The Home Ownership Thread

[Ataturk]

You can find the Consumer Reports survey data by googling it. IIRC the brands are all basically the same in terms of reliability.

 

[sugarbutch]

My friends just had their old oil-fired heating system pulled out, replacing it and the AC with seven Fujitsu minisplits. I didn't dare ask the cost of the whole project. In the process, they found that one of the cast-iron waste pipes in the crawl space had a 10" section missing the top half. Old houses are bad enough, but big old houses are frightening.

 

[Numbernine]

My friends just had their old oil-fired heating system pulled out, replacing it and the AC with seven Fujitsu minisplits. I didn't dare ask the cost of the whole project. In the process, they found that one of the cast-iron waste pipes in the crawl space had a 10" section missing the top half. Old houses are bad enough, but big old houses are frightening.

Can they tell what caused it? That old leaded cast iron had damn near 1/4”walls.

 

[sugarbutch]

I think some of it is embedded in concrete, and they live on a somewhat mobile hillside. Perhaps a bit of seismic activity cause a fracture which spread?

 

[Numbernine]

I think some of it is embedded in concrete, and they live on a somewhat mobile hillside. Perhaps a bit of seismic activity cause a fracture which spread?

Small & Stinky Quality Plbg Svcs recommends throwing a sheet of plywood over it and calling it a cleanout

 

[jcman311]

Doors getting replaced today. ****** early 90’s design replaced with fiberglass. The old doors were wood and cracked. Could see daylight through them in parts. The sidelights on the front door had some crazy paisley design in frosted glass
Only been in the house a couple of months before deciding that these crap doors had to go.

 

[jbarwick]

We have a Rheem heater and I forget the A/C brand but brand doesn't matter much in this area. In general, the big difference is the SEER rating. We went up a rating and it has saved us money even with an older house and original windows.

 

[brokencycle]

We have a Rheem heater and I forget the A/C brand but brand doesn't matter much in this area. In general, the big difference is the SEER rating. We went up a rating and it has saved us money even with an older house and original windows.

I ultimately went with a 14 seer unit when we did upstairs (downstairs is a 16 seer IIRC). I used multiple calculators, and even the most favorable calculator said we'd never pay back for a 16 seer unit and a 15 seer unit would take 8 years or something like that to break even.

 

[djblisk]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll look into Seer numbers and Trane. I heard the Trane brand is pretty pretty good.

 

[SUPER K]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll look into Seer numbers and Trane. I heard the Trane brand is pretty pretty good.

The Trane variable speed units are great. XV18 and XV20. I rarely even hear it.

 

[Ataturk]

So I'm getting ready to insulate the walls in my (attached) garage and wanted to wrap up the wiring so I could get as much of it as possible into the walls. I also have a lot of lights -- about 40 t8 tubes (led replacements of course). I put them on an occupancy sensor switch, which was good, but it's still a heavy amp draw for a circuit that was intended (by the person who built the house) to have 200 watts on it. Lots of lights also produce heat which fights the air conditioner, so it's nice to leave them off if I don't need them. Most of the wiring is practically inaccessible because it's a two-story house, and totally rewiring the lights was out of the question. But when I put a subpanel in the garage I ran another lighting circuit to the lights from an accessible part of the attic (I connected all the lights with ceiling-mounted conduit) and set it up to be switched by the original light switches (one of which was replaced with an occupancy sensor) with a relay. So far so good, but then it occurred to me that I could hook up some of the lights directly to the original circuit and put a switch on the relay'd bulbs so they'll only come on when I want them.

Long story short I rigged it up so the occupancy sensor turns all the lights on or off, but there's a pair of switches that can override it to keep most of the bulbs off if I don't need them. Cool, huh? Man, what a waste of time.

 

[UnFacconable]

I have water coming out of my dishwasher air gap / breather (which is then leaking into the cabinet below my sink). I assume I have a plugged water line that needs to get cleared but should I also have a watertight breather to counter interface so that in the future this doesn’t leak into my cabinet? I don’t know if it’s normal or not but most of the time when it’s draining it works properly and I can see the water draining into the garbage disposal but then at some point it will come out of the breather. This doesn’t happen with every wash cycle but has happened a few times recently so it seems chronic. Hoses and fittings all seem fine.

This is a case of first impression for me. According to something I read, you can just force air back into the breather to flush the line in some instances. I tried that and heard some water moving but that seems too easy to have actually resolved the problem.

 

[brokencycle]

I have water coming out of my dishwasher air gap / breather (which is then leaking into the cabinet below my sink). I assume I have a plugged water line that needs to get cleared but should I also have a watertight breather to counter interface so that in the future this doesn’t leak into my cabinet? I don’t know if it’s normal or not but most of the time when it’s draining it works properly and I can see the water draining into the garbage disposal but then at some point it will come out of the breather. This doesn’t happen with every wash cycle but has happened a few times recently so it seems chronic. Hoses and fittings all seem fine.

This is a case of first impression for me. According to something I read, you can just force air back into the breather to flush the line in some instances. I tried that and heard some water moving but that seems too easy to have actually resolved the problem.

It may be unrelated, but we had a leak which was caused by the vent at the top of the dishwasher being clogged. I had to take the front of the dishwasher off and clean it out.

 

[SirWilliam]

Did you take a look inside the discharge hose that connects to the disposal? I would get a flashlight and look.

 

[Numbernine]

There is a blockage or kink in the portion of the drain downstream of the airgap assembly itself.Check the easiest and most obvious points first.
Yes you should have a watertight connection at any countertop or sink top penetrations and the airgap should be installed so that leakage runs into the sink