Home Improvement

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Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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IMHO, the job was worth every bit of $200, and not much more. I don't think it really did much. What did make some difference in the summer was installing a powerful gable end fan with a thermostat.

That sounds about right. They were asking $3200 (ROFL). I'll DIY it if I get inspired.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Biggest thing that helped my house is blowing in about 12"-15" insulation. There was about 2" up there before. It cost about $500 for the treated cellulose at the time and home cheapo gave me the machine to use for the day free. This is for a 2000 sqft ranch BTW. Took about 6 hours with me in the attic and the wife down below feeding the machine. Of course we took breaks too. We had a couple of hiccups with the line plugging, but when we worked out the kinks it went smooth. Before this in the summer the house struggled to get below 75-76. The AC ran all day and it would just not cool. You could literally feel the heat coming from the ceiling when you stuck your hand up. After the insulation ive never had a problem with AC again and can easily cool the place down the the low 70s prob even high 60s if I wanted to.

Its a pretty fucking EZ process blowing that shit in really. Just point the tube and it blows, lol. And the dude at the cheapo told me the cellulose is better, dont know if this was BS or what, but from experience it works, and works well. I would choose this method over the battons any day. Its just easier if you have the machine working correct. Because you dont have to be on our knees spreading the fiberglass into every nook. You can stand back like 6-8 feet and blow the shit in. But you do need that second person to break up the cellulose initially and feed it to the machine. The wife served that purpose.

Insulation is the only thing that will help.
 
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Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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I would be up for that approach if I could just blow shit in and not have to worry about specific depth and meeting an R value. How much do I blow up there? Well... "A lot." Oh, okay sounds good! Machine goes bbbrrrrrrr.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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I would be up for that approach if I could just blow shit in and not have to worry about specific depth and meeting an R value. How much do I blow up there? Well... "A lot." Oh, okay sounds good! Machine goes bbbrrrrrrr.
Yep, its exactly what we did. I mean we had the bottom of the roof girders/truss to gauge how much. Basically going over them by a few inches. Then you just looked at the whole attic and saw it was pretty much equal after and added some to places where it looked low. Its not rocket science, its just blowing some shit to some set arbitrary depth, which for us was like 12-15 in or so.

R value of cellulose is about R3.5 per inch. So R40 something, at minimum of 12 in? good enough and better than any single layer of fiberglass batten.
 
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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
<Silver Donator>
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I helped my brother do his blown-in insulation. It was fun and easy.
 

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I just did blown in insulation in one of my rental property attics in December. It was 1380' square feet and it cost $1700. It looks like I am saving about about $100 a month on heating bills so far.

It probably would have been about $800-$900 if I had rented the machine and bought the material from Lowes/Home Depot and done it myself, but I pretty busy right now and needed to get it done before the cold winter months.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Yeah that shit back in the day did not cost so much, lol. this was back in like 2008ish I swore I paid like $500, maybe $600? Did you do it yourself?
 

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
25,443
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I did it more than a decade ago. Here you really have to make sure you get it done this time of year or earlier. Or you instantly die of heat exhaustion in the attic in the summer.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
65,159
146,767
I did it more than a decade ago. Here you really have to make sure you get it done this time of year or earlier. Or you instantly die of heat exhaustion in the attic in the summer.
i remember one time i went up to install cat5e (i think it was to relocate the main bnc cable wire honestly, cuz that shit does not bend)

and i came out looking like the borderlands cover cuz of the heat
Borderlandscover.jpg
 

Siliconemelons

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
11,839
17,788
HD and Lowes rents the blow insulation machines - the trend is moving away from blown in as it can be a pain when you go to do anything up there.

Here is a fun idea, for that cost- replace your water heater with a heat pump one and vent the air into your attic... if you are wanting cool in the attic that is.
 

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Here is a fun idea, for that cost- replace your water heater with a heat pump one and vent the air into your attic... if you are wanting cool in the attic that is.
Admittedly, I wasn't sure what you were talking about. But Google found an article about it.

 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
65,159
146,767
i am having no luck w/ home stores this month

i notice a really big gap (vertically) from the asphalt road in my culdesac to my driveway (probably cuz i drove my civic, and yea... the fender does have a lower lip kit on it, but thats only b/c my front fender is trash and the lip kit hides it!).
none of my neighbors have a gap, just a nice smooth ramp, imo it's probably also b/c my house is also where the water in the culdesac drains (the storm grate is right next to my driveway)

so i probably have more asphalt erosion than most.

so i thought, just buy a bucket of asphalt right?
2619450eca6ac4a993c04da7af0ae5e3.png

wtf, the next bucket is 23$ or i drive to nashville for this.

so i guess i'll try lowes
59f42fbbe7a3c912c3f267647be2dc6c.png

why is it a week later? is it actually in the store? (this is the same store that "lost" 415 fire bricks)
 

ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
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Does anyone have any experience having an ADU built?

My wife’s parents are getting on in years and ready to downsize, they still live in the 2 story 2800sqft house they bought in the late 80's - the stairs are too much and they don’t need or want to maintain the extra space. Money isn’t really an issue but TLDR we have room on our property to comfortably place a 500-600sqft residence in the back.

After some initial research, looks like cost will be around $300k.
 

Palum

what Suineg set it to
26,457
41,107
Does anyone have any experience having an ADU built?

My wife’s parents are getting on in years and ready to downsize, they still live in the 2 story 2800sqft house they bought in the late 80's - the stairs are too much and they don’t need or want to maintain the extra space. Money isn’t really an issue but TLDR we have room on our property to comfortably place a 500-600sqft residence in the back.

After some initial research, looks like cost will be around $300k.

You won't recoup it all and costs are outrageous. IMO, the only reasons to ever build a significant addition or ADU are if you have something you can't replace on your property (school zone, water rights, mineral rights, ag land, family legacy, etc.).

Also, IMO, the main issue with ADUs is most properties can't support it and by that I mean they aren't 5+ acres with a large well kept modern house and a small ADU/guest house that gets built later, they're on a smaller lot with a 30 year old ranch and a new tiny home that just got wedged into the corner.
 

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
<Medals Crew>
46,545
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Does anyone have any experience having an ADU built?

My wife’s parents are getting on in years and ready to downsize, they still live in the 2 story 2800sqft house they bought in the late 80's - the stairs are too much and they don’t need or want to maintain the extra space. Money isn’t really an issue but TLDR we have room on our property to comfortably place a 500-600sqft residence in the back.

After some initial research, looks like cost will be around $300k.

The biggest hurdle (other than cost) will be permits. Questions will have to be answered: new power meter? That requires severing a lot. Shared drive to the road? Lots of permits needed for that as well as planning permission from the county. Can't have a shared sewage system for two single family homes on the same property. Even without any of that, you'll have to have a tax assessment done, either on your single property with two dwellings, or on your lot and the lot on which the ADU is built. Expect to pay substantially more taxes. You also have to have surveyors out to mark things like septic fields, because there will be a certain distance structures have to be away from it, and other septic fields also have to be a certain distance away. Don't forget to budget high for site work, too.

The least sexy part of building is the permit process. It takes forever, and is expensive. I'd estimate $60K in permit work all in all.

It's a great idea. I have friends who are doing just this, and it is such a great plan for aging parents. One benefit in severing a lot and making it an independent dwelling is that if your parents get to a point where they have to move to a more assisted living place you can sell that house. So while I understand you want it super close to you, there's an argument for having it out of sight of your house, too.

Just random thoughts.
 

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
23,377
42,455
Does anyone have any experience having an ADU built?

My wife’s parents are getting on in years and ready to downsize, they still live in the 2 story 2800sqft house they bought in the late 80's - the stairs are too much and they don’t need or want to maintain the extra space. Money isn’t really an issue but TLDR we have room on our property to comfortably place a 500-600sqft residence in the back.

After some initial research, looks like cost will be around $300k.
Look into boxabl or some of the other companies putting out ADUs and tiny houses. Unless you are building something that requires massive infrastructure to get water/sewer/electric out to there is absolutely no reason it should cost $300k.

First, though, check your local city/county/state laws to see if there are any specific bans or restrictions on ADUs.

 
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Burns

Avatar of War Slayer
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Look into boxabl or some of the other companies putting out ADUs and tiny houses. Unless you are building something that requires massive infrastructure to get water/sewer/electric out to there is absolutely no reason it should cost $300k.

First, though, check your local city/county/state laws to see if there are any specific bans or restrictions on ADUs.

This.

We stayed in a small AirBnB prefab house a few years ago. It was less than a year old at the time and they have come a long way since the "trailer park" days that come to mind when I hear prebuilt house. The biggest issue is probably going to be insulation, where it will burn more energy to heat/cool.

The internet says delivery is $50 to $100 per sq ft. There are prefabs that look fancier than the following site too but, of course, cost more.

Small Edit: If you have local ordinance or HoA agreements that may cause issues, you could look into building a "barn/shop" with an apartment snuck into it. Look up "barndominium" for ideas on that.

The prefab AirBnb somewhat looked like this but probably 800 sq ft instead of this 600 sq ft (interior was the same wood walls/floor). Their site lists 600 sq ft houses at around $80k:
2024-02-17 07.48.17 www.lelandscabins.com 34cac98a87a7.png

2024-02-17 07.48.37 www.lelandscabins.com 25778ff3a15d.png

2024-02-17 07.51.35 www.lelandscabins.com f19af7fe5769.png

 
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mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Manufactured homes are so much better than stick and frame too. They are like perfect. Totally square and plumb. We have a few neighbors up in northern mi which have manufactured homes. And they are quite nice. One of them had a full 9' basement blocked up and they set the thing up top and he basically doubled his sq/ft that way.
 
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Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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This.

We stayed in a small AirBnB prefab house a few years ago. It was less than a year old at the time and they have come a long way since the "trailer park" days that come to mind when I hear prebuilt house. The biggest issue is probably going to be insulation, where it will burn more energy to heat/cool.

The internet says delivery is $50 to $100 per sq ft. There are prefabs that look fancier than the following site too but, of course, cost more.

Small Edit: If you have local ordinance or HoA agreements that may cause issues, you could look into building a "barn/shop" with an apartment snuck into it. Look up "barndominium" for ideas on that.

The prefab AirBnb somewhat looked like this but probably 800 sq ft instead of this 600 sq ft (interior was the same wood walls/floor). Their site lists 600 sq ft houses at around $80k:
View attachment 514994
View attachment 514995
View attachment 514996

I was going to mention something similar to this too. People would always make fun of Auburn (and rightfully so in some respects) but the double-wide and trailer park jokes never really landed. Some of those "double-wides" were nice a shit and way better than any dorm room or apartment I stayed in while attending. Daddy wasn't sending their daughter to school in a $30,000 trailer. They would put up really nice pre-built stuff down there to be used by Kid #1, Kid #2 and then rent out to future kids. Damn things made me jealous of my rathole apartment complex.