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Official Pit Home Improvement/DIY thread

Got my new gas water heater last week. So far so good. Ended up being $1,600 installed. If it was electric I would have done it myself but it's gas so didn't trust myself.
 
HeltonCreek said:
Got my new gas water heater last week. So far so good. Ended up being $1,600 installed. If it was electric I would have done it myself but it's gas so didn't trust myself.
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Enjoy your non-stop hot water. Definitely a smart move hiring someone to hook it up for you.
 
Any thoughts on adding a circulating pump to an electric water heater? Pro/con? I've got plenty of other plumbing work to be done so I'd likely just ask a plumber to do it, but just curious if anyone has one.
 
spiffylubes said:
Any thoughts on adding a circulating pump to an electric water heater? Pro/con? I've got plenty of other plumbing work to be done so I'd likely just ask a plumber to do it, but just curious if anyone has one.
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We put one in our new house when we built. Hot water comes a lot quicker to the bathrooms located further from the water heater. Not life changing. But fairly cheap way to improve things a bit
 
I took this week off along with last week and have been putting in Pergo on our first floor. The carpet was nasty when we moved in 9 years ago, but had a puppy and were planning kids, so held off (though really the carpet suffered more from my wife's wine stains...)
Anyway, just have the hallway left to do.

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Looks like a good job. Nice and tight joints between the boards. How long did it take you to do the floor, roughly how many square feet?

What were the most useful tools? Any thoughts on what you would do differently if you had to do it over again?
 
Dining room is 12x12, Living room is 24x16. Dining room took 7 hours to lay wood, Living room two days work, maybe 13 hours. Before both though I had a day each of ripping up carpet and prying up tack strips.
The most useful tool was actually that stupid little plastic wedge you see for hammering in the boards. Has a gap so you're not hammering the tongue/groove.
The shittiest part is fancy moulding around doorways, hard to get under it because you have to lift the boards to wedge them in. I'd probably cut it higher and then repair after floor is in.
 
There are two things that might help on the under the molding around doorways: oscillating "multitool" that has a fine tooth saw blade that moves back and forth a small distance very quickly. Very good for trimming just a little bit off door frames etc. This is one example. The left end of the cutting tool has fine saw teeth.

makita-oscillating-tools-xmt03z-64_400_compressed.jpg



The other is an offset saw. That is a small saw with the blade offset to one side of the handle.


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Deaconblue said:
There are two things that might help on the under the molding around doorways: oscillating "multitool" that has a fine tooth saw blade that moves back and forth a small distance very quickly. Very good for trimming just a little bit off door frames etc. This is one example. The left end of the cutting tool has fine saw teeth.

makita-oscillating-tools-xmt03z-64_400_compressed.jpg
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Far and away one of my favorite and most used tools. So many uses for this saw.


I remounted my undermount sink last night. When the contractors installed it, they only used silicone and had no clips to the bottom of my granite countertops. When the Mrs was bathing our daughter, the sink became unattached on one end. Cleaned out the silicone with a trowel, prepped the edges and mixed up some epoxy. Sumbitch aint going nowhere now. It was actually much easier than I imagined. I'm still going to take a bead of clear silicone and caulk the seams to ensure it stays waterproof.
 
Definitely go with a drain snake. Secondary question, are the pipes plastic or iron? My great grandmother in law had really slow pipes, turned out they were iron and had rusted and closed up over the years. Ended up replacing her entire plumbing system.
 
tsywake said:
Definitely go with a drain snake. Secondary question, are the pipes plastic or iron? My great grandmother in law had really slow pipes, turned out they were iron and had rusted and closed up over the years. Ended up replacing her entire plumbing system.
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Let me second this as a potential problem in old houses.

Do you have a crawl space or basement where the drains eventually get to? If so, there may be a cleanout that will let you access the drain line from below as well as from the tub.

Hair, shampoo, soap etc. can combine to make a really bad clog. Don't use liquid drain opener when it is clogged badly because it just won't cut that much of a clog and will be there to possibly hurt you when you get some of the clog out.

Those drain zips can be very useful especially if you use it as soon as you notice the drain starting to run a little slower than it should. They don't reach very far, but they often go far enough to get out some wads of hair etc.
 
I'm in a condo in a ~90 year old building. It's a new home to me, so I haven't had to deal with overall building plumbing system. Bought some of the zips at your recommendation, hope it solves the issue.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
I'm in a condo in a ~90 year old building. It's a new home to me, so I haven't had to deal with overall building plumbing system. Bought some of the zips at your recommendation, hope it solves the issue.
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Might want to check to see how far your responsibility goes vs that of the association responsibility for the "common elements. Your responsibility may not extend much beyond what you can see. All the hidden stuff may be "common elements" depending on how the condo docs define things.
 
I've got a house with battery operated smoke detectors - I'd like to swap those out for a hardwired unit with a battery back up. Is that the standard these days, or is hardwiring new units to the house power source just creating unnecessary complexity and cost?
 
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