Home Improvement Thread

Postby **blackjack68** » Tue Dec 18, 2018 10:32 pm

New gutters two weeks ago.
New roof today.
New insulation next week.

Merry Christmas to us.
Kids are going to be sad when they get nothing.

Postby **NTP66** » Wed Dec 19, 2018 6:28 am

Source of the post Kids are going to be sad when they get nothing.

They have a warm, dry roof over their heads.

Postby **DigitalGypsy66** » Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:04 am

Ha, I told my kids the same thing when we had our new HVAC put in earlier this month. They wept, lol.

Postby **willeyeam** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:44 am

my Nest sucks. What smart thermostats do yinz have that work well?

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:12 pm

my Nest sucks. What smart thermostats do yinz have that work well?

Honeywell RTH9580WF (Smart thermostat, wifi). Here's the updated model, which is apparently exactly the same but with a different screen layout: https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-RTH958 ... B075BF6V58

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:14 pm

Just had my first propane refill since late April. This is the longest I've ever gone between refills, so I can't complain too much about the $787 bill. That leaves my monthly average for 2018 at $176.

Postby **mac5155** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:33 pm

my Nest sucks. What smart thermostats do yinz have that work well?

I like my ecobee but honestly I don't see the usefulnees. It doesn't do anything for me I don't think. Maybe I'm missing something

Postby **shafnutz05** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:06 pm

I have been having some issues with my Nest. I love the thing, but I have noticed that often times when I come home in the evening, the heat has not kicked on despite a) my having it programmed to kick on at 4:30, and b) the Nest showing that the furnace is on. I usually have to turn the dial down and then back up to kick on the heat.

Anyone else experience similar issues? It's doubly annoying because I like to track my energy usage and it is impossible now because it says the heat is on all the time.

Postby **willeyeam** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:08 pm

my Nest sucks. What smart thermostats do yinz have that work well?
Honeywell RTH9580WF (Smart thermostat, wifi). Here's the updated model, which is apparently exactly the same but with a different screen layout: https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-RTH958 ... B075BF6V58

gracias

Postby **willeyeam** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:10 pm

I have been having some issues with my Nest. I love the thing, but I have noticed that often times when I come home in the evening, the heat has not kicked on despite a) my having it programmed to kick on at 4:30, and b) the Nest showing that the furnace is on. I usually have to turn the dial down and then back up to kick on the heat.

Anyone else experience similar issues? It's doubly annoying because I like to track my energy usage and it is impossible now because it says the heat is on all the time.

Same. Mine has no idea when the hell I'm home anymore. Besides the "smart" aspect that it should have learned after 2.5 years, I have it programmed to heat to 70 at 4:30 and it doesn't kick on until I'm actually home. Then after being home for a few hours and realizing it's kinda chilly, I have to walk by it so it remembers I'm still home and it kicks back on. Annoying, and probably hurting my electric/gas bills more than paying for itself.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:11 pm

my Nest sucks. What smart thermostats do yinz have that work well?
Honeywell RTH9580WF (Smart thermostat, wifi). Here's the updated model, which is apparently exactly the same but with a different screen layout: https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-RTH958 ... B075BF6V58
gracias

Probably should have noted this before, but the only annoyance for me about the Honeywell system is that you have to use their Total Comfort Connect app and/or website to remotely manage the thermostat. It works just fine, but some people want to be able to connect directly to the thermostat instead of through an intermediate server. The only thing it lacks is a remote sensor, but you can't beat it at that price point.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:12 pm

My thermostat is in our dining room, so something like the Nest would never work for us, as we're rarely in there. I prefer simply setting my own custom schedule and letting it do its thing.

Postby **mac5155** » Sat Dec 22, 2018 4:34 pm

I haven't really done anything with my ecobee other Than set my home and away schedule. Iis there something else I should be doing?

Postby **meow** » Sat Dec 22, 2018 5:45 pm

Feed it

Postby **skullman80** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:30 am

The closer on our back screen door went last week causing the screen door to just slam shut. Wife has been on me to fix it. I suck at anything that involves fixing things. This however was super easy. I found the exact same brand door closer and I literally didn't even have to take off the hardware on the end, popped the two pins out... put the new closer in... popped the two pins back in from the old closer.. and bam fixed.

Check that off the honey do list.

Postby **meow** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:32 am

Nice job Bob Vila

Postby **skullman80** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:35 am

Next up is the sink downstairs in the laundry room that has been leaking for like a year. If I didn't have to solder the pipes could probably just rip it out myself, but will probably have to call someone haha.

Postby **NTP66** » Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:37 am

Postby **shafnutz05** » Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:07 am

I am calling a plumber today, but wanted to get input here.

We have two surround sound speakers screwed into the ceiling. Sunday night, I was playing Red Dead and thought I heard something, but (foolishly in hindsight) thought it was the surround sound. Last night, we realized that water is dripping slowly-ish out of the few screw holes in the ceiling. That part of the ceiling is directly underneath our ground floor toilet. There is not a lot of water on the floor at all, so whatever the problem is, it doesn't seem to be a significant, fast leak, since we know it was going since at least the night before.

The first thing I did was turn the water off to the house. After that, I turned off all the valves to the ground floor bathroom. We were timing the droplets, and fairly quickly, it went from a drop every 11 seconds or so to a drop every 30+ seconds. At this point, I turned the water back ON to see if the water drip picked up, and also to quickly fill a few pitchers of water. The water drip did NOT pick up. At that point, we turned the water off and went to bed.

This morning, when everyone was asleep and it was quiet, I went downstairs and turned the water back on to test my theory that it is the ground floor toilet. When I turned the water on, I could hear water flowing behind the basement wall against the front of the house. Is it normal to hear that flowing behind the wall when you first turn the water back on? I know there are pipes behind that wall that run up to our en suite bathroom in our room on the second floor. I can confirm that turning the water on for a minute or whatever it was did NOT result in any more drippage in the basement.

Any thoughts from the plumbing experts here? We will of course be calling someone but would really prefer not to have the water shut off on New Year's Day. Part of me thinks that if the leak had been going for at least 24 hours and it was still that minor, it wouldn't hurt to turn the water on for 20 minutes so everyone could shower/use the toilet.

Postby **mac5155** » Tue Jan 01, 2019 10:37 am

Any visible leaks on the toilet? Can you just turn the toilet off and see? It could be tank to bowl, or bowl to ground (wax ring).

Postby **NTP66** » Tue Jan 01, 2019 11:10 am

If it were the wax ring, he’d smell the problem pretty easily...

Postby **shafnutz05** » Tue Jan 01, 2019 1:11 pm

Any visible leaks on the toilet? Can you just turn the toilet off and see? It could be tank to bowl, or bowl to ground (wax ring).

We have now had the water turned on for four hours. There has been no further dripping at all. We are only using the guest bathroom on our top floor that has a separate drainage, and avoiding the ground floor restroom and en suite restroom that drain out along that wall. I'll just let a plumber figure it out tomorrow. At least we can continue with business as mostly usual until then.

I did collect some of the water into a pint glass. It was fairly clear, and odorless.

Postby **mac5155** » Tue Jan 01, 2019 9:32 pm

My heat pump is back to not turning on. This is frustrating. I had issues in the summer and thought it was a dirty filter, but here we are in the winter and it's still not functioning properly.

Postby **AuthorTony** » Wed Jan 02, 2019 2:58 pm

I'm ready to throw my toilet through the wall. It won't flush correctly. When I flush, the bowl gets a big surge of water and then very slowly drains out.I tried cleaning all the jets (or whatever they are) under the bowl but that's made no difference.

Earlier this year it was running and I replaced the fill valve, which took care of the running issue. It was working fine until about 3 days ago, which is when the intermittent slow/no flush issue cropped up. I've tried plunging to no effect. The toilet doesn't have a ball float, it's what I think is called a canister valve.

Any ideas? New toilet? Snake?

Postby **NTP66** » Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:03 pm

A snake would be my next attempt, followed by a liquid drain cleaner, since those are the two easiest things to try at this point.