The Hivemind Improving Homes

I read many posts by first time home buyers asking for suggestions that will help save them money over the long run.

TLDR: Buy a cheap hand rooter it could save you thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the tool.

Out of all my tools, and I have them for every job, this $25 tool has saved me thousands of dollars in the 12 years I've owned my home.

When we first bought our home, foreclosed, I bought this tool for $25 to root out a 4” basement basin drain that was full of dried paint, clay, dirt, etc. It took forever to get through the 8 inches deep of hardened waste. But I got it and that drain works great now 12 years later.

I use it to clean out every sink, tub, toilet, shower drain that gets clogged. I don't use it that often maybe every couple of years.

Every time I use it I say to myself that just saved me a couple hundred bucks!

I saved my neighbors literally thousands of dollars helping them root out a basement drain line.

This weekend my 5th grade daughter had a sleepover with two of her friends. Last night I overheard them talking about how the toilet is not flushing. I go in the bathroom and see the toilet clogged, the toilet paper roll on the floor, and the toilet paper roll holder nowhere to be found.

I asked the girls who knew what happened in the bathroom. Mysteriously no one knew anything about what happened in the bathroom. My daughter says I haven't gone since we've been home. The other girl says I went upstairs. The third girl with a guilty look on her face says… uh… getting red in the face… yeah, I went upstairs too.

I ask does anybody know where the toilet paper roll holder is. No’s all around. Guilty face looking even guiltier. Haha!

So I plunge it down and can tell something isn't right. After the plunge still a slow flow. A little while later “the toilets not working”. Plunge it down, still slow flow.

After three more iterations of above I just went to bed.

This morning my wife says “toilets not working.”

So after breakfast get out the trusty rooter and Root Root Root Root Root Root Root Root and magically the toilet paper roll holder appears!

I talk to the girls. Does anybody know how this got in the toilet? No, no, guilty face “no”, silence all around! Then I have the “It's better to tell someone if something falls in the toilet then to flush it down” talk.

Hahaha! That just saved me a couple hundred bucks.

Hi,

Looking for advice. I hired a contractor for a full small kitchen remodel where his estimate was $11k (in lign with other estimates I received). He finished the work within three weeks and I went to inspect the work (I was living out of town during that time before moving back). It was horrible...

Here are examples of just some of the craftsmanship. They painted the kitchen but didn't pull out the fridge so behind it wasn't painted. The floors were not level--no subfloor was installed which should have been and when I asked he asked what a subfloor was. They did plumbing that leaked within three days of being finished. I had a plumber come out and say how it was done would have never been done by a plumber. They scratched hardwood floors in my dining room from the stove (where it was stored) and then lost the legs so when they put it back, it had wooden slats under it instead of any legs. The shelves are poor quality and I know where they got them which would have been about $2500 but billing me for $5k. Cabinet doors are misaligned. Broke my dishwasher because door no longer fully closes. Didn't run a hose to my ice maker in the fridge. The list goes on... I emailed and called to get it fixed. However I had another contractor and plumber go to inspect the work and they were surprised to say the least. Contractor came when I had the plumber there who said it wasn't the right material. I did not trust contractor to fix it so I said the plumber should do it.

Contractor had a to do list and emails from me. They fixed some but I didn't trust them to fix other things based on not unreal work they did already. So I had another contractor come in to fix and get it up to satisfactory. I got a bill for $37k from th3 original contractor (bad one) today. Apparently extra plumbing and electrical for some of it... scared to even know the state of that behind drywall because plumbing under the sink that leaked wasn't proper material or installed correctly. What do I do? I paid $5k at beginning which I don't care but I am not paying the rest of the total $37k especially on a horrible job that was estimated to be $11k.

Any thoughts?

I see tools and improvement suggestions for homeowners everywhere. I have to say my used 6x10 trailer I got for $600 off Facebook has been the workhorse around here.

Insulation. Mulch. Furniture. Lawn Mower. Appliances. Lumber. PVC. Playsets.

Checking here before I call the company tomorrow but we had a $2k Sani Dry Sedona dehumidifier installed recently. It’s supposed to handle up to 3k square feet. We had 2 dinky dehumidifiers from Home Depot prior and had to empty them every day during humid summer months. I thought getting this better dehumidifier would allow us to stop using the smaller ones. We left the small ones down there just to see if they would still pull moisture (I expected them not to since the better one is installed now.) Maybe I just don’t understand how these machines work because I feel frustrated that the smaller ones are still filling up every 2 days. I thought the expensive one would be doing the job so well the smaller ones wouldn’t fill.

I’m gonna call and try to talk to someone about it tomorrow. Am I wrong to assume the Sedona isn’t doing a good job since the small ones still fill up every 2 days?

I bought a home in a rural area of Maine that had lots of landlord special laws work done outside

One thing is he installed flag stone paths all around the house but didn’t install it correctly. It’s not level, weeds running amok, and looks like shit. I want to dig up 4-6” of the outdoor and redo it

I also need to install about 60’ of French drains which will need gravel

Finally I built a fire pit that’s 25’ in diameter I just need gravel to fill it in since it’s currently a layer of sand

Can I just buy .5 to 1” gravel for all the purposes above or do I need a bunch of different size gravel? I’m purchasing it from a quarry near me

See picture: https://imgur.com/a/agsN6pa

The roofers said they had to use long nails, or the shingles would become loose. That doesn’t really make sense to me; what can the length of nail that’s sticking out really help?

It’s also like this in my garage and attic rafters, though I don’t care as much since no one sees those.

I left a couple of bricks on my roof of my old home and forgot to leave a note to the buyers. They look randomly left there, but if you take them away, rainwater will shoot at such force from one pipe it will overshoot the gutter and drench the balcony. The bricks split the stream. I never got around to fixing the pipe issue from the owner before me.

I see a lot of posts from people wondering WTF the previous owners were thinking, so curious if any of you discovered valid reasons for strange finds?

Are there better options for hardware stores other than Home Depot and Lowe’s in terms of customer service? I don’t mind paying more for better service and quality. HD feels worse than Walmart in terms of employee’s willingness to help.

So it's time for siding and I'm leaning towards vinyl or James Hardie. Just don't know what would be best in Chicago especially the winter months.....

I'm doing work on my kitchen and thought that it might be a good time to look into opening it up into the family room and extending the countertop to provide some seating.

There is some electrical wiring that would need to be moved, and the plumbing vent pipe from the sink would have to move as well, but other than that there's nothing else in the non-loadbearing wall.

I've had a couple of contractors come out and I've gotten quotes from 14-16k to do the job. Is this standard or an I just being told to go away?

Here's a couple pictures of the wall in question and a quote I got (https://imgur.com/a/YX97sNU) Any information or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I can't seem to find any differences between the two except that Ultraflex is more expensive. But I'm assuming it's for a reason.

What do you recommend?

I’m looking to replace my doors. I work at Menards and we have the engineered wood frames that are cheaper than solid pine. Is the engineered wood okay or am I better off getting a pine frame? I hear mixed things like they are shitty and some people like them. I just don’t want to buy them and have to replace them again in a few years when we go to sell our home. Any recommendations?

We’ve been getting a lot of rain lately and I’ve noticed that water is dripping in from around the vent of our electric fireplace and also that the grout around some of the bricks is getting damp. See link at the bottom for a picture of the bricks. You can see the darker spots where it’s damp. I don’t know enough about this to take a guess and what would be causing it. Without knowing that, who would I even call to come take a look at it to try to determine the source of the problem. Someone that does chimney maintenance? Side note, we did just have our roof reshingled a little over a month ago. Is there something that they could have done around the chimney that didn’t get sealed properly? Any helpful insight would be appreciated. Thank you.

https://imgur.com/a/eIKOYJF

Hello,

I’m a first time home owner and my fence was looking old and sad so I wanted to paint it so it would look new. I was advised by Home Depot to prime my fence first which I did. I initially chose redwood solid color because on the bucket it looked like a settle brown red. Once I started painting my fence, i started to love the color and then as I was halfway done, I started to hate it. I think it’s too bright. I didn’t want to go with a darker color because my backyard is super tiny and i didn’t want to make it look smaller so that’s why I chose redwood. Now the question is, will it start to fade and not be so bright? I’m already thinking of painting over it with another color next year if I still hate the color.

I have an echogear TV mount i've been using for the past 5 years, it's probably gone up and down several times as I've moved over the years. When installing it in our newest place, I thought I'd try and use four squares of thin foam backing behind the corners of the mount to keep it directly contacting that wall and pulling a bunch of paint off whenever we move again (this happened at place we just left).

I saw the error of this when I checked the mount and noticed one of the mounting screws had been pushed slightly away from the wall, enough for the washer to be loose. Figuring the foam had thrown off even distribution and was causing the mount to be pushed away from the wall, I got the TV taken down and began to loosen the mount so I could remove the foam, but was having a hell of a time getting the screws loose. One of them finally went and snapped from the stress before I was finally able to get the mount down, so now i'm trying to figure out what to do next. Hoping people can advise on the following:

1. How should I get the rest of broken screw out of the wall?
2. Are the holes I made still okay to use, or should I spackle them up and drill new ones (The TV was a bit high anyways)?
3. Would using a bigger, badder screw than the ones that came with the mount help at all here? They were 5/16 x 2 3/4 inch lag screws, for reference.

Hello, I live in a 1930’s home and recently DIY replaced most of my ductwork after losing several sections to asbestos abatement.

I’m looking for advice on how to best fill ~1 inch gaps between my register boot openings and the large gravity furnace-era boxes they feed into. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/PIkqjpG

I am looking for someone to completely gut out and redo a kitchen, 2 full baths and 1 half bath. I've had 6 different contractors stop by for estimates and never heard back from any of them.

I live in a high cost of living area. Granted the townhouse I am looking to do is only about 1100 sq ft.

Is this normal for contractors to dissapear and not provide any estimates? Is this due to a busy season where they pick and choose their jobs? Does this have something to do with them thinking I will lowball the cost and cant afford this job?

I am confused because during their visit they sound motivated spend a lot of time on measurements. There are no signs of them breezing through the estimate just to get done with it.

I followed up with 2 of them. One ignored me and one said he will get back to me asap. This was weeks ago.

I understand this house might not be the most desirable job for them but Is this a typical process of finding a contractor?

I understand that asbestos is very dangerous and can make people very sick. This has got me thinking about my family’s history of heart problems in that area and am wondering if this could be a contributing factor. This leads me to my question. What is the best way to test for and possibly remove asbestos from a home in Mexico? I know that Mexico does not have regulations for this so from my understanding I would have to DIY if I want this done right. I do not have experience with this, but this is not an “if” it needs to be done to family property I own in Mexico. In your experience what do you see as the best way to do this properly?

Our current door is a regular height but we have a transom above and I’m interested in exploring a tall statement door.

We’ve also talked about pivot doors but I haven’t heard good things about them.

I currently have a microwave vent hole that was very badly done by the original house owner/builder. While the vent and cap were installed they were filled and the microwave was set to recirculate. After taking off the microwave, I noticed that the hole was filled so I removed what ever was in there. After doing so I realized it was not properly aligning. Now I want to install a hood but this hole will not do, how can I refill this? I don't remember what was in there originally. Would it make more sense to fill this existing hole and create a new venting hole for the range hood? https://imgur.com/a/ZLBDODT

I paid $550 for a gutter cleaning, reattachment, and sealing job on a 2nd story house (about 2.5k sqr ft square shaped house with a bit of a steep roof). My gutters visibly look O.K., but are 30 years old or so and have areas there's leakage at corners or significant leakage between the house and the gutter during heavy pours. Additionally I can see sky between my house and gutters when looking from below at certain sides of my home.

I was expecting the reattachment part of the work (or in my mind re-screw or use longer screw) to reduce/remove those gaps but they did not.

I was not home when the contractor did the work, but I looked at my ring camera and they cover 3 sides of my home (front, garage, and backyard). They did not do anything on my backyard side, nor my front side. They were there about 25 minutes and all they did was use a leaf blower from my roof (I believe) and used a caulk on corners of one side of the house.

$550 seemed like a lot so I was expecting them to spend longer and actually go up with power drill and screw the gutters back in. Are my expectations wrong here of what I should have expected?

I have a sliding door that fills with water every time we get hit with a derecho. The weep holes are clean and drain immediately when I test them by filling the track with water. During the last derecho, I confirmed that the wind was causing the issue by pushing water up through the weep holes, preventing drainage. Is there a part I can install at each of these weep holes to prevent this? My sliding door is a typical design with two weep holes per side, top and bottom.

Hello all! Looking at buying a home in Northern Virginia and during our walkthrough we noticed this in 1 section of the basement. After some research it may be efflorescence since it seems to be common in this area? Is this a big concern? The home was built in 1958. Also, I had a moisture meter with me and it was hitting at 100% throughout the cinder block in the basement—it wasn’t until I got home that I did not have the “masonry” setting turned on during this process so I don’t know the true reading of this.

Would love to hear all of your thoughts! (image below)

https://imgur.com/a/lyaMFbp

I'm finishing my basement and going to be putting Safe n Sound throughout ceilings and interior walls for sound dampening. I'm wondering if I'll get enough benefit using 2x4 width over 2x6; the entire basement currently has nothing so for the entirety of all the ceilings this would cost a ton for the upgrade.

Basically is there diminishing returns; is the jump from 2x4 → 2x6 as evident as 0 → 2x4?

Thanks

Danby DAR044A8BBSL

Hello! I'm very confused about this issue as the fridge did indeed reach around 35°F but then stayed around 45°F - 50°F.

I cleaned it out and defrosted the inside. While cleaning the metal drip pan I noticed it was cracked. I put it back in and turned it back on and left the fridge empty while it started to cool. I put in a thermostat and it shows that the temperature did go down to about 35°F with around 20% humidity. Then it suddenly started going up and went up to between 45°F to 50°F and about 65% humidity. I put things inside the fridge and it cooled down and has stayed between 45°F to 50°F and humidity 30% to 90% I know it cools down to 35°F, why did it suddenly spike up and not cool down to 35°F anymore?