Home Improvement Today?

Crimps actually are a more secure connection rather than less

 

Along with 47 wraps of electrical tape!

 

Good grief... I just can't fathom how anyone does hack work at that level and feels good about it.

 

I see you must have been the last guy to do electrical in my house...

 

Owner didn't even make it up the driveway before he said how embarrassed he was. You could tell he was gonna go back to the office and totally blow up on the crew that did my install.

Other than every downspout being the wrong height, every strap was hand cut by a toddler, some of the downspouts weren't even screwed into the gutters.

I told them to hold off on the re-install until I could get some trim boards replaced today. Found some guys on Nextdoor, cheap, showed up on time, hammered the work out in a day. Front porch was all mostly replaced, all the rotted wood replaced with PVC. Lots of trim on every corner of the house, and I stripped off some old unused utility boxes around the house. Getting ready to paint the house and don't want a bunch of old shit hanging on for dear life after paint.

 

Gotta insulate those connections!

 

So, I just finished another room painting the wooden trim white and am happy to report the caulk and painters tape trick on the floor worked great! I didn't quite smooth it out thin enough and got just a small lip of caulk, but no paint on the floor!

The paint looks like it doesn't match on my (horrible) cut in, but it was just wet.

 

Will be opening up the septic tank today . Oh joy . Having some drain problems. Used 2 gallons of main line liquid cleaner already . Sometimes things drain fine other times not . I think it’s possible my D-box might be bad . I have a small low spot ( small ) in the yard . Pretty sure it’s the D box . I just found out if you have a water softener the salt obviously corrodes concrete . If that’s the problem I will have to get a plastic D box . We shall see if the tank has too much liquid in it.

 

Once you open it up, you'll quickly see if it's a baffle clog or a failed drain field/clogged distro box. Although solids should not be getting into the field so if the distro box isn't crumbled the outlet baffle could have fallen off as well.

My system is an old single compartment tank that almost 60 years old. The only thing saving me right now is the terracotta drain field is probably cracked and still draining through them.

Yes, I'm budgeting about $30K for replacement here in the next 5 years. Gotta go with a sand mound system

 

Man, that's a bummer. We have been good all these years but I fear the day this may come. Good luck.

 

Looks really nice

 

The ever so tightening rules from the PA DEP makes things ungodly expensive. My township has a 3 year pumping rule, which isn't that bad. I've been doing it every 1.5 years.

The system replacement cost is high though. I guess the soil doesn't drain good in my area so every house here has to do sand mound. Back in '65 when my house was built they just chucked a tank in the ground, put 100' of field line in, and called it good

 

Sorry man, bummer. Mine was installed in 72’ , get it pumped every other year, my guy says it looks good

 

I’m fortunate, it’s all sand around me

 

My wife just retired from the county health department, 40 years , the folks that give the permit for well and septic . She has some great/ disgusting stories. An example, guys all pissed off he has arsenic levels off the chart and can’t get a well permit, he wants to open a bed and breakfast. Doesn’t want to have safe water hauled in . It’s old agriculture land.

 

I used to work for a big/quality builder and development company. Very thorough process, we built a house on this guy’s property. Go over the entire process with them, start to finish. Get a call from the owner about two years later, all pissed. It seems they forgot to mention that they wanted a pool in their backyard. We typically put the well in front and septic in back, based on grade and soil conditions. I go meet the homeowner and Jerry our septic contractor. Homeowner is all upset that it’s going to cost over 30k to relocate the system. Jerry looks at the homeowner and says, you wanna shit or swim I’ll never forget that line

 

Myself and an excavation friend put those big plastic teepees in around 20 years ago ,new leach field . I’m all gravel here . . Not sure how many feet but around 100’

 

Home ownership can be a great thing, but damn can it be an expensive bitch sometimes

 

We put in a new well,130’ and a new HVAC system in the last 3 years, love it

 

Save those receipts in case you ever sell. Improvements are tax deductible and I think repairs are deductible for rentals.