Home Improvement

Kajiimagi said:

And I've lived in multiple 2 story house/apartments/condos in the US South (Humidity is not your friend) that only had 1 AC unit. In fact, I've never had 2 units that one of them wasn't sticking out a window

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Did they have furnaces as well? Maybe that makes the difference in air ducting.

Captain Suave said:

That seems low by quite a lot. HVAC vendors don't even list single units that can cool a 5600 square foot house. I have a 4-ton for a 2200 sq ft place (Zone 2).

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https://hvacdirect.com/sizing-air-conditioner-and-heater.html

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Yep. 5600 square feet is def 2+ units likely 3. Having 1 unit for that just seems dumb. So much unnecessary cooling.

I'm getting a 4ton installed next week (replacement for deadge unit) for about 2000 square feet. Getting a Heat pump as well since it was an option that just seems worth it since my Furnace is ancient as fuck.

Depends on if it's a finished or unfinished basement? When I lived up north, we had a regular door "sealing" off our unfinished basements. I don't think there were any registers in the basement, or if there were, it was only one or two for the whole area. I distinctly remember the sump pump in one house starting to freeze over, during one particular cold spell.

So if someone started off with an unfinished basement, then finished it out themselves, I could see how they may have forgot to upgrade the AC.

Lanx said:

yea i'm pre planning my move back to jersey in a few years and every house i looked at (and lived in) is all window units. i would def ripout all the window units (they would probably just take em anyway, ha) do a multi-zone config

especially since they'll act like heatpumps in the winter too and jersey is all baseboard heating or worse fucking steam boiler

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This is why I got the heat pump. I'm on Gas Boiler with forced hot water heating. I'm going to just run that the minimum this winter and try and leverage the heat pump as much as possible.

I really want to try geothermal but it has a huge upfront cost and not many people know how to do it in Texas (it can work, supposedly, but the engineering is a bit different than up north).

Explanation for anyone not sure about how they work, from University of Illinois Energy/Nuclear Engineering Professor:

Burns said:

I really want to try geothermal but it has a huge upfront cost and not many people know how to do it in Texas.

Explanation for anyone not sure about how they work, from University of Illinois Energy/Nuclear Professor:

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So far as I've seen it's basically only cost effective in long term homes and with geological conditions that are extremely predictable.

Palum said:

So far as I've seen it's basically only cost effective in long term homes and with geological conditions that are extremely predictable.

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I was figuring, on a new house build on an empty piece of property, if you have the wells for it drilled at the same time you are having a water well drilled (using the same company), then it would make the math work out much better, but never actually priced it out.

It's also supposed to be a much simpler system, to where I may even be able to do most repairs, which is worth some cost consideration.

Lanx said:

doesn't texas land shift a lot? i remember watching a youtube and texas foundations need to be super rebarred and even strapped in, or they'll snap crackle and pop

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The clay expands and contracts a lot, but there are plenty of people using water wells, so dunno how a well for geothermal would be any different.

Lanx said:

doesn't texas land shift a lot? i remember watching a youtube and texas foundations need to be super rebarred and even strapped in, or they'll snap crackle and pop

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People actually have systems to water the clay near their foundation or something IIRC?

Anyone delt w ceiling termites w not tenting? Or is that the only real option

ToeMissile said:

Depending on the severity they can do this drill and spray stuff into the holes/termite tunnels

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I have been doing a 5 die pattern of drill holes on any pin-hole knock out hole I see and spray the 3M foam termicide.

I can't really get in my attic is the problem but I am going to buy some spray and try and get up there this weekend.

They seem localized to a corner of my bedroom and move a bit each time I spray. They tend to reappear in a few weeks after the foam.

There are some local 'no tent' guys with genuntees. But if they are a few K$ and tenting is not much more... May just tent I suppose.

I want to see what I can see if I can get in my attic.

110$ + the killer juice is worth it to me. Just let it run in the attic.

I have an attic access in my room, we have a little hallway that has a bifold door closet, then the bathroom and walk-in closet - there is an attic access there - but its close to where the roof eves drop down and there is a large AC duct work so it is hard to get over - my AC ducts are duct-board not flex tube so its large. But i could just set up the fogger up there and it is above the room where there are the buggies.

I do have soffits with perforated holes so the fog will escape that- but I figure there would be a decent back pressure to allow the fog to do some help... also I have old blown in insulation...so that is also in the way.

We had termites at my old house. As it was explained to me, termites have to leave your house and return to the colony so they drilled all around my house every 3-6 feet and pump chemicals into the ground. Basically acts as a barrier. Nothing can get past it and nothing inside can get out, so after a year or two they will all die. Worked for us. Cost about $1500 or so if I remember, maybe less. But this was 10 years ago so I’m sure it double that now.

So I'm now coming to the end of year two of my lawn restoration. It wasn't at disaster level yet but a few problems, bug damage, dead spots, weeds like nutsedge that weren't controlled by the lawn company, shitty cheap contractor grass strains, bad irrigation, compacted soil, etc. When I bought it they had a shitty old sprinkler controller which meant the irrigated area was watered daily. Consequently the roots were very shallow.

Last year I had the lawn chemical people do plug aeration and overseed in the fall. One back area I had regraded and hydroseeded. The overseeding did nothing noteworthy, the hydroseeding had tons of weeds but thinned out a lot the first winter. Thankfully they did get lime every year so pH wasn't terrible.

This year I treated got cinch bugs earlier (late April) and had basically zero bug damage finally. I tried Scott's seed in the spring in to patch a few areas (it was in sale), and it was very spotty. I've also slowly been acquiring equipment to eventually wind down the chemical service that doesn't do a great job for the price.

I decided one last hurrah before I consider more drastic measures. I detached the whole yard, spread some 50/50 in a few areas where the soil was a bit lacking nutrients and then I over/reseeded the lawn with Jonathan Green Black Beauty Ultra seed. I covered any bare area with straw topcoat.

The new seed is coming in very well, so I think they lawn is going to actually bounce back. My plan is to dethatch, aerate and overseed with BBU every year for a few more years and let the shitty 30 year old shallow root strains get outcompeted. I know my side yard was almost 100% fine fescue, so I'm hoping the KBG will repair minor bare spots on it's own.

Assuming everything comes in strong next spring, I'll add a soil conditioner treatment and do it all again, will be trying moss killer in a few shady areas as well.

Really sucks to have to do all this but I'm hoping if I can get it recovered nicely I can cut back on treatment cycle once the lawn is healthy and just do a basic 4+bug treatment cycle and drop the lawn service to irrigation open and close. Bleh.