Home Improvement

Arative

Arative

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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So it turns out it was a 3 by 3 piece of insulation that was caught on the blower. It must have been right up against the filter when I changed it and it just got pushed to the other side when I put a new filter in. Took the guy all of two minutes to fix it.
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
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Awesome. Quick, easy fix. That's what you want every time!

On an unrelated note, I have a squirrel in my eaves. I have some questionable wood on decorative beams, and in all this snow, the squirrels took the time to make a hole. There's no way I can reasonably change out the wood with the snow the way it currently is, any suggestions?

I thought I'd put heavy duty rat poison in the hole, plenty of it, and slap a piece of treated 3/4 inch plywood over the bad section until I can get to it in better weather. The rat poison dries them out, so they don't stink. And, in the cold weather, it likely won't stink anyway. I'm hoping the worst of it is gone by spring, and there isn't a stink.

Thoughts?
 
Vinen

Vinen

God is dead
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lurkingdirk_sl said:
Awesome. Quick, easy fix. That's what you want every time!

On an unrelated note, I have a squirrel in my eaves. I have some questionable wood on decorative beams, and in all this snow, the squirrels took the time to make a hole. There's no way I can reasonably change out the wood with the snow the way it currently is, any suggestions?

I thought I'd put heavy duty rat poison in the hole, plenty of it, and slap a piece of treated 3/4 inch plywood over the bad section until I can get to it in better weather. The rat poison dries them out, so they don't stink. And, in the cold weather, it likely won't stink anyway. I'm hoping the worst of it is gone by spring, and there isn't a stink.

Thoughts?
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Traps in the general area?
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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I actually screwed a large, spring rat trap to the rotten beam. I've caught three squirrels today. A few more days like this, and I'll be okay closing that beam back up.
 
Brando

Asshat Brando

Potato del Grande
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Fucking $5 wax ring failed and my toilet in my master bedroom is leaking down to the first floor. Time to cut open the ceiling!
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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Dry that shit out really well, and see if you can't salvage it with plaster repair, rather than tearing out drywall.
 
Brando

Asshat Brando

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That's the plan as my insurance deductable is $1,000 so I'll be getting no relief there.
 
A

Akeema

Trakanon Raider
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Brando_sl said:
Fucking $5 wax ring failed and my toilet in my master bedroom is leaking down to the first floor. Time to cut open the ceiling!
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I am a field supervisor for a water damage restoration company. What type of flooring do you have in the master bathroom? If it's tile or vinyl it needs to be removed. The glue or thin set will lock moisture into the sub floor. While it will eventually dry out you run the risk of mold or rot. Who knows how long it has been slow leaking before it finally gave way. Also, just putting fans on the ceiling drywall may or may not dry it all the way through. Plus you have to worry about all the framing in between the two floors, not to mention the backside of the drywall. If it doesn't dry all the way through it will mold. I have seen it way to many times. My advice is to put in a claim. Depending on who your insurance company is, they should have a couple companies they use for water damage. If that restoration company does program work for your insurance then if they miss something or mess up repairs, they have to fix it on their dime or risk the insurance company dropping them. All work is guaranteed. Just from the sound of it, the demo and drydown alone will definitely go over your deductible. This is just my advice.
 
Brando

Asshat Brando

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Akeema_sl said:
I am a field supervisor for a water damage restoration company. What type of flooring do you have in the master bathroom? If it's tile or vinyl it needs to be removed. The glue or thin set will lock moisture into the sub floor. While it will eventually dry out you run the risk of mold or rot. Who knows how long it has been slow leaking before it finally gave way. Also, just putting fans on the ceiling drywall may or may not dry it all the way through. Plus you have to worry about all the framing in between the two floors, not to mention the backside of the drywall. If it doesn't dry all the way through it will mold. I have seen it way to many times. My advice is to put in a claim. Depending on who your insurance company is, they should have a couple companies they use for water damage. If that restoration company does program work for your insurance then if they miss something or mess up repairs, they have to fix it on their dime or risk the insurance company dropping them. All work is guaranteed. Just from the sound of it, the demo and drydown alone will definitely go over your deductible. This is just my advice.
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Couple of things:

1. The metal flange was completely rusted away so it wasn't the wax ring.
2. The flange is 1/2 inch below the floor. I ended up having to stack 2 wax rings to make up the height difference but this morning I noticed water around the toilet so that might not have worked.
3. The subfloor was partially rotten away which made using the flange replacement kit a bit frustrating.
4. Opening he ceiling the copper pipes stop upon entry into the house and it's some wierd type of plastic. A joint is leaking which makes me wonder where the water from the rusted out flange is going.

All in all I'm pretty pissed......
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Hope this isn't going to be the same thing Brando is going through, but it is bathroom and water related. Basically I thought that my toilet was leaking and it was the seal between the tank and the bowl, so replaced those out. But recently there has been some additional water showing up around the toilet. My concern now is that a couple of the tiles around the toilet I can step on and water will squeeze out to the surface. Crappy (haha) pic attached for reference (spoiled because they were a little big).

My next thought is to pull up the toilet and replace whatever seal / fitting is in between there, but it doesn't fix my concern with the water under the tiles. I'm also about 90% sure this is the ceiling of the basement closet underneath my master bathroom / toilet. Get a little turned around walking down the stairs, looping back around, through the garage, etc...

Who the hell do I call for this? Just a plumber? One year later and still feel like a noob to this owning a home BS.

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Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
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Can you still purchase those exact floor tiles in whatever store they originally came from? If so I'd be tempted to tear out a few and see what the sub-floor looks like, if it's drenched, moldy, or what. Tear out a few that are full-sized so you don't have to screw with cutting the replacement tiles(assuming you don't end up tearing up the entire floor due to water damage anyways)
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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No idea where the original homeowner got them from. Tomorrow I'm going to cut a 5x5 or so hole in to the downstairs ceiling and see if I can see up in to that.
 
Julian The Apostate

Julian The Apostate

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I have a 250 gal above ground LP tank that I want to get rid of. Looks like it only might be a couple years old and in great condition. Any have any advice?
 
Brando

Asshat Brando

Potato del Grande
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Intrinsic_sl said:
Hope this isn't going to be the same thing Brando is going through, but it is bathroom and water related. Basically I thought that my toilet was leaking and it was the seal between the tank and the bowl, so replaced those out. But recently there has been some additional water showing up around the toilet. My concern now is that a couple of the tiles around the toilet I can step on and water will squeeze out to the surface. Crappy (haha) pic attached for reference (spoiled because they were a little big).

My next thought is to pull up the toilet and replace whatever seal / fitting is in between there, but it doesn't fix my concern with the water under the tiles. I'm also about 90% sure this is the ceiling of the basement closet underneath my master bathroom / toilet. Get a little turned around walking down the stairs, looping back around, through the garage, etc...

Who the hell do I call for this? Just a plumber? One year later and still feel like a noob to this owning a home BS.

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Pull up the toilet and see if you can tell what is going on. The replacement flange parts are super cheap if it's just the flange being broken whereas the plumber will charge you over $100 to just do the same thing you'll end up doing.

Good luck
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P

Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Ordered diamond prelude plywood construction stratmore alpine white cabinets today. Paid 4k in gift cards from raise.con..my brother dubbed it operation jew rat. Ended up finding a guy I liked at another lowes and he ended up saving me about 1k over the dbag at local lowes.

Also ordered 2 Marvin integrity windows for 1k. I hear they're top notch so I'm excited to see.
 
D

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
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I've got a project in mind, but it appears I need to hire an engineer to check shit out. I want to remove an old exterior wall from my house, or at least part of it. As you can see in the picture, you're looking towards the back of my house. On the left hand side you see our dining room with a square window. This is an old exterior window. To the left is the kitchen and you can see a doorway between the two rooms.

Behind both room is a breakfast room as we call it. Our house is a bilevel so the first floor is about 4-5 feet off the ground. This room is on supports (nothing underneath) and not tied into the foundation. The floor is also support by cantilever beams that are tied into the floor as well (you can see this in the basement area).

I want to take the portions of the wall away from the old exterior window and open up the doorway in the kitchen area so it's almost all open. The only existing portion of the wall will be the end portion of the wall between the kitchen and dining room.

Unfortunately I don't know how much of that wall is load bearing and how much is transfered to the new exterior wall. I don't know what kind of beam is placed in the ceiling of the old exterior wall. I can't get underneath it because the wall is actually jutting out 2-3 three feet from the foundation. And the attic doesn't extend to the outer wall.

I'm going to have to hire an engineer and he's going to have to tear open my walls. This sucks since I don't know if I want to do the work just yet.
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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If it ever was an exterior wall, 100% of it is load bearing, and 100% of it will need to be supported by a substantial beam. Whether you can see it or not, your roof line, at one point, sat on that wall if it was an exterior wall.

This isn't hard to do yourself. Do a good job of bracing things, take the wall out, over engineer a beam, install and support. Make sure there is adequate support in the basement. Boom. Done. How big the beam has to be depends on how much of a span you want to make. How open do you want to make this?

And, in my opinion, rather than spending money on an engineer, and then money to do the project, spend money once, and get a contractor that will guarantee the work, and be done with it.
 
Vinen

Vinen

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Anyone have any experience soundproofing rooms from traffic, outside, etc? The house I purchased is on a busy street and one of the rooms gets some noise (not enough to block sleeping, etc). Wife and I are considering soundproofing it in the future. We were thinking Quietrock-530 and another pane of glass on the inside of our windows.
 
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