The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Ryan T]

No pipe joint compound on your connections?

[ViPER1313]

?? Flux was used.

[Ryan T]

?? Flux was used.

I meant on the threaded connections.

[ViPER1313]

Actually no, they have washers and say not to use any.

“DO NOT use thread lubricants, tape or putty” - emphasis from Everbilt water heater hose instructions.

[Steve85]

First time no leaks, good on you!

I would see if you could put in some sort of floor to ceiling 2x4 to strap the pipe to. Those are pretty long lengths to not be supported. Are there valves on the in/out pipes that just aren't showing in the pics?

[ViPER1313]

There is a ball valve on the cold input right above the pic, you can see the bottom of it here. None on the outlet.



I agree 100% about the length of line / no support. Plan is as follows

   

In retrospect I should have built a support mechanism *before* running the lines. Maybe next time.

[davej]

@hauln find an equipment rental place and get a bigass wood chipper.

I had two pines about the same size I had to take down for parking lots at the school and fed all but the main trunks through it. It's easily the most fun I've had for $150, plus you get piles of mulch.

[HAULN-SS]

Yeah..might do that next time. The neighbor has 15 more of these on the property line..I have a feeling I'm going to be back here again. On the bad front - I went and introduced myself to them (we've lived here a year) and the guy was basically like "oh i hadn't noticed"..give me a fucking break. I was trying to see if he'd pay to cut down the 15' tall "stumps" he has left because they wanted to charge me a felling fee for that. As of now I have some ugly ass trees to look at. I hate to do it, but next time I might file a homeowners claim, and I suspect they will turn around and sue his homeowners. One of the trees was clearly black/rotting in the middle

[ScottyB]

nice job Adam. i did some brazing in shop class back in the day and its so satisfying to see the solder just turn to water and follow the flux around the joint. or maybe that's just me.

[Sully]

+1 scotty

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[ViPER1313]

Condensate plumbed. I doubt that is to code, but it should work AOK.



Finished the pressure relief. A drain to nowhere is to code in an unfinished area, it just needs to dump outside of the pan.



Feel like I got pretty good at this by the end.

   

Hammer drill came in the mail today, gonna build a small box frame to brace the runs this weekend. Likely complete overkill but I don’t care.

[Apoc]

I managed to find a bird feeder that defeats squirrels, but now I have rats that like to eat the fallen seed. The joys of living in a city... I guess. Anyway, we're trying the old fashioned way to see if I can snap some necks. I do have a bb gun that I want to use, but they generally hear me coming before I can get a bead on them. We'll see how this goes.

[JustinG]

[ScottyB]

oh hey we have the same feeder, can confirm it works good.

good luck with getting rid of rats if they're there for the seed. birds make a absolute mess of their food (source: have 3 pet birds) and it makes a floor buffet that animals can't resist, so if its not rats its mice, if its not mice its squirrels, if its not squirrels its shrews, etc etc.

be very careful where you store the seed. once rats, or similar micey animals figure out there's food on your property, they can sniff out where you keep the mother lode. i had a terrible mouse problem in my last rental home where they somehow got into the crawl space and then into the garage and tore into any place we had bird food or trash. keep it sealed tight in something like a home depot bucket or off the ground entirely.

[Steve85]

Had similar experience with bird seed being less than perfectly sealed in the garage which attracted the mice. And in our old neck of the woods, that brought the snakes. And bears love bird seed too. And trash. And shitting on the driveway on their way from the neighbors bird feeder to your trash.

We recently put the feeders back up here and bought a couple cereal storage containers for the feed. They seal nice and make for easy pour to refill. Working out well so far.

[Sijray21]

This is why I stopped putting seed out. We had a rodent problem after putting out seed. I figured the birds can find their food; I'd rather not have a rodent problem...

[ScottyB]

This is why I stopped putting seed out. We had a rodent problem after putting out seed. I figured the birds can find their food; I'd rather not have a rodent problem...

yeah i only fill the feeder up when its getting down to freezing at night and feel like the birds can really benefit from it.  when its that cold, they seriously clean up the ground for every last bite so we don't have issues.  when i had seed out during the warm months is when it really piles up and draws in the unwanted stuff.

when i have a place with more land someday i'll probably have stuff out year round but further from the house.  

for now the best bang for the buck is feeding the hummingbirds.

[Apoc]

This feeder is good for about 2-3 days, so I usually fill it up on Friday and we watch the birds (my kid is obsessed with them) over the weekend. We do have a squirrel that likes to clean up the seed and bury it in random places about the yard, but it's not so bad that I'm willing to do anything about it. The kid thinks the squirrel hopping around is hilarious too, so I guess there's that. 

The seed I buy comes in a velcro resealable plastic bag and I keep it in a lidded deck box in the back yard. It's definitely not bear proof, but I haven't seen signs of any rodents getting at the bag. Our house's previous owner had all manner of shit in the garage rafters and it was definitely attracting mice/rats. I finally cleaned it out awhile back and got treated to what was probably decades old rat shit. We have one wall with really lazily installed insulation and the rodents have torn that to shit too.

Anyway, I checked the trap last night before bed and BOOM. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the tail on this thing was easily 12" long... if not more. I'm pretty sure it was a momma rat, cause there was a smaller rat nearby when Iit up the trap with a flashlight and I heard baby rat wimpers from the bushes while I was disposing of the body. I actually felt kinda bad, but hey, the world is a cruel, cruel place. I'm gonna wait a few days and then reset the trap - maybe they'll get the hint first. I thought this thing might work, but I'm actually surprised at how quickly and effectively it handled the problem. I think it was out for like three hours, max. Peanut butter and some sunflower bird seed was too much to resist!

https://i.imgur.com/YysVOMT.jpg

(linked, not embedded, in case you don't care to see)

---

P.S. - I haven't had much luck with hummingbirds. The wife got me a feeder a few years ago and I've mixed up various foodstuffs, but they don't seem interested. We have lilac and butterfly bush in our backyward, so they're always buzzing around, but never on the feeder.

[ScottyB]

thats the mothership for sure. you guys grow 'em big out there.

i have the same storage setup on my patio - deck box sealed on the inside joints with caulk, and holds my birdseed, and charcoal and grill tools. so far so good, i think the charcoal overpowers any seed smell, but we don't really have rodents around here anyway.

that's weird about the hummingbirds. it took a while for ours to find us, but we mix ours pretty sugar-heavy and they started to prefer it over the flowers. the key is changing the nectar out weekly and don't bother putting food coloring in it. we have ours by our dining room window and its solid entertainment watching them do their acrobatics and dice it out for a drink while you eat.

[Apoc]

IT IS SO ON.