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We're in the market for a new fridge for our new place; some Renovation contractors recommended Subzero fridges since this is our 'forever fridge.' putting aside that I don't think fridges last forever anymore, I checked out the brand and prices are insane. What makes a fridge worth 20k? Is it just designer branding?
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Apr 3, 2021 21:03
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Thanks, that was very informative. We are definitely not looking to spend 10k on a fridge and did not budget for that, but I figured I'd see if there's something that makes it worth keeping in mind and reconsidering. They do look nice, though. I think they lasted 30 years or something there could be a cost benefit to it, eventually.
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Apr 4, 2021 01:30
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mcgreenvegtables posted:Not a good argumnent for your situation, but at some price points in some areas it can be hard to sell your house without a Subzero. I am not in this price point in my area, but for the same price as my house my friend in Minnesota cannot find a single listing without one. Not important to us (at least right now) since we don't plan on leaving, but this explains why so many listings around here list their fridge details on redfin...
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Apr 4, 2021 01:58
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His Divine Shadow posted:Man I'd take that as a good reason to stay away from areas like that. Holy poo poo I can just imagine the kind of people living there. Definitely not the richest area, more your standards two income white collar family area with 2000sf homes (though this is more a statement of cost of San Diego more than anything else), but a house we lost out on listed 70k subzero/wolf kitchen in their listing and sold for 75k over asking so I guess they got their money back. This was also before the pandemic craziness so I shudder to think what it would have done for their sale today. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 4, 2021 |
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Apr 4, 2021 16:06
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devicenull posted:I love the German approach to windows, these things are basically standard from what I can tell, even in places where there's no real reason to have them. I really only want them for how dark it made the bedroom, it was like sleeping underground. Ours were electrically controlled with centralized wall switches and on every window, even the backyard sliding door ;I'd love some here (and everything else about their new construction homes). Most German homes don't have air conditioning so outside of privacy these were mostly used to keep the house 10 degrees cooler once the hot weather weather hits.
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Apr 12, 2021 00:53
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We're replacing our gas range with a 6 burner and taking out the recirculating over the range microwave to put in an actual wall mounted ducted range hood. Are all range hoods basically the same? I can get a GE or Kitchen Aid one for up to 2000 bucks, or a Zline or Cosmo one for a couple hundred; what separates the two? Not really concerned with aesthetics, just want it to work and let us put in baffle filters. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 17:21 on May 8, 2021 |
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May 8, 2021 17:13
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No idea where this goes so I'll try here: Installation instructions for our new slide in dual fuel range states that without their expensive back guard there must be no combustible material in a 6" zone behind range.  I've seen multiple discussions online about this; some say this means just no combustible surface (so put up ceramic tile/brick/etc. And your can put appliance against the wall). Others say it means everything in that space and requires having metal studs, other wall materials can't be combustible, etc. Because the surface material could still transfer the heat, so 6" clearance would still be required. Does anyone know what the actual intent is and retirement in the interest of safety? Not going to tear up the wall, but also don't want to spend 600(!) On a back guard no one knew we might need until after we paid for the appliance. Plan was to just go for ceramic tile backing from hood down to 6" below to of the range. Edit: this is the 'island trim' that's default:  And this is the back guard they want us to buy:  Doesn't look like it does anything but raising that 'vent' and provides a barrier the burners, but since it's an electric oven not sure what that vent is anyways. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 08:05 on May 21, 2021 |
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May 21, 2021 07:31
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Phil Moscowitz posted:It says combustible surface, not material. If you have a non-combustible surface then you are meeting the requirement, I think. Yeah an older thermadore we found. I'd point out that' the internet' is handyman forums and Houzz equivalents, but that we where I found folks pulling out wood studs and the like. It looks like some counties specifically address this and clarify that walls covered in non combustible material are also classified as non combustible. Motronic posted:Drywall is not a combustable surface. Whoever was talking about metal studs and poo poo is a complete lunatic. Replacing an existing range so cutout is full depth. Previous range had the vertical controls for the stove on the back.
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May 21, 2021 20:18
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Motronic posted:So do you need a finisher in the back? "Full depth" is pretty variable. If it's more than 24" you'll need something back there. Could be as simple as a piece of stainless. There's decorative tile but I don't know what type exactly, and you're right it didn't extend all the way down to the counter height. We were going to do the entire height up to the hood from 6 inches below the range.
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May 21, 2021 21:50
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First bidet bought for our house, too not yet installed, though). Never used and I don't think I'll like them but wife is going to turn me into a believer.
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May 22, 2021 00:13
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Piece together, different brands do different things better (Bosch apparently is the dishwasher king, Samsung fridge ice makers are garbage. Etc). There's a severe appliance shortage right now so depending on your timeline you may be limited. Some things are available next week, but those tend to be high end luxury brands, while some others are showing 8 to 12 weeks to December for us (Cali). I'd check out a large appliance warehouse to start and look at what's already in stock.
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May 24, 2021 04:07
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Do you have a style preference? Fridges don't seem to be built to last 20 years anymore so that's going to be the primary factor; they all have their problems and complaints,(Samsung and LG have both had class action lawsuits for ice makers/compressors respectively, loud noises on GE/Cafe fridges/etc ), so just get one you like the look/features of and use a credit card that gives an extra year warranty coverage.
PageMaster fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 24, 2021 |
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May 24, 2021 16:08
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Bobulus posted:I wanna show off my bathroom renovation! This is the right thread, right? Sorry to hijack your post, but would you care to say or take a picture of how your undermount sink is held and if your countertop sits directly on the cabinet or plywood? We're going through the same remodel and the installers are done but I don't know if I entirely trust their work; may just be me being harsher in my stuff but yours looks perfect so I can go back and argue with the installer about how to fix it. For example, here's the mechanical clips used to hold the sink (came with the sink) which I don't think is correct (nor reliable) unless they're just in addition to epoxy:  I think the plywood might also be just acting as a riser to keep the countertop lip from blocking drawers, but should not be this tall: 
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Jun 9, 2021 16:22
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Thanks! It sounds like the epoxy/caulk is the way a lot of people do it. My mind just can't wrap around the idea of it being strong enough to just 'glue' the sink to the countertop, but checked online after seeing yours and Painter's post and I guess it's not crazy. I can probably just add the wood screws myself if I have enough finesse to be extra safe (I'll follow up in a week about how I somehow destroyed my counter trying to do this). PageMaster fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 17:04
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NomNomNom posted:We have a giant tree in our front yard that's currently about 12 feet from our aging asphalt driveway. We'd like to replace the asphalt driveway with concrete, and make it wider to boot. How close is it smart/wise/acceptable to pour concrete to a very mature tree? Obviously most sidewalks are near trees, but they also heave all the time. From what I've learned it's pretty unique to the tree; some are more aggressive than others. We found it helpful to meet with an arborist here at our new place (actually 2). It was free, and they spent an hour walking us around and telling us everything about our trees and plants and what to do. Technically the visit was for a pruning quote but they were very enthusiastic about everything else. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 16:11
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I know it's a cheaper option but we just swapped the kitchen tile out for LVP. I think the tile looks better but the LVP feels a little less cold and hard while also being water proof and handling the dogs well. ^^ I don't know the specifics of Ditra, but we had a water manifold heating system under our tile in Germany and it was amazing. There's a lot i wish I could get in a house here but that's one of the tops.
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Jun 18, 2021 02:10
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Wife switched all our home lights out to 5k color temp and I can't go to the bathroom or walk around my house at night anymore without sunglasses.
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Jun 21, 2021 16:39
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She's says she likes white and bright so that's what she found! We did just come from Seattle in the middle of winter where she got horrible depressed so that might play a part. Fortunately she had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night last night so she's at least putting in dimmer switches now. Edit: or we need to paint the walls not white which I'm totally ok with.
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Jun 22, 2021 02:56
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Bosch 800s are indefinitely backordered for us, I'm envious you got one just like that. The zephyr range hood we were looking at is also backordered. The good news is a cheaper zephyr hood (baffle/mesh filter combo instead of just baffle) is available, but it also does 1200 CFM...I suppose we can just never pump it up to full speed to keep from pepressurizing our whole house? Nevermind, our duct doesn't meet the minimum; we can live on instant pot and toaster oven for 2 months. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jun 22, 2021 |
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Jun 22, 2021 22:22
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From what I remember, mold remediation is mostly just stop the source of water and clean the surface with something. Getting it off the surfaces will keep it from releasing spores and you interacting with it, but the mold that's penetrated into, say, wood studs isn't going anywhere nor growing without more water. Alternatively you can replace the wood/drywall entirely to be sure. Bleach technically works but I believe isn't recommended because the active ingredient in bleach that kills mold evaporates quickly leaving just water to fill into porous materials which makes the problem worse. There are specific mold treatment sprays fungicides at hardware stores that you can apply and soak for 5 minutes then air dry if you'd like.
PageMaster fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jun 23, 2021 |
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Jun 23, 2021 02:04
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We had voles in the winter so didn't see them underneath all the show but it only took one season to kill an entire 3k sf backyard. Now we have gophers but I'm hoping the snakes here take care of those. We spend more time fighting critters than maintaining the yard so I think it might be fine to go xeriscape or turf.
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Jun 25, 2021 15:57
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Bosch anything; They all clean as well, have 3 racks, and don't use an electric heating element to melt your stuff, but the main difference comes in drying (mostly plastics). 300 is just convection heating, 500 series pops the door open automatically to air dry a bit, and the 800 series uses some super mineral that absorbs moisture out of the air. Your can't go wrong with even the 300 so you can decide how much the upgrades at each level are with to you.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:10
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Our German house had the floor timer as well, but I didn't know it was a Bosch thing. Totally useless to us but if it comes with then I won't complain; ordered the 800 since it was actually in stock compared to the others locally but I was not heartbroken about having to do that.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:22
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Actually Meiles do look really nice and apparently are one of the only appliance brands still built to last forever, they were just out of my office range for equivalent features to the Bosch.
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Jun 26, 2021 16:40
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Sous Videodrome posted:What are good high end fridges?... From our search sub zero is basically THE high end brand from a performance and support perspective and maybe the only that keeps a ready stock of parts for 10 years they also have wider options beyond 36" so you can stay counter depth but not lose capacity. LG had the compressor failures, Samsung had ice machine failures, and I'm sure the others have something, too, so if you're not ready to go tens of thousands of dollars, I think the other brands are going to do you basically the same. We ended up going with GE Cafe since it's 'only' 3k but also because it has the ice maker sealed inside the door so you don't lose shelf space, and the ice maker doesn't sit in the fridge and depend on a rubber door seal to keep it separate from the refrigerated air which I think is what causes a lot of problems. We actually have a consumer reports account and there really wasn't a clear winner amongst all the 'normal' brands. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 05:45
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More a design/practicality question: we pulled out old giant carpet and put in LVP which is nice but now results in a half inch height difference to the tile bathroom flooring. Raising the LVP affects doors, so I'm wondering are there any creative threshold options for something this drastic?
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Jun 27, 2021 05:53
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actionjackson posted:is GE Cafe any better than regular GE or is it more of an appearance thing? No match to the Samsung but I looked at a couple others like the Samsung 4 door flex zone and french doors and most seem to have good temp performance, but very low predicted reliability and owner satisfaction. The whirlpool is on there; I don't want to turn this thread into consumer report posts or smuggling screenshots until the end of time but for just this first one here's the condensed:   For what it's worth, CR's recommended list is almost entirely LG models with two Dacor fridges.
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Jun 27, 2021 06:19
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Holy moly just finished up replacing two tile walk in showers with two different contractors and learned a ton about the 8 million ways they can fail and ruin your house. They were built with two completely different methods and both have different issues to fix so now we're getting quotes to replace the 40 year old downstairs one with fiberglass because what a horrible slog to get done with added bonus paranoia of finding something bad in 5 years behind the walls. Do not recommend.
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Jun 30, 2021 05:06
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amethystbliss posted:Please share your wisdom! What are the different ways they were ruinous? Eventually we want to gut the bathroom off of our primary bedroom which will include retiling a walk in shower and removing tub surround in favor of a stand alone tub. I can't say wisdom because i am not an expert and everything I did learn was from digging out my old school books and YouTube (both similarly reliable sources now); ours aren't exactly ruinous, but we stopped work a lot and had changes/corrections during that I think might have been a problem. We hot mopped our pans but two glass installers wanted to anchor the glass down with 2" screws which we nixed so they didn't puncture the waterproofing on the curbs. One contractor did redgard for the walls, which makes them waterproof, but didn't slope the niches so water could sit on them. The other did a vapor retarder paper and then floated the entire wall with mortar, which technically isn't waterproof but super sloped the niches so no water would stay on the wall anyways. No idea which method is better since they both said theirs was (both are probably acceptable). We also had to correct some flat slopes on the floor pans during install as well. A lot of what we looked for were NO HOLES in any waterproofing, like the redgard application if some spots were missed or thin, and no flat spots. No one argued when we asked about these and they just fixed it. Now one pan has no grout cracks, but doesn't dry in the very corner and one spot in the middle so they're pulling up the tiles there to reslope with more mortar (we know there's an inch and a half of mortar above the hot mop so they 'shouldn't' get anywhere close to puncturing). The other shower has eighth-inch cracks in some areas of the grout but dries out completely everywhere so I'm guessing I can just apply some dry-mix grout there. Apparently very few things in the shower are actually waterproof, and the tile, grout, and mortar all absorb water so everything needs to be sloped perfectly towards weep holes in your drain so the water under the tiles eventually drains there instead of expanding everywhere through the grout and the thinset under the tiles (including up your walls or pan curb); even then both contractors had different opinions on putting pebbles surrounding the drain so mortar didn't fill the weep holes. If you want to spend hours watching tile shower failures with explanations why check out starrtile and tilecoach on YouTube. A lot of questions I asked that led to my contractors deciding to make changes came up just from watching those. Also take pictures of everything everyday so you have records to reference if you every need to do a consult or a repair so you can see exactly how it was built.
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Jun 30, 2021 18:51
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Any major pros/cons to gas dryers? Our new house is set up for both, but our expensive memorial day washer dryer set we bought two years ago is electric; i already know utility cost is cheaper for gas, but i'm trying to see if there's a big selling point or downside that would make it worth changing out out relatively new dryer to gas.
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Jul 5, 2021 04:29
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Not sure about pheromones, but if there are rats the insulation may also be soaked in urine; not something you want to smell and probably unhealthy so i'd want it out anyways. That may be what the contractors meant by pheromones side I know urine and droppings are used for marking territories and pathways.
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Jul 17, 2021 19:50
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That Works posted:
Literally decided to rip out all carpet and put in LVP because of this. Also had a Roomba drag it to all sorts of places but at least with LVP I have a fighting chance at cleaning up Downside is pup can't climb the stairs anymore.
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Jul 23, 2021 05:11
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That Works posted:
I like LVP because it's relatively cheap, easy to install and maintain, waterproof, has a strong wear layer, and has a million different design options. We're also have the ones with cork backing so they're a little softer to walk on and aren't cold like tile. They look really good, but I wouldn't say luxurious (despite the name) and we got them more for the durability and water resistance while still looking better than carpet; Definitely a more practical and economic option for us, but still not super cheap (we also kept tile in the bathroom), so the place looks at least faux-luxury PageMaster fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 23, 2021 |
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Jul 23, 2021 16:20
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Fallom posted:What kind of blinds would you guys recommend for bathroom windows? Right now the whole house is cheap vinyl blinds so those have to go. I like the foggy patterned window films you stick on with water; still let's light in and allows privacy. Downside is your can't blackout the room, but that's not an issue with me for a bathroom.
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Jul 24, 2021 16:10
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QuarkJets posted:It is slab, but today I walked into the open house with a big rear end level and started taking my own measurements. I did confirm a significant slope in that single bedroom, pointing toward an interior wall. The adjacent bedrooms, the hallway, and the opposite half of the sloped bedroom were all level. My journey took me into the garage, which is beneath the bedroom with a slope, and I noticed that the concrete is basically two slabs: one where cars would sit, and then the rest of the garage and leading into the house. The wall with the slope is almost directly over this dividing line, and there's about a 1/4" dip between the two slabs. Seems like the slab sank a little at that spot, and to hell with trying to deal with fixing that; this is a detail that an appraiser may notice, putting financing at risk in a market where everyone is financing without a financing contingency, and I expect a handful of doofuses will submit offers that ignore this detail in the offered price so I see no point in submitting one myself. Have a similar issue in our house (except the inner and outer edge of the room slope down away from the center) but didn't notice if until we tore out the thick carpet and put in plank. Been trying to figure out what's going on while we wait for structural engineer availability but this gives me an idea on something to look at tomorrow.
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Jul 26, 2021 07:11
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FuzzySlippers posted:
Here in Southern CA I've gotten quotes between 1300 and 1800 so far for structural engineers so yours is in the ballpark. I'd note that the 1300 quote is a site visit consult and a written field report with stamp, while some of the others go back and actually formally type up a report to submit which may new why they're priced differently.
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Jul 28, 2021 16:43
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Anyone have any experience with MagVent dryer vent hoses? We're still using the old crappy foil which catches a lot of lint (and apparently we are supposed to cut to length and extend fully when connecting the dryer to the vent, which we've never done) but this looks like a cool worthwhile upgrade (while also easy to install). I'm just not sure how well it works in actuality.Sirotan posted:Got the Ego 21" push mower last year and it's great. Second this. I don't know that you can do better. Problem is you'll want to buy all the other tools that use the battery afterwards; I ended with the edger and string trimmer before I stopped. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 03:00
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Maybe a long shot, but does anyone own a newer(ish) gas Wolf range? Looking at the manual it says to connect to the female inlet on the range: I looked at the back of a couple other brand ranges and they all had female connections into their pressure regulators. However, this is the back of my range:  The tube is also not really held solid in place (I can shake it up and down, and it's very obviously a male connection. Was hoping someone else might be able to say if this is right or not (or the same as theirs) before I shop for adapters.
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Aug 1, 2021 07:14
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Motronic posted:That's probably where the regulator goes, which is female on both sides. Did a regulator come with it? Gas pressure regulator is built in according to the manual, do hopefully they black iron line just goes into it already? Tyro posted:My in laws have a new Wolf gas cooktop, and we will be over at their place later today, I'll see if I can get an eye on the connection. Thanks, don't go out of your way too much, it's a pain to get behind so I'm going to try and find a showroom and St if that's easier. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Aug 1, 2021 |
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Aug 1, 2021 16:13
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Tezer posted:Most Wolf units have built-in regulators that are not visible on the rear of the unit. Did you buy this unit used? If so, did you see it operating before you purchased it? Was brought brand new from a showroom, delivered still in box and wrapped. Showroom didn't offer install, but did discount if we gave them the GC license number of our installer to attach to the sale. This came up because I bought connection adapters based on the manual specifying a female inlet but the contractor called me and said I needed different adapters because there was only a male fitting. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Aug 1, 2021 |
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Aug 1, 2021 17:30
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