The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Ken]

but how's your router?

i lol'ed.

[Steve85]

I had the same issue at the old house on well and septic, the lower element would get completely caked even with the water softener system. Admittedly though, I was often not so great about getting salt in it until it was too late and it takes a couple days to recover. It makes a YUUUGE difference in the way the water feels. The old system had a pretty big salt tank and two treatment tanks, the original owners of the house either wanted overkill or they were just weren't efficient systems 20 yrs ago.

You should get the water tested so you can get the proper "grain" which is the amount of hardness that can be removed between regeneration cycles. You need to know how hard the water is (test or I think you can call water supplier if on city water) and there is calculation based on hardness and gallons per day used. My friend across the street has a Whirlpool unit WHES44 (or 33 depending on grain, 33K and 44K) and it works great. I'll likely be getting the same.

As I mentioned before though, be careful if you have a concrete septic, the discharge water has salt that will damage the tanks.

Oh, and Costco sells 50lb bags of Morton salt, which is 10lbs more than the 40lb bag, I know, because it says it right there on the bag "50 lbs - 10lbs more than 40lb bag". I don't know how much moreit is than a 30lb bag though because it doesn't say...

[davej]

Oh, and Costco sells 50lb bags of Morton salt, which is 10lbs more than the 40lb bag, I know, because it says it right there on the bag "50 lbs - 10lbs more than 40lb bag". I don't know how much moreit is than a 30lb bag though because it doesn't say...

:lol: :lol:

good info, thanks! We're on town water & sewer, so they can deal with my salty deposits in the pipes. I'll try getting in touch with the town to see if they have a report on the hardness

[ScottyB]

my parents have a water softener and it must be turned up to 11 because it takes about an hour to wash soap off your hands. they love it though.

[Sully]

but how's your router?

Idk. I have internet, most of the time I think. Probably slow as hell but I still have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to computers or networks. I know you didn't really want an answer but oh well.

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[Kaan]

in the last two weeks... New Dryer (home warranty pack back) and $3k into the well and pressure system. FML

[WRXtranceformed]

in the last two weeks... New Dryer (home warranty pack back) and $3k into the well and pressure system. FML

Ahh bummer man, it's only a matter of time before our washer and dryer go. I bought them both on CL like 8 years ago, and they were old at that point. But a few parts until them over the years have kept them going...I just know we're on borrowed time too

[ViPER1313]

If you are not picky and are fine with non HE appliances, buying used is the way to go. People offload perfectly good washers / dryers / dishwashers / stoves for < $100 on Craigslist all day long because they are remodeling.

[WRXtranceformed]

If you are not picky and are fine with non HE appliances, buying used is the way to go. People offload perfectly good washers / dryers / dishwashers / stoves for < $100 on Craigslist all day long because they are remodeling.

This is no joke. I bought BOTH my washer and dryer for $125 total. They are still running, albeit on borrowed time after almost 9 years!

[Sully]

Yea my dad just did this. Super old stuff but all worked perfect. Listed on Craiglist somewhat high expecting a low ball that we could take. No bites. Lowered it several times. Finally sold stove for like $75 I think. Dishwasher and microwave ended up sitting until we got tired of them and took them to dump and paid $15 to get rid of them

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[Ryan T]

If you are not picky and are fine with non HE appliances, buying used is the way to go. People offload perfectly good washers / dryers / dishwashers / stoves for < $100 on Craigslist all day long because they are remodeling.

This is no joke. I bought BOTH my washer and dryer for $125 total. They are still running, albeit on borrowed time after almost 9 years!

Same thing here. Ours is going on 13 years old. On/Off switch on the dryer took a dump years ago and I bypassed the wiring for it. Now once you turn the timer on, it starts. Only way to cut it off is to open the door or turn the timer to 0. Been that way for 6 years but it stilll works!

[davej]

We've always had old washers and dryers, and they were tanks. Broke down and got a black Friday Lowe's deal on a front load HE set from LG like 5 years ago. Washer is still fine, dry split the drum at about 18 months. Also over the web as a common failure, I had it welded once, lasted for about a year than split again. I cobbed up a patch with rivets, quicksteel, ad who knows what else. Got another year, then finally bought another dryer. It was another LG open box at lowes. I have the memory of Dory.

[WRXtranceformed]

Picked up a few packs of these this evening on an Amazon binge with some other stuff. Consider it my latest donation to young Derecola's college fund.

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I had planned on installing some uplighting in our landscaping at some point, ie getting a transformer / timer and running hard lines but none of it sounded particularly appealing or cheap. From the customer pictures they seem to be exactly what I was looking for, so I'll take some pics once we figure out exactly where we want them. The idea would be to uplight the columns in the front of the house so we don't have to keep the recessed lights on at the porch all night.

[Apoc]

I bought a set, to uplight our flagpole, that has a separate solar panel and two lights run by a wire that you hide under mulch or whatever. They work really well in the summer, but they generally die after a few hours in the winter. Weather and hours of light seem to matter more than I thought, but overall I'm happy. Maybe you'll get more out of yours because you don't live in the Pacific NW.

[WRXtranceformed]

I bought a set, to uplight our flagpole, that has a separate solar panel and two lights run by a wire that you hide under mulch or whatever. They work really well in the summer, but they generally die after a few hours in the winter. Weather and hours of light seem to matter more than I thought, but overall I'm happy. Maybe you'll get more out of yours because you don't live in the Pacific NW.

Nice that's good feedback. That side of the house doesn't get as much direct sunlight throughout the day but hopefully it's enough to keep these bad boys charged. We do get a lot of sunshine even in the winter here so hopefully that keeps the batteries going strong!

[WRXtranceformed]

Not bad!



I'm gonna try the "white" color to see if it matches the other outdoor lights, but if not I'll probably just pick up a few more for the garage, run these solo and set up the flood lights on a motion sensor.

[WRXtranceformed]

So it looks like at least during the winter (and possibly the summer too) that portion of the house (flower bed) doesn't get any direct sun at all. After a full day of daylight they only lasted about 2-2.5 hours. I may have to relegate these to the backyard to light up our Leland Cypruses when those get installed because the backyard gets sunlight all day. Oh well it was worth a try! I'll give them another night or two but I may have to stick to the original plan of a wired setup :/

[WRXtranceformed]

A few updates to the land of homeownership. We pulled the trigger this past weekend on (7) 15-gallon Leland Cyprus (+/- 7-9 feet tall) for our backyard. They will be arranged in a hook shape 7 feet apart with 3' pine straw rings which should allow them to grow about 50' and with how fast they grow we should have first floor privacy by year 1. It was not cheap to buy the bigger trees vs. smaller ones but in this case I was paying for time; the way our backyard slopes down toward a wetland area means that small 2-3' trees would take a number of years to get to where we need them to be for privacy. This particular vendor also has a no questions asked lifetime replacement warranty on their trees and they are installing them for me because I had no desire to transport or dig holes for 9 foot tall trees. I picked up a few more of the solar spotlights so I have one for each tree, and I'll figure out a hardwired solution for the front eventually.

I guess you don't have to be a homeowner to talk about furniture buying, but one thing you learn when buying your first home (or upsizing as in our case and have to buy more) is that furniture is laughably expensive. The days of Craigslist bargain beater couch don't work anymore when you get past the bachelor stage. I don't mind spending money on quality things but I cannot bring myself to spend $10-15k like some people around here do just for a damn bedroom set. My wife being the thrifty buyer she is has been a huge help in helping us add things we need here and there (and selling what we don't need on the local bargain Facebook sites).

We're fortunate here because we live in the land of furniture manufacturers, but stuff still ain't cheap for quality. There's a large warehouse here that buys up extras / overstock from a lot of local stores (Ashley, Rooms To Go, etc.) that has really good deals and we've found some great bargains, but you have to go the day after their delivery trucks arrive or it gets picked through quickly. The aforementioned bargain sites are massively helpful too; rich housewives get bored of their Pottery Barn couch and sell stuff for stupid cheap to each other just to get it out of the house.

My wife had been looking for a replacement table for the junker we got as part of a CL package deal for some nice counter height chairs we wanted (yeah you can still find good deals on CL!) and someone posted this up in our community's Facebook page. $200 for the table and $400 for table + chairs, and it was a mile up the road in our neighborhood. Talking to the prior owner, the chairs were $150 each from BB&B hock: Table has leaves that fold down and inside the table, cool! I don't know how much the original table was (it was a gift from her children) but couldn't have been less than $500.

Yea we're working on getting drapes up





So yeah, you don't have to spend a fortune to furnish your home with nice things you just have to be thrifty and quick on the draw when good deals come up! Believe it or not we have also had great luck with Rooms To Go for new stuff, most of their stuff is decent quality and very reasonably priced when they have sales.

[JPolen01]

$10-15k like some people around here do just for a damn bedroom set

Who the hell do you know paying anything near that for a bedroom set? I think ours was like $1500 for a queen bed, 2 night stands, and 2 dressers. It's nice stuff too. :dunno:

[WRXtranceformed]

$10-15k like some people around here do just for a damn bedroom set

Who the hell do you know paying anything near that for a bedroom set? I think ours was like $1500 for a queen bed, 2 night stands, and 2 dressers. It's nice stuff too. :dunno:

I think that's almost exactly what we paid for our king set from RTG with similar pieces. To me that's a reasonable price to pay for furniture that's going to last. You would be surprised though man people go to these retail stores and drop $4-5 grand on a table all day, 5 figures on a bedroom set all day. I mean I'm not judging you can burn your cash however you want but to me it seems absurd to spend that much money on furniture.