Home Improvement Today?

Four months into living in "The Dream Retirement Home" aka The Money Pit, found a leak in the hot tub. Excavation has begun. Hoping they can find the source without having to drian the pool, already drained the hot tub. Due to severe drought, water trucks are out of the question to refill, and we're on a well. And it's 108F. Yay!

 

Update on the porch.






Let me know if you something wrong, Thanks.

Work is supposed to continue today but heat might be an issue.

 

I just want to rave about a SAW BLADE.

This THING IS AMAZING for cutting plywood! Freehand cutting straight lines on plywood so easy. Quite surprising! (I have always been shitty at that)

$17 Freud D0536X Diablo 5-3/8" 36 Tooth ATB Finish Cordless Trim Saw Blade

https://smile.amazon.com/Freud-D0536X-Diablo-8-Inch-Cordless/dp/B00008WQ2U?ie=UTF8

 

Primed and painted. Hung a ceiling fan and the wife bought some privacy screens for one side.

 

On to the next project. I love being on vacation.

 

Looks good

 

Going to replace the lattice under the deck. Trying to get a few more years out of it. Don’t like how they just butted them up with no support behind them. The 8’ section doesn’t line up with the post.

 

The first and third post go all the way down to a cement footing and are almost 10’ apart. They nailed a 2x4 under the 2nd post to attach the lattice to. I want to cut it and and picture frame it at every post but I would be cutting almost 3’ off each section of lattice. Seems like a waste. I have 6 sections on this side and 4 more on the other.

 

Nice. I probably missed it, but whatcha using for decking?

 

The landing and the stairs might be Granite, if not a cement landing and stairs cap. It all depends on time, weather. Once finish this porch they have a 2nd porch to work on. Then finish excavating the whole yard, hydroseeding. There's a lot work to be finish.

 

Something quick and easy today. I have an outlet on the front of the garage that I use for the pressure washer or the like. It's a GFCI like you're supposed to. Well last weekend I went to wash one of the trucks. Got out the electric pressure washer and nothing. Dead. Hmm... Wouldn't even reset. Ok, well then. There's an outlet just inside the garage door so I just used that and forgot about it. Today I finally got around to it. I keep a spare GFCI hanging around so I'll do some investigating.

Wiring was good, nothing off in the box, no water intrusion (you can see the sealant I used)...



Reconnected it and turned the breaker back on. Yea, still dead. Well crap. So I just decided to swap GFCI's. Old on right...



Turned the breaker back on and it works fine? Ok, well that sucks. Didn't even get 2 months use out of the other one. Got out the sealant and re-sealed the cover. Due to my siding I have to seal around it.






If this happens again, we'll have to do something different.

 

i changed a few to regular plug

 

I contemplated this, but I'm not. If moisture is an issue there's an outlet right behind the wall that is upstream of this GFCI. I'll just move it inside. I wired the whole garage so I did leave myself some options...


I mean technically I think every outlet in a garage needs to be GFCI protected, but I got 3 different circuits run to handle all my crap. Also don't think the GFCI would like my welder too much...

 

I'm hoping to not have to go with something like that as it's way too bulky/gaudy right in plain sight in front of the house.

 

In case you change your mind, that was the right answer.

 

I've used these with great success.
http://www.aifittings.com/catalog/i...for-flat-surface-retrofit-construction/DBHR1C
Also less gaudy.

 

Only the outlet upstream needs to be GFCI, as long as this one is wired on the "Load" side of the GFCI. GFCIs do not like weather. Always try to keep them inside.

Even in my garage, I have to replace the GFCIs once in a while.

 

Why not wire the GFCI upstream and put a regular outlet outside?

 

I put the GFCI downstream of my freezers for example. Just saying.