The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

[state of hockey]

Yeah, when MPLS plows messed up our timber landscaping by our garage they left a claim ticket. We wound up not using it because it was old and rotten anyway, and frankly looked better torn out.

[dxmnkd316]

I don't see why you couldn't just buy a new post... It shouldn't be that expensive...

Also, have you contacted the Town/County/Whomever plows for you? They likely have a fund set up for this exact thing.... About 10 years ago my parents had their mailbox taken out. They called the Village and were basically told to send in pictures. After receiving them, they were told to get receipts from Lowes for the fix, and were fully compensated for this. There was an upper limit, but was not a super close cut when all was said and done. My Dad was out the time of course, but still a small part of the entire thing.

Thanks for the heads up. I had looked at the rules for that and it stipulates that the box itself must be struck by the plow blade, it must not protrude over the curb, and if it's the snow that breaks it, you're SOL. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the door fell open and the plow struck the door. My mailbox is in the middle of six other boxes, none of which were damaged. :-(

Yeah, i figured it was what normal people do. Just felt kind of stupid because it's not something that comes up very often and part of me feels weird about buying one instead of just getting a 4x4 and making one. But whatever, I suppose it's like changing your own oil. Nice you can do it yourself, others have focused on other skills.

[unofan]

Follow-up

(I'm feeling kind of stupid but since I've never once experienced this in my life, whatever)

It's perfectly acceptable to just buy a post, right? I don't have a miter saw but I don't see any reason to turn what could be a $30 project into a $530 project.
THis is what normal people do, right?


Edit: I'm assuming this is also the ****tiest selection of wood because it's so cheap. But as long as it lasts several years, whatever. Just hoping there isn't concrete to dig up. What a pain in the ***.

Jesus Christ, of course it is. Yes it's what normal people do. You're not less of a man because you didn't personally chop down the tree and singlehandedly mill it into a freaking mailbox post.

[dxmnkd316]

Jesus Christ, of course it is. Yes it's what normal people do. You're not less of a man because you didn't personally chop down the tree and singlehandedly mill it into a freaking mailbox post.

lol I mean, there is a ****ty pine tree in the yard I should probably take out :-D

[French Rage]

If you didn't personally mine and process the ore used to make the metal in the saw, you're a ****ing *****.

[BassAle]

Uh, oh. Now you done it - made me go and do some calculations.

Say you take a 10 minute shower at 2.5 GPM (typical) of 120F water, and your water supply comes into your house at 70 F. The energy used to heat those 25 gallons of water by 70F is 10,000 BTU.

Now, if your hot water heater is 6 ft tall and 2 ft in diameter and has an insulation R-value of 24, then the rate of heat loss (to your 70F house) would be (6 * 2* pi) * 50 / 24 = 78 BTU/hr. So for your hot water heater to lose as much heat as you use in a single, 10 minute shower would take 127 hours - more than 5 days.

That right there should convince you that your hot water energy bill is driven by usage and not maintaining the temperature of the hot water heater. But in case you're still not convinced:

On a weekly basis, if you take a 10 min shower every day, you'd be paying for 70,000 BTUs to heat water "initially" and for 78*168 = 18470 BTU to maintain it, for a total of 116K.

Now, you can eliminate the 18470 maintenance BTUs by going tankless, but if that tankless water heater tempts you to add just 2 minutes to each shower, then you won't reduce - you'll break even.

If you have a wife and 3 teenage daughters, so that your nominal weekly usage is 7*5*10 = 350 minutes of showering, then your break-even is at a whopping 10 min 22 seconds per shower.

We currently have tankless. Previous house had a tank. The tank could recover as fast as as you used the water, and therefore did not limit the duration of anyone's shower. So going from a tank to on demand system had no effect on the length of showers.

And i wish the water was coming into my house at 70F! It's more like 45F in the winter.

That right there should convince you that your hot water energy bill is driven by usage and not maintaining the temperature of the hot water heater

I don't dispute that, but I do dispute that tankless necessarily results in consuming more hot water because in my experience it has not.

[BassAle]

Yeah, the nightmare stories I've seen where "Oh, part XYZ failed and you can't really service it so they make you send in your unit to prove it defective and they'll send you a new one". Given the supply chain issues now, I'm opting for simplicity. Or efficient and complicated with a simple backup (like keeping my non-smart thermostat in case the ecobee takes a dump).

we have a combination system (combined boiler for hydronic heat and on demand hot water heater). It's been no problem to service. This one was manufactured in New Brunswick, Canada so right next door to me. We did have to wait a few weeks for a replacement part once, due to pandemic supply chain issues, but the new part was still functioning (just not as efficiently) until we could get the replacement.

[BassAle]

My wife wasn't thrilled either until she started sleeping better with a cold room and warm blankets. We more or less sleep nordic style where she has a couple extra blankets under the main comforter, at least in the winter. I sleep warm and basically get zero sleep if the room is at 70+.


We did compromise up from my original of like 63-64. It would have killed her orchids since our thermostat is placed in the hallway which is in the dead center of the house across from the bathroom where there's a vent point towards it. Which very roughly looks like this (the bathroom on the main level is shared between master and hallway). Anyways, the thermostat is stupid because it heats up before everything else does. One more reason we're getting the Ecobee which has multiroom controls.

we keep the (non-smart) thermostat in the master suite to 63 -- if it's much more than that we have trouble sleeping. The other zones are controlled by Nest thermostats and are set on 70 during the day (we both work from home) and the wife still occasionally complains being cold!

We have three heating zones for the main heating system, plus supplemental heat from a heat pump with two indoor exchangers (one in the open living/dining/kitchen area which also has a loft/balcony area overlooking it that the non master bedrooms are accessed from), the other in the bonus room over the garage. Basically the heat pump thermostats stay on 70 all the time, and the Nests go down to 62 at night / when we aren't home and up to 70 while we're awake. In the dead of winter the heat pump can't quite keep the main living area uniformly at 70 so when the Nest kicks on in the morning it just has to make up the difference. The heat pump is the only heat in the garage bonus room (which is a fairly large room) and it's more than adequate there (had the bonus room piped to connect to the boiler when we built the house, but then after we finished the space we were pretty happy with just the heat pump).

[BassAle]

So the plow took out the door on my mailbox. It's a ****ty mailbox. Decided to just buy a new one.

get everything installed on the mailbox, start mounting it to the post and realize, the MFer cracked the primary post too. Great. Just ****ing great. Glad we don't have two feed of ice pack around the mailboxes and about two months until it thaws. Goddamnit.

One winter I had my mailbox taken out 5 times. Most of the time it just ripped the mailbox off the post and dented it up a bit and I could repair it. Occasionally it would obliterate the mailbox. One time I had to spend an hour digging through a snowbank to find the mailbox (which still had mail in it). One time it ripped the horizontal arm off the post (4x4 pressure treated). There was 2 feet of snow on the ground, plus the ground was well frozen. I was able to put the post back together and use some huge metal T brackets to reinforce the post.

One of those storms, within a mile of my house I counted at least a dozen destroyed mailboxes. Not sure if the plow driver was incompetent or drunk.

I hate having a mailbox. I also live on a private road, and USPS won't deliver on it, so all our mailboxes are on the main road. That's one thing I miss about my previous suburban home with a walking mail route. So much easier having them bring the mail right up to my door and dropping it in the mail slot...

[dxmnkd316]

The tank could recover as fast as as you used the water

What in the good god did you use to heat it? A blast furnace?

[dxmnkd316]

we keep the (non-smart) thermostat in the master suite to 63 -- if it's much more than that we have trouble sleeping. The other zones are controlled by Nest thermostats and are set on 70 during the day (we both work from home) and the wife still occasionally complains being cold!

We have three heating zones for the main heating system, plus supplemental heat from a heat pump with two indoor exchangers (one in the open living/dining/kitchen area which also has a loft/balcony area overlooking it that the non master bedrooms are accessed from), the other in the bonus room over the garage. Basically the heat pump thermostats stay on 70 all the time, and the Nests go down to 62 at night / when we aren't home and up to 70 while we're awake. In the dead of winter the heat pump can't quite keep the main living area uniformly at 70 so when the Nest kicks on in the morning it just has to make up the difference. The heat pump is the only heat in the garage bonus room (which is a fairly large room) and it's more than adequate there (had the bonus room piped to connect to the boiler when we built the house, but then after we finished the space we were pretty happy with just the heat pump).

When my wife and I start a family, I've retained the right to be the "Put on a sweater" jerk dad. Honestly, I prefer wearing a comfy sweater and flannel pants than shorts and shirt in the winter. Saves the planet, lowers costs, etc.

Very jealous of your setup. Seems like the way of the future TBH. Heat pumps and ductless are going to become more and more important in the design of homes as energy becomes more expensive and efficient design becomes more entrenched in the codes. The older I get, the more I want to design our dream house my/ourselves. I've lived through enough of other people's ****ty design decisions at home and at work. I'd love to have a design that can properly use ductless and heat pumps.


(Yes, I know I couldn't design a house myself. Akin to representing yourself in court. "A gal can dream" (C) kepler)

[dxmnkd316]

One winter I had my mailbox taken out 5 times. Most of the time it just ripped the mailbox off the post and dented it up a bit and I could repair it. Occasionally it would obliterate the mailbox. One time I had to spend an hour digging through a snowbank to find the mailbox (which still had mail in it). One time it ripped the horizontal arm off the post (4x4 pressure treated). There was 2 feet of snow on the ground, plus the ground was well frozen. I was able to put the post back together and use some huge metal T brackets to reinforce the post.

One of those storms, within a mile of my house I counted at least a dozen destroyed mailboxes. Not sure if the plow driver was incompetent or drunk.

I hate having a mailbox. I also live on a private road, and USPS won't deliver on it, so all our mailboxes are on the main road. That's one thing I miss about my previous suburban home with a walking mail route. So much easier having them bring the mail right up to my door and dropping it in the mail slot...

I think for the time being, since it's not entirely destroyed, a couple wraps of gorilla tape will suffice. The fracture in the post is in such a way that I'm not sure if I could bracket it together. Structural tape, OTOH, is a perfectly cheap and temporarily durable solution that will work until this spring. Thankfully our neighbors are pretty cool and won't care for the 2 months wait.

[walrus]

When my wife and I start a family, I've retained the right to be the "Put on a sweater" jerk dad. Honestly, I prefer wearing a comfy sweater and flannel pants than shorts and shirt in the winter. Saves the planet, lowers costs, etc.

Very jealous of your setup. Seems like the way of the future TBH. Heat pumps and ductless are going to become more and more important in the design of homes as energy becomes more expensive and efficient design becomes more entrenched in the codes. The older I get, the more I want to design our dream house my/ourselves. I've lived through enough of other people's ****ty design decisions at home and at work. I'd love to have a design that can properly use ductless and heat pumps.


(Yes, I know I couldn't design a house myself. Akin to representing yourself in court. "A gal can dream" (C) kepler)

How to design a house where a ductless mini split can handle the load, polyurethane foam is the answer. Attention to details on the tightness of the home. It ain't rocket science and you don't have to wait for the codes to "force" you to do it. Its easily done now.

[Scarlet]

I have a heat pump that is for my heat and A/C. When I bought this place, someone had said to me that heat pumps are more prevalent in the south where the temperature swings aren't as big. The only thing I don't like about it is that my two bedrooms don't get as warm, or as cool, as my living room does. I literally just had someone here to look at it because it was leaking yesterday. We had some wind whipped wet snow Wednesday night and they think some got into it and melted.

[dxmnkd316]

How to design a house where a ductless mini split can handle the load, polyurethane foam is the answer. Attention to details on the tightness of the home. It ain't rocket science and you don't have to wait for the codes to "force" you to do it. Its easily done now.

Yeah, you’d definitely need multiple units. WHich is way more expensive up front, but better for the planet most likely.