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You still use black iron for everyday plumbing? That's wild. How is it deoxygenated, vacuum? Steam blanket? N2 blanket? I never thought such a thing would exist for potable water, though I've seen all the above used for pure water used in steam and reactor plants. I'd imagine you either have very soft water or demineralize it to avoid corroding iron. Black iron hadn't been used in the states for water in at least 60-70 years, it's still pretty common in gas applications, though flex steel and plastic are becoming pretty common. The first time I saw 1" yellow plastic being used for natural gas in a commercial kitchen it raised the hairs in the back of my neck.
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Feb 21, 2022 22:34
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Elviscat posted:You still use black iron for everyday plumbing? That's wild. How is it deoxygenated, vacuum? Steam blanket? N2 blanket? I never thought such a thing would exist for potable water, though I've seen all the above used for pure water used in steam and reactor plants. The thing about central heating water is that it's the same water endlessly recirculating except when you maybe add a liter or two each year to replace overpressure losses, so while there's plenty of oxygen in it going in, and that oxygen is going to be used for oxidizing the pipes, it's such a small amount compared to fresh water coming from outside constantly, and once the oxygen's been bound once, it can't be bound twice. Obviously the water used for drinking, showering, etc. is full of plenty of oxygen, thus galvanized iron pipes. What's getting more common is that everything is in PEX these days, though, if it's new constructions(but with plenty of old constructions if they're already black iron or galvanized, you usually keep using that unless it's a major renovation), or copper or steel cinch fittings. Often depends on who's doing the work and whether it's visible or not. Hidden installations are always PEX because they're easier to work with, visible installations tend to be steel/copper/aluPEX cinch fittings because they look nicer. Of course, if it's Joe Jackass doing his own DIY project, he won't have access to cinch fittings and powered cinchers most of the time, so it's going to be all PEX, copper compression or iron. Also... plastic for natural gas? loving yikes. That's always done in metal pipes here. My brain insists that plastic piping is too easily busted for those applications, or will become brittle with time or some such thing.
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Feb 21, 2022 22:46
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PurpleXVI posted:Also... plastic for natural gas? loving yikes. That's always done in metal pipes here. I don't think those were actually plastic pipes he saw. Sounds like CSST, which is corrugated stainless steel jacketed in plastic.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:15
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Lowe's started selling non-threaded black pipe and fittings for when you want that aesthetic but want to pay more but also you can do some neat things that can't be accomplished with traditional black pipe but also it's more expensive and Lowe's black pipe is already way more expensive than HD's so uh All around weird.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:24
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Sockser posted:Lowe's started selling non-threaded black pipe and fittings for when you want that aesthetic Yo I gotta hang my fedoras and beard clamps somewhere.
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Feb 22, 2022 00:08
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Motronic posted:I don't think those were actually plastic pipes he saw. Sounds like CSST, which is corrugated stainless steel jacketed in plastic. On the one hand, I want to believe. On the other hand, I have experienced first-hand how absolutely zero respect for gas some people have. If you don't have a license to work with The Air That Kills People, don't try to gently caress with The Air That Kills People.
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Feb 22, 2022 00:31
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Motronic posted:I don't think those were actually plastic pipes he saw. Sounds like CSST, which is corrugated stainless steel jacketed in plastic. Looking up CSST (I'm not very proficient in the world of gas piping) it looks to me like it was the PEX poo poo that's rated only for underground installation, not CSST that was installed. That was a decade ago though so my memory is a little fuzzy and it could have been. I do distinctly remember the HVAC contractor driving a screw through it and having to evacuate the building either way.
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Feb 22, 2022 02:24
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FWIW, I've seen PE gas pipes before as service lines to people's houses. Buried obviously. Also, I guess technically I haven't "seen" them, just seen that they were labeled as Polyethylene on Locate reports.
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Feb 22, 2022 12:20
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The old gas feed to my house was at least plastic on the outside, though it was multilayered like motronic said. I’ll snap a pic and see what it’s made of.
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Feb 22, 2022 13:07
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I’ve been looking into this for my gas runs
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Feb 22, 2022 13:55
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wesleywillis posted:FWIW, I've seen PE gas pipes before as service lines to people's houses. Yeah, that's been a thing for a long time. Long enough that the metal tracer that was supposed to be on them has had time to rot off so lol good luck locating.
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Feb 22, 2022 15:55
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Call me a coward, I but feel like pipes for the Spicy Gas shouldn't be able to be easily damaged by a guy with a shovel. I want to hear the clank of the shovel hitting a metal pipe as a warning. 30 years from now some guy planting a new shrub in his yard isn't going to look up the location of his gas line first.
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Feb 26, 2022 23:04
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Although you don't need to worry about gas freezing (if its that cold that natural gas freezes you're hosed and won't be planting poo poo) its still typically buried deep enough that you aren't likely to hit the line unless you're planting something right next to the meter. I haven't seen tons of exposed gas lines, but the ones that I have seen are usually 3-4 feet down. I was once on a drilling job outside an old GM plant in Windsor Ont. We needed to drill really close (less than a meter) from a gas line so it had to be exposed before hand ("Daylighted") with a Vac truck. The vac truck sucked the poo poo out and we saw a rather large gas line, probably about 10 inches in diameter, that fed the plant. The gas was shut off at the plant, but this was before the meter so the line itself was still "live" (full of high pressure gas). Sitting ominously above that line looking like it wanted to fall at any time was a big rear end boulder, probably 2 feet in diameter. We had to lower our tooling in to the hole and hammer the poo poo in with a jackhammer type machine to take our samples. As I was hammering, I kept seeing bits of soil falling off the side of the hole and I kept expecting that at any moment that boulder was going to fall and hit the line. It probably would have been fine, but none the less it was a bit unnerving.
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Feb 27, 2022 00:50
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Sockser posted:Lowe's started selling non-threaded black pipe and fittings for when you want that aesthetic You can also buy lovely pre-built fixtures made of "black pipe" from lowes, but it's essentially plastic made to look like black pipe. My wife works at a gas supply place, so we get the utility grade poo poo (read: not Chinese) at basically cost... we only have a pipe lamp & my desk though...
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Feb 27, 2022 03:31
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There was a water main break just down the road from me so I was out of water all day yesterday, today the water's back on, but every single plumbing fixture in my house is clogged with nasty rusty poo poo. This being 2022, they're also all made of cheap, brittle plastic that makes accessing the filtery bits extremely difficult. The kitchen faucet is clogged in an inaccessible bit, so I'll have to replace the whole head. Here's the toilets filter (in restrospect I realized I could have just pulled the hose and accessed this from the bottom, but I didn't know that so I pulled the whole fill assembly out)   Of course that's not even the problem, no water is getting through the valve, I assume the valve seat is creamed full off poo poo. Anyone want to take odds on me getting this apart/off? 
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Mar 11, 2022 19:30
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Oh you'll get it off. It's going from tight to free real quick though.
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Mar 11, 2022 20:37
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Yow, that looks old. I recommend getting a blowtorch ready, heating the connection can sometimes make it easier to get apart, both because it expands things, softens them and also because it'll eventually burn away some of the old flax in the join, making it less tight.
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Mar 11, 2022 20:51
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That sucked. I ended up getting the elbow off with a large enough pipe wrench. Lots of working room.  Cutting and threading the pipe was the nuclear option, but fitting the threader in there would have been a nightmare. Grody.  How does a seal even get this bad?  The most important part of the job is properly sealing the wall back up.  this bathroom has maybe a year to live, IDGAF.
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Mar 12, 2022 00:51
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With that little space to work I'd probably have considered unmounting the toilet just to be able to swing the big wrench around properly. Good job, though!
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Mar 12, 2022 10:27
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I actually did work on my house today, besides cleaning, maintenance and taming the jungle. I've been working 5PM-5AM 4-6 days a week, so blinds kinda became a necessity. Went with cordless fabric cellular shades in a bluey-grey, inside fit to show the wood trim around the windows off. Living room gets light-filtering, bedroom is one step lighter than blackout. I really like how it turned out! Once I finish trim and the stairs this 1/3 of the house will look like a real house for the first time ever. I had help, of course. (Help trying to eat all the rubber bands off the packaging)    Bedroom for contrast:  Work should calm down next month, and I'll hopefully have the time to do some real work, I'll definitely have the cash with the crazy amounts of overtime I've been putting in.
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Jul 10, 2022 00:38
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What’s the brand on those shades? I’ve been looking for something like that for our bedroom since the hubbs works 6p-6a and the desert sun is a bitch to keep out
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Jul 10, 2022 05:19
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Levolor, I ordered them from Lowes, they make blackout models with bottom clips if you really want to keep the sun out. E: I got them on a 40% off sale, they seem nicely put together, installation was really easy.
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Jul 10, 2022 07:45
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It's still impressive seeing the changes from when you started to now.
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Jul 10, 2022 08:32
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PurpleXVI posted:It's still impressive seeing the changes from when you started to now. 
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Jul 13, 2022 23:41
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I took a week off work explicitly to work on the house, so far I've kinda cleaned out the garage, and started on an EVSE installation so I can stop charging my car off my welding extension cord. Let's see if I still remember how to bend conduit good from when I did it professionally over a decade ago.  Answer is nope.  Massaged it into place anyways. Going with RMC because I have a 3/4 RMC/1" EMT bender and I don't have a ditch witch, so I'm shooting for a 6" burial depth. Digging is hard when you haven't done it in awhile.  I'm so far behind on things I wanted to do to this place this year. Still to go this weekend, for poo poo I absolutely have to get done. -finish cleaning garage (not only are all the tools disorganized, but I had to clean like 200+ booze containers of various description out from some not so great mental health stuff last winter) -finish stupid coffee table project that's been taking up 25% of my garage space so I can get back to welding in there. -finally actually finish ductwork for the heat pump + clean up the hosed up junction box situation in there. I'll be chipping away at projects for awhile still, decisions been made to demolish the kitchen and bathroom (1970's addition) and completely rebuild from the ground up per Kastein's recommendation. I'm aiming for early spring for that. So I've gotta pull the permits for that, also need to start wrangling subcontractors for poo poo I can't really handle on my own, specifically slab removal, excavation and the footings. Also need to keep this little poo poo from repeatedly escaping.  Every time I think I've blocked the last possible route to the attic off, this one finds a new way. 
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Sep 3, 2022 02:39
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I gotta get my rear end out there so I can actually help with these bad ideas instead of just egging you on with them.
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Sep 3, 2022 04:02
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You do, imagine how high the blackberry bushes have gotten on your property by now! There's a lot of stuff that's waaaayyy easier with/requires two people too, hanging sheathing and placing beams come to mind, we could help each other out a lot. I promise I won't ask for your help with anything involving the Danger Ranger though.
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Sep 3, 2022 04:42
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I will help with anything on the ranger as well as long as it only involves honing my invective against Ford engineers and/or drinking and passing tools and beers underneath it. So, not anything I suppose.
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Sep 3, 2022 06:18
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Elviscat posted:There's a lot of stuff that's waaaayyy easier with/requires two people too, hanging sheathing and placing beams come to mind, we could help each other out a lot. 
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Sep 3, 2022 06:33
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Got back in to making this stupid Instagram coffee table I started 2(?) Years ago. Got as far as building a (much too tall) support structure/leveling system and gluing/taping everything, then booted it to taking up most of my garage. My garage, which I had to clean significantly to get to this point.  My go to leveling system for when I want things to sit level on unlevel ground, the 2" of adjustment in this corner wasn't quite enough.  Table, post 1st pour. 
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Sep 3, 2022 22:33
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Video my GF took of the pour. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRPXKbPr/ Slightly house related cat video. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRPXoDwg/
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Sep 3, 2022 22:51
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That's gonna look really drat cool when it's done. Is the next/top pour going to be colored like that or clear to make it look really deep?
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Sep 3, 2022 23:15
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That was the intention, kinda make it look like a river through a canyon. It's all gone a little upside down, I think we broke the glue beads when we leveled it, so it's started leaking really badly. I don't think there's anything to do but wait, let the epoxy cure, identify any leaks, and re-pour the color layer. It's going to be a nightmare getting this off the MDF now too, stupid mistake, got excited and didn't triple-check the sealing.  
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Sep 3, 2022 23:48
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Oh drat, that sucks. I've only ever used epoxy as a glue, and it's strong as hell, so I can't imagine how difficult that's gonna be to get rid of.
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Sep 4, 2022 03:16
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Bummer! I came back here to comment that I liked the table too. It'll bond a little to the MDF but MDF isn't very strong anyway, it'll pull up a small amount of MDF and leave scars. You can easily repair it by pouring a layer of epoxy on it though.
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Sep 4, 2022 04:35
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The MDF is sacrificial and has been sitting in a damp shack for 2 years anyways. Cleaning up the bottom's gonna be an adventure, dado blade? Mill? Angle grinder? Grim determination and sanding? Anyways, rd 2, mostly a 1-off to test if the epoxy sealed itself up sufficiently. Pistachio is the last kinda water colored mica powder I have left, I'm thinking a thin dark blue over it might give it a nice deep water look.  In other news; The one advantage to losing the fight with the blackberries, is fresh blackberries, we've been eating them in salads, on ice cream, and making liqueur and jams out of them! Infusing:  Strained and bottled:  Blackberry Bourbon Sour: 3/4oz blackberry liqueur 3/4oz simple 3/4oz lemon juice 1-1/2oz high quality bourbon Big kick, once a little of the alcohol's evaporated lovely blackberry smell, and a great red color shines through. Anything with a decent root system gets plenty of water here, so there's some awesome huge berries.
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Sep 4, 2022 22:25
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Blackberries rule.
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Sep 4, 2022 23:46
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If blackberries would stay relatively confined to an area I'd love 'em, sweet, tart delicious treat from the ground. My older nephew's been coming over with his Babci (grandma, my mom) a lot recently because my bro has a newborn and it's nice for them to only have to worry about one kid at a time for awhile, and one of his favorite things to do is pick* blackberries. Unrelated, I took some pictures of the house at night and during the day.    It's a nice place to live now, summer's been great, especially with the AC to take the edge off the mild summers we have out here. *not pick any berries but tell us how we could more efficiently pick them to make him delicious jams. Elviscat fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Sep 6, 2022 |
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Sep 6, 2022 08:54
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I did actual work today. The main trunk linking the air handler to the rest of the ducting was put together in a rush, and I had literally taped it together, with the wrong tape (plastic flex duct tape) it vibrated apart and my mom shoved a pillow in between it and the wall, and that's how I've left it. But the Long Dark is here, and I finally got around to fixing it today.  Still messy as gently caress, but at least it's screwed together. Never did the rag joint for this section, but the air handler's so quiet it doesn't matter. Electric needs to be brought up to code, that 1900/4 square box is too big to fit the cover, but I'll deal with that next time I have an electrical inspection. Also serviced the filters, the electrostatic elements never have anything on them, which is consistent with my experience of Electrostatic precipitation being a scam. I think I'll gut it and fit a 4" media filter, and remove the 1" media filter from the AHU. Plus I hosed up the outlet placement and it's plugged into an extension cord wrapping around the AHU which isn't very Kosher.  How should I have done this so it's not hacked together as poo poo? Run the drain lines longer? It seems like with the drain pan and filter locations there's no good way to make it work, my solution works fine, but it's hardly professional. Thermostats have been a pain in my loving rear end, went from a programmable/smart Honeywell that would not turn off emergency heat, to a basic Honeywell that worked fine, but wasn't programmable, to the official Mr. COOL programmable/smart thermostat that no longer supports "smart" connectivity and the schedule feature is broken for some reason, to finally an Amazon thermostat that works great in all aspects, looks super nice, was super easy to set up, and is very programmable, but makes me feel gross as poo poo because it has a (didabled) feature where Alexa listens for you to wake up/ go to bed to change heat settings, and that's freaky as gently caress. I was wondering why my cat started doing this.  As soon as I was done, instead of sleeping in her normal spot on the old couch across the room (where she's more likely to get pets and can be close to the other kitty she loves). And of course it's because it's directly in the path of the heating vent for the living room. Anyways, heat works quite nicely now, I was quite diligent about turning the heat down while away last year, but I'm hoping with the smart thermostat to be able to keep the house a couple degrees warmer (67 vs 65) while occupied and awake (by my girlfriend, it's set to her schedule, I'd leave it set at 55 if I had my druthers) and still keep the Dec-Feb electric bill below $300. $300 being the benchmark for heating the house to the minimum habitable temperature pre-remodel with purely resistive heat.
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Oct 23, 2022 08:44
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Necroing this thread because I'm actually working on my house again. Going to be a lot less detailed going forward, since I'm working with a contractor for most of it this time. There's 3 "phases" of work left to be done on the house - upstairs -bathroom and kitchen (also important, the floor is literally falling out of the bathroom right now, and I'm afraid the tubs going to go through while I'm showering.) - exterior, siding, some more foundation work etc. I'm stating with the upstairs, because while I need it the least, I need a bathroom while the other bathroom's being remodeled. One of the contractors is also a real estate agent, and she's been a huge help getting me to focus on time and budget, and things that will make the house more marketable, like keeping a second bedroom upstairs (for a total of 3). They've been working off and on for three weeks, and have the upstairs gutted and re-framed, I'm wiring it now, and plumbing is coming up. This job is a lot less inconvenient to living in the house than the last one, but I'm still working nights, so I'm not getting a ton of sleep once the banging starts. One of the first projects, setting up a cat-proof barrier to the construction zone. I realized a zip-wall wouldn't cut it, so I designed my own. Uses bolts as jackscrews on each post, which is 2 2x4's, the bottom is sheathed in Ram Board for cat protection, I'm really happy with how it turned out, the door works flawlessly.   New bathroom, taken inside tiny bedroom  Tiny bedroom looking at big bedroom  Big bedroom, these lovely, failed windows still need to come out, they'll be getting replaced with the same cheapo casements that are downstairs.  Looking down the stairs, that window placement will gently caress with me forever from this angle.  Something I really, really don't appreciate, not only does Lowe's have three (3) padlocks on the cage their wire's in, if you buy wire an employee has to hold onto your cart all the way to the register, like you're a toddler. I need to start going to Graybar up the road.  The kitties need to be put in kitty jail (the bedroom) every morning so they don't bug the contractors. So I wake up covered in kitty every morning. After a lot of thought, I made the decision to keep Rosie at my mom's for the duration of the remodel, which is a bummer, but these two try their best to make up for it. 
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Mar 31, 2024 08:33
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