Fifth Avenue Forum

Fairly tacky. It was nice, but I wouldn't do it to our own home. We used composite decking to replace our front stairs instead of trying to DeckOver the concrete. I would suggest putting two coats down because just one can get chipped up.

Anyone have an knowledge on heated driveways?

High electric/gas bill?

Yeah, unless you have a gas well on your property with unlimited free gas, a heated driveway would get pretty expensive. I'd imagine you would also need a good drain at the apron, or the ice buildup from runoff when it hits the cold street would get out of hand.

I'd consider it if i had an external boiler that I could burn pretty much anything in to heat it too.

Anyone have an knowledge on heated driveways?

Are you considering hydronic, electric, or heat pipes? It's best to use the system as a snow/ice prevention system, meaning turn the sucker on when you know snow/ice are going to hit, rather than after. It takes more energy to melt snow/ice than it does to heat the surface above freezing and preventing buildup.

You'll also have to properly size the system based on the worst storm you would expect. That would be difficult to do, so I'm sure you'd have to leave it up to the contractor to figure out. You would want to choose a company that knew what they were talking about and not just randomly select a system without doing some extensive calculations first.

Anyone have an knowledge on heated driveways?

One of my firm's partners has a steep driveway, and a year or so he got a quote for getting it heated. I don't remember exactly what he said it was, but I remember it was tens of thousands of dollars. I want to say it might have been over $20,000. It was enough that his response was basically "oh heck no."

I thought I'd share some pics of my summer projects:

So, at about 1:45 last night at least one of our smoke detectors went off, scaring the hell out of the entire house. Kids crying etc. Then about five minutes later, 2-3 of them went off for 5-10 seconds. One may have beeped once around 4:30. This wasn't the low battery chirp, but the full bore alarm going off - each time for a few seconds. Enough to scare us all and ruin our sleep.

We have hardwired smoke detectors with a 9V battery backup. I've changed the batteries on these at least one time for each detector, and that is a distinctively different sound.

Obviously, there wasn't a fire so what could cause 2-3 detectors to go off at the same time?

After some research this morning (yawn), it looks like the detectors are either a)dirty or b)broken/breaking. Some have a "shelf life" or 8-10 years, and we're right on the front end of that range. So I'm going to try to replace them with newer models with the same mounting bracket and power adapter.

And why can't they go off at 5 at night?

that would be scary. i almost wonder if a power surge of some kind hit your place. or maybe a slight brown out - something to screw with the current flowing through them and set them off.

im waiting for my Korner order to arrive http://www.kornersafe.com/ and I'll be using those for security in my house.

at my old place I had the magnetic chirpers on the windows and doors. one night the kitchen window (the only one easily accessed from outside) went off right after I dozed off. im not sure why - it didnt appear to be moved at all.

really scared the bejesus out of me.

I've been finishing baseboards in the house for the past week or so. Three days ago, I finished in the kitchen. Today, after a terrible day work-wise, my wife opened the freezer door of our too-old fridge/freezer. It flew off of the hinges, gouged the baseboards, and chipped the floor tile.

It's not her fault, but I don't think that I have said 5 words over the past 5 hours.

I've been finishing baseboards in the house for the past week or so. Three days ago, I finished in the kitchen. Today, after a terrible day work-wise, my wife opened the freezer door of our too-old fridge/freezer. It flew off of the hinges, gouged the baseboards, and chipped the floor tile.

It's not her fault, but I don't think that I have said 5 words over the past 5 hours.

At least you made your third post in 4 months.

I've been finishing baseboards in the house for the past week or so. Three days ago, I finished in the kitchen. Today, after a terrible day work-wise, my wife opened the freezer door of our too-old fridge/freezer. It flew off of the hinges, gouged the baseboards, and chipped the floor tile.

It's not her fault, but I don't think that I have said 5 words over the past 5 hours.

Is this your wife?

That needs a BRAZZERS logo

Any recommendations on a stand alone air purifier, which could handle a 1200 square foot apartment? Budget is $300-400, but willing to spend more to get the right rig.

I've been finishing baseboards in the house for the past week or so. Three days ago, I finished in the kitchen. Today, after a terrible day work-wise, my wife opened the freezer door of our too-old fridge/freezer. It flew off of the hinges, gouged the baseboards, and chipped the floor tile.

It's not her fault, but I don't think that I have said 5 words over the past 5 hours.

At least you made your third post in 4 months.

Garage now cleaned, wife satiated, I'm golden.

I need to invest more time on this board instead of the other other board.

7th post now...

i underestimated the value of putting in new light switches and power outlets. between doing this and adding a fresh coat of paint, professionally applied, it almost feels like a brand new house.

Source of the post I need to invest more time on this board instead of the other other board.

Yes.

i underestimated the value of putting in new light switches and power outlets. between doing this and adding a fresh coat of paint, professionally applied, it almost feels like a brand new house.

Was there something wrong with your switches/outlets, or you just wanted an updated color and [presumably] the wider rocker switches? Do any with wifi control?

I redid all my outlets (most were 2 prong and fortunately I had ground copper in there) but I'm waiting until a rainy fall or winter day to do all the switches.

i underestimated the value of putting in new light switches and power outlets. between doing this and adding a fresh coat of paint, professionally applied, it almost feels like a brand new house.

Was there something wrong with your switches/outlets, or you just wanted an updated color and [presumably] the wider rocker switches? Do any with wifi control?

I redid all my outlets (most were 2 prong and fortunately I had ground copper in there) but I'm waiting until a rainy fall or winter day to do all the switches.

nothing wrong. they were just decades old, and wanted bright white panels with the wide switches. No wifi control. We won't be in this house for more than 3 years (at most), so i didn't want to go nuts.

with that said...i've only done a couple outlets, so i might abort the mission and buy a bunch of GFCI outlets instead. we don't have ground wiring for most of them, so to pass inspection when we sell, i'm pretty sure we'll need GFCI. the sucky part being that instead of paying 2 bucks per outlet, we'd be paying like 15.

Yesterday was fun. I had the privilege of removing knob and tube wiring from the upstairs of a house built in 1920 and replacing it, without ripping walls open 'n at.

I've got a fill valve that I need to replace on a toilet. The instructions picture the overflow pipe rotated away from the fill valve. However, on my toilet, the overflow pipe is almost parallel to the fill valve. My question is this: can I just trim the refill tube a few inches or do I need to unseat the flapper/overflow pipe and swivel it to match the instructions on the new fill valve?

This is what the instructions look like:


On my toilet, the overflow pipe is about where the chain and flush arm/bar intersect.

My fill up thing gets stuck and I have to take the back off and give it a little shake to start refilling. I have no idea why or any idea what to do. My only thought is to replace the whole inside and while I feel like I'm pretty handy, I have no idea what kind of ordeal it is to change these parts,thus the reason I've been shaking it until it refills for the last month

In other words, let me know how things go

Do you suppose I could move a fireplace from upstairs to downstairs? We have a split level, and the upstairs is so hot all the time you'd have to open the window to use the fireplace. Downstairs is always freezing. It's a natural gas fireplace. We could use the extra room in the living room as having it means we can only put the couch in one place.

I don't want to spend a lot of money.

lol... you could do it. It would probably be 5 figures.