Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

Domon said:
had a company in this morning, they owe me an estimate today. Initial plan is to patch the large holes in the wall, stop the incursions.

90% of it is coming through the walls, not the floor.

after that, yep, sump.

Open question is to do interior drain tile into the sump at this time or not.
Click to expand...
Umm, if it didn't come in through the walls, it would come in through the dirt floor. RIght?
 
The solar installers decided that a copper pigtail and a wire nut shot full of no-alox was the best solution to extending an aluminum branch wire inside my breaker box.

image-20180911_131846.jpg

Something happened, and I while I can't be certain that it was their fault, every single joint on this circuit's neutral (even the ones properly terminated to copper in a purple marette) was completely melted.

I spent the day chasing the failure back to the breaker box. Kinda important, since the circuit has the furnace, the doorbell, and the swamp cooler on it.

I took the opportunity to move the garage door opener to a different circuit (why it was on there to begin with is a mystery to me, and looked half-assed done). I assumed without testing that the garage door opener had bought the farm, since every time I plugged it in, my circuit tester would go from "all good, mate" to "you've got your hot and ground switched up, mate". This turned out not to be the case, after I found the last burned junction in the breaker box, but I went and picked up a new one anyhow, now I'm going to swap the genie shitbox onto the single, and the fancy wifi chamberlain onto the double.
 
  • Gravy
Reactions: fly
I find it odd they stick the doorbell in with that stuff instead of, ya know, other stuff that's in the room by the front door.
 
Jehannum said:
The solar installers decided that a copper pigtail and a wire nut shot full of no-alox was the best solution to extending an aluminum branch wire inside my breaker box.

View attachment 4581

Something happened, and I while I can't be certain that it was their fault, every single joint on this circuit's neutral (even the ones properly terminated to copper in a purple marette) was completely melted.

I spent the day chasing the failure back to the breaker box. Kinda important, since the circuit has the furnace, the doorbell, and the swamp cooler on it.

I took the opportunity to move the garage door opener to a different circuit (why it was on there to begin with is a mystery to me, and looked half-assed done). I assumed without testing that the garage door opener had bought the farm, since every time I plugged it in, my circuit tester would go from "all good, mate" to "you've got your hot and ground switched up, mate". This turned out not to be the case, after I found the last burned junction in the breaker box, but I went and picked up a new one anyhow, now I'm going to swap the genie shitbox onto the single, and the fancy wifi chamberlain onto the double.
Click to expand...
Any headway with your mystery cooking of those joints?

I think the doorbell on furnace circuit isn't too odd Very frequently on a light circuit near the door.
 
So, when I was initially procuring bits to fix the house, I bought a new garage door opener, as I thought the old one was dead.

After figuring out it wasn't, I put the fancy pants new one on the big door (it's a belt drive chamberlain that connects to my Wifi), and moved the old Genie to the small 1 piece door where I keep the Datsun.

Now I have electric openers on both doors instead of just the main door.
 
  • Gravy
Reactions: wetwillie
Oh and it should come as a surprise to absolutely noone that the small one-panel garage door that I hooked the old opener up to has absolutely no safety retention on the extension springs.

Somebody converted the main garage (the 2 car door) to a sliding panel door at some point (in the 1990s, judging by the quality), but left the shitty old 1 piece door on the secondary opening, and didn't bother updating it with anything safety-related at all. Gotta go and get some safety lines pretty quick.
 
  • Gravy
Reactions: wetwillie
Jehannum said:
Oh and it should come as a surprise to absolutely noone that the small one-panel garage door that I hooked the old opener up to has absolutely no safety retention on the extension springs.

Somebody converted the main garage (the 2 car door) to a sliding panel door at some point (in the 1990s, judging by the quality), but left the shitty old 1 piece door on the secondary opening, and didn't bother updating it with anything safety-related at all. Gotta go and get some safety lines pretty quick.
Click to expand...
Most big box hardware stores will have those cables in sets of two for $10ish. Very needed. Dangerous old-school shit.
 
wetwille said:
Most big box hardware stores will have those cables in sets of two for $10ish. Very needed. Dangerous old-school shit.
Click to expand...
If I could find a sliding panel door that matched the main door, I'd buy that in a heartbeat, but nobody makes a sliding panel door that reasonably matches the other one anymore.

The new ones all have these repeated short stampings instead of just being continuous edge to edge (like the big door), and I'm unwilling to dump $2k on 2 new garage doors when I could be spending it on liquor and whores.
 
Jehannum said:
If I could find a sliding panel door that matched the main door, I'd buy that in a heartbeat, but nobody makes a sliding panel door that reasonably matches the other one anymore.

The new ones all have these repeated short stampings instead of just being continuous edge to edge (like the big door), and I'm unwilling to dump $2k on 2 new garage doors when I could be spending it on liquor and whores.
Click to expand...
I kind of lucked out a few years ago - major hailstorm, large baseball sized. Replacement value insurance. Got the sweetest freakin doors (double & single, plus entrance door) - I installed all to pocket the installation cost. * I have a Michigan residential builders license so the roofing and siding contractor was able to pass that through to me.
 
wetwille said:
I kind of lucked out a few years ago - major hailstorm, large baseball sized. Replacement value insurance. Got the sweetest freakin doors (double & single, plus entrance door) - I installed all to pocket the installation cost. * I have a Michigan residential builders license.
Click to expand...
Fortunately, garage doors are not an inspected/permitted item in New Mexico, so I can touch that shit without feeling like I just kicked my property value in the nuts afterwards.

I'm just tired of finding dumb shit done by previous owners that clearly should have been on the inspection report.

So far, it's been: improperly pig-tailed aluminum branch wiring at the outlets, non-dedicated breakers for appliances (granted, that wasn't code in '78 when the house was built, but the PO looks like he got a spool of romex and went wild), dead-ass dumb maintenance on the swamp cooler (they're not complex machines, it takes actively poor diligence to let them get into poor repair, but mine is basically fucked), weird plumbing for the sprinklers (let's put two electric valves for the back yard 3' down, in a 4" pipe "access box"), and leaky picture windows in the living room and master bedroom (bad install).

It's a "30 footer" in car terms. Get closer than 30 feet and shit gets weird in a hurry.

But I'm slowly rectifying his dumb choices and, for all his dumb choices the effort s/he put into the interior is pretty damn good..
 
Jehannum said:
Fortunately, garage doors are not an inspected/permitted item in New Mexico, so I can touch that shit without feeling like I just kicked my property value in the nuts afterwards.

I'm just tired of finding dumb shit done by previous owners that clearly should have been on the inspection report.

So far, it's been: improperly pig-tailed aluminum branch wiring at the outlets, non-dedicated breakers for appliances (granted, that wasn't code in '78 when the house was built, but the PO looks like he got a spool of romex and went wild), dead-ass dumb maintenance on the swamp cooler (they're not complex machines, it takes actively poor diligence to let them get into poor repair, but mine is basically fucked), weird plumbing for the sprinklers (let's put two electric valves for the back yard 3' down, in a 4" pipe "access box"), and leaky picture windows in the living room and master bedroom (bad install).

It's a "30 footer" in car terms. Get closer than 30 feet and shit gets weird in a hurry.

But I'm slowly rectifying his dumb choices and, for all his dumb choices the effort s/he put into the interior is pretty damn good..
Click to expand...
Yeesh. My house was built(2001) by my neighbor, who is a framing carpenter. The house is solid, most wiring and plumbing was city inspected -although, the basement bedroom LIT ME UP when I reached up to the ceiling grid from the aluminum step ladder.. Every door in the house was/is out of square - framing carpenters shouldn't do trim work in some cases. Then again, we are talking a :tard:who buys two lots, builds one up on the high ground(mine) and the other at about 50' lower elevation, down a 40+degree hill. Many days in the winter they have to park on my driveway and walk back/forth to their house. Their last name plus "ed it" is commonly spoken in our house.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back