Home Improvement/Repair Questions

[Road Guy]

I guess that is the main difference is the noise - the more expensive one is 45 decibels, where the other one is 80 or so.

 

[jeb6294]

Anyone used Flexseal yet? The stuff that brushes on.

Now that the sewer lateral has been fixed, it also seems to have cured the water problem in the basement. We’ve gotten a decent bit of rain, but so far it’s stayed dry. I had already torn out some of the drywall and sprayed everything down with bleach and found the two cracks that were the culprit. Even though the problem seems to be resolved, if it works halfway decent, we were thinking about painting over both cracks with Flexseal before the wall goes back up as a little insurance. 

 

[Supe]

As long as it's got some tooth to bite into it, it works pretty well.  I have been using a small can to patch a hole in the washing machine to avoid having to change the gasket, which will be an all day affair.  It has only failed once after a couple months of usage, and that's because the whole patch lifted in one piece since it was applied to a pretty dirty, soapy, smooth surface.  It's lasted longer the second go-around after I cleaned better and roughed it up a bit with some sandpaper.  It's definitely waterproof, though I don't know how it would really hold up long-term (does it stay flexible, etc.).  As a peace of mind backup, I wouldn't hesitate to use it though.

 

[Bot-Man]

Has anyone done a DIY resurfacing of hardwood floors? If so, any tips on best practices? I just closed on a 170 year old house with oak floors throughout. Half of which were covered by carpet.

I figured since I have some time on my hands I’d give it a shot but I don’t want to ruin anything. 

 

[jeb6294]

I’ve been in the house for close to 10 years now, and as far as I can tell, the basement has been dry until the issue with the lateral. I’m 98% sure it’ll be fine barring another plumbing problem,  but I know the wife would feel better with a little extra insurance. Hopefully it sticks well to a poured concrete wall.

 

[jeb6294]

Has anyone done a DIY resurfacing of hardwood floors? If so, any tips on best practices? I just closed on a 170 year old house with oak floors throughout. Half of which were covered by carpet.

I figured since I have some time on my hands I’d give it a shot but I don’t want to ruin anything. 

Wife has been looking into redoing some of ours. I think she’s found that it isn’t complicated, it’s just messy and time consuming.I know you can rent the floor sanders from HD/tool rental places.

I’m sure realtors everywhere would call me a horrible person, but after living in houses with wal-to-wall hardwood floors, I hate them. If it were up to me, I would keep some of it and put in carpet in our current house

 

[Master slacker]

seems like I always ponder doing this this time of year but looking at whole house fans

I guess our house was built before A/C was affordable or popular, but we have the original whole-house fan still in the attic (out of service).  About 3' diameter with 1/2 hp motor.  That thing must have been loud AF.  I wish we still had one, loud or not, because it could be used a lot more than the A/C for half the year.

 

[Master slacker]

... but after living in houses with wal-to-wall hardwood floors, I hate them. If it were up to me, I would keep some of it and put in carpet in our current house

I love hardwood floors.  Doesn't absorb the smells that get into carpet and carpet pads, don't stain, and easy to clean.  

 

[jeb6294]

Easy to clean, yes, but it seems like they need to be cleaned non-stop. Maybe it’s just the fact that we’ve got too many critters, but vacuuming hair is a full time occupation. I hate having to clean dirt/grit off the bottom of my feet before getting in bed every night.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

We have hardwood. I'm not completely against it - easier to clean than carpet while we dealt with giardia & hookworms in our dog. But I agree about the grit on feet.

Also there's no insulation between the garbage/basement so the floors are cold AF and my feet freeze.

we have a roomba run 6 days a week but it definitely doesn't get everything.

 

[MA_PE]

I just recently bought some flex-seal tape for managing a small plumbing leak.  The tape is sticky as all get out but not on wet surfaces.  It also did not like being on the negative pressure side of the pipe leak.  Tried wrapping the active “pinhole” leak and it didn’t hold.  Shut off the water, cleaned and dried the copper pipe, and wrapped with the tape.  Turned on the water and it held for about 5 minutes before it leaked out the edge of the tape.  Of course line pressure of 40-60psi is much grater that a couple of ft of head on a basement wall.  I highly doubt you get long term adhesion on a poured concrete wall.  The wall will definitely need to be dry and free of any laitance to promote adhesion.  I suppose adding the flex seal couldn’t hurt but I don’t think it’s going to really add anything.  Bottom line is that negative side waterproofing pretty much never works in the long term.

 

[MA_PE]

It my understanding that refinishing hardwood floors with a power disk sanders requires skills like finished carpentry.  It’s easy to end up with uneven surfaces which then translate to uneven looking amateurish finished results.  If one has the luxury of an empty house fit the entire area that needs to be refinished, it’s most cost effective to hire a professional to go in, sand and apply a couple of coats of lacquer /stain and be done with it.

 

[Supe]

It my understanding that refinishing hardwood floors with a power disk sanders requires skills like finished carpentry.  It’s easy to end up with uneven surfaces which then translate to uneven looking amateurish finished results.  If one has the luxury of an empty house fit the entire area that needs to be refinished, it’s most cost effective to hire a professional to go in, sand and apply a couple of coats of lacquer /stain and be done with it.

X2.  Floor sanders tend to be very aggressive, and its easy to ruin the floors if they have high spots and you're not accustomed to doing them.

 

[Road Guy]

(as a novice) I did my old house in Atlanta, used the heavy as **** floor sander you can rent from home depot - and just stay with the grain and it comes off pretty easily - (Oak Floors) i I was doing the rooms in the house that didnt have hardwood with hardwood and then I sanded all the previously stained wood floors so they would match - If you start / practice in a back bedroom or something out of the way its pretty easy to get the hang of it (having some popeye forearms helps)

For us, with little kids at the time, I liked doing it myself (both install, stripping, and staining) because you can do one room at a time and work your way around the house.  And so so cheap to do yourself - the polyurethane is a little tricky, but again just practice on back room somewhere (but you can always sand that off with a hand sander if you do too much)

We had hardwoods all downstairs and in the hallway, but carpet in the bedrooms - current house is all hardwood downstairs and carpet the rest (need to do stairs and upstaris hallway) but I agree I like carpet in bedrooms..

 

[Bot-Man]

Thanks all for the input. I know it will be a pain but this is the only time the house will be completely empty and i have a hard time spending 5k or more on something I can do myself for a few hundred. Then again I hare even more paying someone to fix what I screwed up. 

 

[Road Guy]

its really pretty straightforward & the best advice I got was to practice on that back room or something that is not right in your entry way.

& if you have to fill any major cracks in the wood with the wood filler compound to do that before you sand, because that part always shows up a slightly different color if you dont.

Normally the folks at Home Depot rental store (or similar) should be able to help you with what you are trying to do (tell you which sanding pads and such to use) Seems like I went through a lot of them.  The sander itself feels like it weight a metric ton, so if you have a trailer or something low to the ground it helps to get that think up and down as easy as you can. (or a friend) 

(for the polyurethane) I use those lambs skin applicators (rectangular) that go on the end of a mop "stick" and dump the poly in  a painting pan- there is a trick to it but if you put on less poly the better off you are and defin sand lighlty between coats of poly (you can use a small hand orbital sander for that) - and on those lambskin applicators I always forget to do it,  but its a good idea to soak them in water the day before and let them dry to clean off lose hairs, my wife still likes to point out where a few hairs from the applicator got stuck in the floor..

 

[jeb6294]

I just recently bought some flex-seal tape for managing a small plumbing leak.  The tape is sticky as all get out but not on wet surfaces.  It also did not like being on the negative pressure side of the pipe leak.  Tried wrapping the active “pinhole” leak and it didn’t hold.  Shut off the water, cleaned and dried the copper pipe, and wrapped with the tape.  Turned on the water and it held for about 5 minutes before it leaked out the edge of the tape.  Of course line pressure of 40-60psi is much grater that a couple of ft of head on a basement wall.  I highly doubt you get long term adhesion on a poured concrete wall.  The wall will definitely need to be dry and free of any laitance to promote adhesion.  I suppose adding the flex seal couldn’t hurt but I don’t think it’s going to really add anything.  Bottom line is that negative side waterproofing pretty much never works in the long term.

My old house had some cracks in the basement that were letting water in. I had someone come in and do epoxy injection. I think that was about as good as it’s going to get short of digging up the foundation and patching it on the outside.

We aren’t rushing to replace the drywall so I’ll continue to keep an eye on it. If it starts leaking then I’d see about getting the epoxy injection, but I’m hopeful that even that is not necessary. 

 

[MA_PE]

My old house had some cracks in the basement that were letting water in. I had someone come in and do epoxy injection. I think that was about as good as it’s going to get short of digging up the foundation and patching it on the outside.

We aren’t rushing to replace the drywall so I’ll continue to keep an eye on it. If it starts leaking then I’d see about getting the epoxy injection, but I’m hopeful that even that is not necessary. 

Yup.  Injection is the best way to seal cracks from the inside.

 

[jeb6294]

Okay, I don’t know what the hell is going on. Jack says his ceiling fan isn’t working...fan was going and at some point he noticed it had stopped. No light, no fan. Weird thing is that, when I checked the rest, none of the ceiling fans Upstairs work now.

First thing I did was check the breakers and they were all fine. Only one GFCI in the house and it was fine. Weird that it was ceiling fixtures in 3 different bedrooms. 

 

[jeb6294]

Further weirdness, Jack yells down and say the fan was back on for a few seconds. Went upstairs and sure enough, the ceiling fans were all spinning down. Also found a couple outlets that were out too.

Went to the basement and started flipping breakers and had the boys tell me what stuff went out (except for the big appliance breakers). There was one breaker that didn’t seem to do anything, but the one right below it killed the closet light in Jacks room so it makes me think they’re on breaker #12.

Breaker seems to fine and tested it and it showed 120V. Tried googling for some ideas and a few places talked about checking outlets for loose connections, i.e. power is coming in but not getting out and kills everything downstream.