Home Improvement

It's easy, if you buy so many bags you usually get the rental for free. Have a friend help you, be careful not to fill up your soffits.

joeboo_sl said:

Is everything wet, or just items that are plastic (tupperware, plastic cups, plastic plates, etc) Anything that is glass or ceramic or metal should definitely be dry from the heat, but plastic will never get dry, it doesn't heat up like those other materials.

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Everything is wet and I don't put any plastic in the dish washer. Even the interior of the dishwasher still has water droplets on the door. Our previous one didn't do this, for comparison. It's noticeably different.

That's odd. We always turn the heated dry off on our dishwasher - it wastes energy, as it gets so hot during the wash cycle that everything (besides tupperware) gets totally dry without a drying cycle. One potential problem is your water temperature. Not to sound like a dick, but are you sure it's getting hot, not cold water? You should try warming up the water before you start the dishwasher (ie. run your kitchen faucet until the water is hot), ensuring you're getting hot water to the dishwasher. If the water is cold, that will certainly explain why things aren't drying. Try a high-temperature wash cycle.

Also - blowing cellulose insulation really is a snap. Do as was suggested above - have a buddy help you. One person feeds the machine while the other is up with the business end of the blower. But, also as was said above, when you're done, make 100% sure you have air flow to your soffits. You should be able to see light at your soffits from inside your attic. If you're getting icicles it's because your roof is getting warm. That could be because 1. you don't have sufficient venting to the attic (possible design flaw, as many newer houses have insufficient depth of soffits), 2. the vents are blocked 3. you simply have insufficient insulation. Pretty easy to fix. Keep your receipts, as you can claim any insulation costs on your income tax for this year. There's a line item.

I tried running a full sprinkler cycle last night, found a second break in my lines. This was a bloody hard winter! The lines had been blown out, and I still managed to have two breaks. This second one was a long way out from the house, but it was almost 40 inches deep. That's some deep frost, man.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

That's odd. We always turn the heated dry off on our dishwasher - it wastes energy, as it gets so hot during the wash cycle that everything (besides tupperware) gets totally dry without a drying cycle. One potential problem is your water temperature. Not to sound like a dick, but are you sure it's getting hot, not cold water? You should try warming up the water before you start the dishwasher (ie. run your kitchen faucet until the water is hot), ensuring you're getting hot water to the dishwasher. If the water is cold, that will certainly explain why things aren't drying. Try a high-temperature wash cycle.

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Ok, I have been doing "normal wash" for a few days and just this morning set a "hi-temp wash". I'll check when I get home how things look. I am a complete noob homeowner.

Intrinsic_sl said:

I need to replace the RPZ valve on mine, it froze up during last winter and our yard was already dead so didn't bother. Now that we've had the yard cleaned up and am doing some small landscaping I need to add that to the project list. Was told it is fairly simple and straightforward. It's like $300 on Grainger vs. the quote from plumber was like $800 or so.

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Unfortunately, online plumbing parts for yard irrigation are always a lot cheaper than anything you get in a store. It's just plain true. No one can stock every part for every irrigation system, but someone online specialises in just what you need.

Noodleface_sl said:

Ok, I have been doing "normal wash" for a few days and just this morning set a "hi-temp wash". I'll check when I get home how things look. I am a complete noob homeowner.

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Double check that it's connected to your hot water, too. Just to be sure.

mkopec_sl said:

Anyone here ever blow their own cellulose insulation in their attic? I did the rolls of batting in my old house and it made a noticeable difference but there wasnt barely any insulation up there. I was thinking of adding like 6-12 in in my current house to further increase my insulation. I think I have about 8-12in of blown in glass fibre currently. But during my home inspection, when we bought the house, the dude told me it needed more. In the summer its hard to get my house to cool down with the AC running nearly non stop during the 90F days. Its a 2000sq foot ranch.

I heard the cellulose was better all around insulator and I would like to do this myself maybe renting the machine soon before it gets too hot to be up there.

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Yes, we did this 2 years ago, rented the machine from Home Depot and blew in about 6 more inches of insulation into the attic.

Its a 2 person job, 1 person has to feed the insulation into the machine, while the other person blows the insulation in. The feeding process can be a damn mess, so what we did was make sure we rented like 30 feet of blowing hose, so we could keep the machine itself outside in the driveway, and just fed the hose through a bedroom window and into the hallway where the attic door is.

now, this is all well and good and everything was running smoothly and easily until...

I'm up in the attic blowing the insulation while my wife is in the driveway feeding packages of insulation into the machine. The insulation pauses every once in a while during the re-loading process, the machine just keeps blowing constantly, its turned on and off at the machine, theres no controls on the hose, you just hold it and shit shoots out. At one point the insulation stops blowing, I figure she's reloading. But a few more minutes go by, and a few more minutes, so I stick my head down out of the attic and yell WTF is going on?. She can't hear me because the machine is loud as all hell, and she's outside the house to boot. So I go down the ladder, go outside and see her standing there, feeding insulation in like normal. I ask her why she stopped for so long, she says she didnt. Hrmmmm. I go back in the house and into the bedroom where the hose is coming through the window...INSULATION EVERYWHERE. To get the hose long enough to work for our setup, we had to rent 2 hoses and duct tape them together. Well, that had split apart and ALL the insulation for the previous 10 minutes was just blowing straight into the bedroom. The bedroom was filled wall to wall with about a foot of insulation. I stick my head out the window and yell at my wife to turn the goddamned machine off. We spent the next 3-4 hours shoveling insulation from the bedroom floor into trash bags, so it could be dumped back into the blowing machine, and we spent the next 6 months vacuuming up insulation in that room. It seemed to never end, just when we thought it was clean we'd fine more. It was a goddamned nightmare.

So have fun

mkopec_sl said:

Thats what Im kind of worried about, because the current insulation is already covering them up, so I would have to fix it ahead of time. I know they make plastic louvers for the soffit vents but how would I fix the current situation first? My roof slopes in such a way that it would be hard/impossible to reach. I was thinking maybe a little rake?

Maybe im just over thinking this. But in the winter I do get a lot of icicles which I heard is a sign of those vents being covered.

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It really depends on how old your home is and how its built. Some times you can just pull back the insulation and install some insulation baffles from home depot and your good to go. Sometimes it's not nearly that simple. Nobody ever gave a fuck about ventilation until about 30 years ago. A lot of the time assholes even put new vented vinyl soffit overtop of old wooden unvented soffit without even cutting any ventilation slots in the wooden soffit so it appears like you have vented vinyl soffit but it doesn't actually work. A good rule of thumb is if you can't see daylight from the attic they probably are not vented properly. It is impossible in some older home to get any intake ventilation without a product like thisAir Vent: Continuous Soffit Ventswhich is not a perfect solution by any stretch.
Poor ventilation can make ice dams and icicles worse but even with everything perfect you can still get them if the conditions are correct. Proper ventilation makes the attic cooler in the winter and ventilates the heat from the house(attic). If you have bad ventilation the heat from your house builds up in the attic and melts the snow off of your roof in freezing temps and the water runs down and freezes in the unheated soffits and spouting which can cause icicles and ice dams.

Post some pics of your soffits from the attic and exterior and maybe i can point you in the right direction.

Julian the Apostate_sl said:

Post some pics of your soffits from the attic and exterior and maybe i can point you in the right direction.

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Good idea.

Confirm that outside vinyl soffit is vented if you haven't already, pull back insulation at soffit in one area and pray that you see daylight. If you do see daylight install insulation baffles and push back insulation and you're good to go to blow in as much insulation as you want.

Also, depending what the access to the attic is like Id recommend either building or extending the curb around the access so insulation doesn't fall down through every time you open it. In my area its usually a 2'X2' piece of shit hole in the ceiling above clothing racks in a small closet which drives me nuts.

Edit: Clear the insulation away from the space between about 3-4 rafters in a row.

Yeah, make sure that the vinyl soffit covers have vents. I have seen it before that they just cover up the soffits with vinyl so it looks nice, but there was no venting in the vinyl. If you can't see venting from the outside, you have to make some, man.

Kaige_sl said:

To deal with ants, make sure you spread around the outside of your house wherever it touches the ground. All around the foundation. If you have any vegetation that touches your house, trim that shit back. Also - and people don't always realize this - ants love to come in along your pipes. Anything that penetrates the building from outside is a potential ant transit. Just leave a few of those traps outside in their popular areas. Repeat every year.

Either that or move further north where its too cold for them.

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I live in MA, so plenty cold during every month except May-August. I believe they are coming in through the basement, I found several piles of dead ants below every window in the basement. The spray is working, they're just dying when they get inside instead.

I got some Amdro food things for the exterior as well. I laid 8 of them around outside my house with a focus on the side of the house that I see most of the ants.

The house I'm in had gutter shields when I got here. They work really well. Last fall I pulled them off and pressure washed out the gutters, but that was the first time they had been cleaned in 7 years. They came out easily, and went back in easily. I have LOTS of trees, including maples with their stupid bloody maple keys. The gutter shields are very effective, and make it no big deal.

Mine look like these:
Amazon.com: Flexx Point 30 Year Gutter Cover System- White Residential 5 Gutter Guards, 100 Ft.: Home Improvement