Home Improvement/Repair Questions

[Road Guy]

Just spitballing but what about a faux wood floor-  2X w/ plywood and then the thickest carpet pad you can get / carpet and some of those roll out gymnastics mats? Not sure what they are called or where you get them but at my gym when we have practice handstand walk day we have these mats which are around 8’ x 14’ you roll out so when you fall it doesn’t hurt so bad? I’d say they are around 4 “ thicc

 

[bwin12]

I looked at mats, but they are really damn expensive for 32-48 SF ( was looking at the 4 or 6' by 8' folding gymnastic/tumble mats). I thought about them for the rock climbing wall area, but it is apparent we need padding on the whole floor. 

You do bring up a good point on plywood (sub) flooring, that, or at least a border around the edge, would give me what I need to hold carpet around the perimeter. I wonder if I could put 1/2" by 4" trim along the wall, then thick carpet foam with a cheap carpet over the whole thing?

The safe landings stuff would be great, but its too permanent and expensive for this situation. 

I'm still thinking...

 

[melanie]

Have you looked into horse stall mats? I've heard they are good for home gym floors. Example: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/4-ft-x-6-ft-x-3-4-in-thick-rubber-stall-mat

 

[bwin12]

Have you looked into horse stall mats? I've heard they are good for home gym floors. Example: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/4-ft-x-6-ft-x-3-4-in-thick-rubber-stall-mat

I have that stuff on one side in the home gym area. Its pretty good, but I am afraid it won't save a head injurie when the 4 year old barrels over his younger sister or the 7 year old smacks the youngest with the swing (side question- are 7 year olds capable of paying attention to anything?).

I am also seriously considering a nerf suit for the youngest and leaving the floor as is. 

 

[NJHHEngineer P.E.]

 

[jeb6294]

This stupid humidifier is getting on my last nerve. We’ve got water leaking out the bottom of the furnace. Where the humidifier is, it isn’t getting anything vital wet...it is leaking from the duct down at the floor and it in the unfinished part of the basement so it’s still ending up in the floor drain...but it’s really annoying.

Never remember it doing the before. I checked and the drain is clear and I put a new water drip panel in it today. It’s like the furnace is pulling the water from the humidifier instead of blowing through and up through the little bypass duct.

 

[Supe]

Stuff like that is super annoying. We had water staining on the ceiling from our AC. At first, we thought the pan must have overflowed, but they were stumped, said everything looked fine. Happened again this year. Turns out that water was actually condensing up in the sheet metal distribution box, running down the inside of the flex duct, and totally saturating the thing until it started dripping out the bottom of the duct itself. It's been OK since they reinsulated the shit out of everything, but we'll see how it does next year when it actually gets hot out.

 

[jeb6294]

I'm starting to wonder if it's always been this way and I just never noticed because the water leaking into the basement through the cracks in the wall. Everything was there when I got the house...haven't added/replaced anything...but as I've started to look into it more, I'm starting to see things about not adding a humidifier when you have a heat pump (which we have) because they don't actually get hot enough. Wondering if the idiot previous owner screwed me again with one of his half-ass "home improvements". Got a house full of creaky hardwood floors so it definitely needs a humidifier so I may just let it go while I do more checking since there's no floor to ruin and the water is still making it's way to the floor drain.

 

[Supe]

Hope you get it figured out.

If I can get a dry day for once, this weekend's project will be installing a hot/cold hose spigot. The amount of dog mud being tracked in is just absurd, and we can't take it anymore.

Picked up the mounting block and all the requisite hardware yesterday. Looks like an easy/straight shot to tee off of the kitchen sink hot water line, cold water line is already there. PITA part will be yanking two rows of vinyl siding and getting the mounting block sturdy enough to install it. They have some hokey, crooked chunk of pressure treated in the crawlspace now holding the old spigot on. The new one will be much nicer, as it's got 12" or so long rigid pex-ready copper tubes behind it, so I can surface mount the anchor block and just drill two holes, done deal. Will also be putting shutoff valves in line too. Never understood why nobody seems to do that for outdoor faucets.

P.S. - its dumb as hell that Lowes sells 25' pex sections as straight lengths, not wrapped into spools. Ended up having to "tie a knot" in two ten foot sections just to get it home, because I was not going to buy 100 feet of the shit.

 

[pbrme]

Got a house full of creaky hardwood floors so it definitely needs a humidifier so I may just let it go while I do more checking since there's no floor to ruin and the water is still making it's way to the floor drain.

Jeb, our previous home had hardwood and a humidifier. I was having the exact same problem and couldn't figure it out on my own. I ended up hiring a HVAC service tech and they fixed it by redesigning the drip pan P-Trap (I had replumbed that section when I remodeled the mech room). They said if it is too long or too short, it will either prevent adequate drainage or siphon the humidifier flow. For all I knew, it could have been any number of things. I ended up signing up for their bi-annual service contract and got a discount on that call. It's really the best money you can spend on cheap home insurance, and I have used this similar service since selling that house. They come every spring and fall, run diagnostics, clean coils and boards, check line set charge ..etc. basically find any potential problems before they become reality. As a former engineer for a mechanical contractor, I highly recommend this to everyone. Just do some shopping and find a reputable tech who doesn't work on commission and tries to upsell snake oil (refrigerant charge "conditioner").

 

[Supe]

Outdoor hot/cold faucet successfully installed. Took me about 4-5 hours on Friday to get it done. Holy shit am I getting old - I STILL feel like a truck hit me from crawling in/out of the crawlspace and trying to hold my neck up.

What a miserable job - cold and wet to begin with from all the rain. I expected SOME water when I cut the first PEX line, but it just kept coming, and coming, and coming... So then I'm laying in puddles on plastic sheeting under the house. I wise up and get a bucket instead of a towel for round 2. Cut the hot water PEX line and... like an ounce of water comes out.

I have to say, I was pretty surprised about the PEX lines. The old translucent white PEX line that the house was built with has a substantially larger ID than the new stuff. It goes on loose to the new fittings, whereas the new line from Lowes is a snug/light press fit before you ever get the clamp on it. Seems to be holding just fine, will crawl under there next weekend to check for leaks.

Of course, the stupidity of the original builders never ceases to amaze me. The spigot that was there turned out to be some two piece inside/outside threaded jobber with a rear mounting flange that you would just secure to the framing with short screws (I've never seen that style, couldn't even find a picture of one online). Instead, they screwed the back piece into a block of wood, used spray foam as an adhesive to hold the block of wood in place, and then threaded the spigot in from the outside? WTF? I ripped out the block of wood and ended up just sawzalling the thing off since there was no way to hold it in place to stop it from turning.

 

[JayKay PE]

*frantically reads this thread*

I'm thinking of buying a house in a few months (stupidly, in this sellers market) and this thread doesn't make me feel super great, but it also makes me feel kinda okay, because so many things can be fixed by hand. I want something pretty turnkey, since it's only myself, but I wouldn't mind minor upgrades/work in the house.

 

[Supe]

*frantically reads this thread*

I'm thinking of buying a house in a few months (stupidly, in this sellers market) and this thread doesn't make me feel super great, but it also makes me feel kinda okay, because so many things can be fixed by hand. I want something pretty turnkey, since it's only myself, but I wouldn't mind minor upgrades/work in the house.

My buddy just bought a house in Salt Lake City. He wondered why he could feel a warm draft when standing under a bunch of can lights. Previous owners cut holes in the main HVAC duct and ran electrical through it for the can lights, so it was blowing hot air out the light fixtures.

 

[JayKay PE]

My buddy just bought a house in Salt Lake City. He wondered why he could feel a warm draft when standing under a bunch of can lights. Previous owners cut holes in the main HVAC duct and ran electrical through it for the can lights, so it was blowing hot air out the light fixtures.

This...is distressing. I am hoping to get a fairly bare-bones house that has nothing exciting, which means no 'improvements' made by the previous owner. The main thing I'm looking for in my potential home: garage of some sort and a pretty nice/utd kitchen. Everything else can be falling apart as long as I have a gas oven.

 

[Supe]

I would say pay the money and do a lot of searching for a REALLY good home inspector. One that doesn't just give the "I can't access it because you didn't leave me a ladder, therefore, I'm not going to look at it" kind.

 

[NJHHEngineer P.E.]

I would say pay the money and do a lot of searching for a REALLY good home inspector. One that doesn't just give the "I can't access it because you didn't leave me a ladder, therefore, I'm not going to look at it" kind.

^^ This. I hired a guy off of a few recommendations from friends. He was phenomenal. Went up on the roof, crawled under the deck, went up in the scuttle to my attic with his own ladder (no true stair access).

Granted - they'll take a good look but they wont "see" everything. There's a bunch of things we found in my house after we moved in/started doing updating of our own. Some of which were electrical issues. I'm not an electrician by any means but I have a basic knowledge of wiring/code and am capable of doing some basic electrical work. One of the men of the house (I think the woman was married 2-3 times according to neighbors) was apparently a licensed electrician. Wired up several things that were just flat out wrong and really would only make sense to the person who ran the wiring, as he did not properly mark the wires as HOT when necessary (what fun that was finding a bunch of white "neutrals" carrying current).

Another recommendation I would make as it seems silly and it was not something I thought about when looking at houses and doing final walkthrough etc. Look at the outlet situation in each room (and outside). There's a couple rooms/hallways in my house where the outlet placement could have been better thought out. My upstairs hallway has ZERO outlets so we run the vacuum plugged into the bathroom outlet and then leap frog as needed to closer bedrooms. I also have just 1 pair of outlets on the exterior of my house and they're always in the wrong spot when I need some power. I have nothing in the front of my house, so I get out of putting up Christmas lights every year (not complaining). None of this is a deal breaker for me, but just a matter of convenience. I hate having to run a mile of extension cords when I need power somewhere.

 

[bwin12]

^^ This. I hired a guy off of a few recommendations from friends. He was phenomenal. Went up on the roof, crawled under the deck, went up in the scuttle to my attic with his own ladder (no true stair access).

We used a recommendation from our relator, that's probably the best way to find a good inspector (well, you need a good relator first).

The last 2 houses we have bought were new builds- highly recommended route. In my opinion, you pay very little premium (if any) going with a new build, and you get a new house. I am in Denver metro though, and they are building new neighborhoods everywhere since 2013.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

We used a recommendation from our relator, that's probably the best way to find a good inspector (well, you need a good relator first).

I disagree. Inspections and haggling over repairs is one of many barriers to closing on a house. It is in the realtor's best interest to have as few recommended repairs as possible. Sure, there are some honest realtors and inspectors out there, but I certainly wouldn't count on it.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

Somewhat related... I believe I've sent this to @JayKay PE before from the IG account @ZillowGoneWild (srsly check it out)



^This house was featured on ZGW awhile back AND THE PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT IT COMMENTED!!!

 

[NJHHEngineer P.E.]

Somewhat related... I believe I've sent this to @JayKay PE before from the IG account @ZillowGoneWild (srsly check it out)



^This house was featured on ZGW awhile back AND THE PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT IT COMMENTED!!!

I mean, that house is pretty wild though. Didn't expect to see that in the interior based on the exterior.

Is it just me or is that giving off some serious like 70's disco adult film/gentleman's club vibe...in every room. Like every time you walk into a room it just starts playing stereotypical "classic" adult film tracks...