Home Improvement

I had a bunch of flies like that once in my vent hood over the stove. I'd say roughly 20-30 of em. I thought it was one or two that had snuck in through an open door, but it turned out there were a shitload behind the filter. Sprayed that shit down with killer but quick, and then replaced it all.

Regarding the foundation, I know the cause. My house sits on a hillside, and we have a retaining wall at the top of the driveway that has been slowly failing since I bought the house (before, really). It has always been an item I wanted to rebuild, but walls are fucking expensive and it would be a few thousand to resolve, and I've just never had the spare money. What has happened is that the drainage that once ran around the house has been pinched off, adding weight onto the foundation at that corner. It's pretty clearly the hillside sliding down that is causing the stress. The crack is exactly at dirt level.

If nothing else, I need to have the current wall dismantled and something put in its place to stop the slide, and new drainage installed. I dunno how I'm gonna afford it, but we'll just have to figure out something.

Or just wait for it to cave in and rebuild it with insurance money. Or maybe you can report it to your insurance company before it gets worse, and they'll front the majority of the bill.

Fuck hardwood floors. I redid mine 2 years ago when I bought the house and now I see every imperfection there is. I fucked them up. Never do your floors in the middle of the most humid week of july.

Meh. Thank god for rugs.

Xarpolis_sl said:

Or just wait for it to cave in and rebuild it with insurance money. Or maybe you can report it to your insurance company before it gets worse, and they'll front the majority of the bill.

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Homeowners insurance doesn't cover anything related to ground collapse/movement. It won't fix a failing retaining wall, and it won't fix your cracked foundation. And god help you if a sink hole opens up and swallows your house, no coverage(at least not in the several states that I am familiar with here in the midwest)

Earth movement/collapse is a very common exclusion. We can't even sell coverage for it even if someone wanted to pay extra to have it. It's just flat-out unavailable.

The basic problem is that insurance doesn't cover most things that slowly happen over time. Insurance is there to cover a sudden, unavoidable, catastrophic event. Your foundation doesn't just wildly crack one day, and that retaining wall doesn't just collapse and fail one day. They're both something that slowly deteriorate over time, and are general maintenance things that should be taken care of by the homeowner before they get to the point of catastrophic damage.

So, having just had a 2nd burst/leak in the copper water pipes going into our home, underground, in the last year, of our 36 year old home, I have to wonder, are the rest of the pipes just all waiting to corrode away now in the next few years? Or can I expect the indoor and under-the-house-but-above-the-ground pipes to actually last a while longer? The notion of having random water pipes breaking in the walls isn't a pleasant one. I mean, at some point do you just go "fuck, time to replace the entire plumbing system"? I have no knowledge about this so someone make me feel better here haha

Can you explain more? The line burst outside the home?It is pretty damn rare the line from meter to house gets fucked up unless it was not laid right into the ground, or you got some serious monster trees or droughts going on.

I have a well. The line going from there to our house (multiple copper pipes wielded together) has broken/burst/corroded (I don't know which) in 2 different places within the last year. Both occurred where the pipe was underground. The current breakage is actually 2 pinhole type leaks about an inch apart (not at a weld). The previous break I'm not sure what it looked like, since it happened under a foundation and we just rerouted the line.

But as a general question, does one expect copper pipes (excepting actual damage, as you suggest, from tree roots or something) to essentially last forever? It just seems weird to me getting two breaks in such a relatively short span of time, and in my ignorance I'm wondering if it's simply about that time for the whole system to break. A dumb question perhaps, but again, I have zero experience with this.

Do you have really hard water? If so, that might explain the situation some. At our factory, the pipes used to spring leaks constantly. As a result, we swapped to a plastic (PEX) pipe system. Pipes springing leaks in your system makes more sense, as your don't have a constant flow of well water all day long the way city pipes do.

No, copper doesn't last forever. We avoid copper as much as possible in our projects (condos/apartments), for that very reason. Under particular conditions, copper can degrade and leak fairly quickly. Basically if there's too much velocity of water in the system. The most common place for it to leak is on domestic hot water recirculation lines, or in hydronic heating systems. Over time the flow of water will wear away at the fittings or pipe, especially in places where there's increased turbulence, like after fittings/turns. Increased hardness makes the problem worse.

However, I wouldn't think that excessive flow or velocity would be an issue in a well system. It's not like it's operating constantly. Or it shouldn't be, anyways. It should be running for a few minutes, filling up the pressure tank, then shutting off. Is there a leak somewhere causing it to run more frequently than it otherwise should? What size is the line to the well? Smaller line sizes mean higher velocities and more wear and tear on the walls of the pipe.

The other thing that it could be, is cathodic/anodic breakdown (fuck if I remember which). If there's ANY ferrous components in your system, they have to be isolated from the copper, otherwise they'll cannibalize each other. Even something as simple as a brass or bronze fitting is enough to isolate them, or something like a di-electric union. I don't think its possible for copper to deteriorate by being "grounded" or whatever underground when buried. There's no requirement to coat or sleeve buried copper pipe, while there is for ferrous pipe.

Get a plumber who does a lot of well system service and see if he can figure it out. The pipes inside your house should be fine. So long as there isn't continuous flow (hot water recirc, for example) or cathodic/anodic breakdown happening, copper water lines should last for 50-100 years in a residence.

I would immediately replace as much of that out door copper with PEX. That shit will last longer, and is much harder to damage.

And I wouldn't be worried about indoor stuff. Pipe inside the house tends not to get things like frost, foot traffic over it, and so forth. Nor is it buried in the ground, which can promote corrosion.


I have a question for folks. I'm going to change some things in my kitchen, and one of the things I'm doing is putting in a range, and getting rid of in-wall ovens and cook top. I need a way to vent, like a range hood, but I'm thinking of going with an opening in the wall above the range, sealing that stud-bay, and putting ducting to the exterior through the basement. I plan to put a powerful fan right by the exterior wall, where the air will exit the house. I hope that we won't be able to hear the fan in the kitchen much, and that the draw is powerful enough to pull things through when cooking.

Do you think I need to put steel in the wall to prevent the moisture from cooking creating mildew in that stud bay? Anyone heard of someone doing something similar?

I had a similar issue with my fireplace - I wanted it totally changed, and it was stone, so I ended up framing it out and covering it. Removing the brick shouldn't be too bad, though. Well, I mean, it'll take quite a lot of work with a sledge hammer, and then drywalling afterward, but you have to drywall anyway. Here's what I'd do:

Go to Harbour Freight and get their 12 inch angle grinder along with a 12 inch masonry blade. Cut the brick where you want them to end. Sledge the rest of that shit out of there. Then proceed to make your fireplace look like you want it to.

I think I was misremembering, as I can not find the 12 inch one now. This is 9 inches, and should do the trick:

9 in. Heavy Duty Angle Grinder

The reason I suggest going out and getting that is that cutting brick is holy shit fucking messy like you can't believe, and it's really hard on your grinder, too. I suggest the big one so that you can get all the way through the brick, and then you can just swing away with the sledge, not worrying about taking down bricks you want to keep.

The harder part will be the hearth. You may have to cut it, bang some with the hammer, cut some more, and so forth. Depends what is under the bricks.

You're going to need a lot of beer for that project. That sounds like a serious pain in the ass.

Wait for football season, invite buddies over to watch the game each week, keep sledgehammer handy and let them take swings at the bricks when they get pissed at their team.

GODDAMNIT STAFFORD!! *SMASH*

I'm having my ugly ass old brick fireplace redone too. We're just framing it in and drywalling most of it, except for the section right around the firebox which we'll either paint or tile over.