Home Improvement Today?

Yep it’s junk. I have the window and door sensors in the whole house. I believe the sensors are Honeywell and Walmart sells them haha

 

Guess they dont use that garage..or at least not from the outside..

 

I wonder if they have 3 or 4 connectors? Like for connecting 3 or more wires for multi-way switches?

It's probably converted.

 

Anyone know what type of tile(s) I need to use inside a wood burning fireplace? I've already found the porcelain tile to use for the hearth, but not for sure what I need to use where the actual fire will be.

 

You talking about the fire brick?

 

I guess I should have clarified that I need it for the floor of the firebox. The walls are all intact from 1936, but a previous owner took out the original tile inside the firebox and the hearth tile. The firebox just has the mortar base and the hearth was replaced with roof slate.

 

Must not for vehicles…. unless they remove the downspout regularly, which would be a PITA!

 

They do. I use em at work pretty frequently. They have their applications, but for some things I still like wire nuts (the good Ideal brand ones) more.

 

Curious what the group's thoughts are on steel studs vs. wood studs for a basement. We're going to finish about 1,400 square feet of our basement and the first quote included steel studs. I've read the pros and cons of both but don't have any experience with the steel studs. Appreciate any feedback if you have used steel studs before. Thanks.

 

I think it has to be fire brick in there

 

I'm finally getting some work done to the house that I want done, rather than NEED to get done. Its a nice feeling to do something that is not an emergency repair. I have a contractor coming out to the house to install 2 windows, 2 exterior doors and storm doors, and vinyl side my 2 story garage. The garage is the original wood siding from the early 1900s. My house was built right around 1905, and the garage appears to be constructed the same time.

I also got some pricing to fix something that has bothered me almost since I moved here. We found out pretty quickly after the first few months and a few heavy rain storms that the basement was not as it was portrayed. At its thickest point, my basement floor is about 1" of concrete, poured directly on top of clay. No gravel, no drainage. I received 2 estimates for this work. One came in at $37.5K, the other came in a $17.5K. Why so much you may ask? The only access to my basement is a man door, then down a set of stairs. Any work that would be done here would be all by hand. The guy that gave me the larger price said he wanted to dig out almost a foot of material, and then put in 6" of stone and 4-5" of concrete. The second guy said thats probably not necessary given its a basement, he said excavate out 6", and put in 2" of stone for some drainage, then 4" of fiber reinforced concrete. The bulk of the bill is labor. The basement is about 650 sq ft, so you're looking at 12-14 tons to be hand dug, and hauled out in 5 gallon buckets. The second guy told me I could also save about 6 grand or so if I did the bulk of the excavation work and they came in and just did the final digging and leveling. As much as I don't want to dig in the basement ever again (I dug a trench from the back to the front for a new sewer line), I also don't like the thought of nearly depleting my savings. I'm really leaning towards trying to save 6 grand and do a bucket brigade excavation with my brothers. Heres a snippet of the estimate, seems to be inline with the work, wanted to get some opinions.

 

how is the collected water getting out ? Sump pump ?

 

It will be with this project (by me, thats not included in the concrete guys cost). Initially it just flooded, then when i cut across the entire floor with the installation of the new sewer line, no more water issues. Its all draining to that trench (presumably since I dont see any water anymore) and just leaves the house via the rock filled trench from the basement, to the outside yard, all the way out to the main.

 

I would suggest upgrading to Stegowrap as a vapour / moisture barrier between the drainage layer and underside of slab , you only get to do this once

https://www.stegoindustries.com/products/vapor-barrier-15-mil

 

I wish more builders were as conscientious as @OZ-T down here; in Florida they allow for concrete slabs to get poured without any moisture barrier, wall footers, and even allow placement of concrete block directly on soil. I watch these houses go up in my neighborhood and wonder how they will make it to 50,60,70+ years old! I just watched forms go in for two new houses and they didn’t even clear the vegetation layer! they just put up forms and back filled with red-dirt (what they call clay…), not to mention the 4 inches of rain we got in the past 24 hours that washed most of the red dirt out from under the forms.

 

Thanks for sending that, I definitely never want to do this again.

 

I"m a licensed FL GC. I'm pretty sure that there is no code that allows for any of that in the state. Every slab has to have at least a thickened edge, it would be a monolithic pour but its still there acting as a footing, not to mention the associated reinforcing steel. As far as CMU on dirt? Nope, and if a contractor says thats how they are doing it I promise there is no permit being pulled for that horseshit.

 

I see it here in western Florida every single day. Get me started about permits, lack there of and non-enforcement! I should walk around my neighborhood and take pictures after work…

My sob story:
I unfortunately bought my house second hand, the house is now 3 years old. There was zero insulation above the master suite and no attic access in 2/3 attic spaces [all required by local code]. The overhead electrical entry is less than 18” from the balcony railing, the balcony doesn’t slope, the balcony ledger board is not bolted or lagged, the top deck is a sandwich of PTPlywood, flat roofing and then PT decking and leaks like a sieve, the ledger board does not have a bottom drip edge flashing.

This is just to name a few of the huge WTF I came to find after I paid a home inspector to check out the house he found none of these issues and neither did the permit inspectors. Needless to say I am still working through a lot of BS on a 3 year old house built to current Florida home builders association, and permit inspection standards.

 

If your the type of guy walking around the neighborhood being able to see and know that other buildings being constructed aren’t up to code, then why would you hire a home inspector for your own home and not do it yourself? Or possibly you hired them for reinsurance? At the very least I’d be there for the inspection and communicate with the inspector to make sure they are doing what you want and getting as much info as possible. This way you can ask questions and gather their thoughts and opinions.

Now I know a lot of people will get defensive and say you can’t open things up to get too deep into looking around. That is also true for home inspectors. They can only do so much. However most of the time they only do a very limited and quick inspection. Personally after buying my first home and seeing things they missed I wouldn’t ever get one again. So If you know all this already then why complain about them after the fact or hire one in the first place?

 

Fence building question...

We're building an ADU in our backyard at some point in the future. But until then, for aesthetic reasons, I want to fence off the part of the property where the structure will be. I'm thinking about putting up a normal wood/slat fence, the only thing is it could get damaged during construction, and once the structure is finished, we'll probably put up a vinyl fence around the entire property so the wood fence would get replaced at that time.

My question is if I put up the wood fence, for the posts, can I connect them to a concrete pier and bury that a few feet underground, instead of the traditional "filling a hole with concrete" method? I'm in Southern California, so severe weather isn't much of a concern. I'm thinking it would be easier to dig that up and replace it when the time comes, and it wouldn't be much of issue since its not meant to last more than a year or two anyway.

Thoughts?