Home Improvement Today?

ALMOST done with home repairs and improvements on my 18 yr old house before I turn it over to it's new owners... I built a sweet cock diesel mini deck/landing ~ 15 years ago, decking is aged for sure, but it goes as is... the bottom step face was rotted and over time, the yard had sunk ~ 6" so a 4th step was needed... I was trying to figure out how to add a 4th step and not have it look ghetto, but then discovered the bottoms of all the stringers were rotten (Sad face)... Oh well, it made adding a 4th step easier.

 

Plumbers don't care which direction the floor joists go. I wouldn't hang shit off that chase. Find your subfloor height and cut it back 1 5/8" above that. Run the ledger to the north wall. Frame floor. Sheet floor. Slip a bottom plate under the hanging soffit and done.

 

Good evening everyone. I got the last railing post installed tonight. It's already getting dark way too early, I will be dragging out the old 500W halogen work light soon. Here's the way that I figured how set the posts in place so that I could drill the anchor bolt holes, I had to come up with a way of doing this when working by myself.



I'm sure that the pros already know this, or even have better ways of doing it.

 

Did some more detailed measurements on this and found that the floor slopes down from north to south 1.5” over the 10’ run but is practically level e/w. So my new plan is to just build up some sleepers East to west to support a n/s running floor that will be attached to the house on the north wall and west wall. Was going to put plastic sheeting under the ground contact sleepers but would I be better off cutting strips under just the sleepers and then sheeting the whole bottom of the floor frame before attaching it down? If I sheet the whole concrete floor would I need to be worried about trapping moisture?

 

World’s easiest cheapest fastest medium duty garage shelves. 10 2x4s. Amazon brackets - had to bore out holes to use 1/4” lags. A couple hours includes sweeping garage and top of fridge and freezer

PS amazingly little cut ends left (top is full 8 feet)

 

Any recommendations on which type of hardware to use to attach the western red cedar to the treated southern yellow pine posts?

I've read about SS and triple coated galvanized. I have zero experience with the cedar or how well it holds a screw. Should I be looking looking at something like a SS deck screw or a small lag? I will face screw the horizontal rails and want to pocket screw through the posts into the top rail board to avoid seeing any hardware.

 

Finished everything up last night.

 

I’m in SE PA and my H2O softener is also old, 26yrs. Have there been any major upgrades to new systems? I’ve seen ads for saltless but know nothing outside the ads.

 

The principle is still the same. They just added junk electronics to them.

 

Went with a system I installed myself from DiscountWaterSofteners about a year ago. Self admit I didn’t do a ton of reading or research ahead of time. My friend Zach had done a bunch and he’s very detail oriented. I have a salt system made by Fleck (5600) I believe and have been happy so far.

 

Unless you’re installing it yourself be ready to drop 5-10k. Don’t ask me how I know

 

Mine was $2500 installed

I run potassium chloride- but damn the price is through the roof now

 

just an update had a contractor friend out too look at it, the door is slightly warped he is going too move the jams to correct the issue

 

I've got an upflow water softener that uses less salt and water. 120 pounds of salt will last for about a year. It's just my wife and I living here so YMMV. When I bought the water softener I also sprung for a whole house carbon filter that automatically gets flushed with every cycle of the softener. As for the no salt water softener I struggle to understand how the chemistry works. They claim that "electromagnetic waves reshape contaminates" and that sounds like complete bull shit to me. If your current system is working and I probably wouldn't replace it, unless you went with an upflow model. Even then your water rates would need to be sky high for it to pay for itself.

 

Tool review -
Buy a house with a picket fence they said. It's cute. Yea right. It's cute until you have to paint 180' of it. My back is killing me. I did the first 45' with a brush and roller and then said there has to be a better way.


So I took a chance and bought this Wagner HVLP sprayer because it was relatively cheap at $120. I have to say it does a pretty good job. I went with this style over the one with the motor on the handle because it's less weight. It has been spraying the Sherwin Williams latex stain without any thinning. The plastic paint cup holds about 1/3 of a gallon so it does quite a bit between refills. The air supply hose is long enough so you don't have to move the blower as often. Cleanup is easy too. It's faster than a roller for this picket fence with all of it's nooks and crannies. I don't know how well it would do painting walls. I'll definitely give it a try though.

 

Check out the softeners, whole house filtration systems and R.O. systems from Aquasure. I did a ton of research and many companies charge out the wazoo. Aquasure was a bargain and works very well.

https://aquasureusa.com/collections/fortitude-pro
https://aquasureusa.com/collections/harmony
https://aquasureusa.com/collections/serene-salt-free
https://aquasureusa.com/collections/ro-system

The Aquasure softeners use resin tanks that absorb the calcium and magnesium (hard mineral deposits) and a separate salt tank that backwashes the resin on a set schedule (about once a week for us).

The softeners that just dump salt into your plumbing don't do jack sh*t except screw up your plumbing fixtures. You can substitute salt pellets for potassium chloride if you want. You'll want a carbon whole house filter in line before the softener to prolong the life of the resin.

If you live somewhere where the water quality is very hard (AZ, TX) you can only filter and soften so much, but it's better than drinking recycled waste water straight from the tap.

True story, Phoenix is planning on using recycled poo water for tap drinking water in the future due to the water shortage. Can I get you glass with some ice?

 

Wichita Falls, TX did the same thing with the recycled poo water for about a year during the drought in like '15 or '16. They ran it, spent millions on the system then tore it down the moment they got enough rain to start filling up the reservoirs. In the military, we had something like this water filter trailer that cleaned up some nasty water. That trailer isn't exactly how I remembered it but technology may have changed as I remember it being like half of a large semitrailer, about 2 pallet positions to be aircraft loaded. It would filter out dirty pond scum water and come out crystal clear.

-J

 

That is what mine does.

Before that we have an "air injection" resin tank because our water will sometimes have sulfides/sulfur compounds that are easily oxidized with air (heavy sulfur might need a stronger oxidizer, H2O2 or potassium permanganate )

We also have an inline UV light because our well is shallow and I worry about bacteria and such but so far the checks have not found coliforms.

Lastly we have RO under the sink. Just in case! Hahahhaha

 

Refinishing 70 year old hardwood floors. Also refinishing the trim. Trying to finish up for a possible Saturday move in. Started on the floors on Monday.

 

Question: My next project is a new garage. I’m probably going to go with a Menards kit with some heavy duty modifications like a catio, a three season porch for my two cats George and Tommy.

Where is a good place to get ideas?