The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[.RJ]

Do you guys really not stain or seal your deck? Just raw lumber? That looks terrible IMO and I'm surprised your HOAs allow that.

If you live in Reston you're not supposed to. It should "age naturally". Its $100 upkeep every year to pressure wash it, mine looked nearly the same when we sold the house as when I had the deck built 4 or 5 years earlier.

[Evan]

I have trex at my house and previous house. Never noticed it being too hot, but I guess I usually wear shoes.
A coworker had his wood deck replaced with trex because his wood turned into splinters after pressure washing, so keep in mind any wood deck is a wear item.

I havent looked at prices , is trex really that expensive if you DIY? Doing deck boards is pretty easy

[JustinG]

I want to say its $30ish for a 10ft board?

[JPolen01]

It's way more expensive than traditional lumber. 

Trex Enhance Naturals 16-ft Foggy Wharf Grooved Composite Deck Board = $39.96 per
Severe Weather (Common: 5/4-in x 6-in x 16-ft; Actual: 1-in x 5.5-in x 16-ft) Premium Treated Treated Deck Board = $15.77 per

[.RJ]

Trex is also like Kleenex, there's lots of brands and products out there and you probably need to go to a lumber yard not a big box store to compare/get samples/pricing/etc. But I'd only do it if I really thought I'd be in the house past the lifespan of a wood deck.

[ScottyB]

Pressure wash, let dry out, then atleast seal/stain it

NSFW

[Steve85]

Yeah, I think most of the modern composites are better about the heat. If it's more PVC (like the railing covers tend to be) than true composite, I would be careful.

---

From the deck to the kitchen...

It seems our disposal has been leaking for a while. It got jammed the other day and when I did the broom handle trick I noticed the sink mount part was completely loose. Pulled out the stuff from underneath to check it out and found this:





As I was cleaning out, I found two of the three screws that hold the strainer tight to the sink on the at the bottom of the cabinet and the third is just gone. Obviously a shit install from day one. This house is 3 years old.



I used three of these in their place:



After disconnecting the drains I had a bitch of a time getting it out with all the corrosion and crap all over it.





The easy fix would be to just replace the mounting kit but it's always bothered me to have the disposal in the smaller of the two sinks. It's never made sense to me, I need the disposal in the bigger sink where the dishes, pots, and pans are rinsed before being washed or put in the washer. So off to Lowes I went with the plan to rebuild the plumbing from the base of the cabinet all the way up.

I did some test fitting realized I could probably just barely use the existing trap if I just rotated the disposal outlet pipe. I really wasn't in the mood to redo all of the plumbing anyway. This meant different fittings, so off to Lowes I went again.

I got everything cleaned up nice enough, new paper and rubber gasket for the non-disposal side, and plumbers putty to go between the sink and strainers.





Finished set up. You can see just how tight it was, where the 90 from the disposal to the "T" to the trap all have zero pipe between the fittings.



The disposal outlet elbow turned 90 degrees to save some height.



And the return pile 



So far no leaks and it's great having the disposal in the larger sink now!

I need to figure out what I'm going to do with the cabinet base though. With all the plumbing that comes through it, I can't just drop a new piece in. Might have to do some sort of puzzle.

[.RJ]

Half the time my return pile ends up in the "plumbing detritus" bin. Once in a while I can do a job without going to home depot and I can claim victory.

[ScottyB]

Once in a while I can do a job without going to home depot and I can claim victory.

the big orange house always wins in the long run 

[Ryan T]

Man I hate plumbing. I mostly just use those accordion style hose pipes now to alleviate the puzzle of angles.

[HAULN-SS]

I had some cabinets that I needed to re sleeve the inside. I just bought some Maple 1/4" from home Depot.. It looks fine and you're not looking at it every day anyway

[JPolen01]

What's wrong with the cabinet? Do you leave the door open all the time? Who cares what the plumbing looks like? I must be missing something here.

[Steve85]

What's wrong with the cabinet? Do you leave the door open all the time? Who cares what the plumbing looks like? I must be missing something here.

The floor of the cabinet has quite a bit of water damage that I want to fix, see first pic.

[.RJ]

front load or top load washing machine?

space is not an issue. getting shit clean is priority.

[D_Eclipse9916]

front load or top load washing machine?

space is not an issue. getting shit clean is priority.

My understanding is Getting it clean is front load, but also harder on the clothes themselves. If doing top load, make sure it has a good agitator.

[BLINGMW]

I still greatly prefer top load, don't have to put it on a pedestal or deal with moldy door seals. Our LG top loader w/o agitator has been performing flawlessly for 6 years with two kids and now a baby in cloth diapers 

[D_Eclipse9916]

Also Costco, I don’t even care if it costs $100 more than your local retail store.

Home Depot refrigerator:

Call Home Depot; we can’t help you
Call manufacturer; 1 year warranty that you are just out of, $175 an hour to work and we can’t tell you how long. Customer service acting like I am an inconvenience.

Costco dryer:
Call Costco; great customer service. Sets up appointment for you with manufacturer or repair rep. Rep shows up, does work; and I never even see a repair bill. Costco also doubles the warranty life.

[Steve85]

I still greatly prefer top load, don't have to put it on a pedestal or deal with moldy door seals. Our LG top loader w/o agitator has been performing flawlessly for 6 years with two kids and now a baby in cloth diapers 

+1 (except for baby, no baby here)

We had Kenmore front load that gave us problems so we switched to HE top load (for reasons above) and clothes were always just as clean. We have dogs and even without washing their bedding, we have to stay on top of cleaning the door seals and between the seal and tub. 

Unfortunately the new house came with spec equipment so back to a front load. Which was annoying because the units were not installed when we bought the house, we asked if we could switch to top load and nope.

[.RJ]

front load or top load washing machine?

space is not an issue.  getting shit clean is priority.

My understanding is Getting it clean is front load, but also harder on the clothes themselves.  If doing top load, make sure it has a good agitator.

Everything I've read is that front load is easier on clothing, gets them cleaner, and uses less water - although at $3/1000 gal I'm not too worried about this.  The newer style top loaders without the agitators are basically front loaders turned on their side, you save a little money, the tub is a little larger and dont worry about the smell. 

We never had any smell issues with the LG front loaders at the old house, but those really needed to be stacked with the space we had, and we just left the washer door open, the filter was easily accessible and ran a cleaner through it every few months. the new laundry room is fucking huge so no real need to stack them unless I turn the laundry room into a wood shop.

Also, Fuck costco.  Its not that I wont buy from them again, but it wasnt so rosy at the last house - their installers broke tile in my house and Costco refused to help, kept bouncing me around to different places for months and kept trying to punt it to the install company - I get that its on the delivery end to fix their fuckups, but I did not choose and hire them, they needed to stand behind their subs.  And they could never get the fridge fixed with the leaky ice maker, I just fixed it myself.  I bought my GE stuff direct and their service has been way better.

[ScottyB]

we use a top loader washer; my parents use a side loader. our clothes get just as clean and aside from control panel issues (thanks LG) we have not had to deal with any issues and they've had to manage the mold smell from the seals. i like dumping clothes in from the top vs. hucking them into the side from a comfort standpoint.

one thing i hate about our top loader though, is with our laundry room being where it is right off the garage we always end up piling things on top of the dryer/washer from time to time. with the top loader i'm constantly lifting stuff off in order to open the lid. i guess that's more an issue of us being slobs but its an annoyance.