I see. I was reading poorly and thought the drip was pre replacement. Call up your plumber. The PRV shouldn't be wet at all. It might be a valve that shouldn't have passed QC.

1/16/2019 12:43:15 PM

Where can i rent a transfer pump? I need to drain my water heater but it's lower than the nearest path to get it out.

Herc and UR only have the big commercial gas powered and Home Depot doesn't seem to have one either.

1/16/2019 3:43:52 PM

http://www.hollandrentall.com/c/43/pumps

1/16/2019 5:54:50 PM

somebody broke into my car last night right in my driveway, directly underneath a motion light. no damage got an off-brand car charger and a $30 pocket knife. I wouldn't even report it but they got a three month supply of Xanax I just refilled so I'll need the report to get another script. I bet they're loving that shit.

I don't even care about the stuff as much as I feel violated knowing somebody was that close to me doing that shit while I was asleep. I was up until 1am watching TV not even 15 feet from the car. I also have a giant German Shepherd with beware of dog signs and CPI signs in the front yard.

I've never been a gun person, but this is really making me consider getting one, and getting some sort of security camera system, which would both be money I don't want to spend right now.

1/17/2019 10:35:41 AM

I'm guessing you left your car unlocked if there was no damage?

I bought a few Blink cameras and set them up around various locations around my house to monitor any kind of motion. I've picked up mostly animals (raccoons, possums, rabbits, squirrels, etc), people on the sidewalk (walking dogs, running, etc), and our vinyl awnings flapping in the wind. But two weeks ago I finally caught someone peeping into my truck with a small flashlight. Happened at 6am, right before we get up to go eat our Sat morning breakfast. Unfortunately I couldn't get a super clear picture of his face, but I did report it to the local authorities. So it did well with detection, but I might try to find something that has better resolution with ability to continuously record (or at least record like the Ring Doorbell).

1/17/2019 12:13:08 PM

Quote :

"I have a very small drip from the PRV as well, but the entire unit is new, including the expansion tank. I wonder if they installed it incorrectly."

turn off the water so there is no water pressure on the expansion tank and check the air pressure with a tire pressure gauge. they only come with like 15-20psi, so if they didn't charge it before installing you could still be having leakage from the PRV. this would only apply if it is not a constant drip, if it's a constant drip it's the PRV

Quote :

"Where can i rent a transfer pump? I need to drain my water heater but it's lower than the nearest path to get it out."

lowes, home depot, harbor freight, etc... should have small transfer pumps to buy for less than $50 if you can't find a small one to rent

1/17/2019 12:51:00 PM

Quote :

"I'm guessing you left your car unlocked if there was no damage?"

correct. hard to know if they would've broken the window had it been locked, or just kept moving. it's in the suburbs. neighbors said that opportunistic theft like this happens and actually said my home had been broken into before I bought it.

I have a full security system but don't pay for monitoring. Gonna start arming it regularly and went ahead and bought a couple of Wyse cameras. It'll be challenging to figure out a good place for them that doesn't pick up road traffic and the neighbor's dog but does get anyone coming down into my driveway.

I'm really not for having a gun in the house but might look into it some more after this experience and hearing that my house has been broken into before.

1/17/2019 2:37:05 PM

I left my car unlocked one night in my driveway and someone stole the change out of my center console. If someone was that hard up I'd have given them the change and then some. RPD has a form where you can report stuff like this. I was annoyed, but mostly glad they didn't break anything, take a dump in the back, or steel my prescription sunglasses.

1/17/2019 3:00:42 PM

Quote :

" It'll be challenging to figure out a good place for them that doesn't pick up road traffic and the neighbor's dog but does get anyone coming down into my driveway. "

i had trouble too and never found a good solution and ended up puting a camera in a landscape/natural area looking back towards the house

1/17/2019 3:20:18 PM

any recommendations for wired sec cams?

1/18/2019 9:32:42 AM

for the people who have had their cars broken into, I'm curious...

how short is your driveway, or rather, how far is the distance from your car to the street? my driveway is kinda long at a slight incline and I'm supposing that potentially helps prevent theft since you'd have to actually make an effort to get to the cars.

1/18/2019 9:58:53 AM

Mine is close. It's maybe 40 feet from the sidewalk to my garage door.

1/18/2019 11:10:36 AM

Recently had an aerator installed to treat my well water for Radon.

Texa$ and louder than I thought it would be.

But that's about half the cost of what my crawlspace repair is going to take

1/18/2019 12:24:26 PM

My driveway goes down a hill and there's a spot you can park right in front of the living room with a turnaround there. I'd say it's like 30 feet or so from the street. The driveway continues around the side to the back of the house where I have a detached two car garage. It's kind of a pain to back all the way down there, so I normally park right in front where my porch walkway is. I think if I had parked in the back, even outside of the garage, this probably wouldn't have happened.

1/18/2019 4:39:11 PM

Quote :

"any recommendations for wired sec cams?"

Nest if you don't mind paying the fee, otherwise Netgear Arlo

1/18/2019 4:56:15 PM

I was hoping for wired.

I don't want to install 4 wireless cameras on 20 ft ceilings where I'll have to climb ladders and charge/replace batteries.

1/19/2019 12:24:24 PM

Isn't nest wired?

1/19/2019 3:28:08 PM

yes, USB for the cameras and the Nest Hello doorbell connects to the doorbell transformer wiring

1/21/2019 10:11:13 AM

I bought SimpliSafe package last Thanksgiving. So far so good. But I still need to make some adjustments on the cam. I can't see anything during the night now.

1/21/2019 10:40:11 AM

Thank God for the home warranty. Our thermostat went bad and we were both too intimidated to replace it ourselves. We are going to have to get over that intimidation really quick. But at least we had the warranty to fall back on and have someone come and fix it. Although, we didn't really know for sure if it was the thermostat so it was good to have someone come out and confirm our thoughts.

1/21/2019 7:38:06 PM

It's pretty hard to mess up if you want to try

1/21/2019 8:02:35 PM

My garage door is giving me fits. It's started to not want to open or close. It will start to move and then stop. I put white lithium grease on the screw and it ran silky smooth and quiet for like a day. They the noise picked back up and the movement issues returned. I've got the force knobs maxed out but it's still unreliable. The door spring might be a touch loose but it seems well enough balanced. If you lift the door up to around 3 feet it will slowly start to fall. At 3.5 to 4 feet the door stays put. Maybe its time for a replacement opener. It is almost 18 years old.

1/22/2019 11:47:21 AM

Any of you guys dealt with truss uplift before? I've started to notice small gaps between my ceilings and crown molding. A number of rooms in my house are developing small hairline cracks between the ceiling and walls, with one across a hallway ceiling. I'm wondering if this is due to truss uplift in my attic or a more serious structural problem. I haven't noticed any doors or windows sticking, and there are no obvious signs of anything like water in my crawlspace or cracks in my foundation.

I moved into the house in June during peak humidity (in Alabama, so like 80-90% humidity in the days), and as of last week, the humidity sensor in my thermostat was reading 30-40%. It's actually been so dry here lately that I've woken up with a sore throat almost every day.

[Edited on February 5, 2019 at 9:49 AM. Reason : ]

2/5/2019 9:38:10 AM

^^^ There are definitely ways to mess it up, and it's a pretty expensive fuck up if you do manage to do it.

2/5/2019 2:45:51 PM

i would give it a try, but would call someone in if I had questions.

if the house is fairly new then I wouldn't sweat it, as the included instructions are probably sufficient

2/5/2019 2:57:31 PM

Not a woe (yet) but has anyone installed solar panels? Im seriously considering it and with the Federal/Duke rebates, and the net metering at retail rate it seems to make a lot of sense.

2/5/2019 11:51:08 PM

Every installation I've seen gets about a 9-10 year return on their investment. Depending on where you live, you'll never have a $0 power bill. Grid-tied is the way to go. I'm not sure if NC has their rebates anymore, I think the Duke lobbyists got rid of it.

2/6/2019 10:14:36 AM

I finally said fuck it and replaced my garage door opener. It was pretty easy to do.

2/6/2019 2:15:08 PM

I finally put up some garage overhead storage racks (2 4'x8' racks). Was a PITA, but holy shit...the franklin professional stud finders are FUCKING AWESOME!!!!

[Edited on February 6, 2019 at 5:14 PM. Reason : racks on racks on racks]

2/6/2019 5:14:16 PM

I'm trying to enclose a space outside with an external wall and am having trouble finding a contractor to do it. I'm getting a construction company to come out now to see what can be done. Basically I have 3 exits (kitchen, living room, garage) to the same patio space and I'd like to essentially turn that into a hallway so there is just 1 door to the patio. I've had 4 contractors come out and scratch their heads.

2/7/2019 10:57:51 AM

What's there to scratch your head about? You can do anything with enough time and money.

[Edited on February 7, 2019 at 11:40 AM. Reason : can't type]

2/7/2019 11:40:09 AM

So this warm weather is bringing out wasps/hornets (I don't know how to tell the difference). I found a homemade trap to make but these assholes are taking over our back deck. No idea where they are coming from. Any tips of getting rid of them and finding the nest so we can kill them all?

2/8/2019 4:54:14 PM

I just buy the murder spray. Tracking down a hornet nest is the worst game of hide and seek ever.

2/9/2019 5:22:37 PM

is there a chance they are under your deck (how open is under your deck)? I kicked a big nest of hornets in an old walnut tree by stuffing a comforter soaked in gasoline in the hole of the trunk (it was a pretty big opening). I got lucky finding the hive, a hornet happened to fly past me as I was walking past the tree and I had been looking for the hive for a couple weeks.

2/9/2019 7:37:47 PM

Selling my current townhouse and looking to buy a single family home but good Lord the process of selling is a bitch, and the market for housing in Raleigh is a tank of piranhas

2/20/2019 4:37:26 PM

Anyone have thoughts on evaporative coolers? My dogs are mostly outdoor dogs (I have a large fenced in back yard and doggy door into the garage). In the summer they like to stay in the garage and lie on the cooler cement floor. I’ve got a window fan in there, but it still gets hot and stuffy as hell in there in the peak of summer. I saw this today and was thinking about getting one https://tools.woot.com/plus/portacools-for-everyone

Would it be too humid in Raleigh for his to work well?

2/21/2019 8:46:30 AM

i used to work for a company that had a warehouse fab shop in the back, they had fans and a couple evaporative coolers. there were times in the year that it made a bit of a difference, but they wouldn't run it in the muggiest parts of late summer because it just made it feel worse.

could you add a window unit or ductless mini-split for the garage? you wouldn't necessarily need to get one sized large enough to actually condition the garage, even an undersized unit would give some cold air if the dogs laid near it

2/21/2019 9:10:32 AM

Yeah, a little window unit might be the way to go, my hesitations for that was just that the garage is so poorly insulated I didnt want it all just escaping, and I thought this might be a little more efficient power wise as well, but it would be worth it to make it a little more comfortable in there for them

2/21/2019 3:02:35 PM

I built an evap cooler for about $20. Might be worthwhile to try
you need:
bucket of cold water $0
ultrasonic pond fogger $5
box fan $10
reusable air filter $5

ziptie the filter to the grill of the fan
put the fogger in the bucket of water behind the fan

turn on the fogger and fan.

I had one of these setup for my office which is the only hot room in my house and a was good for ~12* drop on maybe 100W of energy. you could make it way more efficient with something like a dc brushless fan and a small solar panel, but I doubt you see ROI over this super cheap setup.

this guy did something similar


[Edited on February 25, 2019 at 7:47 AM. Reason : .]

2/25/2019 7:44:42 AM

continuing my woes....

oven control board fried
fridge door closer broke
fridge door pop-out divider broke

i need out

3/8/2019 3:35:54 PM

so after saying I wasn't sure I'd own a house here, I ran across a GEM of a little house. A 1949 bungalow in the midst of some really rad mid-century modern homes. If we bought something here, my range was like 350-500 depending on the neighborhood and house. Well this one is in the midst of 500k homes (old established neighborhood) but was $300k because it's a 1000ft2. It's been inhabited by an Architect couple and for 11 years and they have 3 kids now so they are moving. But they renovated this home in a super cool way.

The open house was bustling and we put an offer in immediately (house was on the market day before) and they had '8 or 9' reasonable offers on that day per the listing agent to our agent. Did a best and final today and we just got notified that we got it.

3/11/2019 9:10:13 PM

A few weeks ago had a water sprayer break and flood about half the house. It has turned into quite a saga

It took a full week of 12 blowers and 2 dehumidifiers running 24/7 to dry the house out. They couldn't put blowers under the house because they found mold in our crawlspace, so that needs remediation and encapsulation. Insurance won't cover that because it wasn't caused by the flood. Servpro didn't remove the ducts that were filled with water for 5 days, not until I noticed there was no air coming out of those vents when we ran the heat. HVAC came in to estimate replacing the flooded ducts and said all the ducts needed replacing because there was risk of fungal growth from the water sitting in the ducts for so long and then running the system afterwards. Insurance didn't expect to have to pay for a full hvac replacement so they're fighting with servpro over who should pay for it. Now I've got servpro coming back to do air quality testing to try to get out of paying for a full replacement. Until the duct work is complete I can't schedule the crawlspace work.

I finally started putting in new floors this past week and I'm pretty sure I'm dead. My poor office job hands were swollen and tender after all the hammering and gripping and banging, plus I'm not 25 anymore. Only a third of the way through.

3/12/2019 12:03:08 PM

^^ grats man

I just bought another house but this time I'm doing the renovation before I sell my current and move in. What I'm dealing with is a crazy ceiling line. I'm getting rid of it and building a false ceiling. My hang up is losing a window above the shower. I'm considering making the ceiling of the shower glass, to let in the natural light, but I'm worried about heat loss, making the steam ineffective. Anyone with experience with this? I have a steam shower where the walls are glass with minimal loss.

also, the house has a recirc pump setup and 2 water heaters, but they aren't in series. anyone with experience of converting them to series?

[Edited on March 12, 2019 at 6:12 PM. Reason : .]

3/12/2019 6:10:36 PM

can you draw a sketch, i've very confused about your glass ceiling idea

3/15/2019 8:51:49 AM

^^ thanks! but also ^

3/20/2019 8:02:08 PM

My HVAC system is about 20 years old and uses the R-22 refrigerant, which from what I understand is being phased out at the end of the year. The system works fine and we pay to get it serviced annually, so would you say that I could wait until the fall/early winter to maybe replace it, or should I just let it ride even longer until it breaks? We've been preparing financially for a replacement, so no worries there.

Also, we have a screened porch that we'd like to turn into a sun room so we can spend more time out there and not have to deal with dirt/pollen collecting on all surfaces. The porch has one electrical outlet already and a fan w/ light, with painted wood flooring. The crawlspace underneath is closed off from the outside, and that space opens up into our basement. We don't necessarily have to heat/cool it, so I would think windows with the ability to slide open would be all we need. Is there anything else to look out for cost outside of the window/labor cost?

3/21/2019 9:00:37 AM

Quote :

"or should I just let it ride even longer until it breaks?"

Tough call, if it breaks in the heat of the summer or during a ice storm, could make for some miserable days/nights until they can replace.

3/21/2019 10:07:52 AM

If it isn't giving you issues, I'd say let it ride. However, the moment is so much as hiccups, it's time for it to go. R-22 is already stupid expensive and it's not going to get better. Just to top off the unit as a stop gap would cost a few hundred bucks. To do a complete charge would easily break $500.

3/21/2019 10:44:30 AM

^^^ I am in the same boat on the porch except not screened in. But I believe i would rather just go with closing it in with windows. Be interested if anyone else has experience with this.

3/21/2019 12:11:53 PM

^^ pretty much how I feel.

The home we are buying has a reasonably new tankless gas water heater, the sellers are replacing the roof, and the rest of the house has been meticulously updated, minus the bathroom and the 19 year old HVAC...Since it is a 1 bathroom home, I am having the bathroom taken to the studs and re-done before we move in, since that is the only time that will ever be convenient to do so. Half of me is kind of hoping to put off the HVAC install until next year after dropping 10-15k on a bathroom remodel (Since the HVAC will likely require a new AHU in addition to the condensing unit) while the other half of me is saying just replace it now during the 2 month period we are remodeling the bathroom and just be DONE with invasive install (we might have to take out a portion of the ceiling or soffit to get a new AHU into the attic). I have the money to do both, and at 19 years old in Texas, it will need to be replaced in the next few years regardless...

3/21/2019 5:56:02 PM