Home Improvement Today?

4 hour minimum jobs. Standard. I’ve billed that way for the past 8 years.

However I’m very frustratingly dealing with a company very high recommend but dealing with the 4th call back. This could have been a very easy profit but poor quality on the workers behalf has made it almost a loss on the salesman because the number of call backs! HVAC I think 1 is the running measure. 4 is a loss on the job. Plus they have to service the unit twice within a year. We will see how it goes one Thursday.

 

Kill breaker, check wiring connections at the box and at the outlet, make sure they are tight. A washer/dryer combo using 120v [gas dryer] shouldn't come close to popping a good 20amp breaker. the only real surge is when the dryer motor momentary start switch power both the start and run windings and the start winding drops out in about a second or two when the centrifugal switch in the motor opens them.

 

Had to cut the wall open to drill through a horizontal stud to run wiring, patch is feeling pretty smooth but needs one more skim coat before primer and paint.

 

Can you not DIY this yourself, or are you required by code to have this done "professionally"? It's more labor intensive than anything to run the wire in a wall...

 

Yes and no. My electrical expertise is limited. I can add outlets to existing and replace existing light fixtures and ceiling fans. I've never installed a breaker in a panel, but I know how to do it. It would be smart to hire out for this one. I know my limits.

 

The wire is pretty expensive right now. I ran two new circuits in my basement last year and I was kinda surprised by the wire cost. The breakers aren't that much but I bet you are easily in the 2-300 range for parts alone depending on how many outlets you are installing.

 

I just paid 450 for a 30 amp with about 20-30 feet of wire out to an AC disconnect box, the box was included in this pricing. That also included about 15' of exterior conduit.

 

Another snails-pace update on this project: First coat of Scuff-X is on, board is tacked in and the holes filled, and the drywall edge is repaired. Thanks for all the suggestions on how to flush the riser with the subfloor. I tried using a router for a bit and chickened out hard. My router is beef and holding that at 90° is a no go. So instead I put on some 120 grit paper and used my RO sander to get it damn near perfect! Took about 30 minutes.


Now I’ve got a skinnier riser with nearly no gaps underneath and it’s flush with the sub floor.


I should be ready to put the second coat of Scuff-X down and then make the plunge cut to flush the ends of the boards up for the nosing.

I put the project on hold for a while to do a few other things. First was adding 2 new outlets and relocating my 1 gbps coax feed from the dining room (boo) to below where the TV was going. Had to use a flex bit and drill holes into the crawl space to run everything. Had a nice outlet blow out when doing this also lol.


Patched that up and textured. The coax and one of the new outlets are directly below the designated TV spot. The coax dumps into a neat little AV/Cable outlet to feed my modem. I ran 2 HDMI cables and an Ethernet behind the wall and to a new low voltage box with a brush. The other side of the box is a high voltage for an outlet below our TV wall mount.




Finished product after repairing the drywall and priming for finish paint. As you can tell our entertainment stand isn’t here, yet.


I also resurfaced some really yellowed cedar window sills and painted them with our gray trim paint. That took forever. 2 sandings, 2 coats of primer with sanding in between, and then 2 coats of Advance x8 windows.


The window casings are coming next.


I also milled my own transition out of a spare floor board.




One step at a time. Painting this whole room tonight for the 4th time

 

Got the last little bit of work done around the garage door opening for whenever it finally does get here

Needed to make the top of the header flush with the 2x6's I framed in there. 7/16 OSB was a perfect width!

Although even though it was only overnight apparently sitting propped up warped it a little bit. No biggie, we got a floor jack and some 2x4's



Got that all hung up there and needed to put a 1x up to cap everything off. I needed spacers to stick in there so my board would be flush. Well Hell, why not use some leftover OSB for some redneck shims!



Got a 1x8 that I needed to rip down to 6 1/4" so I brought out the trusty Hitachi portable table saw. I don't use it very often, but it works great every time. Thanks Grandpa Harold!





All buttoned up, just need to caulk and paint. It was raining off an on so the humidity was fighting me on that. Another day...

 

My home improvement. Got a flag up

 

Installed a 20 ' x 24' Paver Patio myself and pretty proud of it. The Taco handled the 1/2 ton of concrete sand liike a champ when i needed some more to finish the sand bed. Overall I saved about 60% of the costs doing it myself VS. if I was to pay someone to do the job. I did this in exactly 29 days start to finish, 15 days and 73 working hours on weekends and after work as the weather lended itself with absolutely zero knowledge before starting my research and starting. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU SET YOUR MIND TO! Now I just have to figure out what to do to hold up the hill from eroding. Thinking a rock or mulch flower bed boardered with some 4x4's

 

Looks great!

 

Looks fantastic !

 

I changed the slope but nothing has changed with it. Bought all the items to make a Ptrap under the disposal to try that next

 

Had an old door sitting in the garage so I turned it into shelves for the attic.

 

Does smell only come from garbage disposal side?

 

Yeah the previous owner made a mess of the layout of wires, moving them to more organized paths is on my to do list.

 

Got around to building a firepit patio in our backyard!