The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

We need our driveway redone and we want a new privacy fence between us and our next door neighbor as well. Tricky thing is, there's a giant old oak right on our property line (mostly on the neighbor's side) which the fence will have to snake around somehow. In addition, the tree is so old and big that the roots are contributing to the breakup of our existing concrete and pouring new concrete in that area may be pointless (continued root growth will eventually break it up again over several years) and if whatever contractor we hire damages the roots while doing the work, it might also kill the oak. It really should be removed, but there's no reasoning with this lady. She got into a very nasty dispute with the previous owner of our house over tree trimming that he did which included branches on her side of the property line he shouldn't have touched, and I'm in no mood to torch off our own turf war with her.

[dxmnkd316]

So I'm finally having someone come take a look at my sagging deck next week.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I have lovely trex boards that are in great shape but about 1/3 of it is sinking, so need to have that looked at.

Decks suck as much as they rule. Ours is in dangerous condition because it's 20+ yrs old and is pine. The previous owner decided to design it himself but, since he was a ****ing idiot, he didn't properly channel the water away from the joists, instead just making a place for water to sit. So you can imagine how structurally sound it is. It's actually kind of incredible it lasted this long. I stopped giving a **** about the decking and let it go a few years back. The boards are still in relatively good shape except for the cut ends.

We're trying to get ours replaced this year. Probably going with Azek. I liked the idea of full-PVC internals so no chance of water damage. I didn't really want to go with composite, but given interest rates and no sign of housing prices retreating, not sure if our plans to move in the next 5-7 years is going to be as easy as it would have been. Too damn expensive! Given that the mortgage is 2.75% and housing prices are outpacing that (and have been for a while), it would be insane to give up that mortgage.

[Swansong]

So I'm finally having someone come take a look at my sagging deck next week.



Yes, you read that correctly.


I have lovely trex boards that are in great shape but about 1/3 of it is sinking, so need to have that looked at.

[burd]

Over the weekend I had to replace the concrete stairs/stoop that was torn out as part of the foundation fix in late April. The concrete guy who originally put in our old steps said that we would need to wait 3 years before we could install another concrete replacement. So on to a wooden solution.

There’s a lot more involved in that process than I had ever expected, and I learned how to create a stairs stringer that’s out of standard from the pre-made options you can purchase at your big box home center.

Although a good framing square contains all the information necessary to frame stairs and roofs, except perhaps the golden number of 17 1/2 which, as I recall, is the preferred rise and run total. Carpenters used to carry a small roof and stair framing book. Nowadays, I suppose a simple square and youtube is all one needs.

[St. Clown]

Is that a soil compaction/settling thing?

Yes.

[dxmnkd316]

The concrete guy who originally put in our old steps said that we would need to wait 3 years before we could install another concrete replacement

Is that a soil compaction/settling thing?

[St. Clown]

Over the weekend I had to replace the concrete stairs/stoop that was torn out as part of the foundation fix in late April. The concrete guy who originally put in our old steps said that we would need to wait 3 years before we could install another concrete replacement. So on to a wooden solution.

There’s a lot more involved in that process than I had ever expected, and I learned how to create a stairs stringer that’s out of standard from the pre-made options you can purchase at your big box home center.

[joecct]

In other news, we're about to have two garage doors replaced (doors, hardware, everything). No automatic openers or anything. Wow are they expensive...

Prices went up something like 60% in the past year. We were going to upgrade the Gdoor, but $4K for everything was just a wee bit too much.

[dxmnkd316]

Can't screw up something that is already broken. Epoxy may work, just make sure the area is squeaky clean. Use alcohol for final cleaning, wait till it evaporates and smear the epoxy on. You could use masking tape to make clean edges and make it look professional : )

Only caution is you gotta do this right. If it leaks.... that's really really bad. The owner or super may not even allow you to try it. Especially now that maintenance has seen it and rendered an... opinion.

[dxmnkd316]

So I found out that you can turn just about any "wireless" device into a smart accessory with a $25 receiver.

I've been looking at a very expensive cloud enabled smoker temp sensor setup but decided to get a USB SDR receiver on a whim. Holy ****. Within minutes I was receiving sensor readings from all over. My freezer alarms, my existing ThermPro temp sensors, and a few unknown things from around the neighborhood.
I just need to fire up this tiny open source software and I can log the sensor readings from all sorts of **** automatically. this just saved me $180+.

Today I was farting around with it and found that it can pick up the water meter that my city installed years ago. It broadcasts at 900 MHz using a known format. A guy released an open source application that can also log this to file. So now instead of getting quarterly bills for my usage from the city, I can monitor in real time.

anyways, I regret returning the unopened raspberry pi kit I bought because i didn't think ut was what I wanted. ****.

anyways, as soon as I can get my hands on one, I'll be setting up a home assistant server and consolidating all the smart **** in the house

[walrus]

Maybe you can help:

I live in an apartment and one of my roommates accidentally kicked through the bathtub trying to get out. We haven't been able to take a shower for over a week. There's a nice little crack on the front wall of the bathtub. Apartment maintenance was hesitant to even try and put a patch on it, and muttered something about "might have to replace the tub" in the 3 minutes he was here. My roommates and I think maintenance had no actual interest in helping.

I am tempted to do an epoxy fix on it in the meantime, but I don't want to make it worse.

Can't screw up something that is already broken. Epoxy may work, just make sure the area is squeaky clean. Use alcohol for final cleaning, wait till it evaporates and smear the epoxy on. You could use masking tape to make clean edges and make it look professional : )

[MissThundercat]

Maybe you can help:

I live in an apartment and one of my roommates accidentally kicked through the bathtub trying to get out. We haven't been able to take a shower for over a week. There's a nice little crack on the front wall of the bathtub. Apartment maintenance was hesitant to even try and put a patch on it, and muttered something about "might have to replace the tub" in the 3 minutes he was here. My roommates and I think maintenance had no actual interest in helping.

I am tempted to do an epoxy fix on it in the meantime, but I don't want to make it worse.

[WisconsinWildcard]

So I pulled the trigger and bought a Breeo (the X-24). It weren't cheap, but man it rules. It gets crazy hot and once it's really going it's genuinely smokeless. Really impressive.

Also, like you suggested, there was less radiant heat than an open fire pit, but no real problems as far as I'm concerned.

Glad you like it! I think these are great for in-city fires.

[Swansong]

In other news, we're about to have two garage doors replaced (doors, hardware, everything). No automatic openers or anything. Wow are they expensive...

[Swansong]

I thought moving it was fine and then messed up my arm after moving it (basically because it is a bit awkward given the size). The smaller one may be easier to move.

I do not think they burn that much wood, but my baseline was larger fires in pits. They burn efficiently so you have to add it more frequently, but I think as a whole, you use similar amounts of wood, since less is in the pit at a time.

Lateral radiant heat, not so much. Vertical radiant heat, yes. So if you are sitting on the side, you generally have to sit relatively close if it is cold out. Standing up near the pit, it can get quite warm. We had a tree go down in the winter, a 40 or so foot pine. We burnt all the brush in our pit and it only melted snow about 2 feet around, despite having a fire in it for 8+ hours and burning a lot of stuff.

So I pulled the trigger and bought a Breeo (the X-24). It weren't cheap, but man it rules. It gets crazy hot and once it's really going it's genuinely smokeless. Really impressive.

Also, like you suggested, there was less radiant heat than an open fire pit, but no real problems as far as I'm concerned.