The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Apoc]

The appliances in this house were literally from the 60's... I know cause I found all the paper work. As in, there was a baking rack holding the oven's heating element up and you had to wheel the dishwasher across the floor and hook it up to the faucet. Fast forward to after we replaced all the electrical wiring in our house (that was fun) and we replaced the dishwasher, oven, microwave, fridge, washer, and dryer. I shopped around quite a bit and found a locally owned appliance store was the best deal by far. I didn't even know they still existed, but there we were buying all these appliances over a couple visits. We even had an issue where their sales rep sold us a washer that supposedly had all the features we wanted but it didn't. They'd terminated the employee before we realized it, but they hauled away the one in our house and delivered the higher model with the feature we wanted. I thought for sure we were screwed because we'd gone with the cheapest no-name place and already used it some, but they took it back no questions asked.

I will admit to impulse buying an induction stove though. No ragrets. :lol:

[JPolen01]

Induction stoves are pretty pimp. My wife's parents got one when they replaced all of their appliances a couple years ago. They can be fragile though. Somebody slammed down a bottle of liquor on it at a party one night and it cracked to pieces. I don't even want to know how much they spent to fix or replace it.

[JustinG]

I checked Costco when we needed a Fridge/Washer/Dryer, but Home Depot had the better deal at the time.

Kinda regretting that now, since I didn't realize the Costco warranty extended to appliances. Probably would have been worth the $200 I saved going through HD.

When appliance shopping wait for a holiday. It could be flag day and they will do the package deals where you buy 3 appliances and get an additional $500 off the already reduced prices.

Also when shopping around, Lowes will price match and beat the price by 10%.

Oh and screw Samsung appliances. They look fancy, but folks in our hood and my parents have had nothing but issues after like 18 months. Nothing like a $1k washer breaking down and then needing a $300 computer board replaced.

Front load is garbage, top load without an agitator is where its at, Suburban fo lyfe.

[Ken]

Oh and screw Samsung appliances. They look fancy, but folks in our hood and my parents have had nothing but issues after like 18 months. Nothing like a $1k washer breaking down and then needing a $300 computer board replaced.

So true. Toni's parent's have gone through a washer and dryer in the past three years from Samsung. Yet, still bought Samsung to replace them.

[JustinG]

Oh and screw Samsung appliances. They look fancy, but folks in our hood and my parents have had nothing but issues after like 18 months. Nothing like a $1k washer breaking down and then needing a $300 computer board replaced.

So true. Toni's parent's have gone through a washer and dryer in the past three years from Samsung. Yet, still bought Samsung to replace them.

When we were shopping around every place we went, HD/Lowe's/Best Buy, were pushing Samsung and LG hardcore.

"Oh you want this Samsung, cause it has titanium door hinges and rotates the dryer drum at 15000 RPM. The Maytag is garbage, they have aluminum hinges and only spin at 14999 RPM."

But all of our research lead us to Whirlpool and Maytag.

[.RJ]

One thing I've learned in my short research on this is that everyone has had a bad experience with every brand, and most everyone is absolutely ignorant of appliances and how they work.

I've repaired most of the appliances in my house for one thing or another, with a $25-100 part and some of my time.

The costco pricing was about 10% under HD/Lowes for same models so I think I did ok. When spending $10k updating your house you dont lose sleep over +/- $500

[Apoc]

Updating wiring alone was $13k. I think we're in for about $40k at this point and I'm done. No more major work - I don't care what needs to be done. If something comes up, we're buying a new house. :lol:

[Sully]

We have new ge kitchenstuff and (although we went with the cheaper variations they make the top of the line models in the same finish) and they have kinda started falling apart in less than a year. The plastic on the microwave is starting to to micro crack along all the edges. And the silverware holder in the dishwasher broke (but I kinda helped that one when it wouldn't release silverware one day). And the bottom of the oven warped and the finish has like crows feet now. Not sure if that's the ovens fault or the fact we put one of those tests to catch crumbs (because it doesn't have an heating element in the bottom or if it does, it's under the bottom but I think it just uses a second coil in the top to heat the oven which I'm not sure makes sense since heat rises and it is really good at burning the tops of things). Oh and the fridge water thing shoots water so hard that if the bottom of the cup is curved and it's empty, it shoots out the sides. Kinda annoying.

We've had LG washer and dryer for like 10 years (front load which sucks) but no issues to speak of with the actual units themselves.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[Apoc]

I went against the grain and decided not to pay someone to get this bush out of our back yard. Unfortunately my battery died on the chainsaw before I could rip it any lower, but this thing was old and going to be a major bitch to dig out. I'm half tempted to just cut it off level to the ground and put the grill over it. :lol: You can burn these things out, right? I'm sure it being right next to the foundation of my house won't matter. We haven't gotten any rain in like two months, so I may just wait until we get a soaker of a week so the ground is soft. I welcome any pro tips... but just the tip.









This is a photo I took while sitting on our porch having a drink last night. This is facing due east, so the colors in the sky are like opposite sunset. Those tree buckets I talked about work really well. I use them once a week and you can see the tree on the right is much fuller towards the bottom of the foliage. I skipped one week because it was supposed to rain and the trees looked pretty weak by the following weekend. They seemed kinda like a gimmick, but they've far exceeded my expectations. The grass is gonna stay crunchy until we get some moisture falling from the sky.

[.RJ]

Whatever motherfuckers installed the hardwood floors in the main level of my house didnt remove the baseboard first. They just ran the hardwood right up to the base, and put some shoe molding on it. Motherfuckers.

Of course when its time to replace the baseboard because its 30 years old, looks like shit and doesnt match the rest of the house, you cant remove them easily. Have to split it down the board with a chisel, pull out the nails, then dig out the shit left between the hardwood and drywall. Took me 2 hours to take up 90 linear feet of base. Awful.

I hope those motherfuckers get herpsarsaidsbola.

Almost done remodeling.

[Ryan T]

I went against the grain and decided not to pay someone to get this bush out of our back yard. Unfortunately my battery died on the chainsaw before I could rip it any lower, but this thing was old and going to be a major bitch to dig out. I'm half tempted to just cut it off level to the ground and put the grill over it. :lol: You can burn these things out, right? I'm sure it being right next to the foundation of my house won't matter. We haven't gotten any rain in like two months, so I may just wait until we get a soaker of a week so the ground is soft. I welcome any pro tips... but just the tip.

We had 4 of those in the front of our house along with 2 9' tall holly bushes in our backyard that Sam and I removed. Cut them off, dug around the base and hacked away at some of the bigger roots, then wrapped a logging chain around the root and pulled them out with my truck. Those roots can be surprisingly stubborn and deep. I've seen people pull them out with cherry pickers before if you have access to one of those and not a truck. Or, dig around the root, cut it off just below the dirt line and cover it with dirt/mulch and forget about it.

[JPolen01]

Pretty much this^. I removed two 8' holy trees from our front yard this spring. Dug around the root ball and then used a tree limb saw to cut most of the roots. Tree came out easy after that. Finished cutting the roots and used a chain/truck to rip the stumps out.

[Apoc]

We live on top of a hill in the city, so our property is boxed in by fences, trees, and other houses. Access to our back yard is limited to a 2.5' wide (max) gate, so trucks and loaders aren't gonna work. I don't even know if there's a place I could put a ratchet strap that wouldn't rip another tree out of its place. Actually, I have one large smoketree that could work but it would be awkward. I'm probably gonna level it at the base and then wait a few months to see if anything bothers to grow. The grill will go over top of it, so it's not like I actually need to root ball out.

[Ryan T]

I doubt anything will grow there again, but if it does, drill several small holes in the stump/root/wherever it's growing from, and fill it with stump killer.

[.RJ]

Blowtorch!

[JustinG]

I doubt anything will grow there again, but if it does, drill several small holes in the stump/root/wherever it's growing from, and fill it with stump killer.

This worked for a stubborn stump in our backyard of the old place, in about a year the stump was dead/rotted enough to break up with a shovel and throw top soil over. Never knew it was there.

Or see if you have a Sun Belt or something similar and rent a stump grinder for the afternoon and grind that bitch up.

[ScottyB]

Blowtorch!

aircraft paint stripper. then fire.

[.RJ]

Blowtorch!

aircraft paint stripper. then fire.

:lol:

[JPolen01]

Can anyone help me figure out how to close this gap from my storm door to the door frame? All this was installed so poorly from a contractor through Lowe's - story for another thread. I'm trying to fix all the mistakes and I can't seem to figure out how you adjust the door.

[.RJ]

Call the door manufacturer, and start shopping for some weather stripping.