Home Improvement

Eomer

Eomer

Trakanon Raider
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Personally I fucking hated our Toro lawnmower and snowblower growing up. Fucking things were impossible to start and required a lot of repairs. My dad replaced them with Hondas in my mid teens and those things started like a dream, and worked for years without needing much of anything done to them.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

Kill All the White People
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Eomer_sl said:
Personally I fucking hated our Toro lawnmower and snowblower growing up. Fucking things were impossible to start and required a lot of repairs. My dad replaced them with Hondas in my mid teens and those things started like a dream, and worked for years without needing much of anything done to them.
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Weird. My toro snowblower is 2 years old now. It's started first pull every single time. It's unbelievable. My mower isn'tquitethat good, but it's got an electric start, so I don't give a fuck how long it cranks for.

My toro weed eater? Complete trash. It's totally seized up, couldn't get it started at all last summer.
 
mkopec

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Yeah I second the Honda. My dad gave me one, which was practically brand new that sat in one of his buddies dads house for years. He never used it and then the old man died so he ended up just giving it to me. Anyway, when I got it it ran like shit. So I cleaned up the carb by soaking it in some carb cleaner shit overnight (it had a bad case of varnishing from never being used) and now I have been using it for the past 5 yrs and it woks like a champ. One pull baby, every time.

As for the lawn crews, Im not sure about cost ($20-30 per cut?), but people around me, like everyone, uses them. 1.5 acres seems like a lot to do with a push mower though.

I kind of enjoy it though. Im so busy nowadays with work and all the other shit its nice to just chill and walk behind a mower for a hour or so and just think.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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I've been recommended Snapper by a couple family member, never heard of the company.

1.5 acres might be a lot with a push mower, but I don't mind if it's a lot cheaper than paying someone. Decent exercise too!
 
taebin

taebin

Same trailer, different park
968
429
Live in Dallas on 1/2 acre. I called around to 4-5 different services. Most were about the same for edging, mowing, bagging. Settled with a local one for $40 a week, or $45 bi/weekly.
 
D

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Anyone know an easy way to take down tile that was put on drywall? I want to put up wainscotting so I don't care if the drywall is fucked up.

Is this just a hammer and chisel job or is there some sekret way to do this easier?
 
mkopec

mkopec

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Nope, just chisel it away. It will most likely come off with the drywall paper attached. You can fix that with a couple of thin coats of the drywall compound.
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
<Medals Crew>
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I'd get a grout removing bit for your angle grinder or dremel, remove as much of the grout as you can, use a hammer to break the tiles into small pieces, and just work at it with a chisel/crowbar/sturdy putty knife/whatever works until you have enough off to get the wainscoting in.
 
November

November

Lord Nagafen Raider
49
0
We're looking to add a deck to the house this spring. Nothing fancy, somewhere around a 14x16 cedar with stairs (2nd story) and gate. We had one estimate done already, and was quoted $6,700. I was expecting maybe half that. We have another guy coming in for an estimate in a few days. Is this the price range I should expect, or is the first guy pulling my tit?
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
Cedar is quite expensive compared to just using pressure treated lumber. Probably 2 - 3 times as much. So your deck raw material cost may be jumping from like $500 to $1500+ just from using cedar...might actually be closer to 2 grand considering the large amount of stairs.
 
K

Kaita

Golden Squire
125
1
I would recommend finding a late model John Deere Rider. I have a 185 hydro 38in deck from 1986. It cuts perfectly and starts every time. Can be found for a few hundred bucks.
 
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Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
I wired up a 1/3rd horsepower whole house fan and noticed when its on one of my recessed lights that's on a totally different circuit flickers so quickly that you can't really tell by looking at it you have to look at the floor and you can see a pulse. Is my phase all out of modulation?
 
Erronius

Erronius

Macho Ma'am
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Picasso_sl said:
I wired up a 1/3rd horsepower whole house fan and noticed when its on one of my recessed lights that's on a totally different circuit flickers so quickly that you can't really tell by looking at it you have to look at the floor and you can see a pulse. Is my phase all out of modulation?
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  • Did you wire it 120 or 240? I'm assuming 120
  • Did you run a new feed from the panel or did you tie it into an existing circuit?
  • Is that single can-light literally the only light you notice this with? Are there other lights on the same circuit with it?
  • Have you tried running any other motor loads in your house (washer/dryer) to see if you get the same thing yet?
  • What kind of bulb is in the recessed light, incandescent or CFL?
  • I take it that this is a constant flicker and doesn't happen only when you start the fan? (and looks to be frequency related at that?)

Really though, if that single recessed light is the only one that's doing that, then it might just be that specific light. If you have multiple lights on that same circuit then check those other lights; if it really is just that one light then you probably just need to look at that specific light I would think. Try swapping bulbs with another light that isn't flickering; if that light still flickers with a known good bulb (and no other light flickers) while the fan is on, then you might next want to check the connections/splices to that particular light. Fortunately it doesn't sound like a major issue otherwise you'd have something like all of the lights in your house flickering or dimming, instead of just that single light.
 
chaos

chaos

Buzzfeed Editor
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A stupid question: would it ruin my shit to store my table saw and miter saw outside in the shed? The shed doesn't leak or anything, but I was going to cover them with a tarp when not in use anyway for extra protection. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be fine, the most extreme temps we get here are high 90s and low 0s so it shouldn't be the end of the world. I have them in the basement taking up a very large amount of space.
 
L

Lenardo

Vyemm Raider
3,574
2,482
as long as it's covered and not rained on, should be fine...
might get spiders living inside the unit that could screw it up, but that is about it.

I'm redoing my Fence in the backyard. the original owner of this lot..built the fence by hand..1x6 boards 2x8 lattice and lattice framing around that. concrete wall for foundation with 4x4 PT (pressure treated) posts 10' O.C. (behind the fence is a 10' drop)

fence lasted almost 25 years- i am removing just the boards and replacing with 1x8 shiplap boards stained white and replacing the lattice with new 2x8 lattice as needed..total cost is going to be ~350 dollars will post pictures of my progress- i am about halfway done. when i am done i am going to restain the whole fence white via a paint gun.
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Want to turn the A/C on this week since it's going to be in the high 80s... Went looking for all the material the previous owners left for us regarding the house... found out our A/C unit is from 1974.

feels bad man
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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chaos_sl said:
A stupid question: would it ruin my shit to store my table saw and miter saw outside in the shed? The shed doesn't leak or anything, but I was going to cover them with a tarp when not in use anyway for extra protection. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be fine, the most extreme temps we get here are high 90s and low 0s so it shouldn't be the end of the world. I have them in the basement taking up a very large amount of space.
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It will shorten the life of your saws. Not as in they'll be done tomorrow, but in a shed the humidity will be high (depending on where you live), and really high humidity is brutal for tools like this. If you wrap them well with a tarp, you'll probably be okay. It might not be a bad idea to include something like a bowl of rice to help keep it dry.

I learned this the hard way, by the way. I kept a table saw in a shed. It didn't get wet, but where I live, the humidity is very high, and rust started developing on the blade almost right away. It started rusting in other, more essential places, too. Took 2 years to kill it completely.
 
chaos

chaos

Buzzfeed Editor
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Is there anything you can do to counteract the humidity and protect the equipment? Does the rice thing really work?

Humidity here ranges between 40 and 80% with the highest in the summer months, which doesn't seem extreme to me. But I'd rather not ruin them, even if I did get them cheap as fuck off craigslist.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
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140
I'd think the rice would work if you had the saws completely sealed in something that is air-tight(or close to it). If it's just a loose tarp draped over the top, that rice isn't going to work for long with constant, never-ending humidity.

For comparison's sake, I had a cheap BBQ grill that I kept on my deck, always covered in a tarp and it got pretty rusty after 3-4 years. The next one I decided to keep in my shed with my lawnmower and all my yard equipment, in the hopes that would make it last longer. Still covered it in a tarp but it ended up getting rusty in like 4-5 years. So the shed thing did help a *little*, but it was nothing compared to keeping it somewhere that is actually climate controlled like a garage. Our climate here in Missouri is pretty similar to what you were describing, freezing down to 0-ish in the winter, up to 90s and the occasional 100s in the summer with high humidity.

I'm not sure why the lawnmower and lawn equipment don't have issues in the shed, I guess they are built assuming people are going to store them outdoors a lot of the time, whereas something like a table saw or other power tools aren't built with that in mind.
 
mkopec

mkopec

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^^^
The lawnmower decks are made out of cast aluminum.

Your only bet is to lube the shit out of the moving parts with some grease and spray/wipe the rest down with some kind of oil, and keep doing this every year or so. I keep my table saw in the garage, which is not air conditioned in any way. And its still fine after years. Here in Mich we can get some brutally humid summer days, and of course tons of humidity in the fall and spring. Not sure about the air quality difference between a shed and my garage though. Does your shed have a dirt floor or a concrete one?

Anyway, just spray/wipe the shit down with some oil and lube the gears and mechanisms which move the saw with some grease, that will drive the moisture away.
 
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