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Home stuff šŸ” Home improvements

Maister said:
Tell me what landscape material you used. Is that pea gravel? What base/substrate did you use, and what depth?
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Yes, I used pea gravel on top of landscape liner. Under the beds we cut out the liner so full drainage can occur naturally. I put it on a slight decline so it self drains well. I have about 2-3" of pea gravel. It has worked very well so far.
 
Why do we wait until we're getting ready to sell to do some necessary upgrades to the house?

Current projects at my house:

-- all carpet and tile (except the bedrooms) have been pulled up and are being replaced with luxury vinyl planks. Last week, they'd finished the kitchen and it looked like garbage so I was a bit worried as to how it was going to go today. But I just received some photos and the kitchen has been replaced and looks great. YAY!
-- back deck wood being replaced (half-way done as of yesterday)

I've also got a 4th of July party planned for Sunday which was dumb dumb dumb! But at least that forces us to get a move on! The main bathroom door has GOT to be back on the hinges before people arrive for lunch on Sunday.
 
We close on the HELOC this Friday. It's been an irritating process having to pivot from a cash out refi to a HELOC but the end financial result is pretty much the same. In a great stroke of luck my trusted contractor will be free at the end of July for a couple of weeks and can fit my garage de-conversion project in his schedule. A previous owner decided they wanted more living space and converted the garage to a den/family room. They built a raised floor, removed the door between the dining room and garage (they left the frame), and just extended the HVAC duct. Except that it is dark, too hot in summer, too cold in winter, and they didn't resize the HVAC system so it works harder than it should. They also left the garage door in place but drywalled over it inside. There is also very little storage space in the house itself so it's puzzling why they did that. We're just going to tear everything out, fix the non-working electrical outlets, add insulation if needed, new drywall, install an exterior grade door which should improve our climate control in the house, and get a new garage door with opener.

After that we'll be shopping for a roof contractor.
 
Bubba said:
The AC for upstairs (we have a dual zone system) suddenly got to the point that it couldn't keep up with cooling once the outside temps get to about 85 degrees - we've had this system for three years now, and this is the second or third time this same issue has happened - the system is a lemon (same type system for the downstairs and finished basement has never had a problem). So, we called the company that installed it Sunday morning - we have a maintenance plan with them that includes priority service within 24 hours, so our expectation was a repair guy would be out no later than Monday morning.

Yeah, riiiiiiiight...

Mrs. Bubba made the call. "We'll have a tech out Tuesday morning." Mrs. Bubba argued some before accepting Tuesday (I would have gone full Karen on them, but I digress - she's a nicer person than me).

Tuesday morning passes - no service. Mrs. Bubba calls again, gets in response "Well, we called and no one answered, so we rerouted the tech." Ah, no you did not call us; we have two cell phones and a home phone, and not a single one of them rang this morning. Turns out they had transposed two digits in my cell number (we've used this company for around 20 years, and I've had the same cell number on file with them for the past ~15 years - they could not figure out how to explain messing it up now). "We'll get someone out the Wednesday afternoon." Some arguing from Mrs. Bubba got that changed to Wednesday morning (again, she's much nicer than me).

Tech arrives this morning, wants to start with the furnace unit - it's in the attic. He goes up, does his thing, and starts to walk back to the door...and then he misses a rafter and sticks his leg through the ceiling (no injuries, thankfully). He calls it in, gets told to assure me they'll send someone out to repair it (which he tells me). He then goes to do his thing on the AC unit outside, comes back with "it's either a refrigerant leak or there's a clog somewhere in a line." Me: "Yeah, same thing happened last summer, and it was a clogged line." Him: "So, we'll start by adding refrigerant, and if that doesn't work, then we'll know it's a clogged line and there's a valve I'll have to change. The cost for the refrigerant will be..."

I cut him off right there. "I'm not paying anything. I have a maintenance plan, plus this is a three year old system with a ten year warranty. You guys per my maintenance agreement should have been here two days ago, and now you want to charge me to use refrigerant as a troubleshooting method? No."

Him: "I don't have a leak detector. I can go get one, or we can send someone else back out with it." Me: "Let's start there." Him: "Let me make a call."

Five minutes later: "They told me I can offer a discount on the refrigerant, and they said if you don't go for that that I should leave."

"Um, what? I want a supervisor to call me."

He calls back in to request that. "Gary is a very busy man, so if he doesn't call in a hour, you should call the office." He leaves.

Hour and a half passes - no call. I call the office: "This is Bubba, Gary da Supervisor was supposed to call me about y'alls collective incompetence. I'd like to speak to him now." Gary isn't at his desk. The very pleasant young woman I'm talking to promises to relay the message.

Another hour has passed. Still no call. May God have mercy on this dude's soul whenever I do get him on the phone...
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So, yeah...this is still an on-going problem. Short version - the insane comedy of errors from the HVAC company has continued, and we finally had to get their corporate office involved (a very nice lady there in Memphis has been yelling the local office on our behalf). There's been a couple of delays that were out of control of the company (needing to order a part, us being on vacation for a few days, etc.). So flash forward to the start of this week - the repair was scheduled for Monday morning...the tech that finally actually did it didn't arrive here until 2:30 today. And, we're apparently going to have the hole in the ceiling until July 24, which is the first availability the contractor picked by the HVAC firm to handle the repairs has for getting their guy that does ceiling and electrical out here.

Yay.
 
Doohickie said:
Wow. What the hell.
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Oh, it gets better. Repair dude turned off the gas to the house during the repair - it involved welding within the furnace unit, so I did appreciate the safety measure. He finally wrapped up and left around 9:10 last night...and then called us at 10:40 PM with "I think I forgot to turn the gas back on." He got back out here around 11:15, messed around at the meter for a minute or two, and left. All good, right? Sure, until we woke up to no hot water this morning. The company promised to have someone out here in the noon to 4 PM window today to fix it, but I'm not holding my breath. The woman at corporate who has been helping us out did receive a nice long voicemail from me a little while ago; I was just starting my first cup of coffee at the time, but I think I managed to get my point across without resorting to non-stop profanities. Maybe.
 
Bubba said:
Oh, it gets better. Repair dude turned off the gas to the house during the repair - it involved welding within the furnace unit, so I did appreciate the safety measure. He finally wrapped up and left around 9:10 last night...and then called us at 10:40 PM with "I think I forgot to turn the gas back on." He got back out here around 11:15, messed around at the meter for a minute or two, and left. All good, right? Sure, until we woke up to no hot water this morning. The company promised to have someone out here in the noon to 4 PM window today to fix it, but I'm not holding my breath. The woman at corporate who has been helping us out did receive a nice long voicemail from me a little while ago; I was just starting my first cup of coffee at the time, but I think I managed to get my point across without resorting to non-stop profanities. Maybe.
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Let's just say that three more technician/plumber visits later, we finally got hot water back yesterday afternoon. Turns out the biggest issue (aside from the gas being turned off in the first place and the service tech leaving without checking the hot water heater) is the gas valve itself on the hot water heater. We had this particular hot water heater installed 13 months ago, and it's a unit that was built during the pandemic...and as a result of the pandemic, the manufacturer had started outsourcing the gas valves for these hot water heaters. And, the outsourced valves are complete pieces of crap that are damn near impossible to get to relight, which is apparently a known issue to the manufacturer, who will replace them for free if they fail completely, but for some reason they're not stepping up and recalling them. Thanks, COVID-19!

So, to recap -

  • It took 18 days from the time we initially called the HVAC company we have a service contract with to get the AC repaired, which involved five service techs combined over four separate visits to the house. In all fairness, there was a replacement part that had to be ordered, and we were out of the country for five of those 18 days, but still...
  • ...and, oh yeah, the first tech that came out decided to stick his leg through our ceiling...
  • ...and, oh yeah, the tech that finally completed the repair temporarily killed our hot water heater in the process, leading to four more visits by a combined five techs/plumbers to get fixed.
  • Did I mention that we still have a hole in the ceiling and a bunch of ripped out wiring? The HVAC firm has hired a contractor to fix everything, but they won't be out here until July 24, which will be 38 days after the tech caused the damage. And, July 24 is a Saturday, so that'll be yet another ruined weekend thanks to these assholes. Not that I'm angry or anything...
 
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We finally closed on the HELOC for the beach house. My normal go to contractor thankfully has availability to do the garage renovation in August which should take a week or so. A prior owner removed the door between the dining room and garage, boxed in a floor elevated off the garage slab, lowered the ceiling, and drywalled over everything. They also extended the ductwork without upgrading the HVAC system so that end of the house is always hot or cold. The garage door is still there, but the rails are enclosed in drywall. The contractor is going to remove everything down to the studs inside, insulate, replace a couple outlets, new drywall/tape/spackle, light fixture, an exterior grade door between the dining room and garage, and add some steps.

Next up will be a new roof, soffits, and gutters. I have to get quotes for that but I am going to enjoy my summer first.
 
While my wife was visiting family I repainted our bedroom. I went with a bold blue
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Now I'm doing some work on our teeny master bath. I stripped away two layers of wallpaper (including on the ceiling!) The previous owner must not have liked the way the wall/ceiling texture showed through the first layer of wallpaper so they spackled over it to smooth it out. That was a real pain to strip.

The next step was I decided to remove the old 1956 ceiling heater. The heater element hasn't been working anyway, and it's not vented so all it does is move the air around in the room a little.
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I replaced it with an exhaust fan/light combo... but it was a square peg in a round hole.... literally.
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But hey, at least it works
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And patching the hole was the easy part.
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So now the light bar and the medicine cabinet are down, and the rest of the wallpaper stripped. I was going to reuse the light bar but when I took it down I saw it had quite a bit of corrosion so I'll get a new one.
 
I have not had any luck with LEDs. They are going out more often or at least as often as the old light bulbs. I feel like CFLs did better. This is what $7 a light bulb gets me?
 
Hink said:
I have not had any luck with LEDs. They are going out more often or at least as often as the old light bulbs. I feel like CFLs did better. This is what $7 a light bulb gets me?
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I've noticed this too, especially, with newer LEDs. I bought LEDs for all the can lights in our living room when we moved in in 2009 and the first one died just a few weeks ago. The LEDs I've bought for other rooms since about 2014 or so have all already been replaced at least once.

It looks like Phillips no longer makes the LEDs that I had put in our living room and that lasted so long so I am considering replacing them all with integrated LED can lights. It's supposed to be a relatively simple task that I should be able to do myself, they use less energy than the just the replacement bulbs do, and there are some with pretty good reviews.
 
LEDs last a long, long time. Unfortunately the chips that drive them are only consumer grade and don't last very long.

LEDs generally burn brighter than desired and the desired brightness is achieved through the duty cycle of the chip that controls it: If you only want it half as bright, the chip turns the LED off and on rapidly (so much so that it's barely, if at all perceptible) so that it is on half the time and off half the time. It's that little electronic chip that controls the duty cycle that fails.
 
Doohickie said:
So now the light bar and the medicine cabinet are down, and the rest of the wallpaper stripped. I was going to reuse the light bar but when I took it down I saw it had quite a bit of corrosion so I'll get a new one.
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Now that I have the medicine cabinet down, I like the look of not having a 3-foot-wide mirror on a room that's only 4 feet wide. I've decided to go with a single door medicine cabinet, and do a recessed mounting. The original medicine (small) cabinet (before the 3-foot one) was recessed and the hole is still there; I'll just need to enlarge that hole in the wall a bit.
 
Hink said:
I have not had any luck with LEDs. They are going out more often or at least as often as the old light bulbs. I feel like CFLs did better. This is what $7 a light bulb gets me?
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I was thinkin the same thing over the weekend as I was picking up more lights. There is one fixture that the lights only last 2 years. I wonder about the energy savings. As for CFL, there is just something about the light that they put out that I don't like.
 
The room feels... cozier? I know that's an odd descriptor for a bathroom but really, I hated that wallpaper, especially on the ceiling, and while I liked the storage in a 36-inch wide medicine cabinet I hated how it dominated the room. I didn't realize how much so until I put up the smaller one. And guess what? All the stuff I need for daily grooming fits in the smaller cabinet. The rest goes to a cabinet shelf in the much larger hall bath.
 
My daughter found a yellow jacket nest in the ground the hard way. Pest control came and annihilated it yesterday. The UPS truck was rolling by as the guy was putting his protective suit on and yelled out "Kill 'em all!"

Also the new roof is being installed tomorrow!
 
Doohickie said:
Scraping popcorn ceilings: Not for the faint of heart.
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I don't know how you're doing it but I developed a system that worked pretty good. Take everything out of the room (obviously) and spread some plastic sheeting over the entire floor. Use stuff you can throw away, not one of your good tarps. I used one of those sprayers like you use for weeds or pests and get the popcorn good and wet. Then I just used a large drywall mud knife to scrape it off and a putty knife for the corners and stubborn spots. It's messy and your ladder will get covered but after you roll up the plastic it's not too bad.
 
I need to buy some GrubEx or something. The skunks must have found a tasty buffet of grubs in one section of my backyard because they absolutely tore it up in just a couple days time.
 
The new roof was installed and it looks great. They had to replace 15 sheets of decking. Next up is getting the converted garage turned back into a garage, installing the new front door, and possibly new siding & trim (have the quote). My handyman is taking some time off to spend with his newborn so my garage and front door are on hold a couple weeks.

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kjel said:
The new roof was installed and it looks great. They had to replace 15 sheets of decking. Next up is getting the converted garage turned back into a garage, installing the new front door, and possibly new siding & trim (have the quote). My handyman is taking some time off to spend with his newborn so my garage and front door are on hold a couple weeks.

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Where the heck were these photos taken from? A drone?
 
kjel said:
The new roof was installed and it looks great. They had to replace 15 sheets of decking. Next up is getting the converted garage turned back into a garage, installing the new front door, and possibly new siding & trim (have the quote). My handyman is taking some time off to spend with his newborn so my garage and front door are on hold a couple weeks.

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It appears the front of your beach house has southern exposure? If so, you could put install an awesome raised bed garden in your front yard!
 
Maister said:
Where the heck were these photos taken from? A drone?
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Maister said:
It appears the front of your beach house has southern exposure? If so, you could put install an awesome raised bed garden in your front yard!
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The project manager uses a drone to monitor the progress of the roofing job. He'd send it up every hour or two and text me progress photos. I thought it was pretty cool.

And yes, the front of the house has due south exposure. Next year's project is to redo the front landscaping-the lawn area will be reduced by half and the crappy bushes will be torn out. We removed 17 trees over the past two years that were not in great shape. The strip next to the driveway will become a butterfly/bee garden, I tested out a lot of plants this year on the back deck and they were magnets for all kinds of butterflies, moths, and 5 species of bees along with the occasional hummingbird.
 
MD Planner said:
I don't know how you're doing it but I developed a system that worked pretty good. Take everything out of the room (obviously) and spread some plastic sheeting over the entire floor. Use stuff you can throw away, not one of your good tarps. I used one of those sprayers like you use for weeds or pests and get the popcorn good and wet. Then I just used a large drywall mud knife to scrape it off and a putty knife for the corners and stubborn spots. It's messy and your ladder will get covered but after you roll up the plastic it's not too bad.
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In the bathroom it wasn't that bad: All hard surfaces. I bought a scraper built for this use: It has a frame around it that you can attach a garbage bag to it. The bag doesn't catch everything... maybe 80% or so. I have the advantage in the living room that we have hardwood floors there, not carpeting, so while I plan to put down plastic when I do the LR/DR, cleanup won't be that bad.
 
When I took up the carpet and pad at my house, the hardwoods were in nearly perfect condition, except where the idiot installers cut the pad/carpet with nothing beneath it to protect the hardwood. Deep score marks several feet long in the lr and each of the three bedrooms just can't be hidden, even with a sand/refinish. :r:
 
anyone do solar yet at their house? What was your experience? Did it eliminate the bill?
 
In our old house, the 2 rooms that had area rugs on the hardwoods we had to sand due to the sun bleaching out the hardwood not covered by carpet. In another room the entire room had carpet & when we pulled that up, all we had to do was use Murphys Wood Soap and they cleaned right up - the only damage in that room was against the walls where the tack strips were.
 
arcplans said:
anyone do solar yet at their house? What was your experience? Did it eliminate the bill?
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I have reviewed several plans for solar installations and I don't see how it's cost effective even with the tax credits. My jurisdiction operates an electric utility. We sell power at the retail rate and buy any excess at the wholesale rate. I would doubt that our costumers are seeing much more than 10-15% reduction in utilities. If I were serious about doing it, I would run the numbers independent of numbers provided by the sales people.
 
Doohickie said:
This is in Texas, but a friend installed solar ten years ago. He actually gets a check from the power company every month.
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We have a few neighbors who did solar, but their program is different. A company owns the panels, and you buy power from them at a substantial reduced rate. (I think it is 1/3 of the normal rate).
 
I looked into solar back in 2019. After the rebates and tax credits, I was looking at an out of pocket cost of about $7500 for a 9.5kW system. However, I needed to a bunch of other things to the house before I could do solar, so I put it off. I have since done everything but replace the roof. Don't want to put solar panels on a 19yo roof. I'll probably do the roof with my BIL next summer and then look at putting solar in as well. We upgraded to 200 amp electrical service and moved the panel out of our bedroom into the basement last summer, which was the other big item besides the roof.
 
Planit said:
In our old house, the 2 rooms that had area rugs on the hardwoods we had to sand due to the sun bleaching out the hardwood not covered by carpet. In another room the entire room had carpet & when we pulled that up, all we had to do was use Murphys Wood Soap and they cleaned right up - the only damage in that room was against the walls where the tack strips were.
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Awesome (for the second room, especially)! In this room, there are a couple spots that are stained but I haven't even cleaned them yet so I'm hoping they'll turn out fine.

Interestingly, there are no hardwoods in the upstairs front hallway of my 19th century house. The banister on the stairs is also not quite right so I'm guessing there was a fire at some point. So I laid that carpet right back down and will deal with the easier stuff first.
 
Mr brother and SIL live in rural Vermont. They installed a solar tracker, which basically opens like a flower and follows the sun across their yard every day, before closing after sunset. The company said they could capture about 97% of daily sunlight at their home. They did install it and now have enough surplus power that he has bought a Chevy Bolt EV and is still sending surplus electric to their co-op. So, yeah, they like it very much.
 
We are in the beginning stages of remodeling our kitchen. I removed the closet that separated the kitchen from the rest of the main level (split level home). I will also be removing the wall the TV is on as well. Unfortunately, my cold air returns were in the wall of the closet I just removed and the in the tv wall, so as part of the furnace installation, I will be putting a new return in the floor by the opposite wall. There will be an island in the area denoted by the black tape. We wanted to get a feel for how the kitchen will flow with the island prior to pulling the trigger on the cabinet design, so if we needed to make the island a bit smaller we could. I posted about the project over in the split level thread, but here's a couple pictures...removing the closet really opened things up and made the house feel bigger. I still need to remove the old furnace/water heater chimney (the pipe in the picture), but I haven't gone up in the attic to disconnect it yet.

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I generally refuse to pay for demolition that I can easily accomplish myself.
 
The A/C condenser is on the fritz and kicking on intermittently. The house was quite warm this weekend, it would have been worse if not for the attic fan which we generally do not use. The HVAC company is coming tomorrow to troubleshoot it. I think it's a bad switch or relay issue like we had in 2019 which they were able to fix with minimal issue. The unit was manufactured in 1992 but we were trying to ride it out as long as we could since we had some other big ticket items to address first.

Installed some solar lighting in the front yard this weekend. I think it turned out quite nice.

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How the yard looked when we bought it.....

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The new fridge and dishwasher arrived yesterday! We ordered everything from a local appliance store about 12 weeks ago, to replace bisque colored Kenmore appliances that were probably 20+ years old. Didn't want a refrigerator from what's essentially an orphaned brand to die on us.

The fridge: a 33" wide 24'3 (82 cm, 0.68 m3) GE with French doors and a bottom freezer. It also didn't make it into the house; entryways into the kitchen from the foyer and garage are only 30" (76 cm) wide! We would have gotten a 36" (91 cm) fridge, but it would have encroached into the entryway from the foyer. Our house was built in 1989, and I'm wondering if 36" fridges weren't that common then.

We also got a Bosch dishwasher. Have to get used to condensation drying, as opposed to a heating coil. It's quiet, though. I also like the old school LED timer display.

Our kitchen appliances from from three different brands -- there's also the Fridgidaire range -- but the stainless finish is close enough on all of them.

The next big house expense will probably be new floors, hopefully in the next year or two. Following that, new kitchen countertops, and maybe a new garage door. Bathroom renovations are probably 5+ years away.

I still need to replace a few stray outlets, behind the fridge, microwave, washer, and in the downstairs half bath. The dining room light is interesting in a 1980s A E S T H E T I C way, but it puts out so little light -- I'd like to replace that this summer, too.
 
Dan said:
The new fridge and dishwasher arrived yesterday! We ordered everything from a local appliance store about 12 weeks ago, to replace bisque colored Kenmore appliances that were probably 20+ years old. Didn't want a refrigerator from what's essentially an orphaned brand to die on us.

The fridge: a 33" wide 24'3 (82 cm, 0.68 m3) GE with French doors and a bottom freezer. It also didn't make it into the house; entryways into the kitchen from the foyer and garage are only 30" (76 cm) wide! We would have gotten a 36" (91 cm) fridge, but it would have encroached into the entryway from the foyer. Our house was built in 1989, and I'm wondering if 36" fridges weren't that common then.

We also got a Bosch dishwasher. Have to get used to condensation drying, as opposed to a heating coil. It's quiet, though. I also like the old school LED timer display.

Our kitchen appliances from from three different brands -- there's also the Fridgidaire range -- but the stainless finish is close enough on all of them.

The next big house expense will probably be new floors, hopefully in the next year or two. Following that, new kitchen countertops, and maybe a new garage door. Bathroom renovations are probably 5+ years away.

I still need to replace a few stray outlets, behind the fridge, microwave, washer, and in the downstairs half bath. The dining room light is interesting in a 1980s A E S T H E T I C way, but it puts out so little light -- I'd like to replace that this summer, too.
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Fridges have definitely gotten much bigger in the past 10-15 years. My rowhome has a tight space for a fridge due to the old brick chimney and pantry. We had to special order a side by side fridge to fit it otherwise stuck with the crappy small entry level fridge it came with. The beach house has a Samsung dishwasher and I hate it because of how the racks are designed, but do like the condensation drying. When it dies we will replace it with an LG that has the third rack.
 
kjel said:
Fridges have definitely gotten much bigger in the past 10-15 years. My rowhome has a tight space for a fridge due to the old brick chimney and pantry. We had to special order a side by side fridge to fit it otherwise stuck with the crappy small entry level fridge it came with. The beach house has a Samsung dishwasher and I hate it because of how the racks are designed, but do like the condensation drying. When it dies we will replace it with an LG that has the third rack.
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We bought a full depth fridge not realizing how big it actually was. It was much deeper than our previous "full depth" and stuck way out in the room of the remodeled kitchen. We decided to return it and order a counter depth. We are much happier.
 
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