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Thread: The "Looking to become a homeowner" Thread

  1. #1121
    Parts Guy tigeraid's Avatar
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    Maybe! 1/8 mile dirt oval...

  2. #1122
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    Build the 1st ever grass race track!
    If they can play tennis on various surfaces, why not car races?

  3. #1123
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    > cut out one of the old cast iron sanitary stacks so I could replace it completely with PVC instead of having partial cast and partial pvc

    > did that, and the entire kitchen drain pipe fell out and landed at my feet

    > shit!

    I swear to every deity on earth that this house once belonged to the worst DIY plumber who ever lived. not only did the guy not use the correct primer and cement, but he used barely any at all. I can't believe this thing didn't leak. Fixing that mess added an hour to an otherwise easy job since I had to work between the joists and foundation wall. This is in addition to all of the badly done and leaking CPVC patch jobs he did that I've had to remove.

    On the plus side, stack is now PVC all the way to the floor, and I installed a new laundry tub. The old drain for the old tub was literally plugged solid with rust The fun part is going to be breaking up my old concrete double tub with a sledge and hauling it out of here

    I also got a 230v circuit set up for an electric water heater. Installing that and replacing ALL of my galvanized plumbing with pex is next weekend's party. woo.
    Last edited by Yeti; July 15th, 2018 at 06:06 AM.

  4. #1124
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    I always wonder about that. We've had that same feeling here - some truly janky setups that have lead to some serious headaches for us. I always wonder if the previous owner either hired shady people or just hired people and told them to fix things as cheaply as possible, because I know for a fact she didn't actually do anything herself.

    Then I wonder if the people doing work on our place are doing the work we think they are. Any time we're presented with the option of doing it cheap or doing it right, we always opt for the "do it right" angle because we've experienced enough to know that it ends up costing more doing it the cheap way, but I have no way to really verify that it's actually being done the right way.

  5. #1125
    Parts Guy tigeraid's Avatar
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    Cheaply might be it, but so is "just don't call a professional" because of a misplaced theory that it's never worth the labour cost. Which is bullshit, if you're completely clueless.

    I'm REASONABLY good at plumbing, self-taught but with a whole lot of research and reading. Plus if I do it WRONG, and it's obvious I have, I cut it out and do it again. Plumbing is almost never expensive, it's the labour that is, so the only reason DIY'ers get it wrong is because they didn't do their research, or don't have the common sense.

    Both of my first two houses were plumbing disasters. The first was because it was ancient early 1900s plumbing. The ranch was terrible because the guy had no clue what he was doing. Tons of small leaks everywhere, presumably because he didn't use the right adhesive... Nothing vented properly, so no thing drained properly... The outlet for the clothes washer was literally just sitting in an open pipe at a 30ish degree angle that emptied into the main drain. So it was venting gasses AND it would regularly overflow.

  6. #1126
    Expert daydreamer SkylineObsession's Avatar
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    Oh, shoddy jobs you say? We had a heap of that in our old 1930's rental. Probably too much to list.

    Current house, which is over 100 years old, is in much better condition than the 1930's house but the wood they used for the small deck by the garage, and the porch area on the side of the house wasn't treated and so has rotted away to the point where you can break it by simply leaning on it.

    As you can see, the wood has a smidgen of rot in it. The roof over this area is the same, which means you can't even stand on it. The dog is one wifey bought at an arcade a block away from Times Square last year, we squashed it down completely in a suitcase to get it back.
    _DSC5946 (1920x1280).jpg

    And the crappy deck by the garage (pic taken years ago when i was waterblasting it). The further towards the edges you go the more trampoline-like it gets.
    DSC06008.jpg

    And we've had to replace a few plumbing pipe connections because they've deteriorated since the 1980's or so when our neighbour said they were installed/updated. Not to mention the oversized holes in walls/floors to accommodate plumbing pipes. Almost a bucket sized one under the bath...

    That's why i haven't been too keen on getting family members/mates around to do cheap repairs, as we're just continuing the problem otherwise.
    Last edited by SkylineObsession; July 18th, 2018 at 02:51 PM.

  7. #1127
    Parts Guy tigeraid's Avatar
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    Unless I'm COMPLETELY clueless on a project, I prefer to just chip away at it myself for that exact reason. Too much bad advice, too much of your father-in-law telling you HOW THEY DO IT IN THE OLD COUNTRY or whatever.

  8. #1128
    Subaru Unimpreza SportWagon's Avatar
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    I used simple electric mowers all my life. A beefy electric motor attached to a metal chassis/unibody holding the wheels. With the push arm centrally mounted and pivotable. One lasted about fifteen years or more. Some overly-complicated Black-and-Decker similar versions are making do now, but they're no longer being made. You start close to the electrical outlet, and mow in straight rows moving away from it. A simple strategy my father taught me. But they don't seem to be being made/marketed any more. On the one that lasted fifteen years, I used duct-tape to hold open the supposed safety device intended to lock the handle in each position (and without any remote means of operating it). The Black-and-Deckers lock, but have a cable-operated lever to release the lock. I generally keep that held unlocked, which makes the mower push more naturally, especially over slight bumps.

    Some safety committee must have decided that somehow the pivoting handles were dangerous, but I can't really see how. But without that design, plug-in electrics make no sense.

    ======================

    Woke up this morning to the pleasant sight of a whole lot of garbage cans at the end of our next-door neighbour's driveway. For about a month my wife has been talking to the city getting them to encourage the landlord to clean up the mess of garbage left by student tenants outside their back door, which is adjacent to the side of our house with no door. It got put into cans at one point, then knocked over again by animals. My wife actually tidied some of it up at one point, and reported there were lots of maggots. In a later examination she saw the expected resulting flies, and also wasps.

    So it was a real relief to see the cans at the kerb this morning.

    And a quick check before my walk to work confirmed it really was a lot cleaner.

    The fact that garbage, versus recyclables, is only collected every second week extended the entire process.

    The last time I actually saw anyone there was around a month ago, on the non-garbage week. I saw a tenant taking out the recycling. The mess was relatively new then, and so I merely remarked it was unfortunate it was not a garbage week. I had at one point pointed out the mess to another tenant, who I now think was moving out. He reacted with a bit of horror, but it was a stinking (so as to speak) hot day, so I acted fairly casually about it, saying it might be good to wait for a cooler time. But as I say, I now think that particular tenant was moving out.

    After one actual fortnightly garbage day was missed, and I began thinking there were no occupants in the house, my wife began talking to the city. The city inspector claims the house is occupied by car-less tenants. And she (the city inspector) arranged notices, including advice of eventual billed cleanup by city employees.

    Not sure if the tenants or the landlord got around to doing the cleanup. I think it was done fairly early this morning. I think I had looked out in the very early morning and not seen the kerbed garbage. I was beginning to think we'd have at least another weekend of wondering/worrying since that was the time-frame given to the landlord by the inspector, IIUC. But it seems mostly resolved now, apart from minor cleanup which we can do if necessary (as long as the major garbage keeps finding its way to the kerb every second week).
    Last edited by SportWagon; July 19th, 2018 at 08:33 AM.

  9. #1129
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    Been in this house fifteen years. Having a new furnace and central air installed next week. Two things I will not mess with are electricity and plumbing.

  10. #1130
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    Quote Originally Posted by speedpimp View Post
    Been in this house fifteen years. Having a new furnace and central air installed next week. Two things I will not mess with are electricity and plumbing.

    I always died a little inside when i had a mobile call when I was working in the field. Those mechanical closet/AC coil/duct arrangements are always hard to work on, esp. for a largeman like me.

    In other news, I replaced everything from my meter riser to the fixtures with 3/4 and 1/2 pex, and installed my electric water heater. Freed up a bunch of space under my stairs since I moved the water heater to the corner and now my water pressure is



    I've had to rig up a temporary shower over the floor drain in my basement though. I need to rip out my old tub and shower surround so I can redo the (leaking) plumbing in the wall and replace the tub with a shower stall in the bathroom. I chopped out the old cast iron shower drain pipe and drum trap and when I did I lost my handle on it and the whole works hit the deck and blew apart, showering one side of my basement with 50 years worth of black soap scum and sewer gunk That was fun to clean up.

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