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The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

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  • Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
    ...Oh, and as a bonus, the lawnmower started on the first pull this year for the first time in like four years. Thrilled about that.
    And then the heavens opened up for 3 straight days...
    CCT '77 & '78
    4 kids
    5 grandsons (BCA 7/09, CJA 5/14, JDL 8/14, JFL 6/16, PJL 7/18)
    1 granddaughter (EML 4/18)

    ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
    - Benjamin Franklin

    Banned from the St. Lawrence University Facebook page - March 2016 (But I got better).

    I want to live forever. So far, so good.

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    • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

      Had our heating system and AC replaced in December. Have been using the heating system all winter without issue. Turned on the AC unit today and the T/P valve released on our water heater.

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      • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

        I’ve never heard of anyone’s relief valve going off
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        Originally posted by SanTropez
        May your paint thinner run dry and the fleas of a thousand camels infest your dead deer.
        Originally posted by bigblue_dl
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        When the giraffes start building radio telescopes they can join too.
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        • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

          Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
          I’ve never heard of anyone’s relief valve going off
          It's happened twice now since we've lived in our place. We don't have a boiler for our heater, our hot water tank is our heater. When our heat was broken, it was cycling constantly and causing the pressure in the tank to rise, opening the valve. I have no idea what the cause was today.

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          • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

            Originally posted by bostonewe View Post
            It's happened twice now since we've lived in our place. We don't have a boiler for our heater, our hot water tank is our heater. When our heat was broken, it was cycling constantly and causing the pressure in the tank to rise, opening the valve. I have no idea what the cause was today.
            My house might have a similar setup. For me, the WH feeds our hot water to the kitchen/bathroom like normal, but there is an additional loop from the WH that goes to the furnace to heat up the furnace (instead of gas or electric) and returns that water back to the WH in a giant loop; the furnace blower pushes the heated air from the furnace. (For those curious, it's an Apollo Heat Unit (or similar).)

            It sounds like the WH is building up too much pressure and not being allowed to expand.

            First, make sure there is still a valve to close the loop so new hot water from your WH doesn't get introduced to the system while your AC is on. When we bought our house, we were told that the loop needed to be closed when the AC runs.

            Second, since you are using the AC and demanding less on the WH, you can always turn down the heat a little bit on the WH. It doesn't need to be at C during the summer (unless you like burning your skin off when you shower).

            Third, when they did work on the heating system, did they put a back flow preventer onto the water system? When my WH broke, the plumber who put the new one in put a back flow preventer on to prevent the excess hot water from back feeding down the city cold supply (he assumed it was one of the problems of why we were getting cold water introduced into the hot water after a few minutes during the winter*.) After having the pressure valve release A LOT the next day/night, he installed an overflow tank to the system (instead of just removing the back flow preventer.



            * My plumber found out that the previous home owners had replaced the WH with one sized properly for the house, but not sized correctly for the heating demand required by using both the furnace AND hot water for showers/dishes in the winter time. (Winter was the only time we had issues maintaining hot showers/hot water). So, I now have a 50 gallon tank that resembles something the size of a 100+ gallon tank thanks to the BTU requirements needed to run successfully in the winter.
            “Demolish the bridges behind you… then there is no choice but to build again.”

            Live Radio from 100.3

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            • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

              Has anyone tried building a fire pit without using a kit?

              I’d like to build one, but reviews on kits for the big box stores seem to be pretty much universally dissatisfied with the steel liner ring.* I’ve found what seem to be better liners rings, but that would mean that I need to decide what stone to buy on my own.

              Of course I could just buy a kit and throw away the ring, but that seems kinda dumb.

              *The almost universal complaint seems to be that the rings are painted and that the paint bubbles and flakes off almost immediately. Most of the non-kit rings seem to be unpainted steel; you just let them rust, and they seem to be heavier gauge steel than the kits. That seems more sensible to me than painting. I’d guess even high temperature paint is going to fail eventually in a fire pit, and I’m not troubled by the appearance of rust, so long as the steel is thick enough that the rust doesn’t cause pinholes.

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              • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                Originally posted by CLS View Post
                Has anyone tried building a fire pit without using a kit?

                I’d like to build one, but reviews on kits for the big box stores seem to be pretty much universally dissatisfied with the steel liner ring.* I’ve found what seem to be better liners rings, but that would mean that I need to decide what stone to buy on my own.

                Of course I could just buy a kit and throw away the ring, but that seems kinda dumb.

                *The almost universal complaint seems to be that the rings are painted and that the paint bubbles and flakes off almost immediately. Most of the non-kit rings seem to be unpainted steel; you just let them rust, and they seem to be heavier gauge steel than the kits. That seems more sensible to me than painting. I’d guess even high temperature paint is going to fail eventually in a fire pit, and I’m not troubled by the appearance of rust, so long as the steel is thick enough that the rust doesn’t cause pinholes.
                I built one at my last place using landscaping block. Didn't bother with a steel ring.

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                • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                  ewe, did you ever get the AC fixed?
                  “Demolish the bridges behind you… then there is no choice but to build again.”

                  Live Radio from 100.3

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                  • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                    Originally posted by aparch View Post
                    ewe, did you ever get the AC fixed?
                    So, it's funny you should ask. So after the relief valve was replaced (again). The guy thought there might be too much demand because the Nest needs a common wire to run all the time (for some set ups, including ours, so he installed a common wire)-- it would just cycle and cycle and cycle, but the AC wasn't always turning on. Since then, the water heater hasn't leaked, but the water coming out of the heater was SCALDINGLY hot. So they came back and placed a check valve (circulation valve, I can't remember, I'd been up 38 hours straight when they were at the house). The AC still wasn't working correctly. So I called Nest, who told me to disconnect the common wire. Still not working and definitely not holding a charge correctly. I reconnected the common, Googled a bunch of stuff, and emailed a local Nest Pro. Nest Pro tells me that we might need a common (which I had already reconnected and had written about int my email). She says ... *shrug* here are some other people who can come out a look at it. At this point, I have steam coming out of my ears (and off of me because it was hot as scorpion balls this past weekend), so I say f* it, I'll restore the factory settings on the Nest and see what happens. If that doesn't work, we'll hook up the old (less fancy programmable thermostat) and call it a day. Factory reset fixed the problem.
                    (Fortunately, the multiple visits from our HVAC/Plumbing guys did not cost us anything as it was covered under the maintenance for the newly installed AC/Heat).

                    Comment


                    • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                      Came home from working away for past 4 weeks late tonight. Forgot to remotely lower my central AC temp. Wouldn't have mattered anyways, because the batteries to the thermostat went dead 10 days ago. Put new batteries in and the unit still didn't seem to come on. 3 sweaty hours later, with the temp coming down from 85 to 83, the lightbulb goes off in my head, to check and see if the condensation drip pan got full and triggered the safety shut off for the unit. You bet. Tired me is somewhat ashamed that I didn't check that sooner. Now (very) slowly cooling off me is thanking the Big Guy that I had a wet vac that I just so happened to purchase the day before I left.

                      Only got rid of the water under the unit, I'll worry about the apparently clogged drain once I wake up from much needed rest.

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                      • Originally posted by hockeyplayer1015 View Post
                        Came home from working away for past 4 weeks late tonight. Forgot to remotely lower my central AC temp. Wouldn't have mattered anyways, because the batteries to the thermostat went dead 10 days ago. Put new batteries in and the unit still didn't seem to come on. 3 sweaty hours later, with the temp coming down from 85 to 83, the lightbulb goes off in my head, to check and see if the condensation drip pan got full and triggered the safety shut off for the unit. You bet. Tired me is somewhat ashamed that I didn't check that sooner. Now (very) slowly cooling off me is thanking the Big Guy that I had a wet vac that I just so happened to purchase the day before I left.

                        Only got rid of the water under the unit, I'll worry about the apparently clogged drain once I wake up from much needed rest.
                        Had same trouble last year and bought one of those test tube cleaner brushes (narrow - don't get the fat one as it has trouble with the pipe bends) and got rid of the gunk that was clogging the pipe.
                        CCT '77 & '78
                        4 kids
                        5 grandsons (BCA 7/09, CJA 5/14, JDL 8/14, JFL 6/16, PJL 7/18)
                        1 granddaughter (EML 4/18)

                        ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
                        - Benjamin Franklin

                        Banned from the St. Lawrence University Facebook page - March 2016 (But I got better).

                        I want to live forever. So far, so good.

                        Comment


                        • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                          Originally posted by joecct View Post
                          Had same trouble last year and bought one of those test tube cleaner brushes (narrow - don't get the fat one as it has trouble with the pipe bends) and got rid of the gunk that was clogging the pipe.
                          I'm going to try the vacuum first on the drain outside once it's daylight. If that doesn't work, I'll keep that in mind as a plan B.

                          Comment


                          • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                            My son and his family have contracted on a house in rural MD. The house has a well and septic system. I know how to deal with a septic system, but I've never had well water.

                            The well test came back positive for lead (everything else was to code). For those of you who have a well, how do you deal with filtering it and what do you use? They've asked the seller to remediate the lead issue.

                            I'm curious on how to keep the water healthy. Concern is they have 2 little ones and water contaminants are bad.

                            Thanks!
                            CCT '77 & '78
                            4 kids
                            5 grandsons (BCA 7/09, CJA 5/14, JDL 8/14, JFL 6/16, PJL 7/18)
                            1 granddaughter (EML 4/18)

                            ”Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
                            - Benjamin Franklin

                            Banned from the St. Lawrence University Facebook page - March 2016 (But I got better).

                            I want to live forever. So far, so good.

                            Comment


                            • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                              Originally posted by joecct View Post
                              My son and his family have contracted on a house in rural MD. The house has a well and septic system. I know how to deal with a septic system, but I've never had well water.

                              The well test came back positive for lead (everything else was to code). For those of you who have a well, how do you deal with filtering it and what do you use? They've asked the seller to remediate the lead issue.

                              I'm curious on how to keep the water healthy. Concern is they have 2 little ones and water contaminants are bad.

                              Thanks!
                              I have a whole house reverse osmosis system. I'm pretty sure that covers lead removal, but taking some guy's word for that on the internet is not recommended. Having said that there are pros and cons. Pros include water that is considerably lower in impurities then even filtered bottled water. Cons include it's a fairly costly system, $10-15k installed (guessing there) it's not really very efficient, and it takes up a lot of space. I have a 500 gallon tank to store purified water, for example. But it does work.
                              Originally posted by WiscTJK
                              I'm with Wisko and Tim.
                              Originally posted by Timothy A
                              Other than Wisko McBadgerton and Badger Bob, who is universally loved by all?

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                              • Re: The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

                                id be asking a water specialist not uscho. Id want to know where the lead came from.

                                Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
                                I swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.

                                Maine Hockey Love it or Leave it

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