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The Home Improvement Thread. Successes and Failures

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Last fall we got the area under our deck finished with a patio. We dug down enough to create a 78" headroom (I'm 6'2"). However rain water was coming down thru the deck planking gaps (as small as they are). The deck, btw, is 19x12.

We investigated some commercial solutions and the parts were $2,500+ plus labor.

My beloved bride and I thought about it for a bit and came up with a solution: Solid soffit panels and f channels all from home depot.

We sloped the f channels 2" for the run and trimmed the panels to fit the gaps between the joists.

We marked the slope using chalk string and put finishing nails along the line to get the channels in the right spot and correct slope. Plus the nails acted as support for the f channels as I screwed them in.

Just had a downpour and it looks like it worked. We're dry underneath.

Parts:

Ply Gem 0.75 in. x 1/2 in. x 12.6 ft. White F-Channel
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ply-Gem-0-75-in-x-1-2-in-x-12-6-ft-White-F-Channel-VFCH0404H/202666303
SKU# 202666303

Ply Gem 12.75 in x 0.5 in Rectangular Triple 4 in. Economy Solid Vinyl Soffit - Non-Ventilated
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ply-Gem...nyl-Soffit-Non-Ventilated-EVS12N04H/202666272
SKU# 202666272

Ran us $900 or so including delivery.

Next: gutters to capture the runoff and direct it away from the house.
 
joecct said:
Last fall we got the area under our deck finished with a patio. We dug down enough to create a 78" headroom (I'm 6'2"). However rain water was coming down thru the deck planking gaps (as small as they are). The deck, btw, is 19x12.

We investigated some commercial solutions and the parts were $2,500+ plus labor.

My beloved bride and I thought about it for a bit and came up with a solution: Solid soffit panels and f channels all from home depot.

We sloped the f channels 2" for the run and trimmed the panels to fit the gaps between the joists.

We marked the slope using chalk string and put finishing nails along the line to get the channels in the right spot and correct slope. Plus the nails acted as support for the f channels as I screwed them in.

Just had a downpour and it looks like it worked. We're dry underneath.

Parts:

Ply Gem 0.75 in. x 1/2 in. x 12.6 ft. White F-Channel
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ply-Gem-0-75-in-x-1-2-in-x-12-6-ft-White-F-Channel-VFCH0404H/202666303
SKU# 202666303

Ply Gem 12.75 in x 0.5 in Rectangular Triple 4 in. Economy Solid Vinyl Soffit - Non-Ventilated
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ply-Gem...nyl-Soffit-Non-Ventilated-EVS12N04H/202666272
SKU# 202666272

Ran us $900 or so including delivery.

Next: gutters to capture the runoff and direct it away from the house.
Click to expand...

Good for you and Mrs. joe. Using your collective brain and going for it.
 
That sounds like an ingenious way to fix a super frustrating problem.


I'm awaiting a quote to fix my sagging deck (I'm just going to get as much mileage out of that pun as humanly possible). The sag is where one of the support boards joins the foundation - it is no longer attached in one area. Hopefully it isn't rotted out and can simply be re-attached. My dude warned me that a quote will be a wide range: it could be anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days. But, it has to be fixed.

In good news, now that I have external power, I was able to hang all the little bistro lights around my patio/fire pit area. Finally looking good!


In lame as hell news, my next door neighbor used to burn her fire pit at least once a week, but a new person moved in behind her house and called 911 the first time she used it this season (he didn't like the smoke, which I honestly didn't even notice). Open fires are illegal in this city (cooking fires ok), so her keeping a grate there made the fire department satisfied, but now she's all paranoid about the busybody. My fire pit is a smokeless one and is blocked from view from that neighbor, so I hope I'm ok. I told the good neighbor to come by any time she sees us out.
 
bad neighbors can ruin everything.


In unrelated home improvement news, I'm really really enjoying the Home Assistant i've loaded onto the Raspberry Pi. Excellent community support. The HA environment is pretty slick. You can load in tons of sensors, automations, and integrations. Plus the sensors you can buy are starting to get UL approvals so you can start to use them in electrical installs. all without needing to send anything to an outside cloud.

Learning a lot about APIs as well. Which I've played around with before, but never really in any useful way. It's looking more and more like I can finally make the weather app of my dreams. *swoon*

I've also managed to add my decade-old plasma and receiver into iOS so that it looks like it's natively supported by Homekit. Which is fucking rad. I built an automated data logger for my smoker for $25 plus the cost of the temperature probes I already owned.


In only very tangentially related to home improvement news, the baby squirrels are out and running around the yard. Very entertaining. There's at least five of them. They've spent the last hour and a half chasing each other in a line like something out of Benny Hill. Then they scatter around the backyards until one starts running and yakkety sax starts playing again.
 
Update on the under deck project. Water was staying in the soffits after the rain. Looks like the 2" drop was insufficient so we dropped the far end another ~4" (basically right above the joist hanger). That ought to get the water down and out.

Also had minor leakage between a few f channels and the joists. May have to tape that but we'll wait until the next rain (mid week).

Next is to run power from the basement out to under the deck for 2 outlets and maybe a couple of fans for air movement. Flexible conduit or rigid?

BTW, previous owner ran power for a stairway light. No junction box outside, just 3 wire nuts. How Vinnie Boon Bots, ace house inspector, missed that is another black mark on his company.
 
joecct said:
Update on the under deck project. Water was staying in the soffits after the rain. Looks like the 2" drop was insufficient so we dropped the far end another ~4" (basically right above the joist hanger). That ought to get the water down and out.

Also had minor leakage between a few f channels and the joists. May have to tape that but we'll wait until the next rain (mid week).

Next is to run power from the basement out to under the deck for 2 outlets and maybe a couple of fans for air movement. Flexible conduit or rigid?

BTW, previous owner ran power for a stairway light. No junction box outside, just 3 wire nuts. How Vinnie Boon Bots, ace house inspector, missed that is another black mark on his company.
Click to expand...

Under the deck is a wet location, I'd use PVC. Rigid is a specific type of conduit, galvanized steel, threaded connections. Also you can't use romex in pipe outdoors as conduit outdoors is a wet location. Have to use in use covers on boxes for receptacles and GFCIs . Hire an electrician.
 
Finished the front face of the block wall for our native and "native-adjacent" garden in front. Fuck clay.
Anyways, it looks great. And we bought a bunch of native cardinal flower to add to it.

They had a native plant sale at the fire department today. Holy god. I'm glad we got there early. Madhouse. Great selection though. Relatively cheap. got a bunch of different milkweed for our butterfly garden we're putting in back. Going to look incredible.
 
Spent the whole evening yesterday trying to fix back the security camera.
Huge fail. AT the end google nest customer service was kind enough to help me with the issue.
And that is the place i found their contacts. Maybe will be helpful for someone else.
 
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A potentially stupid question since I know next to nothing about the creation of bots, but why would it be created for a college hockey website, and does someone monitor the bot to make sure it’s even working? Or are there thousands of these things and it doesn’t matter if the majority don’t work?
 
psych said:
A potentially stupid question since I know next to nothing about the creation of bots, but why would it be created for a college hockey website, and does someone monitor the bot to make sure it’s even working? Or are there thousands of these things and it doesn’t matter if the majority don’t work?
Click to expand...

Right? I can't imagine we're the most profitable pickin's here.
 
French Rage said:
Right? I can't imagine we're the most profitable pickin's here.
Click to expand...

It's probably based more on the vBulletin software used to power the forum. There's likely vulnerabilities that allow the creation/use of bots, and then any data that can be harvested is farmed.

So they're not targeting a niche college hockey forum, they're just targeting people who use vBulletin version whatever.
 
So i had two garage doors replaced yesterday. They look great! However the dude smashed into the corner of a door overhang and mangle the roofing for it. It doesn't look too too bad, but I hope the company doesn't give me a hard time about repairing it.
 
Swansong said:
So i had two garage doors replaced yesterday. They look great! However the dude smashed into the corner of a door overhang and mangle the roofing for it. It doesn't look too too bad, but I hope the company doesn't give me a hard time about repairing it.
Click to expand...

National nightmare averted. They came by yesterday and fixed it. Phew.
 
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