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Blistex posted:You want to see a scary mix of plumbing and electrical work? Go to a washroom in Korea or China! I'll add: Morocco. These are from the hostel I stayed at in Marrakesh.  Yes, it looks like it would just be a toilet room for the squat toilet, but no, it's also now a shower. Disgusting and horribly unsafe.  Slip on that porcelain into the poo poo hole and you're gonna need pins to hold your broken bones together.  And uh.. watch your head/face/eyes. Not really pictured is that the warm water is supplied by a propane-powered on-demand heater sitting right outside (you can kind of see if in the first photo). The tank of propane is on the floor right underneath it. It didn't work very well.
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Apr 29, 2013 19:16
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Mercury Ballistic posted:Look close at the bricks! Help me out on this one. I can't figure out if it's just that there is no mortar or what.
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May 9, 2013 10:46
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iForge posted:I caught a buddy of mine doing some tree work a couple months ago. Company name has been removed from his sweatshirt to protect the guilty. Screw the innocent. Yeah, it's actually normal for utility workers to rest their ladders on telco cables like that.
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May 12, 2013 18:06
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What's wrong with drywall for a bathroom ceiling? Use greenboard.
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May 19, 2013 12:21
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It wouldn't hurt to turn it on for a moment to see if it's gas or water. If it's angry wasps, however...
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Jun 9, 2013 11:25
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Leperflesh posted:(my breaker box is on the outside of my house and accessible from the street).  What is your address?
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Jun 10, 2013 21:41
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I'd replace the terminal block with wire nuts, but I'm assuming that the wiring isn't normally exposed like that in the first place and I don't really see how that ... cone thing ... would attach to the ceiling to cover the wires.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:45
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Then I don't see any problem with the wiring other than the terminal block, which I don't think is normal.
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Jun 11, 2013 21:59
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iForge posted:This looks like that terminal block and the website shows it rated for A/C. I still would change it out for wirenuts, we used to use them when i used to do commercial fire alarm and they had a habit of coming loose on their own. I know them as "European Style" terminal blocks and I've never heard of them being used in residential power wiring applications.
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Jun 11, 2013 22:11
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All of my residential wiring experience is US-based. I don't think anywhere in the US would use terminal blocks like that. But I also would have lost a bet that anyone would have their fuckin' breaker box OUTSIDE and apparently that is a common thing in some parts of the world...
sleepy gary fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 22:31
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My friend who lives in Finland tells me that light fixtures use them as a special case because apartments don't generally come with light fixtures, so the renter is expected to be able to furnish and install them, hence the terminal blocks (or, more modern sockets). This is also a horribly bizarre concept to me. Europe is so weird. edit: He says wire nut = huppuliitin http://www.biltema.fi/fi/Rakentaminen/Sahko/Tarvikkeet/Huppuliitin-35834/ sleepy gary fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 22:36
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Cakefool posted:Weird? Rich coming from someone who uses half the right amount of electricity It's weird to me that renters are expected to provide light fixtures. I live in central Europe and I know it goes even beyond that: some apartments don't even come with kitchen cabinets, sinks, etc. It's loving weird. However, as an electrical engineer, I readily concede that 240V mains is far more sensible than 120V. I'd stick with 60Hz though. Further, I really like terminal blocks and I use them a lot when I make things, but never in residential wiring because as far as I know that's not acceptable at all.
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Jun 11, 2013 22:46
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No, if you think about it too much, then a water tower is part of a charge pump circuit. Don't get too far into that analogy.
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Jun 20, 2013 02:32
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priznat posted:So I had to sawzall the loving thing in half to get it out. Admit it, you had fun doing that part.
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Jun 23, 2013 21:23
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:So instead of fixing the leak he built an elaborate drainage system to manage the leak, makes so much sense Well, usually you're supposed to relieve the hydrostatic pressure on the wall by drilling holes in it to LET the water come in, and then let it flow through a small trench into a sump pump basin. Just sealing the wall without relieving the pressure isn't going to be a long-term solution. Although, neither is baking pan with a bunch of PVC piping coming out of it.
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Jul 24, 2013 16:20
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people really love tacky poo poo
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Jul 27, 2013 22:47
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Leperflesh posted:Hah, I was wondering if someone would call me out on that. Xylem UP!!! Phloooooemmmm dooowwnnnnnn. We had to abruptly stand up and put our arms up during the xylem part and then slowly fade back into our seats for the phloem part. Gotta admit, it stuck with me.
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Jul 29, 2013 18:24
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There is a house that was on my old daily commute. At one point, I noticed it got a brand new roof. I didn't think much of it, because why would I, but I tend to notice these things. I also noticed that it started to look a little rough after a few months. It was sort of fading out, or wearing down. I watched in fascinated horror over the next year or so as the brand new roof literally disintegrated, re-exposing the previous roof below it. By the time I moved, at most 2 years after the new roof was installed, there was only trace evidence that a new roof was ever put on. I really have no idea what in the gently caress could have happened with that, and I was really dying to ask the owners, but I thought that might be incredibly rude and I didn't want to salt their wounds. My best guess is that it was just extremely, ridiculously cheap, possibly altogether fake material.
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Aug 29, 2013 16:24
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Heresiarch posted:Is the door-into-nowhere thing one of the showstoppers? And if it is, what the hell is the other one? It's a showstopper because of the rebar and feces down below. If it was just your every day drop onto the floor below, it would be a simple minor hazard. Just put a warning sticker on the door.
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Sep 23, 2013 12:46
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Shifty Pony posted:Turns out that knowing the property line is actually really important when putting in a driveway. It becomes even more important if you refuse to negotiate with your neighbor over the asking price for the place because you know he wants the lot to link up two lots he already owns so you demand extra. Is that the only photo? So the place was for sale, the neighbor made an offer and the seller refused to negotiate and furthermore asked for a higher price? I'm a bit confused on the story. Hilarious photo though.
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Nov 13, 2013 20:17
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Papercut posted:My main question is why that driveway appears to be about 3 car-widths wide. Looks like 2 at most to me. The guy thought he had a lot of space for his driveway!
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Nov 13, 2013 20:21
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Farmdizzle posted:How in the Sam Holy Hell can someone come to own a property and fail to know its demarcations by that much?!!! Not every place has very user-friendly records of parcel boundaries. In my area I think they're all text-based descriptions that essentially force you to hire a surveyor to properly decode them.
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Nov 14, 2013 11:09
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Farmdizzle posted:Also, where I'm from (WA) the corners of the property usually have a vertical 1/2" re-bar with a plastic cap that can easily be located with a metal detector and/or a shovel. Is this less common elsewhere? They are putting in those rebar markers in my area when you order a survey, but they weren't there to begin with. I'm not sure when they started doing that.
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Nov 14, 2013 11:36
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Farmdizzle posted:Me either, honestly. It's definitely more common as you go westward and I don't think it's legally required. Doing some research I've found that they can be a bitch to find sometimes. But most of these situations involve acreage. You keep assuming this is in a young area of the country, but the fact remains that when you're doing something as expensive as pouring a concrete driveway, it might be a nice idea to know where your property really is.
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Nov 14, 2013 13:02
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Nuntius posted:When we replaced the water tank in my house the water dramatically changed in flavour (our cold water is mains supplied but goes to a storage tank in the attic first rather than straight from the mains to the tap). For the first 25 years of my life I thought water was meant to taste like that. We changed to a plastic tank. I still miss the rust flavouring. Why do you have this arrangement? Sporadic outages? Low pressure?
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Jan 8, 2014 18:02
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Devor posted:Anemia Haha 
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Jan 8, 2014 18:28
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apatite posted:How old is the house? Might be leftover from before it had municipal water. A lot of folks had gravity fed water from cisterns/tanks, often filled via rainwater. One of my friends has a house with a gigantic cistern made of concrete and masonry in her basement. It's the size of a small pool. What exactly the gently caress is that about? Would it have somehow been filled with rainwater and then pumped to the rest of the house or what? Seems like a great way to get cholera and mold to me. Hers is deprecated by modern water supply and it just sits there taking up 60% of the space in her basement. I'd probably knock the walls down and recover the space if it was my place.
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Jan 8, 2014 19:17
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apatite posted:It is exactly the gently caress like you think Thanks. She's out in kind of a rural area but her house is from the 20s or 30s, so I guess it makes sense. I grew up in an area with older houses but there was always water infrastructure, so I'd never seen one. Instead of water cisterns, most the houses where I grew up had coal rooms. They were fairly large rooms in the basement with a hatch to the outside in the driveway. Coal deliveries would go down the hatch and just pile up in the coal room and then you would transfer it to your furnace's (or stoves') hopper(s) for heating.
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Jan 8, 2014 19:53
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Generally it would not have been pumped to the rest of the house, just a hand-pump like on a well at the kitchen sink.
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apatite posted:Surely... surely that was an elaborate troll. Pretty please? There were dozens of photos. If it was a troll, he literally built a building to pull it off.
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Jan 15, 2014 23:18
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Indolent Bastard posted:Once a week is no big deal, 2-3 times a week max and if you are there that much make sure they know you are coming so that it feels like a visit and not surprise inspection. Also don't loiter. Get in have the GC walk you around, then take 10-15 minutes of time where you just poke around and then leave. At the end of the day they are all your employees, but don't abuse the role of being their "boss". gently caress this. If I'm spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on construction, you better loving believe I'm going to be there every day, and for more than 15 minutes. And I'm going to be asking a lot of questions and when I find problems I am going to want them fixed properly. 45 minutes PER WEEK on a project like that? Are you crazy?
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Jan 30, 2014 01:15
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Blistex posted:/\ Yah, I'm getting semi-flexible tiles, but thought that the method you described would be the way to go. Good to know I wasn't barking up the wrong tree. If my experience with frozen plumbing is anything to go on, if you have such a problem in that room, you'll be replacing all the drywall in there anyways.
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Apr 6, 2014 15:06
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Leperflesh posted:Neither of my bathrooms have fans at all. Just windows. Too steamy in there? Open the window. My bathroom had no exhaust fan either. There was a window, but it was in the shower/bath and I'm not an exhibitionist. Had a fan installed after I moved out (it's rented now) because I absolutely wrecked the ceiling and walls with the humidity of my tank-draining hot-rear end showers.
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Apr 7, 2014 22:24
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evilnissan posted:I still need to address the water issue on the back basement wall. I watched this entire video.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:17
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Bad Munki posted:What's involved in getting alarms that are tied directly to the station? I like that, and I live in an area that is well populated, but not terribly densely so, and I feel like that would have an even greater impact here, since the low traffic means a fire truck could be here in like a minute once it rolled out of the station. Do they operate over existing comm lines, or something? My house is fairly new, 2007, and I'm pretty sure all the smoke alarms are tied together at least, so would it just mean some black box goes on the utility panel in my basement or something? You pay a monitoring service to call 911 for you. I don't think you can get wired directly to a fire station. Generally you get a free pass for a few false alarms per year for both the police and the fire department beyond which they will start fining you for being a pain in the rear end.
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Apr 15, 2014 23:17
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kastein posted:Never, ever, ever trust anything that someone who is trying to sell you something says, unless it is negative. First lesson I learned when buying a car... it applies to anything, really. Humans can breathe in air that has too little oxygen to sustain a fire. Halon and its modern replacements are specifically made to be used in environments where you can expect humans be when the systems are activated.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:17
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Motronic posted:
Inergen: INERGEN is a blend of inert atmospheric gases that contains 52% nitrogen, 40% argon, 8% carbon dioxide, used for fire suppression system agent. It is considered a clean agent for use in gaseous fire suppression applications. Inergen does not contain halocarbons, and has no ozone depletion potential. It is non-toxic. Inergen is used at design concentrations of 35-50% to lower the concentration of oxygen to a point that cannot support combustion, but still safe for humans. Halon: It is considered good practice to avoid all unnecessary exposure to Halon 1301, and to limit exposures to concentrations of 7 percent and below to 15 minutes. Exposure to Halon 1301 in the 5 to 7 percent range produces little, if any, noticeable effect. At levels between 7 and 10 percent, mild central nervous system effects such as dizziness and tingling in the extremities have been reported.[2] In practice, the operators of many Halon 1301 total flooding systems evacuate the space on impending agent discharge. (note - 5-7% is what is required to extinguish fire, and you can be in there with mild effects but shouldn't hang out in that environment forever). There are other new gases that are basically similar. You can be in there during the inundation without much risk. Certainly less than smoke inhalation or burning to death. Also, we're talking about residential homes not submarines and bank vaults. sleepy gary fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 15:39
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I didn't make any claims about how easy it is. When I said Halon and its modern replacements, I meant modern gas-based fire suppression gases, which would include the two gases I mentioned in my post.
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Apr 17, 2014 16:03
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I've never seen one either. The first problem I can think of is that you can put polarized plugs into that backwards.
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Apr 27, 2014 23:52
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Bucephalus posted:I bet it's not GFCI protected, either. It's not in a wet area.
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Apr 28, 2014 01:09
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Bad Munki posted:I also like to imagine that one of the slots in that thing is slightly longer than the other because of that. Haha. Spirit of the law rather than letter of the law!
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Apr 28, 2014 01:32
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