Home Improvement Today?

Is there a lot of sand in your area?

I have read on commercial cutter sites where some areas/grasses wear blades rapidly.
I never though about, where I live it is always the rocks that cause me trouble...

 

One spot at the end near the road but I don’t really go over it.

 

Professinals sharpen there mower blades every day and replace them once a week so if you got two seasons of mowing on them you got good life from them. I just replaced mine on my Scag zeroturn this morning with 27 hrs on the hour meter and they were worse than yours. I knew they were bad cause they were leaving skippers for a while already

 

What? Are you running them in blasting media? That seems like an insane rate wear. Also I don’t know any mowing professional that sharpens their mower blades daily. Weekly if you’re lucky.


My last mower had 546 hours on it when I sold it and it was on its second set of blades.

 

4x8 timber rafters and 3x6 purlins all installed and infill framing complete

Coated everything with Cloverdale Sunfast

We started framing the deck today

 

So...Garage doors and garage door openers.

What's the best on the market these days? I see a lot of positive reviews for liftmaster and chamberlain smart wifi openers. The side mount versions seem to have issues with control boards failing within a couple of years, but the standard ceiling mount versions seem decent.

Also, mixed reviews on Clopay and Amarr doors. The carriage house model from Clopay is kind of cool.
Anyone have first hand knowledge or bought any of these recently? I know Costco pushes liftmaster and Amarr.

 

I replaced my early 90s model with the 2,000 lumen 360° Chamberlain smart opener. The light throw on this thing is fantastic. It’s smooth & quiet. The MyQ integration is great (for someone that likes a smart home). The only thing I wish it did was turn on the light if the door sensors get triggered. The controller has a motion sensor and that works when coming down my stairway into the garage but after 4 minutes I lose my light and the only way to turn it back on is to stick my hand in the stairwell.

$296 Chamberlain B6713T Smart Advanced Corner LED Lighting-myQ Smartphone Controlled-Ultra Quiet, Strong Belt Drive & MAX Lifting Power, Blue Garage Door Opener

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B2QWGHM

 

I put a Sommer direct drive opener in my previous home. It was the quietest opener I've ever heard, if that matters to you. My biggest gripe was the remotes that came with it were USB-stick sized with inconvenient 1/8" diameter buttons. (Weaseled my way around that by setting up my homemade fob for my truck's door locks to work the opener too.)

Don't recall exactly how long it was between when I installed it and when I sold the house, would have been somewhere between 5 and 10 years. In that time I never had any problems with it in spite of doing zero maintenance or adjustment on it.

 

As always, beautiful work.

 

Question for any Mason, HVAC or anyone who may know. The sealant/mastic type product where my boiler flue enters the chimney is flaking in some areas. I'm wanting to remove all the loose material (or all of it if needed) and redo it. What's the actual product? Looks like it was simply smeared on and smoothed out.

 

Furnace cement.

Edit:
That was my first guess, but it’s recommend for gaps of 1/8” or less. You might need a mortar. https://rutland.com/collections/cements-amp-mortars

Pretty good resource here.
https://rutland.com/pages/avada-faqs

 

Heh, I actually got the same thing going on with mine...



Something actually relevant to a problem I have!

 

$14 MEECO'S RED DEVIL #1332 Furnace Gasket Cement and Stove Sealer - High Temperature Adhesive for Fiberglass Gasketing - Ideal for Repairing Small Cracks in Stoves - 1/2 Pint Tub (Black)

https://www.amazon.com/MEECOS-RED-D...cint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584001431269615

 

I like my Chamberlain side mount. Haven't heard about the board failures...

However, due to ceiling height side mount is my only option I'm pretty sure.



Bought it online from Menards for $499 back in 2022.

 

What kind of tree attachment hardware did you use?

 

my uncle used to be a liftmaster dealer before he retired. my understanding is that liftmaster/chamberlain is really the same brand/factory, so they share a lot of parts...

i run the newest cheap wifi chain drive model with screw-in light bulbs.. the screw in light bulbs were a requirement to tie the new opener into my relay-activated garage lighting(kicks on 75% of my garage lights automatically so i can see in there!), and the chain drive didn't matter because the opener is outside in a detached garage. the app is nice to check the status, though really irritating notifications to attempt to get one to buy all the other smart home options they offer.

 

I got the TABs, SUAs and install kit from Nelson Treehouse (light duty tree fort version). The knee brace brackets and lags came from Treehouse Supplies.

 

I have these sliding windows in my basement. The sliding part of them is easy to remove.
What's the trick to removing the fixed/not sliding side of it?
If I can get it out, it'll save me a whole bunch of trips down the stairs carrying drywall.

 

I have about a week left before I start hunting and then my productivity for house stuff goes to zero, so I made a big push.

Knocked out my drain pipe and pieced together a couple of new down spouts. I used flex to get me from the spout to the underground pipe. It’s a pretty short run from the shop to where I’m dumping the rain water, so I didn’t do clean outs.






And then it felt like it took forever, but I repaired a bunch of chipped existing paint with peel-stop, caulked (15 tubes), primed, and then got it all painted.




Painting fascia by hand was sketchy.


To finish the outside I installed a bunch of lights on the walkway side and the front that give a nice ambient glow.


The rear gable and the side facing the woods have flood lights. Everything is on smart switches that integrate to google home with the rest of my main house stuff. Pretty nifty. Big thanks to @daveeasa for coming down and helping me wire all of the outlets in the shop and get some clean raceways for shop lights and switches. I just have a couple of things to tidy up near the panel and then I’ll run my 240V outlets for the wood shop machines.


To finish the exterior I had a garage door installed (Amarr Lincoln 2000). I didn’t plan on getting this far this year. Hell I had planned to get sheathing up and then leave siding, paint, electric, the doors and windows, etc. to next year. Very happy with the progress this year. We are completely weathered in and ready to move stuff into the shop!



On the list for the winter hibernation months will be constructing the wall to separate the powerlifting gym from the work shop, ceiling and wall insulation, interior wall coverings (plywood), and interior paint. All of that is pretty minor compared to what happened this summer. Should be able to squeak in a bunch of shop furniture in that time as I can actually use the shop now without wall coverings, and during winter it’ll be habitable and not 100° without insulation.

 

Im not sure its meant to be removed