Home Improvement

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I am thinking about buying one of these, does anyone use anything like it?

Curb: Power Your Life Smarter

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What are you going to do with the info it gives you? For instance, if it tells you your fridge uses x amount of electricity, so what. You can't go without one and you probably already know a new fridge is more efficient that an old one so what have you really learned? You probably will be surprised by the amount of little things you own that are "vampires" and are always drawing juice even when you think they're off like your TV, but you can't go around unplugging and replugging them in when you want to use them.

Question for Bros in the know.

Last night I shot out of bed when my CO and smoke detector combo started wailing. Before you ask, it wasn't the batteries. This was full on, one million decibels. I silenced it and checked it out and seemed to be working. I replaced the batteries and reset it anyways. Hasn't gone off since.

This particular unit was located in an area of the house where I'm not even sure wed get a leak. The item I think capable of leaking is our furnace/boiler. This unit was located on a landing near our front door nowhere near it. The unit in the basement never went off, nor the other unit in the living room. The ones upstairs too.

Could this just be a defective unit or am I being too laid back on this? I know you're supposed to call the fire department when one goes off but I was a fool.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Question for Bros in the know.

Last night I shot out of bed when my CO and smoke detector combo started wailing. Before you ask, it wasn't the batteries. This was full on, one million decibels. I silenced it and checked it out and seemed to be working. I replaced the batteries and reset it anyways. Hasn't gone off since.

This particular unit was located in an area of the house where I'm not even sure wed get a leak. The item I think capable of leaking is our furnace/boiler. This unit was located on a landing near our front door nowhere near it. The unit in the basement never went off, nor the other unit in the living room. The ones upstairs too.

Could this just be a defective unit or am I being too laid back on this? I know you're supposed to call the fire department when one goes off but I was a fool.

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You're likely fine, but I had that happen, too, right over where our FAG furnace is. I had a hard time letting go of it, kept bugging me, so I got one of these:
Portable Carbon Monoxide Detector Meter (CO Inspector) Sensorcon - Sensing Products by Molex

Everything tests fine, I replaced my CO detector, no issues since.

The peace of mind is worth it. Waking up to a screaming smoke or CO detector does get the heart pumping, doesn't it?

Yeah it was 4 am and my wife had just come home from work so I was confused as shit

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I am thinking about buying one of these, does anyone use anything like it?

Curb: Power Your Life Smarter

Click to expand...

Yes I have a hardwired old school version of this on my house. I never use it and frankly want to rip it out. It fucks with a lot of digital appliances. I'm sure it worked fine when all of your appliances were fridge = metal box with compressor attached to a thermostat. Mine also resets clocks as I've found out by cutting the appliance breakers. Also, I'm not sure why I would want to screw with any appliance I'm running for any reason because none of them just do stuff for nothing. I don't WANT my dryer turning off, my AC turning off mid cycle causing the motor not to spin down properly, my fridge to cool more erratically.

What it WAS useful for as I'm reading is the old power plans where peak hour max usage in KWH had a cost multiplier. Nowadays they just have peak and nonpeak rate for the best plan for us, so who cares. I can spike at 1 MWH if I could draw it and I'd still only be paying peak rate for actual power used.

TL;DR: I have no clue what possible circuits I'd restrict because they are all digital. They rely on certain voltage and amperage being available. All my HE ceilling fans during the day on low are what, like 30 WH?

Maybe it's fancy and does something else but mine is worthless.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Question for Bros in the know.

Last night I shot out of bed when my CO and smoke detector combo started wailing. Before you ask, it wasn't the batteries. This was full on, one million decibels. I silenced it and checked it out and seemed to be working. I replaced the batteries and reset it anyways. Hasn't gone off since.

This particular unit was located in an area of the house where I'm not even sure wed get a leak. The item I think capable of leaking is our furnace/boiler. This unit was located on a landing near our front door nowhere near it. The unit in the basement never went off, nor the other unit in the living room. The ones upstairs too.

Could this just be a defective unit or am I being too laid back on this? I know you're supposed to call the fire department when one goes off but I was a fool.

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Yes they go bad. Can you read the label and find out what type of sensor it is and the manu date?

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Probably get rid of the non-essential vampires. Establish how much it costs to run certain things full time (computers and such) and evaluate if they need to be. Just generally keep an eye on everything.

Probably just look at the pretty graphs and do nothing with them. I really don't know.

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Also, you can just get one of these on your computer instead and save a ton of money and time and stupid clocks resetting:

P3 P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor - Low Temperature Alarms - Amazon.com

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Any idea what this is supposed to be?

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Looks like a TV antenna that someone cut for some reason.

Somehow wouldn't surprise me if satellite installer did it for 'customer retention' purposes.

So we're buying a log cabin and it has an unfinished basement. How feasible would it be for me to finish it myself if I have very little DIY experience? Where is a good place to start learning? I am fine paying for the "hard" stuff, but I'd like to do as much of it as I can myself.

For reference, pictures of the basement (spoiled for size):

It's entirely doable if you leave yourself a year to finish. Go very slowly, don't settle for crappy work, allow yourself to make mistakes, take them out, start it again. Totally worth doing, as you will then feel like you can tackle other things.

Hanging drywall is exceedingly tedious. Other than that though, framing isn't bad and most flooring(laying tile, wood, laminate, whatever) isn't bad, but I've never laid carpet so I can't comment on that.

Just keep in mind that at some point, your basement floor will get wet. It's what they do. Plan the flooring accordingly(no real wood)

joeboo_sl said:

Hanging drywall is exceedingly tedious. Other than that though, framing isn't bad and most flooring(laying tile, wood, laminate, whatever) isn't bad, but I've never laid carpet so I can't comment on that.

Just keep in mind that at some point, your basement floor will get wet. It's what they do. Plan the flooring accordingly(no real wood)

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I was looking at something likeDRIcore 7/8 in. x 2 ft. x 2 ft. DRIcore Subfloor Panel-CDGNUS750024024 - The Home Depotwhich in theory helps prevent the moisture from doing too much damage to the actual flooring. Looks pretty straight forward to install it as well. Really I'm not worried about doing everything if I have a check-list of what to do when. I can see myself very easily doing some things out of order and ending up having to correct a bunch of work.

Anyone got any advice for putting in recessed lighting? I've got a ceiling fan in a room that is 26'x10' (converted 3rd car garage), that I want to change to a set of 6 recessed lights. There is attic access directly above it, so I think that'll make it easier; I'll just have to pull up the insulation.

Also, any advice on permits for it? I'm about 95% sure that it needs permitting, but it sounds like one of those things that most people say "fuck that, it's way too much trouble."


2nd: Can anyone tell me what the fuck this is? It's this weird concrete baseboard looking thing that's only in part of the converted garage. With some googling yesterday, the closest I got was stem wall foundation. But it doesn't go all the way down the wall. On the 26' wall, it probably goes about 22', and on the 10' wall only what you see in that picture, which is like 2'.

I want to remove it, but I have no clue why it's there. It makes me leery that there's something under there I don't want to fuck with. But it really annoys the shit out of me too. The previous owners just carpeted over it, and staggered the baseboards above it which looks terrible.



Edit: I guess it's called a gas curb. It's on the exterior wall, so it doesn't come into contact with the garage wall. I'm thinking I can probably remove it, it's just a matter of how. And the reason it stops where it does on the 10' wall is probably because that's where the garage door was. I still can't figure out why it doesn't go all the way down the 26' wall though.