pdavis
@pdavis@lemmy.world
- Comment on What do I look out for regarding mold inside of an older house (1972)? 5 days ago:
Controlling the humidity in the house with a dehumidifier is a good thing and a great start. Check for any active leaks, specifically in any places where you have spotted water damage. Check for any drywall that is soft, specifically around the top or bottom of the drywall. Go outside and check the caulk around windows, the window ledgers, especially if the ledgers use any mortar, and flashing around the roof. You should take a hose and lightly spray, simulating rain and wind, with someone inside checking for leaks. Since you have a basement, look for any areas that might hold water around the foundation, check your gutters to make sure they are in good working order and the drains are directing the water away from the foundation and in a direction where the water can drain away from the house. You didn’t mention if your bathrooms vent to the outside (and not just into the attic either), if they don’t you will want to either vent them outside or include that in your dehumidifier/AC calculations. Check your dryer vent to make sure it is clean and vents outside as well.
If you can stop any leaks you find, control the humidity in the house, and wash with soap and water any exposed surfaces that may have had mold growth, I think you should be fine. I recommend you purchase some mold test kits and check for mold in the air just to be safe.
- Comment on I’d like to build a ducting system to actively push air from one room to another. Is that a thing? 2 months ago:
I have an inline duct booster fan with a control. I would recommend just putting one in your existing HVAC duct that runs upstairs. Also, if you don’t already, use your HVAC fan on “On” rather than “Auto” whenever there is an unwanted temperature differential. Overall I don’t think your idea about repurposing the chimney with additional duct work to move air is a bad idea. Especially given your description that multiple renovations have been done and perhaps a holistic approach to the HVAC system wasn’t taken. Our HVAC contractor re-routed our gas furnace’s exhaust gasses that had been going from the basement all the way through all the floors to the attack, the newer model just goes out the wall in the basement. The old exhaust was used to add a return from the upper floor to the basement. And of course, always check that you have more than enough insulation.
- Comment on Options for equalizing temperature between the basement and the rest of the house in summer? 2 months ago:
I initially had the opposite problem where my uninsulated cinder block basement was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter and my basement didn’t have any HVAC registers or returns. The only air conditioning it got was from a window AC unit and leakage from the HVAC ducts. Over several years I ended up adding 2" foam insulation internally to all the exterior walls, insulating the ceiling to the basement (mostly for sound absorption but it also helped with floor temperatures), and adding returns and registers in the basement. I also added an inline booster fan to help pull air up to a second floor bonus room that was an addition. Now the basement is always comfortable, the second floor is much more comfortable, and the energy costs are about the same. My moisture levels are 30-50% in the summer.
- Comment on Should I insulate my garage attic? 2 months ago:
I did a radiant barrier on my rafters to guide heat up from the soffits to the ridge vent and then insulated the joists. Blown in insulation is pretty cheap. While doing other work I also insulated my southern facing garage wall and of course insulated the garage door (and sealed the edges). This made a noticeable difference in the temperature of the garage. I can turn a couple of fans on in the garage and leave the door to the house open and achieve a very reasonable temperature in the garage if I plan on being in there for a length of time. This helps in both summer and winter.
- Comment on Advice wanted: Combining current solutions into one home server 4 months ago:
I run just one Windows machine with some VMs for various services if needed. Less to maintain and have to tinker with.
- Comment on Networking Dilemma 4 months ago:
I installed cable in a couple of apartments I rented. I just made it look professional and nothing was ever said about it. In one apartment town home I even had access to the attic and was able to run cable in the walls. I did have to drill through the floor and door headers in some instances, but it can be done.
- Comment on What tool do you use to display your self-hosting infrastructure 4 months ago:
I still use Dia Diagram Editor for most things. I just wish it was still being updated.
- Comment on How to repair peeling on cabinets 6 months ago:
You could try gluing it and clamping but it looks like getting a clamp on it might be hard and I have not had good luck gluing veneer that is peeling away like that. That is cheap and easy to try so I would start there though. Some of the other suggestions to repair it are good as well. I will throw out another, buy a sheet of veneer and cut out a square an inch or so larger than the area that needs to be repaired. Lay the square over the area to be repaired and cut out the bad area in the shape of the repair piece, then glue the repair piece in, a little wood putty and sanding to match might do the trick.
Depending on where it is peeling away, you might try putting on small decorative trim pieces stained or painted in a complementing color. I did this all along the underside of our countertop as decoration and to make some new cabinets blend in with older existing ones.
- Comment on When you do it yourself and it looks like you did it yourself lol 6 months ago:
I have “professional” drywall in my house that doesn’t look that good. Take it as the learning experience it is and rest assured that most people won’t notice it.
- Comment on Just used spray foam for the first time... 6 months ago:
I put on an old pair of coveralls, gloves, hat, hood, respirator, old shoes, goggles. I covered the doorway to the room with plastic and setup a fan for ventilation and pre-heated the bottles. Even with all that I was miserable. I was hot and sweaty, had trouble breathing, and couldn’t see out of the goggles. My arms were tired and the foam mixture wasn’t always mixing properly and ended up wasting a lot of the mixture. It was still pretty expensive and time consuming… not sure I would do it again.
- Comment on Handyman suggested cutting hole in 1330 sq. ft. attic for second attic ventilator. Does this make sense? 6 months ago:
I thought ridge vents were all the rage these days. I installed ridge vents and then put up Reflectix Reflective Roll Insulation from the soffits up to 12-18 inches from the ridge. It reduced the heat in the attic by a noticeable amount and wasn’t too expensive or difficult to install. I also blew in additional insulation. I plan on adding additional venting in the soffits in the future. My experience is that fans fail, require maintenance, use energy, and tend to only cool the attic off in certain areas if not well planned out with supporting architecture and venting.
- Submitted 9 months ago to maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world | 1 comment
- Comment on Is replacing a tub/shower combo DIY'able 10 months ago:
I wouldn’t worry about the soft spot too much, it could just be the foam supports underneath the tub itself and not the floor. Even if it is the floor, that’s probably within your skill-set to fix if you can manage a circular saw and swing a hammer. I hired a contractor to install a shower for me in a new bathroom because I don’t have the plumbing skills or time. He outsourced the plumbing, electrical, and did the, framing, tiling, and everything else himself. The shower alone took them about a week, one of the main issues he encountered was keeping the tile lines straight. His tile saw wasn’t exact enough and the cuts were ever so slightly off which caused compounding problems.
- Comment on Adding insulation to an old house. 10 months ago:
I don’t really know of a way that you can add insulation without taking up interior space, exterior space, or replacing the wall with more modern materials.
- What about the sides of the home not facing the street? Can you add an exterior layer of insulation and then new exterior siding to those walls?
- On the side facing the street, you could replace the stone wall with a different type of wall that was more thermally resistant. This would of course be a major undertaking.
- I am sure you have considered fully insulating the floor and ceiling as best you can.
- If rodents and or insects are a concern, look into Mineral Wool/Rockwool Insulation.
- Comment on Foundation advice 10 months ago:
I have seen time-laps videos on Youtube of a company that retrofits houses that have crawl spaces with full basements. It is pretty amazing to watch them work. They hand dig out sections at a time and pour footings and supporting walls, they then do a final pouring of the floor. They do this without lifting the house.
- Comment on Foundation advice 10 months ago:
Is the house occupied? If not, can the existing floor/decking be removed to get direct access to the crawl space and supports? If so, that will make the job so much easier.
While you are at it, have you considered digging out underneath the house and creating a concrete and cinder-block basement? It would cost a bit more but since you are already doing major foundation work, it might be worth it and would dramatically increase the square footage of the house. Adding a basement would allow you the freedom to bring in large excavation machines to do the digging with.
- Comment on Anyone converted an attached garage to a living space? Any unexpected issues? 10 months ago:
If you leave the driveway in front of where the garage door is, you may want to think about a curb stop or two so no cars accidentally accelerate into your new living room. You also mentioned leveling the graded garage floor so you are probably fine on this point, but, you will just want to make sure that outside the new wall water doesn’t run back and stand.
- Comment on how much backing up would you do of a media server? 11 months ago:
I back up everything. I use Stablebit Drivepool with duplication for all of my source code, media, photos, documents, music, books, laptop backups, etc. I back that up periodically to a Drobo DAS and 8 Bay USB enclosure setup under Drivepool. I also have off site backup (working on a new NAS which will be accessed over a VPN). I don’t want to spend the time worrying about loosing anything I have put time and effort into. Been there and done that. Drives are relatively inexpensive but can fail without warning.
- Comment on How do i fix this ugly hole in the wall? 11 months ago:
Wow, what did he “fix” then? He did a terrible job. I understand an electrician not fixing the cement block, but they should have properly installed and secured the box flush with the concrete.
- Comment on How do i fix this ugly hole in the wall? 11 months ago:
They make circular conduit cutters not much bigger than the conduit itself. They go for around $25. One of those would easily fit in the opening you have. Be sure to turn the power off to the circuit first though.
- Comment on How do i fix this ugly hole in the wall? 11 months ago:
Electrically speaking it is in the proper housing, but the box is not secured, so I would ding it for that at the very least. I agree about cutting the conduit back and putting in a proper secure box and then cementing around the box. You could also use a surface mount box. In that case you would cut the existing conduit back, put a 90 degree elbow with a enough conduit to extend past the wall edge. Patch the wall and then install a surface mount box where the wires are connected in.
- Comment on Can anyone give me advice on how to solve this T1-11 siding rot? 11 months ago:
If you do end up replacing just a bottom portion, be sure you use some Z-flashing so that rain water can’t get behind the seam. As mentioned, use something that won’t rot. I also recommend using Hardie Sierra 8 to replace entire sections, I have it on some portions of my house along with T1-11 and they compliment one another as long as they are not side by side.
- Comment on YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers 1 year ago:
My ad blocker was working so well I didn’t even realize I had it installed and blocking ads on YouTube. I don’t mind watching a few ads as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.
- Comment on The Contract Conundrum 1 year ago:
If I had to speculate and GUESS, based on information I know now and if I give the CTO the benefit of the doubt and assume he was competent (contrary to what I saw), I would say they were having trouble canceling the contract with the third party consulting firm we were hired through. I also think they might have been quietly moving their operations out of state to another infrastructure originally belonging to another company they bought or merged with that had their own IT team and wanted us kept out of the loop. Hiring us might have been a way to reduce our compensation and get us under an NDA regarding the move. When hiring us failed they were able to re-negotiate the terms of the contract with the consulting firm for half of what it was. Again, just a guess.
- Submitted 1 year ago to maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world | 3 comments
- Comment on Mount electric sub-panel over lapped hardie board siding? 1 year ago:
Plantjam is correct. My electrician installed a main panel on my hardieboard and used 14-Gauge Electro-galvanized Half Slot Channel Struts to mount to. They mounted the struts horizontally through the Hardieboard into the sheathing/studs, caulking the screw penetrations. They then mounted the circuit breaker panel to the struts.You my need to add spacers.
- Comment on Siding Rain Screen Detail 1 year ago:
Thanks for the response. The barrier I choose isn’t permeable. I live in a moderate climate. We do get the occasional snow which melts within a few days. My house is pretty leaky at the moment, so the walls will be able to dry from the inside. I would like to use mineral wool in some areas (like near my grill) but it isn’t available in large sheets in my area and its R value per inch isn’t quite as good as the Poly, so I opted to go with Poly in most areas.
Yes, I could place the L flashing behind the furring strips (mentioned in my previous reply), but my hesitation there is I wanted to have a full shield of layered tape and wrap all the way up the wall and I didn’t really want to put wrap on top of the insulation because I didn’t trust that none of the penetrations I would need to make for the furring strips and siding wouldn’t leak. I saw in one video where they were doing 4" of insulation they put the rain barrier 2" back between the two insulation layers. I think this would be a good solution but the install is a bit more complicated when doing multiple layers of insulation. To do this I could have done two 1" layers instead of just 1 2" layer and put the flashing between the two layers.
- Comment on Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate | What should I watch? is now a much easier question than How do I watch it? 1 year ago:
I still use my DVD/Blu-ray by mail subscription from Netflix. Practically everything was available that way. I will be canceling Netflix for a while after that goes away at the end if the month. I plan to just rotate through which services I subscribe to.
- Submitted 1 year ago to [deleted] | 3 comments
- Comment on Sealing gaps in duct work letting out air 1 year ago:
I have to confirm that mastic plus aluminum tape is the way to go. The mastic will help fill the gap and protect the tape from drying out and peeling away. Be sure to clean it thoroughly o the tape will stick long term. Mastic is doubly important if you have condensation issues. And if that is the case, or the duct work is in unconditioned space, you should consider insulating and covering the duct work.
