Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

You're (slightly) better than this.
You're right.

I just don't like exposing services that I don't need to. There's no chance that someone will be active in dicking with my light switches, but there's every chance that some dipshit's bad code in OpenHab will allow someone to add my machine to a cloud of bots.

99% of my interaction with my HA is when I'm at home, so I can either wait until I get home, or I can SSH into the network and manage it from there. I'm OK with it being that way.
 
If I had the knowledge and the ability I would most certainly dick with people's light switches. And garage doors. And sprinkler systems. And, and, and...
 
Might as well start posting in this thread now. My offer on the new house got accepted! Just need my current house to pass inspection, and that goes down tomorrow.

Top priority: there's an oil fired boiler in the basement, fed from an indoor tank which is 17 years old and uninsurable, that currently heats the main part of the house with forced water. I could replace the oil tank but I don't want to, because fuck home heating oil, it's expensive, it stinks, and insurance companies hate oil tanks. I don't want to spend more money keeping that shit going.

Looking at the Steffes 5100 series Thermonic ETS boiler to replace the oil boiler. They've got a literal ton of bricks inside them that get heated up to several hundred degrees F during off-peak hours with half price electricity, then cool down throughout the day when electricity is expensive. The ETS doesn't provide domestic hot water like the oil boiler does, but I'll just fire in an electric hot water tank and put a timer on it so it only runs during off-peak hours.

I'm really eager to get on a time-of-day rate because I'll probably be buying an electric car in the coming years, and being able to charge overnight with half price electricity will be awesome.
 
Might as well start posting in this thread now. My offer on the new house got accepted! Just need my current house to pass inspection, and that goes down tomorrow.

Top priority: there's an oil fired boiler in the basement, fed from an indoor tank which is 17 years old and uninsurable, that currently heats the main part of the house with forced water. I could replace the oil tank but I don't want to, because fuck home heating oil, it's expensive, it stinks, and insurance companies hate oil tanks. I don't want to spend more money keeping that shit going.

Looking at the Steffes 5100 series Thermonic ETS boiler to replace the oil boiler. They've got a literal ton of bricks inside them that get heated up to several hundred degrees F during off-peak hours with half price electricity, then cool down throughout the day when electricity is expensive. The ETS doesn't provide domestic hot water like the oil boiler does, but I'll just fire in an electric hot water tank and put a timer on it so it only runs during off-peak hours.

I'm really eager to get on a time-of-day rate because I'll probably be buying an electric car in the coming years, and being able to charge overnight with half price electricity will be awesome.
What about the dog sitting stuffs?!?!?
 
Also heard a comment from the homeowner. He's a carpenter that's maintained and built onto the house himself, constructed the garage himself and all of that... and his shed is full of woodworking tools.

Anyway, the septic system on the house needs to be replaced, and he's replacing it with the proceeds from the sale of the house. There's a big red maple tree in the front lawn that has to come down to change the septic. So I added a note to the offer. "Since the tree's gotta come down, any chance I can keep the wood? Between woodworking projects and smoke wood, I'll make good use of it."

He already promised to give the tree to someone else, but was delighted that I asked, apparently.
 
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Also heard a comment from the homeowner. He's a carpenter that's maintained and built onto the house himself, constructed the garage himself and all of that... and his shed is full of woodworking tools.

Anyway, the septic system on the house needs to be replaced, and he's replacing it with the proceeds from the sale of the house. There's a big red maple tree in the front lawn that has to come down to change the septic. So I added a note to the offer. "Since the tree's gotta come down, any chance I can keep the wood? Between woodworking projects and smoke wood, I'll make good use of it."

He already promised to give the tree to someone else, but was delighted that I asked, apparently.
Maybe his friend will pussy out after a few loads and you'll still get a decent stash. Here's to wishing you get lots of wood ;)
 
Maybe his friend will pussy out after a few loads and you'll still get a decent stash. Here's to wishing you get lots of wood ;)

at least that means itll get cut down right in big 10 foot sections rather than chopped 2 feet at a time into worthless chunks for lumber