save your money, wait til fall

3/5/2010 8:59:56 PM

Quote :

"anybody planting grass this spring? i'm wondering if next week is a good time to do so...i know the earlier the better"

The time of year to plant depends on the species of grass. I'm planting centipede grass in my yard next month. If you're going to plant a fescue varietal, you should wait until the late-summer or fall.

3/8/2010 11:12:17 AM

^ if you do decide to throw some seed out it will take. You will just need to water it all the damn time.

Any of you ever lay your own brick sidewalk? I need to make a walk from my driveway to the front porch. It will be roughly 20ft long and 4ft wide. No curves - just a straight run. Wondering what a ballpark for something like this would run me if I did it myself and then what would it cost me if I had someone do it. I want to use brick - not any of that shaped concrete, just standard paver brick.

Any of you have a "guy" that you would recommend? Where would a do-it-yourselfer get the material from?

3/8/2010 2:51:55 PM

^it's fairly easy to do...especially if its a straight shot. Hardest part is digging the path. Pavers will run around 50 cents each for the standard 4x8 at a hardware store...could probably get them for a bit cheaper if you went to a supplier.

You'd need to dig the path, pour a layer of sand (a layer of drainage gravel can be put under the sand, but it's probably not necessary in this situation), tamp the sand (rent a tamper or hand tamp), lay the pavers (need a brick saw to cut any odd pieces, if necessary) and sweep/water sand in the cracks to lock everything in place.

Probably looking at around $500 to do it yourself, depending on what equipment you rent and what you already have....I did a ~9'x15' patio (still have a small bit to finish up) for around 700-800 and it's on a hill, so it was partially raised which increased the cost a bit.

3/8/2010 3:52:20 PM

The electrician lost the keys to my house. And he wonders why the fuck I didn't install my new locks prior to him coming over... There are 3 different keys for that in will each open different doors because the locks are not all keyed the same... I purchased a new set for the entire house so I only need one key, but I didn't want to give my new key to the electrician to have for the entire day... I'm still pissed he lost the current keys. I mean, there's nothing in the house right now. WHERE THE FUCK COULD YOU HAVE PUT THEM?! It's just the principle of the matter that pisses me off.

That, and the damn plumber was about to replace a perfectly good pipe instead of the leaking one... Are you fucking serious? I caught him after he had dug around the foundation and prior to cutting the pipe out... Good thing I had time to stop by and check on his progress. I mean, shit, he had even came out for the written estimate!

I swear... I'm about to blow my lid with this house and I haven't even slept under the roof yet.

3/8/2010 10:26:49 PM

where have you been finding your electricians/plumbers?

3/8/2010 11:26:25 PM

my guess is message_section.aspx?section=5

3/9/2010 8:13:44 AM

i was gonna guess http://raleigh.craigslist.org/sks/

3/9/2010 12:13:31 PM

Ok I have moved on from a brick walk to a gravel walk. Any of you gone that route? Seem like it will be a bit easier to do.

3/9/2010 2:59:35 PM

^A gravel walk sucks. Don't do it.

3/9/2010 3:34:08 PM

At this time that's all I can do. I do not want to have a mulch walk.

3/9/2010 4:25:39 PM

Quote :

"where have you been finding your electricians/plumbers?"

Electrician was through a friend who recommended him and has used him many houses in the past. My experience has to be an outlier, but still shitty "luck" regardless.

The plumber was one the previous residence recommended. They are in the BBB ( I can't recall the Co. off the top of my head) and the previous owners (they are good people) have used them in the past when the kitchen and bathrooms were redone. On a positive note, the plumber billed me for $125 less due to the communication error on their part. Can't complain about that.

[Edited on March 9, 2010 at 5:33 PM. Reason : .]

3/9/2010 5:31:52 PM

How much should a new construction home settle. I'm talking more a long the lines of seal between counters and the wall...base boards...door frames etc.

I'm not really referring to cracks in the foundation or walls.

kk thanks

3/9/2010 7:06:59 PM

^ in most cases that mainly has to do with the weather and the way you run your hvac. the colder it gets the more you run your heat. the more you run your heat the dryer the air in the house gets (itchy skin too). when the air gets dry the moisture that is in the materials comes out and the materials shrink.

thats also why doors stick and swell in the summer when it is so humid.

3/9/2010 9:00:55 PM

Quote :

"Any of you ever lay your own brick sidewalk? I need to make a walk from my driveway to the front porch. It will be roughly 20ft long and 4ft wide. No curves - just a straight run. Wondering what a ballpark for something like this would run me if I did it myself and then what would it cost me if I had someone do it. I want to use brick - not any of that shaped concrete, just standard paver brick. Any of you have a "guy" that you would recommend? Where would a do-it-yourselfer get the material from?"

I know you said you wanted to do grave, but, hear me out.

I have done brick pavers before and the key is the sand bed. The first thing you should do is excavate the bedding down to about 6" below grade with 2" deeper trenches (8" total) on either side. Run a string down the border of the sidewalk and lay a mortar bed in the trench. put a soldier course in the mortar bed set to line and grade by the string. Once you get the borders in, take a 2x4 2" longer than the width of the sidewalk and cut a notch the thickness of a brick out of the end. (use this to smooth the sand). put 2" of sand bed between the soldiers and compact (make sure you have too much) and use the board you just made to screed the sand down to perfect grade in relation to the soldier course. once the sand bed is in, start installing the brick.

for comparison, if you were to sub it out, expect to pay upwards of $10/SF for such a small qty.

for DIY, i would buy $50 to $60 worth of bagged sand and bricks from lowe's (+/- $175 total)

for free bricks, drive to chapel hill or ncsu, find a jobsite and ask for the bricks. we haul ours to the dump because they aren't worth restacking. (can't get anything for them)

[Edited on March 9, 2010 at 9:18 PM. Reason : .]

3/9/2010 9:15:44 PM

What should I expect to pay per yard for triple shredded mulch?

3/10/2010 12:04:30 AM

I just paid $26 from Mulch Masters but found out that I could have gotten it cheaper from Family Home and Garden.

3/10/2010 7:08:39 AM

I have a very strange plumbing issue that perhaps one of you can help with.

I have two bathrooms in my house, both are right beside each other and share a wall. The sinks are right next to each other, on each side of the shared wall. For whatever reason, every now and then when I turn the faucet on in the master bathroom it will "drain" into the sink in the guest bathroom. I turn on the water and it will fill up the master bath sink as if there is a clog, then slowly drain and fill up the sink in the guest bathroom. This will fill up then slowly drain and just go away as normal. As far as I can tell, there is no pattern as to when it does this... I've brushed my teeth tons of times and had it drain normally, but then one night it will randomly regurgitate into the guest sink. So far it has only happened like four times over the past 2 months or so when shaving or brushing my teeth, but I've shaved and brushed multiple times without it happening. I tried pouring some liquid plumber in there, but it just went down the sink like normal water would. I guess I could wait until it is "clogged" again and pour some liquid plumber in there, but there is no telling when it will happen again.

3/10/2010 11:03:46 AM

I'm not a plumber but it sounds unlikely to be a clog (in the way you are thinking about it) since it fills the other sink up and then drains slowly. I imagine it to be a venting problem, sewage pipes have to be vented or the air in the pipes become compressed and resists the flow. More than likely you have a pipe sticking up out of your roof (although it could have a cover/box over it) and it could be blocked or clogged (liquid plumber won't travel up) causing intermittent drainage problems.

3/10/2010 11:37:05 AM

hoa assessments due to the 75" of snowfall removal.

granted, it's like, $120 for me, and they had people out with atvs with plows and dudes with shovels all the time


but still

3/11/2010 11:15:24 PM

Did the home inspection, and close on my house in 14 days.

3/12/2010 2:58:17 AM

^same, but i close in about 40 days.

very minor stuff found in my inspection. two things that concerned me. the first being a broken tress in the attic which appears to have been repaired, but its broken none the less. i cant figure out what could have caused it to break for the life of me as its only an 02. the second was some wet insulation right below the master bath drain. we think its likely the drain not being properly sealed.

any ideas on the severity of a broken (albeit repaired) tress?

3/12/2010 6:15:24 AM

It probably got broken while they were installing. As long as it is just one you should be ok especially if it is repaired.

3/12/2010 8:35:46 AM

got an offer 22nd of feb on the old house, closed and bought a new house on march 10. I am now staring at a 24' box truck and pod full of crap that needs to be unloaded this weekend. I love the new place though

3/12/2010 9:23:44 AM

Quote :

"any ideas on the severity of a broken (albeit repaired) tress?"

As long as they repaired it correctly, the truss should be fine.

3/12/2010 11:00:54 PM

so whenever it rains, i get rainwater accumulating in a path through the middle of my backyard



it's not the worst flooding in the world, but if there's something i could do to remedy it, i would consider it. am i stuck with it?

3/13/2010 11:13:26 PM

^ You could have the lot re-graded. That's a pretty drastic move however.

3/13/2010 11:38:58 PM

in my completely uninformed assumptions, i was thinking more along the lines of


re: this article

[Edited on March 13, 2010 at 11:49 PM. Reason : .]

3/13/2010 11:46:44 PM

eww, wet

3/14/2010 4:58:55 PM

You can do the drainage pretty easily. We are about to tackle ours as well, just find somewhere downhill, plan appropriately and go to town.

For us, the lowest point near us, by several feet, is the street. We will be running the drain pipe from some select locations in the backyard to a line that runs to the street.

My backyard currently turns into a wet sponge for a week after it rains.

3/14/2010 7:04:25 PM

Man, this stuff keeps getting better.

I got a phone call today from my real estate agent telling me that USDA funds (the loan I am getting is backed by the USDA) are running low, and I need to move my closing date up by about 3 weeks to ensure I still get mine. Trying to get the sellers to "rent it out" for a week or two to help offset some of the extra costs...

buying a house is just as stressful as I imagined..

3/16/2010 11:37:34 AM

Are you doing your financing through your Realtor? I may be being skeptical here but why wouldn't your lender contact you with this info as opposed to your Realtor?

3/16/2010 4:56:07 PM

sorry about the confusion. she was working with the lender who had mentioned it to her first. i then went to talk to wells fargo about it (my lender). as best i know, it makes sense to me as to why we are doing it. still, its a bit of a rush as now i need to move up other things based on how long the sellers will rent out the place for.

3/16/2010 6:13:43 PM

has anyone ever had moss issues with your lawn? how did you fix it?

i put a bunch of lime down over early in the winter, but i'm not sure how much that helped. next step is to check the ph and see how much it helped...

3/17/2010 5:31:46 PM

Crap, cause of all of the rain and snow I totally forgot to fertilize the lawn last month

ugh, i hate lawn care. it's so frustrating.

3/17/2010 9:03:34 PM

As I have said previously (I think), I'm moving into new construction. The property was sodded and I can't tell if it is dormant or dead. Anyone know when grass starts to turn green again?

I close on my house in 8 days.

3/18/2010 3:19:41 AM

my grass hasn't turned green yet.

3/18/2010 9:03:05 AM

I've got bermuda that's still brown, zoysia that's still brown, St. Augustine's that's still brown, fescue that's still brown, and fescue that the dogs whiz on all the time that's green like nobody's bidness.

3/18/2010 10:09:19 AM

I need some help with finishing up my bar. I have the 2x4 frames in but I'm not sure the best way to sheetrock this.

1. How do you sheetrock two sides adjoining at the corner edge? I'm assuming I need one of those corner braces.
2. On the bottom edge where the frame meets the carpet, is it better to cut away carpet and sheetrock all the way down to floor and put a base trim on?

Your help is appreciated as I need to get this done by Sunday!



[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 4:41 PM. Reason : k]

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 4:45 PM. Reason : k]

3/18/2010 4:40:06 PM

1. you need an outside corner there.
2. just leave your carpet the way it is and buy a piece of base moulding that matches the existing.

3/18/2010 5:10:26 PM

2. you mean it's ok to put sheetrock and basetrim on top of carpet?

3/18/2010 8:40:43 PM

yes

3/18/2010 9:55:41 PM

I've got two bathroom sinks that drain slowly. I think the 55 year old cast iron pipes under the house are the issue

Oh and the waste pipe for the washer overflows, so water spills onto the laundry floor. Thank goodness the laundry room is outside of the house, but still... I think this is actually a ventilation issue since the pipe inner diameter is a hair larger than the washer's waster pipe's outer diameter... I'm sure the previous owner never noticed this issue before. I only noticed it cause I could hear the water spilling over when I was outside working in the room while the washer was going...

3/24/2010 2:11:08 AM

^ Iron pipe that old are bound to be full of god knows what.

Typical Example:

3/24/2010 11:54:24 AM

Fucking mice are back. Back under the house I go....

3/24/2010 3:08:54 PM

^^ wow. I do not look forward to this upcoming repair.

Just finished wiring another flood light. Just 1 flood light and 1 lamp to go...

Ugh, that's just nasty.

[Edited on March 24, 2010 at 7:05 PM. Reason : .]

3/24/2010 6:58:15 PM

is it hard to wire new lights? do i just tap into existing electrical line? any tips/good links appreciated

3/24/2010 11:08:11 PM

adding new lights where existing lights are is fairly easy. adding new lights where there is currently no electrical should require and electrician.

3/25/2010 3:40:57 PM

bought a lawn mower Monday to cut my grass for the first time. When I pulled it out of the box there was a medium sized grease stain under it. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Wednesday I noticed a puddle under my new mower, I thought to myself thats funny I would think the water from hosing it off would have evaporated by now. Today the puddle was still there and did a full on investigation. Turns out that my gear box was leaking grease, its a sealed system and should not be doing this. Fortunately when I called lowes they said I could take it back and trade it in, unfortunately I have to deal with the hassle of fitting it in the trunk of my new car and rig it so I don't get grease all over as well as damage my car in the process

3/25/2010 10:35:26 PM

^what lowes? i have to go tomorrow. we could throw it in the back of the truck if you are close to downtown

3/26/2010 7:43:27 PM