Home Improvement Today?

you likely also have ice / water inside the wall cavity if ice is fully forming around the pipe

 

I'm running a Mitsubishi 4-zone mini-split system. Upstairs is on a ducted air handler, downstairs bedrooms are on another ducted unit and the kitchen & living room have their own wall heads. Separate temp controls at every location is nice.
I replaced the natural gas water heater with a hybrid heat pump Ruud going on two years ago, supposedly exchanging a monthly $32 gas bill for $8 in electricity. I've heard gas prices have gone up considerably, good timing.
Filters, filters, filters. Everything has it's own filter. The ducted units require disposable filters, which we're use to, but the wall units have a removable/reusable screen that we run under water to clean. Thinking about it is more trouble than actually doing it, it's not bad. The hybrid water heater has a removable/reusable screen filter too.

Mitsubishi is market testing a condenser that has an outlet for a hot water tank, providing a heat pump system for conditioned air and hot water! It's been going a few years now, I believe in New Zealand.

 

We've used air to water heat pumps on 3 of my client builds and they provide the hydronic slab heating (and cooling if you want) but also have a separate heat exchanger coil in a holding tank for domestic hot water preheat

 

Speaking of Heat Pumps, anyone heard of a Heat Pump Dryer that connects to a Mini Spit or Hydronic loop?

 

Haven't seen any ice forming directly on the pipe so far, it looks like the vapor is staying vaporized until it has exited the pipe then it condenses/freezes onto the first thing it touches after that. That's what I'm going to tell myself for now, anyway.

But definitely need to get those holes caulked.

 

I’m a fan of smartside products when installed correctly but having that much moisture sitting on a cut (drilled in this case) edge of any engineered siding is bad news. Some sort of block/flashing combo is needed, I would use pressure treated or pvc for the block and bend/tuck/glue some metal above it. Make sure to follow smartside factory detail instructions as far as expansion joints and fancy caulk. Since it’s so close to the bottom anyway I would not leave any siding below the vents, just size the block so it sits directly above the bottom trim/flashing.
Where is the water coming from that is freezing on the wall? It doesn’t seem to be condensate dripping from the termination of your vent. Maybe your glue joint failed and condensed water is escaping before the 90.
Fixing that source might help but that penetration will need work in any case lol or your (fancy hi tech to be sure) osb siding will fail.

 

Got my garage door wheels replaced today. On the last one I wasn’t paying attention and lost the tension cable. Equipped with a set of punches, cheater pipe & a safety squint I managed to get the spring wound enough to get everything back in place.

My OCD also took care of the door sensor wires with some small cord cover channel and zip ties. Between the new belt drive motor & the polyurethane wheels this thing is whisper quiet. My old screw drive sounded like an Abrams rolling into the driveway.



can’t forget about my spotter

 

I'm going to guess that the nearest elbow is not glued/sealed. It looks tipped back therefore condensing and causing the icicle at that joint. Just my thought.

 

So I've been slowly working on my kitchen cabinets. Started off by removing all the old hardware and installing new hardware via China from Amazon

Today I was able to prime and put one coat of paint on the upper cabinets. Working in stages so everything isn't blown apart at once. For just the first coat it looks great!



And my door painting setup





Yes, the ever so overdone gray, I know, I know, but it's better than what was there. Followed instructions this time and let the Zinsser oil primer dry two hours before I put a coat of paint on it. I used Benjamin Moore Advance Semi-Gloss and let me tell you it is an awesome paint! I used the recommended microfiber roller cover and it laid down and leveled pretty darn good! Says to wait 16 hours between coats so I'll let everything dry overnight and throw the second coat on in the morning.

Also, I don't normally use tape, but I did this so I was able to get the roller right up against a surface to cut down on brush time cutting in. A time saver for sure.

 

Looks great. We are in the middle of doing the same on varnished solid alder cabinets we put in 15 years ago in the kitchen. You aren't kidding about Benjamin Moore paint, it's excellent. I have always been a whore and faithful to Sherwin Williams from rentals to new construction. We had to buy BM paint this time because SW product wasn't available locally, and now I know.

 

Yea the Advance was like $75 a gallon, but well worth it! The gallon of BEN Eggshell I got for the walls was like $55, but seems to be pretty good paint. I still need to pick up a gallon of Muresco Ceiling White for the ceiling (obviously, lol). Unfortunately the entire house has to be oil primed due to the little ol' lady who owned this house before me probably smoked a pack a day in the house. I tried a Kilz latex product (Restore?) that was touted as some good stuff for that kind of priming, but I tried it in the bathroom and it failed miserably. Was trying to find a less odor alternative, but it just didn't work. Local ACE has Kilz Odorless oil base, so I might try that for gins and shiggles. Fact their the only place I can get oil base primer at. The big box stores no longer carry it. Guess it has to do with all the low VOC requirements now aday's. Not that I don't mind that, but some times you need a high VOC product...

 

Another vote for BM here. I used Advance on our trim and it lays down like glass like you said. I also did Ben signature on the walls. Only downside of Ben signature is it doesn’t stretch super far, but man it looks good with 2 coats. If you ever find a need for it, Scuff-X ($$$$) is amazing. Lays down nicely and dries hard as a rock. Great on stair risers and makes white riser clean up a breeze. Hated painting until I discovered quality paint.

 

Also a BM fan here. But I will add, a customer had a quart of the SW Pro-Classic semi-gloss enamel that she wanted me to use on an interior door. I removed the door (older wood 6 panel) and put it on sawhorses to paint. Used a nice brush and returned the next day. It looked like it had been sprayed, no detectable brush marks whatsoever. Now I use that for all white semi-gloss trim (which is about 99%). BM for everything else.

 

I used to use oil base enamel for any interior trim, but with the times that's all about done with. The Advance seems to be an excellent replacement, and is soap and water cleanable. Don't have to worry about trim paint in my current house though as everything is "stained" wood. That takes an amber shellac to match.

I honestly thought about priming and painting it, but you don't see stained trim anymore. And even though it's just the cheap #324 casing and #713 smooth baseboard I think it looks pretty good with the wood look. When the previous owner had the place carpeted in the 1970's they removed the 1/4 round so I have to replace all of that and shellac it to match.

 

Sherwin Williams fan here. I did my entire interior in SW Superpaint satin and entire exterior in SW Duration Flat. The SW Duration is my favorite. The garage ceiling was Benjamin Moore Muresco flat. I wasn't impressed. It stunk pretty bad and coverage was mediocre considering I primed the ceiling first. I have heard good things about other BM grade paints though.

 

Was looking at the BM site. I'll have to try the BM Advance when a painting job comes up.

 

Did the mid tier BM stuff (Ben) in my spare room, thought it was good, not great. Went Behr ultra in the kitchen. Its on par with the Ben, if not better. The BM ceiling paint was meh. Splattered a lot. I prefer the valspar signature ceiling paint. No splatter there, as in I didn't even need a drop cloth.

 

The few times I've actually painted the high VOCs and lots of edibles got me through. lol

 

No edibles here, just the real stuff

But the garage was enough today. Between the primer and then the slight diesel smell from the heater was enough to make anybody get a quick high

 

Hey folks. Currently in the process of adding foam insulation to my copper pipes under the house. I’m a fairly new homeowner so a lot of these things are a big learning experience to me. While under the house today I noticed this PVC pipe. It’s connected to the cold water supply running to the kitchen sink. As you can see, it goes to ground level and then over to a place in the foundation. I have no clue what that would be for. There’s no outside spigot there, and if it were to come out on the other side it would be underground. Evidently it’s plugged because I’m not losing water anywhere.

Anybody have a wild guess of what it could be for? Unfortunately the former (and only) other owner is no longer with us.