Home Improvement

matsb84

Silver Knight of the Realm
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Have you talked to your neighbors to see what they do?
Yeah - its a mixed bag of some people having them and swearing by them and others that say its a grift or aren't sure. My current stance/opinion is that routine yearly maintenance would suffice.

I don't know anyone in Florida with UV, but we're NE florida. And even though the bulbs say they're good for 1 year, they slowly start losing their strength from the moment you start running them, so after half a year even if they're still running its only at 50% or so of effectiveness.
In NE FL as well - I'd never heard of them until my wife saw something on one of our community FB pages from one of our neighbors...think we'll go with regular maintenance.
 

Gator

Molten Core Raider
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So I just got back from the house that Im working on. Im going to flip it immediately instead of waiting out the taxes. The foreman I work with is talking about putting down in the main level a "Ceramic Wood Flooring" instead of actual wood flooring, or similar. I was thinking a waterproof Bamboo, personally. After just a couple minutes of goodling, it looks like its just tiles that are stained / pre-stained to look like wood flooring? Does anyone have any experience with this? Even if laid professionally, does it look cheap? Google just doesnt seem to give me a good idea about it. But according to this guy, he says its gorgeous.
I put ceramic wood tile in my kids bathroom and it's great since they seem to get half the water from the tub onto the floor. I like the look but its not a 100% wood floor look since it has grout lines. I think real professional install can get to where the tiles can sit against each other but from my understanding is very difficult since you need a complete flat surface. I wasn't confident enough to to risk it.

Anyone have any experience/opinions on getting a UV light installed for an air handler? We're in Florida, so higher than normal humidity and more likelihood of growth (mold etc) on the coils and such.

Sounds like we would be going through UV lightbulbs every 1-2 years and they're somewhat expensive. No clue if thats a better option over just maintaining it another way. Assume we'd still need to do maintenance on it anyhow and that would probably include cleaning.
I'm in south Florida and had my coils cleaned a few years ago. I asked the company doing it what they recommended for allergies and such and they were pushing ionic air purifiers that installs into the air handler right above the filter. I have the same issue though. I don't know of anyone that uses those or UV lights. I'd like to know what's best. Also, I've heard a lot of negatives over duct cleaning vs just replacing them in case that was something you were thinking of doing. Again, don't know anyone that has actually had it done to tell me otherwise.
 

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Probably not a practical option for you guys but my house has radiant heat + wood stove in the winter and ductless mini-split air conditioning and I love not having ducts or having to listen to the forced air system blowing in the winter. My old house the intake for the furnace was in the living room and when the blower came on I had to turn the TV up.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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Yeah our return is right on the main wall in the living room behind the TV stand / cabinet. We discussed moving it when we replaced the downstairs HVAC but no other wall seemed close to appropriate with how the downstairs is laid out. One wall is the kitchen, two walls are the outside of the house. So the only wall left is the one between living room and office, which is also the primary wall that would be used for TV purposes. When the air kicks on you certainly notice.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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I'm in south Florida and had my coils cleaned a few years ago. I asked the company doing it what they recommended for allergies and such and they were pushing ionic air purifiers that installs into the air handler right above the filter. I have the same issue though. I don't know of anyone that uses those or UV lights. I'd like to know what's best. Also, I've heard a lot of negatives over duct cleaning vs just replacing them in case that was something you were thinking of doing. Again, don't know anyone that has actually had it done to tell me otherwise.
imo i've given up on the central ac being the allergy cleaner and just having air cleaned per room, my wifes allergies are aweful and i have a winix in the major rooms (living/bedroom/office)
 

Daidraco

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imo i've given up on the central ac being the allergy cleaner and just having air cleaned per room, my wifes allergies are aweful and i have a winix in the major rooms (living/bedroom/office)
I need to do this in my house. I feel like the wind picks up across the water and carries a lot of dust with it. So even though the house looks clean, Im betting the air quality is complete shit some days. Like right now.. I feel like shit around my sinuses.
 

Lanx

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I need to do this in my house. I feel like the wind picks up across the water and carries a lot of dust with it. So even though the house looks clean, Im betting the air quality is complete shit some days. Like right now.. I feel like shit around my sinuses.
the winix 5500 is one of the highest rated room cleaners and under 150bucks, when compared to the room size blueair that needs a fucking cumberbund to wrap around it
 
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Intrinsic

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Now that we have the Puppy I need to look at putting one of those in the living room and the office. We clean up every night once everyone's in bed and then run the Bissel pet vac over the floors, but it seems like nothing we do gets the dog fragrance out. Not expecting it to be as if there's just no dog at all. Only way around that is to not have a dog. But maybe one in the corner of the living area wouldn't hurt.
 

Burren

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Now that we have the Puppy I need to look at putting one of those in the living room and the office. We clean up every night once everyone's in bed and then run the Bissel pet vac over the floors, but it seems like nothing we do gets the dog fragrance out. Not expecting it to be as if there's just no dog at all. Only way around that is to not have a dog. But maybe one in the corner of the living area wouldn't hurt.

We bathe our two 50 pound dogs every other week and clean all their beds and the floors those days. You'd never know we have dogs as there is no smell. I believe the solution is keeping the dogs clean.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Now that we have the Puppy I need to look at putting one of those in the living room and the office. We clean up every night once everyone's in bed and then run the Bissel pet vac over the floors, but it seems like nothing we do gets the dog fragrance out. Not expecting it to be as if there's just no dog at all. Only way around that is to not have a dog. But maybe one in the corner of the living area wouldn't hurt.
the updated winix is petfriendly, i still have a 10yr old winix that was the only way my wife could stand the doggie back then and it was just charcoalfilter-hepa filter. the new one has a nylon prescreen, carbon block -hepa filter.

this way youre not dealwith with the cloth charcoal filter also having to act like a dander/dust filter cuz it's annoying to vacuum, where w/ the nylon prescreen is just like modern pcs now, just unsnap vacuum and put back, easy.
 

Daidraco

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Someone like me, without pets, will typically pick up on the dog smell as soon as I enter your house no matter what you do. The only difference is I wont sit on your furniture or stay inside your house more than a couple minutes if it seems like you dont do what Burren Burren is saying. Though most people forget that theyve become acclimated to the smell, so they may think the house smells good but in reality it doesnt.
 

Gator

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I have to second the winix as a great allergen filter. We have had one in the house for several years. I've been meaning to buy a couple more since Costco sells them now. Also, I have a germguardian that works well. I have merv 11 filters I have custom made (18.5 / 22.5) because for some reason the air handler is 18/22 but since filters are made 1/2" short there's too much play with just premade sizes. The wife, who has the major allergies, noticed a huge difference when we installed all the filters. We eventually kicked the dog and cat outside and that was another huge difference. I don't know if I can go back to having animals inside.
 

Burren

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Someone like me, without pets, will typically pick up on the dog smell as soon as I enter your house no matter what you do. The only difference is I wont sit on your furniture or stay inside your house more than a couple minutes if it seems like you dont do what Burren Burren is saying. Though most people forget that theyve become acclimated to the smell, so they may think the house smells good but in reality it doesnt.

Yeah, people do get acclimated to it. We have friends with dogs and as soon as you walk in, you can tell. It's not bad, but it's there. We don't want that, so we put in the effort to clean.
 
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ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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There’s this weird closet ladder that I’m assuming is original. The angle isn’t convenient to actually climb into the attic/roof space and don’t have any proper storage space up there to keep anything at this point.

So, with the soon to kick-off renovations I could have this closed off, but feel like there’s an opportunity to do something fun and/or at least semi functional with the space. Standard door height, 18” x 4”
I've come up with 2 options:
- funky shoe closet
- beer cellar
 

Break

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Quick question for you veteran home improvers:

I'd like to convert my raised deck from the typical open style to be completely enclosed with wire mesh or something to keep the bugs out and the pets in, while still letting me grill on it. How would I even go about putting plans together to either do it myself or at least know if a contractor I might hire is going to do a decent job or not?
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Quick question for you veteran home improvers:

I'd like to convert my raised deck from the typical open style to be completely enclosed with wire mesh or something to keep the bugs out and the pets in, while still letting me grill on it. How would I even go about putting plans together to either do it myself or at least know if a contractor I might hire is going to do a decent job or not?

These are pretty popular in Florida, every other house usually has one. They usually consist of metal framing and look like this:

1664983764153.png
 
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Break

Silver Baronet of the Realm
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These are pretty popular in Florida, every other house usually has one. They usually consist of metal framing and look like this:

View attachment 436279
That's exactly the kind of thing I want, except mine is raised like 5 feet off the ground so I assume wind would be a bigger concern than this one would see.
 

Goatface

Avatar of War Slayer
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Quick question for you veteran home improvers:

I'd like to convert my raised deck from the typical open style to be completely enclosed with wire mesh or something to keep the bugs out and the pets in, while still letting me grill on it. How would I even go about putting plans together to either do it myself or at least know if a contractor I might hire is going to do a decent job or not?

grilling inside a screened room isn't a great idea.