The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

[Kepler]

So every year I take a couple weeks off work in December to deep clean the house and do all the home improvement items I've put off.

I decided to start with the easy stuff. Scouring the shower doors with abrasive*, descaling the dishwasher, and descaling the faucets.

Everything was going swimmingly until the bathroom faucets. They have enough hard water build up to need a wrench. My sink came undone easily. Unfortunately when I went to do my wife's sink I just sheared off the entire internal head of the sink.

****. Well, we've been talking about replacing the entire vanity and sinks to be something less... early 90s. Bonus points if you can guess the exact faucets we had in our bathroom.

*barkeeper's friend works wonders. We squeegee every day after showers but the water here is hard enough to cut diamonds so there's only so much you can do without getting a water softener. Which I'm somewhat hesitant to do given the environmental impact, cost, and maintenance. OTOH, it would have saved me the cost of a faucet and/or vanity. Le sigh.

Stop doing stuff like this yourself. Write a check to a bonded professional; make it his problem.

[dxmnkd316]

So every year I take a couple weeks off work in December to deep clean the house and do all the home improvement items I've put off.

I decided to start with the easy stuff. Scouring the shower doors with abrasive*, descaling the dishwasher, and descaling the faucets.

Everything was going swimmingly until the bathroom faucets. They have enough hard water build up to need a wrench. My sink came undone easily. Unfortunately when I went to do my wife's sink I just sheared off the entire internal head of the sink.

****. Well, we've been talking about replacing the entire vanity and sinks to be something less... early 90s. Bonus points if you can guess the exact faucets we had in our bathroom.

*barkeeper's friend works wonders. We squeegee every day after showers but the water here is hard enough to cut diamonds so there's only so much you can do without getting a water softener. Which I'm somewhat hesitant to do given the environmental impact, cost, and maintenance. OTOH, it would have saved me the cost of a faucet and/or vanity. Le sigh.

[dxmnkd316]

This is interesting. Could be related. Ambient carbon monoxide increased to 1,000 ppb according to air quality sensors in the twin cities. my VOC level was roughly 1800 ppb about 8 hours earlier. I have to believe that was part of the spike itself.

[state of hockey]

I was chatting with the HVAC guy that came to service the furnace last year and my issues with the backdrafting water heater came up. He said it is a very common issue in older houses that have updated their windows and doors to become more airtight. Many haven’t boosted up their intake for their system to get the air it wants. It become even more of a problem for people that go to a HE furnace, because the water heater usually ends up orphaned on a flue that’s way too big for it.

[dxmnkd316]

Oh snap. I just realized. It might be a combination of circumstances

it's worst in the mornings when we have the bathroom exhaust fan blowing for significant amount of time. I also set the furnace to two degrees higher than hold temp (and four or five degrees higher than sleep temp) during "morning showers" so the bathroom isn't so cold for my wife who wakes up first.

Amyways, it's possible that the hour-long exhaust fan in the bathroom combined with the furnace exhaust fan turning off right around then AND the morning showered draining the water heater combine to create a weird overpressurization in the house that doesn't allow the unpowered hot water exhaust to leave.

I should just borrow one of the gas detectors we have at work to see if it's SOX, NOX, or something else.

[dxmnkd316]

I'm wondering if it's not a natural gas leak or something like that. The only two sensors I have that would pick that up are the VOC sensors and my nose.

I haven't smelled any natural gas downstairs. So it seems unlikely that's the compound being picked up. Is it possible there are heavier compounds than CO2 and H2O being formed from the flame?

I do wonder that because my furnace has also been having its every-other-year tantrum where the flame sensor needs to be cleaned. The oven has also not been burning cleanly lately. Anyways. Something I've suspected for almost six or seven years now but have no evidence, that somehow the natural gas makeup changes (or comes in cold enough to change the flame properties) enough to change how things are working.

My other thought is that my furnace has an exhaust blower where my water heater doesn't. So I suppose it's quite plausible that the exhaust air from the water heater is not having the push it used to to get out of the house.

[state of hockey]

Backdraft? Ours will sometimes do it in the summer when the furnace isn’t warming the flue to help create a good draft and when we have numerous vents (bathroom, range hood, etc.) going. It did it more often before I realized the fresh air intake was partially blocked, for obvious reasons.

Edit: Missed the part where you mentioned other readers aren’t spiking. Odd. Then again, our CO detector in the same room never sounded an alarm either. I only noticed a problem because the plastic rings around the pipes going in and out of the top of the tank were warped from heat.

[dxmnkd316]

What would cause a water heater to spike VOCs in the house when it runs? It shared a flue with the furnace and it doesn't spike when the furnace runs. It's a non-specific VOC detector so it could be spiking because whatever it's detecting is more reactive than background.

A couple days ago it spiked extremely high, probably 2x than has ever been read in the basement.

I have a working CO detector. No alarms. I also have a CO2 sensor in the basement and it does not spike when the water heater runs. Makes me wonder if there's a some sort of issue with the burner.

any thoughts?

[St. Clown]

Where does everyone stand (sit?) on toilet height? Comfort height looks to be the trend, but it seems that’s in part because it meets ADA standards. Standard is supposed to be healthier, but all of the best/most recommended models are comfort with no standard counterpart.

I installed a tall toilet in the main bath because my wife is 6ft tall and has very long legs. The basement toilet is standard height. I’d like to replace that one with a slightly taller version, and I’d like to have an elongated bowl.

[Spartanforlife4]

Right height, elongated front is only way to take a dump

No question on elongated. I don’t know how a world existed with round.

[walrus]

Right height, elongated front is only way to take a dump

[Spartanforlife4]

Where does everyone stand (sit?) on toilet height? Comfort height looks to be the trend, but it seems that’s in part because it meets ADA standards. Standard is supposed to be healthier, but all of the best/most recommended models are comfort with no standard counterpart.

[dxmnkd316]

I'm done with WiFi home automations. Too finicky and hard to get it to play nice.

Thread is preferred, zigbee as backup if thread not offered.

[St. Clown]

Ha!! And people are worried that robots and AI are going to be the end of us.

All of us humans understand that every kitchen renovation begins when your wife decides she needs new carpeting in the family room.

So here’s the thing, every project I finish leads to a “What if…?” I have a serious list of projects to complete right now. My wife doesn’t understand how I’ve managed to become slower with completing each subsequent project. It’s wallet-preservation! I have fun doing these things, often learning some new skills, but we need a realistic set of goals.

[Jimjamesak]

Bang. Zoom.

Hilarious.

Ralph Kramden was a misunderstood dreamer…