is common practice or not but he does it effortlessly.

It's been said over and over but poo poo can he drive a nail.

Tigntink posted:

I just had ductless AC/heat units installed on each floor of my house and it's been the best decision ever. They are supposed to be far more efficient than central. The heat they provide doesn't make me feel like i'm going to have a nosebleed and the AC is steady awesome. And they are nearly silent. I can't understand why more of the US doesn't use these things. My sister said this is all they installed in Iraq and she loves them.

sleepy gary posted:

I got a quote of $1,800 to install central air (2 ton) in one of my places. $12,000 is insanity to me.

Liquid Communism posted:

They make rugs.

Washable rugs.

Cheap washable rugs.

Cheap washable rugs that can be thrown the gently caress out when they get ratty.

Motronic posted:

pee-sopping rugs.

Nasty.

Phanatic posted:

It's still not as completely loving hilarious as Big Bertha up in Seattle.

I mean, they need to tear down the Alaskan Way viaduct, because it's obsolete and a decent quake is going to pancake it, Lomo-Prieta style. And it's a lovely road that completely cuts the city off from its own waterfront. So instead of just replacing it with nothing except good urban waterfront stuff, or just surface streets, they decide they're going to engage in a project that makes Boston's Big Dig look like a miracle of financial restraint: bury a replacement highway! I mean, sure, it's just another way to get traffic to bypass local merchants and such, but you could put parks and stuff on top of it and still come out ahead? But what if the tunnel machinebreaks? Or what if it starts screwing up the foundation supports for the nearby historic buildings of the district you're digging under? What about cost overruns? "Oh, none of that will happen."

And of course, all of that happened. The best part is what the tunnel-boring machine struck to break it in the first place a steel well casing left over from the initial spoil-sample wells. No, wait, the best part is that while the state passed a law making Seattle responsible for all cost overruns, and Seattle passed a law limiting its liability to cost overruns to $x million (some specific number, I forget what), the overruns are already rapidly reaching that value, at which point the prime stops getting paid, probably walks off the job, and a lot of lawyers get to buy new boats. And, of course, paying for the overruns has already depleted the funds that were supposed to go to building parks and other nice urban waterfront things at ground level.