Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

I got everything except the bathrooms and the laundry room painted. I also put my bullshit back away and put hands on about 18 tons of shit I need to recycle, donate, or incorporate into actual projects.

Got a whole ass Intel Core 2 Quad machine that might do some good to someone somewhere, and two bookshelves that are about to be obsoleted as soon as I get down to the metal yard.
 
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gee said:
New house plans are finalized.


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Just under 1500sqft interior space. Single floor, heated slab on grade.

I'm debating between forking out the $$$ to hydronically heat the slab using an air-source heat pump, or just resistively heating the slab and spending the same $$$ on solar panels instead to offset the difference. Gonna sit down with someone to calculate all the insulation and BTUs and all that other crap and make the call shortly. In any case, big heated slab qualifies for time-of-day heating.

Speaking of solar panels the house faces directly north, and the back roof of the house is angled 45 degrees which matches the 45°04' latitude we're at.

Utility room is in the middle of the house. Since I'm doing a slab on grade, I can just run the electrical service through a conduit in the slab and put the panel wherever - my big electrical loads are in the kitchen and in the utility room itself, which saves me a bunch on wiring. Hot water heater is also in the middle of the house right next to the bathroom, so people can run whatever water they want with zero effect on whoever's getting a shower, fixing a major pet peeve with the last two houses.

Big ass kitchen with a walk in pantry because we might as well admit that we're big fucking foodies.

And a woodstove for backup heat, and also because woodstoves are awesome. With the insulation we're putting in, it's gonna be hard to find a small enough woodstove that doesn't make the place ridiculously hot inside, but that's fine.

No dining room, no dining room table, we've never used either of them so fuck it. Eat at the kitchen island or eat on the couch.
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I posted this in July, and now it's January and I finally signed the mortgage paperwork today, fucks sake.

There's so many new housing starts here that banks just don't have the staff to keep up, and they'd rather make the money rubber stamping 50 identical houses in a subdivision instead of going through all the extra effort to help out a couple weirdos building a weird custom house on an old hay field. Ended up finding a credit union in a small town that would take the thing on.

Would have been fuckin' nice if it happened months ago when rates were better, and we could get the slab poured before the winter.
 
gee said:
I posted this in July, and now it's January and I finally signed the mortgage paperwork today, fucks sake.

There's so many new housing starts here that banks just don't have the staff to keep up, and they'd rather make the money rubber stamping 50 identical houses in a subdivision instead of going through all the extra effort to help out a couple weirdos building a weird custom house on an old hay field. Ended up finding a credit union in a small town that would take the thing on.

Would have been fuckin' nice if it happened months ago when rates were better, and we could get the slab poured before the winter.
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As long as it depresses costs, high interest markets are actually great. Since the rate is the only thing you get to renegotiate later.

When do you start construction? And wait, is this a mortgage or construction loan?
 
fly said:
As long as it depresses costs, high interest markets are actually great. Since the rate is the only thing you get to renegotiate later.

When do you start construction? And wait, is this a mortgage or construction loan?
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its not yet universally depressing costs though. Costs have actually not moved down at all in my region
 
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Jehannum said:
wood has started back down around me. Construction lumber and sheet goods aren't nearly as expensive as they were at the height of the bullshit.
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oh, lumber futures are definitely getting better.

Existing home prices are what hasnt moved.
 
fly said:
As long as it depresses costs, high interest markets are actually great. Since the rate is the only thing you get to renegotiate later.

When do you start construction? And wait, is this a mortgage or construction loan?
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It's a construction mortgage!

Everything is done on the bank side, now waiting for a lawyer who's gonna be the third party overseeing the disbursement.

Construction is gonna start soon hopefully, but they can't do a whole lot other than build the driveway and do the excavation work. Slab gotta wait till the spring.
 
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Domon said:
oh, lumber futures are definitely getting better.

Existing home prices are what hasnt moved.
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it's probably not worth it to buy a house in the entire DMV. At best it'll be in the ghetto when they finish the purple line. Cromwell station pretty much made northern anne arundel a dump.
 
I'm surrounded by snobby hoa people that will be subtly racist and throw a big fit about public transport attracting "those kind of people"
 
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I repacked the stem, replaced the sealing washer, and ground the seat on the hose bib in the back yard that had developed a leak. Now I have to figure out how to get the hard water staining off my stucco.
 
Jehannum said:
I repacked the stem, replaced the sealing washer, and ground the seat on the hose bib in the back yard that had developed a leak. Now I have to figure out how to get the hard water staining off my stucco.
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You can't. Paint it with kills then something to match the stucco.
 
ZRH said:
You can't. Paint it with kills then something to match the stucco.
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I think I'm going to wait until the spring when it won't freeze, as the spot is shaded in winter, but I'm going to try mobilizing it with some water until it spreads so that the discoloration is slight enough that it doesn't bother me anymore.

I wish the PO hadn't stuccoed over the base of the hose bib, but here we are.
 
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